Listening: The Crystal Method, The Crystal Method
Mentally Replaying: Saturday/Sunday

on the verge of waking and dreaming I contemplate all the stuff that normally gets pushed to my periphery while I go through the task of living. A million thoughts change and mutate, fall away and conjoin as they fire off from the central begining thought: Reality.

My perception of reality is held in my thoughts, and an idea, a new, is a serios mindjob for me. I remember the first distinct mindjob happened when I wandered into a bathroom that had two mirrors set up opposite each other and I stood and stared at the endless edges of the reflected mirrors. I spent a good 20 minutes watching my arms and legs lift and lower, being reflected multiple times, and all at once. Serious Mindjob.

every single thought that crashed through my heaving cerebrum seemed altogether important and I couldn't decide which way to start. explaining the simplest thoughts required backing up to get a better view up it all, but then explaining that required backing up to get a better view of it all. the simplest example I can remember was thinking about trying describe what I look like by first having to establish - in long form, rather than the short cuts I am normally afforded by speaking the same language as my cohorts and understanding inflection and body movement - what I meant by "me," what I meant by "you," what "contrast" is, the definitions of "brown," and how exactly a mirror works. Big ole mindjob.

everything's wavy and cool, flowing, sinewy, shiny colors flow from normally occuring patterns and float off to the sides as my eyes track them, it's like chasing a rainbow. the definition of distance and what is and what is not present is a major mindjob and it's so mindblowingly beautiful it catches my breath several times. The world has always been a wonderful place and I'm re-proving it to myself about a thousand times a second.

sensory input that is not visual seems mostly accurate, however suddeness will grab my brain and bend it right over - someone who had been quiet suddenly chiming in in, the AC kicking in, etc. i wonder about the other little trips, emotional, sexual, music i lose myself in, my neice's face

I lay down and observe the ideas crashing over me, several times I am moved to tears by their wonderousness, I offer a fervent prayer to the Almighty in thanks for His grace and love in the completely mindblowing perfection of His Creation. There is sharpness between what is happening and what is not happening and as ideas coalesce, diverge and drive themselves together again I am again amazed at the patterns in them. computerized fractals are only a convenient design to explain how thoughts drive away from each other, only to connect again in a stronger, more integrated fashion.

ideas are what I live for. the mindjob that makes me stop and think "I guess I never thought about it that way before" is what I live for, my dad's stories, Frida Kahlo's paintings, dialogue with friends, philosophy, Tori Amos' songs, a good dinner... They give me hope and they are my trip.

I went on a journey and I left some markers back there. Don't know when/if I'll go back on that same journey again, but for now it explained and reaffirmed a lot what what I already knew on a level that goes beyond fact, beyond language and into my basic interaction with/understanding of/reaction to reality.

My buzz is for poking and seeing how it responds. in physicallity this made me nervous as I was terrified of hurting myself or someone else. But poking goes beyond the physical, it includes social interaction, language, thought process, sometimes trying to mindjob other people, sometimes just trying to fuck with them. I have a deep need to know if and how I can affect people. IF and how I can change their minds, if and how I can make them understand what I think and know how I feel. It's a mindjob in reverse to know I got through to someone and it's a double mindjob to listen to someone and realize that, no shit, I really do get them. loud and clear.

circles come together as the perfect certainty things. things come and go and then they come back again and then they go again, and you can turn a circle inside-out and it's still a circle. circles resist patterns because they are already the perfect pattern and need no help from other vectors to exist. But that doesn't mean patterns can't make a circle a prettier image.

But when things are different I instinctively try to associate it with a commonality I know of somewhere else. Who does that guy remind me of? I think I know that singer, let me listen to the song and see if I can figure it out. ideas work the same way and it's in my nature to try to find out what an idea reminds me of. at the height of it all I was reminded of Picasso's Guernica, Herman Hesse's Siddhartha, Plato's thoughts on art and perfection - which made me sit up-right when I realized a connection in the name Plato and the children's toy "Play-doh", Frida Kahlo's El Sueño, Aristotle's Poetics and countless drawings based on Lovecraft. I was reminded of strong changes, of things that were important to me, and they were all important, reality, love, ideas, blood, embraces, bruises, dancing, communion, commonality

at some point the sinwey lines were rows of tiny but jagged teet and if I squinted I could make out serpentine eyes staring out from nether reaches. i just watched them back, they looked at me with the same disinterest that I think they always did.

If I became obsessed with anything it was finding what would consitute normality. I was pointing out things and calling them "situation normal" which referred mostly to the normal process of things, not necessarily what is normal on a consensus-type level. It was/is situation normal to think of blood pouring from out of my skin, to think about people being blown up or to at least consider hurting myself, and then I was finding the modus operandi of those around me and what their buzz was. Buzz is/was/will be defined by me as what people want - what they live for. I came to the conclusion that some buzzes must be killed at all costs.

I love the way people interact with each other and seeing it for what it is was and is a major mindjob. when we first crawled out of our caves and stood blinking against the light, watching a caravan of mastodons make it down to the river to drink, we had to find a way to go back inside the cave and deliver that vision to the brains of our comrades didn't follow us out to watch. We invented the shorthand of language, it's cheap, it's awkward, but it lets us order dinner when we go out.

ever since, I'm convinced, we've been trying to find new ways to share the serious trip of our experiences with each other. we want to lock our memories in someone else's brain, it makes us know that is was important, it gives our ideas and visions some idea of permanance and most importantly we commune with each other in intense social mindjobs. so we come up with ways to give people an in, we write poetry or make music, we parody each other and invent new media for art and expression that we hope will give each other a special "backstage pass" to that which is going on in our brains.

It reaffirmed the beauty and strength that I find in live theatre. as a media it's the most true for me, when performed perfectly (or as close as possible, forgive me, Plato). It is the one thing that has allowed me to not only jack into (I think) someone else's head, when I do it, my buzz for communion lets me share my creation with people, opening a door for them to jack into me.

ideas, over and over ideas. everything was significant, and though I was worried I wouldn't be able to distinguish between something that was key to hold onto - my muscles were a little bit of a concern - and what was ok to let go. Also there were some obessions I forcibly avoided getting caught up in. I relived a couple of relationships and came to at least one helpful conclusion.

it's beautiful, it's interconnected, it can't be helped - it's a bitch, it's unkind/unmerciful, and that's why it's so great.

ideas => meta = biggest fucking mindjob

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PS - saw Empire, staring John Leguizamo. Holy crap, it's good. but ACK! Denise Richards is stupid and ugly.