It sounded a bit better as I actually spoke it, while walking, earlier. Ah, coincidence. Sometimes a situation just... aligns. Stars and moons and suns are more the materials of poems, but I've no time for a poem, tonight. Prose shall have to suffice. For now. Dear me, parity is a cruel mistress.

Bored

My classes are beginning to bore me. The only times Calculus is entertaining is when I get to take a test or quizzes. Otherwise, nada. But I still have to do the homework. Meh, go figure. However, in my near delirious state of mental idleness, to prevent myself from falling asleep I wrote some prose-etry. So here they are, uneditted (including gramatical mistakes), straight from the class discussed. Enjoy! (I'll warn ya now, it's a tad... odd. In a bad way. But that's public school for you, eh? New poll up, by the way.)

4 f(e)=A=r 0*f #
A Calculus Crypt

Although I am tempted, I dare not sleep, for troubles of old and Newton shall plague. I phase in and then out, round and about the room to preserve my reserve of patience. I ponder and plea for some activity that shall waken my poor soul from slumber, but regretfully it appears to me that this Calculus still has my number. Alas and alack, my slumped over back leaves my head to look for a pillow, but since she's off track and my mind's on the rack, I'm required to weep with the willow. And cries I now write for I no longer fight the boredom and idle depression, but though it sounds trite and is devoid of bite, my thoughts creep into rhyming recession.STOP I declare, for I'm going somewhere in which dreams overcome every difference and sum, and I still question why we all multiply every figure and shape in each plane and planescape in a binary code, a numerical ode, to a one and some zeros, our nihilistic heores, all counting the days till our greens turn to grays and I stand up and SCREAM
THEY ARE NOT WHAT THEY SEEM! "No use, all," is the morbid last call. Drink to me darling with a twinkle of eye and your Romantic sigh-ed of the story.

Econ, The Do

I demand to know why I supply an answer right in my mind's eye that's right when I use common cents that I have never earned. Earned, then spurned, is how this works, with bureacrats and business jerks all plying, trying, crying, lieing, buying my soul and entire whole attention span to dollar signs and whines of unemployed landminds planted within these coded pages, stirring rages, closing cages on what I was sure was true. But you, you fury causing thought that ought not to supply its quantity of persistence in sustaining its sad existence solely spreading lies intended to be known as fact. A fact? A fact! No use of tact is used when reality abused is defied and warped and lied upon its shell. Theories, theories, queries teary mindeyes. I find that now I've been turned blind, like Justice with her laws and rules, but all the these new rules are formed by fools who believe no God, so odd, yet blindly trust that rust shall not adulterate the rate of change in time of this out of control rhyme that deals in, but makes, no cents.

Economic Eccentricities

Fingers sans toes, whoever knows to press the keys to success. It's a breeze to cough and wheeze out notes from throats exhaling zounds of different sounds. A missed key here unlocks a trapdoor of discord that hides beneath the floor. A cry, a scream, a minor sigh of dark romance to dance and prance and waltz with faults of step in the 3/4 march of life "Hup One, hup three", he yells at me, and I don't care for his notes or stare as I unload a barrage of staccato bullets aimed at his heart. It's a start, in this sonorous war, but I fear it won't end before the double bar of death. I practice C's and miseries for coming concerts of despair and symphonies of agonies, oh listener beware! A masterpiece of writing, a sonata of silence, a concerto of nothing, a soundless,
e
m
p
t
y

VOID

Sin

My greatest sin is envy. You were expecting gluttony, right? From most appearances, it might be sloth. But there are some things, important things, that I do do. I see sloth as not doing what has to be done. I do what I need to, I just don't do it promptly. I've too little self-esteem for pride, I repress all the lust I can, I don't think badly of others often enough to get angry, and I'm any but greedy for material possessions.

So that leaves envy. And I have it bad. Mainly I'm envious of power. Not exactly physical power, or political, or the "traditional" uses of the word. I want to be able to create/perform works that have real power. I see so many who can and do, and since I feel inadequate in that regard, I'm envious instead of appreciative. It takes away from other people's accomplishments so because I try to find flaws to make myself feel better. Or I don't at all, and I slip and slide down a watery plastic slope of depression. Oh the grass stains on my fragile frame, believe you me.

I suppose the desire for power is rooted in my lack of purpose. For those who might not have picked up on my oh so subtle hints, the main reason I'm still living is delusion. The problem is, I see the delusion and know I'm doing it, so it doesn't work all that well. I crave a meaning, or at the very least a tangible, concrete value. I shouldn't, I have meaning to at least a few people, but I want to be able to affect more. It's like a futile obsession, because I'll never believe it when I do, if I actually did it would fade so fast it would be equitable to worthless, and it's all dust on the wind after a few years anyway.

I don't know, I listen to a song, see a movie, watch an actor, read a book, and I'm moved. I want to do that to other people. It's at once a depressant, an impetus, and an inspiration. And when I face my failure (whether it's just perception or actually existant), I just become more envious of those who succeed.

Really, I've been falling back on my novel a whole lot. I keep thinking "this will be the culmination, this will be the ideas and affect I want to achieve. This will be exactly what I want to create so I can rest easy for the duration of my life, living my piddly little anticlimatic math teacher goal but not caring I'm not something more because I have created something good." And there's where it gets even worse. I'll write my novel and get feedback (I'll probably have you all do surveys). Now, the positive I won't believe. Especially if it's lukewarm, unenthused, "polite" positive. Don't give me that. I want truthful results, but I obviously want them to be good too. So I'll try to put a great deal of effort into this. You know Perse, in all its 40+ pages, only had about 20000 words? I want to at least double that. This thing is going to be... different. I'm looking forward to it more than I've looked forward to much of anything in recent memory. And yet, I know it will be a huge letdown. But... we'll see. Be honest. I'm a paranoid, timid little ball of nerves.

Oh dear.

Quick Thought for the Day:

Was the first person to say "No guts, no glory" an organ donor?

When Vice Principals go Mad on Radio (Or Madness at the Polls)

"Breaker 19, Breaker 19, this is Sugar Cube, we've got a domestic disturbance in front of the auditorium, over."
"Sugar Cube, this is Salt Block, do you need back up, over?"
"Salt Block, we have two males approximately 15 years of age apparently quarrelling over whether twinkies are more delicious than the blood of the innocent. They have crowbars, I'm going in, over."
"Sugar Cube, I'm calling in the Tazer-Guard, OVER."
"Salt Block, I'm gonna have to use my broadsword to control the situation OVER!"
"Sugar Cube, I need you to abort the mission, I repeat, ABORT OVER."
"Salt Block, I'm currently engaged in a firefight with malatov cocktails and a whole lotta hand grenades, I'm sending in the assassin kangaroos, OVER!"
"ABORT Sugar Cube, ABORT!"
"Breaking the line... can't take... kamikaze chimapanzees.... need.... more... VODKA!!!"
"WE HAVE NO LIQUOR!!! ONLY FRUIT PUNCH, OVER!"
"THE LIBERTARIANS ARE EVERYWHE-" *crash* *pop* *BANG* *BANG*
"Sugar Cube? Sugar Cube! NOOOOO"

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Heh, I got bored yesterday. Really, really bored. So that's one of the five "pieces" I wrote on a whim. It was kinda fun.

Anyway, election didn't turn out "as planned." There were no epic cataclysms, Ragnarok did not occur, nor did I transcend my physical form to the blissful angelic state that awaits my wayward soul. But Shannondale did get a Badnarik vote, so it's all good baby! I was depressed this morning, but Cardboard proved a wonderful cure to what ailed me, so I'm in good spirits. Tomorrow, and most of the rest of the semester, looks pretty bleak. English, Calculus, Economics, and Band all involve more work and/or boredom than I'd prefer in an average day. It's especially bad since I'm mostly decided on what I'll do in and after college, so I've little incentive to work now. Go figure.

Other than that, not much else is new. My mother said one of the most painful things to me after reading my letters (I may post another sometime) from yesterday: "Forget Math, you should be a writer." Some people have so much nerve...

Finally, I bought a pirate game at Gameboard today! (We went to the mall to perform that dreaded ritual of futility, clothes shopping. But no pants would fit me at JCPenny, so I get to go pantsless! Or I'll have to borrow some of yours. Hey, we teenage boys want in people's pants for a good reason!) Anyway, it's a neat little game. Hopefully I can set it up in Cardboard next time. Hope to see you all there!

The End

-Saturday July 4, 2074
John Stephenson, AP Columnist

A cold wind blew over the gathering. As the coffin was lowered, tears filled eyes of even the most stoic among us. It was over. He was over. The crazy dream turned reality that had been a career no one, except perhaps Mr. Meggs himself, believed was possible, had finally ended. The priest said a simple, quaint eulogy and the final page turned. With a sigh, I returned home to my apartment, introspectively questioning what all this vast mystery of life was really about. I couldn't help but turn back, and with a touch of sadness, I released one last "Hooey."

Or not. That would have been all too poetically just, but as romantic as that sounds if there's one thing that man taught me, it's that humor is the only thing that should be constant in one's life. No, Meggs having an ordinary funeral would be about as appropriate as him being a novelist, politician, comedian, or even Nobel Prize winning trash collector. Although from the looks of it, each one of those and more was present at what can best be described as a "Finally a Vacation!" party. Revolutionary? Hardly. Appropriate? You bet your shiny metal britches!

D- Meggs grew up the impoverished son of a textile worker in Southern Alabama who was forced to teach himself during his youth so he wouldn't suffer from the “inadequacy” that was the Alabaman school system. Although he failed third grade thrice, he lucky in the fact that his teacher decided he was advanced enough to proceed to the public high school. While there, he enjoyed an illustrious career of breaking hearts, skulls, and records for an astonishing amount of sexual deviancy. Although he barely passed all of his math classes, he decided to pursue the subject because it was an area in which he didn't fear change. As he said, "If 2+2 starts equaling 5, then I'll still be right half the time." He graduated last in his class from a local college, moved to Knoxville because of a blood debt and what appeared to be an illegal child with his Puerto Rican man slave who had family in Nashville, and pursued an illustrious career of destroying the hope, dreams, and optimism of all students that faced his unmerciful wrath. At least, that's how he told it.

In fact, Meggs was fairly normal. He lived a standard, fairly uneventful youth. He possessed an above average intelligence, did quite well in school, proved charismatic in a disturbing, unorthodox way, and saw a number of pathways to a variety of futures open up before him. But being the unconventional bum he was, he settled for teaching high school, and speaking from experience, the world is a much better place for it.

As we stood listening to the comic (one of Meggs's former students), I couldn't help but remember the jokes the man himself had told. It was like an obsession. He had a dark, warped since of humor that would have been intimidating in a lesser man and undistinguished in a greater one. Some of the things he said were certainly grounds for lawsuits, but when you’d inspired the greatest lawyer Knoxville had seen in years to stop “Snorting coke and start blowing smoke” it was hard to get convicted of the numerous crimes he willfully admitted committing. He may not have been the best math whiz ever, but the man was indubitably entertaining.

After the comic, various former students, ranging from his first year in 2010 to his last from just last May, read their favorite quotes, snippets from his novels, and “math problems” in a session that proved touching, insightful, and downright hilarious. He’d never published any of them despite a great deal of encouragement, but the word was that he had left permission for his students to do “Whatever the Hell, Heaven, or Nirvana they pleased” with his “scribbles, doodlings, and obscene grotesqueries”, and a compilation was planned to be released on the first day of school in August. The school had already promised to make a “D- Meggs Memorial Bathroom” where his quotes will be strewn all over the walls where he often wrote them himself, in his spare time. He claimed to have his greatest inspirations in the bathroom, and his handwriting had become a permanent feature of every trip to the urinal.

Then came the dancing. Meggs never claimed to be a very graceful dancer, and he had given himself plenty of opportunities to prove himself right. The band played staples of his classroom that ranged from the 1700s all the way to a neo-neo-romantic classical piece one of his own students had composed last year. As many of us are getting on in years, we weren’t able to imitate our youthful experiences. But needless to say, we made up for our lack of motion with many very fond memories.

Finally we adjourned to the auditorium where the grand finale took place: Meggs’s last work, a brief summation of his entire life learnings and experiences, was read for the first time. It was really his suicide note, but none of us could dare call it that. He’d convinced so many of us against the idea that we knew his own death had been more of an “appropriate ending” than any of the selfish, futile plots of our days. In typical Meggs style, it proved amusing, sporadic, and optimistic (in a characteristically pessimistic way). There were truly tears in every eye, but not from sadness. No, these were of hope, joy, and nostalgia.

He spoke fondly of his “thankfully over past.” He described a few of us specifically in less than flattering manners, but we could picture the playful irreverent gleam in his eye as he had written it. He spoke of his expectations for us all. He encouraged us, as he always had, to just be happy, as he was so lucky to have been all his life, even at the moment he had killed himself.

As he seemingly spoke to us from the grave, I zoned out, as I had done so often in his math class those many years and ago, and thought of how much he had affected me. He had truly cared in an unobtrusive way that made him quite easy to get close to. As open a person as I’ve met, he brought himself down to our level and made himself more of an educated peer than an authority figure. I had hated math until his class, and even after it I still dreaded each period. But I learned not to worry so much about it. I learned that stress and lofty aspirations are not synonymous. Mr. Meggs taught me that I really, truly could do what I wanted. He just reminded me I’d have to pay the price, unlike other blind optimists. He encouraged us just to be happy, whatever that might involve (within reason). He was the first person to take an interest in my writing, the first to critique and actually try to interpret it, and the first to tell me never to stop. I followed his advice, and I’m happy to this very day. I think he’d be the most proud of me for that.

In all of his 64 years of teaching, D- Meggs inspired thousands. He listened. He cared. And, perhaps best of all, he entertained. To Mr. Meggs from all of his students, thank you. Mission Accomplished.

Hope

It's my hope the above will come true. Certainly it won't in scale or quality, but if I can achieve even part of that, it will be a wondrous accomplishment.

Thinking about my own inevitable end is at once sad, intriguing, and beautiful. It's odd, how most everything truly beautiful is sad. Songs, movies, books; the best are generally poignant and touching. If I only had the ability... Ah well. So I wrote this because I was inspired by a line in another blog and by recent events that dealt with death and the future. I want to be that ideal. I want to have that death. Hopefully I'll try to accomplish it.

Over the past few days I've been reminded how much I enjoy helping people. I mean, helping them work out who and what they want to be. It'd be wonderful if I actually succeeded, but I'm just not experienced enough. Philosophy? I've got that. Optimism? I've got the best type. But I just can't answer every question. And when I can't, the disappointment's terrible. I'm still glad to listen and speak any advice I may or may not have. It's almost enough to make me switch my goal to psychiatry, but I don't think it's active enough for me. The money, the schooling, the contained nature... It just wouldn't work.

So I'm still back aiming for that goal. It does sound nice, doesn't it? If, in the end, all that's named for me is a High School Bathroom I think I'll have done pretty well. It's not about a material legacy. It's about affecting people for the better. It's about inspiring them to be what you decided not to be. It's about creating a ripple effect of happiness. I can only hope it will happen to me.