Art by MeddygonThere is a fine line \ Between genius and madness. \ It is called timing.

“Hey, girl, you got the money you owe me?” says Maria.

“…” I reply. “You still owe me for the phone bill.”

“What?!”

Gash: If you want to get down to it, our perception of reality is only a series of electrical impressions interpreted by our brain, so how do you know what you are seeing, smelling, tasting, feeling and hearing is actually what is there? Kind of mind-boggling, don’t you think?

Yengwa: No, not really. All of your arguments always come down to that same damn line from the Matrix. It’s not like you suddenly had a revelation and came up with it yourself. Besides, if what is real is defined by our brains, then how do we know our brains are real?

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Five minutes after she and I were discussing something, she goes on about it again. After about two minutes of listening to her talk rather loudly about the girl in the next room, I say to her, “Okay, we stopped talking about this five minutes ago.”

“There’s not need to be so rude, you brought it up!” (which it did, now seven minutes prior.)

“And we’ve already said all we’re going to say on the matter.”

“It’s not big deal” blah, blah, etc.

*shush noises*

“Oh don’t you shush me, you brought it up.”

“And now I’m trying to END it.”

I am promised by the school to get my financial aid reimbursement check tomorrow. I can’t be 100% certain on this, even if they did put up a sign outside their door about it, because they were 100% certain I’d get it the second week of school. This is the 6th week.

On the off chance I do not get my money, I finally got my PIN for my Visa to use it as a cash card. I must use this sparingly, though, as my parents are the ones who pay off the card.

fight of the century

Grand. Someone just called for Lametria Scott.

“She doesn’t live here anymore.”

Which is true. So no one should be calling her here, ever. Right?

Well, she’s been using my phone without me knowing, as Maria told me a while ago. I really didn’t care, because it very easily could have just been Maria trying to get me to take sides. Now I have a little bit of proof.

Ashley’s already told me that she doesn’t use the phone at all, as she has her own cell phone. Good. Then she won’t mind me taking the phone with me to school. Maria doesn’t use the phone, either, except when she NEEDS to talk to her mother. She’s going to her mother’s house later today, so she won’t be needing the phone.

I said to Ashley a while ago: “Your friends do not live here, they should not be using the phone.” That didn’t mean anything to her other than she has to hide it from me now.

Lametria’s got her own cell phone, she doesn’t need to be using my house-line. She doesn’t even need to be coming to my apartment. I swear, next time she is at the door, wanting to bitch at me about something, I’m just shutting it in her face.

She often feels the need to come and complain about something. Apparently, placing her junk mail (100% third class mail) in front of her mailbox is wrong, and she would “ah-PREE-shate” it if I didn’t do that. She’d also prefer that, instead of telling her friends to stop calling here, I instead pass the messages on to her.

She moved out a month ago, folks. She also agreed to not give out my phone number to her friends, because she had a cell phone.

Then she has the nerve to call my friends ghetto when she can’t even spell it.

It’s funny how, whenever I say something to Maria along the lines of, “You shouldn’t skip school,” or “You shouldn’t waste your money on taxis,” she always says, “Hahha, you sound just like my mother.” Mom’s can’t possibly have good advice, can they now.

I really fucking hate it when someone tells me “news” that they heard, and they heard it from me last week.

And they pass it off as they’re the ones who told me.

I really hate Maria’s use of the term “chinky” to describe Asians.

She said she was going to bed twelve minutes ago.

She talked for ten. She’s finally turned off the light.

Now she’s muttering to herself VERY LOUDLY. “oh gawd, it’s so hawt” etc.

Maria just came into our room to tell me that she heard Ashely making noises, and assumes she was masturbating. Maria described it first at “choking and gagging noises” so I assumed Ashley was puking. Then Maria said, “No, it was moaning! She was on the phone, too!”
WHO THE FUCK CARES?!

She went on to explain how stupid she felt because, here she was, worried that Ashley might be choking, and she was just “doing her own thing.” Repeat this three times in different ways, and you’ve got the “conversation.” Then she decides to tell me that she doesn’t masturbate anymore.

No sex, no masturbation, no brain. Poor girl.

#9 Rantt Ô_õ 11/11

I love Jorenko.

Somebody wiped my fucking history again.

I had a dream we were moving. Mom, Dad, and I only, though. Tony wasn’t there, but my parents were insisting on getting everything packed up right away. We had just locked up several things in a mausoleum, and my parents had taken special care to place traps with those things. Returning to packing, I threw my mother’s clothes with her stuff, and mine with mine. After everything as packed, I decided to make backups of everything on my HDD, so that I wouldn’t loose everything again. I copied everything to an external HDD and shoved it in my pocket.

Later …

I was returning home from a trip of some sort. As we pulled into “Greystone” where we were to switch to another bus, I called my mother. I was worried about getting on the other bus because it would be taking me further from home, making the drive to pick me up longer. Mother told me my father was already there, so I got in his truck and he drove off.

The direction we went wasn’t too the main road. The road we were on had a bridge ahead of us, and my father said he was worried about the darkness at the base of the bridge, because he couldn’t see if there were holes or anything. “I’m more worried about the whiteness at the top – I mean, does the bridge just end there?” I said.

Damned clipping. More of the bridge appeared as we went up it, but, sure enough, it ended. The truck makes a mighty leap into the air, and we watch down from the clouds for the place we’re supposed to land. We land, and start going downhill. After a while, we come to a visible edge.

We exit the truck, and, for whatever reason, Harry Potter is there, too. When the truck was shooting off the end, there was a far-view of it, and I could see the shape of the road-maze we were on. It looked a bit Sonicish: curly roads with red railing.

Harry Potter explains to us that this is a magical roadway, and we just need to walk over the edge, and we’ll be upside down, like David Bowie in Labyrinth.

Harry does it. It works. Dad does it. He falls. I cling to the edges and crawl over the edge. Harry Potter laughs at me as I’m about to fall.

Later …

It was RPGish, and one of the characters was an angel. Every time she said, “JESUS H. CHRIST!” when things weren’t going her way in a battle, Jesus came in, whipped the shit out of the enemy, and went away. This happened three times in the dream.

Later …

Tony Soprano and his crew were helping me get some money out of a guy. Prior to them showing up, I was at a bar, realized I needed something to finish a quest, ran over to this guy’s place. I wanted to purchase a woman, and he made me pay in advance. Later, he gave me a doll instead of a woman. I wanted my money back and he refused.

Jet Grind Radio rules.

So she eats a donut without asking. I ask her to not—I wish she’d shut up so I can fucking concentrate on what I’m typing—I ask her to not do it again. She says I’m overreacting, it’s just a donut.

If she’d asked, I’d have no problem. But she took it the moment I left the apartment to go outside with Troy while he smoked a cigarette. We were gone three minutes.

“I took part of the long john, is that all right?”
I sighed, and said, “Just don’t do it again.”

She took half the long john. She broke off half the donut, and left the other half in there. I asked her if she wanted to finish it, because I sure as hell wasn’t going to. She says no, she’s stuffed.

Then she asks Troy if he’s married.

I’m only up right now because Maria doesn’t know how to quietly open and close doors.

I had a dream I went to Dennis’ Place for Games, only it didn’t look like the ones out here. It was larger, less crowded, and brighter. Pump It Up was in the middle, but it was compact. The single stage was pushed under the cabinet, and I had to pull it out. Then I had to boot the thing. Then I had to level the stage. All this, and I didn’t even work there.

Not yet, anyway. Josh was reviewing my application. He asked me about someone I listed as a reference – “Jack Crawford.” He wanted to inform me as well that the address I listed for Jack was wrong, and his correct address was [insert screen name]. I told him to watch out, because his live-in girlfriend will answer and throw a fit.

I returned to the PIU machine. The damned thing was one player. No doubles allowed. I messed with the internal settings, and found that the machine was running on Windows 3.1. I started messing with it with a keyboard, though I don’t know how I got the keyboard.

I added a name entry screen, you picked by pressing the arrows to get to a letter, then hitting the center to confirm. Finally the game started.

The man in the artwork of “Unforgettable Memory” was positioned over the Pump logo. Hit center to play, start up a song on easy.

That’s when I noticed a lot more steps than I was used to – I look down, this isn’t PIU anymore, it’s Technomotion.

People start watching me frantically play, and then they clap and all that. Later, I return home.

Home is supposedly 802, though it looked like an inverse of the trailer I lived in mixed with Tim’s condo. My brother, mother, and father all lived there, but everything paralleled my current situation.

Father was not there; There are only three of us in 802 right now. Mother retained her personality, though she took the part of Maria. Tony used dial-up internet access while I had high-speed; that’s the same as Ashley’s setup.

The cat was there. I can’t remember what all Eddie did in the dream, but it somehow mattered.

I really, really, really hate it when people think that giving generic advice on a specific situation will help matters, or make them look smarter, wiser, and more experienced – especially when it’s unwanted and un-asked for.

Well, Maria’s back here. She went straight home from school because she wanted money, or so she says. She called her parents to pick her up from downtown. I bet she just got lost/confused.

#10 Rantt Ô_õ 11/8

I love Dr. Lee influences.

Just thought I should mention that Maria and I were late for class yesterday because she spent 45 minutes on her hair.

She and I had class at the same time, so I figured I’d teach her how to use public transportation. That’s right, she never knew how to use it. I explained to her that we needed to leave really early, because we’d be walking part of the way to get our bus passes.

I set a time for us to leave. She was ten minutes late for that, because of her hair.
The words, “You’re walking too fast,” were common from her mouth. Strangely, I was walking slower than normal.

We waited for a bus, got on, then waited for a train. I had to tell her to hang on to her bags. First thing she did in the train was take a pair of seats for herself, throwing her book bag and purse on the seat next to her.

I also had to explain to her to make sure to get on the NORTHBOUND train to get home. I reiterated- it’s the one that says HOWARD on it.

I haven’t seen her since we arrived at school yesterday. She probably got lost.

Chicago was flooded. “Jefferson” street was slowly becoming a river. It was shallow, but swimable. A bridge had been built over it, but the supports to that were crumbling. I stood, waiting, watching. People shopped around in the city slowly becoming Venice. Others swam in the forming channels. One woman and several others stood upon the bridge and admired the view. The men noticed bits of concrete falling into the water, and darted off the bridge. The woman panicked, and fell with the bridge. She was alright, and was helped to the edge by swimmers. The water was freezing, as it was winter. A man exited the water with his swimming trunks hanging to low. He didn’t pull them up until someone commented that the mouse was out of the house.

At this time I was reminded that I was traveling somewhere for business. I checked my arms to make sure my tattoos would not be peeking out under my sleeves. I also examined my tattoos. On my right shoulder, I had the Powerpuff Girls. On my left, I had “Cartoon Cold Sunday Night.” (I have no idea what that meant.) I put my sleeves down, and the bus I was waiting for arrived.

I was traveling by Greyhound to wherever it was I was going. The bus was going to “East Ohio,” and making a stop in “Westfield,” which was where I was going. As we traveled, I stared out into the countryside. Many rivers and bridges were in the view, and many of the bridges were being worked on by construction crews. Thankfully, none of the bridges the bus traveled on were being worked on.

Arriving in Westfield, I find myself in a road-apple ridden amusement park. I look for someone who works there, as it is after hours, and I need to speak to the management regarding a job I was assigned. One of the workers is Isha. I greet her, have a good It’s-been-so-long-since-I’ve-seen-you cry, and she leads me to a store.

At the store are other people shopping, but most noticeably are Jorenko, ZRaven, and Squee. Only Jorenko takes active part in shopping with me for Nintendo products. There are several systems of SNES and NES variety piled in a corner next to a TV, along with many games. For some reason, there are BOX SNESs as well as Box NESs.

We decide to test out a couple systems, just to make sure they work. Sure enough they do, and, for some reason, the NES we grabbed was playing a Gamecube Zelda game. It was great looking, and Link looked like a 3d, cel-shaded version of the Animated Series Link. Whoever was playing was repeatedly attacking the already dead moblin from the cinematic we’d just seen.

I ask the people behind the counter for the pricing, and the man says, “We don’t carry that.” The girl grabs a catolog and slams it on the table in front of him. The man returns to his knitting, and the punk-raver girl flips through for the prices. $12 for a box NES, $14 for the top-loader, $31 for the box SNES, $33 for the top-loader.

And that’s where I woke up.

Legalise, regulate, and tax the hell out of prostitution.

She just walked in, looked in the mirror, said “Trust me, girl, I know.”

Then she waits a brief moment and tries to start up the conversation we just had wherein she didn’t detect I insulted her intelligence.

So I went on and insulted her intelligence, and she didn’t get any of it.

I explained to her how her generalizations are usually wrong and offensive, and she’s like “what generalizations”

To which I replied the pastor conversation (wherein she stated that any man of god who is not a Catholic priest is a man of the devil and will trick you), assuming all online communities are cults, among other things.

“I never said any of that!”

BULL FUCKING SHIT.

She denied every point I brought to mind, and she could only defend herself with actions that happened today. She said I’m being rude, but she couldn’t exactly place why other than I’ve told her to shut up today.

She said she’s PREFER me to interrupt her to affirm what she’s saying. I see that as ruder that asking her to not repeat herself. She would prefer that I smile and nod than counter her non-working mind’s views.

Christ, did this girl just totally ignore anything regarding free-thought when she was growing up?

She doesn’t realize how stupid she’s making herself look when she repeats herself constantly. I attempt to explain this to her. I tell her that people might not comment not because they don’t get what she’s saying, but because they don’t get WHY she’s saying, and saying so much. She replies that I should say something. Again, I explain to her that “I will not speak while someone else is speaking, it’s rude to talk ove-”

Maria: “Nonononono, yo-”

Me: “You’re talking over me right now, be quiet for a second so I can explain this to you. When you talk, you don’t breathe: you repeat yourself right after you just said it, and you leave no room for someone to comment without talking over you. And when I do take the time to follow your rules and comment while you’re speaking, you don’t shut up and you don’t let me add to the conversation.”

Maria: “Nonono, you don’t get it, I just want a ‘uh-huh’ or something.”

Me: “I give you that, but you’re too busy talking to notice; You’re too busy saying, ‘Trust me, I know’ five times to things you barely get.”

Maria: “What do I barely get? I mean, what is it that you’ve told me that I don’t understand? What is something you’ve explained that you think I don’t understand?”

Me: “My situation at the arcade (I get tokens from doing side work for the owner. She thinks I get tokens by flirting with everyone.). My relationship with Troy. (She assumes he’s my ‘Chicago Boyfriend’ while Jorenko is my ‘Out of Town Boyfriend’) My request to not be involved in your dealings with others.”

Maria: “It’s just my way of saying, ‘Okay, whatever.'”

Me: “Wouldn’t it be easier to say, ‘Okay, whatever,’ than pretending you understand and making your own false generalizations about it?”

Maria: “Generalizations? Wha?”

Me: *scoff, smirk*

Maria: “Okay, fine, whatever, I get it, you’re so rude.”

Me: “At least I don’t try to spark up conversation with a person who’s just going to to bathroom.”

Maria: “What, you mean this morning? All I said was hi and you just ignored me!”

Me: “I waved, I nodded, and I said ‘Hi’ back.”

Maria: “I didn’t see that.”

Me: “Then you continued talking to the TV.”

Maria: “I do that a lot.”

Me: “You talked loud enough, as if you were trying to comment to me about what was going on on the TV.”

Maria: “Nonononono, girl, I talk to myself while watching tv. It’s just commenting on what’s on, Ashley does the same.”

Me: “You usually make verbal comments when someone else is in the room, which would not be ‘all the time.'”

Maria: “It’s not like I talk to myself.”

Me: “You just said you did.”

Maria: “Wha? You’re rude! I just comment to no one about what I think is funny or stupid on TV”

Me: “So you enjoy narrating your thought process. I can live with that.”

Maria: “Narrating? What does that mean? You’re rude. It’s not narrating.”

Me: “It’ Narrating. Making verbal your thoughts or actions.”

Maria: “You see? You get it. And the other things I say mean that I don’t care.”

Me: “Alright, now that I know that, I won’t take anything you say to heart.”

Maria: “You know, you’ve got your own sayings and stupid stuff like that, too.” *leaves the room*

I dare her to name any. She’d probably say that my use of three-syllable words is rude. She’d probably say that I’m scary. She’s probably say I’m stupid for hanging out at an arcade. She’d probably say that I’m scary because I play videogames. She’d probably say I’m satanic because I spend time on the internet.