Here we go again...

So, I've spent the whole day feeling pretty much blah. At least the depression's been kept at bay, but still today was a toughy. As I was listening to my top rated songs on the ole (and it does feel like old, since about a month after i purchased mine they started making them with color screens and video capabilities. Fuckers) iPod. Anyway, I thought the song pretty much summed up how I was/am feeling.

Take Me by Jean Grae

Oh lord, I'm having issues, more deep than American missiles
Shooting commuter planes and filing 'em missions official
I've hit depression hard and started to pick at the scabs
From the scar, I'm a mess addressing pain in a bar, I confess
'Cause all the rest just mar shit, chest in a cast
Feeling urges just to test out a casket, bless me I'm blasphemous
Jesus pass the fifth, I...have to get lit
Masochist self I'm only half of the health I was born with
(Baby) Save me, take me up high like 'dro
But way far past the stars and the sky
I'm blinding pain like I'm a junkie shooting up with
Emotional novacaine, I'm floating provoking the angels to jump me
In Lehman's terms, face been blurred, even early
I scratched crayon in between the holy word I pray on, but still
(Baby) Three gone, and maybe I'm in barren land
God help me, I'm having trouble with your master plan so

Chorus:
(Take Me) Through the shadows of valley of death, God
(Take me) when I'm shooting, taking last breaths hard
(Baby) I want to walk through the valleys praying lord
Will you help me, save me God, won't you tell me, tell me
(Take me) 'Cause I'm losing my faith, bless me
(Take me) 'Cause this world just want to test me

You see this dirty knife on the floor, this chrome nine in my hand
These foul thoughts in my conscious, constantly understand
See we taught to believe if you can touch it and see it, it must
Be real so go believe it. But I've never seen Jesus
I've never seen God, so he's only a thesis
And I'm questioning all these things in my time to depart
I know it's written suicide is giving hell and devils privilege
Only wicked heathens commit it, sin of ages, well fuck it, bring it!
Lately I've been waking early mornings screaming
"Save me," dreams of seven horsemen chasing Jean, hastening speed
So I'm raising the barrel envisioning marrow
Splashed on the wall and polka dotting all my apparel
And maybe, Ginsu blades through skin will slay
And split thin veins instead of loading clips that spray
And if I'm meant to stay, then I'll just pass through the gates
And fall a long way back to Earth, so why don't you just

Chorus

You can see the pain twist my face from a distance
The body's windows glistening red hot from all of the indo
Thinking of my next of kinfolk, my mama
Opening doors, crimson billows spread out on the pillows and floor
I gotta block it out. I'm set on knocking out
Lock and aim and I'm dropping my frame quick when I pop in the brain
And if God's omnipotent, will he slip in and change
And move the pistol so it shoots out of range and the lead whistles
(Baby) Maybe he's just playing; it'll ricochet and cripple me
Strictly for questioning, give me life to the pain
Sickle shaped body bent in the middle, so little
Kids who pass me harass me and giggle. My figure's
Itching to touch on the answers. Hard headed like
Exotic dancers' nipples, picturing the bullets ripping the skin
On the mantle I'm holding, pull back and blow the wick
Right off the candle, throw a kiss and told the world how to focus
So now (take me...take me)

Totally like whatever, you know?

by Taylor Mali

In case you hadn't noticed,
it has somehow become uncool
to sound like you know what you're talking about?
Or believe strongly in what you're saying?
Invisible question marks and parenthetical (you know?)'s
have been attaching themselves to the ends of our sentences?
Even when those sentences aren't, like, questions? You know?

Declarative sentences - so-called
because they used to, like, DECLARE things to be true
as opposed to other things which were, like, not -
have been infected by a totally hip
and tragically cool interrogative tone? You know?
Like, don't think I'm uncool just because I've noticed this;
this is just like the word on the street, you know?
It's like what I've heard?
I have nothing personally invested in my own opinions, okay?
I'm just inviting you to join me in my uncertainty?

What has happened to our conviction?
Where are the limbs out on which we once walked?
Have they been, like, chopped down
with the rest of the rain forest?
Or do we have, like, nothing to say?
Has society become so, like, totally . . .
I mean absolutely . . . You know?
That we've just gotten to the point where it's just, like . . .
whatever!

And so actually our disarticulation . . . ness
is just a clever sort of . . . thing
to disguise the fact that we've become
the most aggressively inarticulate generation
to come along since . . .
you know, a long, long time ago!

I entreat you, I implore you, I exhort you,
I challenge you: To speak with conviction.
To say what you believe in a manner that bespeaks
the determination with which you believe it.
Because contrary to the wisdom of the bumper sticker,
it is not enough these days to simply QUESTION AUTHORITY.
You have to speak with it too.