Ponder.

This is nothing more than a careless lack of understanding.

This is certainly nothing less than a classic dilemma of identity brushed up against a lunatic-stark contrast of culture and paraconformity. It's not really really, when you get right down to the bottom of it. The problem itself only exists in the fact that the problem exists, so what you wind up with is a sort of existential Mobius-strip-cum-ouroboros, which is quite literally the most pretentious thing I have ever thought of, much less written, in my entire fucking life.

See? Right there. Why did I let that bother me? Why did I let that thought, the idea that an idea I just shat out on paper was absurdly pretentious, trouble me enough to warrant pointing out its pretentiousness? Was the act of pointing out pretentiousness an act of pretentiousness in and of itself? Have I just escalated into realms of metacrazy? Am I caught in an infinite loop of postmodern brainwanking?

I'm proud as shit of the phrase 'postmodern brainwanking.' Bet your ass I'm working that one into conversation at the office on Monday.

If you want to know a secret, and you don't have a choice but to say yes because you're reading something I've already written, the only reason I'm putting any of this down on paper right now is because I fucking love the way my keyboard feels. The action on this thing is incredible. Space bar is a little stiff but that's also to do with the fact that I'm retraining my hands, my thick and stupid hands, in the way that I type. I used to hit the space bar with my right index finger, see, but I realized that this was slowing down my typing speed potential and I really wanted to get that up to 85 words a minute. Ironically, I've slowed down to about 70 because my right thumb, like the rest of my hands, is thick and stupid and doesn't take kindly to learning and absolutely refuses to hit the space bar when I want it to.

So I keep teaching.

I make music at you all because I love the sounds you make back at me. I change the sounds I make at you so the sounds you make back at me are louder and more fervent. Performance is a great big ol' metaphor for lovemaking. Ain't that something? Come to think of it, so's cooking. Shit, I bet a few minutes of thought and you can turn anything into a metaphor for lovemaking – it is, at the end of the day, the end goal of us as organisms, making more of us. Hell of a lot of fun, too. I get to make music regularly, though, so that metaphor only goes so far.

One thirty eight aye em. Will this be another sleepless night, I wonder? No, no, I can feel myself getting tired, that sort of dry itch around the edge of the eyes, but I can tell from the thunder-rumbles deep in my brainstem that it'll almost certainly be a *restless* night. Not a whole lot I can do there but lie down and toss and turn and take what little unburdened sleep I can grab.

One day someone is going to find this; it'll either be for research into my unauthorized biography or to establish a motive for willing my own head bones to shatter. Either way, this person is going to think I'm fucking crazy. I might as well be, it's a good look on me.

Wait.

I never did like sitting still.

Time-biding was never a strong skill of mine, and when the chance came round to do it I treated killing time like it was heroin. Doing nothing, making no moves, shaking no worlds and rattling no chains is incredibly comfortable when you're filling it with mindlessness. I've played the first half of dozens of games but never finished them because that would be Getting Something Done, and that defeats the whole point. Letting days flow by without putting another notch in your gun barrel is easy, right up until the point where you realize it's all starting to rust.

Shaking no worlds and rattling no chains is comfortable. What is uncomfortable is very long stretches of silence. Thelonious Monk was famously quoted as saying "The notes you don't play are just as important as the ones that you do." Musically I kind of understand that, but if you ask me to explain I'm just going to grab a harmonica and honk at you until you either nod sagely or go away.

Keep a rhythm. Level entire cities, and then sit down and lie in the newly-created, slightly rubbley fields. Do great things and then do no thing.

This has nothing to do, by the way, with me having not written a damn thing in two weeks. Smartasses.