it's beautiful, and so are you

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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.