What's there to say?

Hey, I need an idea to write about.

Come on, I'm completely uninspired, unmotivated, and oddly unpeeved at the moment, and I need to present something to you that you want to read. What's so hard? Just tell me something I need to have an opinion on. I will formulate an opinion and present it to you in the all-too-familiar systematic formula, with some vocabulary garnishing and some jokey comment sprinkles.

Having an idea is a fucking chore.

The responsibility of thought is one that is most frequently taken for granted. Every day I'm supposed to think of new things that no one has ever thought before and word them in ways no one has ever worded them before. Call this nonsensical whining, but that's so difficult.

I, right now, want to plateau. I don't need a breakthrough today, I'm doing just fine. I just want to sit back and entertain myself with Dragonball Z or Final Fantasy VII or Batman. Mind numbing shit that keeps a moderate smile on my face. But yet, that's not how life works. Regardless of how much I feel like I know journalism, I have to get up this morning and learn something new. As much as I don't care about Physics, I have to go learn how balls bounce for an hour and a half. Should I suck it up or do what I want?

These choices are hard to make without your parents in the picture. They answer for you: "Go do things" is the general motto of all parents ever. Unless of course that means "go do things that you want to do." It's more like "go do things that you need to do." And that makes sense. But it is tiring as hell doing that every day.

I mean, I don't know what to say you guys, I don't have meaningful thought in me today. Just not feeling it. I could sit here and write about how Final Fantasy VII is the greatest game of all time. I could write about how The Joker is the best villain of all time and would make Galactus poop his pants. I could do that, but I'd rather be doing something else. Like playing Final Fantasy or reading about The Joker. Today I don't feel like working. I don't feel like effort today.

Which means I don't really feel like talking today either. Maybe if I have something to talk about, but I don't feel like meeting a new friend today. I mean, there are days in which I'm ready to submit a first impression, and then there's days in which I could give two shits about the word outgoing. For instance, if today's blog is the first thing of mine that you've read, you probably think I suck. And as far as you know, I do. But, I just don't feel like gaining a reader today.

Small talk sucks.

It's all the same. Among friends, among strangers, among family, it doesn't make a difference. How's the weather, how's your day, how's the cat. Blah. I wish there was a better way to start conversation than by routinely discussing trivial crap that we know you're only saying to get somewhere else. A fascinating thing about college is the amount of necessary small talk. You know no one. You need to know someone. Conversate with them. What's there to say? I dunno, but it's warming up this week, and I know they care about the weather because they live in it. Sure! Look at the sun! Be my friend! Gosh, I just wish I could say interesting shit all the time, but it's soooo dammmmn harrrrrd.

What's the solution to this problem?

Well I don't know, and it's not my job to know. For to explain the solution here would be to make a point, and as I have stated previously, maybe I'm not feelin' a point. Is there something wrong with that? Should people be forced to progress themselves every day?

Hell, I don't know. And since I said hell let me insert this tangent here: sorry for cursing. You have to understand, I really don't mean it. When I say fuck, it isn't because I'm angry. I would say I am and am not a vulgar person. Is my vocabulary that of a vulgar person? Absolutely. But the connotations of anger and loss of control that come to your head when someone is enraged to the point of writing out the word "fuck" on the internet are where I dissociate myself from the term. Vulgar isn't just a swear word, it's a swear word and a punch to the wall. And you see, I'm not angry. Just in the mood to make a point.

Which brings me to my next paragraph (this is working out well) hypocrisy is disgusting. It's like the equivalent of a dirty mind. Despite the fact that we pretty much all have one, nobody wants to be the one to claim it. A lot of us are aware of the fact that we are hypocritical. The rest of us commit hypocritical acts without realizing it. When someone tells you you're a hypocrite, you feel like shit because they're right. But, I mean, everyone inherently sees themselves as the main character of life. When other people do things, it's subject to "the moral code." When you yourself do something, it is subject to emotional reason and alternate rationality. Hypocrisy is an epidemic. It takes more perspective than you or I have to act truly as how you would hold yourself to act were you yourself not yourself. So don't hate hypocrites. Doing so would be hypocritical.

I don't want to take up too much of your time today, because, well, I don't deserve much of any of it. So next time you talk to me, say interesting things. Also fuck hypocrites. Thanks for reading. Good day.

--Eliot Sill

Weather or not

Rain, rain, go away, come again another day.

Well this time it's snow, and the US of A is getting hit hard.

Facebook has become a cesspool of complaining and whining about poor weather mixed in with jubilance and happiness over school cancellings. All people are talking about is the weather. A bunch of small talk. All whining one way or the other.

I love shitty weather.

Why? I don't know. I've just learned to embrace it. I live in Illinois, and I have grown up with this crap. I've come to realize this: YOU CAN'T DO SHIT ABOUT THE WEATHER EXCEPT MOVE.

So while you forget every year that snow happens and then turns into miserable sludge that you have to walk home from school through every day for four years even though it's cold and you could only find one glove this morning, I have learned that weather is a beast that will always be there, and it's one that mankind has to brave, run from, or die.

This Monday, the snow started. It came down like ice pellets. I walked from my Physics class through the crap as it started to fall, and it felt like sand to walking. It was just gross, miserable, shitty weather. And I loved it.

In general I've learned to laugh at things that suck, and weather does not escape this thought. It's just hilarious how bad the weather was. It was cold. It was raining. It was snowing. It was on the ground. It made your feet cold. I forgot a scarf. My ears were fucking freezing. There was no reason to be outside in this weather. It was awful. It was like the city of Champaign was vomiting on me, and here I was, walking through it to get to my next class. I had to smile. I had to chuckle.

Call it maniacal, but bad weather makes me giggle.

I guess it's because I see it as a low point. Because, with anything in life, if you don't see the low's, you won't appreciate the high's. Here in the midwest, we see the low points of mother nature plenty. That's why we go to California for vacation. The weather is fantastic, and we love it. Then we come back home. Daniel Tosh, a funny dude, once made fun of a person he made up for the purpose of mocking because they "loved seasons too much" to live in California. Tosh's punchline was this: "I love seasons, too. That's why I live in a place that skips the shitty ones."

That has some validity to it, but I don't think it's very sound (Philosophy!). I live in Illinois. We have tornadoes, we have blizzards, we have flash floods, we have triple digit days, we have humidity that you can swallow. But we also have beautiful days. And on those days, I can't get enough of the world. On those days you just go outside and frolic. You win the day, because there is so much time spent in shitty weather, that you really appreciate the hell out of a nice day.

And so I bask in the horrible, miserable, cold, life-threatening weather we're experiencing right now. Weather like this week's can just piss you off. It can prevent you from cracking a smile because you can't stop thinking of your friend in New Orleans who is complaining because it dipped into the fifties today while you're dealing with God's vomit outside. I urge you to relish it. Weather only gets this bad every once in a while, and regardless of the lack of comfort, if you live this weather, you'll enjoy living the nice days. The ones that say they're coming around in merely a couple of months. And with that they say rain joins in, but I miss rain. I miss real, warm rain. The smell of it, the random uprooting of worms, the grossness you feel once you go back inside. I miss it all.

I'll take whatever weather on any day, as long as I get to see the next one.

--Eliot Sill

PS- It's sunny outside,  I can see the blue sky, and the snow is melting. That's what I call a snow-day.