Peace, Friendship And Goodwill Week/Diwali/Fall Festival Florida/Make A Difference Day/Barbecue Festival (North Carolina)/Pumpkinfest (Tennessee)/Hot Pepper Festival (Texas)/International School Library Day/Fall Festival (Indiana)
2003-10-25 @ 11:18 p.m.

I found out today that the library in Woodlands has a lot of Calvino books, and I swear I'll own his entire body of work someday. That's wonderful, except I don't have the time to read now! Still, I borrowed a book entitled The Castle Of Crossed Destinies. It was thin, and the blurb at the back caught my attention out of all the volumes staring at me from the shelf. It's basically a collection of short tales that are interwoven by a pack of tarot cards, which are used to reconstruct the sequences of the vents as all the characters have been mysteriously struck dumb. The final configuration of the tarot cards is quite impressive, especially given that the arrangement depicts all of the stories, depending on the perspective of the person viewing the cards. Tarot cards weren't always used in fortune-telling. Tarot used to be a card game, like bridge, euchre, etc. The cards have interesting designs, and I'd go buy a deck except my parents would probably jump to all the wrong conclusions if they saw it. I think I'll find some way to scan the pictures of the card configurations, so you can better understand what I'm describing. Perhaps after the 'O's? Christ, so many things to do after the 'O's, I can't wait until it's all over! First thing to do - dye my hair! Second thing to do - wrangle some cash from my parents and spend like there's no tomorrow...

I've come to realise that I read other people's diaries to depress myself. It sounds kind of sick, doesn't it? Yet on some level I do it so I can pat myself on the back for not being as screwed up as some of the people out there. Again, this type of self-congratulation sounds rather twisted. I'm not referring to the people I know though, but rather to the total strangers that I come across when I click on diary banners, or hop to via links. Granted, a lot of times they sound like really nice people, that's why I don't mind adding strangers to my list of favourite diaries, because I do find it interesting to learn what their lives are like. On the other hand, some diaries just scream "Look at what a pathetic person I am that I have to whine to the whole world about how damn screwed up my life is!" Those are the diaries I never go back to after the first visit. I wonder what it's like to live, if you'll excuse my French, such a fucked up existence. What is it like to hurt someone, and be hurt by someone? What is it like to self-mutilate? Can you explain to me what drives people to do these kind of things to themselves? I want to know, I want to understand. Life in an ivory tower gets dreary after a while. Face it, you can't appreciate what you've got until you can understand what it's like for a person who's lost everything or never had anything in the first place. So tell me about the world, tell me about the evils that lie outside this charmed life...