I’m mad at my best friend and I don’t want to talk to her right now. But there’s no one else for me to talk to???

Yesterday, I came across this doodle that I drew in 1992:

I am drowning.
The water is murky and ice cold.
My skin is turning blue and my life is diminishing.
I don’t expect anyone to save me.
Even though I’m dying, I doubt I’ll ever totally run out of oxygen.

But when I do get back to the surface, as I believe I will eventually,
I will still be frozen
I will need to thaw.
I don’t know if there will be time to thaw completely before I start to drown again.
And if that happens,
I can’t say that I’ll survive.

Well???
Maybe.

Cereal-with-a-fork??? for the third time. Oy.

I don’t like the use of term viral to describe ideas that spread quickly. I prefer to say that they’re infectious or something like that. It’s just that viral sounds contrived“Hey, it spreads like a virus, so it’s??? um??? viral!”. Viral doesn’t necessarily mean that it spreads like a virus. Saying that something is viral just means that it has something to do with viruses. Viral diseases are diseases caused by viruses. A viral object could be one that looks like a virus in the same way a feline one looks like a cat. But when you say that something is infectious, the metaphor of being infected by a virus maps more closely to being infected by an idea. And the implication of spreading easily follows that understanding.

Unfortunately, I doubt infectious would be as catchy as viral. The word just isn’t viral enough, you could say. Although the term may have originated from the buzzworld of marketing (e.g., “viral marketing”, “permission marketing”, “opt-in”, “opt-out”), the idea of ideas spreading like viruses have been around for a long time. It’s only now that it’s starting to really catch on. Infectious ideas are called memes (rhymes with beams), by the way. Now go tell everyone else.

If the only way I could be happy, or at least constantly be in a good mood, is by always being drowsy at the same time, I wouldn’t mind so much. I guess that’s what alcoholism is, kind of.

I blame those Chunky Soup commercials for confusing me as to which utensil to use when eating my cereal.

Every day I pray to God, asking Him if He is really there??? and every day I get no answer.

I’m sort of glad that I didn’t think of anything like Napster before Shawn Fanning did. I say that because if I did think of it before him, I probably wouldn’t have done anything about it and I would never forgive myself! Anyhoo, I have other ideas that can really take off, even if they won’t rock the world in the same way Napster has.

Brains???
Splattered against the wall.
No, not mine.
No one I know.

Yet, there they are???
In my mind.
A gruesome thought, I know.
Well, I don’t think it is.

Sure, the imagery is disgusting,
But the thought soothes.
I am not a sick boy.
Not like that, anyway.

But whether I think those brains are mine or someone else’s,
What I see in that scene is silence.
But not the bad silence.
I see true solace
Solace in not-being.

Of course, I don’t believe that dyingviolently or peacefullyis relieving.
No, not at all.
But thinking about it sure can be at times.
Yes, thinking about not thinking.
Chunky-salsa style.
Yum.

Ack! I just did the cereal-with-a-fork thing again.