______ _ _ ______ _____ ______ /\___/\ / __ \ | `. | | / __ \ | __ \ / __ \ /\___/\ ) ( | |__| | | `. | | |__| | | | \ | | |__| | ) ( =\ /= | __ | | |`. | | __ | | | | | | __ | =\ /= ) ( | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | ) ( / \ www.|_| |_| | | | | |_| |_| | | | | |_| |_|.net / \ ) ( ______ | | | | ______ | |__/ | ______ ) ( / \ |______| |_| |_| |______| |_____/ |______| / \ \ / e z i n e \ / \__ __/ __________________________________________________________ \__ __/ )) (( // "It All Comes Together" \\ (( 08/11/03 anada526 )) \) (/ I don't have anything particularly noteworthy to write, other than an ode to the joy of writing textfiles again. Since Anada's disappearance some time ago, I've written a few textfiles, but haven't sent them to any other textfile zine. I don't really know why; fear of rejection, maybe, or, the fact I've got a running online commentary again for the first time since I graduated from college over two years ago, or, most likely, I didn't feel like it. Since Anada went MIA, life's changed a lot. My first novel, Axis Mundi Sum, has been published by the Invisible College Press. I'm close to finishing my second novel. My drinking skyrocketed for a while, then evened out. I spent a year in the suburbs, living the laid-back life, and then moved back to Houston proper. I started growing my hair out. Read a lot of books. Man, have things changed. If I was a better writer, I could put into words the visual picture I've formed of the trajectory of my existence. Right now, my life is hinting at being on the upswing for the first time in a while, and I'm waiting for a little more time to pass to be able to construct a new mental topographic map of recent months. Hopefully, by the time I do, I'll be able to write about it to my satisfaction -- preferably in textfile form. Man, I missed this. Since getting a book published made me feel like something resembling a legitimate writer (I'll be even more legitimate when I no longer have to hold down a day job), I haven't taken a lot of time to write anything but novels. Hell, I felt that way even before I got a contract. Now, however, my outlet for non-novel, non-personal website, writing has returned, and I can write differently. I can let it flow freely. I can write random shit without wondering if friends will use it as a tool to inquire about my life. Words become water, become a couple beers when there's nobody around to drink with, nobody to entertain. Simply, and not entirely truthfully, writing is fun again. I planned on ending there, but something else occurred to me. Textfiles are, among other things, my outlet for unabashed doubt. I haven't written anything like this in a long time, and it is, I dare say, cathartic. Sweet Jesus, I can't begin to describe how happy I am to be writing this, listening to Hypocrisy's "Fire In the Sky," my mind drifting under a night sky to past moments where I found myself daydreaming about other past moments. This is exactly where I want to be. --The Corpse >(o.o)< `,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`, >(o.o)< TABLE OF CONTENTS "All I Really Need To Know I Learned In College" by Beth ............line 76 "These Days" by Effy ...............................................line 177 "Movie" by Pheeble .................................................line 221 >(o.o)< `,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`, >(o.o)< "All I Really Need To Know I Learned In College" by Beth - Porada@aol.com All I really need to know about how to live and what to do and how to be, I learned in college. Wisdom was not at the top of the university mountain, but there in the early morning light in the gutter at the bottom of that mountain. These are the things I learned: · Share everything. Use the campus computers to download bootleg music to burn onto CDs for all your friends. · Play quarters. Sure it seems meaningless and juvenile, but that's only for the first round or two. · Don't hit... more than once per rotation: wait your turn. · Put things back where you found them. If you went to a house party and picked up someone for the night then the next morning, be kind enough to drive them back to the curb in front of that same house... or at least to a bus stop nearby. · Clean up your own mess... or at least shove it under your bunk until the end of the semester. · Don't take things that aren't yours or, as we like to say in college, "don't take any shit from anybody." · Say you are sorry when you hurt somebody. Or, if that "hurt" happens to be because the two of you got down in a drunken stupor the night before, just cross the street and look the other way as if they were a complete stranger to you. · Wash your hands before you come home from Cancun. · Flush the toilet, and all suspect substances -- if you hear sirens outside the front door. · Warm cookies and milk are good for you. That's why you can eat as many as you want on the campus dining plan and bill them to your parents. And don't mind that extra flab... it's just the 'freshman fifteen'... everyone expects you to gain it: it's just part of the college experience. · Live a balanced life -- learn a little and think a little and draw and paint and sing and dance and play and work every day a little. Then drink shots all night, puke in the morning and do it all again! · Take a nap every afternoon... that's when you will be sitting through your most boring classes. · When you go out into the world, watch out for traffic, hold hands and stick together... then begin singing boisterously, "Show me the way to go home!" or "Hey hey we're the Monkees!" Sure, it might seem a little strange, but it's a ritual that every college freshman must go though. Just means that it's closing time. · Be aware of wonder. Remember the little seeds in the yogurt carton: The paper burns down and the smoke goes up and nobody really knows how or why, but we all like it. · Cats and hamsters and white mice and even the little seeds in the yogurt carton -- they all grow up and reproduce and have to care for their offspring until they die. So do we. Some of us may even have to graduate and get a job. You see, it's called 'real life.' If possible, try not to think about it for now. · And then remember reading your first letter from the college financial aid office and the first word you learned -- the biggest of all -- DEBT. Yes, those student loans are going to come due sooner than you think. The good news is that after graduation you can get a job and sit in a cubicle taking all that shit you refused to take in college. But don't let that detract from those four (or more!) glorious years. Everything you need to know is in there somewhere. The Golden Rule (NEVER spill the beer) and love and basic contraception. Ecology (grow your own) and politics (legalize it!) and equality (waiting our turns in long keg lines) and sane living (surviving the inevitable roommate-from-hell). Take one of these items and extrapolate it into sophisticated adult terms and apply it to your assigned reading along with a good dose of BS. There! You've just written your first college essay! Think what a better world it would be if we all -- the whole world -- played like this totally mega-huge, lollapalooza F'ing game of quarters and then lay down with one of our classmates for a nap. Or if all governments had a basic policy to always look the other way and pretend like they didn't know each other the day after they did something really embarrassing together. And it is still true, no matter how old you are -- when you go out into the world, it is best to hold hands and stick together and sing "Hey hey we're the Monkees!" as loudly as possible. Copyright © 2002 B. Andersen, apologies to Mr. Fulghum (who learned everything he needed to know in kindergarten ... right, sure, as if he never went to college) >(o.o)< `,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`, >(o.o)< "These Days" by Effy - effy@anada.net Chest painfully contracting with each cough, I spent another night self-quarantined in my apartment watching TV, the cable modem gone dead again. What hell to have to resort to public access television late on a week night. At least I had gotten out earlier -- gone to visit my bandmates, gone to visit my friend at the mall on her night shift, grabbed a coffee. I thought previously that if I hadn't done these things, I would've surely gone insane spending another day alone with my cold. I knew the infection; I could taste the sickness in my throat as my coughs made crackling, wheezing noises. At least it gave me the initiate to quit smoking two days before, but I think that was adding to my insanity. Yes, my newfound insanity, not so shocking or interesting to speak of. Pretty self-absorbed, in actuality. My doctor six months ago had labeled it depression, but probably only because I deeply believed it to be so. But I really think that isolated times like this one caused me to stop and think what has become of my own soul. I could spout off intellectual wisdom at the drop of a hat to anyone who needed a verbal boost -- but when it came to looking inside myself, all that was there were brimming feelings of longing and resentment. Longing for perfection in my relationship, which if I had a better opinion of myself, it would've been so. Resenting the past for making me the resentful human I am. Trying so hard not to be human: hypocritical, ever-morphing, and dying. Dying scared the shit out of me. Not my own death, but that everyone I love would die before me, and I would never be able to teach myself to be fulfilled on my own. Again, selfish? Everything done in the name of happiness is essentially selfish. And I didn't believe in sin. Or god. I hadn't thought of god in a long time. Numbers came up that eventually became profound. 23. 33. 11. 1111. 8, 9. Such is justice and strength. Hawks soaring in the sky could momentarily comfort my inner anxiety and need. Crows could brighten my spirits. But aloneness never allowed me to cleanse myself. Examine birthchart -- Saturn, my karma, in Libra. Balance. The scales. Justice. Number 11. On the downside -- karma can be harsh when you have to not learn to live your life through others. When did I become this? Understanding myself was never enough initiative to change myself. >(o.o)< `,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`, >(o.o)< "Movie" by Pheeble - funxdome@hotmail.com It all dashes past, like frames on a movie, like quicksand. I have no control over it, I just have to sit back like a spectator in a dark room and watch my own life played out by other actors. Sometimes I can't even grasp what I myself am doing, its just a vivid scene portrayed in gaudy colours and special effects. Somehow, I can assume the argument that I was washed away in a blur of events, or a whirl of magic. Sure, I didn't know what I was doing. I never knew what I was doing. Words written, programmed, defined for me. Alienesque in sound and meaning. A script dictated and actions dirrected and followed to the T. And when the movie's over? Who takes the blame? Who will stay with me? The lights fade up, the curtain comes down, but the play is far from over, but I merely present another player. There is no tomorrow, but another sequel to some shit house film that no one wanted to watch anyway. /|/| ( @ @) ) ^ / ||| (c) 2003 Anada E'zine www.anada.net * Anada is cat-friendly. / )|||____________________________________________________________________ (__________________________________________________________________________)