Easter Sunday
Forgive me for not writing, oh journal. I have been evolving emotionally and spiritually and intellectually, despite my absence. I have written not for myself but for others and because of that I feel content. I love you, journal. If I could, I would be naked and make love to you because you have kept me feeling warm and safe and secretive throughout my life. I’d love to fuck you. I feel so silly.

Anyway, I’ll just cut to the chase here. Ha. I can’t believe I just used that expression.

Anyway, Wednesday was quite a turning point for me in terms of finding out my purpose here in this world. I was looking at this photo in the school gallery with Tony, and it was fantastic. It was a self portrait of this kid simultaneously sitting on a bench and standing up on a subway platform waiting for the train to come. The station was empty and the train wasn’t there and all you could see was a clear background with ghostlike images of him. I was duly impressed. So was everyone else who had seen the picture. And I was looking at these apparitions of a human being and I was thinking about Vonnegut and how all of us are beams of light in fleshy bodies, human human human, and how I’d like to capture the unity of our souls into one picture using ghostlike images of two children dancing. How appropriate, I felt!

The next day I was in photo feeling very spiritual and my teacher, Mrs. Vergis, was giving us all a speech about how we expect her to answer our questions when we don’t care about what she’s trying to tell us and explain to us and teach us and share with US. And I understood exactly how she felt. So when she was done, I sat there and I looked around and I thought for a while and then I wrote her a two page letter about how when I looked at her all I saw was a youthful beam of light, eager to share with us how human everything can be and how beautiful things are and ready to teach us how to express ourselves creatively and help her express herself creatively and how nobody knew anything anymore.

That night, when I was at my sister’s play I saw her there supervising the money box. As soon as she saw me she smiled and waited for everyone to go into the theatre and said “Well.” And I smiled. And she asked if she could hug me before she said anything else and so I hugged her. And she said, “Well George, I can retire now. After eight years of teaching here, I can retire.” I was sort of confused as to what she meant but then she told me. “Never in my eight years of teaching have I met a student as spiritual and human as you.” I smiled again. I was honestly quite flattered. She then went on to talk to me for an hour about the many troubles of life and how everything could be so much better, and she recommended “The Book” by Alan Watts to me about a million times, which was nice. I picked it up yesterday, by the way, and from what I’ve read (which isn’t very much), it’s fantastic.

Sorry to interject in my own damn entry, but I have to. There’s this terrific line in The Book which says: “It is said that humanity has evolved one-sidedly, growing in technical power without any comparable growth in moral integrity, or, as some would prefer to say, without comparable progress in education and rational thinking.” How perfect, I thought!

And Ms. Vergis said to me, “George, it’s been forty years since there has been a major group of people willing to beautify the world. I think you might be part of something big in the future. I mean, you’re the first kid out of twelve thousand (in her eight years) that has tried to beautify everyone. Maybe you will one day.”

She then went on to tell me about this brilliant man, Mr. Fessler who was incredibly well-read and often went home after work to create gargantuan works of art in his garage. She said that after retiring last June, he went off into the middle of nowhere to try and create a haven for new, inspiring thinkers to sit and do what they love to do for a month or a season or however long they want to. I mean right in the middle of nowhere, on a farm or something.

On a side note, we agreed that I should finish learning German to understand Kafka, to finish learning Mandarin to understand Confucius, to finish learning French to maybe live someplace beautiful in the future with other artists. Dasha told me Jack Kerouac used to post words up on his wall that he didn’t know when he was learning English. I think I’ll do that with English and German and Mandarin and French and loveliness and beauty with pictures and pencils and soulfulness.

After feeling elated Thursday night, I came to school very energetic the next day and not caring so much about what I used to feel was important. We had this test on volumes in Calculus, and I was feeling so damn sad about having to take it that I just sat there and scribbled for a while. Then I started writing a letter to my teacher, Mrs. Spilker. I felt that nobody really writes letters to math teachers, so she might enjoy it. I told her about Mrs. Vergis and everything we had talked about the night before, and how I had proven I could do Calculus (I’m [was] doing very well in that class) in the past, and how I honestly felt like I was going to throw up and my head would explode if I had to take another useless math test. I mean Christ, we were learning about finding the volume of a laundry washer inside a triangle. So I wrote that letter on the back of the test with nothing else really filled out (I think I attempted one problem, but then got bored with it) and went to English.

In English, we were assigned a poet project in which each group was given a specific period of time with different poets in that era. We were given the Beatniks, and our group immediately chose Allen Ginsberg. I thought it was pretty cool that we were given the Beatniks just because I read Howl in class, but I was sort of laughing when this kid David was complaining because he had read something by William Carlos Williams in class and he was stuck with 17th century Victorian. God how I hate that stuff. Actually, I’m just scared as hell of it.

On an end note, I hugged Dasha in the bookstore yesterday feeling quite in love with a person I know will help change everyone’s perspectives on life. We painted eggs today, and it was terrific.

love,
george

I don't really know what I'm supposed to write right now, but I'll just write whatever comes to mind, and that'll be that. OK??

I just got home from the gym, and all of a sudden when Dasha kissed me it seemed like things were okay. And they are. I sort of got pissed off at all these buff people around me for some reason, but it was really because they weren't buff at all. They were just fat and lazy and ignorant and starved for attention. I'm sure everyone was staring at the athletic girl's ass as it was bouncing all over the place. I wasn't though. I was looking at this seventy year old man and listening to Dasha admiring him because he would live to be a thousand. I think people would be happier being turtles.

I really need to stop going to a lot more classes that are bullshit and start focusing most of my energy on English, and maybe some spillage into Photography. I only say the photo part because I've really been turning in some horrible crap, and I feel bad since I talk about aesthetics like I'm a goddamn saint or something, and I never really make anything beautiful. English, well, because I want to be literate and well spoken and well read and filled with a million words I can use to describe a tiny thing like a piece of fruit. Or maybe a twig.

And aren't we all the clichés of the earth, branching off into the sky, and then falling when we don't have the energy to reach for heaven anymore? How twiggish we are! And just like that, aren't the giraffes the ones doing the most beautiful things, reaching their necks to the sky in order to obtain the juiciest fruit? If only humans could evolve in such a beautiful manner! Giraffes must have been the ugliest little things before God told them to stretch! Moloch on wordiness and rambling!

And moloch in the spirit that filled me when I read Howl in front of my Literature class on Friday! I had to stop half way because everyone became droopy eyed and no one found me eloquent at all! But really, I was just wasting time and being a poet and never really thinking how my actions might affect the well being of the simple girl working working working to get into college because that might prove how intellectual and beautiful and worthy she really is of splendor and nobility! And although my lover pleads with me to stop being so lazy and foul-mouthed about education, I just can't help but suffocate and complain! My soul is vibrating loudly for the neighbors for the grandmothers for the high school prostitutes to hear!

And really listen now,

If God were a sunflower, and if angels were pollen, and humans were just tiny little insects scattering to get to a place no soul has found while roaming on earth, wouldn't that be okay?

So let me ask a question here. Why is it that even though we breathe in beautiful oxygen that beautiful flowers beautifully exhale to sustain us, we can't help but pollute our souls with toil and misery and boastfulness? No, it's not supposed to make sense. But yes yes yes, I know what I'm trying to say! Nobody wants to be the worst! Everyone wants to be written about constantly! Everyone wants endless endless ENDLESS attention, and if we don't get it we fucking get frustrated and angry and VENGEFUL! Vengeful on our lovers and soulmates and fellow human beings for not feeding our starved beings around the clock until they choke and die! Why are we such selfish creatures! Let's all be snowmen and turtles dancing around a pipe smoking octopus with smiles smiles smiles!

I looked at the girl I love and I saw this:
----------------------------------------

She had a beautiful soul - more beautiful than any I've ever seen -
Clear and free and endlessly passionate.
But everyone else just saw a body.
So one day, when she was alone,
she knelt beside a flower,
pulled it to her lips,
and kissed it.
After blossoming into an angel,
she looked up at the sky,
smiled
and flew away.

Today I have become a true writer! Like Kafka, I now suffer from tuberculosis (or at least I hope so).

It was lunch time, and I was walking over to the library to read Wampeters, Foma, and Granfalloons by Kurt Vonnegut (I only read things from one writer because I'm narrow-minded), and I coughed and spit on the ground. I know this is a very cheap thing to do, but I did it anyway. But as that phlegm came hurling out of my mouth, I noticed for a split second that it was red. Believing I was mistaken, I turned around, and sure enough, to my disbelief, was a tiny puddle of blood and phlegm on the ground.

At this time I got light headed as hell and ran to the bathroom. I coughed up in the sink. Streaks of blood were in my mucus. I coughed again. More puddles. Of course it wasn't as bad as the first time, but it still scared all hell out of me.

I walked over to the cafeteria, trying to reassure myself that everything was fine. I ate a slice of pizza and refused to acknowledge I had a problem. I then started panting and I got very dizzy, so I walked over to my friend Nathaniel who once told me he thought he had prostate cancer or a hernia or something, and I told him I had been coughing up blood.

"Um, go home man. That's not good."

So I did. I felt very awful about this since I've been missing so much English, which is my only real class I enjoy. I'm sure my teacher felt disappointed since I'm actually starting to open up in class discussions now. Well, only a little bit. I still like to be a shy bastard. I figure I only have a few months to ruin everyone's lives with my opinions, so I better start soon.

Anyway, I drove over to my parents' restaurant and sat in my car for an hour waiting for someone to take me to the doctor. I could've gone myself I realized, but I was just so dizzy! When we got there, my Uncle and I sat in the waiting room for about a dozen hours and a lady took me over to a room where she weighed me (I'm corpulent now they tell me) and asked me what was bothering me. I sort of laughed when I shouldn't have when she asked me if I was "vomiting blood". I regret saying no, because you could tell she didn't really have any worry in her face. I say this because afterwards when I was leaving, I heard her talk about the episode of "Survivor" instead of calling another kid up to be doctored to death.

I told the doctor that I smoked. I just couldn't lie. And as my Uncle pointed out later, I also told him I would quit smoking, just like the millions of other patients who tell their doctors that. I probably will though. I think I'm too young to die. Anyway, he said it was probably the smoking that was doing it to me, and that I would be fine, except he was worried I might have tuberculosis. I, of course, almost fainted at this. I got a TB test shot which hurt like hell because nurses always have to tell me I've got "tough skin". The shot left a bubble on my arm which is still there. My Uncle also pointed out that it will come out positive because I've had a TB vaccine in the past few years and that they'll do the x-rays and everything despite waiting three days for test results. Wonderful.

And even if I do have TB, that might be very good. Not really. I really wish I would've written a couple novels before I died. Maybe I can. I'll start now. They'll be about solipsistic snowmen and the dipsomaniacal fathers that build them with their kids. How fitting!

On a side note, I read an interview by Vonnegut with the late Isaac Asimov. I think Asimov was on the ball when he said "Hell is other people."

Love,
-George

Kafka, Orwell, and Vonnegut all weren't too idealistic about other people. I don't think I am either. Maybe the snowman dies at the end of the story. That wouldn't be so bad though. His soul would be in heaven anyway.