Day in, Day out

There is a man who tells himself every morning when he wakes up that life is not worth waking up for. He grumbles, he whines, but he does get up. And every few days he is completely surprised anew when he realizes how much he loves that same life.

Then, he goes back to grumbling.

Meanwhile, 20 years before...

***TIME*CAPSULE****         *APRIL 23,1992 THURSDAY 10:49 AM*

I have had, as always several unique experiences since the last time I wrote one of these journal entries. This entry in itself is unique since I am typing it using PC write, a word processing package, that is saved onto the hard drive of my Tandy 4016 DX (386).

I shall begin with the sad statement that it has been almost (well, EXACTLY) sixteen days since I have been intimate with a female. O' the suffering. Anyway, I broke everything off with Angel on a sort of a lark. I just could not stand her immature posturing any longer. Plus, I kind of knew that it just wouldn't last anyhow. She took it quite well, I believe. At first she didn't believe me and then she just went off, after another boytoy. Oh well.

I haven't been partyin with Shawn lately.

Erin and his new job seem to keep him occupied. He cannot do anything without telling her, and she is constantly around him. She doesn't like him to go anywhere, but when I ask him to do something on the weekend in front of her she makes a big production of how she doesn't mind and that she doesn't care, how she is not trying to stifle his life with his friends. And later I catch her bitching at him to 'go ahead and get arrested and drunk go right ahead. Just don't call me tomorrow.' And half the time we don't do anything totally uncalled for. We just sit around, play guitar, drink a couple and go visit friends and such, Hanging out at Kevin's watching him and Sunny play duets, going to Dusty's and getting a little wild on occasion, Nothing seriously outrageous. I save all the really wild ideas for special occasions. I think it comes down to a lack of trust on both their parts. Erin thinks Shawn is so hot that girls are just dying for him all over town, and Shawn thinks that I, of all people, am still messing with Erin. I wish I had never let him meet the bitch, cause that is what she is turning out to be. For godsake's we're only

19!!!! She's only 17! Neither of them know what the fuck, both are too insecure for a real relationship. They need to chill out and have fun. Shawn just wants to stay home and stay high all the time and Erin just wants to be around Shawn to keep him from going out when she's not around. They are really burning out fast on each other and that is only going to end up one way - in them breaking up. But you can't give advice to a girl who thinks she is the most mature teenager in existence and you can't help a friend who lies all the time about everything. So, forgive me, I give up for the time being. Let shit happen on itself and stop interfering.

Back to my life- Nothing happening. I haven't been to class in about 3 weeks. Mentally, I'm burnt out on Cobol and the like.I find myself further and further adrift on a sea of apathy. I no longer care

about a Bachelor's degree in Computer science. At DeVry, I have found, not a delight in knowledge and learning new programming, but a doctorate in greed. Everyone is after the almighty dollar and The business computer programs are  full of the same tedious language as the corporations and their money grubbing masters. I guess it makes a lot of sense that they would be now, on a look back. Excuse me if I thought the computer languages themselves would avoid the overwritten overcliched passages, not unlike some uncertain politician trying to bullshit his way over something he has no knowledge whatsoever of. It is all trite and above that it is so stiflingly boring that it is driving me completely insane! I should have looked further into the program before enrolling. Alas, I was eighteen and had nothing particularly better to do, so in trademark spontaneous Kirk fashion, I was down here like a shot.

And there is nothing that can replace the experience of being on my own and all that I have seen, felt, and learned in the 'big city'. Suzanna, Poon, Greg, Cracky, Richard, Doug, Imre, Mike Latanovich, Mike Brumley, Mark, Kevin, James, Arkansas Dave, Ed, Gary, all the friends I have met and known and learned something from. It's all been an experience that helped me grow up and helped me understand the world and myself better and I wouldn't change any of that. But, the school is not what I was expecting, the programming isn't the kind that I wanted. I wanted graphics and software creation and such - not programs that run payroll accounts and the like.

It is all good, and steady, money making work. But my life is not run on how many $ I make. I never have worried about being rich. I worry about whether or not I will ever make true sense of my existence and how I could contribute any of my stories, poems, or pictures to the art the world already knows. I worry about whether or not some young child will ever read something that I wrote and gain an understanding about something that they did not fully comprehend beforehand. I worry about being happy with myself and having others see me as I want to be: a kind helpful person who would do anything to help someone and expect a little kindness in return... I worry about doing something in my life that really matters, giving to the world instead of just taking and getting every little bit out of everyone around me. I worry about love and I worry about finding it. I can only follow my heart, and no matter how much trouble it eventually gets me into, that is the only path for me. 

"The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the

unreasonable man adapts the world to himself. Therefore,
all progress depends on the unreasonable man."

                          George Bernard Shaw

"Man seeks knowledge, like the lemming seeks the ocean,

instinct provoking self destruction."
                                                                       -who else? Kirk Fucking Berryhill

Going to work

Some days you just don't want to wake up.

Most days, even.

But you do, and you get up, and you go to work and you take in the day, and you do the best you can with what you are given, and what you can make of it.

And you come home, beat sometimes- bowed, but unbroken. You put on your best smile and you ask the kids how their day was. And you listen.

And you do whatever little things you can to put the smile back into their hearts, when their spirits are low. And, you find that this little bit is enough to put the smile back into your heart.

You love, you live. And you let yourself have a bit of a cry now and then (in between your rages at the world, ha!).

And you get by.

And you tell yourself its all for them- and maybe that's how you con yourself into keeping on, keeping on.

But the truth is, its for you - and them.

Its all about continuing to put a smile in their hearts, so they can smile at you, and put that smile back into yours.

And one day, maybe they'll understand the hardships. But somedays, you don't want them to. You just want them to be happy. And if they never see your pain- maybe its all for the better, right?

I pass the crown

I believe that i have finally found someone who hates love more than me.

May be kind of odd, that it took me this long to figure it out.

Possibly willful blindness on my part.

People who want to hate love - are just afraid of it. When you've been burned so many times, its just a natural response.

And, at that point, what's NOT to be afraid of? It's all surrender, and never any victory in sight- UNLESS, you just happen to have found your "True Love"

And, well- thats just so much bullshit to me- Even when it involves "happy" couples, but i digress.

And double-blind spot- me- the "Andrea" thing.

So many emotions, I don't even trust myself to really completely form thoughts properly.

- we were always so much alike- and we responded in so OPPOSITE ways.

Like Shawn, both of us saw our Dads beat our mothers- I grew up to despise that, to a sometimes uncontrollable level of rage towards men who even hint towards being abusive to women.
Shawn, on the other hand, gravitated towards a need to control the woman in his life- to the point of violence-when she doesn't respond in the way most desired by him.

And its so antithesis to my being- that sentence above is actually the FIRST time i;ve even tried to understand it. I've beat up Shawn for manhandling a girlfriend. To me, its weakness, its control-freak ultra-masculine, domination psychology. Its Wrong.

And who am i to label my morality on the world around me, but= BUT nothing. Your freedom ends when it impinges upon the freedom of the person next to you.

And, i realize i care- even about the abstract.

And even though i take great pains to pretend NOT to give a shit- i cant deny my own nature,

No more than i can deny Andrea's. She cannot ALLOW herslef the heady illusion of Love, of respect, of self-awareness,.of surrender.