The Square Root of Negative One

Today's thought is a song. Just wrote it over the last couple days, and it's the first one I've done in quite a few weeks that's intended to be sung rather than rapped. To clarify the title of the song, the square root of negative one is "I" for imaginary number. And no, I'm not that clever, it's the title of a poem by E.E. Cummings I just stole. I'm a lyricist, not a poet. Anyway:

I'd like to find myself

My own somebody else

But it's just me

Oh yeah I stroll alone

Have yet to make a home

Just a splash on the scene

There's been some near misses that I've been quite caught up in

More times than I can identify

Overcompensate for my intense fear of rejection

My sabotage is justified, at least in my mind

Chorus:

Don't tell me I'm stuck like this

I swear there's gotta be a better way

Don't tell me that I'm better off on my own

I won't listen if that's all you have to say

Why am I insecure?

I'm just so damn unsure

And really can you blame me

Withhold my best effort

'Cause nothing ever works

It all becomes the same thing

Make that same mistake and get my foolish hopes up

More times than I can identify

Prove to myself too much is never enough

My sabotage is justified, at least in my mind

(chorus)

I'm a catastrophe

Caught in calamity

Looking for a sense of calm

All my shenanigans

I'm no huge fan of them

It's my right to be so wrong

I've heard you'll never find it if you're out to do so

More times than I can identify

I'm not the person any one of you knows

My sabotage is justified, at least in my mind

(Chorus x2)

My Mouth: A "Duh" Leak On My Face

I'm going to start with some lyrics here:

"Been a bad day, don't talk to me, going to ride this out. My black heart, rips apart, with your big mouth. I'm sick, with my sickness, don't touch me... You'll get this. I'm useless, lazy, perverted, and you hate me."

I don't know what it is about today, but I'm just way, way down. Started off by waking up 15 minutes after my alarm should have gone off had I remembered to set it... Wound up saying nothing but the wrong things all through my first class. Got my first English essay back... And I wasn't too stoked on the subject I'd picked, so it's not too surprising it didn't come out as well as it needed to... But I make a frickin' LOT more errors in my writing than I thought I had.

That one sucks 'cause I figured English would be my strong subject by miles. My Dad was an English teacher, so I always had the stuff beat into my face. Turns out a decade of spewing words on my own terms has me pretty deeply sunk into some bad habits. Not sure why it's such a blow to the ego to get the outcome I'd expected... But it's probably a snowball effect.

On top of all that, I've finally hit a wall in my math class which has been my strong subject so far. I call what we're learning "math semantics" as it's about sorting through 100 parenthesis, 247 minus signs, and x to the power of a billion... I don't know why I have such a hard time keeping track of all the rules in play, but I'm starting to fall a bit behind.

Couple education with romance, and I'm just not looking at things from a very positive perspective. I'm WAY too sprung on the girl I'm seeing, and if I don't scare her off, I get the persuasion she's not after the kind of relationship I am anyway. Pessimism is a pretty staple trait of my love life, so this is far from unusual.

I need to accomplish something other than coming home and immediately turning to my vices. It's my first day not seeing the young lady in question since our first date, so I think I'm just going to go bury my face in a book and strum on my guitar a bit.

Sorry for the scattered thoughts today. My head's just a bit of a mess and this is the best way I could think of to sort it out.

I'll try to be back to my normal state soon. Ta-ta for now.

Society Today Is Just A Group Of Inidividuals

My own lyrics right there.

This is probably going to be a brief one, but I have a rant to go on.

I'm sick of the ego-tarded, "me" centered society we live in. People feel so entitled to be themselves that they've reached the point of trying to force others to accept them at face value for no reason other than "that's the way it should be."

Maybe that's the way things should be, but it's not the way things are.

There's a push on the ol' FaceSpace for Tattoo/Piercing acceptance in the workplace, and I think it's a huge crock of crap. SORRY KIDS! Just 'cause you want to have the "right" to express yourself through images placed on your body for the world to see doesn't mean I have to accept it.

As a former, and probably future employer I'm just going to come out and say this. If you look like a mook, I don't want you to represent me. As the person on the right side of the desk, this is my prerogative, not yours. Sure the "mook" look is arbitrary, but that's the beauty of being the employer... It's MY choice, and YOUR choice is to do what you can to suit the "socially acceptable" image and work with me... Or not.

No stupid (curse word)ing Facebook group is going to take that right from employers.

I make a big point in my own life, but sometimes you have to fit in to get in. That's just the rules, and if you're not willing to follow them, you're not going to win the bloody game.

I'm not against a person's right to present themselves as they see fit, but I am against being told I should accept it. If you wear a dunce cap in public, chances are people are going to look at you like you're stupid... And that's not their fault.

Or, as my mom would say:

"If you can't run with the big dogs, stay off the porch."

Ugh... My stupid generation and their desperate need to stand out even if they have NO qualities that make them EARN it in a respectable way.

Girls. All I really want (to understand) is girls.

I have my own theory on the inherent difference between men and women. I call it the StupidCrazy factor. In my little, itty bitty perspective of the world, it's a very simple thing. Men are stupid, and women are crazy.

Men being stupid assume there must be some logic to the female. We're constantly trying to figure them out, 'cause we're stupid enough to think we can. Ask any guy you see what he really knows about the ladies, and I'm sure you're in for a nice belly laugh.

But women are crazy. No two of 'em are alike enough to be able to get a broad (get it?) generalization. They seem... At least to my empty head to operate on a whole different plain of reality than I do. On top of that, most all the ones I know think there's something tricky about understanding men. It can't just be that we're dorks, there's gotta be something complicated about it.

Do I think the genders shouldn't co-mingle? Heck no! It's just worth a lot more effort than a lot of people want to put forth to be sure you're able to coexist with your perspective mate. Maybe like... Stir the pot a few times before you call the sauce done.

On a personal note, I just started... Uh... "Seeing" someone this last week myself. I think I get to use that term, but seems that semantics game is a type of gymnastics I just fumble around in. Not that I'm a braggart or anything; but it's been a long time since I've had a lot of feelings that are coming up right now, and it's fairly exciting.

Downside to this upswing in my life is that I'm a very good example of the male in one big regard. I'm freaking dumb. Half the time I open my mouth my inner-me goes "REALLY dude?!" but the young lady I see is... Oddly reassuring about it. Like she gets me or something.

No one like, really "gets" me in my opinion. I'm a really odd character, but for once someone can take the scramble of duh and form it into the thought I was trying to convey. She even called me out on a trait of mine not a lot of people really pick up on, let alone address in an understanding manor.

Maybe there's a ratio of idiotic and coo-coo that balance out. I'm not sure, but I'm hoping to find out, and at least at the moment I'm dumb enough to see this going as well as things go. For now, I'm just going to try and stay up a little bit longer tonight... She said she was going to call when she got home around 1:00.

To summarize, I'm dumb and think women are crazy. 'Night all.

Putting both the "Pro" and "Nate" into "Procrastination."

Let's start this rambling at the beginning.

I was a very smart kid growing up, constantly being tested, evaluated, and generally praised for my intelligence levels. Having two very bright parents, one of whom was an educator until he became a school owner/principal, I had a lot of advantages for my intellectual prowess. However, I'm something of a lazy mook, so by the time puberty hit I decided I could rest on my laurels and piss school away... Eventually dropping out a few weeks into my Jr. year at 16 years old and going very quickly into the full time work world, and becoming an "adult" before I was legally entitled to the title.

Ten years later, I have a resume which looks killer from an experience standpoint, and like crap on the educational side. 3 years management experience, time served anywhere from retail to being a legal assistant/administrative assistant... And a GED. Needless to say, given the current job market, I'm in something of a limbo spot.

Overqualified for entry level, but at least from what I've been able to find, undereducated and as such under-qualified to return to management. I've been looking for work (half-assedly I admit) for the last half a year, and haven't gotten anything lined up that would earn me more money than my Unemployment Insurance was getting me by on.

So, this is life telling me something, and it's about time I listened to it when it says:

"Hey, moron. Go back to school. You think you're so smart, you're going to have to prove that for a couple years to get people to believe you. Gotta get the 'man's' piece of paper that says you actually know a thing or two, and you may actually find that financial security which is the REAL American dream."

So, at 26, I'm finally a full-time, full-fledged, full-of-it college freshman. And I have to say, the experience thus far is one of the best I've had in my life. My teachers (not butt-kissing Dr. C, just being honest) have all blown my mind as to how effective they are at getting my interest. All three of them are very funny, which if you know me personally you know that's how I tend to communicate myself, and very wise... Even though my math teacher seems to be my exact freaking age. (Dude even shares a bunch of interests with me, needless to say, I'm man-crushin' on that one.)

I've developed a pretty solid work ethic as a result of my past, but I find one little bad habit haunting me... I LOVE to procrastinate. Not that I actually take joy in it, but the way I put things off, you'd think it was some sort of sexual experience.

My first real assignment in my English class is actually writing a blog, or at least three entries therein... And ironically, I'm blogging as a form a procrastination on that assignment. Thing is that I don't want to just do my typical fare introvertive song and dance for the assignment, but I haven't been able to commit fully to any of the subjects I've come up with thus far.

First I thought about doing something on the process of producing music, but I don't want to be quite that narcissistic... Then I was kicking around the idea of doing lyrical anaylization, but realized I'd really struggle to come to any concise conclusions in that subject. So I think I've settled on my subject of choice... I'm just going to drum up some difficult situations I'm going through, and just write out my thoughts on how to handle them and what the ramifications of my actions are. In the next few months I have to tackle some financial demons from my past in the form of moving back to my mom's house and filing bankruptcy, not to mention trying to develop the skills and behaviors that will allow me to become a better college student than I ever was in any educational arena in my past.

I'll be posting these entries here once I finally shoot 'em out. But for now, it's Friday, I have some music to work on, and as it's a sunny day, I'll probably be scooting around on the old skateboard for a while before I get anything significant done. To those of you that have made it this far in the text, thanks for sifting through. The N8 is off for now, but no worse than usual.

-"The" Nate

The dawning of a new airhead

Ah, blogging. Yet another form of communication between myself and random people whom for all I know don't even exist. I suppose I should start this one off on an introductory note...

Hi. My name is Nate... And I'm an express-o-holic.

I have a tendency to run off at the mouth, or in this case, fingers more often than I probably should. I have a lot of opinions on a lot of things, most of which defy that which are held as popular. From pop-culture to politics and a few spots which don't fit an alliterative theme in between, if it happens, I probably have two cents to throw at it.

That being said, I have to follow that statement with a disclaimer:

"The opinions of The Nate are merely his asinine drivel and shouldn't be taken seriously by anyone, as he doesn't take them as such himself."

So, in the future, I'll be using this as an avenue for my pedantic rants on anything from health care reform to Lady Gaga. For now however, this is just providing me an ample distraction from my homework (researching blogs, ironically) so I'll simply use the opportunity to reach out and say hello.

So...

... Uh...

Hello!