Sunday, August 05, 2007

i learned something today that, i think in the state i was maybe a few months or a year ago, would have devastated me. i can't really be specific but i guess maybe i realized i'm getting used. but then i thought about it, and maybe i'm using this person, too. and as long as i'm getting what i want maybe i can't be too critical of that person taking advantage on the other end. i think it was nietzsche but i can't be sure, anyway it was some philosopher i studied in "intro to philosophical problems" freshman year, but all relationships are based on a mutual desire of something from the other -- like... hey i'll be friends with Joe because he has a convertible, and i need to get around and look cool doing it, and he'll be friends with me because I can get him pot or something. and we talk to each other in the meantime and enjoy each other's company -- and maybe that's a really simplistic and cynical way to look at it, but think about friendships. why do you have the friends you have? not because you admire them more than anyone else. a lot of my best friends are not perfect people and neither am i. you need something from them. they make you feel better about yourself or make you jealous or make you competitive. they feed to your personality in some way. so maybe we're all using each other. and we try to make it out like using someone is the worst thing you can do, but you do it all the time. normally i'd be pretty upset to learn the piece of information that i did, but who knows what that person would think if they could figure out what i was using them for. we've all got these deeply complicated reasons for seeking out the people that we do, and they're mostly there from childhood, from all the things that happened to us, and they'll never be undone. but they dictate why we need the people that we do. you're using everyone you know, to fill a hole or to highlight a strong point, to superimpose revenge on something that happened to you a long time ago. so, who knows. maybe this is the same thing.

Wednesday, August 01, 2007

sort of in the same way that alcohol amplifies all the aspects (good and bad) of one's personality, i think august amplifies all the aspects of pittsburgh's "personality."

it's unbearably hot... i'd compare it to being stuck in the bathroom after a long, hot shower. i walked outside to get lunch today and it felt like the air was trying to strangle me. i complain just like everyone else about the bitter cold in the winter, but i'm almost certain i'd prefer to be cold rather than hot. i don't think there's anytime hotter in pittsburgh than this time in august... and it won't go away until the end of september. christ. i woke up at 2am in a pool of sweat, and that was with the help of jocelyn's window AC unit. i guess they don't make them like they used to -- we had an "emerson quiet kool" growing up (actually i think my brother still uses it, which is a testament to it's unstoppable structural soundness) that would turn my dad's giant master bedroom into an icebox. granted, it was probably an egregious offender to the environment... i can't even fathom the ingredients of the chemical stew that dripped out of that thing onto the grass. but it worked a lot better than the crap thats on the market nowadays. i sound like an old fogey. pioneering the business of waxing nostalgic for a bygone era of home cooling appliances.

and it's steeler's training camp season, which marks the climax, with a collective exhalation, of the whine that has lasted since march about the pirates 15th abysmal season. these are two examples of the need for pittsburgh to get something new to talk about. every year the pirates suck. and yes the management and the ownership is terrible, and doesn't care about winning, and is not upholding what they promised 6 years ago in return for a shiny new ballpark. but frankly, it's old news. i'm tired of hearing about it. but every sports writer in the post-gazette treats the pirates losing as if they just came off a world series win.
also in the realm of i've-got-better-things-to-think-about, it's training camp. and the steelers DID come off a superbowl victory only to wade in the mire of the mediocre. and now there's a new coach. so i guess that entitles the PG to put the goings-on in old latrobe on the front page of the sports section. i mean, don't get me wrong... i'm a steelers fan like everyone else, but it's getting ridiculous..."day 9! today, jeff reed made a 42-yard field goal that allowed practice to end early." who gives a shit. the city lives and breathes hating the pirates and loving the steelers, and that's never more apparent than it is in early- to mid-august.

maybe it's starting to wear a little. i don't know. august, die she must.