The Diary of Zachary Michael Davis — Vol. IB #### Entry 38 — Monday 14 February 2005 (Sit Valentine Edition) — "Shameless III" Dear Diary, No JOU thing today, but I know I can do it tomorrow. You see, during track practice today I got into one of those _moods_. I was acting out like all get out. It was rainy and cold today, so I had my shirt off. During our workout (8 x 200) I was acting really angsty and saying "y'all" a lot and telling people off for false starts. I was overmean to Kayla. During the cooldown I took off my shoes and socks, too, and I was singing "The Ants Go Marching _x_ by _x_." I was joking and talking loudly and profusely and I didn't care. And I did the cooldown with the 8 x 400 group, too, and I played make-believe. At the end of most straightaways, I would dash to the end doing commentary, pretending I was in the 2164 Olympics. All in bare feet, mind you. "Coming down the home stretch, it's _Davis_ of the Republic of Earth! That's 4 gold medals for Davis!" "Coming into the finish, it's Davis, Larson, and Madigan! Earth goes 1-2-3! Do you believe in miracles? YES!" I explained how the loser gets the astatine medal and dies of radiation poisoning. I said and did lots of crazy stuff. People told me I was crazy and I gave out joke answers. I told people that God decided pain was a bad idea, so it doesn't exist anymore. I even got to talk _Teen Titans_ briefly, and some people knew what I was talking about. Mother picked up me, Mike Seed, Jeremy MacMahon and Nathan Muniz. (AP style has no serial comma.) While we were waiting, I told a guy whose name I don't know that I am on _The Page_ and I was having shyness problems so I decided to make a big fucking fool of myself today so everyone would think I am crazy and hate me, and then I won't care what anyone thinks of me anymore, and I won't be shy. He said that they don't hate me, they just thought it was funny. People are so nice and understanding to me. Too nice? I feel spoiled. In JOU, I apologized to [username redacted], and she was totally cool about it, like she implied in [blog name redacted]. During seventh, I wrote an imaginary letter of support to myself, crediting it to Brooke Gretchen Durant. I meant it to be today's entry in you, Diary, but the events of track practice take precedence. Last night, I \*SI\*'d. Five shallow, horozontal slashes on my left thigh. When I got home I was cold and hungry and so I guess I need to donate more of my efforts to charity. But then, I have to save myself before I can save the world. But if I can resummon that feeling from the latter part of practice today, I should be set. Am I really so deluded, this time, to think that tomorrow could be Liberation Day? ENG outline is due tomorrow. And if tomorrow is just like every other day (pu pu pu), I know that wherever I go, I leave a written record. Here's to redemption, Zack M. Davis 1904 UTC –8 POSTSCRIPT— Feelings fading. Must recapture shamelessness. Just had dinner. Remember my motives, and this afternoon, and Brooke Gretchen, and all that. #### Entry 39 — Tuesday 15 February 2005 (Common Era) — "She loved this world" Dear Diary, I didn't do the JOU thing. Dejá vu, huh? I was very fearful and sad about it all day, and visibly fucked up. A lot of people asked me if I was okay and I said no to all of them. I'm not okay. My reporting issues (no pun intended) are insane, and I know that, but they are hurting me so just the same. For HST, we went to the BSU assembly. In SPN, after reading some Spanish poetry, we went to the staff lounge to have a Valentine party. Spoiled, stupid stuff. Amaro's TA was talking about gay marriage (she was in favor of it) and I ended up making a pro-legalization of polygamy argument. Hey, consenting adults, right? The TA said that that would be mixing cultures. It would make a mess of paperwork, I noted. During lunch, I started writing a song. I am pretty sure I got the idea for it near the end of the SPN party. _I have a theory though it borders on superstition_ _I've got no proof, but it's backed up by intuition_ _So somehow I am as convinced as can be_ _That true love existed right out there for me_ _And she was_ _So creative and also quite smart_ _Totally fearless for the passions in her heart_ _Was kind and always tried to reach a new peak_ _She loved this world and shot herself last week_ _I have a feeling that my true love is dead_ _She got down kneeling, put a bullet in her head_ _She knew that living was the only course with sense_ _But somehow to her it was all just too intense_ I have a dentist appointment soon. Forgot my lunch today. In JOU I told Danielle: "You're going to need to find a new Graphics & Layout Editor next year." "I'm not going to be here next year," she said. "I know, but you have to pick people," I said. "I just can't fucking do this anymore." "What's wrong?" she said. I just walked away. I made a really cool graphic for the Face-Off yesterday eve. Out, Davis 1511 Pacific ADDENDUM— After the dentist appt., Mother and I went to the Hot Dog Palace in Concord, CA. When I got home, I took a warm bath, masturbated, and took a nap that seemed to last exactly two hours. It may have been wiser to do the first two in the reverse order, but I was just doing that which is comfortable. I woke up just ~7 minutes before _Gilmore Girls_ came on. It was a good episode. I like how that guy calls Rory "Ace." It is a neat nickname. Earlier today, in ART particularly, when it was still unknown whether I would succumb to my baser proclivities, I was trying to "reason" myself into Rationality. The "reasoning" is in quotes because really it was probably a junk argument. I was thinking—200 years from now, none of this will matter, and in the big, big picture, this is all totally [irrelevant] (the world would go on _sans_ TNA), so why not just go out and do my duty, whatever these feelings? _Ex post facto_ clever phrasing: if my life is close to meaningless anyway, why not _at the very least_ go down swinging? The interesting and unfortunate thing is that the reverse argument works equally well. If this life is close to meaningless, down is just about the same as every other direction—so why not shoot yourself in the dugout so you don't have to go out there in front of all those people? Irrationality won, as you know. I usually bring multiple pencils to school. It's a security thing. So naturally people often ask to borrow one from me. In ART, Sara Katzki said that Garret [Schwab] took hers, so could she borrow one of mine? At first I consented, but then I thought better of it, and I got up and tried to physically grab her pencil from Garret. I couldn't at first, so I just sat down and muttered it doesn't matter and tossed a pencil to Sara. It is so absurd for a dispute to come up over a two-cent stick of wood & graphite, but it happened. Sara seemed amused by the whole thing, and (spec:) charmed that I would try to grab back her graphite stick for her. I remember her smiling at me. It surprises me to no end how people not only put up with me, but some of them actually seem to like me. Or maybe it doesn't surprise me at all and I actually expect it as my due, but I put up this low-self-esteem act (even to _you_, Diary) to garner pity. And what if I hate myself for doing _that_, and that in turn actually does lower my self-esteem? Is it still an act, then? What are my actual feelings, and are they on the balance good things or bad things, and shouldn't I know these things, I being the most intimate observer of the—wreck!—that is Zachary Michael Davis? But there is the self-pity again, and it all just cycles like that. I have ENG writing to do, and PRC problems, and I need a very specific action plan and maybe some self-counseling (though that never works) for JOU. Even with the nap, I am doing bad business right now. Sleep can be cool, because you are alive without the burdens of having to deal with the outside world. But you get none of the benefits of the world, either. And sleep is nonproductive. I think I would appreciate sleep more if I could remember more of the dreams and learn to go lucid. Dreams are an inner space thing, you are oblivious to the world and are just totally wrapped up in yourself, and your own memories. I spend a lot of my conscious time wrapped up in myself, too. There is no inner space totally independent from the world though, in the sense that one absolutely needs input. Sensory deprivation drives people crazy (_crazy_ crazy, not just my kind of wimpy crazy) before too long, or so I am given to understand. The blank slate is both unreadable and can do no reading. Only when it gets much input of the world can it read the world and analyze it, and analyze itself, too, sometimes to the point of being hurtful when there is much to be done, but still the human is writing in eir diary, spilling out feelings while ignoring the fact that it can have no feelings if it cannot live, and to live most humans have to do some kind of unpleasant _work_ to sustain their existence. It may be a matter of some interest to the nonexistent reader that the addendum for this journal entry is much longer than the main entry itself. If I die write now, I leave a written record. _Right_ now, I mean. That wasn't intentional, but I will leave it because I like the accidental wordplay. If I am a bad worker in all respects, well, at least I can tell the story of my own self-inflicted demise, in my own words, and have it be halfway to readable. (No small feat, I assure you.) I have not printed out a paper copy of this diary yet, even though I have started a new \*.doc file, and labeled the original one Volume IA. (25,000 words to a subvolume, I have decided.) If I die, right now, I leave a written record. But who will (who _would_, I mean: I am not about to die!) read it, and what will they think of it? It could hardly become an Amazon bestseller. And my backup disk does not as yet contain this entry (of _course_ it doesn't; the entry isn't _done_ yet!), which somehow I feel is one of my best. My writing is best when I am at my worst? Let it not be so! If I die tonight, _will_ (would) anyone read it? Will (would) Father kick the computer tower, and snap the floppy disk out of grief (think _Maus_ I) and this, too, would be gone? Sometimes I imagine some future biographer looking over these words, trying to pick up on all the subtle references, making notes for an annotated edition, maybe. I imagine sometimes writing my first entry after my wedding, and signing it with my newly[-]hyphenated last name. But for future moments that I dream of to come to pass, I have to get to the future. Time will do the passing on its own, to be sure, but I have to survive in the mean time (pun intended!) and get in position. It would hardly do to be a junkie living on welfare sleeping in a gutter when there are books to be written, a lover somewhere out there to be loved, and a world to be saved. I am _such_ a clever writer, Diary. This, you, is one thing I have to be proud of. But I can show it to no one (almost no one); that is the entire point! There is something very alluring about having a _secret project_. My school life is falling apart, and we are not even to the first progress report yet. And all, all of it, is because I have psychological issues about talking with a teacher that is not mine. I am an asshole, a jerk, an idiot, a fool, a coward, a pleasure-addicted yellow-bellied shithead. But too I am a WRITER, except for now it seems that only when the topic is myself that it is not an acronym. Today was supposed to be Liberation Day. But perhaps I can never really be free of myself. Who knows but that, on the lower frequencies, I speak for me? (Sorry again, Ellison.) —Zack M. Davis, 10:27 PM ADDENDUM 2— It is now 0020 on Wednesday now and I am still up and possibly will be for some time. I have not done any homework yet, for I have been conseling myself with poetry and Something [Corporate]. I am thinking of getting _Poet's Market_ from the library and I have been dreaming of selling stuff to real magazines for real bylines and real money. I know I need sleep but feel that it would take too much _time_ away from me, time that I need to make myself ready, to make myself feel okay. I feel calmer now. If Father knew how much of my essay I had done and how much bending of the truth I did in front of him when telling him how I was doing, he would be very angry. As he will be very angry when I stay ip late tomorrow night, in all likelihood, writing my essay. Maybe I will skip track practice tomorrow for that express purpose. It's a late start tomorrow, and I need sleep, and I am so behind on homework. I haven't even written my JOU questions down like I am afraid to just think about it. I am getting slightly less calm, maybe. Maybe nothing matters, but most of the time it sure doesn't feel like it. I know from the BSU assembly this (last) morning that Langston Hughes wrote a great a poem once, about "a dream deferred." Does it weigh down "like a heavy load", he wrote (I think that was it), "or does it explode?" _I_ think what happens to a dream deferred really depends on what kind of dream it is, and who exactly it is that is doing the deferring. I am the one who defers my own dream. This week I partially filked a song by the one-hit wonder Nine Days. _Your clothes never tear as well the next day_ _And your blade never falls in quite the same way_ _And you never seem to run out of lame complaints_ _This is, the story of a boy_ _Who cried an ocean and drowned Illinois_ _And 'cause he looked so sad in photographs_ _I absolutely hate him_ _When he's alive_ It is now 0036. There never seems to be enough time for me. I am tired. It is funny, I talk and think of death a lot almost as if it was an excusable escape (think the title of this entry), but really the things I face are nothing compared to death. It seems I may have bought into the romantic view of suicide, when really it is just DEATH, the end, the loss of everything. Father getting angry at me, flunking journalism, what of it? I am in no danger of starving, and in no danger of losing access to the tools I would want/need to send out ms.s. (Not that I am a writer.) "[W]hat of it?" I just said. But that just goes back to the problem I discussed in the first addendum. Go down swinging, or cry in the dugout? Or sleep there. Now the time is 0047. Emily Dickenson's first Day's Night _has_ come, and much of it has gone, and I have strings to make, and a bow to reconstruct atom by atom. And I have to do it by three if I want enough time to prepare for tomorrow (_i.e.,_ today), which the weather forecast said is likely to be as huge as Yesterday in pairs. It is now 0052 as the comp clock reckons, and half of an hour has gone by, seemingly as if it never was. But it was; I have the above words to prove it. I need sleep. I need to write those questions. I need to do this ints tomorrow, lest I be thinking about death even more. Maybe I will just lie down and close my eyes, try to recharge without losing consciousness. But somehow I suspect that never works. People are fighting wars right now, so really my pain is nothing. People are starving and getting oppressed. And I _do_ leave a written record, if an airplane part were to fall on me right now. As long as it left the computer undamaged, anyway. Points if the reader can guess which movie I am referencing. But there is no reader, and I do too much culture referencing anyway. Comp clock now reckons 0057. I am lost, confused. But people are so nice to me. I hurt. I hurt. I hurt, and however low the stimulus, my suffering, however minuscule that is, is real. I think so! Alfred Lord Tennyson's unenvied heart that never plighted troth? It's here. Here in this chest, and it pumps blood to these fingers that molest these computer keys. But I do too much culture referencing anyways. It's not like my depravity is the worst. I mean, there are tons of people with character flaws/mental illnesses worse than my laziness and occasional phobias. There are murderers out there. I never shot anyone, not even myself. 0102. Call it poetic suffering. —Zack M. Davis #### Entry 40 — Wednesday 16 February 2005 (Common Era) — "Snap to Grid" Dear Diary, I am not going to T&F practice today because I have a lot of homework to finsh: SPN, 3 nights of PRC, and ENG ese rough draft (!). Better write this quickly. It is a Thursday-equivalent, for there is no school on Friday. I set up ints with Poehnert for sixth tomorrow. He said he only "vaugely" remembered me from before. In previous entries I have consoled myself by remembering that 100 years from now none of this will matter. Pure understatement. In a _month_ none of this will matter! The set-up was after fifth, and I had been feeling nervous and sinful all day. During lunch I paced around reciting imagined suicide notes in my head. _I don't want anyone to mourn me. Mourning is something you do for dead people who didn't intend to die..._ When I told Gunnison about how I would be late to class tomo 'cause of the ints, I also told her I was thinking of not doing JOU next year. ("Thinking"? I had pretty much decided.) She said she wouldn't accept that unless I convince her that I really didn't want to be on _The Page_ nxt yr. She took me outside. I said (and this is probably the *n*th time now) that my shyness is not sane, and she said journalism is not a sane profession, that there are people who couldn't be anything but journalists because they are not sane. She said she wants to help, mentioning she could set me up with other journalists who have had this problem. She said that I know what questions to ask, and that those kids in there don't, and all I have to do is find out how to ask them, and nothing can stop me. So now I have to worry about accidentally proving her wrong about me knowing what to do. But there is always something to worry about like that, a human's chance of living well is constantly in peril, and it is times like now when I am something close to okay about that. You hate your life? Get the fuck in line, kid, everyone has got problems. During the first part of the day, I knew I was letting my duties go, and I accepted that sin as a part of my character. But now—I am somehow better. I got better the instant I left Poehnert, plus if Ms. Gunnison's new old pep talk can't reinforce the will of a human, there is little else that can. Here's some historical quoting now—the only thing I have to fear is fear itself. I have known this continually for a long time, but I have not always been able to accept it in my heart, in the shadowy recesses of my twisted lower brain, where Terror rules Reason with a gun and a mind-control ray. So I have just got to roll on with volition and make sure that only _chosen_ passions choose the actions to be sought. I wish I could feel more sure of the road ahead. But everybody has got problems. Everyone. Everything you love is in constant peril, always, and your actions can save everything, usually quite easily, but the jeopardy, the threat that bad things _can_ happen in this world, will always be with you. Nothing can stop it. The solution is to not need to feel safe. So here I go now, trying that again, my *n*th attempt. Here comes the acceleration, here comes the drop, the play, the scene. Here comes _the_ world, with its complete control over _your_ world, and you've got to think on your toes and react. No time to write in the fight. One false move, and you could lose everything. That's life, and I must not just resign myself to it, but accept that there is no alternative, and realize that there is no outside of the fray. I've got to learn to be okay with that, to love this, to love this toil and its thrills in spite of the terrors that haunt me weekly. I've got to learn to live in this world. Failing that, I _do_ leave the written record. And we'll always have death, but there's no reason for me to even say that at all, so I won't. Lit Cmdr. Zack M. Davis 1526 (UTC minus eight) ADDENDUM— Relax, self! (Please?) —ZD, 1728 ADDENDUM 2— 2150, with 3 nights of PRC, SPN questions, and I should also write down questions for JOU ints. It's Thursday-equivalent, so I should be able to go low-sleep, right? I spent ~40 minutes making a post on Kolda's message board on Blackboard. Bad idea, in retrospect; I could have done that tomorrow night without the consequences I will feel for it now. I just read a story from _Year's Best SF 5_ for the *n*th time. "Visit the Sins," it was. I masturbated, too. I was able to relax this evening a little bit, and I felt that things were going to be okay, and I wasn't worried. I don't think I've felt that way since, um, Monday. And this instant I am probably not entirely okay. Get the fuck in line, kid, _everyone_ has got problems. Sound reasoning, but it is small consolation. I will try to believe it. —ZD, 2200 #### Entry 41 — Friday 18 February 2005 (No School) — "Oasis" Dear Diary, Got ints yesterday. I was low-level nervous all day and during fifth, right before the appointed time, I was freaking out noticeably. After fifth ended, I even sat on a bench and cried for maybe two minutes. And then I shook it off, went forth, and learned some interesting stuff. I think I have a story. I have some smaller worries about how this is going to go, but _everyone_ has got problems! I haven't looked at my notes since, and I don't think I am going to until after cross-country practice today, which is in a little more than an hour from now. I stayed in 502 during seventh, relabeling page tops, putting the black bars on the movies and music pages, _et cetera_. Alissa has organized a youth event centered around the movie _Saved_. She said she is not a Christian as people misconcieve the term. She is more socially liberal (my words). She recalled Gunnison once saying that she would not let her babysit her kids, 'cause she'd convert them. I thought that was funny, but somehow I feel as if I just imagined the comment. And of course I totally wrote it bad, by refering to both parties by a pronoun, making for confusion. But diary writing I am supposed to be sort of _free_, no? I type whatever I want here, no? At lunch I was pacing at the four-teens again, when once again I was invited to hang out with the group that hangs out by 410. I got [in] that wild and crazy _mood_ again, and so I was just running my mouth over all kinds of crazy things. Not exactly a clean-cut preppy crowd. Jason Hartman and Dave Tuskanov from JOU were there. There was a guy in Algebra B. There was one girl. I don't remember any names. The [girl's] name was graffitied on the concrete. The Algebra B guy said he had done that with an _almond_. I told him that that was creative vandalism, and told of how I once graffitied one of the metal posts in school with a pencil. The girl liked Allister. I was told I should be on _American Idol_. I was asked if I had ever done drugs. They said I was cool and that we are friends. How quaint! But I think I will hang out with them on some occasions. Something to do. Let someone else in the world be the intentionally-friendless/sulky/cool kid. I can be half that, or maybe less, or maybe no enigma at all, and it matters not. With my JOU problems minimized, it is strange how good I feel. This is a reason _not_ to quit, 'cause I guess I _can_ do the job, and it is only a high school paper, and challenges are something good, and I might still like to be a writer, maybe! I registered for the May SAT online last night. I have a four-day weekend with which to respin things, and rewin things, and begin things. And those rhymes are something resembling music to my ears! Good music. Like Allister, maybe, but better. Pay it none, Zack M. Davis, 0939 (UTC minus 8) ADDENDUM— I've got a little under three and a half days to respin things. I always think of _doing_ so much on weekends, but now that free time is here I sort of want to just relax. Laziness is an enemy, but a strong one, so maybe today I will strike a compromise? Or is that treason to everything we love? T&F practice took until ~noon today. All ran to Stanley Middle School in Lafayette, and some of us continued a little further and came back to the school, and then got picked up. Others went to "breakfast" (a misnomer, it would actually be "lunch"), and I biked home. I said something stupid to Brianna at the beginning. My room is a mess presently. I have NPR on while I type this. Things are pretty okay. —ZD, 1452 ADDENDUM 2— Time passes so quickly! Strange that I say that, because really, time travels at—the rate time travels at. There's nothing to compare the rate of time _to_, so you really can't say anything about whether time goes fast or slow. Beyond that fit of psuedo-intellectualism, what I meant was that a duration that seems short is actually a long time, and when it gets to be near 1900, I am distraught to discover that so much of the day has passed as it has. If this _status quo_ is maintained, it is as if I will never finish a short story! Four-day weekends may seem to be compressed eternities when one descends into them on Thursdays, but really they are just sets of time-unresponsive-to-my-wishes, definitively mark'd off from other such periods only by our clocks and calendars. Oh, there is always a noon-when-the-sun-is-just-overhead and a midnight-when-the-sun-is-just-underfoot, but because we here are synched to a Pacific Standard Time, these natural inflection points are not the ones that bound our everyday activities. Nature doesn't seem to like borders as much as humans do. So. It is nearing 1900 and there is much to do, as there is _always_ much to do. But there is much relaxing and regenerating to do too, as it seems there always is, so perhaps there is not as much of a such of a thing as regeneration, and taking a break is usually not a practical rest for the purposes of improving quality, but a rest we desire and crave, oftentimes contrary to our own stated ends. There is much to do, but somehow there does not seem to be all that much I _want_ to do at all. I was reading about Cassius Clay and Latin phrases on Wikipedia, but when Father came home, Mother said to turn off the computer and come down to have dinner. That [made] me feel unpleasant. Life is seeming more meaningless than usual. There is pleasure and pain and it all flows linearly and surely there is something more than just these rote sensations blowing aimlessly, and I know from experience there is much more, but at times it can be difficult something terrible to remember what that is exactly. Father asked me about my projects and I disliked that. There is so much to be done for future glory but I am lazy and just absorbing media feels good, so I don't do all that much. Typing in the diary is the closest easy thing to productivity because it is very easy and satisfying to write about yourself. But it can not really be counted as productive unless it is only a supplement to higher priorities. Sometimes I decide I hate being me (as if I had anyone else to be, or that "being some human else" has any meaning!), not for that I dislike my identity, but that I despise some of my proclivities. In layhuman's terms: at times I believe I hate loving some of the things I love. Turning a trick phrase in a diary is well enough, but all poets must work for what they love. Sloth is not a viable option, but being an option as it is, I am finding time running out of my control, rather than just finding time, period. To find one must search, and searchers are not lazy. Sure, I can turn a trick phrase if the topic is the writer and no one will see it and there are no standards, but this is a long way from being good. Could I end up living like this forever? Constantly falling behind a dream I like to think I live for, a dream I can scarcely define, even here? Let it not be so, and yet, every time I say "this time will be different", it never is, and every time I don't, it still is not, and it is beginning to wear on the dream. Can a nap cure me? Doubtful. Can an orgasm cure me, be some strange source of inspiration? Ha! I already did _that_ crime in the early afternoon today, and it is possibly a part of the disease, so how could it be a cure, however temporary? But I love the sensation, too, and I find myself wishing someone was here to enjoy with me something-similar-but-also-very-very-different, and together we could each to the other better stimulate it. I am programmed to want as such, and I love wanting as such, and—however arbitrary something like sex may seem, viewed in certain lights—this must not be changed. That's natural selection. You cannot, by the very—nature of the matter, rebel against your own source code. (And you usually do not wish to.) It is a matter of _definition_. You can't overcome your nature, because if at any point you think you do, it is true that whatever you overcame was not part of your nature, because nature by definition is that about you that is fixed. It is an immutable part of you that can't be overcome by free will. Not that free will exists anyway, except in the compatibilist sense. I am waiting for something beautiful to overtake me again. —ZD, 1930 ADDENDUM 3— I have taken to reading another story I have already read before from a _Year's Best SF_ book, and I _just_ realized that "Singleton" is probably a prequel to "Oracle." Just had to get that in here. —ZD, 2030 #### Entry 42 — Saturday 19 February 2005 (Common Era) — "Tiberious" Dear Diary, I remember I have said this before, but in a very long diary as you shall be, some things are bound to be repeated: I wasn't good today, but I wasn't bad, either. I slept very late, until eight. I went to the library in the morning, and I got a book on the United Nations for my history project, and also _Great Mambo Chicken & the Transhuman Condition_, which I browse-read for a long time today. It was not nearly as good as Eliezer Yudowsky (sp?) made it out to be. _Caveat lector_, was that the phrase (?), and all that. There were some very interesting parts to it. There was also a good deal I had already heard about. I knew about the wonders of nanotech, and uploading (called "downloading" in the book), and that intelligence that can think forever in a cooling universe via hibernation and slowing of subjective time, and I had heard of Drexler's name, and I had even already read "There's Plenty of Room at the Bottom." I think I am done with the book, without actually having formally read through it. Good, anyway, I have other things to do. Future tech stuff gives me hope. Dreams of a technotopia are a lot like religious stories of salvation, except more plausable. The book mentioned this. I remember reading through this kind of lit online before and feeling very comforted, "I Read It on Your Keyboard" running through my mind, knowing that just _maybe_ all these fantastic miracles will happen. I had an hour-long session with a driving instructor today at 1430, though the guy came ~10 minutes early. He had what had sounded like a German accent to me, but during the first few minutes he was talking to someone on the phone in fluent (it sounded fluent to me) Spanish. I understood most of it, and that made me regret a little that I am not taking Spanish next year. At one point he gave me an instruction and I said "_sí_." I wasn't trying to be cute; it wasn't intentional at all. It is said that the beginner at a language translates things in eir head to comprehend, while the truly fluent can actually think in the other language. Mother and Father are going to attend the Goldhaber's—was it an anniversary party?—soon. This means I will possibly get to watch _two_ episodes of _Teen Titans_ in privacy: "Terra" at 1900 and "Employee of the Month" at 2000. I have done no homework. I am believing mostly now that there's nothing to be scared of in my world. I have a long way to go. But I am not really bad. There's no Reason in cutting myself, but I always knew _that_. It has been raining. I did not run today. Humans continue, much as they always have. Nearly half the four-day weekend has gone. Things are looking up, and so am I. Carthage must be _destroyed_! Zack M. Davis Time sig 1841 #### Entry 43 — Sunday 20 February 2005 (Common Era) — "Stall Tactics" Dear Diary, I slept late again this morning. I had my alarm set for 0730, woke up at some time unknown, disengaged it, and did not become fully cognizant until ~0740. I have a lot to do today. They are things that could have been done, should have been done, yesterday, but I am always saying that. Because it is always true. Layout for Issue 4 begins on the morrow, and I have a comic to draw and a news story to write! This in addition to my other duties. And I need driving practice, too. Fuck me! I would like to just stay in my room a lot of the day. However fuck'd up I am about ints there is another thing that I make difficult: writing the story. Going from notes to story is something of a painful process, too, which is odd because it is something you can do totally alone. If you fuck up, no one sees it. But still the urge to avoid it is strong. It is the same with any sort of brain work really. It's just that sentiment of "I _don't_ want to do this essay!" Really, all you have to do is plunge in and write, lose yourself in it (Curse you, Blackmore!), and convert notes to cleantext. I have little problem writing now. With brain work it can be difficult to stay on task because a subset of your task is _thinking_ and you can easily spend time—waste time?—thinking about stuff that is not part of your work. I hate how Father rags on me when I procrastinate. He is right, of course, and I need to learn to work if I am to survive in this world, but I hate it anyhow, and I just _want to be left alone_. I did watch those _Teen Titans_ episodes last night, as well as _Justice League Unlimited_. Then I looked at more Latin phrases on the internet, and jotted some of the more useful ones down, for use in "Running Water" or _Figuring Things Out_ or likely just some diary titles. But I can't call myself a fiction writer unless I actually write enough fiction to deserve the title. I should at least finish something first. Well, I have a whole day to work on things, and I hope I will be left alone. I know that in the _immediate_ future, things are with a very high probability going to be okay. I feel like not ending this entry just yet, but really there is nothing else that I want to say to you now, Diary. There are some other things I may want to document later, and those will wait. What more is it that I want? Z. M. D., 0943 ADDENDUM— I have been thinking about abandoning you, Diary, for a week or so. The time is 1303 and I have yet to do any homework, save e-mailing some photographs to _laslomasthepage@yahoo.com_. I think and brood and try to make myself ready for things, but I am learning at this age that there might not be such a thing as ready, and if there is, it is very rare. Today I found myself leafing through, for what must be the *n2n+1*th time, _Atlas Shrugged_. I don't agree with the philosophy (and the submission in the sex is kind of weird, seemingly _contradictory_!) but the very idea of _achievement as morality_ is something that strikes me, and so I keep coming back. Putting you on hiatus, I imagine, would be something like how I would take breaks from _sluggy.net_—it doesn't solve the main problem, that my thoughts are not used for useful action often enough. I add to you in addendums, knowing that the many lines I have already written have not been enough to communicate what I am. But what of that? Was I expecting to be finished today? I am young, and I have many chances, and too I have wasted many chances, but hope is not lost for me, nor was it ever, even when I felt hurt and let the blood run down as a symbol of that. Who am I, Diary? That was a rhetorical question, for you do not know, even after all I have told you. I write words and am unsure if they are really expressive of who I am or if they are only an act, and it is so strange because I should know, and then I comment on that, and comment on commenting, and the meta just goes like that, as meta does. I am repetitive, but that is okay too, for, as yet, there is no reader, and if there someday is, I am somehow inclined to believe it will be a forgiving audience. A WRITER, not an acronym, but a real writer, is someone who can write in more than just diaries. A good writer has the urge to express as I do, but also ey is something of a _craftshuman_, with skill to make passion into something physical. A good writer probably has a diary, and multiple junkbooks, as I do, but ey also makes cleantext. And writing is something a writer specializes in, but ey can do much more than that, if ey is good. Ey will try to do with a full heart whatever it is that is presently pressing to be done, if it needs doing. I don't title addendums, or haven't, but this one should be called "Get Manic." I will do everything, and I will not delay so I will have time to write fiction and write in the diary like I am now while I get ready to be ruthless. "Get ready." Wow, this is an old song! But maybe I can play the coda this time, and hop the fence, and feel anything that ought to be felt, without need of recompense. And I will confess that which I have been thinking of confessing here, and I will figure out how to preserve these words and keep them as secret as they should be, too, even if \*.doc files and floppy disks go obselete. I have ideas on how to make my work work, or rather, how to make myself work on my work. I will start with easy tasks, and then maybe (what madness is this _maybe_?) ramp to the hard ones. You can always cry later, if that turns out to be more appropriate of a reaction to this life, but it never is, so my probability projection of _that_ happening is very low! The feeling I would find sometimes in hellogoodbye music is something you have to earn if you want to feel it in your life, and not just get it secondhand from a romance you thought up in your head while listening to the song. After you create I create it in my head, I will have to create it on screen, and then in flesh to truly know it. I want to be an intellectual, and a romantic, and to break free of traditional suffering, though some (_e.g_.: myself in weaker moments) say it is not possible. And then, perhaps, I will collaborate on saving the world, trying to provide for others the material paradise which I have been created in. "I saw it on your keyboard..."—such a beautiful song! But to fully understand it one must have something on one's own keyboard to read. SNAP! Here go I into this mood again, and so it is once again an attempt for me to stay here and let not the bad business slip in on the sides and let the pain overtake me again. I don't just _leave_ this written record, as a small consolation that if I decide to end this that something will be left behind for the others to observe. No! I create the written record and I create a life alongside of it, too, so as that the former might be something worth reading: not the histrionic mumblings of a depressed dead kid, but the histrionic declarations of a human who had _some_ sort of idea what the FUCK ey was doing. _Verba inta sunt intelligenda, ut res magis valeat quam preat._ SO let the subject-matter be virtue, not mediocrity. Let me end this entry soon, for it can only be something great if it is in concert with something else, and a balance, _the_ balance, is struck. SO _get_ manic, _get_ eccentric, _get_ up, and pay it no mind. Who cares what anyone says, or anything, when you have this life to live, and this mania to manage it by? _Damn_ that was such a clever line! Here's to cleantext! Zack M. Davis, 1402 ADDENDUM 2— Inspiration comes, and then—it _fades_! WTF?? This is a command—come back, comeback mania! Go, self. Pay it none, move on, run. —ZD, 1547 ADDENDUM 3— But there's no reason to berate myself over setbacks, because that would feel bad, and it is feeling bad and hopeless, or something like that, that gets me into these messes. Father understands not, or understands perfectly. I pay him no mind. Furthermore, it is my opinion that Carthage must be destroyed! —ZD, 1555 ADDENDUM 4— The idea is to remain inhumanly cheerful. It's the inverse strategy of one of my old ones. I will do everything elegantly and perfectly as possible because I like most things, instead of doing everything elegantly and perfectly as possible because I am resigned to most things. Forget Father. Forget everyone. There are things to be done, and I shall do them. I don't think I am describing the strategy right, so I will just give it a title and leave the details to the nonexistent reader. The title is that of an album by Midtown: _Living Well Is the Best Revenge._ —ZD, 1604 ADDENDUM 5— Xomic drawing is angering. The paper curls up for reasons unknown, and I cannot draw, and no eraser is perfect. I wasted so much time today, and plus I had already agreed to go driving with Mother shortly, and I will not back out, for I need practice. Father left to go somewhere some time ago. I'll stay up late if I have to, to get JOU things done, let along long-term HST. I am hating Father right now. True, he scarcely bothers me at all, but just a stray sentence from him that criticizes me can seem to fubar me emotionally. This afternoon, he asked how much progress I had made and I said no much and he said "I recommend," meaning, I recommend you go work. I remember one time, I think it was in May, after he yelled at me he said it was because it was "the only way [he] knew how to motivate [me]." Somewhere deep I might feel like crying right now. But what good would that do? I pay it no mind. Get manic. Things are good, and I intend to roll on. —ZD, 1652 ADDENDUM 6— The accumulation of these addendums is becoming absurd, but that is okay because they are absurd as I am absurd, and that would seem to be the point of the whole exercise. I am back from driving with Mother, we did not go out a full hour as planned previously. She suggested we get chicken chow mein for me for dinner, saying that the spagetti in the fridge is "dead" but I insisted on having spagetti. I don't mind things that have been in the fridge and reheated, but I didn't like the spagetti much in the first place. Mom made the sauce. Too vegatabley for me. I am wondering how exactly I can be as near-perfect as I dream of being when I am as vulnerable as I am to discomfort. How can I live if I know my goal, that thing that is worth having, is impossible? I mustn't feel this way, but I do, and who what when where why am I so confus'd? There's probably a drug for this, but how could I know _exactly_ what it does? Editing yourself is desirable when _you_ hold the eraser and pencil, but it is something like abhorrent when it is some mysterious chemical that has been shown to tend to have certain effects in clinical trials. I think that I can influence my mood changes, like I can make myself manic, but it is also possible it just happens, and it is only _ex post facto_ that I think it was my will. One of the things about humans is that we can analyze why we are the way we are. We are shaped by our culture and our genes and then we go and trace back the processes, and find exactly what made us think the things we think. So we are left in the embarrassing position of believing things and valuing things and feeling things, while also knowing how to explain the mindless meaningless processes that make us like that. And our quest and attainment of knowledge was all determined by those processes. How do we know what we know is true? And if I can't learn to control myself, is this my life, forever? Damned to an existence of inexplicable emotions and unjustifiable motives constantly doing battle with high-minded ideals, the insanity always winning? And is this my legacy? A couple of Microsoft Word files full of overdramatic addendums and sophomoric philosophy? Maybe I _should_ kill myself, and leave the world to the i-muzz. To people who can control themselves. No, to people who _don't need_ to control themselves. If I die, there is more room in the world for people like Kathy Ackerman-Alexeeff and Emelie Gunnison. But Emelie Gunnison wants me to live! (It's even odds Kathy cares.) But then, using my own standards (what other can I use?), I am still above average goodness by my estimation, so if I kill myself I am lowering the average goodness of the world. It is cool of me that I have the kind of mind that can think this above-average depth thoughts. A few minutes ago, Mother made the spaghetti, and I eighth-threw a fit for no reason. She just dropped it off in my room. It smells good. Maybe I should never marry, because anyone I would want needs someone better than me. Or maybe I will find someone just as fuck'd up as me, and we will hallowly care for each other, fully aware of our respective faults. It is absurd that I hurt like this. Everything can seem absurd at times, and hopeless. But there is no alternative life. It is either this or nothing. And, hey, maybe someday I could discard my wetware [and] become something that can control my passions. Or maybe I am well on my way to controlling these currents the traditional way, and the fubaring pain expressed in this addendum was just a temporary lapse, maybe even the last lapse of its kind! Now I am feeling better. It could be a sort of boomerang from psuedo-suicidal "Everything is absurd, and I hate myself!" back to cheerful "Everything is absurd, so I'll just deal with it all in my fashion." I think, on the balance, I will continue to live for now, and I won't even \*SI\*! I have short stories to write, a career to continue, and maybe if I am worthy of her, a lover to seek. And I have to find out what happens during the rest of _Teen Titans_ Season 4! And my parents love me and I have friends and nothing was ever bad in my life anyway. Wow! This addendum is FUCKING crazy. As I am FUCKING crazy. And maybe, just maybe, that is okay. For now, anyway. Here's to technology saving everyone, ZD, 1831. ADDENDUM 7— Well, I made a lot of progress on my xomic. But it is already 2053! I have a news story to write, and I tire. I am thinking of _not_ running in the morning tomorrow, in order to get in a little more JOU work before actually going to layout. Yes, I think that is what I shall do. Life continues. I will deal with it in my fashion. —ZD, 2056 #### Entry 44 — Tuesday 22 February 2005 (Common Era) — "Brown University's Mailing List Almost Knows My Name" Dear Diary, Layout went fairly well yesterday. I gave my comic photographic backrounds, and that was cool, and my column is in good shape. This news story _must_ be written in its entirety tonight. I do not know why I delay the writing of this nearly as much as I delayed the interviewing. Fear that I can't write, perhaps. But writing poorly [is] much, much better than not writing at all, so this feeling, too, is irrational. Ms. Gunnison asked if I might want to be a different editor next year. I am given to understand that EIC is even a possibility (!). "If EIC is open," I said, "I'll take it." All the more reason to work hard now. It could pay big with EIC-ship. But a job well done is its own reward, anyway. I'll also have to send an e-mail to Shaun Johnston tonight to ask for help with our many computer problems. Yesterday after getting back from layout at ~<1500, the rest of the day just bled away. I did a search on Yahoo! Personals. I spent hours stretching until bedtime reading _Genome_ by Matt Ridley. This morning, I was thinking more about doing a column on the Nature/Nurture thing for a future issue of _The Page_. But now I am thinking no, for certain personal reasons. And anyway already two of the three columns I have done/are doing are involved with free will, so I should certainly find a different topic! I have not really been acting like much of a WRITER lately. But I have time. Things are okay, really, really okay, I think. Tomorrow is Career Day, and also trials for track. Coach Val wants me to trial the 400, to see. Today I was normal for me, and not extraordinary and near-perfect. But that is like everyday. Is it _faith_ that makes me think that near-perfection is very possible and that I could just be turning the corner right now? The days ahead are a little scary, maybe, but that is always true, too. Gone, Davis, 1908 (UTC minus eight) ADDENDUM— It is 2146. (Far past the ideal) time to (have already) start(ed) journalizing! And I've not done my PRC. I watched _Gilmore Girls_ with Mother and took a (too) long shower. No e-mail either. _I don't want to do these things._ But I plainly can't _not_ do them. This is not a good state to be in if one aspires to be EIC of _The Page_ someday. The sleepless strategy ("if I can forgo sleep indefinitely tonight, I'll have plenty of time") is a proven loser, unless my willpower has grown recently. But if one really had a stong will, one wouldn't be tempted to try something so stupid as the sleepless strategy—ey would just do the tasks quickly and efficiently and get good rest for the coming day. I should learn to _power nap_. Could "Punk Rock Princess" inspire me to write (and do PRC)? Should I dare to try to power nap (only to wake up at 0800 tomorrow, no doubt)? Or would it be possible to just stop whining to my diary and get to work? People at _The Page_ respect me, I think, as if I was vital to the operation. And I am, I think, in my fashion. But there is also this laziness I have that is just pure sin, and yet I do not forsake it because it feels so good, in the moment. But to really _earn_ those precious moments in life, that feeling of _goodness_ and _rightness_, you have to be willing to bear the small sufferings of everyday business, of _life_. Quoting _Atlas Shrugged_ (yes, _that_): "[C]elebrations should be only for those who have something to celebrate." Here's some other referencing for you: there has to be something to see on _my_ keyboard, if hearts are to be something outside of make-believe. I don't think I will get to work immediately after I finish this. But things will get done. —ZD, 2216 #### Entry 45 — Wednesday 23 February 2005 (Layout/Career Day) — "Star" Dear Diary, Career Day was very inspiring! All classes were 25 or maybe 20 minutes to make room for three speaker sessions. I heard from physicist at Lawrence Livermore Dr. Charles Orth, freelance writer and author of children's books Elizabeth Pentacoff, and librarian Margret Smith. Orth spoke of several things, including something about the dates of layers in the Grand Canyon, and he said that dating something based on how deep it is is totally wrong, despite what palentologists say. I asked about carbon dating and he said carbon dating is not reliable after a flood, because carbon dioxide gets sucked into the sea. Nick Ball-Jones, who sat behind me, argued with him at the end about it. Nick said in PRC that Orth was dead wrong and that the physics teacher who was in the room quietly told him afterwards that Orth was wrong about some things. I was a bit starstruck by Dr. Orth because he is working on _fusion_. A fusion power plant that puts out substantially more energy than it consumes would provide an atronomically plentiful power source, because it runs on deuterium and tritium. I shook his hand and said thank you and "Good luck with fusion." Orth also told us that we are our experiences, and that every time you lie and steal you are training yourself to be a liar and thief: it will be easier next time. He said that rock music and video games alter your perception of time so you get bored by ordinary but important things. This was obviously exaggerated somewhat, but very inspirational. One must form _good habits_, I recalled to myself! It pissed off Nick, who described it as BS. He also showed us a diagram of a potential spaceship to Mars he helped design. Pentacoff was inspirational, too. I felt aching regret for all my laziness, but also great hope. I overheard a girl who is in the Fantasy Book Club (I don't think I've attended a meeting since 2004!) ask Pentacoff a question about the book series she is writing! I am behind, I've not even finished a story. In ENG, I am actually doing my presentation tomorrow and not Friday. Hannah was slated for tomorrow and asked if anyone would switch with her. I had not done much prep, but speaking to the class for three to five minutes is easy. The small altruism gave me pleasure. Issue 4 is acting something like a disaster (but then, so did Issue 3, and that was okay). At least things are not my fault. My news/minifeature thing fills two half-page columns now; I didn't do anything on it yesterday, but worked at lunch. Tomorrow I will go to Poehnert again seeking more information. No need to be nervous, my story is close to in the bag. It is not great, but _it is not bad_, and, to be honest, at my current stress level, I just want to do the job and am not as much (as I should be) concerned about doing a good, a great, job. I have some concerns, but stepping back to the third person as much as I can, it seems my life is doing well. It is just high school, after all, and not "the real world." There is a certain amount of guilt involved in leading a shelter'd life, but it could be wiser to just pay it no mind. I did the books graphics today. In track, I did a 400 time trial and got a 59.78. Then we ran 3x hill. I slept far too long yesterday. Variant of a self-esteem booster phrase I read on a self-esteem boosting square card I found on the ground once last year: "Love attacts love, and I am a _fucking_ MAGNET for love and affection!" I wish there was something to reassure me even further. I am so _needy_, emotion'ly speaking! Help! [redacted] is hot, Zack M. Davis Time sig 1940 ADDENDUM— Felt/feeling nervous. Masturbated and procrastinated, read _Slate_ and Rall, Coulter, _et al._ Might go on low sleep tonight: it's Wednesday night, enduring two more days should not be difficult. Check'd PRC grade online, I have an 86. Life is scary; there are so many things to do, and so many ways to screw up. I try to console myself with pleasurable things, but there is no consolation. What is wrong with me, Diary, that lets me spend these hours after track practice so freely, leaving me in time debt, sleep debt, and moral debt? Forgive me, someone please, and slow the clocks, that I may have more time! Remember the themesong to me, that I might be a returner once more! Or does forgiveness make me weaker? Does justice demand that only rockstars are called rockstars? Now is a time for action, a time for steel, for audacity, for reckless pursuit of that which the others can attain gently! It's time for _Shameless IV_ throwing itself at icebergs, hopefully smashing them to bits. It's time for collisions at home, not of the baserunner/catcher variety, but rather of the higher self bashing the lower self, eloquence trumping nerves, poise stomping timidity, cold passion passing over depravity, raising up everything valuable in this world, and taking me with it. Do it for _The Page_. Do it for my parents. Do it for myself. Do it like Kathy would admire me for it. Enough poeticizin'. Get manic, you shithead. —ZD, 2207 #### Entry 46 — Saturday 26 February 2005 (Common Era) — "Astra" Dear Diary, Worked late on _The Page_ last night. We're coming back on Sunday to tie things up. We declared a lot of things "provisionally shiny" yesterday. My stories have that designation. There are some issues with the covertext—the cover is a photo of a diversity week performance, and right now the text is "DIVERSITY BECOMES REALITY FOR FOUR DAYS." The full story also mocks Diversity week (which lasted four days because of President's Day) with a sort of deadpan sarcasm. Some joke covertext I had come up with while brainstorming was "'DIVERSITY' MEANS NEVER HAVING TO SAY YOU'RE SORRY." People, esp. Laura, thought that was funny. Publishing can be stressful because whatever you end up putting out is _on the record_ in the most literal way. You have to make sure everything you say is the best possible representation of what you actually wish to be communicated. It's hard to peg yourself to an opinion, to point at text—even text you have written carefully yourself—and say, "This is _me_." But that is part of what it is to be a writer of the subjective. When I make a stupid little comment in casual conversation, I can take solstice in that it would probably be forgotten soon, and there is no transcript to be looked up. Ideally, you shouldn't say anything that you will regret saying later. But I do, at times. Have I been altogether true? Does my own lack of eloquence betray me, or when I say something wrongheaded is it revealing an ugly part of what I truly believe in my heart? Alissa told us how her friend tried (and failed) to give up masturbation for Lent, and Alissa said that was so dumb. I asked if we were going to do Special Issue this year. "We're a serious newspaper, not _the Heuristic Squelch_," I said, hoping to get a glimmer of recognition from Ms. Gunnison, who has Berkeley ties. Not sure if I did, doubtful perhaps. My ENG presentation went well on Thursday, late on Wednesday I typed out a speech and I read it very loudly with lots of emphasis. My sheer intensity stands out when compared to the other students. Entry, Zack M. Davis, time sig 1119 ADDENDUM— I listened to a lot of NPR in the late morning/early afternoon: _Wait Wait, Don't Tell Me_, _This American Life_, and a debate on whether the U.S. is shifting to the political left or right. I went driving with Mother and we went to the library because she wanted a book on Costa Rica. She hadn't been to the library in so long that her card had expired. I watched the two _Star Trek: Deep Space Nine_ episodes I had set the VCR to tape Friday: "The Changing Face of Evil" and "When It Rains...". Mother and Father are to go out to dinner. I like when they do that, and I can have the house to myself. Another unproductive Saturday, so far. But I earned a _little_ rest, didn't I? Have I not been a decent student, and mostly polite? Have I not, on special occasions, shown fortitude, in my fashion? I am but one human among many, and I value many things, and so maybe none of them are universals, but I can dream and strive, and live alive, and wax poetic, and the rest, and maybe even figure things out! Maybe I could leave a legacy or explain things, and anyway all you can do is your best, so do it. Maybe when I string together phrases like that, it means I don't have anything to write about. Yesterday, at layout, I lent my camera whom (I mean, "which"!) I am so protective of to Emily and then Caitlin to take Q-Gal photos. Going home with Mother, I mentioned that I lent the camera and she asked whom I lent it to and I said Emily and Caitlin, and she said girls are careful about things. She said she caught herself just after she said that (or something like that), and then (or was it before she mentioned "catching herself") I said "Spare me from your petty prejudices, Mother." I am behind on prep for my HST paper, and my room and my backpack are messes. Now I am going to go ask to use Mom's computer. I want to use the intenet, and e-mail the Diversity Week pictures I promised to Jacqui Contreras. And when I get started writing fiction, I think sometimes something magic happens, so maybe I will try my mind at that again! I do want to be famous, whatever difficulties publishing present. "Don't live with / Frustration", ZD, 1835 #### Entry 47 — Sunday 27 February 2005 (Layout) — "Repagination" Dear Diary, It took ~5.5 hrs today, but _The Page_, Vol. 54, Iss. 4 was finished. The plagarism story was unsubstantiated so it had to be changed to a quarter-page about how there is no district-wide plagarism policy. And [redacted]'s two columns were based on false information, so those were axed, and replaced with something about Battle of the Bands that Caitlin wrote today and Keri Heldt and Caitlin were able to borrow pictures from somebody for. I had to go home to get my camera because we thought we could fill a quarter-page with the picture I took in ART of the prints matted on the wall, but we didn't use that. There was an NCS seeding/at-large berths meeting at the school this morning. Desperate to find something to fill out our paper, Kate Kleespies and I went out and I ended up talking with some custodians, and it turned out that the Science Club, whom we have a feature on, was working on this Sunday, too, so I got a picture of them, which we reproduced large for that story. And some of the basketball team and their coach were hanging out at the tree on the senior lawn and so Kate and I talked to them and we found out that they had gotten a number eight seed. I even took a few pictures! I was shameless; that's good. I was the first one there this morning. I got the idea to print shinies on blue paper, for there was a stack of blue paper in the room, and so we did that. Ms. Gunnison says I have a good radio name: three syllables. Think Ira Glass, Terri Gross, Neil Conan, and the rest. I am way behind on my HST paper! Fuck me; but also the life is going well o'erall. Tonight is the night of the Academy Awards, but who cares? I love _The Page_. I like to be an _important_ part of sth. Your lit cmdr. Could it be that I am being less self-conscious lately? I think back to the last chapter of _The Meme Machine_ yet another time. Thompson will probably check PRC homework tomorrow, and I am behind again. Fuck me! There is little rest for the glorious, and as I want to be so, I should wrap this up fairly soon, for there is much to do (as there is always much to do), and this life must be built up. I should seek to be the best I can be in all respects, and maybe if I do and others do too, the world will be sth better than it is in this barbaric year of 2005. Don't rest on any laurels, and remember what Dagny said about celebrations! Remember what I thought 2050 Common Era should be. Here's to "Punk Rock Princess," and shit that smells good, and true love, Zack M. Davis Time sig 1924 #### Entry 48 — Monday 28 February 2005 (Common Era) — "To Be True" Dear Diary, In track today before our workout we had a meeting and Coach Schreiber told us how "student" comes before "athlete" and what we were running in the De La Salle Invitation on Saturday. He had juniors set to run in frosh/soph races and I questioned him publicly and repeatedly on the legality of that. Then we did baton passing briefly, and then Schreiber took me and some girls to do 200s (the other boys, who were with Coach Dan, continuing with the baton passing I am pretty sure, joined the 200s after I had already done two). As I came down the stretch of the first 200, which I led, I went "Frosh— Soph— is— not— for— juniors!" Schreiber ignored me. At the end of the third one, Schreiber had pulled ahead but I came up even with him and said it again. He told me to go run somewhere else. So I finished my workout with the sprinters. They were set to run three more 200s. I ran with the second group of boys. After the first one (I am pretty sure of this sequencing) I told Dan that I was finishing my workout with the sprinters. He asked why and I said it was because I said something Schreiber didn't like. Then I added that that was just my theory, it could have been for any reason. He said my theory was probably right. The second 200, Coach Val said "Go" when no one but me was listening, so I ended up winning that one. After that, Val said we could be done, but I ran another 200 by myself—rather slowly. While the distance runners were doing their cooldown, I asked Schreiber if I could warm down with them and he said no, he doesn't want to see me. So I stretched a little on my own. Then Dan came to me and says how the other coaches don't care, and I say that of course you coaches can do what you want, and then he tells me to not talk about it. And I agreed. And then I hastily made what I guess was amends with Schreiber, and said that I won't talk about certain issues, and he says okay, see you tomorrow. So I am sworn to secrecy, sort of. While waiting for Mother to pick me up from Acalanes, I hummed, and thought about honesty and integrity and _matters of principle_. And I remembered how I am deceptive about my homework to my parents sometimes, and I saw again how that was wrong. Honesty in everything is a part of purity. No need to fear repercussions. I am above traditional deception. "I can say _anything!_ (As long as it's _true!_)" I missed parts of ART and SPN because there were problems getting _The Page_ to Twin Palms. Twin Palms said the file sent yesterday was corrupted, and when Ms. Gunnison attached the PDF to an e-mail message to resend it, it said the file was 64B. Sixty-four bytes. No one could figure out exactly what was wrong. I ended up reexporting _The Page_ to another PDF file, but that didn't go, either. What ended up happening was that Kate had to _drive_ a ZIP disk to Twin Palms. Ms. Gunnison was wearing her "garamond" shirt that she told us about yesterday, underneath a black suitcoat with black suitpants. In JOU there was much laughter in the discussion we had about how to make our paper better. In ART (I didn't miss much of that, just little bits at the beginning and end) we did a controlled contour and a blind contour of our faces. Chelsea ("Trick")'s controlled was really good. Father bought _American Idiot_ and got a five-percent raise. During seventh, I worked some on my PRC homework, which is one five-part problem. It is hard new statistical material. I did fine on the first part of it, and that's good and safe and done, but then on this other part I got an imaginary number for _r_ (!). It was a sharp reminder. I tend to think that my not-being-perfect is solely a matter of willpower and time. If I can find some trick to deny unchosen motives and find ways to get the most possible (or close) utility of my time, then I too will be an i-muzz, a master, a rockstar. But there is also, in addition to the issue of not being determined enough, the frightening possibility of just _not having the hardware_, of just not being _smart_ enough. A retard with a heart of gold—is still a retard. I was better emotionally today than I am during my periods of JOU-induced darkness (obviously), but still tradition has its hold on me. I want to _break free_ of traditional suffering, but I _do_ suffer. I sleep too much, but I like to sleep, too, to rest, to temporarily escape this life in as real of a sense as I have. As I like pleasurable things that waste my valuable time, even as I read the label, and realize that it is actually dreamkiller with silicate. Fourth right, Zack M. Davis, Time sig 1950 ADDENDUM— What if I set myself a strict bedtime? Each schoolnight, I will work and do fiction (as if!) and do what I want or try to console myself until midnight, and midnight will be the _lights out_. It takes me some time to get to sleep. 0020–0700 is six and two-thirds hrs. That's not as much as I am used to, and what if it takes me more than 20 to get asleep? Does it take that long? I don't know, I've never timed it. It's very difficult to time how long it takes you to get to sleep, because when it is time to stop the watch, you need to be unconscious, 'cause if you are not, it's not time to stop the watch yet. Maybe I will set the cap at 1140 or sth. Yes, 1140 sounds good for a test run of the cap. Adjustments to the system can be made. _American Idiot_ moved me in a weird way. Maybe I'm not so different from the others. I have not decided yet whether that would be an altogether good thing or a bad thing. There are things I do not have the words for, or am too laz—hold that thought. Father just came down to ask on Mother's behalf if I am on track. I said—I just said, "Yes! I'm working!" That was a lie, Diary, a filthy lie, and I almost feel/felt like coming out with it right away. No, I wasn't, please, just—FUCK! I'm not supposed to _lie_, I am supposed to be pure in all respects. There I times when I look at sth I have just done and feel as if it was long in the past. The me I am _now_ couldn't have done that, I could be rationalizing underneath the surface. But it was so recent, and I know that time will cover up this sin as much as it can, but that time is long in coming. The natural statute of limitations isn't sth you can just grab when you need to be exonerated, it is something time builds up naturally over many months. A scab. I can go up there and come clean right now, and say I wasn't on track. But I DON'T WANT TO, even though I have thought to myself as an incantation that _I CAN SAY ANYTHING_. I can just swear to be better in the future. But how many swears have I broken? I am leaning heavily towards the swear to be better, to not only not lie, but to not _need_ to lie. Let the statute of limitations clear me here; I can get away with it! Please? When people ask me how I am lately, I have been saying "I don't know." I am so confused about things and I get sentiments about sths that I cannot or will not put into words. I notice that when I get emotions and memories stirred up by great art, the art is the stimulus, and it has a beauty of its own, to be sure, but what I am _feeling_ and _thinking_ is just drawn out from _my_ experience that will perish with me. It could be silly for anyone to seek any sort of _objective_ value. What is important is only important because we humans give it that label, which only means sth to us. Love and hate and splendor and misery and meaning and meaninglessness—all this human condition stuff is too much for me to fully grasp. But is not that how it should be? Or WTF or how or fuck I am typing nonsense when I have work to do and maybe all this talk about work is pretentious 'cause I don't really care in my heart. Confusion, repeat, what the fuck is up. Hurt, feigned or real. Go to bed next 1140, pay it none, live another day probably the same way. Sorry about this. —ZD, 2131 ADDENDUM 2— I went on Mother's laptop computer to research for my HST essay. I read the Wikipedia articles on Woodrow Wilson and the League of Nations—that was the "research." I spent a lot of time reading stuff that interested me that was not related to the HST essay. And then Thompson will probably check the PRC work soon, and I haven't been doing my homework again. Should I stay up late and work, or go to sleep? There isn't enough time to do the things I want. There is never enough time, and I willfully make the same mistakes over and over and over again. I might try to speak less tomorrow again. But that never works either. So my Diary is sth sad, just 38,000 words or so about how I have no willpower, with a few anecdotes tucked in. Cool entry titles and trick phrases don't pay for the sin. My proposed bedtime cap of 1140 is passed. I _do_ have a B in PRC, so maybe it would not be so much treason if I were to let this round of homework go, just like all the rest. Progress rpts came out recently and I didn't get one, so that would mean if my grades slip this instant, I have a few weeks to bring them up for quarters. But even writing that is treason. I am tempted to get my ass in bed now and then wake up _refreshed_ in the morning. As if when one day is spoiled, I have to just wait until the next day before trying again, because you can't improve on your life during a day when you have already acted depraved. But the day is a minute from over anyway, so really the new day, the new chance, could be said to be _now_. But whatever the clock says, I only feel like it is a new day when I arise from sleep. So I will go to bed anon. I will go through the motions tomorrow (_i.e_: today) knowing that I have sinned, and it will be a source of humility. I AM A FUCKING IDIOT, I will silently note to myself, as I calmly attend my day's classes. I will smile politely and think hatefully of no one, and I won't look at any girls with desire, either. Like that song I wrote. Whatever happens, I leave the written record. And I never shot _anyone_. Kisses, hugs, and black humor, WWKA-AD?, ZD, 0015 Tuesday #### Entry 49 — Tuesday 1 March 2005 (Common Era) — "Sad, or Normal" Dear Diary, I was quieter than usual in the morning, by design. I remembered "t.c.a.m.s." Track practice was core plus Shell Ridge. I was somewhat to rather fubar'd during that. I don't really like running so much anymore. Turned in my self-evaluation for _The Page_, which I had typed up Sunday even though everyone else writes theirs during the class time we are given to do that. I must go do beat reporting tomorrow for the news meeting Friday. Yeah, the deaddates for Issue 5 were given to us today. Mother was out tonight. I watched _Gilmore Girls_ with Father while doing my PRC homework. There is a thing in _U.S. News & World Report_ about documents that shaped American history, and an article about more personal artifacts like a letter Castro wrote to the PotUS (I think FDR) at age 15. You are history, Diary. I am going to be a _fucking_ expert on early twenty-first century history. I also read _Newsweek_ today, and I masturbated. I am seeing myself as not really so good; I am seeing myself historically. Think a _Slate_ "assessment" profile. I am just another human with some redeeming traits, and some vices. My personality is not really so consistent. Could it be that I am not entirely sure what exactly I value specifically? Powerful passion, or peaceful poise? Or each in its turn, but how to decide? Is writing to an immediate audience of zero somewhat unsatisfying? Who knows what evil lurks in hearts of humans? WWKA-AD?, Zack M. Davis Time sig 2208 #### Entry 50 — Friday 4 March 2005 (Page Day) — "III" Dear Diary, I was very rude to Ms. Gunnison this morning, and felt regret because of it today. In a reprise of an earlier journal question, Mr. Kolda asked us if we would be able to survive a Great Depression today. I quibbled with him over the wording of the question (obviously not _everyone_ or everyone of a whole generation would die), but the idea was clear. Of the students who spoke, the majority sentiment (including myself) was that, yes, I'd survive, I could make it. Kolda then told us about when he asked the same question when he taught at James Logan High. At Logan, a lot of kids are poor, and work to help support their family. It's something of an antithesis to us at Las Lomas. And, Kolda said, almost all the students felt like no, I wouldn't make it through a Depression, we have it too easy. My appt. for my third drive test was at 1510, but it was a long time before they actually got to me. I passed, committing only six errors. (Five on traffic checks, one for failing to signal.) I sent an e-mail (~Subj: "This is one step above spam e-mail. Or was that one \_below\_?") to Josh Meltzer and the Goldhabers, consisting of an attached photograph of my interim license with the "evaluation result" corner of my scoresheet photoshoped into the corner, and the message text: "I pass'd ! Sorry about this." Mother, Father, and I are going to Southern California tomorrow for a family reunion. I'm missing De La Salle Super 7 for it, but I do not care, as I have not been caring about track much at all lately. I feel like I want to respect authority and play by all the rules, even the ones no one seems to care about anymore, all the while still being emphatically _me_ (as soon as I can figure out what that is, if it exists at all). I have got "A"s to earn, short stories to write, and possibly even a Depression to survive! Maybe I should learn to eat vegetables (and like it, you stupid spoiled little baby! Kids these days—), but I really really _really_ do not want to. It is sth scary sad empty nihilistic to think that this, _all_ this, everything I know and love in this universe, could be destroyed, and there would be nothing left of humanity or its descendants, and no traces of them for any wandering extraterrestrial to try to decode, and/or no extraterrestrials existent to even make the try. Big Crunch. Proton decay. Entropy. It's hard to make a chain, Zack M. Davis 2002 Pacific #### Entry 51 — Sunday 6 March 2005 (Common Era) — "Hi Hi Puffy Self-Actualization" From today's _Contra Costa Times_ "The Eye" column: "Although Livermore City Council rules require a fourth-fifths [_sic_] vote for meetings to go past midnight, the council majority voted 3-2 Monday night to suspend the 4-1 rule so it could decide on a controversial housing development matter. [...] Beeman accused the council majority of 'techinical nonsense in manipulating the rules.' [graf break] But Mayor **Marshall Kamena** said the potential consequences of not voting Monday were 'far more serious' than answering allegations of manipulating voting rules." The Drasin/Katz and Levy/Zellinger Family Reunion was neat. We took an 0800 or 0805 Southwest flight from Oakland to Burbank (Bob Hope Airport, as it turns out) and a 2045 Southwest from Burbank to Oakland back. Driving (in an Enterprise rent-a-car Ford) and going for a walk took up the morning. The reunion was ~1200–~1600. There was much discussion and photographs. I saw three family trees of the Drasin clan compiled by different people. Updates were made in pen. Father found his mother documented twice under different last names. She had been adopted by her aunt, and evidently there was some confusion. Someone asked me if I could maybe do a write-up for persons not present, and I weaseled away from the possibility, indicating that I did not really know what to say about the event. Does a real, crafty, no-acronym WRITER ever turn down an opportunity to put sth out, as best ey can? Before returning home, I bought the April 1 _Dell Crossword Puzzles_. I asked Father why it seems like all magazines are future-dated. He said it is so magazines that have been on the shelf a long time still seem current (and thus, more worth buying). "That _can't_ be the _real reason_, could it?" I (approx) said. I suppose I have a certain type of respect for the media that may be, in some contexts, naïve. On the cover of the "April" _Dell_, it says, in part, "Spend your days solving the very best puzzles from Dell!" I have to wonder about the mood in which that covertext was conceived (think "Diversity means never having to say..."). It sounds almost mocking. Do you really want to remind your readers that they are spending their short time on this earth solving crossword puzzles? I puzzled over Dell last night and this morning. Today so far (the day has elapsed very far) I have entertained myself a lot. I read on the internet for a long time. _Slate_, _Wired_, a blog or two: _mindhacks.com_ was one. And even, though I had thought once before that I would be done with it, [blog name redacted]. You know you watch too many cartoons when—you start to recognize voice actors. I got to see _Hi Hi Puffy Amiyumi_ for the first time today. (It's not very good; I didn't even stick to the channel and watch it continuously.) And I thought I recognized the voice of Ami as that of Jenny on _MLaaTR_, and I went upstairs to check _tvtome.com_, and I was right, it's the same person. Then I realized the other voice (for Yumi) was very familiar. _Tara Strong again?_ I thought. No, but it turns out that that voice actress did Frankie on _Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends_ and Mandy on _Grim and Evil_, amongst other roles. Pop science and Y7 cartoons—do I have clashing tastes? I am one small branch on one family tree. I am so far from figuring things out. I am so small and so clueless, though imbued with a bit of what I have come to think of as a form of greatness. This diary, these poor words that I hail as a vessel for that which I am, and a future primary source document in the tangle of American—nay, _human_—history, are just some notches on a C:\ drive and a floppy, easy to destroy. I intend to figure out what this _greatness_ really is, and how to synthesize it. I seek to better understand what it means, being human and being male, and all of that. I want to be an intellectual, and respectable, and honest, and kind. When things get hard for me, and I feel hurt, I must remember to include _survival_ in my pantheon of values. So the quest I am constantly declaring but rarely advancing in progress on continues. I wonder if I can presently even comprehend the nature of my destination. Stay tuned for the conclusion next Liberation Day, should that day ever come. In the meantime—this time I think of as mean but is actually quite nice in comparison to what others have survived—I am _honored_ to be a part, however small, of history, should that continue to exist. Sorry about this. Zack M. Davis, a fragile boy, loving eir little fragile offline blog 1722 Pacific Time ADDENDUM— I think my middle name is after my father's borther, Michael Davis. I know nothing of him but that he was an artist and suicided at 25. Now he is just a box on a family tree or three, and a memory in the minds of a few people such as my father. —ZD, 2136 #### Entry 52 — Monday 7 March 2005 (Common Era) — "Because Kathy Is a Fucking Goddess, and I Am a Stupid Straight Boy" Dear Diary, I feel/felt unusually well today. I felt very elegant and professional in the morning. When sometimes I go to my locker before first to put things in it, I can eavesdrop a few lines from Kathy Ackerman-Alexeeff's conversation, and then I elegantly slam my locker shut, and proudly walk to first period early, a free agent, a twenty-first century human who is stylishly in control of everything. I still made many of the same shitty mistakes I make every day, like talking too much and taking too much time to pleasure myself after practice, but I feel that I can overcome. I am proud of my mind, and its vastness; I believe it is more vast than conveyed here so far. I imagine my future, sometimes, and what it might be—more on that another day, perhaps. During lunch and the blank seventh, I read magazines in the Lounge—_Time_ and _Psychology Today_. I suppose I will read _Popular Science_ tomorrow. I know I can hang out with New Friends by 411, but who needs friends when one has got _good reading material_? Brendan (sp?), who often urges me to hang out over there (sometimes I fourth-wonder if he is sincere; why would anyone want to hang out with me?), will understand, maybe, and if not, what of that? My lunchtime is _mine_, and I can spend it as I wish, even if Mother or the shrink say I need socialization. I will be working out at Acalanes every day from now on. I can say whatever I want in my Diary, and perhaps I needn't worry so much if everything I write is the best way of conveying that which is true, because if the Diary is the truth of my own mind, then whatever I write is true by definition, right? But really I see that is false. I _can_ lie here. I suppose it can be hard to speak the truth of your own mind: it's not just analyzing a system that you are part of, it's analyzing a system that you _are_. Or maybe that statement in itself, is an unintentional untruth. (But how can _writing_ be an unintentional activity?) Do I overemphasize one aspect of my life, at the undue expense of another? Do I exaggerate things for the dramatic? The thing is that if I cannot tell, then _no one can_. But I have better things to worry about than if I am accidentally misleading my nonexistent audience. (That also means I don't have to worry about boring them.) Today's title was written somehow with a memory from Rachel Sternin-Moser. Last night I picked _Harriet the Spy_ off the bookshelf, and tonight I finished it, though I may have done some slight skipping along the way the way I do when I am reading sth in a hurry. I have spent too much time, I must catch up with my schoolwork! I can do these jobs, and I can serve with honor, and do more in the off-hours! And I leave the written record! And if I wax cryptic, well, that is part of the record, too. Life is better than death. Hate little, 'cause it usually is _bad business_. Ms. Gunnison doesn't hate me!, Zack M. Davis! 2017 time sig #### Entry 53 — Tuesday 8 March 2005 (Common Era) — "Counter Coast Weekday Walkabout Pseudoache (Anaïs Nin Breakdown Edition)" Dear Diary, I feel nervous, I think. I don't know what I am feeling, if I am feeling. Wait—yes, I can call myself nervous because one thing I am going to have to do if I am to "be a man" (act as an adult human should) is to make judgements, and it may be best to start at home. So yes, I am feeling, and what I am feeling is _nerves_. "Stress", that nasty invisible beastie, that scapegoat for all our sinful frailties, that _ad hoc_ constant in the equation that explains why all our buildings are falling, seems to be wearing on me. I had my camera with me today thinking of taking WASC pictures (I will actually take them tomorrow at the presentation and skip track; it is all a weird schedule tomorrow) so it turned out that in ART I took to arranging mirrors in various ways and seeing what cool photographs I could take, using all the reflection power at my disposal. "Y'all are pretty, why don't you want to be in a picture?" I said at one point. Thursday there is to be a scrimmage meet. There was a lacrosse game at Acalanes, so when practice was over I took some photographs of that. Parts of "Letterbomb" have been floating in my head lately. I must learn to do and feel what I must but now can't, If I get lonely I can write some lines for Brooke Durant, Driven onward by respect for what is perfect, Not needing to brag about any _secret project_. And not needing to line always in sucky couplets. Bless me! Help me! Someone forgive me! But there is no one. Oh sure, my parents love me and I have friends and friendly acquaintances, and all that, but there is—and I want—but I am—I need to go do my homework. Yeah, that's it. !!!, Zack M. Davis, to survive the Great Depression of the 2010s? ADDENDUM— So I just emotionally _snapped_, and I am consoling myself with philosophy and music. I listened to some selected tracks of _American Idiot_ and I put on "Abba Zabba" maybe four and a half times. And I may put on "You're Not Alone" and "Cannot Stop the World" soon, or maybe not. Not, I think. I feel better now. Sometimes I _snap_ and everything just seems horrible, and I do see how many feelings are insane, but the seeing doesn't stop the feeling of them, and all fall down. Mother said I was acting weird and and I hated that, and I was starting waxing hysterical just a bit (not as bad as many times past). I am almost a fucking _adult_ now, and I have got to be ready for life. I must remember that every time life feels miserable that there is no real viable alternative. You have this life, this one life, bound to this one body and even through any hopeless pain and confusion, you have to cling to it because your only other choice is just total nothingness. I may have said this before in an earlier entry, but now I am just going to write, I am going to write my fucking soul (should I have one) out for a while, and then I will do homework, and I know that this is bad for my sleep (esp. because there is not a late start tomorrow), but these are special circumstances (as circumstances always are?). SO—life. Mine is easy. But I am fubar'd so that even the good life feels bad much of the time, and I am 17 years old and I have my DL and I am so close to adulthood and I have got to get ready and remodel myself (as I unceasingly pledge to do) if I am going to be anywhere close to making it somewhat on my own (my parents are a big help, paying for college, and all that). I have got to learn to be strong and steadfast if I am ever to survive a new Great Depression or build a fusion reactor or learn a trade or save the world or e'er be brave. (Quoting that poem I made again.) An adult, a real _man_, all that. I just have to keep remembering when things get tough that there is no way around life, you just have to live it as best you can, and suffer in the specific way you think you ought. This writing will likely be so horrible because I am writing quickly and not taking all that much care, but that kind of stuff is part of what the Diary is for, to say what [...] comes to me when I sit here with this file open, to get it down, to get it out, to tell _someone_ exactly what kind of hero and/or bigot idiot shithead I am, even if _someone_ is just a Microsoft Word file, that could be destroyed easily, destroying the records of my past beyond recovery. SO I am fucking telling someone, and I am cussing, too, although the best grown-ups don't feel like they need to use any meaningless intensifiers to say that which they have to say. As long as I am writing free like this with reckless abandon so I can say anything as I am expressing myself, my big grown-up crybaby self, I will say in this addendum what I had been planning to say in its own entry. I can tell Microsoft Word. I have said in these pages how I masturbate sometimes (_i.e._, almost every day), but I have never really said what I am thinking about. I imagine what it is like to be a woman. To have a woman's body, and have breasts and a vagina, and all that. The fantasy can take various forms (no pun intended!), but that basic premise is always the same, and it is almost always what I think about when I beat off, which is way too fucking often. So maybe I am a deviant, but that's okay. And I have too asked my self, hey, what if it's fucking normal? Here, have an anecdote: I remember once when Mr. Kolda gave us a journal question that asked if you were someone from the Civil War, who would you be? And I remember [redacted] jokingly murmured (word choice?) "Clara Barton". And I remember when I used to be on the sluggy.net boards, and once, I forget the topic (it must have been sth interesting), I remember that the user (she was a moderator) called [redacted] admitted that she imagined being with girls in a man's body. I fear that I misremember that, but as I have said, you can't libel someone in your Diary. And there are other anecdotes. I feel good confessing, even though my strange (but are they now?) thoughts ain't a sin. I feel good writing like this, discharging myself into virtual pages. I will have to be more forthright with you Diary, should I still be holding back. Someday I will print this page, along with the others. SO anyway before long I am going to be an adult (I also hope to be a real WRITER) and so mostly what I have to do is learn to take care of all my business quickly and efficiently. But I have said that a thousand times. I feel tranquil now, almost. I can be a real WRITER, even though these recent sentences are losing interest and coherency now that I have quickly done the confession of sorts that I had been thinking about for a while. SO if I do all my work efficiently I can have time to write things like this and write fiction that I can maybe even get published for real money and real bylines. I just have to hold on to this feeling of maturity and calm. I don't have to get manic, I just have to get _sensible_. And so I have a secret project, this writing of over 40 000 words, that I can show to no one except a significant other, should I ever find one. But I am okay for now. If I can calm those tides, avoid those emotional snaps, I will get through all right. For the intellect, I have you, Diary, and once I settle into sensibility my fiction, and for the primitive—there is always my right hand. Okay, I am getting digusting! I need to find a summer job NOW. I need to earn my own money. Get independent, and all that. And so to homework, I guess, but I want to sleep. I think of setting the alarm so I get 4 hours or so sleep, and then doing homework in that morning, but that seems to fail often. I will make a decision. I know I am trying to avoid doing that, but I think I might do my PRC at lunch tomorrow. It is only two problems (I forget how long they are, though) and I understand this vector stuff so far. I can get through this. Just forget the unwanted thoughts. Maybe I will find the right motto or poem that can inspire me for anything. The ones I have now are good, but not omnipotent. I am such a good diarist. [redacted] would be jealous, maybe. I must hold onto this feeling, Goodbye for now, friend Diary, but I will return, and with more zany or serious entry titles. Bless me. Bless anyone who almost deserves it. —ZD, 2353! #### Entry 54 — Wednesday 9 March 2005 (Early Release Schedule) — "Missive" Dear Diary, Have you ever been in a room when a bunch of people are laughing hysterically? It is such a pleasant thing, but also strange in a certain light. What is it about certain comments that is happy and makes us do that thing with our mouths and throats? It is so special, but maybe also so primitive; chimps have their play and amusement. Sometimes when you think you get to that big question of why does anything exist at all, and nothing can answer you. Religion claims to, but it cannot, because it doesn't explain why God should exist. Science tells us as best it can the mechanisms of the universe, but why should there be any universe at all? "WTF?" is pretty much all you can say about the topic. Christine Tsin may contribute comics to _The Page_. I talked too much to her when discussing submissions; I was probably repeating myself. The thing she showed us wasn't really good, and I didn't want to discourage her. > I made and printed out borders for future episodes of _TFAoRSS_. I took some bad photographs of the WASC presentation, which was very short. I need to learn to be a better photographer. I was going to get them ready for the page in 502, but the connection to the server and printer was out. I should run 20 mins or so tonight but I decide against it. Father just came home. He asked what I was doing and I said "nothing," though it was obivious I had been writing. He didn't like the pseudo-secrecy, and indicated that I don't talk to people enough. I said I talk plenty at school. He mentioned that I do not outside of school. I said I talk to people in track. He gave me the mail for me from the table where I had placed the mail but not sorted it. I got a formal invitation to Prom. Father said that when Brittany called me some weeks ago she was probably fishing for a date. I said, no, it's Brittany, that's not in the nature of our relationship. He inquired if we were just friends, and I told him that we are not even friends, just acquaintances. He said it is in the nature of girls to seek relationships and friendships. I don't think I responded to that definitively either positively or negatively. I hold antiprejudice as one of my values. I know _I_ don't want traits pegged to me by people I don't even know, just because of my sex. Yeah, yeah, women and men are different, I know. But people generalize far too quickly and far too often, and I think it is so dumb. Somewhere during the course of our conversation, I told him (he prompted the subject) about how I went to the college/career center today. I have to go. My food is getting cold. I have got to get sensible. Clean up this room, maybe. Zack M. Davis, 1750 ADDENDUM— I must stay in my room now because the EBNoM meeting is here. I have volunteered to write a column for the next issue, and I am not really sure what I am going to do with it—I was thinking about the SCotUS case banning Punishment (that's "capital punishment") on minors. I will have to flesh out a thesis. It shouldn't be so bad—do some research and then write what I believe, no? And it will get published and I will move on to the next story, the next article, the next issue. Calming down is sth I have been working on. Worries and fears damage me, so I am working on the unfeeling calculation. I don't, won't, need much in the way of friends for now. What does chatter really do for me? There is a time and a place for laughter, friends, and joy, certainly, so guess I should seek to confine them there, and in the meantime when we have business to take care of I can be mostly unfeeling. _Survival_ is a value. If I don't learn to be stronger and more resilient to the blasts of daily life, I am not going to do very well in this business of living, and that is sth important. Fun? What is fun? Why should I want it? Pleasure, an end in itself, let it not be so! Pleasure is just sth that helps get you through the day and not feel like feeling like quitting the game. Let's try to be polite and let's try to be productive. The song that predominated my humming today was "Give Me Novacaine." I am listening to it right now. I guess I should close off this addendum for now. Here's to antiprejudice! —ZD, 1932 ADDENDUM 2— The room is a bit neater. Humans probably crave social contact, but still I find the concept of withdrawing elegant. Yet still I add to the record when I have nothing to say, as if—as if, in some deep, irrational part of my mind, I am expecting a reply. I have recently opened e-lines of communication with J. Meltzer and B. Goldhaber. Going to be more serious. Going to be less fragile. Going to be an adult. Gonna do it the dark way; gonna do it in my way. "_Azarath, metrion, zinthos_!" I am considering doing the sleep-then-work-in-the-morning thing. And its only a few minutes after 2100. I am a strange creature, maybe. The nonexistant reader can decide for eirself. I will do PRC now. I am at peace, or close enough, or faking it, anyway. —ZD, 2104 #### Entry 55 — Saturday 12 March 2005 (Common Era) — " 'It's Not Over Till You're Underground' " Dear Diary, I was emotionally fubar'd yesterday afternoon over trivial matters. I said sth stupid to Caitlin. Forget the details. Apparently there was some screw-up somewheres, and so yesterday I was offered the opportunity to write a book review for Issue 5. I consented, and so this morning I drove to Barnes & Noble by myself to get a book. I thought maybe I should have gotten more specific instructions; I know not even what the other book review is. I think maybe I might call Laura and give a status rept or sth. After deliberating, I purchased _Swimming to Antarctica_. Then I went to Target, hoping to get prints of those mirror pictures for ART off my xD card, but there was someone using the print station ahead of me and it was said that it would take 30 mins to print all of her pictures, so I just left. The normal review deadline is Monday, but because of my special circumstances, I have until Wednesday. I want to get my review in Monday. To show that _soy dedicado_, that I love _The Page_ and mean to serve it well. That I want to be your lit cmdr; I want to be a rockstar, and that I will put in and out a thousand hours in front of pages and keyboards if it means half a shot at redeeming me. I also have to work on my HST essay & read two scenes of _Macbeth_. And there is also _TFAoRSS_ to think about (or rather, draw about). Ms. Gunnison seemed sad when I said I would probably be doing a book review and not a news-minded column, so maybe I could even tap one of those out this weekend. Or maybe that is just a delusion based on false models of what I am able to do, and (gulp) what I am willing to do. Am I a WRITER, and could I be, and all that? This is one life among 6e9; this is one Diary among millions. Everyone has got a worldview and most are gonna defend it, and the world is so vast, and so confusing, but it is literally all we got, so the only sane choice is to live well if you can. Not that humans have a history of restricting themselves to sane choices. So this weekend I will mostly be doing a lot of reading and writing. Good, I shall be a human of letters. I am now young and fucking ignorant, and half-hopelessly struggle blindly in this plastic demo world of mine. I act without thinking, and think without acting, and damage my name in the public square and hurt others. But maybe I could be an adult someday, and act rationally. The gray car is at the Honda place because it started smoking when Mother and I were in it yesterday. At the scrimmage meet Thursday, I ran a 2:13.8, good enough for sixth, and three-tenths of a second behind Mike Senger. I got a 60.1 split in the four by four. Yesterday evening I sent ems to B. Goldhaber, S. Goldhaber, J. Meltzer, and Second Cousin Heather. Here's to metaethics, Zack M. Davis time is 1203 ADDENDUM— My permanent DL and an invitation to the National Young Leaders Conference (addressed to "Zachary M. Da S.") came in the mail. Father says I have too much to do this weekend. I'm on page 106 (of 359) of _Swimming_. I have not been focused enough this morning, but I am not bad. I could be a professional, and I could be an i-muzz. It may be sort of funny how I swear myself to grandiose emotional control plans, only to have my normal character show through the cracks a few hours later. This day, this month, this year, will all pass, and be part of the past in their good time. It is like what I think Lisa Guadagni said. I can change slowly. I am glad to have my DL. It is a symbol of maturity and adulthood and independence, having that card. These early volumes aren't supposed to be yet another coming-of-age story. I wonder if my conception of maturity is totally off the mark. One imagines nine-year-olds shouting "I am _too_ grown up!" all the while knowing nothing of RL. Sometimes people talk about there being things an outsider can't understand—"You _don't_ understand." But I think it is important to recognize that the outsiders can know that they can't know sth, and act accordingly. I don't have any expierience of the pressures of making ends meet, but I do know that it is knowledge that I don't have. And I can imagine. Imagination is a great modeling tool. I think this sort of "provisional knowledge" is underrated. These pages could feel childish. Whatever. Back to the business of living. Here's to ambition, ZD, 1452. ADDENDUM 2— Heather says we're actually third cousins. I'm on 235 of _Swimming_. That's pathetic; I should have finished it by now. Used internet to briefly check out summer job opportunities. Earlier, I left a message on Laura's answering machine, which may or may not have been coherent. (The message, not the machine.) I shall go to bed anon. The whole "early to bed, early to rise" thing, and all that. Maybe I should run tomorrow morning. I told coach Marv I would run on the weekend. Here's to kettle corn, ZD, 2219. #### Entry 56 — Sunday 13 March 2005 (Common Era) — "Plastic Demo World" Dear Diary, Finshed _Swimming_. Masturbated. Maybe I should make an effort to use that disgusting habit as a reward for when I do sth particularly good, rather than letting it just be a pleasurable activity I engage in just about whenever I feel like it. When I think about it, the qualia of orgasm sometimes seems very strange. Somehow, the pleasure of pepperoni pizza or a warm bath make some sort of _sense_ in a way that this doesn't. I can't think of a better way to put that right now. Food and comfortable temperature are somehow _normal_ qualia. This—is different. Taste and sense of temperature are just regular senses, and there are particular sensations of those sense classes that I find very good. _This_, however, is a _new_ qualia; I've had it only about three years. It is sth I only get when my penis is stimulated in a certain way. I'm not even sure what's so great about climax or the build-up; it's just—just a sensation that somehow I like very much. Words are just symbols in the end; they cannot explain subjective sensation. How do you explain color to a blind human, except to say that the rest of us can percieve with our sight that things have a quality called color, and that color is caused by differing wavelengths of light, and so forth? How do you explain orgasm to a child, except to say they grown-ups can have this very good feeling that you know nothing of (yet)? Is orgasm different for *un*circumcised men? If so, how? What's orgasm like for women? These are things I cannot know, and they cannot explain. There is only provisional knowledge. For example, I am given to understand women's sexual [pleasure] is centered in this one body part called the _clitoris_; with this and many other facts I can form a sort of (pardon the metaphor!) _variable_ in my mind of what sex is like for women, a variable the computer of my mind can perhaps do useful things with, but never actually _solve_. It's an _x_ that has a value but that you just can't solve for, not with this equipment. The first time I masturbated it was on accident. I cannot recall the date. I remember feeling guilty for doing it in our hotel while on the graduation trip to Arizona (that had to be June 2002). And I was certainly still innocent during my Bar Mitzvah on 21 July 2001. And I remember once in Mr. T's class qupping sth like "In theory, wouldn't sex get boring after a while?" So, give it a guess—February 2002, _maybe_? The date doesn't really matter. I was in my room, at night. I had been practicing drawing women for some time. Getting the curvature of the breasts right was hard for me. But I was getting better. So, there I was, drawing. I got an erection that peeked through the pee flap of my boxers, and I tucked it back in. And somehow, at some point, I got to rubbing. I didn't recognize at the time exactly what I was committing. I was just acting naturally. The ejaculation took me by total surprise. I ended up hiding my defiled boxers on a high shelf in the corner of my closet. I thought about how I was old enough to father children now. I consider it a very significant night of my life. Back to the present. I should write that review soon, and work on my HST project. It's kind of silly how little I can like the process of writing sometimes, when I consider just how amazingly great writing is. And a run at some point would be good, too. I didn't go to bed last night as soon as my last entry might have indicated. Here's to sex and solving the problem of consciousness, Zack M. Davis, Time is 1447 ADDENDUM— I ran my three-mile course in Shell Ridge. I listened to NPR a bit, and reread some of _Ender's Shadow_. Just now I went out driving alone to get a loaf of bread at Safeway. I like driving alone. I hummed and sang. I got 12 grain. I feel so silly, ashamed of my habits. I childishly half-expect rewards without need for me to dispense recompense, to pay for them, to give them, via my honor, their true value, which may be best measured in honor. I claim to love _The Page_ and say it's nice to serve it well, but when the time comes to actually sit in front of the keyboard and write, I _don't do it_, as if I didn't want it after all! My lower self, that base part of the mind which is me, acts like there is no greater good than salty fatty sugary foods, and orgasms and rest and warmth. I can write fine (or finely enough) when it is just free expression in the Diary, when many of the things I say probably don't make sense, but I cringe to write a paper or a _Page_ story, or even my own fiction, because those are focused things that require _craft_, and skill beyond mere whimsy expression. I am so childish, so base and lazy, but at least _I recognize my depravities as such_, and I laugh at them now, for they are so absurd as to be comical! SO I am sitting here typing in my Diary, standing over the wreck that is Zachary Michael Davis, and feeling somehow that it can be repaired. SO I am going to write that review tonight. And I will skip and hum and dash, cheerfully and slowly willing myself into that which I must become if I am to be someone who is anyone! Because my beautiful ideals need to be expressed not _only_ in words-in-strictly-private-tomes, but also in public action. SO yeah fuck I will write this review. And I will hate almost no one, and check all my positions for faults and strive to be altogether true. I will think and leave behind the parties and the games. SO yeah I will write this review, because just what else is there to do? This one's for the banner, ZD, 2018. ADDENDUM 2— I have a 417-word draft of a review of _Swimming to Antarctica: Tales of a Long-Distance Swimmer_ all printed out and stapled. Does that make today a success, even though I got no HST done? It's not a failure, anyway. I shall go to bed anon, just after I brush my teeth and put an important document in my backpack. I mean it this time. —ZD, 2355. #### Entry 57 — Monday 14 March 2005 (Common Era) — "Reformers of Demo World" Dear Diary, Father says he still thinks it would be good for me to keep seeing the shrink, but that we'll fit it around my schedule of other activities. I said my position has not changed: I'll go and cooperate if you want me to go, if you don't want me to or if you don't care, I won't. On the subject of me trying to be an obedient son, "I really don't see defiance as something feasible," I said, "Or desirable," I tacked on, too late. Is it my reporter's resposibility to try to record the most noteable events (time permitting!) in my Diary? Or is it okay to omit events that were signifcant emotionally to me but that I don't want to recall and put to words? I've delayed my homework far too long. I have squandered time. And I could certainly use sleep; I o'erslept this morning. I feel hopeful. Here's to keeping it controlled, Zack M. Davis, model majority Time is 2148 #### Entry 58 — Tuesday 15 March 2005 (Common Era) — "All Recognition" Dear Diary, I threw a fit today during track practice, for no reason. First, while we were doing ins and outs, I didn't have clear instructions on whether we were running the curves and walking the straights or vice versa. Some people were doing one, some the other. One group said Val said to do it the way they were doing it, but others were doing it differently. I knew that it doesn't matter at all, but still by some insane mechanism the matter triggered me to such degree that I got really angry and made an ass of myself and shouted a cuss word. Then, Coach Val started working with sprinters on handoffs, and I hadn't received any instruction on what my workout should be. I was still feeling emotionally fucked up. Coach Marv came and then I think he said he'd go talk to Val but Val was busy, so he (I'm not sure if I have this whole sequence exactly perfectly right) said he'd have a good workout for me, and I felt uncomfortable about that because I wanted direct orders from Val. But anyway, he put me in with some Acalanes guys (and one girl) who were doing 6 x 600. I couldn't keep up the pace. I was sobbing, I was fucked up. I only started the first two or three with them. I was sobbing, sobbing through what must have been the first four. I regained my composure for five and six; they were still slow. Marv said he understood. He told me to do a cooldown of a mile and come talk to him afterwared, so I did four laps very slowly, and then talked to him afterward. I threw a fit today during track practice, for no reason. In little more than nine months, I will have to sign up for the Selective Service. During lunch, I got hit with a ketchup packet in the back of the neck. Someone must have thrown it at me, or thrown it at someone else and missed. I didn't see who did it. No one else seemed to notice the event at all. So I went to the bathroom and washed off with soap parts of my jacket and shirt at a faucet in the boy's restroom in the 200 hall. I got the entire shirt wet, so I spent some time drying it off. Vince, who walked into the restroom at one point, offered me a spare shirt he had in his backpack, but I refused. He offered it several times, and I just kept saying, no, thank you, but no. It's almost dry, I said. By the time I went to fifth, it was only a little damp. The whole thing was my fault anyway. I should have known better than to sit in such a high-traffic area. Sophomores and juniors who failed the first time took part of the CAHSEE today. Tomorrow is 16 March. Diary Day. The one-year anniversary of starting you, Diary. I only wrote 6 entries that entire calendar year of 2004, but still, 16 March 2004 was the start of all this. SO today was a failure, but I suppose I will just move on from it. I still have, well, faith, that I can break this cycle of emotional turmoil. Someday. Maybe tomorrow! It's only high school, anyway. If there's any such thing as "only" high school. Here's to adulthood, Zack M. Davis, bad but not too bad 1901 Pacific Time #### Entry 59 — Wednesday 16 March 2005 (Diary Day) — " 'This Could Be / The Second to Last Time' (Ranma Saotome Spring Cleaning Edition)" Dear Diary, On the balance, I felt good today. I got a little bit frustrated during SPN. But: pay it no mind. I was pretty slow in track practice today. After practice, I drove with Mother to Target, where I purchased a wristwatch (I mustn't lose this one!) and posterboard for the ENG project due next Friday. During JOU, I sent off an e-mail to Mr. Johnston asking for help with our computer problems. During lunch and seventh, I browsed a book which I think was titled _Uncommon Sense for Parents of Teenagers_. I have felt like I'm going to be EIC next year. Arrogance? In ART, I turned in my face packet project. Survival is a value. If there is some problem and I don't see any choices that I like, I musn't despair, because despair doesn't do anything. If there is a problem, and there isn't a good choice, I must just calmly try to take the least-worse choice, by my standards. Despair is not adaptive. It doesn't _do_ anything. SO I am just going to go and try to be an atypical straight white teenage boy in a very, very good way. I slept oddly. Here's to academia, Zack M. Davis, 1857 Pacific Time ADDENDUM— I had a long conversation with Mother concerning the philosophy of this yogi guy she had material from. Am I too rude when I argue against this mysticism she cares so much about? Should I consider just keeping quiet and nod instead of arguing every point? I put the text of my review on a Yahoo! notepad so I can place it and do edits tomorrow. I also found that my 128MB xD card is corrupted—neither the computer nor the camera can read it. I hypothesize the problem stems from when I wrote to the card using the laptop, and that fucked up the formatting. I will just have to shoot the swim meet tomorrow with the 32MB card, which is good for 21 pics. I read _Slate_ and the some columnists I like to read in the Yahoo! Op/Ed section. I knew I should have been doing homework, but reading good professional opinion pieces is important to me, and anyway the only thing due _tomorrow_ is a SPN worksheet. I feel good just reading the opinion pieces; I feel smart; I am learning about what people think of the world. Sometimes when I am reading opinion on the internet I feel proud to just be there reading it, glad just to be part of the audience in the forum of public discourse. But how I feel is unimportant; what matters is the flow of ideas, providing fresh insight, changing people's minds. In addition to the SPN workshit [_sic_], I also have ops drawings due Friday, and my xomic to draw for _The Page_. Maybe I should stay up later tonight working. After all, it's Wednesday night, so if I go into sleep debt, I can recover on the weekend. I just remembered I will comptete in the track meet Saturday. And there is the ENG project (it seems easy) due next Friday, and the HST essay due after spring break. And that job app! Stress may be a construct, but I am feeling it all the same. Father will probably nag me. Surely there must be (or have been) a way to be academically perfect, so I would be above all criticism, and thus, not have to deal with it. In theory, it could be easy enough—one must simply know all the material well enough to ace all tests, and do all of the assignments. Am I a good kid? It could be so. But would it not be better to not be a kid at all? To just be a young adult who is mature and responsible and has the time management skills to do eir work, read the columnists to be an informed citizen, and also write the truth-of-eir-heart and some publishable fiction? I love my writing in this Diary, I love this record of my thoughts, my clever, clever, probably arrogant thoughts. I will have to find a way to print out a hard copy of these pages secretly. I dream of actually selling fiction, and getting paid for it, and with it I could buy things like bond paper. But for me to be a fiction WRITER, I have to get my schoolwork done, and maybe even give up sth like reading time or sleep. It would be nice to scan my xomic Friday or tomorrow, but tomorrow is surely out, and Friday may be highly unlikely. I want to be good. I want to contend. I want to be kind to nearly everyone. I want to be beyond reproach. Sometimes I get so confused as to how to approach life. Some feelings defy words. The importance in mind of sleep seems to vary with how much of it I've had. So typical, so foolish. I need to reach a consensus within myself about exactly how I am going to structure my time, because however much I love _Slate_ and this expression, sth is always going wrong somewheres when I am as loose with time as I am. My world isn't falling apart right now. But it isn't in a good state. Whatever happens, I leave the written record. Take solstice in transhumanism, ZD, 2224. #### Entry 60 — Friday 18 March 2005 (Common Era) — "These Early Volumes" Dear Diary, Track practice was really short today and I had agreed to meet Mother by the church at 1730, so I waited around for about an hour, dreaming and scheming artistically. I thought about "Running Water." In HST, we watched film about World War II. There was a lot of focus on the Holocaust. At the end of the class someone sarcastically said "that was uplifting", and after a long pause I said that maybe it was, in a weird way. How, people asked. "Never again!" I said, and mumbled sth about how we humans have been so insane and we have to do better. I got to thinking again about the pain people have suffered, and the things _I_ fear. During seventh, I worked on _The Page_. I didn't get a whole lot done; I seem to work slowly. It might do me better to pay a tiny bit less attention to updating the board, and whole lot more to getting all my stuff done. I worked a little at lunch, too. Around the end of seventh, I helped Dave of Yearbook with the scanner. I said that this wknd I will try to get permission for a picture for Jordan's column. I really have a lot of things to do, and the track meet tomorrow is going to take up a lot of my time. Mom's cousin is to come over soon. Nicole has Spring Break next week, and so she might be around. I think sometimes people like myself irrationally ignore that the "total" in "total determination" is not just a misnomer, a meaningless intensifier. I figure as if I think I will totally devote myself to sths, and thus be close enough to perfect as makes virtuous. But inspirations wax and wane, and pain and pleasure pull me in thousands of different directions, and I end up in about the same position as before. The last page of _The Great Gatsby_ comes to mind. I still have that faith, though, that I could turn this around. It is, as it is said, never too late to change. Yesterday at practice, Joe said sth about how the Jewish girls at temple like his wild hair. And sth was said about black girls liking it. Then I said, "But the black Jewish girls don't, because they cancel each other out." Schreiber said that was the funniest thing he's ever heard me say. I might go to bed tonight (early) without doing any work. And then I will get up and be efficient. That's the theory. So many times it has failed. I am a little confused about a lot of things. I guess it's kind of dumb that I can't eat vegetables. I am mental about that. It's a liability, but not one I want to fight. I had some cooked carrot tonight. Yale University sent me a postcard. Ms. Saint-Amour had her class write Letters to the Editors of _The Page_. One was about my column in praise of Wikipedia. It was a very stupid letter, strawhumanning me. My column did _not_ advocate the overthrow of books; I was just saying Wikipedia is cool, is all. But it was exciting seeing an almost real (remember, Saint-Amour assigned this) letter to the editor referring to a piece by "journalist Zack Davis." Am I lonely? Am I good? Who will love me in the way I wish someone (someone female and around my age, specifically) would? How close am I to figuring things out? How pathetic is this missive, and how might I increase my clout to something worth writing about? Here's to my life in Demo World being just a sad prologue for glorious things to come, and also to me getting everything I need to do done this weekend, Zack M. Davis. 2036. #### Entry 61 — Saturday 19 March 2005 (Common Era) — "As I Am Absurd: Freshman-Turned-Junior Disorientation Session (Relic to Relic Saturday Night Quarterback Edition)" Dear Diary, It could be very silly how easy it is to hurt a human's feelings. Maybe things are going to be okay, and maybe they won't. It's just one life, one diary among millions. What if things have played out so that I must choose between me having to choose between making Coach mad and making Father mad? Minimize your losses, make a choice, and then pay it no mind. I can get so confused about things, and so fucked up about things, and sometimes it almost seems that it seems that the only thing I have to say is that sometimes the only thing I have to say is a big "WTF?" Will anyone understand, and does that matter? Words fail me, or I fail them. I have no proper adjective for this emotional turmoil. FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! It could be time to go off the record for a little bit. Zack M. Davis #### Entry 62 — Monday 28 March 2005 (Common Era) — "Capitalists and Welfare Kings of Demo World" Dear Diary, 158+ hours. That's how long it is until school starts again, at 0800 on fourth April. Spring break. Now that I think of it, it's only 157+ hours—Daylight Savings Time will wipe out 0200–0300 next Sunday. Mother starts her new job tomorrow, so I will have a refreshing amount of time alone this coming workweek. My "big rock" is the HST essay of which a draft is due fourth April. I have not made much progress on it (an understatement, no doubt). Father has and likely will continue to rag on me about it. I also have T&F practice each weekday. Father just came home. He inquired if I had finished my job application, and I informed him I have not. He inquired if I had worked on my essay, and I said I had not done a whole lot, but I did some reading. (I didn't.) He said I "probably just fucked off all day". Yesterday and this morning, I was reading a blog called _The Enlightened Caveman_ (or did it not have that definite article? _No importa._) about evolutionary psychology, and the importance of understandning it. Today, after leafing aimlessly through _Atlas Shrugged_ and finally tiring of it, I got _Philosophy: Who Needs It_ from Nicole's bookshelf, and looked through that. Here is a quote from that book: "In the field of introspection, the two guiding questions are: '_What_ do I feel?' and '_Why_ do I feel it?' [graf break] Most men [_sic_] can only give themselves primitively superficial answers—and they spend their lives struggling with incomprehensible inner conflicts, alternately repressing their emotions and indulging in emotional fits, regretting it, losing control again, rebelling against the mystery of their inner chaos, trying to unravel it, giving up, deciding to feel nothing—and feeling the growing pressure of fear, guilt, self-doubt, which makes the answers progressively harder to find." Does this situation sound familiar? That blog said maturity should be defined in terms of how much considerations of the future play into the decision-making process. How mature am I, if my HST essay is so undone with Monday so close? At the Martinez Relays [Saturday], I was slated in the 4x800 and the 4x400. I ran very poorly in the four-by-eight. I spoke with my former coach Dennis Tracy before and after the four-by-eight. On the meeting afterward, he inquired after how my eight was, saying he wasn't paying attention. "Horrible," I replied. He asked if I at least broke 2:10. "No," I said, "It was more of a two-twenty." He said, "not to make [me] feel bad", but that's worse than horrible, that's jogging. He inquired if I was injured or sick. After hesitating, I gave what I feel was a noble reply: "I won't try to excuse it." I never got to run the four-by-four. Jay Tag had to leave early, and each of the guys who ran the four-by-two, which was just before the four-by-four, was either ineligible for another event or unwilling to participate in the four-by-four. I had just gotten into an inspirational mood, and made a small scene (show) about the matter. The Alhambra track, where the meet was, is on a hill but is surrounded by even higher ground. After the four-by-four was scratched, and I was fuming or pretending to fume, Schreiber suggested I run up the hill to where those yellow flowers up there are. He'd time me. I did so, making my way up through the thick and tall foliage. I had my watch timing myself, as well. 38 seconds or so. I came down, and he said to do it again. Two minutes (IIRC) rest, he added. The second time took ~43 seconds. _The Page_, Volume 54, Issue 5 is done. Publishing date is Monday. SO here I am, a human, struggling, in my fashion, to live a life. A good life. I am young, which means that perhaps I can be forgiven somewhat for certain errors, because of the inexperience. I am male, which means—something. I am confused about a lot of things. But I have my aspirations, and love intelligence. I can read and write and reference. Someone else should see these pages someday, but maybe not while I am still alive. Is my personal writing altogether endearing, or not yet? Must I first learn to do honor to myself and humankind? All the better. All poets must work, and so forth. SO I _fucked off_ today, whatever that means exactly. SO I spent a long time writing this. SO I've never finished a decent short story. SO my work ethic is but so-so, or still worse. I can improve. "It's not over until it's too late." _Enlightened Caveman_ said that feelings of inferiority were born from hierarchical tribal living a long time ago, and it said to love yourself. Love yourself as a work in progress was one suggestion. This morning at practice, Mike Seed asked how I was doing. "Work in progress," I said, continuing my practice of oftentimes giving unusual answers to questions like that. Anyway, you mustn't believe everything you read. Zack M. Davis, 1855. #### Entry 63 — Tuesday 29 March 2005 (Common Era) — "Establishment Boy" Dear Diary, I procrastinated a lot in the morning. I read on the internet for some time and then it somehow got boring. Mother started her job, so I had a lot of time alone. I played music loudly while singing along to it and cleaning my room. I wrote in black ink some (just two very small posts) quick free verse, drawing largely from stuff I wrote in my purple junkbook during the last two track meets (all with that "NEVER BE HAPPY AGAIN" recurring theme), and taped it to the small whiteboard that is on the wall in my room by the door. I had some technical difficulties completing that City of Walnut Creek Summer Intern job application. Mother asked me in the morning to pull some weeds, so I did that for a little bit before driving to track practice. In practice, we did starts, followed by two 200s, then a number of 100s. I won the second 200, but somebody accused somebody else of boxing him in, so maybe that guy would have beat me if he had space, but maybe not, and anyway it is his own fault for letting himself get boxed in. I was very worried about what Father would say to me about my ese progress, and because of that I said sth CRIMINALLY STUPID during practice. But Father is not mad at me. I told him tomorrow night he could read over what I will have had done so far. SO I have ~24 hours to produce sth I won't be ashamed to show Father. It could be sad how dependent we are on our own culture. What if English was going extinct? I could learn another language, certainly, but it wouldn't be the same, I would be very sad to not be able to use my native tongue and have people understand. It is a tenet of mine to treat all humans as individuals, and I hold that tenet fast, but I see too how nations and cultures have a certain sort of identity of their own. Dear nonexistent reader, if ever you are feeling terribly alone, it might be good (I am no doctor) to think of how big the world is and to note that you probably got those memes from _somewhere_. Today's title comes from the feeling that I want to be productive, and learn for myself that good old _work ethic_. I want to be a part of the system, and help to reform it gradually from within, should it need reforming. I want to play it straight. Today, when I was listening to music, I stopped "She's a Rebel" while it was playing. "Bad symbolism," I muttered to myself. (Who else was there to mutter to?) "Bad album," I tacked on, even though I actually like _American Idiot_ a lot! I've been listening to _New Found Glory_ a lot lately. SO I must do a lot of work on my ese. I am not so ignorant; that spelling is intentional. "Ese" is the masculine form of what is the rough Spanish equivalent of "that." (The Spanish have separate words for "that" near the person I am talking to, and "that" yonder, a thing far from both of us.) So in my special context, "ese" is a double entendre—both a bastardization of "essay", and a pronoun reference to the essay. I have to write _that_. _That_ horrible assignment. _That_ is what is ruining my happiness. I have used this usage of "ese" in my planner before; I didn't just think of it recently. My journal is so much better than [redacted]'s! But mine is secret, not out there on the internet! Does Kathy keep a diary? My money (should I have any money) is on "no." Or is that a wise bet? I won't gamble at all, come to think of it. Fare thee well, Zack M. Davis, 1839. #### Entry 64 — Wednesday 30 March 2005 (Common Era) — "Currents" Dear Diary, In regards to my ese work, I kept _some_ focus. I was on the computer for hours and I printed out many pages of material to use as sources of information for the paper. But I didn't do any writing yet. SO I haven't focused enough. The concept (if not, at present, the practice) of ruggèd individualism has great appeal to me. Willingness to work hard is such a virtue! Father called on the telephone in the evening, and said he wouldn't be coming home between work and his EBNoM meeting. When I informed him of my progress, he warned me that I should really get to writing. "I know," I said. I need to strike that phrase from my conversations with Father. I have used it many times. He tells me what I should do, and then I say "I know" in this weak, defensive tone of voice. What would be a better response? "Duly noted"? "Understood"? He reminded [me] that I have an appointment with the shrink tomorrow at 1500, so I will have to be late for T&F practice. I sent an email to Coach Val re that tonight. I have decided it's okay for me to copy-edit my old diary entries for not just typos, but other things, like names that I did not actually know the correct spelling of at the time of writing. But only in such spare moments that I do not choose to use for tasks more important than copy-editing secret documents. The argument against editing would be in support of the principle of preserving my entries as they were originally saved, down to every last character. But that principle is stupid, anyway. I wouldn't actually comb through the old pages looking for errors (or, God forbid, use spell check!), but rather change things that bother me. I would change "Pauwwe" to "Paauwe," for instance. IT REALLY DOESN'T MATTER! I mean, this is my diary; I can do whatever I feel like with it! I am going to move on (not dot org) from this. Ms. Gunnison called me this morning at ~0915. During the Layout for Issue 5 there had been a big debate over a controversial phrase in an editorial. The wording was supposed to be changed, but somehow it was not, and Ms. Gunnison, who was at school today to get the PDF of the issue to Twin Palms, called because she needed to know from me how to reëxport the issue to PDF. It was lucky I had my cell phone on! "Sorry to wake you up," Ms. Gunnison said. "I've been up for two hours," I said. Actually I was awake for a little longer than that. I think I remember being finished with my shower at 0702. I was surprised to get the call. When I answered, I thought it was going to be a wrong number. T&F practice was at 1000 today. I was with Distance. The workout was 10 x 200. I was averaging around 33 or maybe 34. The last one, the coach said he wanted a "TPR", *t*oday's *p*ersonal *r*ecord. That is, the last one = the fast one. My yelled split was a 29 for that one. It is almost 2100 on Wednesday and I haven't written anything for my ese! FUCK ME! I want to go to bed! I suppose I could go to bed now, and work in the morning. Should I leave the computer on? This computer is old. It is very reliable, however. Father could get mad at me for my lack of progress. But if so, I will have earned his rancor. When I sin like this, I bear the consequences. That's justice. If I had been more responsible, I would have nothing to fear from him. And I still don't. Oh, he can throw angry words at me, but he doesn't hit me, and this is not an offense worthy of punishment. Words only hurt if you have the kind of psyche that lets them hurt. And I do. Or have. Maybe I have changed recently. (Too much to hope for times a thousand.) Tomorrow I shouldn't even read the paper. (The newspaper, I mean.) I should just write, write, write, go to shrink and practice, write, write, write. I make the same mistakes over and over and over again. But I may be getting better at being good. It often seems so. Say what you will, Father. "What's done cannot be undone. To bed, to bed, to bed." (Apologies to Bill) Here's to Hoover blankets, Zack M. Davis, 2100. \* \* \* END Vol. IB