All the king's horses and all the king's men...

Every night it's the same. You get done with everything and you retire to your bedroom thinking you'll go to bed and sleep comfortably and then wake up. But what happens is that you only think you'll go to bed and sleep comfortably and wake up.

I don't like sleeping. Sure I like to dream and it's pretty sometimes but it's a bitch waking up when I'm supposed to. I thought it was because I like to think I'm carefree and would rather be up than have my higher functions shut down. Like voluntary paralysis. But its not that. Now I know I'm terrified of sleeping. You think you'll go to bed and sleep comfortably but it never happens. You end up looking at the ceiling and the slow rhythm of the fan taunting you. You think about the void and you try to fill it with transiency, thinking about the day and family and friends and how great it is you're supposed to have. But the hole gets deeper and every night hits harder than the one before. And then you turn and close your eyes and realize that you have to wake up to the same bullshit over again. Your life is as meaningful as that empty bottle of your favourite cologne that you're going to throw away later but never do. Sleepless is better than fooling yourself you get to start over. There is no brilliant sequel because the original sucked so bad. Nobody wanted a Legally Blonde 2.
You start going to fucked up places in your head and you get up and watch some TV you have no appetite for. You're not enjoying yourself but that's how it is. You do push ups to tire yourself but that only gets your heart racing. There is no higher purpose and there is no meaning and you realize that there is nothing to fill that hole, you toss and suddenly you're riding your bike, falling asleep.

Press Play. Forward. Side Change.
Welcome to Side B of Bullshit. This whole living thing will never make sense and you may now bang your head against the wall.

I hate it when they say you should sleep over something, it'll be better in the morning. Morning's here, motherfuckers. And the streets are still on fire.

Its a world, Mad

These days I've been watching Mad Men. These were the guys who invented the Marlboro Man, the quintessential idea of a man. And his loyal horse and hat. These guys invented want. Its not entirely funny that the protagonist of the show, Don Draper is AskMen.com's most influential man of 2009.
So if you really think about this, designer clothes should stop mattering much. I don't think trying to look good counts as artificial but I bet there are so many other khuwa-e-shat that probably aren't innate. But with that kind of power, one can make anyone want anything. You can soften standards and erode rules given time. You can make traditions that last as well as be immensely profitable for decades. You can make society in your image, have them be loyal to a code invented by you. With subtle themes and scenes on TV, you can make people sympathize with a cause or fall in hate with it. A news article's enough to send a mob burning down town. The idea disturbs and intrigues me. And sounds all too familiar.
And nobody can tell Marlboro Man is limp in the nuts from all the smoking and riding.

Monty Python the Rough

I discovered today that Monty Python is not a python but a boa. I feel relieved that it won't grow 15 feet and then kill me but i'm also kinda pissed about calling him Monty Boa now. Join the words together and you have a black name that doesn't mean anything, except when I imagine Montyb'ua's big black boyfriend and I get scared. Now I'm definitely not comfortable with my snake being associated with a big black man. Pun so not intended.

I liked to think my snake was an Indian Rock Python but every video I saw of a 4 month "baby" python had a 2 foot slender snake killing a rodent the size of a Pakistani rat. And those things kill cats in my neighbourhood. It aroused my suspicion because Monty is around 8 inches so either I got a fat midget snake or what I believed was a python is actually some other snake. So I fired up google and started looking at all these mug shots until one just seemed strikingly familiar to Monty.

Gents and ladies, I present to you the rough scaled sand boa. They call it lazy and docile. I think Monty Python the Rough and I will get along just fine.

Dances with Weirdos

Its wedding season and the new year! Applause!
And then there's Moharram and the other new year! Awkward Silence.

I won't deny that I love living in Pakistan. I figure other people doing all my work and more does has it's damaging effect on me but I like the fact that people here are able to resiliently warp their surroundings and beliefs into something they can digest. They aren't stupid. They're just comfortable with stupidity and the escape it provides. I have a poem:

Sylvia Plath was smart and beautiful.
But she was tired,
stuck her head in the oven, killed herself.
But it was just asphyxiation, she wasn't fired.

Her bell jar reminds me of here, "rebreathing only our own fetid air, more and more subject to delusion". We need something so badly to believe in that we perpetuate lies to ourselves and cling on to them for dear life. Not now Ma, I'm busy making my own reality.

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But on to more pressing issues. One of my friends is getting married and although I don't (read can't) dance, its fun to just go over and have a good time. But only one thing: I did dance. Only for a few seconds, but that's all that was needed for someone to write my name on a list. Generally I'm a fan of the idea of panentheism but there was nothing divine on the dance carpet. Boys can't coordinate for life and girls just make the boys feel worse by being disproportionately better.
There are worse things and it makes me feel good in some capacity that I'm trying. To dance.
I feel a shit coming.

A quickie

old enough, not a graduate, on the path to graduation, thinks driver may have abetted/allowed pathan gentlemen from across the road to steal my music panel twice, thinks driver's stories are fucking interesting, got a letter from Mule Creek State Prison from an inmate, psyched to write back, had beloved phone (RIP) stolen from his room by a certain individual who shall remain unnamed (for now), loves his pet python who will not hesitate in eating me later, poor in continuity of tenses, always keeps his copy of The Hobbit nearby, hated J R R's long descriptions of the so many forests of middle earth, is going to feed Monty now.

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I originally had 2 commas in mind but it wasn't working for me. But I threw in some dirty talk and tale from prison. And I said "hobbit". hehe