Day Four: Conspiracy Theories

The phone rings in a dream.

Drove with my grandparents to Manchester. 45 minute drive. My grandma took a plane to North Carolina to witness my cousin's graduation. I haven't seen him since I was eight. Guess it's staying that way.

We took the Prius and the truck so that we could fill them up with donated food from the Manchester food bank. I was allowed to grab a handful of stuff for my own devices. I mostly got old, expired 35mm film which I hear is a godsend to develop for experimental photographers (read: me).

I also got a disposable camera, some weird dyes, mints that taste like chlorine, rechargable batteries, shoe polish. A CD by the band Seven Mary Three, that reached their peak in 1996. Their new CD sucks. In fact, I bet they all do.

An entire case of weird energy pills I will be experimenting with.

I got a bit more than a $150 worth of stuff. My grandpa got about $1977 estimated worth of food and toiletries, but he had to pay $232. The money was tithe money tho, because the church funds the pantry.

My uncle employees a man named Miro, a dude from Bulgaria who taught me how to wait tables. Just going over the basics. A crash course. He was really thorough and realistic, teaching me how to raise the check.

As I waited in Scott's office, I noticed his tropical fish. Sad little things. Slaves with low levels of consciousness. No emotions. Swim. These are animals as wallpaper. As nothing more than decoration. Because how much affection can you afford to a mindless animal like that? Not that you should set them free, not that I care. It makes no difference. The point is, they exist for the purpose of observation. Just an observation.

Tried some schizophotography. Nothing I really loved.

I like my flickr pro account so much. Totally worth the $25 I paid for it. I see it as more of a photo diary than a collection. Each picture is worth more than a 1000 words to me. You'd probably get a better idea of what was happening to me in New England if you followed the uploads, which you can, here. You may already know that.

The security here is very lax. No one locks anything up. Not even their front door. My grandpa leaves his keys in the car. It would be incredibly easy to commit a crime here. It might be possible to get away with it, I don't know. People here notice things more and they are more likely to tattle.

If five others and I went around burgling people, in broad daylight, we'd create a strange wave of paranoia that would turn this town completely upside down. Once they lock those doors up, once they fear, this town will never be safe again.

One day it will happen. I'm just wondering when.

Perhaps the people here are too trusting. In other areas of living, a little cynicism could go a long way.

I went to a boring little awards ceremony and drew sketches with my cousins. My cousins got many achievements in school, but I was just happy with what I drew. Spent the rest of the evening playing video games with Matthew.

Drove home in the darkness and spoke softly with it. I'm here again, in this sunless abyss and this time I'm not to blame.

Something

Current mood: I am Jack's Listening Skillz

http://www.wikihow.com/Be-a-Good-Listener

After reading this article about how to be a good listener, I really wanted to practice. This desire came out of nowhere, maybe because the article is slanted to make you feel like an inadequate listener.

So I took a walk at midnight, contemplating the mistakes of the day. To be honest, today was amazing, but I stepped out of line a lot. I'm quite the screw-up.

The walk calmed my nerves. I saw a dumpster and leafed through it and found a metal case for catching tennis balls. Awesome. I took it and walked on and saw an old man dumpster diving in another dumpster across the parking lot.

I decided to talk to him, to tell him there were probably other good things in the first dumpster, to be a nice guy. I've been working on being more polite too. He told me that he was looking for scrap metal to sell and then started talking about how he couldn't get enough money on a small senior citizens check.

I thought, Perfect! Even though he's a stranger, I can practice my listening and polite skills. The man went on to say that people from the East Coast had invaded Arizona, stripped us of our natural resources and destroyed this state.

Then he suddenly changed the subject. He started talking about the materials to make cars and how Henry Ford made good cars, but GM made shitty cars because they imported their metal from some evil factory in Germany, meaning GM is Nazi owned. (His assumption, not mine).

Then he suddenly changed the subject. He started talking to me about how stupid women are, especially the ones on the bus because they all believe that sex is money and that they don't have jobs or cars because they are on the bus. The man told me how he likes to start conversations with women about their jobs and then laughs when they tell him they have cars and houses. He asks them "what would you do if an asteroid the size of Jupiter was heading toward a collision course towards the Earth?"
I decided to use my listening skills and asked, "Well, what would YOU do?"
He snorted and said, "Well, I've tried to talk to people about the UFO, but no one listens."
"Wait, what?"

Then he suddenly changed the subject. He told me that Hitler was crazy and evil and that killing the Jews was still okay, because they were criminals. He told me that some Egyptian Pharaoh predicted the Holocaust, so did Buddha, so did Jesus. He told me that the Jews were killed because they HAD to be with God. It was destiny.

Then he suddenly changed the subject. He said something about how NASA is imperialistic and Nazi owned, and the rockets are made of sand and aluminum and that's why they blow up so much, because the Nazi's couldn't make good machines.

Then he suddenly changed the subject. He told me everyone on Earth is stupid. Why? Because if you asked them what 2x4 is they will answer 8. He told me it's actually 3. Using my listening skills, I asked him to explain. He pointed to a car tire. "360º, right? Well, that's natural and consistent so you don't multiply, you DIVIDE. You divide by three because that's human nature, and you get 90º."

Then he suddenly changed the subject. He told me human beings only care about sex and they are evil and perverted.
But at this point it was almost too hard to keep from laughing, and I was feeling stupidly uncomfortable. So I kept looking for an exit. I told him, "Wow, that's a lot to think about, but what time is it? Midnight? Oh, wow, I gotta go. It was nice talking to you, Mr. . ."
He said, "My name? Well, you know my uncle, don't you?"
"No, who's your uncle?"
"King Basha. He's a Pharaoh and he owns Bashas." He babbled off a lot of grammar and geography and then told me, "That makes me King Lasbahs."
I said, "Goodnight, King Lasbahs. I will talk to you later."
He screamed after me, "People evolved from monkies, and you wonder what aliens look like and why they don't talk to assholes!"

So maybe that was not the best way to practice my listening skills.
The funniest thing is, I couldn't shake the feeling that maybe he wasn't the crazy one, and it was I with the skewed sense of perception. I'm left with a lot more questions than answers, except for one definitive truth, which I choose not to share.