Day Five

One year later?

Can it really be so far ahead into the future that I have entirely abandoned my original plan to keep a "blog", an online rant rag, a cyber journal full of my daily pontifications, quandaries and life-altering novel ideas...(note the pun on words)? The simple answer is yes, it most certainly can be an entire year later. And it is.

I left last summer with the grudging determination to overcome the heinous isolation and solitude that had nearly broken me the year before (I sound like a surprisingly narcissistic Charles Dickens character gone rogue), that is to say, my freshman year, and surprisingly the time that has passed between my last entry and this one has not only proved that all my goals could be met, and could be outdone.

I won't make any sort of grandiose promises for this blog, or even go on a really intricate and well written prologue about how I'm going to write things that really make much of a difference in anything...but I do hope that I can at least do SOMETHING quasi-productive with this space to write and rant and think. I do keep a journal, and I'm very private about the thoughts that I jot down in there, but I do think this could be a good place to muse about the thoughts that sort of tramp around in my mind throughout the day that I don't have the patience to waste journal pages on. For instance;

I was watching TV the other day (a dangerous thing, I know) and one of those disturbingly self-indulgent religious programs found its way onto my screen. I admit; my morbid fascination kept me glued to this program for a good ten minutes, and got me wondering - who honestly watches a show called "SALVATION", with the title emblazoned in armored steel font on the bottom right hand corner of the screen? An the preacher, if that was what he was, was fantastically electric - pounding his chest, bellowing at this enormous half-moon crowd of thousands, verbally beating them into accepting and being excited about the "Ways of God" and what it was to be a good Christian. With all the bellowing and shouting and bulletproof title fonts I almost expected a Rambo-Christ to come running onto the stage at any moment. I turned to the next channel to have my screen engorged with one of the less original - albeit equally horrifying - offspring of Jerry Springer's golden child proto-show, and all I saw was two women roughly the size of elephants clawing each others shirts off to reveal tattoos and piercings while one fat guy stood sort of in the middle of them (far enough away that they couldn't consume him) with a comical look on his face. The reason it was comical was because he looked pretty damn proud that these two women were fighting over him. I'm all in favor of a guy being fought over, but I won't lie; if I was in his shoes, I'd be pretty fucking scared. Scared of my life. Scared of how I was barely a candy wrapper when the cosmos judged you on how many gods you could feed. Scared of how since I wouldn't appease the gods with my shaved head and sweaty button up shirt, maybe these two sparring maidens would turn and, you know, eat me.

How did we come to this, I wondered, sitting in my Floridian living room and turning off the television. When did the transition from Edward R. Murrow to Jerry Springer occur? I'm not sure.

Anyway.

Let's see if I can keep this blog going.

Oh, and did I mention I love chess?