I've actually been updating my myspace blog a lot more than this one. Perhaps it's because I don't like saying negative, or at least especially personal, things there. It's a much more.. superficial place to write. When I start writing here I end up getting too self-reflective and say things that may be true, but that I'd regret saying publicly.

Emmy and I broke up. This happened several weeks ago, labor day, but I was kind of beating around the bush in the subsequent posts. Initially it was more of a trial seperation/break type deal, but I don't foresee anything developing there again since she's gotten rather distant in the last week or so. But that's okay. I understand, and I'm okay with it.

I don't like being single again though, heh. I like the intimacy of relationships. Of growing to love someone. Sharing yourself. Mostly falling asleep with a girl in my arms. Or the smell of a girl's perfume on my collar. Holding her hand. Bringing her flowers just because it makes her happy. Watching her brush her teeth. Stupid little things like that.

The thing that really bothered me about Emmy was that after about 6 months of mutually shallow hook ups I found a girl that I really liked to be with and wanted to see more than one alcohol fueled night. And in the end that was kind of what screwed things up. I didn't want it as casual she did. Though in the end I'm not sure that was fair of me. Still, what we had was good for what it was, and while it lasted. So I'm happy for that.

Another late night post. With everyone asleep but me.

I need to stop doing this.

Last night Pat S. and Stu came and hung out. Stu and I were both kind of stood up by girls, so we had a loser party. And Pat pretended he was stood up, so he could be a loser too (even though he's got like.. a date thing.. later this week).

We drank a lot of MGD, and then went to Jewel and bought a lot of weird food. I got pizzas, Stu got nasty mexican quesedilla things, and Pat got chocolate cake. Weird.

I didn't sleep at all last night. Instead I had a really involved conversation with Sarah on AIM. About all sorts of things. The end of our relationship. The status, or lack thereof, of our new relationships. She took the gloves off and said some things to me I knew she was feeling, but didn't want to say to me. And in a weird way, hearing those things from her made me feel better - about life in general. Even if they weren't "nice" things, they were good to finally know were off her chest.

This morning, around 11, the DSL repair man came and checked things out. He basically said it was a problem with the building and that he might not be able to have things fixed today - it may take another day or two. So I went back and plugged in the 56k modem.

Later I talked to David online for a bit and then he decided to come crash at my place since he didn't have class till 3 tomorrow.

I plugged in my DSL modem again, just for shits and giggles. I watched the Power light come on. Then the ethernet... and then... as if by magic.. the DSL light burst forth in green beauty. I am back on broadband. Thank you SBC.

David and I played hours of Halo 2 double team on XBox Live tonight. And it was good.



I'm tired of being confused. But rather than focus on being confused, and desperately trying to understand things, I've decided to simply stop trying. That's it.

And I'm comfortable with that.

It dawned on me that in spite of having looked forward to this fall, this school year, all summer long - things were easier and happier during that time. I was happier. As usual, the wait for something is more enjoyable than that something itself. I kicked the support beam out from under everything else and now that it's gone, all the other good things that were stacked on top of it are falling and I can't be as happy that they're there, without what was tying it all together.

My throat is sore. Food tastes weird, cigarettes hurt my throat and my head is pounding. I'm sniffling but my nose is clear.

Yeah, I've got a cold. I was supposed to chill with Emmy tonight, but she's heading out party hopping to a bunch of places with her friend, her friend's bf and a bunch of 77's. I would be heading out now, but they're in a car and 1) I hate being driven to parties (or anyplace in general) that I can't get home from via the L or at least a bus (and I don't have the cash for cabs) and 2) there's no room in the car as it is. Moreover, I feel like shit and even though I'd be up for parties - I know it wouldn't help me with this fucking cold. So it's all good. Stu and David are coming over for an oyster party.

I plan on sleeping all day tomorrow. I will not allow myself to wake up before 5pm. I need to get some rest. Cuz the not sleeping is taking its toll. I have sleeping pills now, too.

Over the counter... Calm down.


Menthol is coming back to Chicago, and hopefully Pat S and Sarah will be able to make it to the show.

This summer I read The Perks of Being a Wallflower, Towing Jehovah, Hardboiled Wonderland and the End of the World and Anthem. I was starting to read Atlas Shrugged - but the damn thing is just too big, and my copy too beaten up, to carry along in my bag. So I copped out a bit and am reading this short little book called Into the Wild. Then maybe I'll go back to Atlas Shrugged.

After graduating from Emory University in Atlanta in 1992, top student and athlete Christopher McCandless abandoned his possessions, gave his entire $24,000 savings account to charity and hitchhiked to Alaska, where he went to live in the wilderness. Four months later, he turned up dead. His diary, letters and two notes found at a remote campsite tell of his desperate effort to survive, apparently stranded by an injury and slowly starving. They also reflect the posturing of a confused young man, raised in affluent Annandale, Va., who self-consciously adopted a Tolstoyan renunciation of wealth and return to nature.

That's the synopsis from the book. What scares me about it is how much the guy sounds like Pat Purcell sounds now.

I think I'm going to crash before Stu and David get here.

I need more Dayquil.

Stu, Pat S and I hung out today in our weekly (or so it seems) celebration of "Boose Day Tuesday" (honestly, I think the term is lame).

We drank beer again, watched Long Way Round and then met up with some people at this party way up on the north side. The directions I got were just the address so I kind of had to figure out exactly how to get there. The CTA website acted as if the place didn't exist, but Yahoo! Maps said it did. So I compared the Yahoo map with the CTA L layout, and found an appoximate L stop to get to on the red line. On the map it *seemed* close.

So we got off the L and I said, "Okay.. which way do we walk?" I saw Clark St. ahead and thought that that was the right way because, for whatever reason, I thought we needed to cross Clark to get to Lakeshore. Pat and Stu agreed and we headed that way.

A billion blocks later, and Lakeshore nowhere in sight, we called a cab. The cabby then informed us we were headed in the completely opposite direction. We took a $15 cab ride and to our simultaneous amusement and horror, the place we were trying to get was EXTREMELY close to the L stop we had gotten off at. That is, it would have been really close if we walked the right fucking direction. Arghhhhhh! We probably walked 10 city blocks. Stu kept saying, "I told you it was longer than it looked on the map." Turned out I was right about the distance, but none of us caught on that we were going the wrong way.

But at least this time we made it to the party. Unlike the last time.

Some girl told me I look like Jimmy Fallon, from Saturday Night Live. Then she took me to her friends and told them I looked like Jimmy Fallon. Then one of them told me SNL sucks and I was confused that they thought I actually was Jimmy Fallon. Or that telling me SNL sucks.. somehow.. made... sense.. or.. affected me.. in some way... ?



Why is it I can never sleep? Stu's asleep. Pat's asleep. It's freaking 4:30am. I decided to take this to my advantage, and am currently writing a script about an insomniac, in the midst of my insomniac episodes.

Stu: some girl on myspace just sent me a message that said i was adorable
Stu: this girls name is miss extreme anal or something. so i think ill definetely be taking baby steps with this one
brendan: LOL
brendan: goddamn I say
Stu: no shit
brendan: "extreme anal".. I don't think I want to know what that means
Stu: thats something noone should ever have to know
brendan: it's an odyssey stu.. take one for the team
Stu: friggin team anal
brendan: hahaha, bad times
Stu: no shit i dont see you takin any for the team
brendan: I'm not the one who got a compliment from queen extreme anal slut buddy or whatever her name was
brendan: otherwise I'd be allllll over it

Production III. I knew it was more experimental geared than the previous to incarnations of the "Production" classes at school. We're shooting on SONY PD150's, which is very cool. Because I intend to take full advantage of access to that camera - outside of class assignments.

But.. I didn't realize how experimental it was going to be. Today was the first day of class (tehnically last week was, but because of labor day the monday classes were cancelled). We spent 45mins doing the lame ass 'get to know you' introductions with classmates that involved first stating our names, then stating our names and where we were from, then an interesting fact about our place of origin (I said, "Aurora has a lot of gangs." to which the teacher said something like, "Oh.. umm.. anything else?" - "Wayne's World was shot everywhere except Aurora."). Then we went around again and this time had to ask someone else about where they were from. Several people took advantage of the kid from Bosnia since he was easily the most likely candidate for questions like that.

I asked why he left.

Then it was on to learning about "Flux" or "Fluxus" art. Which is basically ridiculous performance art. But that may be redundant. She gave us lists of "performance scores" or prompts/instructions for performances. These included things like:
"Lighting Piece - Light a match then watch it till it goes out."
"Exit No. 4 - The audience must pass through a vestibule with a floor covered with mirrors."
"Fall - Throw things that are difficult to throw because of their light weight."

And so on and so forth. They're all like that.

And then we split into groups and had to choose one to perform for the class.

One group wrote "We'll be back in 10 minutes." on the markerboard and then left the room. Yes, they were gone for 10 minutes and we sat there for 10 minutes in near silence, except for the occasional laughter at how ludicrous it was.

The other group made swords and pirate hats out of newspapers and battled as 6 year old boys might.

And my group? I played drums on 3 guys chests with two cigarettes. One by one. Our 'score' said something like, "Play drums with something you have never drummed with, and on something you have never played on."

I would go into the after analysis of our little 'skits' but it's too inane to bother with. Needless to say way too much meaning was put into all 3 of them that never existed in the first place.

The teacher is nice enough, but these topics are just bothering the hell out of me. I hope it's not like this in the future when we get our hands on the cameras and do what we want. But the group shit is quite simply, for lack of a better word, gay.



Last night someone said something to me that really made me rethink the way I am.
"well brendan just start acting like a fucking man, not a boy". It's not something I've heard before outside of the random argument with my mom or something. No one ever really accused me of immaturity throughout my life.

I think I let external sources of validation of my maturity outrule my interpersonal maturity. Like, the fact that I have a key and alarm code to my place of employment validates me, in my mind, as a mature and repsonsible person. Then outside of a professional setting I let things slide and behave as a kid would. I'm not sure what the extent of that is, but I know it's something to work on.


Actually, fuck that. I know who I am and who I'm not.

I'm not a boy.

My DSL connection is messed up, and the internet has come to a stand still for me. The horror. I'm calling tomorrow because I can't maintain the lifestyle I've come to accept due to the benefits of a broadband connection.

56kbps does not stand for "56 kilobytes per second" as most people, including I until recently, thought. Rather, it stands for "56 kiloBITS per second". What does that mean? Well quite simply that the reason you don't get 56 kiloBYTE downloads on a 56k modem is because you're getting 56,000 kiloBITS per second. Or, 7 kilobytes/second.


I'm trying to decide if my new script, basically a romance film, should end happily or negatively. I told David the fork in the road and how it applied to the story - and he said nothing really except point out that none of my films have particularly happy endings. I think that maybe I should try that out. The happy ending was what I originally was going for. And second-guessing usually leads to the wrong guess.

It's time for some happy endings.

On Sunday morning at about 8am, late May, Anime Central 2005 was on its last leg. I hadn't slept in 48hrs. I had various forms of caffeine inside me but my head was still pounding and my eyes still felt like sand paper. David and both Finiaks were sitting on a couch in the lobby, brain dead from the events that had transpired over the weekend. Pat, Stu and Nick were all asleep in the hotel room.

I was standing by the elevators, having a cigarette in one of the only places smoking was allowed in the hotel outside of the smoking rooms (why smoking was permitted next to the elevators is beyond me..). I was thinking about what had gone on during the weekend and how different things were now than the first time I went to Anime Central. I was groping in the dark looking for some kind of explanation. I suppose I was looking for what went wrong.

People were coming and going from the elevators, and I was merely casually observing - not really paying attention to much.

A middle-aged Japanese man approached the elevators and pulled out a pack of cigarettes. I glanced at him and knew I recognized his face but couldn't place it. Then it dawned on me. He was the drummer from The Pillows. The Pillows. The group that did virually all the music for Gainax's Furi Kuri series. I had just seem them perform in an amazing show the day before.

He reached around his pockets looking for a book of matches, or a lighter - but it was clear he didn't have anything on him. He looked at me and I smiled and walked over and pulled out my zippo and lit his cigaretted. He smiled and in broken english said, "Thank you." with a small bow.

I nodded and said "No problem." and walked back to my ash tray.


Smoking's not cool. But for all of the three seconds it took to give him a light, I felt very cool. I lit a cigarette for The Pillows' drummer. But all I could think was that I wished I could have known enough Japanese to say "Awesome fucking show." and thank him for their performance at the concert on Saturday.

In spite of all the bullshit that went on that weekend, lighting his cigarette made it worth it. I know that sounds odd, but it was a very cool feeling to know you helped out someone - in no matter how small a way - whom you are a fan of.

I've spent a lot of time on the web. But there is one site that consistently moves me and feels like a complete celebration of all that life is and all the internet is, for a positive aim.

PostSecret is the best website on the internet. If you can't see part of yourself on this site, then you're not human.

It simultaneously celebrates frailty, and stength. That's not something easy to pull off. I admire it, and all the people who have sent a card there.


Everything is always okay. You can always be better, and you can always be worse. The best doesn't exist, and persuing it can destroy you. The worst doesn't exist, and if you're at that point - that you think is the worst - it will destroy you. So you're okay. Always okay.

And there's nothing wrong with that.

That pic of me up there is terribly outdated.

I'm tired of having doubt cast into my head by other people.
I value the concern, immensely. I'm thankful for that.
But it's the doubt that's always at the end of it. I don't want that. Or need that. I have enough of it for myself.


My head is pounding like it hasn't for a long, long, time. I can't sleep, but I am exhausted.

I want to go to sleep. So that I don't have to be awake till tomorrow night.

All that said, I'm good.

I knew this was going to be a bad night. So all I can do is laugh about it :)