Nate Beaty's Brainfag

Ignorance with a bacon-grease glaze

posted in Home Jabber on January 17, 2005

I finally added my 2002 journal entries that I did before brainfag was database-driven -- you can find them at the bottom of the new WRITING section. A few of them have some comics that ran nowhere else (some colored even). They also illustrate how I repeatedly pine and moan about the same things.

Speaking of which, I was talking to Soon Bok about how I've always thought of doing a comic about my drug-addled, Castaneda-obsessed, idealist existence from 17-19, which for so long I've romanticized as the "best part of my life so far." But in telling her about it, laying out the brief timeline of what happened then, I noticed how different I felt. This last year suddenly made sense, the sickness and all, as a means of transformation. Death of an old me, birth of new possibilities, a clean slate. For the first time, I saw my golden transformation years as less golden. Sure it was an amazing time, but I was young, and my experience was not nearly as rich as it is now.

Anyway, I still think it would make a humorous comic. In fact, I know it would. If I was able to be honest and expose just what was going on in my punk-ass head, it would be fucking hilarious even.

Stayed an extra day in Portland only to be caught in a nasty lil' ice storm. Walking suddenly became not only treacherous, but incredibly tedious, as all surfaces were glazed over with two inches of ice. The streets were empty of cars and everybody bonded together like only extreme weather can do. Not nearly as bad as last year, however, as the ice retreated a mere day later.

The bus ride back to Astoria was shared with a colorful Seaside resident -- a big ol' burly, thickheaded woman who first talked up a storm with the man behind her, then talked on her cel so loudly that it penetrated my headphones like butter, then loudly snored an hour nap away, and finally, she kept some woman updated every ten minutes with cel phone conversations such as: "HUNH? OH. YEAH, WE'RE GOING TO CANNON BEACH NOW. HUNH? OH. WE'RE ON HIGHWAY 26. HUNH? OH. YEAH, WE'RE ABOUT 20 MINUTES AWAY. HUNH? I CAN'T HEAR YOU. HUNH? OH. YEAH, I'LL CALL YOU FROM THE BRIDGE." All of this done in a loud, monotonous, nasal voice. The man behind her moved. I just glared at her over my laptop screen. But by the look on her face, the bacon-grease glaze over her eyes, she had absolutely no idea. Gawd that must be nice.