mystical visions and cosmic vibrations

sunflower sutra

2010-09-14T06:21:00.006-04:00

A few weeks ago I woke up tired and hungover and walked down the road to a field of sunflowers and by the time I got there I was sweating and tired. I found a lonely tennis ball in the grass halfway there and I picked it up and bounced it against the uneven ground as I walked forward. It was a mindless act, something I needed but couldn't achieve. I wanted mindlessness. I wanted mindlessness and beauty. And I thought a field of sunflowers would be beautiful. And I thought a hollow tennis ball being beat against the ground would displace thought process. Neither turned out to be completely true. As I looked upon those enormous flowers, and felt the crickets bouncing off my thighs, and felt the felt of the tennis ball in my fingers I felt no different than I did waking on a couch fully dressed and wincing at the morning sun, no different than I did sitting on a street corner wincing at streetlights waiting for a cab. It was, by all reasonable definitions a beautiful morning. It was warm, I know that. The sky was most likely clear and blue, though I can't say for sure, because I never looked up. But I saw people in the beginning of my walk, before I wandered into the wilderness. They looked pleased. Children playing in sprinklers. All of that. There was no reason to feel the way I did. I knew that. There was no reason to gaze upon those flowers and not be lifted up. But I was static. The flowers were beautiful. There was no doubt about that. But even they hung their heads in sadness. And there was nothing I could say to change it. It didn't matter how many times I told them they were beautiful, they never looked up.

I tossed the tennis ball into the abyss of sad flowers, and walked back.

The truth is that I've been happier these past few months than I've been in years. There's a fine line between joy and sadness. And I think the sunflowers know something we don't.

"Under the eaves of that old lime tree I stood examining the fruit
Some were ripe and some were rotten, I felt nauseous with the truth"

a heart stained in anger grows weak and grows bitter

2010-08-17T03:14:00.004-04:00

sometimes I wish life was more like the movies; I don't mean I wish every life experience had a third-act flight-or-flight sequence or that we are all destined to become dynamic characters and either walk off into the sunset or commit suicide, but rather that we all had an audience, because even the most vile characters are felt deeply, given an audience, and the most beautiful ones are applauded or cried over; it's the audience that makes these people important - but we just go through everything with only a few people noticing and even those that do have no real insight into our own moral dilemmas or greatest achievements and so we have to try and imagine what somebody would think of us given everything that we have done and I think we all do that for a little while until we're left with nobody but ourselves to be our own jury and we wish somebody would come and burst into that courtroom and deliver a speech on par with Al Pacino's rant in Scent of a Woman, but that shit isn't going to happen

i was wading neck deep in a river today my toes barely touching and struggling to wrap around a slippery rock as to avoid being carried away by the current so i could keep looking forward at the tall trees and crumbling cliffs that wrapped around perfectly framing the sun falling down the skyline casting shadows across the water and at that moment i felt totally at peace despite today's decision and i felt blissful and a little stoned but entirely balanced and i came home and felt even better because i think the smell of sun-stained skin in the evening is a beautiful smell that incites feelings of youthful abandon and pantheism and then one phone call shattered all of those feelings and replaced them with self-doubt and knee-jerk mechanisms of anger and sorrow and i tried to speak in a way that reflected my thought-process but it was lost and i was meant to feel bad for something that was good and it ended so quickly and i just want to be back in that water and stop wrenching the muscles in my calves down to my toes and pass over that rock and be carried down into the sun

try lying for a change, it's the currency of the world

2010-07-22T07:36:00.010-04:00

*When I started this entry I had been speaking to my dear friend Hags and he said something about wearing his heart on his sleeve, and how that is his downfall, and I said something about how that's bullshit because that is actually a venerable quality in a person, and that the world makes you want to feel silly for being truthful about all the bullshit we feel on a day to day basis, and that it's only reinforced by how easy it is to hate characterizations of people like that, like the "emo" kid or whatever, but that wearing your heart on your sleeve only means you are honest with others and yourself, and an upstanding, beautiful person, everyone else's delicate fucking temperaments be damned. A little later I started this entry without knowing where I was going, and the self-revelation that ensued as I was writing proved too much to bear, and I abandoned it, saying something like "I'll be damned if I'm gonna hit publish on this atrocity." At any rate, I talked to that friend again this evening, and decided, shit, I have to put my money where my mouth is. This kind of honesty doesn't really belong on the internet, but oh well. Thanks for making me look like a douche, Hags. I love you.*

This evening I came across some photographs of an old girlfriend and I, and started to reminisce. There's a danger in that sort of thing, which was probably why, years ago, I disposed of all such materials. But facebook proved itself a sly son of a bitch, and while browsing pictures of a mutual friend I came across some relics of a love I had almost all but forgotten. I don't say that as if I had completely erased this person from my mind, but I realized as I looked at this picture of us kissing that I had erased the real parts of that relationship. I barely recognized either of the people in that photograph; I was looking at a reflection of a reflection cast in a puddle of water that once was an ocean. Neither of us were tagged in the picture anymore, we removed our respective associations long ago, but beneath it were some comments that remained. Perhaps it were those silly words written underneath that truly made me remember, that brought back the way she used to speak in reticence, a language I learned quickly to decipher, and love. Or maybe it was how I then remembered the taste of her tears when she kissed me out of joy or sadness; how she'd latch on until she ran out of breath, holding tightly the sides of my face, and then move her mouth away slightly to gasp in the air, and then come back, trembling, without diffidence, breathing her worry back out so it washed over our cheeks.

These sentiments opened my eyes a little. I came to realize that I have put up some huge walls in my life because of the negative emotions I've faced at the closure of several relationships, the aforementioned being the most recent, at least the most recent relationship that was a real relationship; where upon waking we spent the day together instead of parting ways. I've created a world where I don't have to really feel anything, because I don't really get close to anyone. Yep, I'm painting a picture of a walking cliche, but I can't think of a more honest way to put it. It only proves that we (or maybe just I) can't avoid becoming what we never thought we would be. More disturbing is that I suddenly realized that the disease is spreading. I find myself meeting cute girls and dismissing them instantly based on their first few words. Somewhere in my mind I was thinking that I was being smart, guarded, that I'd hold out for something really, really good. Absurdity, really, considering I found myself in intimate situations much more frequently than when I was open to meeting someone great, without preconceptions or immediate judgment.

It seems as if I have taken all of the anger and hurt from my bullshit baggage and created a wall that I convinced myself was to protect the fragile tissue of my fragile heart, but really only served to marginalize it. Because as much as I can recollect feeling hurt, and on some instinctual level angry, about the aforementioned relationship, that isn't everything I felt about it, but until just now, it's all I was able to remember. I think it's because I was forced, at the end of that particular relationship, to continue to love and be hurt, or despise and be hurt. I had a good reason for feeling angry, and not, as I saw it, any reason to love. So I chose the latter, a kind of self-preservation, one that took months to solidify... and apparently quite some time to dissolve. So I set up faux relationships that didn't have to actually exist: a little flirting here, some lovelorn sentiments there, the occasional copulation sprinkled on top and Voila! a self-justified-way-of-self-flagellating-while-feeling-poetic-or-some-bullshit. The cherry on top is all of the wonderful women who have actually showed interest in me since then, but who I've turned down, because I'd be much happier being miserable, thank you... god, I'm an ass.

But, achem, there probably needs to be some resolution to this post for those unfortunate souls who are still reading through my emotive purging. I guess my only resolution is that putting your heart out there without thinking of consequence is absolutely fucking terrifying, and probably mostly fucking painful, but that's necessary, and if you can survive all the beatings you might get to a place where your heart can swell and shrivel, and flutter and skip, and eventually rest knowing it's full. It don't always end up good, but yea it does. (that's my impersonation of a redneck saying what I was thinking but couldn't say without a redneck impersonation, both because those are the words that came out naturally, and because a fictitious redneck has much more authority on the subject at this time than I do)

And... here's one of my favorite Joni Mitchell songs that I've loved since the first time my heart started to hurt in the schoolyard, when I first thought I understood this "Richard" character, and felt, truly, as though this were the most honest thing ever written, as if it encapsulated so many people who only wanted to be loved, but couldn't... the truth is this song is not about someone who wants to be loved, and can't, but about someone who wants to love, and is incapable of doing so. And maybe I always knew that, and maybe that's why I've always loved this song... I'm Richard... but I'm way too young to be cynical and drunk and boring someone in a dark cafe, and though it's true that all good dreamers pass this way someday, I need to remember the bit about the butterfly.

(sorry it's not a real video. There is no such thing in this case, and through browsing, this is the best I could find. This idiot messed up the lyrics, so don't even bother reading them - errors in both context and punctuation - so my advice would be to ignore the video, and just listen, if you feel so inclined).

Last Time I Saw Richard from Mike Baker on Vimeo.

curse god, but do not abandon him

2010-06-19T05:45:00.003-04:00

I still cry every damn time I read this poem. Sometimes I weep.

How to Watch Your Brother Die
by Michael Lassell

When the call comes, be calm.
Say to your wife, "My brother is dying. I have to fly
to California."
Try not to be too shocked that he already looks like
a cadaver.
Say to the young man sitting by your brother's side,
"I'm his brother."
Try not to be shocked when the young man says,
"I'm his lover. Thanks for coming."

Listen to the doctor with a steel face on.
Sign the necessary forms.
Tell the doctor you will take care of everything.
Wonder why doctors are so remote.

Watch the lover's eyes as they stare into
your brother's eyes as they stare into
space.
Wonder what they see there.
Remember the time he was jealous and
opened your eyebrow with a sharp stick.
Forgive him out loud
even if he can't
understand you.
Realize the scar will be
all that's left of him.

Over coffee in the hospital cafeteria
say to the lover, "You're an extremely good-looking
young man."
Hear him say,
"I never thought I was good enough looking to
deserve your brother."

Watch the tears well up in his eyes. Say,
"I'm sorry. I don't know what it means to be
the lover of another man."
Hear him say,
"It's just like a wife, only the commitment is
deeper because the odds against you are so much
greater."
Say nothing, but
take his hand like a brother's.

Drive to Mexico for unproven drugs that might
help him live longer.
Explain what they are to the border guard.
Fill with rage when he informs you,
"You can't bring those across."
Begin to grow loud.
Feel the lover's hand on your arm
restraining you. See in the guard's eye
how much a man can hate another man.
Say to the lover, "How can you stand it?"
Hear him say, "You get used to it."
Think of one of your children getting used to
another man's hatred.

Call your wife on the telephone. Tell her,
"He hasn't much time.
I'll be home soon." Before you hang up say,
"How could anyone's commitment be deeper than
a husband and wife?" Hear her say,
"Please. I don't want to know the details."

When he slips into an irrevocable coma,
hold his lover in your arms while he sobs,
no longer strong. Wonder how much longer
you will be able to be strong.
Feel how it feels to hold a man in your arms
whose arms are used to holding men.
Offer God anything to bring your brother back.
Know you have nothing God could possibly want.
Curse God, but do not
abandon Him.

Stare at the face of the funeral director
when he tells you he will not
embalm the body for fear of
contamination. Let him see in your eyes
how much a man can hate another man.

Stand beside a casket covered in flowers,
white flowers. Say,
"Thank you for coming," to each of the several hundred
men
who file past in tears, some of them
holding hands. Know that your brother's life
was not what you imagined. Overhear two
mourners say, "I wonder who'll be next?" and
"I don't care anymore,
as long as it isn't you."

Arrange to take an early flight home.
His lover will drive you to the airport.
When your flight is announced say,
awkwardly, "If I can do anything, please
let me know." Do not flinch when he says,
"Forgive yourself for not wanting to know him
after he told you. He did."
Stop and let it soak in. Say,
"He forgave me, or he knew himself?"
"Both," the lover will say, not knowing what else
to do. Hold him like a brother while he
kisses you on the cheek. Think that
you haven't been kissed by a man since
your father died. Think,
"This is no moment not to be strong."

Fly first class and drink Scotch. Stroke
your split eyebrow with a finger and
think of your brother alive. Smile
at the memory and think
how your children will feel in your arms,
warm and friendly and without challenge.

while outside birds building nests in drainpipes knew nothing of the coming rain

2010-06-01T05:33:00.006-04:00

i have nothing to say, but some things to share that I was pondering while thinking about what I should say.

Mirror by Sylvia Plath

I am silver and exact. I have no preconceptions.
What ever you see I swallow immediately
Just as it is, unmisted by love or dislike.
I am not cruel, only truthful---
The eye of a little god, four-cornered.
Most of the time I meditate on the opposite wall.
It is pink, with speckles. I have looked at it so long
I think it is a part of my heart. But it flickers.
Faces and darkness separate us over and over.

Now I am a lake. A woman bends over me,
Searching my reaches for what she really is.
Then she turns to those liars, the candles or the moon.
I see her back, and reflect it faithfully.
She rewards me with tears and an agitation of hands.
I am important to her. She comes and goes.
Each morning it is her face that replaces the darkness.
In me she has drowned a young girl, and in me an old woman
Rises toward her day after day, like a terrible fish.

Priscilla Ahn » Benji Hughes from The Voice Project on Vimeo.

Rain by Naomi Shihab-Nye

A teacher asked Paul
what he would remember
from third grade, and he sat
a long time before writing
“this year sumbody tutched me
on the sholder”
and turned the paper in.
Later she showed it to me
as an example of her wasted life.
The words he wrote were large
as houses in a landscape.
He wanted to go inside them
and live, he could fill in
the windows of “o” and “d”
and be safe while outside
birds building nests in drainpipes
knew nothing of the coming rain.

2010-05-16T05:31:00.002-04:00

Remind me to write about how I feel in the morning. It'd be great if I could breathe out the things floating around and weighing down my heart right now, so you should probably remind me to place this somewhere in the morning. If you could remind me how important it feels, I'd appreciate it. I can be so forgetful, you know. But I'm sure once you mention it I'll remember and write for days and days.

fair and balanced my ass

2010-04-14T19:03:00.005-04:00

For the past month or so I've kept my car radio tuned to the Fox News Radio Station because I wanted to hear some things "from the horse's mouth" so to speak. I wanted to get some insight into the voices of the mainstream republican party. And, honestly, I was hoping to hear something that would create a picture somehow different than the one I've had in my head through reading and watching left-ish oriented news sources.

And after over a month I have come to this conclusion: I genuinely feel bad for level-headed republicans if they have to endure the ravings of these fucking lunatics on a regular basis.

It's almost comical that this sort of thing passes for news. But mostly it's horrifying because millions of people listen to these personalities and believe their incomprehensible bullshit. It'd be unfair to say it's all bullshit, but even 90% is being generous.

That's all.

something my heart could not forget

2010-03-28T15:44:00.001-04:00

My long-delayed move to Portland, OR is coming up soon. May 3rd. I genuinely considered moving it back another month after Pearl Jam's spring tour announcement in which there would have been at least three shows I'd gone to if I was still in the great northeast, but alas, I resisted such temptation. If their last album was any indication, they'll be around for a while, so I'll have other opportunities.

I've been dreaming lately of late-night bike rides through those city streets, surrounded by warm air and friendly strangers. I have a really good feeling about this. And hopefully Mr. Mauer will be joining me out there soon, right pal?

I was up late last night thinking about the aforementioned bike ride, listening to some tunes, and decided to make a mix for such an occasion... actually, first I was reading some Whitman, and the mix started off as a Whitman tribute, but I deviated... at any rate as I was choosing songs (which, by the way, takes an inordinate amount of time. It generally takes me about 3 hours to throw together a mix for something silly like 8tracks or an ipod playlist... if we're talking a mix for a person, jeez, days; there's just so many songs that need to be listened to in full in order to determine if they make the cut) I found myself choosing love songs and having absolutely no one in mind to attribute them to. That was a liberating discovery. I don't know if that makes any sense to anyone who reads this, but, for me, it was transcendent. I've loved many different women for many different reasons, in varying degrees of scope. You could deconstruct the word love for days (more than any other word in the English language, I think, save perhaps God) and list off the different forms it takes, but what's the point... what is the point? Ah, yes, the point is that though I have loved many women, in situations where that love has been said, or unsaid; constant, or fleeting; accepted, or rejected; requited, or unrequited; tangible, or abstract; it's always been beautiful, even when it was painful. And there's always associations: a color, a smell, that row of benches, those trees on the ridge, origami, a ticket stub, a wine cork, a folded note, a song. And even when you love someone new you'll cross paths with these associations someday, and maybe you'll cry, or grimace, but you should probably smile, because your heart needed that to get here. You don't have to be in love with that person anymore to be in love with that time, that rapture, and all those ruinations.

So I was thinking about that as I realized I had no associations in my song choices. And I felt liberated. I felt buoyant, and vital, and eager. And I realized that what I love most, right now, at this moment, is a question mark, or a series or question marks, that will eventually lead to a period.

my itunes is pretty (part 2)

2010-03-24T17:10:00.001-04:00

I figured out how to post my itunes. Not that anyone really cares. But perhaps you could make suggestions as to something I'm missing... that'd be nice.

my itunes is pretty

2010-03-16T18:31:00.000-04:00

I've finally finished the great itunes reorganization. Since the majority of my library came from imported CD's rather than from the itunes store, I spent hours and hours back in 2003 downloading and/or scanning images and importing them into the files. Yes, I know, I'm a dork. A few years later when itunes first offered the option to "get album artwork" I tried it out, since there were still several files without artwork. But the stupid thing switched out many of my already existing album artworks with incorrect ones. Everything was all F'd up. I was pissed. At any rate, I just finished fixing this problem, at the same time fixing inconsistencies in Genre and those pesky compilation albums where you need seperate fields for Artist and Album Artist for optimal organization. Again, yes, I know I'm a dork. Now I can use the Grid view and not be annoyed by the gaps in images.

I can't seem to post an image, because it's too large, but trust me, its a sight to behold.

take whatever you think of, while i go gas up the truck

2010-03-02T06:32:00.000-05:00

(I don't write poetry; i wish i could. but after writing this i felt the need to place inappropriate line breaks and parenthesis... i guess that's kind of a poem)

i spent a little bit of time this evening
playing really sad songs for a friend,
for reasons that will go unmentioned.
i spent a lot of time tonight
listening to other friends' heartbreak.
and between the two circumstances which met
somewhere in the middle
(not always romantic love
and sometimes godly love)
i was at a loss for words.

and i could only murmur:
it's really all that matters.

i often wish you knew how much it meant to me.
sometimes i think you might.
most of the time i know it doesn't mean that much to you

(i mean just the way that you smile
and everything that it does to me)

(and here's one of the aforementioned songs...)

thoughts on lost

2010-02-08T13:37:00.000-05:00

If you don't watch lost, I apologize for this ramble. If you do but are not caught up, I suggest you stop reading now. If you do and are caught up, feel free to reply with your own theories.

So this is what I think is going on based on the season premiere. This all seemed kind of obvious to me, but the people I have spoken to about it seem to disagree with me. At first I was thinking that there are two separate planes of reality happening at the same time. But that doesn't really make any sense. Especially since Desmond was on the plane, and if Desmond was on the plane (did you notice his wedding ring, by the way?), he was never on the island to blow up the hatch. They never identified the flight to LAX as flight 815, nor did they establish any direct timeline. We're not even sure Claire is still pregnant since we only saw her from the shoulders up. Similarly, Kate never tried to get the toy plane out of the Marshall's case, so for all we know this flight could have taken place 5 years after the original 815 flight. BUT... i don't think that is likely either. I think that what we are actually seeing is how everything is going to end up. I think that by the end of the season, the on-island Jack is going to change something, something bigger than just the hatch. Something that causes the island to sink. And reverts everything much further back in history than the day of the crash. So that all throughout this season we will be seeing what happens to our beloved cast members in the end through all the off-island sequences. I think Jack is going to fix Locke, Charlie and Claire are going to fall in love somehow, Sawyer and Juliet are going to meet in LA (which is what all that "let's get a cup of coffee" stuff was all about - she was living in the changed "present" in her final moments), Sayid will find Nadia, maybe Kate will die (fingers crossed), you know, everything that you wanted for the characters in the first few seasons will play themselves out over this final one. While at the same time we'll be seeing the destruction of the island. "It only ends once, everything up till then is just progress."

As for what the hell is going on with Jacob, the nemesis (or man in black, faux Locke, whatever the hell you want to call him), Richard, and Ben... I have no idea. But I'm actually kind of leaning toward the fact that the man in black is actually the "good" guy. Something about that line at the end "I'm very disappointed in all of you." just sounded like something a forgotten god figure would say.

But really, who the hell knows.

mais rgarde ma pitite ligne de chance

2010-01-21T12:15:00.000-05:00

At the gym this morning my father talked me into signing up for a spin class called "psycho cycle." I don't think I'll be able to move my legs tomorrow. At one point I was sure I was cycling right up to the pearly gates. Come to think of it, it felt more like cycling to the gates of Hell. And this was before jumping off the bike and running laps, followed by rounds of some crazy form of pushups, back on the bike, etc etc etc.

Good Lord.

In other news, I found a collection of original music from Jean-Luc Godard's films on itunes. What a crazy bastard that guy is. But if you haven't seen his films, you're missing out.

avatar 2

2010-01-14T19:42:00.000-05:00

I finally went to see what the Avatar fuss was all about. I get it now. I must admit it was pretty damn cool. My only real objection was that the marines were oversimplified. All that "hoo-rah" and "get some!" stuff should have been taken down a notch.

Anyways, I came up with a sequel. You know that dragon-bird thingy that Jake had tentacle-hair sex with, so that they were bonded monogamously to each other for life or something, did anyone catch that he just ditched her for the bigger, red, more badass dragon-bird thingy? So the sequel will be her coming back in a jealous rage and trying to kill everyone. The tagline will be: Hell hath no fury like a dragon scorned.

You're welcome, James Cameron.

i'll make my way through one more day in hell

2010-01-10T02:14:00.001-05:00

but how much difference will it make?

man, i love this tune.

?

2010-01-04T01:08:00.000-05:00

disclaimer: this bit of writing will be nonsense, or, at best, something moderately clever born on a whim and shoved out into the world without much thought, like an orphan who attends community college. Which, actually, is not all that different from any of my other posts. I only mention it because I opened up this blank page for no reason, and after a few moments of staring at a blinking line I decided to start typing. And this is what's coming out. Ludicrous similes and all. I'm starting off my blog for 2010 on an excellent note, I think.

I'm not sure how this has happened, but I'm engaged in an awkward conversation with my blog right now. So, ugh, yeah, umm, I mean, yeah.... 2010! whooo hooo!!! Yeaaaa!! yay. achem. yeah...

...

...

ok see you later.

if you forget me

2009-12-23T03:05:00.000-05:00

i want you to know
one thing.

you know how this is:
if i look
at the crystal moon, at the red branch
of the slow autumn at my window,
if i touch
near the fire
the impalpable ash
or the wrinkled body of the log,
everything carries me to you,
as if everything that exists,
aromas, light, metals,
were little boats
that sail
toward those isles of yours that wait for me.

Well, now,
if little by little you stop loving me
i shall stop loving you little by little.

if suddenly
you forget me
do not look for me,
for i shall already have forgotten you.

if you think it long and mad,
the wind of banners
that passes through my life,
and you decide
to leave me at the shore
of the heart where i have roots,
remember
that on that day
at that hour
i shall lift my arms
and my roots will set off
to seek another land.

but
if each day,
each hour,
you feel that you are destined for me
with implacable sweetness,
if each day a flower
climbs up to your lips to seek me,
ah my love, ah my own,
in me all that fire is repeated,
in me nothing is extinguished or forgotten,
my love feeds on your love, beloved,
as long as you live it will be in your arms
without leaving mine

-pablo neruda

awaiting resurrection in rain

2009-12-05T23:48:00.000-05:00

I was reminded tonight of how driving in a snowstorm on a pitch black night down a street with no lights and your high-beams on can make you feel like you're falling. Is it a latent suicidal urge that keeps you from pulling over? Like how Milan Kundera suggests vertigo is not the fear of falling, but rather jumping? You can only see a few feet ahead of you, the illuminated flakes whipping towards you is enough to prompt an epileptic fit, but you persist. I'm always amazed that I continue to drive when I feel so unsafe, but even more so, I am amazed at the assholes who come blazing up behind you going 20 over the speed limit, and then ride your ass like there's something wrong with you. I want bad things to happen to these people.

I mean, I suppose I don't actually want bad things to happen to these people, but in the moment I get mad enough to wish it upon them, usually taking the form of a few mumbled curse words and a good old fashioned tap of the breaks.

I don't get angry very often, but I will admit I am prone to some serious road rage (what did George Carlin say about anyone going slower than you is an idiot, and anyone going faster is a maniac... smart man; RIP). I learned the virtue of patience by necessity at an early age. And since then I have learned that patience and kindness are some of the more important things in life. It can be all you have to offer anybody that truly means anything it all.

I fear that these qualities are too often mistaken for naivete.

Take elementary school; how the quiet, nice kid was the easiest target, and therefore the one facing the most shit. I felt for those kids in school... it didn't stop me from teasing along, I'm sorry to say, but I've remembered those moments heading into adulthood. And now, I see the same game, it's not as transparent as it was in grade school, but it's there in essence. The weak-hearted being strong-willed (to steal a phrase from Ani Difranco). And the strong-hearted seeming weak. It's all backwards. What does It say about the meek inheriting the kingdom of God? I guess that bit is glazed over by the fist-pounders.

And here's where it really get's tricky. Because, like the maniac driver, I would love to give these people a piece of my mind. But would I then be abandoning something imperative? Where's the line of righteous indignation?

I don't have an answer for that. It's a line I've never been able to make out. Most of the time I continue to smile, and stare in bewilderment.

There are people out there who are going to make you feel like shit for trying to be good. The easy ones to deal with are the ones who are blatant in their methods. These are the ones that you can see coming a mile away. Their transgressions don't hurt too much. Astounding in their ignorance, but otherwise negligible. But there are other ones; ones that will smile to your face, who will wear the guise so well that it takes you a while to see them for who they are. These are the worst kind. Those who save their enmity for private ears.

I just hope they know that kindness is not the same as naivete, that they aren't fooling anyone, except maybe themselves, and maybe not even then.

I'd love to come right out and tell these kinds of people to fuck off. Sometimes I slip up and I do. But, really, when it comes down to it, it's much easier to do that. It is so much easier to hate than it is to love.

So where is the line of righteous indignation? Maybe it's a private place. Maybe it's something internal, where you have to realize that you'll be damned if anybody ever makes you feel stupid for loving. (see: You are what you love, not what loves you)

And in the end, I believe, that's the only thing that is ever going to make you feel good. I was furious with the maniac behind me tonight. Furious as I pulled over to the side of the road at too-high a speed and nearly slid off the road completely because he/she was riding too close. Furious as their horn rang out as they sped by. Furious as I turned around on the dark road and headed back. Furious up until I got out and asked that guy sitting by his car on the side of the road with his hood up and hazard lights on if he needed any help.

I'm not suggesting I'm some sort of saint for stopping to lend somebody jumper cables in the middle of the night. But that simple act of kindness brought things back into balance for me. I realized that this is the kind of person I want to be. And so I just shook his hand, and sort of smiled when he said "you wouldn't believe how many assholes have just driven by."

2009-11-18T08:15:00.001-05:00

it is at moments after i have dreamed
of the rare entertainment of your eyes,
when (being fool to fancy) i have deemed

with your peculiar mouth my heart made wise;
at moments when the glassy darkness holds
the genuine apparition of your smile
(it was through tears always)and silence moulds
such strangeness as was mine a little while;

moments when my once more illustrious arms
are filled with fascination, when my breast
wears the intolerant brightness of your charms:

one pierced moment whiter than the rest

-turning from the tremendous lie of sleep
i watch the roses of the day grow deep.

-ee cummings

shut softly your watery eyes

2009-11-06T00:39:00.001-05:00

I was fourteen and fifteen when I worked for two summers in a nursing home. I worked in the activities department, and so my job was to entertain. We threw birthday parties, held bingo afternoons, movie nights, etc. There were three separate buildings, at least four floors in each building, about fifty residents on each floor. There was an "activities director" assigned to each floor, and I would take turns assisting different directors every day. Every floor had three planned activities for the day posted on a dry erase board:
9:30: Bingo
12:30: Movie: Once Upon a Time (starring Cary Grant)
3:30: Arts and Crafts.
Between these planned activities I would just walk around and spend time with people, wheel them around the courtyard, read them the paper, help them try and chew their food, anything, anything to brighten those dingy walls that surrounded them.

The buildings and floors were organized by the tenants' abilities, or, in so many words, their life expectancy. I mean that in the most literal sense (expectancy - the state of thinking or hoping that something, esp. something pleasant will happen or be the case). And so some floors were much sadder than others.

A good majority of the people were completely non-responsive. There were younger, severely disabled people, who were unable to speak, or move - I remember one man, he was probably about 35, was in a car accident at some point, paralyzed; he sat reclined in a chair, always covered by dozens of white towels, situated to collect the constant flood of saliva that fell from his twisted mouth like a leaky faucet. I remember the smell of him, and feel embarrassed that at first I had a hard time sitting near to him; I imagine the shit and piss in his pants was much more uncomfortable to him than it was to me. But I also remember his eyes, and the way he would smile somewhere in them when you came near and asked him how he was. He couldn't speak, but would sort of grunt and gargle responses. And his one hand, that permanently rested upright, his elbow wedged to his hip and bent upwards, fingers clenched tight, thumb inside barely jutting out between his middle and ring finger, when you would gently close your hand around it, saying, "give me a high five, Ed" his gargling would come in great, loud spurts, and his head would slightly rock back and fourth. This was the only way he could laugh.

Sometimes some of the older women thought I was their grandson, or some long-lost family friend, or even, sometimes, their husband. I learned early on it was better to allow them the delusion. "Yes, Martha, I'm still in the Navy. No we haven't set a date yet. Yes, Martha, I'm happy as well. She certainly is a wonderful gal."

I spent a lot of my free time with this one woman, Grace. She was, quite simply, adorable. She sat hunched over in her wheelchair, the brightly colored afghan wrapped under her frail legs. Though her face was textured and worn, and her eyes sunk behind large, thick glasses, you could tell she once possessed stunning beauty. Her smile was mischievous and enigmatic. She was a great conversationalist. Her mind was sharp. I would often take her outside and wheel her around the grounds, maybe stopping to sit on a bench and read the paper. And sometimes when I wheeled her into the elevator, and stepped back around her to press the button, a wrinkled brown hand would come out from under the afghan and two shaky fingers would reach out and lightly pinch my bottom, and when I would turn around in feigned offense, she would quietly laugh to herself. This was how it was on the good days. But for as many good days as Grace and I had over those two summers, there were just as many bad days. Sometimes you would find her wheeled into a corner, and she would be crying. I had never seen this kind of crying before, and perhaps never have seen since. It was unintelligible that such a feeble, and ordinarily lighthearted creature, could produce such deep and immutable sobbing. Any inquisition to the source would invariably fail. She would not, or perhaps, more likely, could not, reply. The tears would stream, and her lungs would lunge in dissonance, her head hanging to her breast, rising and falling with each pang.

When I mention good days and bad days, I am not being figurative. The days she would cry, she would cry all day. And the days that she laughed, and talked, and coyly smiled, she laughed, and talked, and coyly smiled all day. There was no overlap.

I never found out what caused that pain in her, and I never figured out how to bring her out of that dark prison she would find herself locked into. I could only occasionally reach out and wipe away a few tears with the side of my thumb, stretching out her furrowed cheeks, softly whispering apologies... or I could exaggerate how long it took to press the button in the elevator, giving her enough time to struggle her hand from her lap.

just delightful

2009-10-11T15:58:00.000-04:00

I just finished watching Away We Go, and man, it was fantastic. You can tell it was written by Dave Eggers, the man has such a unique voice. I feel like it's been too long since I've seen a film that has moved me. This one did. I'm always impressed when a film can make you laugh and cry. In the wise words of Joni Mitchell "laughing and crying, you know it's the same release." Oh and the Alexi Murdoch songs laced throughout was pretty rad too.

I just found out Is Anybody There? was playing at the Polk this weekend, and I'm really bummed I missed it... that's another one I desperately want to see.

stuck inside of mobile with the memphis blues again

2009-10-09T17:33:00.000-04:00

It looks as if I'll be in Florida a little bit longer than expected. Due to an evening of revelry with several friends under the guise of a going-away get together at DC's sports bar, and, more specifically, the afterparty at Benji's with George and Austin, coupled with their fairly-convincing, provocative, albeit outlandish attempts at convincing me to move back, I entirely missed my flight. I didn't really miss it, as such - I didn't have a McCallister-family style run through the Tampa airport - I just slept through my alarm (which, in hindsight, I should have seen coming since me and Austin's 5 o'clock-in-the-morning bike-peddling adventure doesn't bode well for an early departure, especially since when I collapsed on my friends futon at roughly 5:30 my bags were still scattered all over the floor). So that 8am alarm went unheard, and a grumbly voice informed my ride, when he arrived, that there was simply no way this thing was going to happen.

[A brief aside/admission: I'm glad my father is technologically impaired and cannot read this, because I told him that my ride's car broke down... a small lie, one I don't feel entirely absolved of, but one worth not having to endure that prolonged sigh/grunt of disapproval ordinarily laced with "oh boy's" and "straighten your act out's" - to him any deviation from a plan, unless entirely outside of one's hands, is nothing short of extreme negligence and immaturity, age and parental independence notwithstanding. Though, I will say, the old man isn't all that gullible; he half-jokingly accused me of lying, saying, "I bet this is all one big scam, and it has something to do with a girl." Oh, Dad.]

Unfortunately, Southwest isn't really sympathetic to my plight of flight (ooooh... clever? ... probably not), and insists that another ticket be purchased. They will, however, put the cost of my empty seat toward the new ticket... which doesn't really amount to much unless you purchase in advance. So, looks like I'm here another two weeks. I will be missing out on a few additional weeks of my beloved autumn, but I suppose it's not all bad, there are things about Lakeland I've become quite fond of on this trip.

The only real downside is that I have already blown through all the books I brought on the trip... I do have my collection here in town, and there is probably one or two in there I haven't read yet... still, I knew I should have packed a few more.

And let it be noted: On Thursday Oct 23rd I will NOT be bamboozled into a late evening

... probably.

curb

2009-10-06T02:53:00.001-04:00

My best friend's wife, Rachel, when we first met, told me that I looked like Tom Yorke. It's been a long-standing joke between us (one that I mentioned during their wedding toast). It was a compliment in her mind, and I didn't really take offense at the time, but still, I always give her shit about telling me I looked, essentially, like a lazy-eyed-homeless-looking man. But tonight, since I have been vehement through the course of their relationship that they both watch 'Curb Your Enthusiasm' in it's entirety and embrace the hilarity, she told me that every time she watches that show she thinks of me. She said that, in almost every way, I remind her of Larry David - the mannerisms, the way I walk, everything. And while I don't really see it at all... I'll actually accept this one as a huge compliment, because, seriously, he's awesome. I wish I had HBO... this new season is going to be great... I mean, how can it not be?

good god almighty that stuff 'aint real

2009-09-16T00:57:00.000-04:00

This is how I spent my evening:

and it was just lovely. I'm halfway through the first season (thanks netflix insta-queue! - which I have used way more than the traditional netflix mainly because I'm too lazy to put the dvds in the mailbox which, I realize, is absolutely rediculous) and it's a great show so far. And the wine was pretty good too... I won't lie, the first time I bought this was a few years ago, and I bought it because I liked the label... I just can't help myself when it comes to aesthetics.

I received a few calls to go out tonight, but I'm glad I didn't. It's been really nice to just sit around, watching Dexter and taking periodic musical interludes. Speaking of which, I am completely obsessed with Sea Wolf's Leaves in the River right now. It's my song of the month.

My last day of work was yesterday, and already I'm reverting back to my habit of staying up way too late (having to wake up at 6am everyday really puts a damper on the whole staying-up-till-4am-writing-listening-and-reading thing that has been my life since I was in highschool). I have no clue where I'm going to go from here... and maybe I should be stressed about that. But I'm not. I just can't be. The air is too nice, the music too moving, the possibilities too endless, and the time way too short.

I went out to dinner with my mother the other day, who is going to Portland for a month-long visit, and she was so stressed out, like she so often is. And when I told her that she needn't worry so much, she got upset, like she always does at first when this recurrent conversation pops up. Sometimes she sees me as someone who never really worries about anything. I've heard this from people a few times actually. And I guess I can see where it comes from. Ammi used to get so mad at me in school because I never really worked at anything... or at least never worked at anything I didn't feel like working at, and she couldn't understand my ambivalence about academic pursuit. And I get it, I mean we are embedded with this notion that you need to do well in school and make a lot of money to be happy. But that is complete bullshit. It really is. It's not that I don't worry, or stress. It's quite the opposite actually. I freak the f out a lot of the time. But, in the end, and somewhere deep inside, I just realize... what is the point? You can stress about something until you are crippled by worry, and you can take all that stress and kill yourself to meet some standard that was placed in you, and you can hop from stone to stone with that weight on you, and that's fine, because you end up hopping from stone to stone anyway, but why consciously carry the weight? What I explained to my mother, and what I explained to Ammi about my academic attitude, is that I'm not immune to the pressure. I'm the guy who always says, don't worry so much, quoting Matthew 6:27 out of context; not because I'm actually indifferent to these very real circumstances, but because I've wasted way too much of my life worrying, and because it's what I'd want to hear, what I've so rarely heard, and because I think you just miss so much of the great stuff when you put so much energy into fighting the bad stuff.

I did not intend to get into all of this. It's much too big a concept to tackle here, one that I actually haven't ever really tried to put down in words before. But I'll say (or, rather, Bob Dylan will say) this in closing:

"When your head gets twisted and your mind grows numb
When you think you're too old, too young, too smart or too dumb
When you're lagging behind and losing your pace
In a slow-motion crawl of life's busy race
No matter what you're doing if you start giving up
If the wine don't come to the top of your cup
If the wind's got you sideways with with one hand holding on
And the other starts slipping and the feeling is gone
And your train engine fire needs a new spark to catch it
And the wood's easy finding but you're lazy to fetch it
And your sidewalk starts curling and the street gets too long
And you start walking backwards though you know its wrong
And lonesome comes up as down goes the day
And tomorrow's morning seems so far away
And you feel the reins from your pony are slipping
And your rope is a-sliding 'cause your hands are a-dripping
And your sun-decked desert and evergreen valleys
Turn to broken down slums and trash-can alleys
And your sky cries water and your drain pipe's a-pouring
And the lightning's a-flashing and the thunder's a-crashing
And the windows are rattling and breaking and the roof tops a-shaking
And your whole world's a-slamming and banging
And your minutes of sun turn to hours of storm

And to yourself you sometimes say
"I never knew it was gonna be this way
Why didn't they tell me the day I was born"
And you start getting chills and your jumping from sweat
And you're looking for something you ain't quite found yet
And you're knee-deep in the dark water with your hands in the air
And the whole world's a-watching with a window peek stare
And your good gal leaves and she's long gone a-flying
And your heart feels sick like fish when they're frying
And your jackhammer falls from your hand to your feet
And you need it badly but it lays on the street
And your bell's banging loudly but you can't hear its beat

And you think your ears might a been hurt
Or your eyes've turned filthy from the sight-blinding dirt
And you figured you failed in yesterdays rush
When you were faked out an' fooled while facing a four flush
And all the time you were holding three queens
And it's making you mad, it's making you mean
Like in the middle of Life magazine
Bouncing around a pinball machine

And there's something on your mind you wanna be saying
That somebody someplace oughta be hearing
But it's trapped on your tongue and sealed in your head
And it bothers you badly when you're laying in bed
And no matter how you try you just can't say it
And you're scared to your soul you just might forget it
And your eyes get swimmy from the tears in your head
And your pillows of feathers turn to blankets of lead
And the lion's mouth opens and your staring at his teeth
And his jaws start closing with you underneath
And you're flat on your belly with your hands tied behind
And you wish you'd never taken that last detour sign

And you say to yourself, just what am I doing
On this road I'm walking, on this trail I'm turning
On this curve I'm hanging
On this pathway I'm strolling, in the space I'm taking
In this air I'm inhaling

Am I mixed up too much, am I mixed up too hard

Why am I walking, where am I running
What am I saying, what am I knowing
On this guitar I'm playing, on this banjo I'm frailing
On this mandolin I'm strumming, in the song I'm singing
In the tune I'm humming, in the words I'm writing
In the words that I'm thinking
In this ocean of hours I'm all the time drinking
Who am I helping, what am I breaking
What am I giving, what am I taking

But you try with your whole soul best
Never to think these thoughts and never to let
Them kind of thoughts gain ground
Or make your heart pound

But then again you know when they're around
Just waiting for a chance to slip and drop down
Cause sometimes you hear 'em when the night times comes creeping
And you fear that they might catch you a-sleeping
And you jump from your bed, from your last chapter of dreaming
And you can't remember for the best of your thinking
If that was you in the dream that was screaming

And you know that it's something special you're needing
And you know that there's no drug that'll do for the healing
And no liquor in the land to stop your brain from bleeding

And you need something special
Yeah, you need something special all right
You need a fast flying train on a tornado track
To shoot you someplace and shoot you back
You need a cyclone wind on a stream engine howler
That's been banging and booming and blowing forever
That knows your troubles a hundred times over
You need a Greyhound bus that don't bar no race
That won't laugh at your looks
Your voice or your face
And by any number of bets in the book
Will be rolling long after the bubblegum craze

You need something to open up a new door
To show you something you seen before
But overlooked a hundred times or more
You need something to open your eyes
You need something to make it known
That it's you and no one else that owns
That spot that you're standing, that space that you're sitting
That the world ain't got you beat
That it ain't got you licked
It can't get you crazy no matter how many
Times you might get kicked

You need something special all right
You need something special to give you hope
But hope's just a word
That maybe you said or maybe you heard
On some windy corner 'round a wide-angled curve

But that's what you need man, and you need it bad
And your trouble is you know it too good
Cause you look and you start getting the chills

Cause you can't find it on a dollar bill
And it ain't on Macy's window sill
And it ain't on no rich kid's road map
And it ain't in no fat kid's fraternity house
And it ain't made in no Hollywood wheat germ
And it ain't on that dimlit stage
With that half-wit comedian on it
Ranting and raving and taking yer money
And you thinks it's funny

No you can't find it in no night club or no yacht club
And it ain't in the seats of a supper club
And sure as hell you're bound to tell
That no matter how hard you rub
You just ain't a-gonna find it on your ticket stub
No, and it ain't in the rumors people're telling you
And it ain't in the pimple-lotion people are selling you
And it ain't in no cardboard-box house
Or down any movie star's blouse
And you can't find it on the golf course
And Uncle Remus can't tell you and neither can Santa Claus

And it ain't in the cream puff hair-do or cotton candy clothes
And it ain't in the dime store dummies or bubblegum goons
And it ain't in the marshmallow noises of the chocolate cake voices
That come knocking and tapping in Christmas wrapping
Saying 'ain't I pretty and ain't I cute and look at my skin
Look at my skin shine, look at my skin glow
Look at my skin laugh, look at my skin cry'
When you can't even sense if they got any insides
These people so pretty in their ribbons and bows

No you'll not now or no other day
Find it on the doorsteps made out-a paper mache
And inside the people made of molasses
That every other day buy a new pair of sunglasses
And it ain't in the fifty-star generals and flipped-out phonies
Who'd turn you in for a tenth of a penny
Who breathe and burp and bend and crack
And before you can count from one to ten
Do it all over again but this time behind yer back
My friend
The ones that wheel and deal and whirl and twirl
And play games with each other in their sand-box world
And you can't find it either in the no-talent fools
That run around gallant
And make all rules for the ones that got talent
And it ain't in the ones that ain't got any talent but think they do
And think they're foolig' you
The ones who jump on the wagon
Just for a while 'cause they know it's in style
To get their kicks, get out of it quick
And make all kinds of money and chicks

And you yell to yourself and you throw down your hat
Saying, 'Christ do I gotta be like that?
Ain't there no one here that knows where I'm at
Ain't there no one here that knows how I feel
Good God Almighty
THAT STUFF AIN'T REAL'

No but that ain't your game, it ain't even your race
You can't hear your name, you can't see your face
You gotta look some other place

And where do you look for this hope that you're seeking?
Where do you look for this lamp that's a-burning?
Where do you look for this oil well gushing?
Where do you look for this candle that's glowing?
Where do you look for this hope that you know is there
And out there somewhere?

And your feet can only walk down two kinds of roads
Your eyes can only look through two kinds of windows
Your nose can only smell two kinds of hallways
You can touch and twist
And turn two kinds of doorknobs
You can either go to the church of your choice
Or you can go to Brooklyn State Hospital
You'll find God in the church of your choice
You'll find Woody Guthrie in Brooklyn State Hospital

And though it's only my opinion
I may be right or wrong
You'll find them both
In the Grand Canyon
at sundown

-Bob Dylan

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

If you've been generous enough to read through all of this, I'll leave you with a few tunes that have been good to me in this beautiful season.

i let my music take me where my heart wants to go

2009-09-11T22:09:00.000-04:00

I've been feeling very restless lately, but not at all in a way that makes me weary or overtly anxious. I think I'm beginning to shed this notion of waiting. For so long now I've been waiting... waiting for some opportunity, or some change, or someone, or... I don't even know... But I'm done with that. I was listening to some music and reading some poetry this evening and I had this intense feeling of excitement, not for things that I've been waiting for, or hoping for over the last year or two, but for an entirely new set of circumstances that don't have the rigid outlines my previous dreams have had (have you ever wished for something for so long that you've imagined every possible scenario that it could play itself out? You dream it to death and then it ceases to excite you anymore, you just anticipate, in vain most likely) in fact there were no outlines at all. It was simply a feeling of excitement, and wandering images of beauty.

"Compliment"
-Rives

I remember the first time
you named me “Good morning.”

And how, the night before,
you considered my ceiling,
where the passing cars outside
the passing cars outside
the passing cars outside
cast their shadows and liquid lights
through the slats of my blinds.

You said: “Hey Romeo--
your CD player is skipping again...
but your ceiling’s like fireworks for poor folks!”
And I liked that.

I like the tall pauses you take
when you tell your nephews knock-knock jokes.
And I like your theory
that men and women’s shirts button on opposite sides
so that couples can get dressed facing each other
after making love.

You seem to season your seasons,
your days, your time
with rhyme, not reason,
I’ve seen you. Daily. Nightly.
I’ve watched you housebreak a puppy
just by asking politely.

And your remedy for insomnia?
Is to pile every pillow and blanket into the tub
and you nap there like you’re taking
a patchwork bath,
and I said once: “Oh--I wish I had a PICTURE!”
and you said: “Oh--I wish you and I had HOT SEX,
YOU gave ME a PEDICURE,
and then ELVES showed up at our doorstep,
with a PIZZA, to tell us JESUS just built a TREEHOUSE
in the backyard, and he’d like to meet us both,
so HOP IN HOTSHOT!”

You’re weird,
with a capital “WE.”
And I’m grateful, I marvel,
you’ve helped me hammer
some of my worst manners into manhood,
but I still admit--I like the way your shorts fit,
and how, overall, you’d call me “smart,”
even though sometimes
I do really stupid shit.

And I like how you giggle with your lips closed
like you’ve got a secret little moon in your mouth.

But I’m not insisting you’re some kind of goddess,
(I know you’re suspicious of unspecific love poems).
You’re more like a sunflower,
growing in the courtyard of an old folks home--
you mean things to people on a daily basis,
and this petty poem won’t explain
just how “my favorite” your face is,
(but I wish I’d been your bathroom mirror
the day they took off your braces).

You’re so pretty.

You’re like a vivid video game
and I’m the idiot kid
just trying to get to your next level--
I like your right-shoulder angel,
Hell, I like your left-shoulder devil.
I admire the lively deeds you do.
So if you come through a doorway again,
in a thrift store poncho,
or a drop-dead evening gown,
twirling and asking:
“Well, whaddya think?”
I’m gonna tell you:

“Shit howdy, Sunshine,
sit your fine self down!
If you’re looking for a compliment--

I think you’ve come
to the right place.”

release me

2009-09-10T23:57:00.000-04:00

"Oh dear God, can you see this now?
I am myself like you somehow.
I wait up in the dark for you to speak to me.
I'm opened up...
Release me... release me."

I've been listening to this song for over 10 years now and it still gets to me every time, and always for a different reason. There's something now I want to be released from, but I won't get into that.

They've got a new album coming at the end of the month, and hopefully some nearer tour dates will be added. Can't wait.

mr. t poetry

2009-09-06T21:30:00.000-04:00

Today, my brother-in-law invited me to a facebook group he created - Mr. T Poetry.

I don't know where he comes up with this stuff, but it cracks me up.

His contributions:

"Fools"
Mr.T, Mr.T
why me Mr. T
is this some sort of conspiracy?
Mr.T are those kittens free cus
I'm so hungry Mr.T
-------------------------
"Chumps"
Mr.T, Mr.T
grab a forty will watch you on T.V.
MrT. could you defeat Bruce Lee without the use of heavy machinery? Mr.T
-------------------------
"Suckas"
Mr.T, Mr.T
I bet that you could beat up gravity
Mr.T you should have been in E.T.
Mr.T with your mohawk and goatee
Mr.T it's fools that you pity Mr.T

When I joined in I was under the impression we were making up poems that might have been written by Mr. T himself, so here's my contributions:

"Pity"
by Mr. T

I
yes
I
pity the fool

commiseration for the cretin
sorrow for the sap
empathy for the empty-headed

but can I
can I not

also love?
-------------------------
"Gold"
by Mr. T

the weight around my neck
the weight on my soul

it glimmers in the sun

and all you better quit your jibber-jabber
-------------------------
"Walt"
by Mr. T

"I believe a leaf of grass is no less than the journey-work of the stars."
- Walt Whitman

Shut up, fool.
I'm gonna bust you up Whitman!

-------------------------

I could probably spend hours doing this.

productivity

2009-09-02T20:30:00.000-04:00

I noted in my last post that my current job consists of at least twelve hour shifts, and that is accurate, but, I should also say that the majority of those hours are spent doing absolutely nothing, as will be proven in this post. I mean, most of the time, there really is simply nothing to do. I'm a manager, so I do very little work myself, I just tell people what to do, and, really, at this point, I don't even do that because all my workers do what they're supposed to by now.

So anyways. I was sitting around today in my "office" - it's not really an office, just a storage area adjacent to one of my bars which I have adorned with a few chairs and a fan - with Shane, a very old dear friend of mine who works as a porter for the company. Shane and I grew up down the street from one another and have been best friends since midnight hide-and-go-seek was the most fun a kid could have. While sitting there and talking about how bored we were, Shane suddenly said, "you want to make some mazes?"

Now, in 9th grade Shane and I had this one math teacher, Mr. Forgette, the man was crazy (somehow Shane and I always had classes together with the oddest teachers... don't even get me started on our English teacher that year, Mr. Spira, who one time walked into class, looked around, and said "I'm not happy with this class today" and proceeded to hop out the first story window and walk off not coming back until 2 minutes before the class got out...). But Mr. Forgette was just hilarious. It was an AP math class, so he didn't really care too much about the curriculum, and any time you didn't want to listen to his lecture all you had to do was raise your hand and say "Mr. Forgette, I don't understand Cold Fusion" and the man would immediately turn off the overhead projector and ramble on and on about cold fusion (we pulled this trick in excess of twenty times that year and it ALWAYS worked). To this day I have no idea what cold fusion is, or really anything he said - one time I had a question about a test, and I went up to his desk and stated my question, and he just said "ah, well... you ever been to dunkin donuts?" I just stared at him for a while, and he stared back for a while, and after a while I said "um...yye, yes" and he said "alright then" and so I stared at him, and he stared back, and I slowly backed up and went back to my desk more confused than I started out. I think it was probably some mnemonic device he said over and over in class, that I might have picked up had it not been, coming back to the point, for the mazes.

The mojority of that AP math class was spent by Shane and I, sitting in the back row, creating elaborate mazes for each other to solve. We'd spend the first 30 minutes or so creating, and the last 20 trying to solve.

We were a bit rusty today, Shane apparently being a wee bit rustier on his maze skills then me because here's what he came up with:

and here's what I came up with:

Shane's took me roughly 20 seconds to solve.

When Shane saw mine he said, "Jesus man! I said let's start out basic and work our way up! What the fuck is this.. a teleport??"

Yes, there were teleports in my maze. One of them with an out of order sign on it, just to keep him on his toes.

It took him about 15 minutes to solve.

And I get paid for this shit.

sort of pointless entry

2009-09-01T23:14:00.000-04:00

Let me just say that Tuesdays come and go far too quickly. Tuesdays have been my only day off for the past few months, the other six days consisting of at least 12 hour shifts, and let me tell you, one day off a week is not enough to do all the things you want to do. The first half of my day sucked, because it's also the first of September (crazy) which meant bill paying time, which meant hair pulling time, which meant insatiable need to get in the car and drive time. Which is precisely what I did... after fixing my car (I thought it was broken badly, and it was a huge relief to only need a jump). I drove to Albany to go see 500 Days of Summer, which was really good. I've always loved the combination of driving and listening to music... sometimes to a fault because I often would rather just listen than talk when in the presence of company, which seems rude, I know, I know, sue me... but this combination has become especially poignant since it really is the only time I am able to listen to music because of my work schedule (aside from Billy Joel's NY State of Mind that plays every day after the last race. I used to love that song, now I feel like vomiting every time I hear it). Now I feel like a drug addict getting a fix whenever the windows go down and the volume goes up.

So anyway, 500 Days of Summer was great. Though (spoiler alert), I really did want things to work out between them, probably because I identified with Tom so much (if I met a beautiful girl in an elevator who said she loved The Smiths I'd be done for too). It's also possible I don't like the idea that you can love so much about a certain person and not be "right" about them... Eh. But the thing with the girl at the end, her name being Autumn, was clever enough to make everything alright. And the coming attractions were awesome... aside from the one for Gamer, which looks like Michael Bay throwing up... the rest looked amazing though... check it:

I started out this post with ambitions of writing something meaningful, but I've lost it. I'll leave you with this, which is probably nearer to something I wanted to say, my favorite short in Paris, Je Taime - in honor of the little french film scene in 500 Days of Summer, which might have been my favorite part, and also in honor of the upcoming New York, I Love You, which I'm kind of worried will fail miserably in comparison to it's french counterpart.

2009-08-20T22:26:00.000-04:00

The Heart Under Your Heart
by Craig Arnold

The heart under your heart

is not the one you share
so readily
so full of pleasantry
& tenderness

it is a single blackberry
at the heart of a bramble
or else some larger fruit
heavy
the size of a fist

it is full of things
you have never shared with me
broken engagements
bruises
& baking dishes

the scars on top of scars
of sixteen thousand pinpricks
the melody you want so much to carry
& always fear
black fear

or so I imagine
you have never shown me
& how could I expect you to
I also have a heart beneath my heart
perhaps you have seen
or guessed

it is a beach at night
where the waves lap & the wind hisses
over a bank of thin
translucent orange & yellow jingle shells

on the far side of the harbor
the lighthouse beacon
shivers across the black water
& someone stands there
waiting

i'm a little pea, i love the sky and the trees

2009-07-12T22:14:00.000-04:00

I really don't understand the desire some individuals have to fight, without provocation or reasoning of any kind. I've been fairly immobile for the past two days, because some macho douchebag decided to throw me into a railing for no reason.

Let's back up.

I was out with my buddy Charlie, sitting on a street corner trying to call another friend when some (I was going to say 'guy' but that implies a level of basic humanity this thing lacked, so just insert the expletive of your choice) walked by, and looking down at Charlie, said, "nice pants, faggot." So Charlie, being slightly intoxicated and astounded, and, more to the point, being classic Charlie - turned around and said, "wait, dude... what? I mean, thanks, I love these pants, but... I don't get it, how do my pants make me a homosexual?" A reasonable question, but apparently when you approach someone like this with reason, their tiny little brain cannot fathom such a thing and they respond with sheer anger. After a few voilent words, Charlie continued, "no man, I don't want to fight you, I just was wondering what my pants have to do with my sexuality."

Now granted, this entire situation would not have ever came to pass had Charlie just ignored it, but... I can't say I blame him; in the face of such sheer ignorance I think he had every right to tactfully stand up for himself. Unfortunately this other thing had no understanding of tact. I stood by Charlie, trying to diffuse the situation; the other party, apparently having no problem with my pants whatsoever, mainly ignored me and tried his hardest to get Charlie to fight him. But after a few minutes of Charlie's rather humorous, though misguided, attempts at logical banter and peacetalks, the guy did the only thing he could do when affronted with someone who did not wish to engage in a metaphorical dick-measuring-contest, he took off his shirt.

It's hilarious, really, and had he just stood there Charlie and I might very well have just laughed off into the sunset (or, sunrise, really, as it was the wee hours of the morning). But he immediately started shoving Charlie across the street. So, I followed, saying "cool it, man" and other things like that, but he continued shoving all the way across and began down the other sidewalk, so at one point I got in between them and put my hands on his shoulders, and appealed for him to let it go, at which point he threw me aside, right into a large steel railing. After regaining my breath, which was instantly knocked out of me, I started toward them again, Charlie still backing up with his hands out telling the guy to relax. Luckilly, some police officers happened to be passing by. In the end Charlie and I walked away, with the guy continuing to rack up evidence of his stupidity by engaging in a shouting match with five police officers. We didn't stick around to see if he got arrested.

So, here I am, two days later, still icing and Ace-bandaging my rib cage, and not moving or breathing deeply a whole lot. I'm foregoing the x-rays, mainly due to lack of medical insurance, but also because you can't do much about a few cracked ribs, they just have to heal on their own. I'm also trying my hardest not to remember many of the idiots comments, or replay the scene where he took off his shirt, because that shit makes me laugh, and laughing hurts.

But, on a MUCH lighter note about my rib cage: I went over to my brother's for dinner tonight. My niece Karissa is 2 and 1/2 now, and so stinkin cute. Not being in NY very much these past few years she hasn't really ever adjusted to me, not like Londyn, her sister, who always came running whenever I stopped by (and who called me five times yesterday morning within two hours, and left basically the same adorable message every time - I wasn't ignoring... I just couldn't reach for my phone) At any rate, Karissa is finally warming up to me. We were playing in the back yard and she ran around showing me all the things she could do. And I felt like an old man, I really did. I couldn't move very well, I was slow, and every time I had to bend down to get something for her, or pull her in her cart, it was such an effort, and laced with old man groans. But it was worth it, I didn't even care about the pain, I just had to work around it. The best part was that whenever I wasn't looking at her, she'd call out "uunnca 'teve!" So cute.

So anyway, at one point she was sitting on the step, and I was talking to my sister-in-law, and Karissa called out "uunnca 'teve!" so I looked over, she smirked, and I said, "what are you doing, sitting?"
She said, "ssittin" and she stood up.
So I said, "what are you doing now, standing?" she laughed hard, for some reason this was hilarious to her.
She said, "'tandin" then sat.
I said, "what are you doing now, sitting again?"
She laughed, said "ssittin" as she stood, and so on.
This cycle repeated several times, each time apparently getting funnier and funnier to her.

So then later we are tossing a ball back and forth and she sat down on the porch, now just rolling the ball to me. Then she told me I have to sit, it was more like "ouu 'af t' ssit" so, with great effort I did. Then she told me "no, ouu 'af t'and." And so, again, with great effort, I did. And she just laughed her head off. Apparently repeatedly standing and sitting was a top notch comedy routine to this kid. I could only excruciatingly stand and sit so many times before resigning to ruffling her hair and suggesting a different game, but, it was lovely, it really was.

All my anger and frustrations that were brooding over this simple-minded idiot as I layed on an icepack yesterday vanished in the face of purity and love. And I am again reminded of what Ghandi said, "when I despair, I remember that all throughout history the way of truth and love has always won. There have been tyrants and murderers and for a time they seem invincible, but in the end, they always fall - think of it... always."

I don't know what makes human beings become so violent and cruel, and I don't know how to deal with it sometimes, but people I love help, and the fact that love and kindness is a far greater force helps, and today, these pictures of my nieces, and being "uncle Steve" to someone, helps.

It felt good to write here again, it's been a while.

endearing

2009-05-21T01:22:00.000-04:00

I never watch tv when it's actually tv (except LOST, because, well, because its LOST). I generally don't see a show until I can rent or download entire seasons and then watch them all in one go. I'm doing this currently with How I Met Your Mother. Not the greatest show ever made (the laugh track in sitcoms feels akward to me after watching so many great comedies that don't have it, like Arrested Development or The Office), but it has its moments. The plot is often better than the jokes, and the little mystery surrounding the ultimate romance keeps you coming back. At any rate, I just watched this, and had one of those heart-lurches that seem so infrequent these days.

it's beautiful, and so are you

2009-05-05T02:40:00.000-04:00

I found this really amazing site that I think everyone should join in on.

http://8tracks.com

Basically it's an online community where people create playlists (you can chose from a network of songs, or upload any that aren't already there).

And that's it.

You can follow people, like twitter (except it's not pointless, trivial, and narcissistic), share, and comment on each other's creations. Pretty sweet, if you ask me. I just wish there were more of my friends on this site. So anyone who reads this should join, right now. It is time consuming, since you cannot see what is coming next until it is playing, and they only allow you to skip a few tracks in a certain time frame, but it's still so worth it.

I made this mix tonight because, for some reason, I was thinking about one night in San Francisco, sitting in Cory's dorm room, the lights were out and we were all lying around in the candlelight, doing nothing, barely even speaking, just listening. There were many tunes played that night, but I remember one in particular: Led Zeppelin's That's The Way. It had probably been a solid thirty minutes since any of the half-a-dozen-or-so people strewn about the room had said anything, but during that song Cory sort of softly muttered, "I cried my eyes out the first time I heard this song." This comment received a few muffled sighs and "yeah, I know's" and the music continued, each of us feeling a little bit closer to one another.

Cory has always been my numero-uno compadre (a little tribute to cinco de Mayo there) when it comes to sharing music. And it's been a slew of moments exacly like that one that have made me understand Cory as much as I do, and have given weight to the friendship I will always share with him; we've spent hours and hours staring off into itunes visualizers, going back and fourth chosing songs, or driving around aimlessly in the middle of the night repeatedly entering and ejecting CD's, or leaving the bars on Caroline Street to head over to his parked car, throwing the windows down, and having parking lot dance parties, or, like now, sadly, phone conversations consisting of "Hey, have you heard this?'s". And all of those small moments absorbed in someone else's art has created something of unparallelled understanding and compassion.

Case in point: music is communal, and divine, and... oh goodness, so much more.

i'll see you soon

2009-04-02T02:25:00.001-04:00

I've made up my mind, it's done. I'll be moving to Portland, OR in the next few months. And I can't wait.

It's an amazing city, it really is - amazing music and art scene, amazing people, thirty-minute drive to some of the most amazing scenery in the world... ideal, really.

I've been flirting with the notion since graduating high school; my sister Jen writing me long letters about the merits of the place, about how much she loves it, and then going to visit and seeing what she meant.

I will miss the people I've met in Florida, I really will. But it's time to move on.

The move will happen in July, possibly August, and will consist of a several-week-long road trip across the country, one which, I hope, will be in the presence of a dear friend or two (Cory, if you're reading this, you should be receiving a letter in the mail soon requesting your presence on this journey, a response and a solution to your letter's mention of an "Odyssey - A sojourn through this land...mile by mile under our own power and of our own volition." And Charlie Charbonneau might be on the road with us as well. Consider it, and say yes, and then convince Sara to come as well).

I'm anticipating the feeling of, as Kerouac wrote, driving away from people, and them receding on the plain till you see their specks dispersing.

I'll understand that it's the too-huge world vaulting me, and that it's goodbye, but I will lean forward to the next crazy venture beneath the skies.

And, in a bullet-proof vest with the windows all closed, I'll hope to see you all soon.

as you, my soul, are holy

2009-03-31T05:31:00.000-04:00

It's 6:10am, six eleven now... six twelve in a moment... I haven't written anything meaningful here for weeks, months... time means less and less.

I feel compelled to write, but am too far from my trustful, confident, paper-bound friend to make the four-step journey across the carpet I only tell myself is vast to reconcile my laziness with my urgency. And the pen might be lost after all.

This screen is close, these keys familiar, so I will lay the way I am; numb, staring, moving only my fingers and a little bit around the wrists, the syntax in my brain moving less even than that.

But I will stare, and type, and purge - ha! Yes, I'll call it purging; to rid - that's what it means, right? Sure, let's call it that, though it will never be.

Writing there - the paper-bound confidant, whose pages receive without hesitation or judgment is like speaking in a confessional as a child who has no understanding of the shadow through the screen, believing that he is speaking to a ghost, one that is holy, or so he's told: "I stole." "I lied." "I made my sister cry." "I watched a friend stare absently at a bird who struggled, ridden with BB-gun pellets, whose wings flapped helplessly against the cold ground spattered with odd-colored fluid, moving slower and slower, the shriek and scraping caused fear to rise in my spine, but I watched... I watched... his absent stare pulling me in... I watched; if a hand wanted to carry that bird back to the sky it made no such resistance.. I watched... how and for what should I ask forgiveness?"

Writing here is as if scrawling on a bathroom wall.

I'm not sure which is truer.

so freaking awesome

2009-03-26T23:00:00.000-04:00

Trailers aren't always the best indicators of a movie's worth, but if this is half as good as the trailer, I'll be a happy man. Spike Jonze, Dave Eggers, Catherine Keener, The Arcade Fire, and good ol' fashioned childhood nostalgia... I mean, come on, this is gonna rock.

I'll be there opening night, who wants to come with?

i'm just a little person, and you're the one i like the best

2009-03-05T04:05:00.000-05:00

Upon my third viewing, which took place this afternoon, I've decided that I have a new favorite film. I've considered Magnolia my favorite film for a very, very long time, but it was bumped today. I've given this a lot of thought, because I take these things very seriously, so this is a big deal. Hence the blog about it.

The first time I saw it I was overwhelmed, and confused, but entirely moved. It was... startling... I guess, something more, really. I'm still piecing it all together, but there is beauty there... so much beauty.

This is a quote, which should be a poem, so I have broken it up as one.

"What was once before you - an exciting, mysterious future -
is now behind you.
Lived; understood; disappointing.
You realize you are not special.
You have struggled into existence, and are now slipping silently out of it.
This is everyone's experience.

Every single one.

The specifics hardly matter.
Everyone's everyone. So you are Adele, Hazel, Claire, Olive.

You are Ellen.

All her meager sadnesses are yours;
all her loneliness;
the gray, straw-like hair;
her red raw hands.
It's yours.
It is time for you to understand this.

Walk.

As the people who adore you stop adoring you;
as they die; as they move on;
as you shed them; as you shed your beauty;
your youth; as the world forgets you;
as you recognize your transience;
as you begin to lose your characteristics one by one;
as you learn there is no-one watching you, and there never was,
you think only about driving - not coming from any place;
not arriving any place. Just driving,
counting off time.

Now you are here, at 7:43.
Now you are here, at 7:44.
Now you are...
Gone."

a vision softly creeping

2009-02-06T02:10:00.000-05:00

I received a letter from my mother yesterday. I will keep most of its contents to myself, but feel the desire to share a line that I found tragically poignant and exceptionally beautiful all at once. It read: "Please be gentle when you evaluate my life, for life has had many different seasons."

Although the full weight of that statement may not be understood to anyone but her and I, I think it is nevertheless something worth sharing here - if only because we could all use a reminder to be gentle with others.

Because I know you read this, because you will see this before I am able to return a letter, and because it needs to be said; I love you. The pieces of me that come from you are not, as I fear you believe them to be, weaknesses, but unbelievable strengths. When I evaluate your life I see at once a mother and a woman, both of whom inspire me beyond words. It is because of your life that I am able to be gentle, it is because of you that I am anything at all.

2009-02-01T22:12:00.000-05:00

My niece just emailed me an invitation to her 16th birthday party... in August 2017. I RSVP'd yes, and smiled. Which was something I needed today.

I'll be there, Londyn. I promise.

the answer lies within

2009-01-27T14:59:00.000-05:00

Something about the air this morning sparked in me an extreme desire to read Walden in its entirety, (something I have never done before. I have only thumbed its entrancing pages). Not able to find the tattered copy I once owned, I made a trip to Books a Million and ended up spending $70.

I wish I could be in the park right now, guarding the light pages of this huge, beautiful Oxford Book of American Poetry from the wind, but I have to do laundry before work. Instead I have thrown open every window. It will have to do for today.

--------------

But I Can't

Time will say nothing but I told you so,
Time only knows the price we have to pay;
If I could tell you I would let you know.

If we should weep when clowns put on their show,
If we should stumble when musicians play,
Time will say nothing but I told you so.

There are no fortunes to be told, although,
Because I love you more than I can say,
If I could tell you I would let you know.

The winds must come from somewhere when they blow,
There must be reasons why the leaves decay;
Time will say nothing but I told you so.

Perhaps the roses really do want to grow,
The vision seriously intends to stay;
If I could tell you I would let you know.

Suppose the lions all get up and go,
And all the brooks and soldiers run away;
Will Time say nothing but I told you so?
If I could tell you I would let you know.

-W.H Auden, 1940.

dreaming of your enumerations

2009-01-22T23:58:00.000-05:00

This last time coming back to Florida felt different. It felt like coming home. And it's never been that way before. I don't know what that means, but I'm not trying to figure it out either.

I have been rather blissful lately for reasons that I cannot understand nor even attempt to communicate. Admittedly, the past month or two have been a bit of a blue period for me, again for reasons that I cannot touch or see. The weight came and left without a greeting or farewell. It laid still at night, silent but looming. During the day it made itself known only by casting everything in translucent light. And then it parted, and left in it's wake the visibility of thousands of reasons to smile.

It's something simple, whatever it is.

The simplicity of God. His Love.
The simplicity of breathing, of music, of words.
Of life.

I'm aware of the complications of all these things, especially the first and last, but I'm not thinking about them for a change. That's one reason to smile.

I'm reminded of something Kurt Vonnegut's uncle told him: "I urge you to please notice when you are happy, and exclaim, or murmur, or think at some point: 'if this isn't nice, I don't know what is."

I've found myself thinking that about a lot of things lately.

I'm finding myself wanting to say I Love You to so many people and things.

I love you.

a poem and some cuteness

2009-01-14T00:45:00.000-05:00

My mother recently gave me a book of poetry by Pablo Neruda called Winter Garden. It was an unpublished collection found on his desk after his death. I was thumbing through it on the plane ride home, and must have read this one four or five times before turning the page. I love it, though have no words to say why...

The Egoist

Nobody is missing from the garden. Nobody is here:
only the green and black winter, the day
waking from sleep like a ghost,
a white phantom in cold garments
climbing the steps of a castle. It's an hour
when no one should arrive. Just a few drops
of chilly dew keep falling
from the bare branches of winter
and you and I in this circle of solitude,
invincible and alone, waiting
for no one to arrive, no, nobody will come
with a smile or a medal or a budget
to make us an offer or ask us anything.

This is the hour
of fallen leaves, their dust
scattered over the earth, when
they return to the depths of being and not being
and abandon the gold and the greenery,
until they are roots again,
and again, torn down and being born,
they rise up to know the spring.

Oh heart lost
inside me, in this man's essence,
what bountiful change inhabits you!
I am not the culprit
who has fled or turned himself in:
misery could not exhaust me!
Your own happiness can grow bitter
if you kiss it every day,
and there is no way of freeing oneself
from the sunlight except to die.

What can I do if the star chose me
to flash with lightning, and if the thorn
guided me to the pain of so many others?
What can I do if every movement
of my hand brought me closer to the rose?
Should I beg forgiveness for this winter,
the most distant, the most unattainable
for that man who used to seek out the chill
without anyone suffering because of his happiness?

And if somewhere on those roads
--distant France, numerals of fog--
I return to the extent of my life:
a lonely garden, a poor district,
and suddenly this day equal to all others
descends the stairs that do not exist
dressed in irresistible purity,
and there is the odor of sharp solitude,
of humidity, of water, of being born again:
what can I do if I breathe my own air,
why will I feel wounded to death?

Being home has been wonderful. My sister Colleen also flew in from Portland, so there has been lots of much needed quality family time. Tonight I was able to hang out with all three of my nieces, and my sisters new puppy. The cuteness of it all was almost unbearable.

I already know I'm going to be one of those dads who carries pictures of his kids with him and shows them to everyone he knows, all the time.

illegal cinema

2009-01-08T23:28:00.000-05:00

Florida's crappy movie scene has caused me to resort to illegal downloads. I cannot tell you how many films that I've been dying to see have not been playing around here... not even in Tampa or Orlando! Crazy. So I pirated a copy of The Wrestler, and am about to pop it in. My first movie-going experience of 2009 was Doubt, which, honestly, might already have earned its right as the best of the year, it was that good. But I've been hearing a great deal of wonderful things about Aronofsky's latest, so I'll hold off on that judgment for the next two hours or so.

To any of you who have some moral discrepancy with such downloads: I sympathize, and will make up for it by paying to see it again in theaters next week when I make my way back up to my beloved northern State, where you never have to worry about whether or not a movie will be playing.

writers block

2009-01-07T01:42:00.000-05:00

It's been a really long time since I've written anything on here - over a month actually. I could list off a million reasons why I have taken this intermission, but I'll dispense with the pretense: I've simply been uninspired. I could also list off a million reasons why I've been uninspired, but I won't.

I think it's mainly because there is so much I want to say, but have no means by which to say any of it. And... I guess I'm not exactly sure what it is that I have to say. I've undergone a recluse from emotional expression, possibly from some sort of overload. It is as if for the past few months I've felt everything so acutely that my brain has taken refuge in numbness.

So I do not know what to say... but for some reason i miss you comes to mind.

That phrase fits like a jigsaw in the scattered pieces of my mind, but it doesn't complete the picture. It just rests atop the wreckage, and makes sense.

we wanted to be the sky

2008-11-30T03:25:00.000-05:00

Friday night I got out of work early with every intention of buckling down on that awful paper I have been putting off all week, but found myself just sitting back and listening to music in my apartment for a while instead. Somewhere during Colors and the Kids by Cat Power I was hit by a heavy dose of nostalgia. It literally shook me, it was such a heavy feeling. I reverted to my time in San Francisco, and felt again how small that city once made me feel. It was an odd sensation.

San Francisco made me feel very small, but not necessarily in a bad way. I would walk up and down those staggering hills with my headphones, marveling at the vastness of existence; the mechanisms of city life; all the strange characters - businessmen and businesswomen and bohemians and bums, who bump into but never see each other - the organisms of buses and and taxicabs, all the lights set on timers, illuminating that soft fog at night that floats in from the ocean. Everything was alive, in some way or another. And my little, lost self looked up and felt dizzy. I was simultaneously thrilled and terrified. I saw a sea of strangers and wanted to get to know them, but averted my eyes at all costs. Part of me lamented the lack of sodality, but another part really reveled in the ability to walk around, observing, without ever being noticed. And so I felt really small and insignificant, but oddly comforted in that at the same time.

It's how I feel sometimes when I take a solitary drive at night, cruising down dark roads absorbed in some musical moment. I imagine that I could just keep going, without any set destination, without any responsibility or ties. I could turn off my phone and slalom through flickering neon truck-stops, counting the deer-crossing signs, and wondering how long the moon will follow. Each passing road sign would be a reminder of the enormity of the world, each pause between songs a reminder of my seclusion. I'd smile. I'd cry. I'd eventually turn around.

So this burst of nostalgia caused a sudden urge to go for a drive. It was a short one, but lovely. The air felt nice, the familiar surroundings became new, strange, because they didn't matter.

After a while I ended up at Books-a-million, because bookstores are second only to joy rides (and possibly a good record store). I perused for an hour or so, fingering through pages, alone amongst a crowd of people.

But as usual that solitary joy was replaced by pining for company, and I soon found myself in the presence of some dear friends (Austin, Ashley, Dean, and Brandy), sitting in a dark room, each taking turns entreating something beautiful from the ipod plugged into the sound system. And then the tide of the evening shifted again, and I was carried to a birthday party of a new acquaintance, chatting it up with strangers. The conversations were not anything notable, but I was feeling unusually content.

And it struck me: I've been meeting some really great people lately, people who seem to see things in me that I am unable to see in myself. I've always felt that there was a giant misunderstanding in how people percieved me, as if my internal strife was reality and the external affability merely a mask. I'd regard any kind words with silent suspicion, feeling like some grave error was made. (I am reminded of that wonderful line in Juno: "I don't really know what kind of [guy] I am")

So much of my life has been spent averting my eyes, attempting to convey social grace while internally squirming. I'm done with that. I'm tired of it. I'm learning to allow people their conceptions, and in-turn allowing that to inform my own conception of myself (when appropriate).

I'm sorry I've averted my eyes from you. I'll figure it all out on my next solitary drive, and turn around like I always do, and never ride alone again.

------------

I feel like ending this with the lyrics to the aforementioned song, because they're so much better than anything I could write (though probably not as powerful without Chan Marshall's beautiful voice, so go out and buy the album).

It must be the colors and the kids that keep me alive,
'cause the music is boring me to death.
It must just be the colors and the kids that keep me alive,
'cause I want to go right away, to a January night.

I built a shack with an old friend,
he was someone I could learn from,
someone I could become.

Will you meet me down on a sandy beach?
We could roll up our jeans, so the tide won't get us below the knees.

Yellow hair, you are a funny bear.
Yellow hair, you are such a funny bear.

Slender fingers would hold me.
Slender limbs would hold me.
And you could say my name,
like you knew my name.

I could stay here, become someone different.
I could stay here, become someone better.

It's so hard to go in the city, because you want to say hello to everybody
It's so hard to go into the city, because you want to say hey, I love you to everybody.

When we were teenagers we wanted to be the sky
Now all we want to do is go to red places, and try to stay out of Hell.

It must be the colors and the kids that keep me alive.
Cause the music is boring me to death.
It must just be the colors and it must just be the kids,
that keep me alive on this January night.

Yellow hair, you are a funny bear.
Yellow hair, you are such a funny bear.

-Cat Power

hopefully it occurs to me...

2008-11-26T12:42:00.000-05:00

Because of a sudden and inexplicable burst of holiday spirit that came over me last night, I found myself craving a Christmas movie. So, after realizing that my dvd collection is severely lacking in holiday movies, I popped in Elf. I was really happy for a little while (the combination of Will Farrell and Zooey Deschanel is a force to be reckoned with in my consciousness), but then it finally dawned on me how much this Christmas is going to suck. I've been ignoring the fact, or at least not giving it much thought, that I'll be stuck in FL, by myself, working on both Christmas Eve and Christmas itself. This is a potent combination of terrible circumstances: no family, no snow/chance of snow/or even cold enough temperatures where you could make a fire and pretend like its snowing, and work. Blah.

It might be different if this was a job that I really enjoyed, engaged in. Don't get me wrong, I like my job, it's decent, and I'm good at it, but it's not exactly what I'm shooting for as a career.

So after a little solo pity party (which may have just continued in those last two paragraphs... sorry) I picked up the book I've been reading lately - that is, if you can call it reading; it takes me about fifteen minutes or more per page because it's so dense, and I'm not exaggerating, but that's a good thing, because it's fantastic - No Man is an Island by Thomas Merton, and got a much needed dose of perspective. The chapter is called "Sentences on Hope" and here's what I read:

"Supernatural hope is the virtue that strips us of all things in order to give us possession of all things. We do not hope for what we have. Therefore, to live in hope is to live in poverty, having nothing. And yet, if we abandon ourselves to economy of Divine Providence, we have everything we hope for... Hope deprives us of everything that is not God, in order that all things may serve their true purpose as means to bring us to God."

This kind of blew my mind. What we hope for we do not possess, so the act of hope, in itself, without fruition, is actually despondency disguised as a positive emotion, and the loss of hope is actually that which truly edifies, because it causes us to abandon ourselves to the economy of Divine Providence. Amazing.

This is not to say I have no right to be sad about this upcoming Christmas. I will still be sad. But this just gave me a little tap, reminding me of precedence.

And although I'm working all day tomorrow (Thanksgiving) there is plenty to be thankful for. Like this book I'm reading, with gems like this: "It is lawful to love all things and to seek them once they become means to the love of God. There is nothing we cannot ask of Him if we desire it in order that He may be more loved by ourselves or by others." And music. And friends, who hear that I'm working on Thanksgiving and send me text messages like this one: "Aw, well if you want a meal or leftovers or quality family time, my house is open :)" (Thanks, katie). And fresh air. And sweater vests. And corny movie moments making you tear up. And family. And love. And joy. And peace. And patience. And kindness. And goodness. And faithfulness. And gentleness. And self-control. And love. And love. And love. And the fact that all these things are available to us even when a potent combination of terrible circumstances converge. And that feeling of placing the last period on something you wrote and knowing that its true.

go look at your eyes, they're full of moon

2008-11-24T21:16:00.000-05:00

"Whenever the dog and I see each other we both stop where we are. We regard each other with a mixture of sadness and suspicion, and then we feign indifference. We walk past each other safely; we have an understanding. It’s very sad, but you’ll have to admit that it is an understanding. We had made many attempts at contact, and we had failed... And what has been the result: the dog and I have attained a compromise, more of a bargain, really. We neither love nor hurt because we do not try to reach each other. And, was trying to feed the dog an act of love? And, perhaps, was the dogs trying to bite me not an act of love? If we can so misunderstand, then why have we bothered to invent the word love in the first place?"
-Edward Albee, The Zoo Story

I had a nice little chat with Prof. DeBorde on friday afternoon. We talked a little bit about my performance of a scene from this play for Oral Interpretation class, which she had recommended to me heartily, saying "The Zoo Story! Steve, you should do it, you are sooo Edward Albee." Now, I had never read The Zoo Story before, but after finishing it I got all pensive, wondering why in the world she felt this was me. It's a bizzare play... very bizarre. I mean, it's genuis, I love it, but, it's twisted. Part of the reason I love Mrs. DeBorde is because she obviously really cares about her students. She takes the time to pay attention to you, and truly desires to know you as a person. And she's good at doing that. I think I can safely say she's my favorite teacher ever. Well anyway, we were chatting about this and that and she said that she thinks I should do some acting. WHAT? This class was really hard for me, because I'm not good with getting up in front of people... especially if I have to perform something. I was so nervous every time. But she said that she thought I had some natural ability to communicate, and that there was "rawness" in how I did things, which was effective. And some of my classmates seemed to think those silly performances were good too. It's amazing how different our own perceptions of ourselves can be from other peoples'. It's refreshing that it's that way, actually; encouraging, maybe. But I probably still won't be taking up acting any time soon... unless it's like what's on Mitch Hedberg's acting resume: "If I play pool, and I make a shot, I act like I'm not surprised."

At any rate. I've been thinking about The Zoo Story ever since I first read it a few weeks ago, particularly the above quote, and how complicated love can be. I think that's a good thing, love's complexities are beautiful... sometimes... right? I don't know. There's a paradox in my thinking here... because I also adore Neruda's picture of love:

I love you straightforwardly, without complexitites or pride
And so I love you because I know no other way than this:
where I does not exist, nor you
so close that your hand on my chest is my hand
so close that when you close your eyes I fall asleep

So I don't know. I think talking intelligently about love is an impossibly. It's too big a concept. Not that we don't try - I've had countless conversations with Ammi on the subject, and we're always trying to put our finger on something that just refuses to be pinned down. We end up speaking in for instances; real-life examples meant to be some kind of reasoning (which is actually quite odd considering our individual track records). These complexities seem to be popping up everywhere. From talking about it with friends to reading it in their blogs, I've noticed there's a great deal of disillusionment going around. Ammi's latest post talks about simplicity in this realm: that love either is, or isn't. Perhaps that's the case, but I'm thinking of Jerry and the dog, and their feigned indifference, and their miscommunication, and the fallibility of the word love, its smallness, and I'm thinking that maybe it's not always so clear, that people can't be so simplified. But perhaps I refuse to believe that it's that simple because of my own situation... yeah, that's a possibility. Lauri wrote about a suspicion, or rather, a disbelief in true love, to which I responded in polite disagreement, and quoted Joni Mitchell. Janice stopped believing in it, but has since rediscovered it.

I don't know, I don't know. It's complicated. It's simple. It hurts. It heals. I don't know.

I did say talking intelligently about love is an impossibility right?

Jerry and the dog never realize each others' love. They feigned indifference too long. Maybe the moral of the story is to be open, maybe that alleviates some of the complexity... maybe.

I wear my heart on my sleeve, I just roll it up a little.

[insert a clever title here]

2008-11-24T12:18:00.000-05:00

I caved and reactivated my facebook last night. Here's the deal: I figured my time at Southeastern is coming to a close, and there are some people I'd like to keep in touch with... even if its only in the paltry, electronic mode of human interaction. So why not? I never did achieve that goal that I had set for myself when I deleted it in the first place; vigorously attempting to revive the lost art of letter writing (I wrote about two hand-written letters to friends and then gave it up... perhaps I'll try that out again...) Within five minutes of reactivating my account I received two wall posts, and was instantly reminded of how facebook is truly a world of its own, and I found myself very estranged from this universe. All my old information was saved, so it was as if facebook never really expected me to leave for real; knew I would come back, like some kind of sick parental relationship where they keep your room just as it was until you're thirty... but this room that was kept for me wasn't really mine anymore. I had to go through and delete so much... for various reasons... not the least of which being that most of the photographs on there came from a time when I wasnt single... awkward... so I ditched all that. Now I'm going through the somewhat-arduous process of digitally befriending all the people I have befriended since my former facebook days. On the plus side it gives me time to sit and listen to some new tunes.

This is a stupid and boring post. Sorry. Maybe I'll make up for it later.

ps - I started typing "anything by..." under my book interests, and apparantly there is some kind of auto-complete function on facebook now, and I'm gussing it works by most frequently used entries... and the first result was "Anything by Nicholas Sparks"
That cracked me up... I don't know why.

grow my own, my own seed shall be sown...

2008-11-21T09:03:00.000-05:00

I received a text from Carter this morning, who moved to NYC last week. It read: "It's snowing here... I love this place!!!"

My heart aches.

ps

2008-11-18T00:32:00.000-05:00

I had to go to Walmart at midnight just for this. I'll be curled up in bed for the rest of the evening enjoying this little guy immensely.

something about love, then big liz

2008-11-17T16:01:00.000-05:00

The seemingly simple act of loving others is not nearly as simple as it seems. This is something I am realizing lately (or, something I've known, but is resonating lately). It's so easy to get discouraged by the absence of love in the world, and I'm finding that it's also then so easy to capitulate to the norm - perhaps I'm incorrect in assuming that the norm is deficient in love... I'd like to believe I am, actually, but... I don't know - at any rate, I'm guilty of capitulating at times. And when it happens it tears at something in my consciousness; I no longer feel like me. Sometimes I recover quickly, but other times I do not...

At church this week there was an announcement concerning a Christmas gift-drive for local poverty-stricken areas, but instead of donating toys for children, we will be collecting gifts geared for adults, and then selling them cheaply (like.. for pennies) to local kids to give their parents as Christmas presents. And I love the idea. I think it's so awesome, because, they'll be able to bless others, and that's the best part about Christmas. These kids will get to experience the joy of loving on people.

I have been finding myself needing to rediscover that joy lately, in order to recover.

"The gift of love is the gift of the power and the capacity to love, and therefore, to give love with full effect is also to receive it. So, love can only be kept by being given away, and it can only be given perfectly when it is also received."

"It is clear, then, that to love others well we must first love the truth. And since love is a matter of practical and concrete human relations, the truth we must love when we love our brothers [and sisters] is not mere abstract speculation: it is the moral truth that is to be embodied and given life in our own destiny and theirs. This truth is more than the cold perception of an obligation, flowing from moral precepts. The truth we must love in loving our brothers [and sisters] is the concrete destiny and sanctity that are willed for them by the love of God."

-Thomas Merton, No Man is an Island

-------------------
Elizabeth P. wanted to finish my blog. Here it is:

anywayz this is big liz.
anyway. tonight i worked at lake miriam. it was pretty cool. it was pretty fun.
i met this girl named dana. a little bit fat but kinda sweet.
pretty messy, pretty sticky time.
now i am going to apple bees. some of the people there are my friends.
talk to the hand cuz the face ain't listnen
me and my sis rock.

it's not that we're scared, it's just that it's delicate

2008-11-06T15:29:00.000-05:00

Young

A thousand doors ago
when I was a lonely kid
in a big house with four
garages and it was summer
as long as I could remember,
I lay on the lawn at night,
clover wrinkling under me,
the wise stars bedding over me,
my mother's window a funnel
of yellow heat running out,
my father's window, half shut,
an eye where sleepers pass,
and the boards of the house
were smooth and white as wax
and probably a million leaves
sailed on their strange stalks
as the crickets ticked together
and I, in my brand new body,
which was not a woman's yet,
told the stars my questions
and thought God could really see
the heat and the painted light,
elbows, knees, dreams, goodnight.
-Anne Sexton

In our discussion of Anne Sexton's poetry today, I made a suggestion that was fairly quickly dismissed. I posed an argument that the poem (transcribed above) is laden with sexual undertones. Before this the discussion was mainly centering on some vague feeling of loss that the poem conveyed, that it is a reflection on a time lost, peaceful, serene. The discussion was less a discussion and more a popcorn machine popping sporadic comments, but purity was mentioned, innocence, childhood. Given that it seemed established that this was a lament on some loss of innocence, I really didn't think it was a giant leap to my reading: that the poem is a reflection on the moment before losing her virginity, and how that changed things. I mentioned something about the language; how she was laying on her back, the stars "bedding" over her, her new body "not a woman's yet," "heat," "elbows, knees" etc. which was received with some hearty, but probably mostly nervous laughter. Cotton just said "well, I've been around the block, but I don't see that."

Eh. So I probably seem like some kind of pervert to my fellow classmates who don't know me, but I swear it's in there. I'm not crazy.

I got the feeling that my line of discussion was so quickly dismissed because we had some visitors in the class. A prospective student and her parents, who got up and left before our discussion of the next selection. We also neglected to discuss "Housewife" I think for the very same reason (there's no getting around the undertones (overtones) in that one. Actually, maybe there is, because a few of my small group members really thought she was talking about a house). I think we would have discussed it had they not been there, which was disconcerting to me, because, if that was the case, then we're sacrificing honesty and truth to gain... what? Why should we pacify prospective student's parents when they come to visit, making our University look like a resort of some kind; what is that? It's academia, not Club Med. We're also lying to the student, I think. And do we really even want a student body that is unwilling to roll up their sleeves and address some stuff that isn't comfortable? (I hope this doesn't come off like I'm senselessly bashing Southeastern, because I really do like my school. And it's really annoying how much people complain about it.)

I understand the need to be delicate when it comes to questionable literature, but we also need to be real. This is a constant problem in the English department here; where to draw the line.

My sentiment is that the line is unimportant, that closing your eyes to something does not make it go away, that truth is more important than anyone's sensibilities, and that we should be "wise as serpents, and gentle as doves."

goodbye blue monday

2008-11-03T20:19:00.000-05:00

"I will come to a time in my backwards trip when November eleventh, accidentally my birthday, was a sacred day called Armistice Day. When I was a boy, and when Dwayne Hoover was a boy, all the people of all the nations which had fought in the First World War were silent during the eleventh minute of the eleventh hour of Armistice Day, which was the eleventh day of the eleventh month.

It was during that minute in nineteen hundred and eighteen, that millions upon millions of human beings stopped butchering one another. I have talked to old men who were on battlefields during that minute. They have told me in one way or another that the sudden silence was the Voice of God. So we still have among us some men who can remember when God spoke clearly to mankind.

Armistice Day has become Veterans' Day. Armistice Day was sacred. Veterans' Day is not.
So I will throw Veterans' Day over my shoulder. Armistice Day I will keep. I don't want to throw away any sacred things

What else is sacred? Oh, Romeo and Juliet, for instance.
And all music is."
-Kurt Vonnegut, Breakfast of Champions

Someone in class tonight said that Romeo and Juliet is the worst story ever told. It made me think of this passage. It also disgusted me.

What will follow this page break is a bit of narcissistic rambling that need not be read by anyone. Don't say I didn't warn you.

---------------

I'm feeling melancholic lately. I need to get out of my head. I need to stop thinking about it. I've been trying to stop thinking about it. I need some perspective. I need to let go. I need to hold on. I need to try. I need to give up. I've been trying to give up. I need to stop thinking that I'm being overly analytical. I need to stop being overly analytical. Being overly analytical is killing me. I need to be confident. I need to believe that this could be something. I need to stop believing that this could be something. I need to stop confusing what I need and what I want. I want to know. I need to know. I'll probably never know. This is supposed to go away, not supposed to last this long. That means something. That means that I'm an idiot. I have no reason to dream but I dream anyway. These dreams are killing me. If I may trust the flattering truth of sleep... Ah me! How sweet is love itself possess'd, when but love's shadows are so rich in joy.

dream job/life

2008-11-01T15:39:00.001-04:00

I am building a future workspace in my mind: a small room with hardwood floors, on whose off-white walls are frantically pinned items of inspiration - a few torn-out pages of Dostoevsky over here, some Salinger over there... would it be sacrilegious to tear pages out of the Bible and pin them on a wall? Hmm. Perhaps some of my favorite poems transcribed harshly, directly on the walls themselves with black sharpie. Dali's Girl with Curls, maybe some Van Gogh. Photographs of people I love.

There will be a small table and chair in the center of the room, littered with empty cups, napkins, or receipts, or other small pieces of paper inked with nonsense, a Macbook (or whatever they might call it in the years to come), and a small, very low-light lamp, maybe with a black shade.

Perhaps one wall will be reserved for a projection screen on which to view films. Over in the corner will be a wooden crate holding some of the films that mean the most to me, easily at hand to watch that one scene that causes something to rise in the spirit or sink in the heart.

One big window, thin, stretching nearly the entire height of the wall, broken into panels by wood covered in cracked paint. It would be several stories above the ground and look out over Central Park, and would open outward, hinges on each side and a latch in the center. There would always be a breeze, cool, occasionally freezing, but mostly refreshing. At night the window would creak and softly bang with the brief gusts of wind.

There would be no other furniture in the room except the table and chair in the center so that there would be plenty of room for pacing around, feeling the hardwood on bare feet. The chair wouldn't be a comfortable one, because the room is not designed for lounging, but for working, and the pacing around will be working, and the looking at the photographs on the wall of people I love will be working, and the staring out the window for hours at night will be working.

But my favorite part of the room is the photograph framed on the desk, and the fact that its subject is not far away, proving to be the greatest inspiration. Perhaps she's staring out the window of the room she has built for the very same purpose, just down the hall.

And when we're both done working maybe I'll cook some dinner. And we'll watch an old movie on our big, soft couch, our fingers glad to be done tapping away at keyboards; resting, intertwined, spelling out a word that can never be captured in four small letters.

tobias is queen mary

2008-10-30T21:59:00.000-04:00

I'm pretty bummed that I have to work on Halloween this year. It's one of my favorite holidays. Everyone is silly, and generally in good spirits, and I love that. At least we get to dress up for work. But since it's work I really haven't given much thought to what I'm going to dress up as. My costume last year was my favorite ever, although not very many people understood what I was... but those who did understood all to well (I was getting high-fives all night long from those who did, and many of you know how much I love those). The best part was that it only cost me like $10 - A bald cap, a fake mustache, cut-offs, and some makeup for fake body hair and bingo, Tobias Funke: the first ever Analyst and Therapist aka Analrapist (it didn't look good on paper) and of course loud and proud nevernude (there are dozens of us. Dozens!)

The only downside to that costume was that I was freezing all night. It was worth it though.

Also, I have been listening to the Fleet Foxes album all week, and its incredible. If you haven't heard it, I highly recommend that you check it out.

And here's a random poem, just because.

"Lie still now
while I prepare for my future,
certain hard days ahead,
when I'll need what I know so clearly this moment.

I am making use
of the one thing I learned
of all the things my father tried to teach me:
the art of memory.

I am letting this room
and everything in it
stand for my ideas about love
and its difficulties.

I'll let your love-cries,
those spacious notes
of a moment ago,
stand for distance.

Your scent,
that scent
of spice and a wound,
I'll let stand for mystery.

Your sunken belly
is the daily cup
of milk I drank
as a boy before morning prayer. 

The sun on the face
of the wall
is God, the face
I can't see, my soul,

and so on, each thing
standing for a separate idea,
and those ideas forming the constellation
of my greater idea.
And one day, when I need
to tell myself something intelligent
about love,

I'll close my eyes
and recall this room and everything in it:
My body is estrangement.
This desire, perfection.
Your closed eyes my extinction.
Now I've forgotten my
idea. The book
on the windowsill, riffled by wind...
the even-numbered pages are
the past, the odd-
numbered pages, the future.
The sun is
God, your body is milk...

useless, useless...
your cries are song, my body's not me...
no good ... my idea
has evaporated...your hair is time, your thighs are song...
it had something to do
with death...it had something
to do with love."
-Li-Young Lee

bingo bango bongo. something the whole family can enjoy

2008-10-27T13:32:00.000-04:00

I'm sure people are looking at me in this quiet coffee shop and wondering what the hell is wrong with the kid laughing uncontrollably by himself over in the corner. C'est la vie.

Ducks fly together

i am truly sorry about all this

2008-10-21T23:49:00.000-04:00

I heard a story tonight. No, a story is not accurate; a bit of gossip, really. Since I have little interest in such things, and only mention it here because it sparked something in my mind, I will not repeat the scandal, but here's a euphemism to set the context: a boy gets kicked out of a grocery store for juggling two apples, one of which was the assistant manager of the grocery store.

I don't expect that to make sense, but I felt the need to write something silly. Sometimes, all you can do is laugh about things that make you sick.

At any rate, this bit of gossip was delivered to me with vigorous veneration... and I smiled (because I really don't know what else to do in these moments), but felt ill inside.

Here's the thing: I have a bit of a hang-up with gender roles. I always cringe when people say that "men are..." or "women are..." But if I'm being honest, sometimes I just can't agree with most of my male friends. Sometimes (most of the time) I can't stand how they talk, the things they get excited about, the way they talk about... I'd say love, but that would really only be another euphemism... about... relationships?

And I'm always the guy that when my female friends say things like "guys only care about sex" or "all men are assholes" says: "hey now, that's not true. There are plenty of really great guys out there" or something of similar valor. But, in reality, out of all of the males I know, there are only a handful that I would be comfortable really standing up for when it comes down to ideals of love.

Now, don't get me wrong, I know plenty of women who are just as depraved as the "conventional male", but as a member of the male persuasion, I see more blatant honesty than I'd care to, and therefore am in a better position to critique my own gender. In other words, as a standard, (which I try desperately to avoid), I'd really like to believe that gender has nothing to do with an ideal of love, but the scale is tipped in my personal experience.

The worst part is feeling like I have to slap these people on the back, or give them high-fives for things that are disgusting to me. I just sit there and smile, wishing I would stand up and leave.

It's Okay - I'll shake your hand, and be affable, but you should know that your proximity to something so, so beautiful tears at my sensibilities. You and your self-interest do not deserve to be that close, to the point where I almost felt bad using the same hand as a greeting.

But again, sometimes all you can do is laugh about such things. Which is why I'm really glad these two guys are around.

autumn rhythm

2008-10-20T15:45:00.000-04:00

The air smelled like autumn yesterday. It was intoxicating, inspiring, and fleeting. I miss the north sometimes so badly it hurts, but here in FL during these months there are moments that breathe a semblance of that crisp autumn aura. It reminds me of Jackson Pollock, of blisters on my palms from raking leaves, of pumpkin patches, of dead leaves scraping the hardening ground and making music, of hearing the air-brakes of school buses quickly replaced by the shouts of children free for the afternoon, of the way your breath becomes slightly visible as the light drains out of the sky. I'd have to say fall is my favorite season, for reasons I can't quite articulate. There is a paradox in the beauty of autumn: everything is dying, but nature lights up for a moment before fading to white, playing out its swan song in beatific sensory details, and in that moment everything feels right.

Autumn is a season of transition, and I have found that my life echoes its example. The most drastic changes in my life always come in the fall. I'm not sure what changes await me this fall, but I'm ready for them, God am I ready for them. It seems that some of the things I thought might happen this semester have slipped away. Some of the things I had hoped for, that, probably, I had no reason to hope for in the first place, are now hopeless. But hopelessness of things hoped for is not to be confused with hopelessness in life, as that first breath in stepping outside yesterday morning reminded me.

Yesterday I had a very full day: church, work, homework, then a midnight airport trip to pick up Elizabeth. Before leaving for the airport I made a playlist of some music that sounds like autumn to me. Two albums in particular: Dave Matthews' solo album Some Devil and Rilo Kiley's The Execution of all Things. Some Devil was released in the fall after graduating highschool, and The Execution of all Things was a steady companion the next fall while I was in San Fransico. So each song is a heavy dose of nostalgia for me. There was a lot more on the playlist, of course, but songs from these spoke especially loud as I cruised down I4.

As the cool air swam around my head and the music played to the rhythm of painted lines speeding by, I began wondering what to do after this semester. Portland is more than a possibility - my sisters both really want me to come out there, the city itself is amazing and I think i'd fit there. NYC is, of course, ultimately where I want to end up, but I can't afford it yet... unless my cousin wants to have a pro-bono roommate in his upper-west-side apartment (ha, I wish). My sis lives in Brooklyn, I could always get an apartment with her... close enough, I suppose, slightly more affordable. Maybe I'll just pack up and move to Paris. Or maybe I'll stick around Lakeland for a bit. I really don't know. I want to though. I really do.

On a lighter note, I saw a promotion for McDonald's Monopoly game thing where a bunch of people were photographed together and labeled "Last Years Monopoly Winners" It was highly suspect - they hit every demographic with this picture, like the back of board games with the all-inclusive multicultrual family laughing and patting each other on the back while rolling dice. Hey McDonald's and Milton Bradley, your marketing schemes are a little too obvious. I'm all about inclusion, but tone it down a little, eh?

what does it take to fulfull a dream that changes every day?

2008-10-18T02:11:00.000-04:00

My computer is filled with microsoft word files containing absolute dribble. Beginnings to stories, promts for novels, nonsensical breathings, etc. Hundreds of them, organized by date; a really ridiculous journal that I never think about or revisit. Tonight I opened up a few out of curiosity. The ones on my actual computer (not including the thousands on my hard drive) go back as far as 2005, and in revisitng them I realized that if I met myself a few years ago I wouldn't recognize me. It's amazing how much we change without realizing it. This one is dated 10. 21. 06, and is apparently a beginning to a narrative:

“We are different people now,” she said.

“No," he said, "we were different people before--when we used to sit inside and laugh about the world outside. Now we; head down and hands tied, shuffle in the long grey line of death. We both are the same now, you and I... What happened to our dreams? I remember when they concerned fulfillment of love and kindness, gentleness and peace, patience and grace. Our dreams now are only concerned with money and power, style and consequence, self-fulfillment and disappointment. We dream of the future while disregarding the past and the present. We lost in our youth what we hoped to gain in adulthood, not realizing that we already had it--whatever it was, I can’t even remember anymore. I just know something’s missing. I catch a glimpse of it sometimes, when in a dark room, drunk and tired, I await something new. But it is fleeting and it fails me, or maybe I fail it. Is there more to life than sitting inside and dreaming of the world outside? What does it take to fulfill a dream that changes every day?
We were different people once.
We used to sit inside the comfort of our own world and laugh at the people outside the windows we imagined. The only thing I dreamed was you, so that a dream was anticipatory of waking. Now waking grows harder. Eagar am I no more to rise from the opulence of a life fulfilled in the sleeping realm. And they say life goes on. Most likely, they are right… and yet, I shudder to call this life.”

I have no idea what was going on in my life in October 2006 that caused me to write this. I don't know who I was thinking of... I don't even remember writing it. It's weird, because in reading it I feel like there was some severe pain behind it all, but I can't for the life of me recall it. Maybe that's a good thing. But it's strange, because it makes me feel like I don't really understand me. And shouldn't we know ourselves better than anyone else?

Eh. Who knows.

How am I not myself? How am I not myself?

to begin with... everything

2008-10-13T22:01:00.000-04:00

I've recently been attempting to rebuild my dvd collection. I do this thing where if I mention a movie to someone who has never seen it (no matter who they are) I insist that they borrow it from me.

"You've never seen Magnoila? Shut up... here, take it."

Then I forget to get it back. (There was also that period of time in San Fransisco when I didn't have a job and resorted to pawning off a good portion of my collection just to make a few bucks... sigh.)

Over the years my collection has dwindled from such events. Its gotten to the point where one might think I have a lame taste in movies because so few of the best ones are left. So for the past few weeks I have been making trips to FYE after church, perusing the shelves for used copies of the very films I used to claim (and some new additions as well, of course). It's amazing how many great movies you can find used for under $10.

This week these lovelies came back to me:

Adaptation
Almost Famous
Spanglish
The Big Lebowski (It's absurd how many times I've bought this one. I think this is the fifth copy I've owned)
Being John Malkovich

Total Cost: $34

I'm glad they're back. For reasons not the least of which is related to the fact I just popped in Almost Famous to provide some background while I write a paper, but have not succeeded in writing hardly anything. Maybe it was seeing Zooey Dechanel (because I'm boarder-line obsessed) or watching young William thumb through the Vinyls his sister left him under his bed (Zeppelin, Joni, The Who, Henrix...) or the epic soundtrack... but I couldn't peel away enough to get anything done even though I knew every step that was coming next.

In short: Cameron Crowe was successful in his goal - "to write a love letter back to music" But now I'm going to have to write a love letter to my professor, since my paper got put on the back burner. Oh well. It was worth it.

My bookshelf is the next to be revitalized, since it's in the same predicament. Amazon Marketplace is a beautiful thing.

there's just one word that I still believe in

2008-09-24T23:51:00.000-04:00

I'm all about social justice. Sometimes I think it may be the only thing I am truly passionate about (aside from God, of course, but these two things are so tightly connected in my mind that when speaking about one I'm also speaking about the other). With this passion comes the inevitable onslaught of political principle. But let's get one thing straight: I hate politics. I hate talking about politics, I hate thinking about politics, and I really hate debating about politics. It only seems to divide people, and that is just crazy. Sometimes though, you just can't get around the subject, as much as you try. That being said, I'll be as delicate as I can about what's on my mind right now.

There's a lot going on in this country, and I don't have any idea what will happen... but I'm worried. Reading the news has become a chore. Each day I am more and more apprehensive to do so, because ignorance really is bliss... but then again that sort of attitude is probably 90% of the problem.

An economic crisis has been brewing for a long time now, and it seems to be reaching the spilling-point, and what that's going to mean for us remains to be seen. Yet everybody has their opinions, and they have somebody to blame, and they have their spot on some dumb news broadcast bitching about ridiculous things like how SNL went too far with their jokes about Sarah Palin, all lining up to give their two cents on something that really doesn't matter at all. Or you have presidential candidates saying they want to work together to help this situation, while in the same breath slandering the other for their delayed response or unreturned phone call and blah blah blah blah.

Here's what I think: I think no matter what's going to happen, no matter how good or bad things are about to get, the only thing that matters is community.

I don't necessarily mean community in a national sense. I do not consider myself a patriot, because all I have ever seen of patriotism is an us against them dynamic; a watered-down version of Orwell's Oceania, where the enemy outside the boarder need not be understood, met, felt, cried with, laughed with, listened to, or even seen without being considered less than, because hey, we're number one baby!
I don't agree with this dynamic within our boarders - someone’s color or tax-bracket or cultural dialect does not determine their worth - so why should I subscribe to it when in an outside context; why should I consider myself better than someone else simply because I was born in a certain country? It's absurd to me. We're not better, we're richer. There's a major difference.

But I believe in community. When this takes place within our boarders, sure, call it patriotism... I'll be on board - so long as we're talking about communing with one another; loving one another, looking out for, taking care of, and seeking to understand one another. Because that's what community really is, not waving flags nearby one another while hating the same enemy.

This thing might get bad. It really might. And I only see true community happening on a small scale in American culture. We've always been an individualistic society; it's done some great things, but is also a burden, I think. So let's tune out the voices pointing fingers, and the veiled hostility, and find some love in all this mess. It's there somewhere, it really is. We're all gonna feel this economic crunch, if we aren't already, so let's hold hands and keep each other held up. Let's reach down as much as possible, and try to bring each other up. Let's understand that in the end the only thing that really matters is love.

Because it's true

"If I speak in the tongues of men and angels, but have not love, I am but a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing"

I know it's already been sung, but it can't be said enough: love is all you need, all you need is love

kick off your sunday shoes

2008-09-23T22:58:00.000-04:00

Telling someone that they look like someone else is a strange thing, because it could either be a compliment or an insult, depending on the persons point of view. And there's really no way of knowing, unless that parenthetical "...that's a good thing" is added on at the end.

In one week of work, on average, I get told I look like Kevin Bacon about 4 times. It lost its charm about five years ago.
I'm really not exaggerating, about one in five tables I serve tell me this. Once and a while I will get it outside of work, but very rarely. So I don't know what it is about waiting tables that brings out the Bacon in me, but it does. Maybe people just like to tell their waiters that they look like someone. I've also been told an uncomfortable number of times that I look like Clay Aiken... that one never had any charm. When that happens, I have to smile and pretend like its not an insult. I mean, I don't think Kevin Bacon is attractive, but at least he's kind of cool, Clay Aiken on the other hand... yeah. Yet those middle-aged ladies just love to tell me I look like "that sweet American Idol boy... oh what's his name..."

The guy who said it tonight made it a little bit easier to bear by saying I looked like a young Kevin Bacon. That's not as bad, I suppose. And apparently he had the hots for the Baconator, because he was really flirty, and when he left said, "Goodbye handsome." Gay men love me, what can I say? But hey, I'll take it, cause I don't hear that too often.

Moral of the story: If you're going to tell somebody that they look like somebody else, you should either make sure that other person isnt ugly, or at least affirm that you think its a compliment.

don't huff glue, don't drink pot

2008-09-15T20:50:00.000-04:00

Just so you know, upon starting this blog I typed in the title bar, almost without any thought at all: if you need me i'll be over here, huffing glue.
I do not know why I felt this was an appropriate title, or why it was the first thing that came to mind, because a) I never title these things until I'm done writing them and b) I have never huffed anything, much less glue... and c) because... yeah... what?

I'm probably as confused as you are right now. But I'm also now thinking about Love Liza and what a depressing-yet-amazing movie that was, what with the whole wife-committing-suicide-so-therefore-resigning-to-a-life-of-huffing-gasoline thing, and subsequently thinking about how awesome Phillip Seymor Hoffman is and how much I can't wait for Synecdoche, New York, which I am willing to bet will not be playing around here, so I'm already prepared to complain a little bit (or a lot) before driving to Tampa or somewhere else because Charlie Kaufman is f'ing brilliant, and I will not miss seeing it in theaters.

A brief interjectory disclaimer:
1. If you're wondering if I will come to a point, I'll tell you now, I probably won't.
2. Sometimes I feel bad for the people who take the time to read this.
3. This is one of those times.

I'm thinking that really weird stream-of-consciousness title was subconciously referring to the stress I'm feeling at the moment as a result of having to write two papers this evening, or because I had to endure a really rediculous moment in class where pot was mentioned and I felt like I reverted back to third grade when the teacher said something that sounded like a part of the anatomy and everyone would get all giggly - don't get me wrong, I had to bite my tongue really hard not to laugh at this woman using slang drug language, but somewhere in there the point got entirely lost. It seemed like people were speaking up just to get the chance to talk about drugs or something... my favorite least-favorite part was when this one kid corrected her usage of the phrase smoking pot because, and I roughly quote, "you don't have to smoke it, you can eat it, or brew it in tea." I could do nothing but laugh, and die a little on the inside, because, seriously... why even open your mouth dude?

At any rate, that is neither here nor there...

I originally came here only to say this:

In case you want to know how I will be spending my evening, it will be spent slaving over my computer attempting to spit out six pages of analysis on one poem, and then another four for different paper. Luckilly the poem is of my own chosing, so its kind of fun... but still... I spent three hours at a coffee shop today going through my pages of pre-writing and scribblings on the poem itself, and staring at the blinking line in Microsoft Word, and all I left with was a title: In Surfeit of Glory: Sanguinity in A.R Ammons’ “Still”

I think its a pretty cool title though.

How is it that its only a few weeks into the semester and I'm already in this prediciment? And why have I wasted twenty minutes blabbing about nothing here?

For those of you who are still reading, I'm impressed, and apologetic. As a token of my, uh, either gratitude or sympathy, here's some good writing; the aforementioned poem.

Still
by A.R Ammons

I said I will find what is lowly
and put the roots of my identity
down there:
each day I’ll wake up
and find the lowly nearby,
a handy focus and reminder,
a ready measure of my significance,
the voice by which I would be heard,
the wills, the kinds of selfishness
I could
freely adopt as my own:

but though I have looked everywhere,
I can find nothing
to give myself to:
everything is

magnificent with existence, is in
surfeit of glory:
nothing is diminished,
nothing has been diminished for me:

I said what is more lowly than the grass:
ah, underneath,
a ground-crust of dry-burnt moss:
I looked at it closely
and said this can be my habitat: but
nestling in I
found
below the brown exterior
green mechanisms beyond intellect
awaiting resurrection in rain: so I got up

and ran saying there is nothing lowly in the universe:
I found a beggar:
he had stumps for legs: nobody was paying
him any attention: everybody went on by:
I nestled in and found his life:
there, love shook his body like a devastation:
I said
though I have looked everywhere
I can find nothing lowly
in the universe:

I whirled through transfigurations up and down,
transfigurations of size and shape and place:

at one sudden point came still,
stood in wonder:
moss, beggar, weed, tick, pine, self, magnificent
with being!

so close that when you close your eyes, i fall asleep

2008-09-13T02:16:00.000-04:00

Life can really catch up with you sometimes. As of tonight my roommate, also my best friend since elementary school, is engaged.

Obviously I knew this was coming; it wasn't that long ago that I smiled with him when he said he met a girl, or when we sat on swing sets in the middle of the night in a lonesome playground when he told me he thought she was the one, our feet scraping the soft sand while the crickets played their acclamation, the past few months I heard all about the ring-buying procedure, and stayed up late at night asking him how, exactly, he was going to do it... I even knew it was happening tonight... but when I came home from work and saw the smiles, it hit.

I rewind to junior-high, when climbing out of second-story windows at one a.m was so adventurous, when the world was silent and all was dark save for the footsteps of those walking beside you and the vague silhouette of familiar forms in the moonlight. Mischief. Adolescence. Self-discovery. Always having that hand outstretched that you knew you could grab, always knowing that you were with people you loved, people that, like you, didn't really have any answers, but were willing to offer up all that they did know and hope to find some semblance of truth.

I'm already preparing a speech for the wedding. I probably won't mention any of the stories from those nights of discovery and mischief, but, in reality, they will be in the spirit of the thing. The more I think about it, the older I feel, and the more I wonder where the time went, but I don't wish to go back. I'm glad for this. He deserves it. She deserves it. And I'm truly happy for them.

So tonight I'm filled with nostalgia, and gratitude, and (admittedly) jealousy - not that I'm in any rush. I have no desire to rush love. I don't think it should ever be forced, but still... tonight, I can't help but dream...

This song has been on my mind for a while now... but it's playing especially loud this evening...

i will bury my dream under your fig tree

2008-09-10T10:39:00.000-04:00

I am a firm believer in the notion that dreams are meaningful. The problem is that I rarely remember my own dreams, and when I do I can't make any sense of them.

Last night I had a dream that while cleaning out a closet in my room in the house where I grew up, I came across a few shirts, of which it was aware to me, in a manner typical to dream life where one possesses a certain knowledge of something without any grounds, that they once belonged to Sylvia Plath.

They were men's shirts, mind you, and I recall being intoxicated at the mere sight of them. They were very 1960s looking, and I had every intention of wearing them routinely, if only to have something interesting to say in passing conversation.

But one of them, the one the farthest back; white with red patterns in what seemed like the shape of eagles, though the forms never fully took shape but stood out as if only visible in my periphery, gave rise to an intense sensation of foreboding. Inside the front pocket of this particular shirt I found a photograph. It was a profile shot of Sylvia Plath and some unknown man facing each other on a desolate and gray beach, arms straight at their sides and faces completely expressionless. The photograph was worn, and torn at the edges, and felt brittle in my fingers.

In the photograph it was the man who was wearing the white-with-red-pattern shirt, but, and this is the strangest part of the dream, I was acutely aware that this was the shirt Ms. Plath was wearing when she committed suicide. I did not question why it was in my closet, I merely shuddered and returned the photograph, walked away, and felt fear rise in my spine with each step.

So if anyone feels they are gifted at interpreting dreams, I'd love to know what that was all about.

christian shepherd is everywhere

2008-09-07T22:51:00.000-04:00

There is something wrong when I'm finding Lost references everywhere I go. Especially since the show has been in recession for months now, and will not be returning to feed my obscene addiction for several more... but also because it's a freaking television show!
None the less, my mind made references to it, quite naturally, twice today... sigh.

In church this morning the pastor brought up the movie Forrest Gump, misquoting it, actually, which secretly sent shivers down my spine and tensed my muscles; I don't know why I find it so irritating when someone misquotes, but it kills me inside... but that's neither here nor there. Luckily I was able to overcome my perturbation quickly enough to recognize that what he was saying was of some import in my life (not the bit about Forrest Gump, but rather the overall message, mind you) and genuinely had a profound religious experience shortly afterwards.
...Shortly after that I got home and decided to pop in Forrest Gump while I ate some lunch, because hey, it really is a great movie, and you know, why not?

I got about thirty minutes in before realizing that I had loads of school work to do that I've been procrastinating on for days, or rather before caring that I had loads of school work to do that I've been procrastinating on for days*, and just when that thought was crossing my mind I noticed a face I couldnt place. It was the principal of the Greenbough County Public School (side note: there's no such place as Greenbough, AL. I don't know if you're aware of this, but when I found out I was devistated); you know, that really gross man who makes Forrest's mom sleep with him so that Forrest doesn't have to go to a special school because his IQ isn't up to par? Well, I knew I recognized that actor, but I couldn't exactly place him. Torn between sheer laziness and the logical step of walking over to my computer and accessing imdb.com, I rubbed my chin and muttered to myself vague questions which an onlooker may or may not have been able to distinguish as things like 'now where do I...' or 'I...could swear... for the life of me...' when finally it hit me: Bernard.
Yes, that sad little southern man in Forrest Gump, years younger and significantly thinner, was the same dude who played my beloved Bernard. Somewhere tangled with the satisfaction of solving the puzzle was a level of disdain for this man. I couldn't help but think: what happened to that sweet teary-eyed man with a quivering lip whose love for Rose conquered all? You should be ashamed of yourself.

Several hours later I'm reading the Ramayana of Valmiki for World Lit and finding even more parallels. Did you know that Dharma is social and moral order in Indian literature... or that boon is a gift? eh? eh? eeeehhhhh?

So in one day I have managed to cheapen my own personal religious experience, and one of the most important texts in Indian culture because of Lost. All in all it was a productive day - 150 more of which until season 5... sigh... I know, I know.

*writing this is procrastinating on what is still loads of school work, so obviously I didn't care all that much, and still don't.

my father always said laughter was the best medicine, which I guess is why several of us died of tuberculosis

2008-09-03T22:14:00.000-04:00

I spend about an hour a day on CNN.com and I get extremely depressed, but I always go immediately to The Onion and after about fifteen minutes I feel all better.

This one made me laugh for an obnoxious amount of time.

all dogs go to heaven

2008-08-31T13:14:00.000-04:00

My sister just called me and let me know she had to put her dog to sleep. My heart sank in my chest at the sound of her choking and wavering words. Suzie loved her so much, I can only slightly imagine how she is feeling. I can still remember coming home from school, and seeing a tiny waving white tail jutting out from the entrance to the kitchen as I climbed the stairs; I remember the smiles that circulated the room just watching her gobble up some food from a little bowl. She was so tiny then. Holding her in my lap, she fell asleep so hard, breathing and whimpering in some far-off dream, then picking her up without stirring her, her soft body fitting easily in my nine-year-old hands, and gently placing her down on the soft carpet. I remember hours of practicing lacrosse in the backyard, with her so eagerly chasing down and retrieving the ball, or her plowing through the yard after a fresh snowfall, the snow so purely white and deep that the only thing you could see of her was the brown spot on her back, like a brown circle traversing a white sea.

Fifteen years.

Fifteen years she was a part of the family, and now she's gone. I know that we were given dominion over the animals and all that, but I don't think that means they aren't sometimes capable of having dominion over our hearts.

RIP Kaya (1993 - 2008)

what do you say when someone says

2008-08-30T03:25:00.000-04:00

What do you say when someone says,
[but] a lot of people like her

I wonder about that but
if it was there would it change anything,
or does it chalk up to the same statement?
(does it end in the same place?)

yeah, I really like her

- a lot of people like her

I really like her

- but a lot of people like her

(- you’re not special
or
- you’re not good enough)

but then again I’m not sure if the word love
had the right to be used in the first place.

she's the tear that hangs inside my soul forever

2008-08-28T01:33:00.000-04:00

I witnessed the dead rise today, but it was short-lived.

My ipod has been broken for several months... it happened unexpectedly, and for no apparent reason. When it happened, I couldn't understand why. I had taken such good care of her (the thought crossed my mind that she just couldn't handle the weight of so much awesomeness, and decided to take her own life out of shame and feelings of inadequacy). Despite my desperate cries and attempts to revive her, no tunes arose from the beating of her chest (click-wheel), or mouth-to-mouth with her USBport, so with heavy boots I gently placed her in a wooden box beside my desk.

Well, today I opened that box, and saw her, and decided to give an old love a second chance. I plugged her in, at first seeing only the familiar signs - a spinning wheel saying very low battery, followed by a frozen screen - but some glimmer of hope arose in my spirit and I tried one last time at resuscitation. And I don't know whether it was the cool melody of Cat Stevens playing through the nearby speakers, or the sunshine falling just right through the blinds, or the position of the cosmos, but my heart froze as I saw the wonderful spectacle of a flashing DO NOT DISCONNECT sign.

My love came back to me.

And it couldn't have been better timing, because at approximately 7:00pm a loud crack extended through my apartment complex and the image on the television screen abruptly shot to black, and the hum of the AC was replaced by silence. A telephone pole had exploded or something... I don't know, but I was alone, and the sun was setting, and had no power. So after it got too dark to read, I took out my beloved ipod, and sat there in solitude listening to her, and felt immense comfort. She filled my ears and heart and soul until I was completely surrounded by darkness.

And then something horrible happened.

I had to use the bathroom, but by this time (approx. 9pm) it was completely dark, so I took her in with me, and used her as a sort of flashlight. As I lifted up the toilet seat (because having had four sisters I have been conditioned to put it down after every use) something happened: my fingers faltered, my muscles refused to respond quickly enough, she slipped, I flailed, I screamed, she fell. There was a horrific sound of a splash as I saw - as if frozen in time - her beautiful, illuminated being submerged in water. Had it been a foreign bathroom my reaction might not have been so immediate, but as it was I reached right in and pulled her out, wrapping her in a towel and yelling no, no, NO!

I quickly dried her off and returned the headphone plug, and enjoyed about 30 seconds of beauty before she started faltering. Cracks and static came rushing in like high-tide, and then nothing.

The power has come back on now, but no sign of life radiates from my beloved friend. Six months of grieving, only to be taunted by a few hours of her presence... what a cruel joke.
I am - at least slightly - comforted by the fact that she went out in style... her swan song: Jeff Buckley's Lover, You Should've Come Over. (I don't know if you've ever listened to Jeff Buckley Live at SinE in darkness and solitude - preferably while driving - but you should, you really should.)

So this is my ipod's obituary:
She was faithful, she was filled with greatness, and these were her last words:

his eyes shining with unutterable love

2008-08-21T16:59:00.000-04:00

My last entry said something about writing more when things wind down - that was two weeks ago. The things I was talking about in that entry have been replaced by other things, which are winding up, but they aren't wound in the same chaotic, moving around the country kind of way. I'm back in FL. There was a very brief, albeit stressful, period of not knowing where I was going to live, but have since moved into an apartment with a dear friend. It's wonderful; the apartment, living with a dear friend, and the swift provision from the Provider.

I mentioned something a few entries back about feeling God's hand on my shoulder. Well, He has moved it to my back and is shoving me. It's not a bad thing at all, the opposite actually... except that I feel like I can't see ahead of me, so it's as if I'm being shoved down a really dark hallway. There's a spotlight, aimed down, so I can see about three feet of floor ahead, but that's all. It's not that I don't want to move forward, it's just that the hallway is really wide - I can tell because I can feel the air, it's spacious and has current, tiny pieces of debris are illuminated in the spotlight, and I see them, briefly, hoping them to be from wreckage behind me before they are carried away by the soft wind - and I know this hallway splinters into several hallways, and I don't know if I can feel my way through and still choose the right path. And I'm wondering if there is a right path, because I know they all end in the same place, but they diverge, at least momentarily, before running parallel, and I fear the difference could be everything. But contrary to what you might believe, the creaking of the floorboards as my feet move blindly forward is not accompanied by terror, but by awe.

It just occurred to me that something I read two days ago seems to be the perfect ending for this:

"A modern example may be found (if we are not too proud to seek it there) in The Wind in the Willows where Rat and Mole approach Pan on the island.
'Rat,' he found breath to whisper, shaking, 'are you afraid?'
'Afraid?' murmured the Rat, his eyes shining with unutterable love. 'Afraid of Him? O, never, never. And yet--and yet--O mole, I am afraid"

-C.S Lewis, The Problem of Pain

goonies never say die

2008-08-07T14:32:00.000-04:00

I am staying in a condo on the coast of Oregon for my sisters wedding (which is tomorrow!), directly across from this scene. It is so beautiful. The Goonies was filmed here, enough said. Last night my sister Jen and I sat out on the beach until 4am, around a small fire, feeling the cool mist linger on our skin, and listening to the waves crash down out there in the darkness in between conversations. I've never seen anything like this place... and I do not have a good enough vocabulary to do it justice, so I will not attempt it. Perhaps when things wind down I will write more about this wonderful getaway. In the meantime, a simple list of current pleasures:

1. The city of Portland
2. The coast outside of Portland
3. The way my sis Danielle makes me laugh until I cry
4. The Eddie Vedder solo show bootleg I downloaded
5. My little niece Harper

2008-08-05T01:18:00.000-04:00

"With half-damp eyes I stared to the room
where my friends and I spent many an afternoon
where we together weathered many a storm
laughing and singing 'till the early hours of the morn

With hungry hearts though the heat and cold
we never much thought we could get very old
we thought we could sit forever in fun
but our chances, really, was a million to one

As easy it was to tell black from white
it was all that easy to tell wrong from right
and our choices, they were few, so the thought never hit
that the one road we traveled would ever shatter or split

I wish, I wish, I wish in vain
that we could sit simply in that room again
ten thousand dollars at the drop of a hat
I'd give it all gladly if our lives could be like that"
-Bob Dylan

I said goodbye to a handful of my best-friends tonight, for the first time not knowing when we will see each other again. Although for the past few years we have all been in different places, experiencing different things, there has always been the knowledge that we would all see each other again; there was always the anchor of a soon-to-be-summer spent together on the streets where we all learned a bit about the world surrounding us, ourselves, and each-other - basements and bars where time seemed to cease, and the degrees of separation between us melted away, leaving us with that nostalgic feeling of congeniality... which was more than enough for the time being - stories and subsequent laughter, congratulations, or tears that was not-at-all unnatural even if our voices had not been heard in months. I have gathered from my experiences with people after high-school that this level of camaraderie is a very rare thing; people often drift apart, lose interest, or cease to relate, and that friendships formulated in high-school (or even earlier, as is the case here) are more-often-than-not paltry and superficial. I am forever grateful that our experience has been an exception.

Some of the best parts of myself were born in the simple atmosphere of friendship - youth and naivety colliding, without restraint, shattering preconceptions, and causing considerable fall-out, but never destroying that hope and beauty that moved our hands to pick up all the pieces.

But time has caught up with us, and our ventures homeward are diminishing. We are scattering throughout the country, this time without the regular visits home so conducive to collegiate life. I know that it is not goodbye. I know that my children will know many "uncles" and "aunts" that are not of their bloodline, but all the same... I will miss them in-between. I am constantly moving forward, embracing change, relishing in it even, but not without lasting sentimentality for what has come before.

It's been a while since a debaucherous evening singing and swaying to this one, but this goes out to you, my friends.

but we lean forward to the next crazy venture beneath the skies

2008-08-03T15:38:00.000-04:00

I have a real blog now. Exciting stuff. The entire process of creating this thing was slightly overwhelming - too much going on, if you ask me, but on the bright side it allowed me to fully absorb a new album: Thao - We Brave Bee Stings and All. It's pretty darn good, too.

I only have two days left in New York, which is sad, I'm going to miss it, but I'm very excited about my sister's wedding in Portland, and I'm actually looking forward to getting back down to FL, believe it or not. It's my last semester of college. Yikes. Let's not talk about that.
I'm ready to jump back into academic mode, and ready to see how these next few months will transform my life (as it most certainly will); there are a lot of decisions to make, some of which I'm not quite ready for, but God is good, and I know everything will fall into place. He has been preparing me for some major changes; it's frustrating to not know what they are, and terrifying to guess, but I have felt His hand on my shoulder lately. I can't really ask for much more than that, although I do, I really do, I ask for a lot more than that, because sometimes I'm like Kerouac: "mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, and desirous of everything at the same time." We learn by very slow degrees, sometimes without even realizing it. I've been praying to become the person He wants me to be for years, and I'm feeling myself approaching that threshold - that is not to say I haven't been where I should have been along the way, or that this journey is coming to an end, but somehow things feel different. This might sound morbid, but my entire life I was convinced I was to die at an early age (it didn't depress me, and I never dwelled on it, it was simply something I held in the back of my mind). I don't have that feeling any more. That is the best way I can explain this. I can see the future somewhere off in the distance, intangible and without definition, but it's there. This is new. This is good.

picture in a frame

2008-08-03T15:12:00.002-04:00

Last night I watched Pearl Jam: Imagine in Cornice. It was breathtaking. Go out and buy it, pronto.

this shirt is dry-clean only, which means it's dirty

2008-08-03T15:12:00.001-04:00

It's been great being home. I'm sitting at Uncommon Grounds, drinking an irish cream italian soda and watching the sun break through the rain clouds outside the window facing Broadway, and although since the reconstruction last year this place is less hippie and more yuppie, I still love it. They always play good music, and I'm grateful for that since I forgot my headphones.

Tonight I will be heading to Binghamton, NY for a few days to support my father in something called the Empire State Games where he will be a pole-vaulting, javelin-throwing, shot-putting, long-jumping madman. Apparently marathons, triathlons, and 100-mile foot races through the hills of VT (yes, that's right 100 miles, on foot, through the woods - I don't really understand it either) became mundane to him. So I arrived home to find him practicing up on this track-and-field stuff, taking me out to the backyard to show me the long-jump pit he made, and showing me the correct way to hold a javelin. He's so excited it's hilarious. He's like a little kid. I love it. It's kind of sad that a sixty-six-year-old man could slaughter his twenty-four-year-old son in nearly every physical activity. I can barely run a mile without seriously considering calling for an ambulance. I did, however, beat him in the long-jump... but then again, I think afterwards I complained about getting sand in my shoes and went back to my book. Oh the shame he must feel.

purposely scholarly and pretentious

2008-08-03T15:11:00.000-04:00

This evening, for whatever reason, I am reminiscent of my days of having a facebook account, particularly the required fields of "Gender" and "Looking For." I always found the latter to be ridiculous, especially in terms of the limited options of responses; those being only what was offered in the former. So although I waved goodbye to that silly social-networking site long ago (for reasons that were very much the same as the reason I deactivated my 'myspace' months prior, and for which I have absolutely no excuse for reactivating except for boredom), I will now present in a rather unorthodox (and completely stupid) manner what I believe to be an appropriate response to what facebook in all of its glorious simplicity asks of its users; that being the question "What Are You Looking For?"

My previous, and for lack of a better option, response to facebook's question was "Women." But this was, I understand, a paltry response, insofar as this term is such an asinine generality - and also, I should add, all of this might very well stem from the fact that I have recently been watching 'Mad Men': a show aired on AMC and recently released on DVD which has been a staple of the television set viewed by me and my prestigious colleagues Dave and George, whom the latter purchased from BestBuy, subsequently his workplace, and which depicts "The American Dream" through the dramatization of the 1950-1960's advertising agencies in NYC, the characters of which view women merely as objects; possessions, sex-toys, dinner-cooking-diaper-changing-sun-dress-wearing-"how-was-your-day-honey-and-I'll-be-waiting-in-the-bedroom-when-the-baseball-game-is-over"-mannequins, but which by no means perpetuates this ideal, but rather reveals the absolute grotesque nature of such a way of life, and which is also a fairly engaging drama that I highly recommend to all - and so I now feel the need to amend my previous response as to "What I am Looking For"

Lest my purpose here be clouded by reviews of television shows, I will get to the point.
Submitted for your approval is a series of videos of one of my favorite females who occupy the grand province of the popular media, and whose self-created record company's slogan is "FOLKing you up since 1990", which I love, but which is entirely besides the point, because what she truly sloganizes is something much greater: that individuality trumps gender, and that all the fools who misunderstand the book of Genesis can stick it.

I'm not looking for a label, I'm looking for something unique, but if we are categorizing, here's what I think of when I think of the term "woman."

[Disclaimer: This first one isn't great, but its a bootleg taken at one of the two shows that two of my beautiful sisters (Suzie and Danielle) and I attended in NYC, so I found it somewhat appropriate...she was eight months pregnant, and still kicked butt]

i fear you are walking the walks of dreams

2008-08-03T15:10:00.001-04:00

I found this folded up in a journal that has sat on my bookshelf for over a year, collecting dust, empty and lonely, but not forgotten... certainly not forgotten.
In fact, since receiving it I have been haunted by feelings of insecurity, whispering words incessantly telling me that nothing I could ever put on its pages would ever be worthy of their placement. It was (is) a gift from a friend, both the journal and the bit of Whitman folded up into it.
My esteem for this particular person is so great that I foolishly believed the pages deserved writing that measured at least as great as that of her friendship. But I finally realized that nothing measures to this. On one end of a scale you can place a pile of poems by Neruda, compile the complete works of Poe, stack a Schiele painting or two, and even toss on a few Bob Dylan records for good measure, but it will be no use so long as love, in whatever capacity, rests on the other end. The scale will always be tipped, because nothing weighs so heavy as love.

And so I dusted off the journal, and cracked it open to find this, and my world got a little bit brighter. I broke the seal, wrote in something silly, knowing that true greatness rests entirely in the realm of love. But I did leave the first page blank, because try as I might, I couldn't transcribe my gratitude.

for life's not a paragraph

2008-08-03T15:09:00.000-04:00

Amy, George, and I watched this wonderful film this evening. I've seen it several times, and it just keeps on getting better. I'm not sure why I love it so much. There is the obvious aesthetic reasonings; the way Gondry makes dream life come alive on screen, the unsynchronized sound and lip movements, the silent wind that blows, the confusions and transformations, the beautiful mixtures of reality and falsification. But something much deeper resonates within me while I watch the story unfold. I think I identify with Stephane in a way that hits much too close to home. It's almost embarrassing. The way he is in a state of constant doubt is almost too much. Dream vs reality has always been a problem for me, even before I started reading Roland Barthes and Michel Foucault, who have made my pathology grow at an exponential level, but whom I am forever grateful, because without them I might very well have settled into a comfortable position of ignorance, which as we all know may very well be the root of all evil (perhaps we don't all know this, but I think we should). Confusion begets questioning, which begets reasoning, if one is willing to go that far. And there may never be an end, since (I think) we can never (truly) have a corner on God's Truth, but (I think) the search - that is genuine searching; not conforming to what is easy, or comfortable, or spoken plainly from the pulpit, but what echoes beyond that plain message, and what stretches down to our own lives and therefore becomes somewhat tangible - is the point after all.

Eh. But I'm no theologian, so let me digress... I love the way that Gondry does not present love in a way that is easy, or comfortable; it is not sappy (though I am also a sucker for sappy endings, just come look at my movie collection and you will be easily convinced of this fact), and the walk-off-into-the-distance-together scene that appears in the end is only a dream, the reality of their love is not guaranteed in the viewer's mind, though they (we, to those who have seen it) all know it should be. This is because there is a disconnect in the character's perceptions, of one another and of themselves. And this may be the point: there will always be a disconnect, because as much as you think someone else can understand you, or is similar to you, you will never be that person, and they never you, so you will forever need to step outside of yourself and into their shoes, and I think that's where love really comes into play.

I do not have a problem stepping out of myself, into someone else, but I do fear that that step will not be understood, or perhaps taken for granted. I fear stepping for someone whose feet merely flirt with forward movement, but only want to retreat. Yep, I've seen that happen before, and... well... I guess my feet have become timid, but in my dreams they move endlessly forward... I'd move along one path forever if I believed it would be reciprocated

-------------

since feeling is first
who pays any attention
to the syntax of things
will never wholly kiss you;

wholly to be a fool
while Spring is in the world

my blood approves,
and kisses are a far better fate
than wisdom
lady i swear by all flowers. Don't cry
--the best gesture of my brain is less than
your eyelids' flutter which says

we are for eachother: then
laugh, leaning back in my arms
for life's not a paragraph

And death i think is no parenthesis
-ee cummings

robots in love has never been cuter

2008-08-03T15:08:00.002-04:00

I just got back from the midnight showing of WALL-E and I'm wishing there was a 2:00 showing so that I could watch it again, it was that good. It far exceeded all of my expectations. Aside from the group of immature teenage boys sitting behind me who have not yet realized that loud and obnoxious does not equal cool (and who were all lucky that I am a pacifist) it was easily the most enjoyable movie experience I have had in a very, very long time. Go see it. It's worth the ticket price just to see the short that plays before the film. My hat is off to you once again, PIXAR, well done.

And while I'm making recommendations, I finished reading The Unbearable Lightness of Being today, and although I disagree with some of the positions the author seems to take, it slipped into my ever-growing list of favorites.

"For there is nothing heavier than compassion. Not even one's own pain weighs so heavy as the pain one feels with someone, for someone, a pain intensified by the imagination and prolonged by a hundred echoes."

ny state of mind

2008-08-03T15:08:00.001-04:00

I'll be back in NY in a little over a week, and I must say that I cannot wait. Sorry Florida, but your summers just don't compare. Three and a half weeks of relaxation, trips to Vermont, quality time with old friends/family, and then out to the west coast for my sister's wedding in Portland. Sounds like good times to me.

I am currently burning CDs for Kinard Dean Marshall. He gave me 10 blank CDs and said he wanted 10 must-own albums... so many compromises.

---------

I really can't get enough of this. Thanks Sara Yousif.

every time i blink i have a tiny dream

2008-08-03T15:07:00.001-04:00

You know that scene in High Fidelity where Rob comes home to find Laura at the kitchen table reading his list of "Top 5 Dream Jobs" where qualifications and time and history and salary were no object? Number five was Architect, which he said he wasn't even really sure if he'd want to be, so asking him if he'd rather own a record store than be an architect, she crosses it out, saying "There you go then. Dream job number five: record store owner" and smiles.

I think we all have such lists; perhaps not pertaining to careers, or top five records to listen to on a Monday morning, and maybe they aren't written out, or are merely abstract thoughts, but somewhere folded up in the corners of our minds don't we list out our aspirations? Maybe not, but I know I do, and I think sometimes I'm guilty of being like Rob Gordon - squeezing in unnegotiated settlements, number fives that don't quite match, fillers, really, that bump reality out of position. What is it that makes the past and the future sometimes seem more appealing than the present? Eh...who knows.
I've never been much of a carpe diem kind of guy, but I'm thinking lately that there is a time and a place for that kind of attitude. Don't get me wrong here... dreams/aspirations are essential, and I will be clutching onto my own with reckless ambition until they either come true or dissolve, but in the meantime, let's cross out our number fives and write in something here and now, what do you say? After all, you have to make room for surprises, because life is going to throw them at you either way.

In other news I'm finally reading 'Raise High The Roof Beam, Carpenters and Seymour an Introduction' by JD Salinger. I've been putting it off for so long because I don't want it to be finished. Why did he stop writing for publication? It angers me that he's still alive and has probably been writing some crazy masterpiece during the past forty-some-odd years he's been in seclusion, and he's crazy enough to burn it before he dies. At any rate, I feel a little bit like Desmond with his Dicken's novel, except there was no heartfelt letter from Penny hidden inside mine. (Yes, sometimes I talk like Lost characters are real people... what of it?)

PS - Happy Birthday, Janice.

not bad, dad, not bad

2008-08-03T15:06:00.000-04:00

NOT BAD, DAD, NOT BAD
by Jan Heller Levi

I think you are most yourself when you're swimming;
slicing the water with each stroke,
the funny way you breathe, your mouth cocked
as though you're yawning.

You're neither fantastic nor miserable
at getting from here to there.
You wouldn't win any medals, Dad,
but you wouldn't drown.

I think how differently everything might have been
had I judged your loving
like I judge your sidestroke, your butterfly
your Australian crawl.

But I always thought I was drowning
in that icy ocean between us,
I always thought you were moving too slowly to save me,
when you were moving as fast as you can.

happy father's day

i'll put their jam on my toast any day

2008-08-03T15:02:00.000-04:00

This evening I had the pleasure attending a Pearl Jam concert. This was my sixth time seeing them; and just like the wine that Eddie Vedder drinks straight out of the bottle on stage, I think it just gets better as time goes on. Kings of Leon opened for them, so not only was I able to see one of my all-time favorite bands, but I saw one of my new favorite bands at the same show. It was absolutely incredible - only one thing was missing, really, but I won't get into that. I am still reeling from the experience, and have very little to say, actually, but somehow feel like sharing the experience. So the following is merely the set-list for the show, lined with marginal notes/lyrics/etc.

First off: Kings of Leon. amazing. They played Fans (my favorite) and On Call (which I think sounded even better live) amongst a few other wonderful tunes. Some of which were new. They did not play Charmer, which both Dave and I were desperately hoping they would, but still, we couldn't complain. They were great.

Main Act:

Sometimes - "Seek my part. Devote myself. My small self... like a book amongst the many on a shelf. Sometimes I know. Sometimes I rise. Sometimes I fall. Sometimes I don't. Sometimes I cringe. Sometimes I live. Sometimes I walk. Sometimes I kneel. Sometimes I speak of nothing at all. Sometimes I reach to myself. Dear God." It was a brilliant opening: calming but laced with anticipatory awesomeness.

Corduroy - During this little ditty Eddie changed the lyrics from "can't buy what I want because it's free" to "can't buy what I want because PEACE IS FREE" And I remembered why I loved him. He also danced all over the place, which didn't end after this song. He danced a lot tonight. It was great.

Why Go - Any song off 'Ten' will elicit great appreciation from the crowd and this was no exception. I loved watching the crowd's hands flow up and down during this one.

Severed Hand - I'm pretty sure this song is about dropping acid or something, but it's still great.

Elderly Woman Behind The Counter In A Small Town - Before this song Eddie said (more or less verbatim): "I thought we were in Tampa, but doesn't the name of this place include something about St. Petersburg? And look, there's a Canadian flag (points to back). Where the fuck are we?"

Marker In The Sand - "There is a sickness, a sickness coming over me. Like watching freedom, being sucked straight out to sea. And the solution? Well, from me far would let it be. But the delusion is feeling dangerous to me."

Light Years - "With heavy breath, awakened regrets, back pages and days alone that could have been spent together. But we were miles apart. Every inch between us becomes light years now. And wherever you've gone, and wherever we might go, it don't seem fair. You seemed to like it here. Your light's reflected now, reflected from afar: we were but stones, your light made us stars"

Down - Just an all-around fun song.

Wishlist - "I wish I was the souvenir you kept your house key on. I wish I was the pedal break that you depended on. I wish I was the verb 'to trust' and I never let you down." Beautiful, as always, plus he changed the lyrics and said "I wish I was the sight of 50 million Floridian's hands upraised and open towards the sky." which was great, especially because everyone had their hands up as the lights danced across the crowd.

Given To Fly - He dedicated this song to his favorite baseball player who was in the audience. There was a great story involved, but I won't be sharing that.

Daughter - They DID NOT go into a cover song here, which kind of disappointed me, because they always do. C'est la vie.

Even Flow - Crowd pleaser. Eddie left the stage for like 5 minutes and let the rest of the band go crazy. McCready went nuts. It was cool.

Present Tense - It makes much more sense to live in the present tense

Insignificance - Charlie asked that I call him during this if they played it. I did. He texted me shortly afterwards. It said: that was better than sex. He might have been right.

Better Man - Classic.

Do The Evolution - I saw them perform this at Madison Square Garden and afterwards Eddie came out and told the crowd that the stage was bumping up and down during the song and that it "scared the shit out of them", and then said he was just informed that the stage only shook like that for three other people: Greatful Dead, Iron Maiden, and Bruce Springsteen. And then said "And we're really happy to be a part of that crowd." So it was pretty hard to top that one, but it was good anyway.

ENCORE BREAK 1 - I went to the bathroom, and spoke briefly to Mr. Cory Lovell and Ms. Sara Yousif, which was cool in and of itself.

Nothingman - "Somethings when spoken can't be taken back"

Black - "I know someday you'll have a beautiful life. I know you'll be a star; in somebody else's sky. Why oh why can't it be mine?" I've heard this song a million times, but still gets me every time.

Life Wasted -They kicked it up on this one. It was great. The lights were amazing.

Porch - By far the best performance of Porch I have ever seen.

ENCORE BREAK 2 - I sat down for the first time... for about 2 minutes.

You've Got To Hide Your Love Away - Eddie came out by himself and played a beatles cover. First he mentioned something political. Some dude in front of me was very, VERY angry, he was flipping off the stage with both hands. I laughed. Poor bastard. But then again I liked what he said. Politics are funny that way. "Gather 'round all you clowns, let me hear you say: HEY! you've got to hide your love away."

Alive - All the house lights went up for these last two songs. It was surreal. You could watch everyone in the entire stadium dance around with Pearl Jam. Hah. I was in all my glory.

Yellow Ledbetter - Since this song differs so much every time they play it in terms of lyrical content and attitude/overall tone, I have a hard time explaining it, except to say it was a beautiful ending. I am including two youtube videos of the performance, for your viewing pleasure. A mix between these two versions is somewhere where they landed this evening.

The first is from their show at Madison Square Garden, which I already explained that I was at, and which is also on DVD, and also which I highly recommend you watch, unless you've ever been over to my house, because in that case I have probably already forced you to watch it.

And the second is them playing the song with a crying fan on stage. Eddie is sitting down, holding her hand, singing the song. It's beautiful. You can see the compassion. I love it. This is why I love Eddie Vedder. I think he'd hold my hand if I was crying.

"Cheers. We love you. Peace. Be Good to one another. Muah! Goodnight. Goodbye."

What a great night.