....

One Year = New Lame Title

2008-02-23T21:32:00.003-05:00

Wait. I'm going to go put a chew in first. I've noticed that tobacco can be as addicting as Deadwood. Yikes.

Oh. Blogger now saves my drafts automatically. ...

hmm, when did i start with the capitalizing. people will start thinking i make over 20k

so. how can i sum up the last year without - i don't feel like finishing this sentence

how bout this. any mental illness i used to mention is mostly submissed. i'm left with just a small case of claustrophobia that i can now handle. it still comes in movie theaters and church and cars i'm not driving and places where people give speeches.

i gave my brother's best man speech. i also now how my first nephew.

ok. so now, i feel like having fun.

i was watching the philosophical blockbuster, Stealth, last night, TNT presents, and they mentioned prime numbers and then the holy trinity. something neat clicked for a second. like, mathematics might not be inherently predictable, but that our inherent ability to predict things chose mathematics to be its cornerstone. it's a ridiculous idea. but it threw into question for me the beginnings of thought. the 'nature' of the things comes to mind.

if you look at the absurdity that life exists, would it be absurd to believe that life exists after life? i find myself often forgetting to focus on the miracle of existence. yet it's such a comfort. it's the be-all to faith in an afterlife. and whether or not it happens, it's something to believe in.

this is the kind of thinking a business owner needs to have possession of. you can't deal with people all day without faith. the energy of fitting in the moment without question. the past years of forcing alienation of myself and then back again let's me know that what i was before was at least as amazing as what i'd become, and more suited to myself, as that was what i learned to be at first. but i have no idea what thinking deeply will be now. i see it coming in a few aspects lately. it's building and i've seen it building and i pray it will be. i can envision myself progressing to a point where i can't imagine being specifically, but only ideally. i know it's ideal because it's what i used to envision. and i think that will finally be progress in the real. not that i didn't need these backup wonderings and quantifyings of the past years.

it's fun to rationalize. everything i ever do, i'll naturally decide got me to where i am. and though i can imagine that now it's just a different feeling talking about my life, i don't feel the need to question that. i'll just follow my own reasoning though it could be argued against. but i'll put my efforts into arguing for it.

well, so. i'm not happy with this post in any way for the public, but it's one of those mental meanderings that really just means to me. and when i point back to where it started, i'll start here. where others might point elsewhere, nominally, later on. i hope!

hmm4

2007-02-26T22:52:00.000-05:00

Olivia got me thinking about my favorite childhood non-Major League movie, Hot Shots. and i wanted to write about something for a while because i just watched two movies and played wepes7 while i was off all day and my back hurts too much to continue to sit in my recliner. nothing i've tried to write lately has interested me past two minutes but i think writing about something funny has a good chance. i know what the goal is here. it's to make myself laugh by remembering it.

so the old guy in the white hair who isn't leslie nielson has taken bullets to the head in past wars and isn't terribly competent though he's the commander. he's in his office talking to his guy beneath him about how things have changed and may be going downhill. he stands up during this monologue and walks over to a framed picture of an over-head view of men and planes on a ship like the one they're currently on. he motions with his pointer, 'look at them. there's hardly a man moving down there. ...Baker. Baker!' he shouts at the picture but gets no response. he looks back at the officer who had been addressing him and says, disappointedly, about the man in the picture, 'I went to academy with that man.'

this is a lot harder than i expected

this one should be easier.

as he walks out onto the deck he approaches some stairs and proceeds to tumble down them. he jumps to attention at the end of his fall and demands, 'who put those crabs there?'

'what crabs sir?'

'on the stairs. i saw them. two of them. they work in pairs.'

and so on

work unfriendly post

2007-02-18T11:21:00.000-05:00

so my brother's a thief. maybe it's because of the friends he hangs out with, but i always thought they were thieves because of him. a 'he started it' deal.

so, some people have porn. i don't know.

but it's funny when a conversation gets started over at my brother's house between his friends about where's their porno and who took it last. oh the names of these dvds that the boys banter about.

tall guy: hey chad's brother, where the hell is my dark haired, dirty divas dvd. no, you had it last.

bro: no i didn't. maybe adolescent mustache stole it.

a.m.: yeah, and where's my 16 year old devil girls?

other guy as he's leaving: you just better have my up the butt one next time i come over here.

bro: you took that one last time. it was in the cd case with a meeting in the ladies room.

fuck you

* no fictional dvd names were used in this post

3 Revelations I had tonight

2007-02-17T22:55:00.000-05:00

This generation is the beginning of the downfall of the United States. That isn't good, that isn't bad.

Smart people are just dumb.

Give your child the choice to believe different from what you believe to be true and they probably will.

yet another, SAVED!....AS!.....DRAFT!

2007-01-25T19:13:00.000-05:00

*note: i broke those sunglasses over there in my profile...shit!...but never fear, i got a three dollar pair of women's frames that look almost identical...eh

a lady was in the store yesterday and wanted to know how much an item, that was not yet tagged, cost. lisa, the owner here, had not yet seen the item, so i had no help there. but i felt obliged to get a price for the lady, if possible, because a frequent customer had called the lady from the store phone telling her to come see it. it was in my mind to tell the customer to tell the lady that we didn't have a price yet, but since i heard that she was just leaving a message, i figured we might have it priced by then. this frequent customer fashions custom blinds and such at a very high cost and usually only works for those that have a lot of money, so, when the lady did make it in, i, then, felt like i should do what i could to give her a price. it's especially good to get those with a lot of spending money on your good side. and, generally, at least around here, the richer the person, the more valuable they think their time is, and the more priveledged they want to be treated. i'm good at this. but don't get the wrong idea about this lady. she's quite nice and understanding as i found out when we hit some hard times (or maybe it's just because i'm that good =P. for real, i just spent 20 minutes pointing out how she's right, but also once i'd back her off with that tactic, i'd get her verbal approval of my points against her.)

so, to make this short story longer, i decided to call the consignor of the night stand in question. a frequent consignor, this lady usually balks at pricing her own items. she buys things at auctions and so cares more than the casual consignor about the profit she makes. some feel otherwise, but this lady has found that lisa, the owner, prices items higher than she, the consignor, would. i remembered this too late however. and when i called to see if she wanted to price the night stand that the lady was interested in, she did so with some, but not much, reluctance.

she asked me if i thought $65 was good and i said it sounded fine. i told her that we'd go ahead and sell it to this lady at $65 if she wanted it, and if not, we'd let lisa agree or adjust that price when she got back.

i've done this many times. it usually works out fine. but i made a big mistake this time. i told the lady $65, and i could tell she was interested in the night stand at that price. but i neglected to mention the very very important things like, 'we'll sell it at $65 right now, but when the owner (lisa) gets back, if she wants to change the price, she can.' i make sure to say those kinds of things generally. i make it a point to let people understand that almost everything is not definite. i say 'the movers generally charge $40 for the first item and $5 for each additional (even though they do 99.9% of the time in a ten mile radius of altoona), but it's their business and so i can't guaruntee it.' other workers here bother me with their constant assurances to customers. the one lady in particular, all day, can be overheard saying rediculous things are definite, in a hugely loud and overly appeasing voice, with crazy random inflections like, 'oh lisa would take that. oh yes. yes (nodding her head vehemously). yes. oh yeees. she takes those. yes.' when i've learned years ago, you never talk in definites, especially about lisa.

digressing being the main point of this article, i'll get back to the story. we left off with me failing to tell the lady that there were questions in the air about the price of the item if she didn't buy it now. i was sidetracked though. we discovered that the night stand had the wrong handle on it. i tried to do something about this via screws and things, but eventually we realized that it couldn't be helped. well, this was why the lady probably didn't get the night stand then and there.

ok. no problem. she leaves.

later in the day, the frequent customer that does blinds and had called the customer, came back in. i told her what we eventually priced the item at and she was amazed to find that the lady didn't buy it at $65 even with the handle problem. she eventually left. and called the lady and told her something like that most likely.

then, later, as i was coming back from lunch, the consignor of the item and lisa were bothin the store, hunched in thought above the stand. lisa felt that $65 was not expensive enough and told the consignor so, and the price became, officially, $85.

that's right.

here then, is the surprise climax of the story. this morning, one day later, that very same lady came back into the store! my first thought was of the thought i had yesterday once lisa put $85 on the item. the thought was, 'hmm, i wonder what should be done if that lady that was told $65 comes back in tomorrow?'

so i broke the bad news to the lady, and i really could have just left it there. but i felt guilty, and plus, there's little else to do at work than talk to people. so i dove in. i decided to call lisa to see what she'd say. predictably (if i call her on the phone about things, she demands that i do what she wishes she would do if she was dealing with a problem like this in person. but often, she generally gives in to appease a customer when she's face to face with them) i'm told to stay firm on the price. if she wanted to buy it at $65 she should have bought it yesterday.

the lady voiced appreciation that i called, but i wasn't done yet. i went into her points and how she felt and even pointed out things that supported her case that she may not have thought of, and sometimes, though, i'd switch it back around on her. i said things like, 'it's a common feeling, i'd think, now, with chain stores and places like mcdonald's that if they make a mistake, they'll generally just give you the item at the price. and so you expect a store to be like that. but when you deal with stores with a private owner and how we're selling items that aren't even owned by us, if we make a mistake by mislabling an item on the internet or in the store, we're personally affected and don't have the ability to just take the loss.' and i told her that i realized it was unfair to her to make a trip out here and have the price changed. but i explained to her what happened.

edit: how did this story end? as i recall, pretty badly, actually. but anyway, it's been saved as draft for, wellhellhell, quite some time. so here it is in all its unfinished glory.

i found this in my gmail as a draft

2006-12-30T16:34:00.000-05:00

i think i can listen to and deal with women more than any man. it's my job. and generally it's fine. but then, certain customers....

so many older women are soooooooo boring. i'll listen to what young jimmy wanted for breakfast this morning as part of how you're explaining what kind of sofa you have if you at least act like you're borrowing someone's time. try to entertain me. try to make me care. don't just drone on.

the reason i get so mad is that i know they're thinking 'oh he just doesn't care' or that i'm rude. but it's your fault. you're boring. i'm more than kind and even interested in 95% of the women that come in and tell me the same kinds of stories about home and the boys in college. but you i hate. you, i've grown to being immediately rude to. you i won't take. it's your fault. you talk slowly and quietly and peacefully as if no one in the world has anything to do. i hate you old woman. you make me sick as much as a gross perverted 30 year old man with ricked up teeth would

she just came up here again. i know she thinks i'm into typing on the computer and i'm ignoring her and she's the kind that would tell on me to my aunt - but in a nice way. she loves me to a degree. which is why she's so sickening - but the funny thing is my aunt would come to me and i'd vent to her immediately and she'd widen her eyes and laugh and know exactly what i'm talking about and already knows what i'm talking about and also vents about how annoying she is and how hard she is to get away from.

but she came up with this teddy bear again, massaging it over and over every which way in such a sickening way saying her hands are getting blacker and blacker from it. i look away from her without speaking. she says it would need cleaned. i try to avoid her gaze. she proffers it to me to rub it's head and look at how my hands get dirty too. i won't. she laughs, and slightly wins some points. she's used to how her grandkids act and so she's laughing at how i think she's weird

'i'm trying to figure out what this plays'

my cue to indulge her

she's dying for me to say things, it'll lead to her saying more

the end of any current addiction to alcohol

2006-11-30T18:50:00.000-05:00

some hiking days have gone by. i think i won't update about that anymore....it was quite a ride.

there have been enough non-drinking weeks gone by that there is now no concern. on the other hand, i find it impossible to write anything. my mind has emptied of internal strife - and that was all i had to go on. i look at the same place i used to find words to write and i keep blanking. it's a wild change. it's so much for the better, but i somewhat miss writing.

maybe i can find a new, better place to look in to find words, but this idea kind of ruins my ideal ideas about writing. i always hoped i'd find a new style but i hoped to be able to intermix it with my previous one at will. instead there's nothing. blah. by the way, i'm the devil

hiking day

2006-11-15T15:11:00.000-05:00

Hiking Day.

note: I will start labelling days 'hiking days'. this will probably become the only use for this blog (prevented i don't start giving chapter by chapter summaries of star trek books - which sounds quite fun now that i think about it)

hiking days are the equivalent of me saying 'wow, today is a perfect day.' so far this year, there have been perhaps 5 days that i made a mental note of how great they were - so there might not be that many updates to come. i think it would be fun after a year of noting these days, to be able to look back and see what days over the last year were days that struck me weather wise. this is starting to sound pretty lame, but anyway.

more notes: hiking day is synonomous to the kind of day where listening to the radio in the car seems just as enjoyable as listening to a cd. these are also the kinds of days that are good for pavement.

note: these days don't have to be good all day. don't come to me saying but chad, it rained this afternoon - as it's doing today. i'd say, well the first hiking day it rained - but that didn't stop me from sticking to it! - although it might have had i not just figured that if i didn't make today a hiking day, then i'd never think of it again. there.

if you're just joining us, i have taken the liberty of naming today a hiking day of the year. i'm thinking i'll try to get in at least one day a month (which, yes, may lead to some questionable days earlier in the month getting in)

as a reader, you should think of hiking days posts as things that matter to me and do not concern you whatsoever. unintentionally, i understand, you will be subjected to them however. maybe i'll throw in a line or two for your entertainment.

A Call To Darkness

2006-11-01T18:52:00.000-05:00

i figured i owed it to some to give a little more info about that book. yes, it was hard to choose. at first, the first one looked best. then, another one looked better. i couldn't decide, and, although i wanted to, i couldn't buy them all. so, i chose the second one i looked at, A Call to Darkness.

Worf is dead center on the front, all wild-eyed, with geordi flanking him on the left, and disappointingly, dr. pulaski on his right.

here's the book's tagline:

Captain Picard is trapped on a brutal worlf - where war is the only entertainment.

it's always safe to go with a picard centered storyline, especially when he's separated from riker and so riker gets to be in command.

will Will figure out how to find the captain? hopefully, i'll let you know

first attempt at boring entry

2006-11-01T18:32:00.000-05:00

well, i saw this comic book store a few weeks ago, and i thought, hmm, sometimes i'm bored, maybe i should try to get into comic books/magic again and the likes. it was always too expensive, but when i was young, there wasn't much i would have wanted more than to be able to read marvel comics week by week. so i'm thinking i might get into this new civil war thing. i bought a comic book today that is supposed to get me down with who's on whose sides and etc. i don't plan on buying the comics though because it's crazy how they tell the story through maybe ten different series. so i'll just buy the paper-page book that will encapsulate it all at the end of the year.

secondly bought was a ST TNG book. i think i read one before. i think i'll like to read these. and unlike reading jurassic park and seeing jeff goldblum in my mind, i'll be correct to see gates mcfadden. well, actually not, but whatever.

so, tonight i cancelled with my sister and brother in law the viewing of Lost and catching up on all the arrested development dvds they have and i'll go see steve who has a break from football practices finally and won't start wrestling for a week or so. he's already bought six guiness and a ps2 and ff12 for the evening. hah! oh, and he got hooked up by one of my brother's friends too (read: you know what i mean?)

but i'm not really that anymore.

the ps2 was bought mostly for the upcoming, highly anticipated (use your coolest voice in your head to say:) guitar hero II. so, steve and i are finally starting that band we've always dreamed of.

and lou's coming in the 11th. and j newsome's trying to rain on my parade, but as long as it doesn't rain it should be ok.

and the new lady i work with at work is super-christian and in her teens was super drug addict and when asked, she'll respond with brightened eyes, 'Yea! I know the Mad Katz'

boo ya

(all things said were true)

"look at me! dr. zoidberg, home-owner!"

2006-10-27T01:56:00.000-04:00

man, i had this neat nightmare the other night. i used to think i should try and be a man if i wake up from a nightmare and find it, um, unnerving to try and fall back asleep and so i used to refrain from turning on the tv or light etc. but it's just not worth it. it's not that i'm afraid after i wake up. it's that as soon as my mind drifts out of my control, the fear from the nightmare comes back.

so what happened was that i woke up every 40 minutes or so for the next 5 hours before i had to get up. i could keep falling asleep but i couldn't let myself totally relax.

it was weird too. the dream. it wasn't even a nightmare at first. just an incredibly gory action film. i still have perfect images of the last few scenes burned in my mind. lots of people outside getting their necks sliced through by spinning blades. and this gore wasn't so bad. it just set the tone.

as i was waking from it, in between actually sleeping and kind of waking, one of the guys that died, presumably, started talking to my consciousness. there was no longer any scenes, just the darkness of my eyelids. this was when it turned into a nightmare. he told me weird feelings about what it was like to really live in pain and torture and to have witnessed things like that and how noone could understand if they hadn't experienced it. and to me, i was now someone in between not ever having experienced it and having experienced it. it was like i had done a dianna troi/mindmeld thing, or like rogue did to wolverine when she touched him in the movie.

when i had time the next morning to think about it, the instinctive way of describing what i dreamt about was to say that i had a dream about hell. that was the feel i couldn't escape all night. it wasn't the images or what the guy told me, it was the feeling that i slightly better understood what hell would be like. that sucks.

but i pretty much forget now. i slept almost fine last night. should be about the same tonight. and it's not like the devil vistited me or anything - you know who you are.

but, futurama's starting.

ah, my head's totally broken

2006-10-19T18:46:00.000-04:00

without pain or frustration, i really have nothing to say. but today i have one of my first ever headaches not alcohol or nicotine induced. all i can think is that i should cleanse this problem with some southern comfort. but eh, i'd rather be bored than in pain

oh well.

i used to feel christmas if you know what i mean. i kind of felt it last night watching a christmas futurama as i fell asleep. it wasn't very strong but it was an old feeling. i'm getting a lot of old feelings lately that i almost forgot had gone but when i think about it, have been gone a long time. i'm talking both feelings that you get from a familiar smell, and also real physical feeling like what it's like to sit on my knees for a prolonged period of time and what it feels like to be almost too uncomfortable but then to stretch them in a certain way and being able to sit on them for longer.

i'm anticipating christmas this year earlier than almost ever. the problem was absolutely alcohol and unproductiveness. last night i saw myself sitting in a sun-lit room watching a black and white christmas movie i'd never seen. or sitting at a computer doing something like playing snood while listening to christmas music. or driving to work waiting for my freezing car to warm up.

but now i have to go home to october. the last warm day probably and i think it's going to pour and so i won't get this last fire in at all it's appearing. and so i'll just pore over some stats, watch the report, and wake up with enough initiative to do some dishes i guess. it sucks but it's pretty fucking nice too.

on On Point (PRI i think)

2006-10-04T19:47:00.000-04:00

food and choice

the selling atmosphere was so manipulative that any contract i signed while there is null and void

baking an apple pie and having that aroma present will help you sell your house for more

so where is free will the ones aggravated by this say

i, i suppose, never agreed with what they think free will is, or never believed in it in the first place

free will, therefore, may actually really be disappearing

to the point that i don't even wish or long to have it, or fear it leaving

i think that as they had mentioned, if given too many choices, people freeze

so you can be a person that either spends months researching how one house would be your best fit over another (as houses sell and pass you by all the while) and look at school systems and septic systems and new roofing and neighborhood crime proofing. and you can do this if you want to spend the time and the trouble. but is that the only way to find free will within yourself?

perhaps it isn't worth the trouble and so you decide that you'll decide on a house because of fate, a hunch, a feeling...

and thus, the apple pie helps sell a house to you.

and this is what those people are worried about. that marketing is way too advanced and we're eating in olive gardens and burger kings not because we like their food but because we're suckered by their marketing and restaurant design and feeling of familiarity.

and this doesn't seem bad to most people. but it is bad for those people that stand up and research and try to spend hours and years finding what they really truly like, but since most people are too lazy or just don't have the time, places like olive garden are taking over much much much to the chagrin to those who long ago formed their own very complex choices for what they liked.

they say therefore that quality is disappearing. but if most people don't care, then most people don't care. what's so good about quality. maybe most people don't have time to concern themselves with it anymore. just let them order a number 3 or a number 6. quality can be their favorite meal compared to the other nine that our country may soon serve. the only people affected would be those who spent trouble over the years finding their favorite 10 meals amongst 200,000.

but again, what's so great about quality. you'll forget why it mattered once it's gone. perhaps we'll start eating just for nourishment if the food gets bad enough and if the choices get so few.

but it's not about losing your free will. mcdonald's isn't tricking you into thinking you have free will when you really don't. when you get to pick from one of nine. when it's the only place to go, you go. or make your own. and if the general public gets bothered enough by it, they can go to an olive garden. and if a food aficianado doesn't like any of it, sorry. it's a free country but majority rules. and the market has convinced people that they don't care about quality. and once they're convinced, oh well. but did they lose their free will? the market catered to what they wanted. they want the feel of the restaurant and the familiarity of the taste more than the good quality. and so i'm wrong to say they're convinced they don't care about quality. rather, they really cared less about quality than other things, it turns out. (though somehow i feel like i'm missing the point and that i'll never understand.)

but it won't go as far as the critics worry. they always think that they should say that down the line if the current trend continues. current trends don't continue. not if they're going to end up at that horrible, unspeakable checkmate that you say we're headed for. you, critic, should just have a little less self-importance, realize that you see ahead of the curve, but trust that, as usual (i'm guessing), these kinds of things work out acceptably. (this paragraph was basically talking to just the one guest; i didn't like his personality, and so he gets an argument against his points, heh)

but, anyway, i still don't know what people think free will is. i agree we can be persuaded to do things we wouldn't normally do if in the wrong (or right) environment. approached by the wrong kinds of salespersons. charmed by the 'class' of a car dealership. but it's just our own faults it seems like.

or so far perhaps. maybe they see for real that soon we won't have the time or resources to try to make a decision with as little artificial influence as possible. but that's what i needed them to talk about. the whole time i was just angry because they'd point out information that is obvious (like a buying environment) but then not really get into the real dangers, if there are any. dangers for me at least. and i certainly don't think i'm above the average listener to this kind of station.

i guess the danger is that soon we won't be able to get the kinds of foods we want because everyone has been manipulated to think that burger king is good enough. and so burger king is all that's left. though that will never happen completely, i wouldn't think, but they did mention that in the south, grocery stores are all going out of business. and you have to go to a deli, and i don't know where they could get fresh produce. but i'd imagine there are certainly enough people that want to eat healthier and with somewhat more choice and so there will be that market for some people, and businesses will find a niche there. and so i really can't be worried. maybe the price will be too high to get fresh food, though. i guess i'll just take vitamins? plant a garden? eh. i'll let the gov't worry about it.

spin?

2006-09-29T01:12:00.000-04:00

oh. coincidence confirms the concept of fate because people say, 'it was just a coincidence'

ah. what else might it have been.

i guess we look for meaning in things. but why have that feeling when we teeter still wondering if just was it coincidence or not?

that feeling gives me justification that meaning is inherent. that meaning exists. or at least that the such for meaning is real.

we don't see a concept such as justice. but that doesn't mean it's not real.
why strip ourselves of meaning? if it's our first impulse to think it means something why do we look for a way for it not to mean something?
sometimes we don't like what it would mean, i suppose.

but the more we protect ourselves from meaning we don't want to accept, we might also be degrading meaning we want to believe in.

we're a pretty balancing species. we like thins like this equals this and that equals that and this equals that so this equals this and that and that equals that and this.

or, i was mean to him and then she was mean to me and so he'll be mean to her and it all works out karmetically

eye for an eye, treat others as we'd want to be treated.

so 'oh, that doesn't mean anything,' so, 'hmm, well i guess that might not mean anything'

it starts with our own denial.

what's so bad about the meaning we choose to ignore?

guilt and stubbornness?

we shouldn't have done that and we want to forget it and not be responsible?

i'm just over the age of becoming responsible. these things are naturally interesting to me

environmental issues fit neatly into this kind of thought.

it means something and it's something that's wrong. you can fix it. then, it means something, and yes, it means something that great.

me sleep

camp

2006-09-20T16:08:00.000-04:00

a little girl splashed along a shiny, tar-black sidewalk up near the lake

flip-flop-flip-flop-flip-flop

she bent over awkwardly to scratch at a cut on her knee but then had to regained her step hurriedly before getting run over. she walked, pony-tail wagging back and forth. she walked, nose first, with the kind of confidence she wished she had when she wasn't just pretending that her parents weren't following along right behind her.

flip-flop-flip-flop-flip-

she saw her friend charles on the swings and tore off in that direction, indeed now forgetting really all about her parents' presence.

"Jessica!" her mother reacted. jessica didn't hear. her mother saw charles and realizing the situation, dropped it. there was no danger.

"Jessica," yelled charles, his voice piercing through the open park, as she came to a stop next to him. though it wasn't really a stop. all of her body parts continued to move. up on one leg then up on the other, both arms swinging and balancing.

"Come see what i have," he said excitedly and ran his self off towards his family's camp.

Jessica stumbled to accelerate, caught rocking in the opposite direction charles had taken off to.

"Wait!" she said, her eyes widening as if she were horribly worried - a look she'd picked up from her mother apparently.

Charles shot onto the path through the woods, freaking out a bunch of dark birds which fluttered out of the bushes.

Maybe later in life Jessica would grow to appreciate the lifeforce of the universe. decide to pay attention to its omens. maybe wear a lot of black. but being so young, all she knew was fear and surprise and that was how she reacted and when it was over it was as if it had never been, at least for the present.

All those birds Charles had scattered had taken off towards the sky as usual. but one of them stayed low to the ground. Jessica fell back as if shot. as she reached up to feel the scratch on her face she realized she had just screamed. she was shocked at the soft sensation of the bird's feathers on her face. shocked at its warmth that she had felt. but she didn't put the moment into those words, ideas. she just lied on her back looking at the clouds floating over the trees. she was a child and had too much energy to think. and not nearly enough doubt to begin to think about how if things are inherent they are true until proved false.

Jessica thought she heard a dog and her neck flung up from the ground in the direction of the noise. she didn't see one. however now she was up, forgetting everything except that she needed to run. and before she knew it she was off on the woods path towards charles' family's camp site.

He had tired of waiting for her and was drinking something red and surely full of sugar, looking down at his dad who was starting to make a fire.

Jessica stood looking around for a moment before letting herself into their camper, clanging the metal door behind her. Cat, charles' older sister sat on a bed reading a magazine her back propped against the curtains on the window.

"Need something?" Cat snarled.

"No." Jessica plopped herself down on the opposite bed and began swinging her feet so that they pounded against the side of the bed. She looked at Cat. Jessica admired her. she wished she was old enough to read magazines like the one Cat had. she'd pretended before, but she could never sit still long enough. Jessica didn't think about that. she just sat still, alternately looking out the window and at Cat's long hair. she got bored suddenly and began swinging her feet again.

"What are you reading?" she asked Cat

"Get out of here!"

For a split second the thick hatred in Cat's voice made Jessica cringe with sadness, her eyes almost filling with tears. but she recovered quickly and just simply stuck out her tongue and clanged the door on her way out.

She yelled for charles who was sitting in a folding chair, swinging his feet alternately, still watching his dad. he didn't pay any attention to her. his mother saw her though. she was peeling corn in the screen tent and thought she'd be nice by asking Jessica to help her. Jessica didn't want to but knew that she was supposed to help if asked, especially by strangers.

"Ok," she said half-heartedly and bent over beginning to zip open the screen.

"Jessica!" charles screamed, saving her. "I have to show you something!" and he ran past her down towards the creeks. Jessica ran after him the best she could almost jumping after him in her flip-flops. she managed her way eventually down through the dirt and stones to kneel down beside him. he was turning stones over at the edge of the creek.

"What are you doing?" she asked him.

Charles let out a long, exasperated grunt. "I just saw one this morning," he said through a clenched jaw, and moved his way out further into the water so that his ankles were immersed, still flipping rocks, now with more emphasis on splashing however.

"Jessica!" charles' mother was yelling down to her. "Your parents are here for you"

Jessica abandoned charles and walked slowly back up the hill, stepping carefully whenever she could so that the thick roots she targeted would press through her flip-flops and deep into the arch of her feet. it was like a massage, she felt.

Jessica saw her parents waiting for her in a car, her mother holding a small jacket out towards her.

"Let's go!"

Her father yelled.

see, anti-time caused the anomaly to get bigger in the past

2006-09-10T00:43:00.000-04:00

...an odd day like this one. nothing odd happened, per se. but that's always the case when i have an odd day. just a break in habit.

i found myself liking to think about the statement: coincidence confirms the concept of fate. hmm, what confirms the concept of coincidence? hmm, the feeling of amazement? or is that the fate thing..

hmm, i still don't have much to roll with anymore here. but it's good to keep refreshing.

all ideas keep ending nicely and neatly. i thought i wanted that but..

take LOST for example. i hated it when there were so many loose ends the show needed to tie up that i could barely follow it. but, let some of them tie up and i enjoy the show less.

time to find some new questions?

nah, too soon. it might be a while actually. if you lift for six months and then don't lift again for five years, you'll still be way ahead of the game had you never lifted. same with patterns of memory. mechanisms. abilities.

hmm, but does it come back with the same ability and eagerness to advance? or is there a short window for that

so anyway, sven lindqvist writes in such a way that you can enjoy it a page at a time. i really love that. good for him. if i've ever wanted to copy an author...

but then you'd already've gathered..

from before. earlier posts. ?

yeah

hmm, maybe i'll go do the reading for now

there were trees and leaves and home

2006-09-01T15:37:00.000-04:00

ah, a post

september brings great things

adam and i (it's 3:30) just conquered ernesto and his unfavorable forecast. he's left. back for dominica, i presume.

anthony just called. we reminisced. about something funny. you weren't involved. except nathan. he'd know. but overall, i wished you'd witnessed it.

any, uh, who.

get it done.

that's my new phase i'm gonna coin. get it done.

alright. so. isn't it weird that music evokes emotion. even if you never heard music in your life, you'd feel tension if you heard chopin's 'revolution'

it's a proven fact. from my logical brain

so we hiked out to our usual area, but a new spot, and fired up a fire and drank hoegaardens until we wished we had more, and spoke of man/woman relations and how that could be our base reference to experience and etc.

and really, jerad diamond and sven lindqvist are my favorite authors, though i discussed shawn's guy and what the future might hold

but though ernesto thundered, he barely rained at so early a time, and though there's cloud cover, there's little pour when trees and their leaves hold most moisture, and so fires can burn fine, and bo jackson under shirts can stay dry and whether you're old or not is no longer defined by your freshman to senior relationships, and so we're young until further notice.

one's friends can be another's vicariously

and knowing words can make things run smoothly

and knowing jesus can make things half-sighted

god bless tv

2006-08-13T09:51:00.000-04:00

saw some interesting things on tv lately

talk first about how ballparks, especially in the bible belt region, are using "faith night" to bring fans to the ticket booths. this was on espn's 'outside the lines'. now that i try to think about the people they chose to argue whether or not it should be legal or constitutional or right, i realize that they left out an important point of view. there was the guy that says that we should have freedom from religion and he kept saying that why isn't there atheist night, thomas payne was an atheist, they could have motley crew play at the pregame party etc, and he said that baseball is america's pasttime and that it's a beacon for equality like with the color barrier helped being broken, and that most ballparks are funded by the public and the public is diversity so why should jewish taxpayers be funding a ballpark that has christian night and has pre and post game speeches about god and handing out free bibles, and overall that marketing with religion is just wrong.

he made one point that immediately struck me, though, saying that baseball was siding with a certain political view because there were certain pamphlets passed out condemning homosexuality and some other things like that. that's obviously rediculous. if there's anything like that going on when you enter the game, there's no question that needs to be stopped.

but, the other guy, who incidentaly started his chance to argue by singing the beginning of 'amazing grace' (so you know exactly the kind of guy this is), did, immediately, condemn the passing out of that kind of pamphlet. ok. had he never done that, there would have been no argument.

but as it turned out there really was no argument. but maybe i'll get to that if my pizza isn't done too soon here.

so the god guy, emphasizing dr. dobson and the emphasize the family whole thing created there, argued that, well, hmm, i guess he just said things like 'god needs to be praised everywhere' and so he really didn't make much of a point at all. but i think he was on the right side in certain ways.

so that was the problem. we saw some kind of analyst argue that religion shouldn't be marketed and that it should be separate from sport, and we saw a blind faith guy saying blind faith things. where's the guy (or girl, i guess, but i mean, come on, this is baseball) taking the point that it's ok to do this and not just by throwing his hands up to the sky and saying 'god needs to be praised for our future generations or they will lose this country'

so i don't know the answer and that's why it's argued on tv. but the points i wanted to hear weren't said.

yeah, taxpayers paid for many of those stadiums, but they were all aware it was for baseball. they also knew it could be used for other reasons. i'm sure there *are* motley crew type concerts held there, for one thing, and if there aren't then it *is* a regional thing. if you live in the bible belt but are an atheist, you can be just as mad that promotional researches don't recommend your kind of music to play in that stadium because they don't think it will sell, as if you're mad that they don't recommend your kind of (or lack of) faith in a certain religion.

the only way you can get mad about this religious marketing is if you just don't feel religion should be used this way, or if you are someone that just goes to the game and you aren't christian, but you feel the pre or post game ceremonies overlap into the game, perhaps by christians ruining your experience by trying to convert you during the ninth inning. and i could see this happening with groups, but less with christians than other groups - though this may be naive. other than the preachers/reverends etc., i don't see too many of those white folk with 3 kids that they showed at these pregame things coming up to too many people and trying to push their points of view. maybe in the south christians are more pushy, so i don't know. but i bring this up because of an opposite point of view. i could be uncomfortable if there were black rallies before and after pirate games. depending. would i feel unsettled and unaccepted attending a game like that? i'd have to see. so if people of other faiths (though minority in number) are being made to feel uncomfortable (but to what degree i can't say. are you just uncomfortable becuase a lot of people have christian shirts on?) because thousands of people are urging you to stand up and pray to god that chipper jones knocks out a homer to win the game, then religious rallies shouldn't be allowed before and after the games.

i'd imagine that people with other or no religions would rather have god mentioned in the pledge of allegiance than have to physically deal with hyped up christians.

but if there aren't complaints of overbearing christians during the game, then the stadium can be used however the public wants. and in the bible belt, you'll lose the vote if you want it used for an atheist gathering.

so it just leaves the question of should religion be used to market baseball? god's not saying thou shalt go to the game tonight. so you go because you want to attend postgame activities. just like families going because of fireworks that their kids want to see.

and there's probably many other points of view

and then earlier on the discovery channel, this dude was out with bear cubs and he was trying to act like their mother. he noticed they kept coming up to him when the were in the woods and while he was done on all fours and they kept making audible sniffing sounds. it finally clicked with him that they were trying to smell his breath to see what they should be eating. so he'd eat berries and they'd come and smell his breath and then they'd eat those same berries. so he'd chew some certain plant and then they'd go find that plant. apparently this was very recent, and he made the discovery of a tiny organ on the roofs of bears (except bamboo eating pandas) mouths that allowed them to identify exact smells and tastes so that they wouldn't eat poisonous

oh and i had just watched 30 days where this atheist woman had to live with a christian family. i almost wrote somet hings on that a few days ago. maybe why my ears perked this morning

vodka makes me lose my mind

2006-07-30T17:04:00.000-04:00

drunkenness hit me like a cannonball last night. as some of you may have already seen from steve's late night picture sendings, the grass in front of the bar was as close as i could get to it.

dumb shit - huh huh - YEAH, THAT SHIT'S DUMB, HEH HEH. huh-huh, yeah, duuuumb

2006-07-27T17:22:00.000-04:00

i found some effective new stretches for the upper body. there have been immediate consequences. i'm eager to see what happens in a week or so.

to be clear, this is important. far more important than any stretching i've been doing so far. the lower back/lower body stretching simply gave me more stamina throughout the day. well, that, and it gave me an understanding of how the stretching process would work, meaning, what i could expect in terms of progress, what pain limit was most effective to hold etc. and it got me simply into the habit of stretching. but all the while the upper-body loomed. the sides, the chest, the shoulders, the neck. this is where my real muscle pain lies.

my mother grabbed some book a few weeks ago about how to heal yourself through exercise. i finally looked through it two days ago. every symptom or problem i thought that related to me seems to be able to be cured by either running or stretching. and for a few things it mentioned the healing powers of weightlifting. (this is all obvious, but...) running topped most mental problem categories, from depression to creative blocks. and it's true, physical activity has cured me of any problems of anxiety. stretching was listed as the cure to muscle pain.

i know how to run, and i've never felt any discomfort from the waist down, so i checked out the diagrams for stretches to help shoulder and neck pain. i've tried stretching my upper body before but one part of me said that it was less important because the muscles weren't as big and so the effect would be less pleasing. but another part of me felt like it was too hard, physically and mentally.

the tension in my neck and shoulders goes hand in hand with my daily ruts and habits. stretching my lower body allowed me to enjoy those things more fully. but those things all involve holding still, whether it's watching tv or a video game or reading and writing on the computer. those things aren't so bad in themselves, but i've attached other, worse vices to them - smoking, drinking, chewing, eating.

maybe i'm naively ambitious, but the part of me that didn't want to stretch my upper body was, i believe, the part of me that didn't want to let go of habits that i'd come to rely on.

it's been a fairly long path to recovery (from what ever it is that i feel now the urge to say that i recovered from it) and i've come in small steps. it's the way i wanted to. i think that i could have gotten to this point much more swiftly had i begun stretching my upper body a while ago. i had seen that book for a while now. but not until two days ago did i finally feel like it was time to see what it said and then, what's more, go ahead and try out some of the diagrams.

i'm slow to motivate.

anyway, it's not like after a few weeks of these stretches that i'll be unrecognizable, it's just, this is a step that i've been meaning to take for years. i get to feel like, while i'm still going up and down, overall, i'm on an upswing.

quick note: the pain in my chest that i used to be able to crack, yet haven't been able to for nearly a year (a year i spent weightlifting), is now, finally, able to guide me into raising my shoulders off my chest by activating my upper back.

doing something productive with that pain has been a very long term goal for me.

i've had problems with tension since i was young. the way i played video games and read books on my stomach kept my neck very stiff. i remember my family making fun of me when i would start to complain and then panic because i couldn't yawn. i have the same problem sitting here today. i can't quite get the release i want to feel - can't quite yawn the whole way. i envy dogs when i see them do it. i feel like i'm closer to being able to detach my jaw than to stretch it out.

so, the pain, what i now recognize as stiffness, is very evident while doing these stretches, especially evident when compared to how it felt when i started stretching my lower body. but it's also more fun, and contrary to what that one part of me had felt, more pleasing than the bigger muscles. this, counter-intuitive, because of an over-looked factor: there was much more stiffness in my upper-body. it's i've saved up the pain in my back, made it ripe.

(i wonder how many of my true beliefs i don't relay here because i can't write well enough to get them across, and so what i write is always behind how i truly feel.)

i used to think (vaguely) that the pain and tension (and power) i was building up in my back and neck would be able to be released with the action-equal-opposite-reaction principle. like i was storing up energy. and maybe that could have been the case. but i feel now more like i don't want an explosion. maybe now i'd rather have a long and steady increase. and the more that i come to believe that, the easier it is for me to let the pain and stress go - not like letting a nearly filled up balloon slip from your grasp, letting it take off in a frenzied scream, but like letting it float for a while until it slowly seeps away. the latter feels much more healthy to me. however the former held promise or the possibility of doing something...surprising, uncontrolled and great.

but more, i think that thoughts like the last one were just traps. perspectives change.

so, anyway, let's see what happens. i mean, shit, i'm even getting excited about the idea of starting one of these stores down at the beach. you couldn't have made me think about it two years ago. (thus noting the main point of recovery as the last, un-parentheses-ed sentence of a post about recovery)

blunted, but with a day-old second serving

2006-07-14T21:37:00.000-04:00

whenever a critic or biographer writes an introduction for a classic novel, they usually try to connect the themes or characteristics of the artist's work to the at-the-time current probable feelings and means of rationalizations the author was going through.

so like, the novel was the author expressing themselves behind it's mask of the historical technique and acceptance of that craft. as the snowborder flips and spins to define themself.

when i wrote a fiction piece in any english class, i registered that the less true feelings i put into the piece, the better. i thought it all needed made up. i even confided to my favorite english professor that i'd felt i'd somehow cheated when i wrote a piece that felt like it reflected my true feelings.

but is this then not the case. should it be an exhibition, siona?

anyway, maybe

quickly, i want to say how much i'm enjoying the matador - the movie. perfectly timed, that piece, for me

so, if i was to write a novel that i felt reflected myself, sure there would be tragedy, and who knows, perhaps it would end with a nice, resoluting, bang. but the main characteristic would be that it would build. it would build and build and build, and as of now, it would end, leaving no satisfaction for the reader, for the piece. all of that potential, wantonly wasted. there's a sin for that in the bible.

so i guess that's what i think of me. and plus, apparently, and unavoidably, there'd be a hellovalotta pride. that's called bad in the bible too. let's see..

20 or so of my favorite words beginning with "G-a," abridged

2006-07-14T20:13:00.000-04:00

Gaffe
Gait
Gala (did you see what kiddo wore to the recent gala?)
Gale
Gallant (as in, what a gallant cheesecake)
Galley
Gallow
Galore (like, Heaven's Galore! what a ballgame!)

Gambit (but mostly as in, the x-man)(he's in my favorite 10 xmen list, abridged)
Gamy
Gangway - the interjection (as in, Gangway! fellow pirates with eyepatches and yon treacherous* vagrants off hunting treasure in rivers and oceans alike)
Garb
Garish (did you see the garish dress kiddo wore to le galore locale?)
Garner
Garrulous (kiddo can wear whatever kiddo wants to wear. don't be so garrulous..ya witch**)
Gash

"G-a" words i didn't know and now like, abridged

Gad - to wander about idly or restlessly
Gambol - frolic; to jump and skip about in play
Gamin - 1. a homeless child who roams the streets 2. a girl with a roguish saucy charm: also gamine

"G-a" words related to the word "Look," possibly abridged

Gander
Gape
Gawk
Gaze

*look for includement in future addition 20 or so favorite words starting with "Tre"
**it's possible witch is one of the best "Wi" words...

recently, i drank and

postmodern pain

2006-07-11T13:33:00.000-04:00

ah! blasted toothache
from whence do you come

neither a blade that is searing
of fiercely hot cold iron
or vicious salt
flung in mine own eyes
would make me rejoice thee

ah! horrid toothache
from whom? so i can blame

that i dream of such pleasure
rocky drilling will bring
that i dream with a smile
of a needle
deep back in my mouth

but then once the pain is gone and my bottom lip trembles since numb
and without feeling, hands dig instruments sharp and hard into my pulled open mouth
and i simulate pain because i know it should hurt
so my shoulders are tense and my face might look tortured
but then i try to relax to see what that's like
and i see the whole scene like i'm watching tv
but then the heat of their presence is made aware in my mouth
their hands jabbing and jamming and sucking and probing
and a panic overtakes me - yet just for a second
as i've been better at conquering that phase of my problems

but no pain at all, as they dig in my mouth
and crank and wiggle my gums till they bleed
but just because there's no pain, should i trivialize the process
can i live without sin if i can bypass the punishment?

on wearing a mohawk

2006-07-05T14:06:00.000-04:00

drunk friends' limbs dangle limp off half-gotten-into recliners and etc. when shawn comes home from the bar at 3 am. and here's the thing: if you don't want to get a mohawk hair-do, never mention that you do.

yeah, i could have just worn a red hat into public that next morning in the shady side of pittsburgh, but let's just see what it's like to have a mohawk, i thought. and plus there was encouragement from steve.

i imagined it would be like wearing a shirt that just said 'HOLY FUCK' big and clear across its front. everyone's going to look, but also, and then quickly, everyone's going to look away. plus you gotta watch for getting into a bunch of fights.

one thing i've thought a ton about but never ended up getting on this blog here was that FX show Black. White. that show caused me so much anger and worked-uppedness. but a major theme (or argument) was about prejudice being seen more because it was expected more from the black family. so when the white guy would go out in black make-up, he'd see less. or so that was his reasoning. and although i felt that the white guy was the least open-minded, i still feel that this is partially true. [note the colbertness]

so, here i go first thing, to test out my new 'look-at-me' style. a nice bad move got me off on the wrong foot as i pulled into a parking lot that was apparently one i wasn't allowed to park in. so here's a question: was the old guy who was gaurding the lot's 'hey bud, this is private parking' meaner because i was wearing a mohawk, or not? well, that's what i was analyzing right after he said it and so instead of naturally just telling him 'oops, my bad,' i instead just stood there looking all mean in my mohawk and thus creating a whole lot of tension. i realized why the situation got how it did but i didn't know how to get out of it. once i imagined i was a badass and imagined that he took me as one, i couldn't help but act like one. i tried to say things i'd normally, nicely say, but instead it came out gruff and incoherent - so i just turned and walked back to my car a little dismayed and disgruntled.

then there's the whole quick story about how i then tried to leave that parking lot the wrong way what with my beckoning back to the car pulling in in front of me that i just wanted to get around him and then with me realizing afterwards that i wasn't following the arrow system in the lot (which i don't think you legally have to follow anyway) but then i was still sensitive to my badass perception and so i was trying to do things right and so i started backing up to turn around but that old guy guard started waving his arm as if now i was just fucking things up worse and that i might as well just keep going. but i didn't. i said something like this is just too weird now, and went to find some other spot to park.

so, a little frazzled, but steve sees a spot and so i try to square myself around four blocks to get back to it and in the process a guy pulls up to me and lowers his window.

'this is a one way street bud.'

i look at him and wonder if he's being more of an asshole because i have a fucking mohawk. therefore, i only end up managing, 'is that right?'

so, haha, he just says, 'yeah it is, so uh, just be very careful' and he drove off.

cuz there's no fucking way he's telling that guy with that mohawk to obey the rules or anything. he's just one man, how's he gonna take down my whole kind. he's not going to. he's going to just put his window up fast and drive off.

so, the above happened all in those first few minutes of people seeing me with a mohawk. completely defeated, i force a chinese fire drill on steve and allow him to do some parking to finally meet nathan to begin the trip south.

i thought i would wear a bandana (as i'd before) while hiking the trails, but instead, again, the mohawk prevailed as my uppermost feature. good experiences became the norm eventually as i got to surprise people with preemptive 'hellos' 'good day's' and 'hiyas'. people enjoyed it. sure, there were a few quick looks back down, but i blame them on me. i mean, i wouldn't hold the gaze of a mohawk if he didn't first engage me with politeness. but everyone wants to be able to say that they were once friends with a guy with a mohawk and so it was kind of fun.

i enjoy being nice to people much more, when they least expect it

described below

2006-06-21T12:42:00.000-04:00

To try to help ensure that at least nathan and i go hiking in virginia a week from tomorrow, some tales of the last shenandoah adventures (previously relayed in gmail form, but always intended to end up here one day anyway)

WATERFALLS, RAPIDS AND DISPOSABLE SHOES

haha, you're right about the cowboy cool names. i forget what adam's was, but i'm brad riker, always am, always have been. i gather you recognize the surname, or whichever part of the name that means the part with the name riker in it.

and i forgot. i wore some kind of boot the first time and nearly had my feet amputated. but the second time i just wore sneakers and was fine. so...

quick story. the guide led us across some wadable rivers, or so she thought. day one brought the first river alongside a rocky cliff waterfall of death-causing proportions. this was when adam hiked down the cliff alongside the raging river to try to find an easier way across than the felled tree bridge. after 20 minutes or so i went down after him. i went as far as i dared (the cliff got sheer steep and realized i had no idea where he could have been. i began to realize it was at least a 50-50 that he'd fallen down the cliff and was injured or dead. i headed back to where i started thinking that there was nothing else to do. it had been a very dangerous trip down for me as at the very beginning i slipped and began sliding down through the deep woods towards the water but my foot slammed into a sturdy rock. i'd only slid a few feet and still had not completely given in to fear - thinking i was still in control of my slide, but it was close. and so it was a long hard trip back up from where i'd begun searching for adam. i had to jump from giant rock structures up to other ones to avoid my legs falling down in between the rocks to the dark, damp forest floor, where no one knows what kind of bitter reptiles called home. managing not slip into those cracks i still had to creep past dense spider webs and avoid losing my balance when surprised by the slithering speed of thick, spooked centipede. amazingly, however, adam was back where we'd started, almost unbelievably we must have passed each other along the narrow area near the waterfall. but anyway, we ended up carefully walking across the fallen tree, giant packs swaying us from side to side as we picked our way around large obtrusive branches situated dangerously in the middle of the 'bridge'.

as we relaxed on the other side, reveling in our dangerous feat, the only other human contact we were to run into over the next 4 four days, materialized itself as a gang of teens, lightly burdened, who, without hesitation, darted lithefully over the tree, across the river and past us up the hill we sat at the base of. hmm..

the other noteworthy crossing was a muddy river that reached our waist as we, choosing not to wait for any indian assistance, forded the river with gusto. the peril here presented itself as a raging current, which quite nearly tipped me and my large pack over several times. death would have probably been the result. that or at best i'd have had to struggle my shoulders out from under my pack, abandoning it, and hope that i'd resurface before gulping too much water. i had a walking stick i carried throughout the trip and trusted it with almost all my weight many times during this crossing. earlier rivers, i'd waded barefoot, but the surprising unknown textures below caused me to use my flip-flops this time. they worked well. adam however, waited till i finally made it to the other side before he started his trek because he'd lost his flip-flops somehow, or something, and so after i crossed, i loaded up the flip-flops into each other and gave them a toss across stream to his eagerly stretching hands. well, one of them detached from the other, hit the water with a plop, and raced off down stream and deep into the woods, never again to be worn by my foot.

so, don't lose your flip-flops, because anything can happen when one throws them across a river..

ladder, slide, ladder, slide

2006-06-20T00:05:00.001-04:00

i just tried to reread the post below. if i didn't know what i was trying to say, i'd have no idea what the fuck i was saying. it's so confusing.

i remember, months after writing them, rereading my papers from college or long things i would write on scrap paper for no reason at all, and i'd realize that i had no idea what i had been trying to say.

but when it's fresh in my head i don't notice that i'm not making it clear, hah! it's almost like i just write encoded phrases that signal a corresponding meaning in my head. and so when i reread something right after i've written it, i don't recognize that what i wrote didn't say what i wanted to say, it just made me remember what i wanted to say.

basically, it's me not being a good writer.

and somehow though, i want to cling to that bad habit.

eh, whatever, as my cousin danny used to say

on to this:

actually, it's basically nothing. it's something that i want to remember but can't but seem to have resolved myself to just writing what it was concerning instead of what it was. but last night, it, for some reason, drunk and plus, hit me so hard this realization about why it is so important spiritually whether you believe in evolution or creationism. shawn said something about something at some point and it caused me to draw a linear line of thoughts making the significance of that said debate so clear. it was something concerning the idea that if it's evolution then we're not to blame for our faults. something like that but only in a specific situation maybe. i'll try sleeping on it.

anyway, maybe that had something to do with my (congratulations in order), selfless (though of course in a way very selfish) decision to go to church for the first time when i had been given leave to not go if i didn't want to. and let me tell you, i really really didn't want to go. it's been many months since i've remembered i had a problem with anxiety, and if you don't count easter service, it's been around 6 months since i've had any mental anguish at all. let me also tell you that i'd rather get beaten the fuck up than experience an anxiety attack, and the point is, i now only experience them at church, e.g., easter sunday.

but as my mental state is improving, easter sunday wasn't that bad. there were moments when i'd start to get light-headed and times when i'd have what seems right to describe as hot flashes (unless that can only be used for those menopausal). i woke up this sunday, father's day, in a sensitive mood, and realized that for the sake of my soul, i needed to go to church with my dad, no matter how much i feared it. it went better than it's gone since i first got the problem two or three or so years ago, but it wasn't perfect. still, i was completely relaxed for maybe half of it, and i probably haven't been completely relaxed for more than a minute or less in a row at church over the last few years. weirdly, the last two times i've gone, though both better than before, a new problem has arisen, that that i no longer can sing the hymns without almost passing out. something about matching the calm breathing patterns with everyone else in there.

it's almost like the good will aura at church is trying to heal me but i can't handle being healed all at once and so i have to tense up some and stop the process. in fact, the prayer i turned to this sunday was to ask god to heal me but please, in small doses.

well, everything's well. and how did i reward myself for doing something healthy like that? i drove to pittsburgh and got completely fucked up just like a good little alcoholic. too bad i don't like my alcohol like i like my healing, that being in small doses.

ok, later.

hopefully i'll remember the string of thoughts that had me so convinced that i understood the most primal ramifications of the creation vs evolution thing. i mean, i could outline the reasons that people say are the important things, but it was something about the feeling of truly understanding it. it was something weighty.

but the trick is the 'and plus' that i mentioned earlier that i did with drinking and that, in those times before, i've written down the thought process of other things i've felt i truly understood but then when i read it later, sober, i'd realize that it might not have been a different perspective with which i had seen the problem but rather just simply the deeper feeling that was the result of smoking. before, i've written down something that seemed so important but it turned out the next day that it was something about how matt kuhar and i like the resetting of strategy in hockey games when there are faceoffs. i understood that next day what i meant when writing it, but i also realized that i just couldn't access the feeling about it that made it seem so important. if anything, it was just like being a kid again and it was the feeling of seeing and understanding something simple and purely and without the desensitivity that comes with being older.

you die when you no longer have any senses.

ok, so, what i'm saying is, it was probably nothing.

thanks

quick update on a new stage of quitting drinking

2006-06-14T12:32:00.000-04:00

when the drinker tries a drink only once over 11 days, he encounters a clearer realization and a clearer problem. me, being the drinker, i, thus now making this a first-person account, have noticed something that makes quitting drinking all the harder. when i'd go a few days to 5 without drinking, as i've documented many times in other posts, each day got better, i'd feel better, giving the promise that stopping for ten days would mean ten times the good feeling. instead, it plateaus, as would be obvious, and so when it was hard not to drink after five days, because i felt so good anyway, it is always going to be hard to not want to drink after 10 or fifteen.

but not just as hard. in fact it's been much easier for me to not be tempted and i actually feel like i'm now reaching the realm of the healthiest social binge drinker in that i only feel like drinking if something great is happening - like a friend riding his bike from pittsburgh to ebensburg. so this is all good. i'm just not pumped about not feeling a lot better, quickly.

but i am happy about not drinking. so it's just, you don't feel better than the last day, but you still feel pretty grateful that you don't feel bad when you wake up, and that's enough for me. for now.

anything else?

hmm, oh, a few posts ago i noted that i was thinking i should be worried that i stopped excercising and working out and stretching even less. then i said i wasn't worried. also i ran out of vitamins and my vitamin world store closed in altoona.

anyway, point is, i've had a migraine headache everyday for the last 11 days. starting with my last night of drinking. the pharmacist at weis' market says allergies

absent birds

2006-06-13T18:12:00.000-04:00

there was this spare second as i was getting into my car today as the sun shone. i immediately and instinctively put that moment away in my memory as a moment that needs written of. there are these moments like this that you run into intermittently that just seem more full than others. i want to pursue these moments as passionately as i don't want to pursue some kind of career. why do these moments seem so important. it occurs to me that maybe it's because i'm vacant for those few seconds. i'm doing something habitually and my mind's free for once to close it's eyes and let me see what's in front of me unskewed, undirected.

it makes me want the restrictive bonds of habit and tradition in a way. racing to be first doesn't seem so important to me anymore, however it still is in my habit to act like that when presented with the appeasing situation.

it's a fine line right now between dropping my competitive drive (which wasn't socially created necessarily) and accepting where i'm at. i don't want to be where i'm at because it's not secure for the future but anyway i hate hate where this has gone.

fuck this.

it was about that moment. the moment was unexplainable in the sense that there was nothing fancy about it so i could only describe it simply as it was. a simple description that you might read in first grade to teach you grammar or spelling, so it doesn't seem like it can be explained with flair. great moments seem like they should be written of with great flair. or so this one had thought before.

the car was hot to the touch glinting brightly in the sun. the man looked downwards at the black tar parking lot, green grass and the corner of a red building. the heat surrounded the man so that he felt like he was in a tiny room. he felt like he'd been standing there forever, until that thought occurred to him.

becomes a post

2006-05-31T18:26:00.000-04:00

there's an angry pain in my foot. it's boiling.

this is the only reason i write. it's the reason i write right now. it's the reason i write in general. anger. and pain.

i'm blown away by the realization that that was the reason that i used to read. to escape from anger and pain. sometimes, i'd escape from immediate anger, just minutes from an argument. or other times from the indirect pain of boredom and lonesomeness of sitting home after school with nothing to do.

but also, i'm a pretty casual, relaxed person. i could sit with minimal stimulation for hours. during these times my mind coasts, joining my body. i don't feel like writing at these times. but if i'm angry...

i feel like my mind has been taught best under stress. last second essays or important arguments with family members. so it's also only natural that if i'm angry, i'm more willing and able to write. things are overflowing, feelings are, so i write to give them weight, to make them real, which is all they want, and so they subside, and become not real any longer.

now i feel better, and there is no reason to write any more.

much better.

oh, and the pain in my foot is real, but isn't why i was writing. i was writing because of how rude my indifference can be to a customer after contrasting it with my unexpected kindness to them yesterday.

i enjoyed this chapter

2006-05-27T18:00:00.000-04:00

Desert Divers, Lindqvist, about his favorite author, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

What fascinated me as a boy when I read those books was their belief that the airman was a new kind of man.

A person taking off from the ground also elevated himself above the trivialities of life in to a new understanding, created by the particular experiences modern technology made possible.

The airman was not yet a captain in the routine trade between tax-free shops of the world's cities. Like the astronaut now, the airman was the most modern man of his day, a representative of the future on a temporary stopover in what was soon to be the past.

That gave him tremendous authority, which Saint-Ex used to ask yet again the great questions.

What is man? What are we for?

Man makes himself, he said.

We aren't born man, we become that.

We become that through solidarity with each other.

We become that by taking responsibility.

I loved his gravity when he said such things, quite shamlessly, with the same endless trust in his reader as the airman had in the empty air.

In that solemnity, he was so close to me, I could lean forward and touch him.

He taught me to demand of a writer not just excitement and adventure, but also knowledge, seriousness and presence.

Presence most of all.

If the writer is not there himself in his writing, how can he demand that you should be?

then i found this quote here

"If you want to build a ship, don't drum up the men to gather wood, divide the work and give orders. Instead, teach them to yearn for the vast and endless sea."

the recent skoal tabacco ad: sensitive isn't crying at the movies. it's knowing a bass is nibbling on a jig 15 feet down.

2006-05-26T11:01:00.000-04:00

so there, an appeal to a real man. but more specifically a man that chews snuff and goes fishing. stereotypically, a white man. i recently heard complaints that mcdonalds was appealing to low-income black families by adopting their street/casual talk ads like (as pointed out now that i remember these specifics, by maddox, the guy with the best page in the universe or something like that) not using caps, and contracting words, such as "i'm lovin' it!" etc. just realized that everyone that sells something bad for you (or sells anything in general, obviously) is going to target those who buy it most, and therefore those who suffer from it most.

anyway.

a quick realization. so, bush says things like God is on our side and that God wanted him to be president. i just realized that i never, for once, actually thought that he believed what he was saying. i guess i just assumed he was saying it for political reasons or something. if i actually take what he says at face value, and don't try to find hidden possibilities that would give him more credit than he deserves, then, well..

alright.. my morning's 7am wakeup call is akin to a 4 or 5am awakening to you who aren't completely adjusted to getting up at 10 like me. what did i do with all that extra free time? just simply watch the old testament set identical groundworks for eventual late 19th century colonialization, and further, give historical and religious credence to God-leads-the-way aggressive American bravado. and all these BC exterminations re-enacted with 'convincing gravity' as "only the History Channel can."

from abraham to moses to joshua, gideon, debra, king saul through david, the isrealites followed God's plan to enter Canaan, exterminate all breathing creatures, and make the place their own.

the differences: the isrealites were not a rich nation sitting pretty already, like the dutch, portuguese, etc. and were not out-arming their opponents by centuries of technology, like spaniards cannonning indians from their boats. these old testament warriors were out-classed in almost every major skrimish and relied on tactics and strategy. also, another difference, and i don't know what's worse* but the extermination of men, women and children with intentions to settle and conquer a more resourse-rich area was done because religion told the isrealites it was ok and because science told the imperialist powers it was ok. sure, the isrealites weren't already one of the world's strongest nations, but they however had been existing well enough at what the bible calls a desert oasis south of the mountains of canaan for more than 40 years during which time they grew and trained their army.

so those are those connections. and then the idea that those stories set the stage for the holy book that our president abides by, you might think that we've made very little progress, and you might think you know why.

*i feel science in the short run but religion in the long run. science seems like it has the flexibility to learn from its mistakes. but in the short run, relegating another people to lesser based on accepted 'fact' rather than accepted religion seems worse. maybe just because we're used to religion being more prone to passing out prejudices.

but i'm not (redubbed edition! making use of Clicknathan's Confusion Eliminating Syntax System: a Brilliant Miscellaneous Notion)

2006-05-23T17:43:00.000-04:00

Today made the high honor roll by being the nicest day of the year, what with the upward-looking View of criss-crossing Black wires swaying Against a solid Blue sky when i was parked waiting like at the beach the way the Sun was, patient and bold, at the intersection to work. plus how there is hardly a tree without all its leaves now and the way that Jet so clearly Glinted towards the sun like a Smoke-Trailed arrow as i watched from below my moon-roof at 70 mph on an empty long straight stretch of highway downhill, or rather down mountain.

hmm, i've been drinking and smoking (read: Smoking). i've Stopped weightlifting for the time-being and basketball all-outs have been cut to almost less than once a week. yet, i feel very Well. stretching Seems to be the cure-all. and even that's been shaved down to about half as much as a few weeks Ago. i Think i should be worried. ...

what's this?

(imagine some kind of circus-y banjo-y song)

2006-05-11T11:56:00.000-04:00

man, i'm all messed up.

i'm at work.

are those fucking gross skinny cats from heathcliff supposed to represent people on fucking acid?

like, i swear, i think i just freaked this guy out by talking to him all weird and acting all spacey. i can't get out of awkward situations like usual. like, that guy. i was walking back to help out some other guy who i was trying help before the phone rang. this transition too was awkward. i'd start answering the phone while still trying to give this guy a general idea of where this buffet was. basically it was just confusion. then, after the phone call, i tried walking back, as i was saying, to help the guy, when the guy i was first talking about came into the store. the old guy, that i was walking back to help, noticed me coming back to him and turned to accept my help. but i greeted the guy coming in, in an incorrect fashion. in a way that led him to asking for my help immediately. my thoughts were, hmm, i should be helping the other guy, but i'm fucked up and couldn't figure out how to explain that. and so i went with the flow and thought, well, maybe i can help this guy that just came in quickly. but then the guy started asking in depth questions, and then he misunderstood me about something about corner cabinets or curios, and then i jerkedly explained to him that i'm sorry, but i was helping this other gentleman before you came in, or something rediculous like that. the guy left seconds later.

haha

and then this phone call. it was some kind of fact checking agency for businesses or something. they acted like the kind of people you would just hang up on, but they weren't. she wanted to confirm our business's name, but i kept just thinking how much i wanted to hang up on her and not deal with anything. she repeated the spelling of our store like 5 times and i kept acting confused, which i kind of was, and then the old guy from the last story came up to buy something. so i wanted to explain to the lady on the phone that i was busy and had a customer, but all that kept coming out of my mouth was 'you're going to have to get back to me' i said it at least three times in a weird, business-voice tone, that didn't make any sense in the situation. and she was like, telling me that it would only take a minute, but then i just fucking hung up, and started an odd interaction with the old guy, who can't hear well at all, and i could never figure out how loud i needed to talk for him to hear me, and i kept altering my volume in wide ranges to where people around the store probably thought i was fucking nuts

and holy shit.......

space cowboy
someone called the store here a minute ago. some

quickly, before i forget

2006-05-10T14:16:00.000-04:00

i fucking hate that lady that comes on after a person's personal cellphone answering message. she says things like 'to leave a callback number' and 'to page this person' and 'press 5 for more options'

sometimes she says more things, sometimes less. i'm sitting here all ready to jump into what i was going to say and, bam, she comes on. i have to restrain. but then, bam, she skips the '5 for more options' part and i'm caught off-guard, etc.

i hate her

it should be a law that people have to take her off

....

2006-05-02T23:25:00.000-04:00

Sven Lindqvist

2006-05-02T11:24:00.000-04:00

BENCH PRESS

Chapter 56

Having power means having power over reality. At first, that simply makes it more real. Reality is concentrated in the compression chamber of power.

But it doesn't last. With the next strike, reality is thinned down by the presence of power. It is sucked out of the power space and a vacuum is created, to be filled with thephantoms that grow out of power, bewildering it.

Power not only forces, but is itself forced. Soon it is no longer forced by reality, but by the phantoms. Then power misses the reality it has lost and sets out to look for it. It calls reality's name with increasing desperation.

In the final stages the phantoms act of their own accord. Very occasionally, a rattling sound is heard, like an empty seed husk. It is the rattle of the last, stunted remains of reality in the emptiness of the power brain.

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

hello. power is born of repetitions. not just in the weight room. take conversation and social interaction. at first, as a child, there is fear. there is the unknown way to act. reality is strong but you run from its face.

when you find patterns and repetition you also slowly find power. you can stand listening to someone and look around you at reality feeling aware and strong and confident. there's nothing this person can say that you don't have a response for. there's no fear, and reality grows more real.

in time, your power becomes more interesting than reality. reality may start to fade then but not to your dismay. your power is interesting. but then, more time, and you find the limits of your power. especially limiting because reality has become repetition. you've limited yourself for the sake of power. you want to experience reality but you can't get out of your ego, your habit of repetitive responses. you don't want to sacrafice the power that you strained so hard to get. that you needed to ease your fear when you were young so that you could experience reality more fully. but you must give up power this time to again experience what you desire.

full reality may be like something you can only glimpse in passing. a parade, full of flowerful floats and decorated marching soldiers, the arrival of which you've had marked on the calander for months, and that you can now see coming from miles away, that comes and is powerful and beautiful, but then fades away down the street. you must wait for it to come again. but that's only a partial parallel, because to experience what you want to experience in reality, you must give back what you needed to obtain to experience it. the power was a tool you needed to aquire to get to your desires, but it should not be mistaken for what you desired, and so you must give it back and show that you are still clear-headed and right enough to realize what you really want and how to get what you want. you must reach back to your childhood fear if you want to see reality again, in the power that you want it to be.

so is this why he says the below? or does he return to the well because he is so full of power now that he wants to go back and conquer his fears?

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

Chapter 49

I was born at the bottom of a well. I screamed in vain to make myself heard. I spent my whole childhood trying to climb out. When I had finally succeeded and was grown up, why would I voluntarily go back down?

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

it was interesting to find out that his book exterminate all the brutes actually began as the last chapter of this book bench press. and also, the other book i've ordered from him, desert divers, it turns out began as the final chapter of exterminate all the brutes.

it seems that at 53, when i think was when he took up body building (confusingly i had thought he said 35 earlier in the book), childhood dreams of the sahara that had been previously locked up, slipped out of his subconscious. he says his will was so preoccupied with strenous exertion that he'd see visions of forgotten memories.

lindqvist had been to nearly every other desert in his lifetime, but had, at 53, never made it to the sahara. the desert of his dreams. the largest desert in the world. the hottest desert in the world. his last trip through a desert put such a strain on his failing body that he felt that he made it across 'by the skin of his teeth.' weight lifting gave him back his ability and desire, and thus the creation of the three books.

in an amazing coincindence the day before bench press arrived in the mail, i rented Sahara, a movie about adventure. and not just your big-whoop new york city/tokyo/brokeback mountain location adventures. but an adventure in a new place. a novel location. a previously unexplored avenue where an adventure movie could be filmed. in short, an adventure that's destination is that place where not even george lucas could imagine to locate one - the desert! starring weightlifter extraordinaire, mathew mcconaughy, former tom cruise lover, penelope cruz, and funny man steve zahn.

wow, what a coincidence. the desert. and not just your run of the mill fear and loathing las vegas desert. but one in africa. the sahara. i mean, who remembers all those movies that also took place there? obviously not anyone involved in making that poster. i should make a movie and tag the poster with the caption: "space! where no movie has ever gone before!" or maybe: "a movie that takes on a subject never before explored on the big screen. a movie about love." anyway, i don't know where i'm going with all this. it wasn't a bad movie until the end. i can't watch the end of action movies anymore. just can't. fall asleep or fast forward through almost all of them now. sahara. king kong. the punisher. collateral. and possibly on and on.

so, the end.

let the dead, die. i want to live!

2006-04-27T16:54:00.000-04:00

i mean, i've only read one of his books, but given that it stands out as one of my favorites of all time and THAT because of how he could turn something so dry (history) into something so intense with his epic tone and sharp insight, i can't believe it's taken me so long to buy his book, Bench Press, about his personal experiences and insights into the world of body building. i'm very excited to read this book, if just to see if he can pull me in under his cloak again, to his world of simple, bared truths and haunting wisdom. of course, i do expect this to be a much different world than that of the horrors of colonialization in africa - the subject of his exterminate all the brutes. as a historian he delves into the origins of weight lifting and the evolving perceptions of the sport/lifestyle. from the back cover i read that his personal journey into this realm began with his encounter with a man particularly passionate about body building. and, as is natural when meeting someone that is particularly passionate about something, sven lindqvist's presuppositions about weightlifting were uprooted, from being that it was a selfish, arrogant sport to, who knows? that's why i'll read the book. but lindqvist mentions on the cover that as his strength began to mount, he began to dream intensely and regained old, buried memories. what else happened to him. how's he going to present this. i can't wait to hear his insights and compare them to mine, and as much, i can't wait to again be led through a book by his tone. i worry that it won't match the one on colonialization. i worry mostly because he was so good in exterminate all the butes because he didn't embellish anything at all. he simply recorded the facts and the publications. i've never read anything that would make me want to say that the book 'bared the truth' more than this book. damnit, i hate writing sometimes. blah. but so, colonialization was engrossing in and of itself, and he let it be. the history of weight-lifting? will it prove to have been interesting, or this time will he interject himself some more. i'm waiting.

subjects are never as interesting as people. it's great when two interesting ones run together. it's exciting.

....

2006-04-24T00:33:00.000-04:00

a cigarette, outside, at night. a pretty boring, thoughtless night. then, some thought. it started with the normal humdrum about never having any ideas as a youngster about what i would be around this time of my life. hmm, that absense of idea kind of proving itself true perhaps? i am somewhat nothing. and then a thought; an old, recurring one, about me being satisfied had i just been born ages ago and just grown up on a farm, tended said farm, and taught my kids to tend said farm. you know, the kids of the first civilizations probably didn't read histories about browse and pick food societies and wish that they could have grown up suchly. but here i am, this modern day, wishing for an historical past, if you can forgive the redundancy.

so what's the difference in this modern day? i find i have wishes that are not particularly my own. i feel i've been bred to disire greatness. as if a human living and creating life is no longer to be deemed great. i'm to dream of being the star quarterback or the juxtaposing riddlest. a romantic at heart and a bear in the business realm. my society seems to say to be these things. is it for the survival of the human race, or the survival of my particular society that i'm given these dreams to strive for?

my best understanding of why civilizations were first formed was for the protection of the seeds which those joining the civilization had sewn. no sense planting a farm to have it harvested by a ragged group of marauders. not that i'm blaming the marauders for doing so, i just feel that once i've put forth the effort to grow food, i should own it. human civilization 101.

eventually, though, the maruaders banged their bullish heads against horse-mounted steel, and were forced to fall in stride, or stirrup, if you will forgive me. and now, we've jumped, though a relatively slow jump, to A.P. human civilizations. there then became many groups of farmers and herders. it could have ended there, couldn't have it? we'd taken a step closer to demanding life, and it was a large one. but, oh, what power we'd created, we'd contrived.

sure, things were well, but hmm, couldn't they be even a bit better? what stopped us from just surviving, when we could rule our lives as we'd previously been ruled by the thunder and the sun? we learned of power and ruthlessness from nature herself. she'd struck us down and we'd now do upon ourselves the same.

but lightening strikes fiercefully in order to return a balance to the clouds. why then, did humans strike? did farming, hence hoarding and coveting, create an imbalance? are we doomed if so, and if lightening strikes all the more thunderously from the greater the imbalance, will we stike down ourselves to extinction through thousands of years of mounting power as if like dark, gathering clouds?

but just dark thoughts on this black night spent reclining in front of a tv and snapping at a keyboard. just a dreary, dreamful aside, most likely the result of a lack of right dreaming as a child, or rather, more rationally, from a few drinks and a lack of distraction. or are my rationalizations daring a little too far and coming too wryfully close to the truth, as if in satanic jest?

ah, the questions mount, eh, fair listener?

mm, but how fair are you? have you become one that has decided that you will conform your dreams to society or that society should conform to your dreams? that is my main thought this evening. it may be two thoughts; it may be too philosophical or perhaps humdrum for you at the moment. but at my moment, where i'm back out to relight another time, i'm still quite comfortable in the darkness, although i now realize that's what it is. creature of habit i suppose. stay out in the cold for too many eons, you just might become cold-blooded. the dinosaurs did.

babe britney's hubby seen with ex-girlfriend!

2006-04-06T17:18:00.000-04:00

never feeling inspired to load up on my dial-up connection at home and being lucky to get 10 minute customer-less stretches, as opposed to a year ago hour long ones, i just never end up writing anything and when i do, it's in such a rush (or, ironically - or is it expectedly - like right now, i get interrupted in the middle of sentences) that i can't have any fun while writing. so it's fallen out of favor.

but anyway, i have grand theft auto san andreas, but i only play it when anthony comes over. it's common for us to make a 6 hour day out of it. so here's a taste of how variable and unpredictable the game is.

i come out of an ammunation one day and start jogging up a hill in san fiero (san francisco) to grab a car when i hear all kinds of explosions behind me. i figured a cop had gotten into a shoot-out with some gang member and that the gunfire must have blown up a car and started a chain-reaction of other cars blowing up. but when i raced down to get into the action, there sat the charred wreckage of an airplane in the middle of the street.

you'll notice airplanes flying around above you fairly often, but this was my first experience with one crashing down into the street while i was around. well, i think i saw this happen at least once more before the event i'm about to relay took place.

so, anthony's on a mission on a large cargo boat and just slips by what we thought was the final opposition with almost no health left. to our dismay, our character is told to go to the front of the boat where (we're shown a cut-scene) some ninja swinging around a samurai sword is awaiting our challenge. anthony looks around for some health or armor pickups, but none are found. so he climbs these crates - back to where he started - and before he climbs down the other side, he looks up and we can see a red marker over the samurai-guy up in the cab? of the ship. all of the sudden, from out of the dark starry sky, a giant airplane barrels down and explodes directly into the mission's final boss, killing him and earning us mission-ending rewards. anthony and i told ourselves that that was definitely not supposed to happen and that the plane crashing into the guy was just rediculously dumb-luck coincidence, but i could hardly actually believe that. so i went to gamefaqs.com and looked up the mission to see if there was anything about a plane crash killing some boss. here's what i found:

    They will tell you to go kill Snakehead on the bridge.  Make your way back
to and up the hole you came down, and head over the boxes you haven't been
over yet.  There are a
few guys left - one in the doorway to the bridge area, and two more in the
stairwell.  When you reach the bridge, Snakehead tosses you a sword.  Lock
on with L1, and hit Circle.  If your muscles are still hign, you should
take him out with a swing or two.  Once he's out of the way, make your way
back to the hole in the deck, and head towards the refugees standing
near the railing.  They will lower all of you into boats, and this mission
is done. (LINK)

so, ...

Zero minus 1 equals something?

2006-03-27T21:11:00.000-05:00

I know. I couldn't believe it either.

this doesn't work any more.

Life and how it is. by R. C. Pro-Am

2006-03-27T21:09:00.000-05:00

man, i keep coming up with blog titles but nothing for them to describe

a wolfman among men, reminiscient

2006-03-22T18:13:00.000-05:00

this is by far my favorite page ever. (in case anybody missed it)

especially the trophies link.

if you're looking for, a furniture store, with a little syle and grace

2006-03-16T18:30:00.000-05:00

yeah, yeah, yeah, we all know the jingle. however, should i buy this store from my aunt? $150,000 and it's mine. should probably be able to get a loan considering the circumstances and after buying it for the above price and getting the loan for that much she'll give me a check for $10,000 just for being her manager/nephew over the last few years. point being that if she sells to someone else she's still going to give me $10,000 to, in her words, go live in europe for a few months or whatever i want, etc! but the store is doing excellent and i'm familiar with almost everything about it. the $10,000 could go to a downpayment on some kind of townhouse in altoona or something if i do decide to buy the franchise from her. i guess i need to really think about this. [i'm just going to have to use my brain...damnit! - lou gets the allusion..but, anyone else? point is, my plan very well just might end up like theirs (not their end, necessarily, but their means). we know things are getting crazy when i break out the brackets]

as anthony was saying, i then would be able to say while getting a haircut, 'hurry this up, i'm going to have to get back to my business.' or any sentence that ends with 'i'm going to have to get back to my business,' which would be sweet.

Homage to the easily impressed

2006-03-14T15:15:00.000-05:00

this is a classic post in which i'm only writing words here because i wanted to have a post titled as above. so, what can i come up with? i'm wondering if looking off to my right is always how i try to come up with ideas.

haha, now i'm thinking it would have been funny if i would have started a post i was taking seriously, with the opening phrase, 'this is a classic post...'. heh, yeah, that's legendary.
steve's here

she's a good ship, hiking

2006-03-09T18:01:00.000-05:00

this is what i want and what i'm talking about. it's actually really a photo of shenandoah and it's exactly the color that i want it to be. adam becoming a doctor in the dominican, or some crazy place, i don't know what kind of people i can draw (other than shawn of course), but i really want to go back here (at least).

(steve, you know what i mean right now, you're currently walking down that stairwell to the front desk. good luck. did you guys let it happen??)

and i'm aware that hiking is steve's seventh favorite thing to do, and that shawn bogarts his off days, and that lou's in ny, but how does doug feel about forty pounds on his back and fires and whiskey with not even other hikers around for 10 miles in every direction? could nathan be a go? webb or mccabe? we slept on that 'kayak only' river side.

so, maybe i need to go to yahoo groups and search semi-intense hiking clubs or something. hmm, with paid vacation days this year, maybe, once i get a loan to pay off my taxes, i'll be able to finally fly out west and maybe web or kuhar would be possible. but matt's maybe too intense. he'd want to climb mountains, i'd wager. or hang out with a lot of people i don't know. but anyway, i'll probably just go to busch gardens twice again

i = author of this post, and i accept all responsibility

2006-03-07T10:41:00.000-05:00

my creativity seems to be going to uh, hmm, shit? hmm, well i guess that was creative. and that's about my limit for today. to prove it, my last bit of creative inspiration was to change the word 'about' from the last sentence to 'a boot' and make everyone start reading this post in a canadian accent. a canadian accent!!? what's my mind coming to?

hmm, if i only had a pretense to pull me along

so as to not disappear, a post i'd saved a few days ago as draft

2006-03-05T13:56:00.000-05:00

i don't have anything to think about anymore. my mind's as stress free as a brand new piece of cherry furniture, as it weren't. but hey, no panic on the rides home anymore. i had a few scary heartbeats the other day when on my way to the hair-styler's (it's another place where you're trapped. you can't stop them mid-haircut, you know?), but it passed after a few seconds. so i'm here where i make some mistakes, but when i'm not making any, i'm thoroughly happy. the best part is having my concentration back.

so now i'm thinking that despite fears, which i'd begun to believe that everything i feared must be true, i didn't create pain to distract myself from anything. just, the pain was distracting my from being able to concentrate. and the pain came from apathy. i physically and dramatically notice tension in my neck easing as the tension and weight of being is now being taken care of in muscles more apt to deal with it.

so, here's what i'm doing with my renewed focus. i think shawn inadvertenly presented me with a challenge a few weeks ago (maybe it was someone else though). he was playing San Andreas and mentioned that he didn't think you were supposed to learn the streets in the game because there were so many and it was impossible. at the time i thought that that was kind of cool because it would be more like you were in that city and had no idea how to get around and had to use a map, etc. i'd tried playing the game a couple of times since i bought it but couldn't really 'get into it.'

but so i woke up one morning and realized that if i really wanted to 'get into it,' i'd have to 'get into it.' so, instead of stealing a car and drive around looking for a better car until i accidentally hit a cop and then, him shooting, forces my (gun in) hand to become, as the rap goes, a cop killing machine (the word 'machine' added for cool effect), and then spend 10 minutes eluding, i, (way back) instead, got my lazy ass up onto a bmx and started riding around the block and then blocks and then blocks working on memorization. knowing exactly how to get where you want without having to use the map and blips allows for much more fun and creativity in this game. so, i didn't start playing the game and just allow it to take me for the ride. i put effort into it, as i used to as a child, or as a man that was able to concentrate, as i am again now. point is, things are looking good.

At least I feel the means justified the end, actually.

2006-02-28T13:38:00.000-05:00

I'll just have to train myself to be happy. Mr. old guy whistling, who's been walking around here lately, is empatheticlessly letting me know that, since he doesn't have a care left in the world (he's old), he's going to make me feel guilty by not reflecting his happiness back to him. I must be one of those young punks he's heard of, that just isn't cut out for working a business.

heh, not really. so,

I've got great news! No, Esteban didn't teach me how to stroke some cool chords up and down on the fretboard. No, I didn't save a bunch of money on car insurance by switching to Geico (not usually found in my kind of joke). Instead, I just won a lot of games by trading for Fernando Torres! He's personally responsible for 6 goals in 7 regular season games and for 3 goals in two Cup games. Plus, he threw in a nice assist - to boot!

Riiiiiiiiiiiiiight....

Just a note to anyone else that might be playing, I couldn't have any fun with this game if I wasn't playing in the Master League, so..

Think of it as an RPG maybe, all mixed up with a soccer game!! Or, rather, that's what it is. And I've never played a sports game before where I felt like I knew each one of my individual players so well. They look and play like such individuals. And once the season stretches into two or three, stories build, and you really look to certain players that always seem to step it up when your simulated video game soccer championship title is on the line. etc.

Here's some other Shawn-interest news. Those legendary high school video tapes we made for AP English? Exactly. My mom found the tape, which I still swear I didn't have last, check Doug's maybe, and I watched them this morning. I was positive my brother wasn't home when I started watching them, but I was so embarrassingly screaming with laughter that I had to go check and make sure again. WTholyfuckingfunnyF!

Mostly, I think it was so funny because it was sooo embarrassing, and especially personally. The most embarrassingly funny part was during The Three Amigos where Ryan says 'Dance!' and starts shooting cap gun sounds at our feet, and I, staying in character I guess, start jumping my feet up and down. This could be construed as ok - hey, I'm just acting - until I frantically start motioning for the camera to stop rolling while still jumping up and down. And many other things...

Oh man, Mike Long. 'So, round up your doggies and uh, get em all in a circle around the tv so that you don't miss any of this good fightin' action, ya hear.'

Anyway. Lou? March Madness baby! I might come with Jeff next Thurday through Sunday? Your thoughts. (Except that I'll probably call you today, so)

don't interact with me, just let me control the situation

2006-02-26T15:57:00.000-05:00

alright, i think i need to get out of here. it is no longer a challenge to interact with people. i'm starting to not even try anymore. i've proved to myself sufficiently that i can do it if i need to and so now a lot of times i only give half effort. when i do this i start to not like myself.

the only reason i gave 100% before was because i couldn't let myself think i couldn't do it. but now that i can do it, i can't give 100%. i can just see things getting worse from here if i don't do something different soon. fuck, i hate doing things different. sorry, i meant, goursh darnit

fuuuuuuuuuuuu

2006-02-23T22:47:00.000-05:00

imagine that until you put a star-shaped item into a star-shaped hole you won't get a drink of water. also, you've been blindfolded and will be shot if you try to take it off. also, you've had one arm securely tied behind your back.

you stand in front of a wall 25 yards long and 6 feet high. there are tens of thousands of rectangular holes in the wall in a scattered formation. you are told there is one hole that is star-shaped. your throat already hurts a lot to swallow.

already, you have slowly and methodically worked you way down the wall and tried every hole. you could not fit the star-shaped item into any of the holes. you are assured there is a hole in the wall that is star-shaped by your best friend's voice, who may or may not be held at gun-point, obviously. ok, so you will try again. and again and again. but there's a catch. if it is determined that at any time you show a hint of frustration, you will be shot. also, your captors are watching a baseball game and every time someone gets on base you have to take three steps to your right and continue searching from there.

i'm sorry, this so stupid, obviously, but because of the greatness of winning eleven 8, winning eleven 9 is the worst game ever.

over and over and over i want to scream in frustration but i calm myself and think 'patience' and remember how much fun 8 was and that it will come in time.

problem is, i really think it won't. i think the game is ruined. problem is, i always think that it's my approach to the game that is wrong. the last game, i could almost play with my eyes closed because i'd learned the patterns so well. and it was so great of a game because even if i played perfectly i could lose here or there against great teams but could win properly 4-0 or so against worse teams. this game, however, appears to have no patterns.

so, of course, perhaps it's just because 8's patterns are so ingrained into my head and reactions. very possible. but...I HATE THIS GAME!!!!!!!!!

ok, so, also, maybe you just need to get the best players. maybe. but i have what i would consider very close 2nd level players. things don't look good.

first, the defenders aggression has doubled. on it's own, i would welcome this. second, crossing accuracy has decreased from ~90% to ~25%. this is not welcome. third, dribbling has some new animations. these animations range from being ones that make the player look uncoordinated to making him act as if he has all the time in the world. and this is without using any buttons, just using the analog and pressing it right or down, etc. it is four times harder to dribble past a defender and twice as hard to just fucking dribble. fourth, shooting accuracy has decreased from ~70% to ~30%. fifth, the 'super cancel' action has nearly become impossible to activate. what the super cancel does is allow you to control your player as normal in situations where the computer would normally take over like when your player is chasing a loose ball, the computer would constrict you to the straightest possible line to intersect the ball, but perhaps, you want to run past the ball and come around at it so that you intersect it from the opposite side, or, as another example, the computer sets you up for a header at mid-field but you notice that the opponent has better position on you, therefore, you super cancel and try to get in front of him. well, this is almost impossible to activate anymore. sixth, and maybe the most frustrating of all:

last year, this was also frustrating. there's an option to let the computer change players for you. the computer would then constantly be switching you to the player that it determined was the best player for you to control, the one closest to the action probably, or the one best able to make a play. obviously i would turn this off. however, beyond any reasoning, sometimes the computer would still auto-switch my player. this invariably would completely fuck me up. i'd already be reacting one way with the player i was controlling and then my player would switch and i'd end up running the player i was switched to completely out of the way the wrong way. well, this has increased by 5 times this year. i should almost just put the auto switch on and get used to it. also, and this never happened last year, but this year, many many times i'm switched to a player that's waiting for a ball while a player i wasn't switched to runs past the ball and was obviously closer to it. so maybe i try to switch to him but then it's too late and then the guy i previously was now gets all confused and also misses the ball, etc.

i can't explain how annoying this all is. and mostly because i play longer than default games and because i've had 5 of 11 games end 0-0. it'd be ok if i was getting crushed. i'd know i had a lot to work on or could lower the difficulty. thing is, i'm at 3 stars. last year i'dplay the max which was 6stars. this year, i completely dominate the entire game. basically the computer is so bad on three stars offensively that they lose the ball if they come in my end. to compensate, they pass it around their end as if we really are going to play for 90 fucking minutes. so, the games consist of me frantically trying to get the ball back off of them in their own end until they finally cross mid field where they lose possession immediately and i try for the millionth time to figure out some fucking way to score a goal.

the ways to score last year:

cross the ball from the side.
dribble your way around for an open shot just outside the box.
pass into the box and turn and shoot.
head in a corner.
score a break away.
TROUGHPASSTHROUGHPASS - the best way to score

so, for this year, crosses and headers are impossible, nearly.
dribbling is very very difficult and i only succeed becuase i get lucky, not because i put on a good move
throughPASSES have been completely altered so that they will almost never set up a scoring chance

it is so fucking frustrating. i keep playing and try to stay calm

ok, here's a little description of the crosses. most of the time, i cross the ball and no one goes for it and it just bounces on through the box and finally out of bounds. same with corners. so many times the forwards just don't even go towards the ball. and so many times im forced to contro a guy that isn't anywhere near the cross and so i switch and then it makes the guy i switch to stop running and tehn the ball rolls out of bounds for their throwin etc.
fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu

2006-02-20T03:35:00.000-05:00

for below

tonight, eh?

2006-02-20T03:23:00.000-05:00

happened during a horrible, great, horrible night with steve, drunk in altoona. at least, towards the beginning, we walked into the Hampton, and steve said, watch, this will be funny, and i followed him to the lady behind the counter where he said, 'we were supposed to meet some friends here at the bar,' and she said, 'we don't have a bar,' hahaha, and then we acted like we were confused, and asked if maybe we were thinking of the Hilton, which she said wasn't one in Altoona, so then she suggested the Ramada, and we were like, 'hmm, yeah, maybe,' sort of, and then as we walked out we said things like, 'jolly good,' and 'i'll recommend this place to others,' etc.

true story.

also, other shit happened, like when we went to the ramada and no one was there so we walked around and looked in unlocked doors etc.

but then the bars we did go to backfired, you know?

etc.

so, that was tonight.

momentarily right

2006-02-17T21:53:00.000-05:00

hey, haven't seen me in a while.

the miracle of drinking, sometimes.

you haven't seen me because i haven't been around lately. i've done a job i can be proud of. no, i didn't actively diffuse me resume'. i acquired a bad habit, and passively put an end to it. ahh. how i am.

on the plus side, when i'm thinking positively, i think of dan hampton, a chicago bears defensive lineman, and how, on the football tape, merchants of menace, he talked about how the body was an amazing thing and how it took care of itself. thus, i can reach my goal many ways, and maybe it's the only way i can reach it now. the way i'm doing.

maybe, in finding out about myself, i've dwelled too much on what i'm realizing i'm not easily capable of. i see i'm a way, and i think, ok, but, if i'm that way, then it would make THIS hard to accomplish, or, then i probably couldn't be THAT.

alcohol is also a positive force.

oh well. i'll probably get back to you after this movie and a cigarette.

peace dogs

NEGATIVITY

2006-02-16T17:44:00.000-05:00

not quite overwhelming, but it's so clearly frustration. if it were overwhelming i would cope with it by doing something. instead, it festers. i sit, clenching.

there's only this one thing that ever happens to me that makes me think i'm abnormal. it's a feeling, basically. it's the weirdest feeling. it's the strongest feeling. it doesn't do anything but when i close my eyes i see the texture of 'rough.' bear with the vagueness. i've never tried to write about this. it's the oddest thing and i have no idea what it is or how to describe it, but it's palpable - i've sat consciously with it before but couldn't learn much about it. it's so, almost primal, but not really. it almost seems like how it would feel if i was a puppet and the man just stuck his hand in me. or that i'm a windup toy, and i can feel it as they twist the rod within me.

definitely there's a vision to it. the feeling's very rare and usually is only there before during or after i sleep. when it's before i usually play with it. i induce it. i try to control it. i try to figure it out. it's definitely tension. it feels like rawness. it feels like there's a knife in my shoulder. it feels like there's a rock in my spine.

all of this isn't that important. it's just a feeling. a very strong feeling and i don't know of what, but it seems more bad than good. but maybe it only seems bad because i fight it. it's odd that i think i fight it when as i've said i encourage it. but it might be like if i tried to swallow a pill and then, getting scared i lock my throat and the pill sticks and becomes a thick pain and then i can't cough it up and it won't go down and so i just fiddle with it like people do when they keep tonguing an ulcer in their mouth. it's so painful but not overwhelmingly so. it's like when my shoulder is stiff and i don't have the patience to work it out properly and so i flex it harder, as hard as i can, and then i strain it and it hurts more than at first and i keep fucking messing with it. maybe it's like that. i don't know

oh, but the weirdest thing is that it's associated with the only two times i sleepwalked/was up adn was aware of being up but was basically unconscious otherwise. unconsciouness aside i was very aware of my situation - it was one i wanted out of. also, i consciously went around trying to get out of it. so i wasn't unconscious, but it was like my mind was so muddled - it was still sleeping - it was like when you're confronted with a problem in a dream and all you can think about is the problem and you know you need to flip a switch and think from a different, fresh part of your brain but you can't. you just dwell. same feeling, in a way, when you want to run but can't.

so, and i just want to think and write about the two separate experiences, so again, mind me that i'm pretending to write to you, being that i'm writing this and publishing it (although that is still undecided, but it helps if i think i'm going to). so the first time i was very young and i walked down my stairs and i turned on the tv. oh, more's coming back, but it's like second hand experience because i'm remembering how i described it before and it might be skewed. but, i sat on the couch trying to watch some kind of saturday cartoon, but i remember i was still carrying out a dream. it was a very frustrating dream. it was like that very old, simple, video game where you shoot missles at other missles that are landing on your 'city.' so in the dream things were falling and i was going back and forth trying to save everything but knew i couldn't. i tried walking around my house restlessly (no one else was up ~ 7:00am) trying to make it go away. i tried sitting in different places but it was really mostly mindless movements. i was helpless and frustrated.

the other time was during a sleepover at a friend's. there was no symbolic dream - just the familiar feeling and the dazed walking around hoping it would go away. i walked up the strange stairs in his house. no one else was up. i wandered. i was partially possessed. hypnotized. looking for something to snap me out of it. the thing was, i never 'snapped' out of it either time. it gradually went away, like coming down from a high. i don't remember having resulting lingering feelings the rest of either of those days. i don't think. the second time, i ended the feeling by engaging my mind in a video game. maybe i've been doing that ever since?

anyway, if i've ever been abducted by aliens, it was right before those two instances.

so, the feeling associated with those instances is the closest feeling to the one i have in frequently before i go to bed. the weirdest part about it is the texture that i see. it's always a vision of the same rough road or hard metal. it's like my body is deeply asleep and can't be moved but my brain is up and wants to move me. it's like trying to break free from handcuffs by pulling your arms apart. it's like that moment after you accept the beginning pain and you start to feel the raw pain - the pain that means damage. it's like i can't break free. i won't go any further, but i still want to go further i just can't right then and so i hold the worse pain hoping i'll get used to it and will then be able to pull harder. it's like the martial arts type guy that punches a wall over and over every day. it's the chinese torture of having someone comb your hair roughly and in the same place over and over and over and you don't complain because, what? you're going to say, 'ouch, ma'am, i'm the kind of guy that thinks having his hair combed hurts'

anyway.

sometimes i think thinking positively is the cruelest thing i do to myself. i might have a 'moment of weakness' and think 'i need to do this or that or change,' but then i tell myself that i'm just thinking negatively and i know that once i get my fix (exercise) that i'll feel fine about my current situation. maybe i shouldn't feel fine. i distract myself with entertainment, with babbling, with exercise.

something still seems wrong though. and i'm not too worried about it, contradictorily to this post. it just seems like 25 is too old to not be doing anything. but not in this era maybe. i've always had to be forced, sadly. but it will happen.

i just have no dreams. i don't think it would be nice to live at the beach. i don't think it would be fun to have any job in the world. i like the regular work routine more than vacations like christmas. these things are kind of sickening.

but, otherwise i wouldn't write anything here. sorry that the more abundant happiness things in my life don't end up here. it's just, i don't have the patience to sit and write when i'm happy and excited and energetic.

thing is, the first time i tried writing, i was maybe in middle school and i was excited and i started writing and my heart started pounding and i loved it but i didn't have the patience and the instant i got stuck i quit and probably played a video game and i never tried writing again. not real writing. not creating. just this. thinking out loud. droning. getting through. talking myself into a daze. losing

alright. bye

Like Above

2006-02-16T14:34:00.000-05:00

i think i often mistake revelations for proof of failure.

hmm, this seems more than just a little true. currently i can see it in chess and in weight-lifting. it's happened before, in many things, piano for example. once it's clear what i need to do, is when i usually give up. this time i don't think it's going to happen though.

it's because i see how to do it right and instead of being happy that there's now a visible plan, i get upset at how i've been doing it so wrong for so long. i fear that i have grown such bad habits that i'll never be able to turn it around. all that seems more clear to me is how wrong i've been.

but i think i understand it this time. i'll hopefully just keep doing what i'm doing because even though i know it's not right, i know that what is right gets closer and closer each time.

i wake with a feeling and i know that i can feel the right way to bench for example. but by the time i've worked all day adn once adrenaline pumps and i get weight in my hands, the right form disappears.

it's like i prefer floundering around pretending there isn't a right way. i don't want a formular or it seems like my uniqueness is taken away, or like i realize my potential - and as i get closer and closer to seeing what i'm capable of, i get more and more disappointed. apparently i thought i was going to be a lot better than that.

my dreams have always been too big. once i realize this with each thing, with each hobby and skill, i usually quit the thing and look for something else. this is the kind of thing that i should tell a job interview when they ask for a negative trait - if i was to tell the truth.

add this up

2006-02-16T14:09:00.000-05:00

like, the most addicting part of alcohol might have been the false sense of recovery that it gave. i was always assured of feeling better in time, and i didn't have to do anything, i just had to not drink. tomorrow there will be less pain, etc. but then, after 5 days or so, things were less predictable. questions were open. questions i didn't want to make a decision on. drink up. and even plus because it's a reward for going 5 days!!

...

2006-02-16T14:07:00.000-05:00

HOUSE. wants pain because it's distracting. that rang too close a bell

really fucking hate

2006-02-16T11:50:00.000-05:00

i really fucking hate how i'm the one responsible when i get pissed off

2006-02-15T11:00:00.000-05:00

i feel like being angry at customers today. we'll see how that goes

well, it's been a run, of figuratively literal proportions

2006-02-12T12:15:00.000-05:00

the last post was my 300th post! let's all enjoy that. maybe later today i'll highlight a few of the special moments along the road to 300. 300 is a special number. not only does it have that mythical number 3 involved in its notation, it also is a number ripe with significance in the sport of baseball. ask a big baseball fan what the number 300 means to the sport and invariably they'll point out that if you hit .300 (3 hits in every 10 at bats) then you are considered an excellent hitter. batting .300 for a career, if long enough, will probably get you into the hall of fame. if you rolled your eyes when the big baseball fan answered in the former fashion about batting .300, rolled your eyes as in, 'obviously, give me another example of the number 300 in baseball,' the fan would probably mention that if a pitcher strikes out 300 batters in a season, well, that's super outstanding. however, press the fan futher on the significance of 300 and they might stall for a moment and then flounder with an answer like, 'well, baseball sure has a good chance at lasting 300 more years (?)' or something.

anyway, i was thinking about lloyd mcclendon, the recently fired pirates manager, and it got me thinking about his temper tantrums he'd throw on the field, stealing bases (literally)*, arguing with umpires, etc. the new manager, jim tracy, appears to be more like an instructor than a motivator. thinking about that contrast between the two managers and wondering which was better for a baseball team got me thinking about bill cowher and how he's a 'master motivator.'

now, all sports need intructors. but, during the playing of the actual game, the flow of the game requires a different kind of energy for each sport. football is a game of bursts of energy and emotion. focus is important, but adrenaline and instincts are much more important in football than in baseball.

so all this got me thinking about the role of fans in attendence. a football game, if it's extremely important, maybe an AFC championship game, is filled with a fan explosion after nearly every play. the players are rewarded for pumping themselves up and giving more than they've got. they want the reward of fan frenzy, it makes them feel more than human (i imagine) and so they dig deeper.

how about baseball. in baseball, hitting the ball safely 3 out of 10 times is a remarkable success. winning 6 out of 10 games is a fantastic percentage. the most common phrase uttered by baseball commentators is probably 'it's a routine play.' baseball players don 't thrive on emotion. they can't afford to live and die with each play. their motto is 'it ain't over until it's over.' stay calm focused and relaxed. don't squeeze the bat handle or you'll mess up your swing. don't squeeze the ball too tightly or you'll throw it with less velocity. be patient. wait. wait. do things correctly 3 percent of the time more than your opponent and after 162 games you'll be on top the league. watching a baseball game is similar. slow, mounting tension. fans applaud nicely for a 1st inning single. 'that's nice,' they might think. two routine outs later, a guy walks. noone notices at first, as he jogs down the line but then a few people do and they nudge their friends. people think, 'hmm, a little more excitement. all we need's a single and we might score one run.' now, maybe i'm downgrading baseball a little here, but it's probably because i'm a pirate fan. they've lost 3 percent more than they've won over the last 13 losing seasons and so all of that .750 getting out percentage is so much harder to take when you're never rewarded for your patience. but think a yankee game or a brave game. the crowd does get more excited, but they only get to roar a very few times a game. maybe just one big one at the end. football thrives on contant energy.

cool, check soccer. more similar to baseball than football. the players need to flow together, get in the same zone, same wavelenght. know what he's going to do so you know what you're going to do all before you even pass him the ball. there are so many options that you can do with the ball that you just have to trust your instincts and vision. make a mistake and you feel more like you got out of your rhythm. when you're playing well you wouldn't have thought to try to make that pass. you would have known what to do and would have done it. so, check the fans. constant humming, drumming. trying to create a daze. trying to let the players delve into their subconcious and just react and not think too much.

and behind it all - anticipation. soccer is most similar to hockey in anticipation. they are my favorite sports to watch. flow. visible flow. there is most definitely flow in a football game. it's called momentum. it's not as visible. it's neat though because there's always that chance for an individual to step up and break that momentum if it's against his team. he's called a playmaker. or a gamebreaker.

of course, hockey and soccer have this too. it's just, flow is easier to work against than momentum (just saying/making up).

all right. that's all for now. you know what i mean.

*devon, steve's sister's boyfriend?(you know). funny. oh, he's abe cernicks. that should help.

anyway, he was pointing out to me how funny it is that sports commentators always use the word 'literally' in its horribly wrong way. for example, 'he just literally tore his head off!' or 'the man is literally a monster!' and as i'm writing this i'm realizing how it's hilariously the word that they most emphasize. of course, this is just a form of exciting exaggerration, and i am literally the biggest fan of exaggerration. but it's funny that i didn't notice it before. 'this game has literally turned into a barnburner' translated means 'this game is more of a barnburner than any game i can currently think of and possibly the biggest barnburner of them all in history.' (i'm not getting into sports metaphors topic)

so, figuratively, i'm out, beeyatches

oh, not quite. i found it amusing (and it was actually the point i was making to devon that led him to make the above point to me) that announcers sometimes use the word literally redundantly. like, 'that was literally a great play' or 'he literally caught the football out of mid air.' i mean, you only need to use literally if you think people aren't going to believe what you're describing. 'like, mom, the tv literally fell out of the window and landed on his head.' then again, i'm also a fan of sneaky redundancies. like, i'll walk around now ordering burgers at a drive through like, 'yeah, i'd literally like two double cheesburgers' or 'are you serious in that you literally want me to dust the whole house.' hahaha, that one didn't work. but what's funny is she probably did.

then there was bye

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperreality

2006-02-08T14:14:00.000-05:00

The birth of a hyperreality

Consumer objects have a sign exchange value, which means that they indicate something about the owner in the context of a social system (see Baudrillard). For example, a king who wears a crown uses the crown as a sign to indicate that he is king.

Fundamentally, sign exchange values have no inherent meaning or value beyond what is agreed upon. As sign exchange values become more numerous, interaction becomes increasingly based upon things with no inherent meaning. Thus, reality becomes less and less important, as sign exchange takes precedence.

If grains of sand are dropped one by one onto a table, at some arbitrary moment the grains become a heap of sand. Similarly, at some arbitrary point as sign exchange becomes more complex, reality shifts into hyperreality.

a last bit of sickness from the weekend the steelers won the super bowl

2006-02-07T17:22:00.000-05:00

tragedy is taking a pessimistic view. tragedy increases as circumstances make holding the pessimistic view more and more unrealistic and irrational.

i heard an old couple saying today about how they're too old to give each other a hard time anymore. i don't know. i don't think there's a good reason to do much in life. most things people do aren't worth anything. people manipulate each other into doing things like this. and if you want to be good at useless things, you need to create a way to motivate yourself to do them for some reason. you might get jane from accounting if you get that promotion, etc.

succeed in capitalism and it will reward you with sex and love, eh?

that old couple? they don't argue anymore.

then again, my job knows what's best for me. i like myself when i'm at work, after work, before work. i get a strong taste of what i used to be like once i come back to work after a four day weekend like this last - where i sleep on floors and drink entire days. there's so much hesitation. then there's explanation for the hesitation. the explanation always carries within it an excuse for not acting.

interacting with people is a weird thing. people are a weird thing to the contemplative brain. introspective thinking can only work with what's already there. it can't understand what isn't there. interacting with people is non-simulatable (that might be the favorite word i've ever used/made up. just rolls off the tongue) to a person that is thinking.

when two people start to interact, it's like a ball of energy appears in between them. then, the two people start to play around with the ball, tugging it back and forth, flipping it high into the air, hiding it behind their backs. i'm good at all of these games (relatively) when i'm who i am at work. it's fun.

when i get back to work after four days off of smoking apples and mario kart double dash/bacardi O, i'm ashamed or something and i want to hide from almost everyone's games. about the only thing i can do is talk to this old guy about sports facts or sum up other people's opinions on sports.

my introverted personality waits for a miracle. good feelings are so vaguely distant that you have to come up with an extravagant miracle to feel anything. what you really feel is the same feeling that my extroverted personality feels when thinking about the recent exchange with the lady at the drive-through or the dog at shulie's house. extroverted-man commits miracles at ease.

i like all of my selves but i'm not sure if some of them have to disappear or not.

i have all of the answers even if the answer is 'don't worry' when i'm happy. that makes it hard to write. i only like to write about things i don't know for sure. happiness guy doesn't worry about things like that. he's too busy using his energy to smile and to stay prepared for the next interaction. he wouldn't get curiously anxious about what it means that that old couple doesn't give each other a hard time anymore. he'd think, 'well, that sounds just about right.'

a dipsy-doodle around what they call writing

2006-01-25T17:56:00.000-05:00

fuck, this sucks. the whole 'this is great no matter what because i don't get anxious any more' feeling is dying. it didn't last nearly as long as i expected. so now i'm just plain bored. i no longer can turn my mind to the kinds of things that while they messed me up, gave me an energy of a kind, although unnatural. or maybe i could still go there but i've trained myself not to. so now i'm just fuck bored.

i enjoy getting up and going to work. i enjoy work when it's busy. in the evenings it usually isn't. so i'm sitting here, feeling worse and worse. tightening up, starting to stress out, setting myself up for having a bad workout day. that's the other thing. i know as soon as i work out i'll feel much better. but then i'll go home at 10 or 10:30 and have absolutely nothing to do. so i work and work out and that's it. everything else is useless. i'm not eager to sustain any hobbies anymore. i don't put enough effort into hobbies. when i'm by myself i can't push myself to the next levels you need to reach in anything to keep enjoying it. i need competition, or more, i need other people so that i'll have how i look in their eyes to worry about. it's about the only thing that gets much out of me. it's the only time i'll go against what i naturally seem to be - someone who will always take the path of least resistance. to my mind that seems natural. but input other people and i'll impress, at least myself, with my results. so it's weird because i don't know how to act like myself around other people. it's better for everyone, i think, if i don't act like myself.

so, but anyway, i just hate when i feel this way. customers know just how to make me sicker when i feel shitty. heh, i seriously haven't had a problem like this since last time i posted about it. so that's good. i mean, i know things are good, but that's why i'm writing here now. i never feel like writing here unless things aren't good. right. anyway.

there's this xbox game by atari, indigo prophecy. it's more like a movie you watch. i'd probably be pretty excited to get back home and play that after lifting, but after 3 hours last night (game says it takes ~ 8 hours total), i saved and quit. then, i'm curious about this one part of the game where one character has this lady(witness) try to pick a computer generated image of this killer, who, incidentally, is the main character you play. anyway, i was the one that got to pick from the many different features

screw it, nevermind. it got busy between 6 and 7 and i feel better. point of that story was was that the menu screen was fucked up and led me to believe (after serious consideration of how it was worded) that my game wouldn't be erased if i chose to play that level again. in fact, the entire game disappeared. so, yeah.

alright, got to go lift and be bored

barry sanders, my morning jacket, leopards - those kinds of things

2006-01-05T14:34:00.000-05:00

yeah, so, next time you catch yourself wishing for what must seem impossible dreams, catch yourself again and think, maybe i should look it up on ebay. just type in what you want and if you're as lucky as me, that impossible dream might come true. i didn't get that particular dvd advertised in that left-justified picture over there because that would just be like a 'you know what would be neat' kind of dream. instead, i found a four-hour dvd of barry sanders running the ball on game day that is taken directly from the fbi-warned nfl property only cbs/fox broadcast television view. so this guy taped these games and then transferred them over to a dvd. and the bestest most dreamed of but most unlooked for part was that he filtered every play to begin at the snap and end just after the tackle if it was a play that featured barry. so basically i get to see every time barry sanders touched the ball and broke a few tackles that day against the bears when he gained say just 80 yards or that day against the eagles when he eluded 8 tacklers but the play was called back because of a holding penalty, etc. so, even more basically, it's like i get to pretend he was on my team all those years and i got to study him and see what he was like every single fucking play. ahh

what do i like so much about barry sanders? i mean, there are other players with admirable characterstics: they could carry a guy into the endzone, they would run tacklers over with sheer heart, or had unbreakable concentration or ferocity, and on, but barry sanders had the freak reflexes of his brain being directly connected to his hips or something. it's all about how that chess guy i talked about and his fixed stance fights against the guy that feigned without moving. see, it's not that barry fakes one way, it's that he goes one way but somehow what is going one way for most running backs is going through three conscious decisions for him. say, for example, you want to step left. you think, step left, and you step left. he thinks, (this is all conjecture of course) begin phase one of stepping left, commence, begin phase two of stepping - oh shit! phase one go right phase two go right, etc.

oh man, i'm a fucking weirdo

so anyway, it's just great.

i can't quite say that about my morning jacket, however i just can't get the new cd out of my car cd player. i very much like it but it doesn't seem like a cd that will really stick with me but seems very important right now. i don't know. i'm just really starting to listen to music and this is kind of like a new category i get to make for cds. it used to be rudimentary, like 'like' or 'dislike'

begin phase one of ending post

note first paragraph

2006-01-03T16:55:00.000-05:00

this is completely just a post on how i feel compared to how i used to feel. just a warning.

i think things are great. i think i don't have to write anything anymore because my thoughts seem to end now. a thought ending is the step to a different part of consciousness. i feel satisfied with my thought and i let it end. that feeling of satisfaction is a feeling of lightness. the feeling of gravity spread out properly.

it seems the common opinion of tension is that it is caused by mental stress. worries about work, relationships, etc. though of course people complain of foot aches and back aches from standing all day, but once they get home to relax they know how. many people don't know how to relax mentally, however. i don't think it's ever been the cause for me. i think mental tension is the effect of physically putting stress on my body.

but anyway, the whole point is that life has been so effortless lately. being outside seems three times as real as it had a year ago. things seem right, and i can't believe they ever didn't, and i know the problem was physical.

i don't know what people usually think about when they're driving their car, but i notice how i'm sitting, how i'm gripping the steering wheel, what pressure. i'm not a freak, this isn't all i think about, but i notice it. now i notice the difference. i've pulled the seat back some, for one thing.

i had to lose things i never imagined could be lost before i could really appreciate what i had and again have. enough concentration to not just read but 'get into' a book. an enough relaxed way about me to jump into a conversation i overhear. the awesome feeling of wanting to stay in bed instead of the feeling that staying there is more uncomfortable than just getting fucking up. so many things, all related to what i really think was my posture. i don't just mean how i stand up straight, i mean what muscles i use even while sitting, which i use to hold my head up, which i don't use, which are weak, problems with organs and pressure and because of what i eat and of course what i drink - all these problems i caused distracted me from being in a pleasant mental state. i know i know i go on and on but this is the last time i'm going to excuse myself like i'm doing in this sentence because i'm writing this only for me and because i need to be sure to not let this happen to me again and i need to know for sure what is going on and what was the problem. and neatly, as i see that happiness/concentration decreased as i did a certain thing, i can infer that i can now increase the happiness further than it ever was by seeing how real what i do can affect me. i see more clearly and with more desire how important health is to me, personally. i've never been an extremely healthy person, maybe i've been slightly above average, but i hope i don't stop progressing. i hope i don't reach where i used to be and become satisfied. i satisfy easily. and i change my mind easily. oh well.

for the sake of argument or rather arguing for the sake of passion for the sake of creativity and perhaps truth

2005-12-30T23:19:00.000-05:00

i didn't do it, yet i've been accused, and so i feel an energy and a passion as strongly as i can feel anything because i'll need my every resource and every inch of focus in order to defend myself. i'm at my best because everything is on the line.

but then there come less threatening instances in life that require less urgency. still, i'd like to do my best. it can be difficult, however, to do my best without the motivation of being falsely accused.

this is why i find arguing to be an important segway - a key to the door to our passion. it's like watching Bloodsport to stir up the courage and creativity to have a friendly fight with your brother.

now, the less threatening instances i'm talking about in particular right now are questions without answers. i find it hard to progress with any new ideas about these questions if i am not utilizing firstly the energy created by interacting with another human being and secondly that energy created when arguing with another human being. just 'discussing' ideas about god, human nature, ideologies, etc, doesn't hold my interest because they don't inspire an energy in me just of themselves. i need to argue that my view on them is the correct view. and so i need to act as if there really is an anwer, and i'm the one that knows it. this, even though i would certainly never contend that i believed i was right if you caught me once my energies were back down. i will listen to reason only once my passion subsides, heh. but in the process of all of this i almost always create for myself new questions to observe or even narrow in more on what questions i'm really asking. and this is fun and exciting to me.

it's funny that it is logical to me to get worked up to argue a point i don't fully believe in because my end goal (even if it doesn't seem like it to my opponent) isn't to win but to promote rational thought and new ideas which are best formed when i'm as if walking a tightrope in concentration.

however, as the primary element of argument when you are falsely accused is to win, i notice that sometimes without conscious intentions, i allow myself to use irrational ways to win these non-threatening arguments. this usually happens probably when my opponent points out some basic flaw in my stance. at this point i usually can't simply turn off my passion now that it's flared and so i naturally/habitually dig deeper and go for the win without having logic on my side. this is not fair to my counterpart and i imagine if i could look back is what usually ends all conversation (argument) for the night.

but all of this isn't really true, just so you know. most of this really isn't true about me at all. as i've found that giving a point my best effort by arguing that it is a fact, i also look to find out about myself by arguing or stating that this or that is fully true about me. i write it down here, look at it, and realize that no, it isn't fully correct, but it was interesting to find that out. i mean, really, the only things that we know for sure are true are those things that we know for sure aren't. or isn't that right?

hmm, as i publish this it has become my birthday. that's 25 now. luckily, i feel i can say so far, so good. (but really, if 'so' means the same thing in my mind in 'so far' as it does in 'so good' then i don't really know what that phrase means. of course it means 'things are good so far' but did the phrase come about because it sounds kind of hip or poetic or is it from a dead breed of english terminology/phrasification, what) *treats fingers as if they were six-shooters being alternatively aimed up and down at the audience as the curtain closes* kind of exactly like when adam beat that albino kid in the mile run

refer to blogtitle or (note comments)

2005-12-29T10:26:00.000-05:00

oh man, i just realized i'm in a really funny mood. mood's are so interesting. are they really so fragile or do i just think so. i don't ever want to take a second to compose myself when i'm in a good mood for fear that too many cooks will spoil the stew, or something not like that at all. but you already knew what i meant before i sentenced it. hmm, so i wondered why i write so many useless sentences, but then i realized that you need some sentences that do nothing but give you an idea for the next sentence while you write it. or give you time is all maybe to mindlessly chatter about on your keyboard so that your mind can dazzle up something fresh/exciting/self-praising or otherwise you end up with shit like this, that makes everyone who links to you cringe.

all right, nevermind, here comes the day

things throughout this day

2005-12-24T12:27:00.000-05:00

man. a day at work can cure just about everything.

living at home can be hilarious and terribly frustrating. today, prodded by my mother, my father told me that he was hurt and disappointed that i didn't get the dusting done by the time he got home.

i'm dreading church tonight. that seems so wrong.

it's like a false spring outside. i can't tell if i haven't felt this way in weeks or if it's been years. it's a good feeling though - sunny, wet, snowy

i notice that the last 4 things i've written have been saved as drafts instead of published. until those 4 i have maybe only 2. hmm. just curious.

a day at work can cure most sunken feelings

this is a post kids

2005-12-11T14:38:00.000-05:00

it's funny, i'm a little bit dazed today and i've had to catch myself from saying 'you're welcome' when people don't actually say 'thank you'. it's just so natural to end conversations here with 'all right, you're welcome'.

here's one for my friends from old school. elementary, in fact. shawn and steve, namely. there's a maniac, the more i think about it, that used to be our elementary school gym teacher. did anyone else ever have to do this kind of stuff for gym class when you were 9 or 10? we had this giant apparatus that must've been donated to us from the marine core that had ropes, verticle ladders and horizontal ladders that probably topped out at 20 or more feet high. at say, fifteen feet, there was placed the horizontal ladder, which gave my wide eyed heart its first taste of terror. it was expected of us to climb up to it and then walk or run along the top of these monkey bars. if you were too much of an 8 year old pussy to walk on the bars, you could, for half of the presidential credit, edge along the inch-wide wooden beam with a hand or two stretching out for the wall a few feet away (that's a few meters away, for my metric readers). it was a long, humiliating walk for those of us who slide-stepped the entire way, ass in the air from leaning both hands against the wall. yeah, there was a high-jump-kind-of-mat below, waiting to cushion you after you cracked open your head falling and twisting your way down through the bars.
the other gym class threat that was a part of that menacing apparatus was the high ladder. stretching maybe 20 feet above our heads, the young child was expected to ascend it's thick wooden bars to the top and then proceed to shimmy his way over the highest rung and climb back down. (i'm remembering how fun it was to jump to the mat from dangerously higher bars.)
so now that i write about it, i realize that that was an amazing thing that we all did, when we were too young to let our fears overcome our fear of standing up to authority. or was it the embarrassment of quiting in front of all our peers.
anway, we also had to run a mile and practice to run a mile, and stretch beyond our limits with the teacher pressing wrecklessly* into our backs, and get in lines and take turns trying to do handsprings and front-flips (which, when before i knew whether i could do one or not, i went charging forward, expecting to do one, before just doing a bellysmack face-first onto the mat). also we had to do what was called six inches, where we'd all lie down on our backs and lift our feet six inches from the floor and hold them there until he felt our crys and moans of effort were enough to satisfy his torture bug. it was the best fucking gym class in the world, though. probably because i was forced to conquer fear and trepidation.

haha, compare to our middle school days where the gym teacher would read the paper far and high away from us while some asshole in the class would play dodgeball with some skinny nerdy glasses kid but with a hard, real, football, and in between plays.

*doesn't it seem like the word should be wreckfully instead of wrecklessly? have i said or heard that question before?

i guess it's true

2005-12-10T00:27:00.000-05:00

on page 393 of a million little pieces you will find the words, 'There is no awkwardness and no anxiety. Miles is in his World and i am in mine. We just sit.' yeah, i know, i've been harping on this for the last few years now. i think it's just because i couldn't believe that what i experienced was true. but yeah, it definitely is, for whatever reason. i mean we all know how hard it is to define an emotion. a feeling. what is happiness, right. by the time we understand how to ask that question, we've already experienced happiness. we don't know what happiness isn't. but, what is being drunk. what is being stoned like. what is anxiety? for some fucked up reason, possibly to do with kinds of areas in the brain that are activated, i can't seem to believe that novel feelings that i've had recently, like anxiety, are possibly similar to what other people call anxiety, etc. however, i've never questioned whether happiness is a feeling that is shared among humans. more, it's like, 'this is a new feeling,' how in the hell do i know what it is, or should be called, labelled as. it took a few years, but it turns out that i know what it is now. by reading into other peoples' ways of explaining it, yeah, i guess that's how i feel, too. i finally believe it. also, i think a good reason for me not wanting to accept that this is what the feeling, the event, is, is that it would mean admitting my failure. or rather, my ability to handle failure. or ratherer, my inability. (BAM!) just like whatever you talk about, i can tell if i'll like you by how you talk about it, i can tell things about me no matter what i do. i see how i get into a downward spiral mentally by looking at my faults in how i weightlift for example. instead of going the healthy route of falling down and then getting back up again, i'm more, brace against the pressure and slowly, slowly get crushed under it. there's never any time for relief. there's no breathing room. but anyway, the way i'm approaching everything is changing now. (and there's always the question of the chicken and the egg)

so, it's all coming back to me. and its coming back is the proof that it left. why? i have theories. obviously. but they're always in progress.

NEW POST

i was watching msnbc where there was some guy with a pink bow-tie?? people might know him. and he was interviewing the (i believe) former canadian prime minister? and they discussed, seriously, for the first time i've ever heard of, as if we should start to consider, and made me a little freaked out, that there is good evidence for aliens and that there's a good chance that bush is preparing for intergalactic warfare (hahaha). i kept waiting for the bow-tie guy to show some kind of smirk so i'd know that he felt that he was discussing a rediculous issue, but, nope. they talked about it seriously. what up with this? anyone hear of it? are we building a frontal base on the moon to protect us from these aliens 'buzzing' around our planet?

anyway. it struck me as odd, me, driving down the boulevard in altoona, that Wendy's large, stick-out there, sign, said 'Happy Birthday Jesus'

the more i thought about it the less it bothered me, but it struck me as odd.

2005-12-06T17:39:00.000-05:00

oh, umm, nevermind

i'm dying of boredom

2005-12-04T13:50:00.000-05:00

and..we're off

reading jared diamond appeals to your common sense. reading oscar wilde appeals to your creativity. common sense is one of the greatest truths in the world. to be creative one must stretch the truth, their common sense. wilde or someone said something like, art's only purpose is to be admired. i remember that canadian, the father from 'honey/shrunk/kids' was playing the role of an english teacher in a different movie. he tells his young class on his first day to 'lie to me. tell me a story.'

i'm tired of creativity (i think). fiction is getting harder and to read. even, lately i've been finding introductions written about the author or his work in my hands more interesting. so i always end up picking up jared diamond.

eh. i'm thinking about buying a business for dummies book or something. i guess it's time to change things

Read this!! not spam^

2005-11-29T18:05:00.000-05:00

let me tell you something you didn't know about hooking readers with your opening sentence.

heheh.

so i got drunk at this wedding in harrisburg. and the night before that, and the night before that and the night before that. which sucks today but not that badly. it was good that i'd gone 13 days without drinking before that. that must be my longest streak since i turned 21. you know you're addicted in some way when you count the days you don't use, as it were.

end subject.

here's how i imagine it'd go if i were thrust on stage to wing some comedic stand-up:

what's up with tornados? what, they're like the same shape as whirlpools but they suck things up instead of down. (mild interest) i mean, what, they throw things around, what, strong case of storm cell clash. (blank stares) (i laugh nervously in attempts to encourage the audience) i saw this man wearing a dress the other day. (i laugh) no, just kidding.

end subject.

Bears, and how they're funny

2005-11-29T13:50:00.000-05:00

ok, so, we all understand migration and why and how birds (for one) do it. but hibernation?? i mean, is it a myth, or do all bears all find caves to sleep in for all of winter? granted, i haven't seen that many more bears than caves in my life, but i swear there can't be that many caves out there. how weird is it that bears have caves? what's this mommy?? it's a cave. that's where bears live. i mean it's pretty funny that animals live underground in holes but for some reason it just seems so weird that bears live in caves. bats live in caves. ok, makes sense. i can understand a mountain lion ducking into one for some shelter, but this big fucking bear lives in one. and another funny thing is how everytime i imagine a bear living in a cave, the cave is kindof shaped like an igloo and is just the perfect size for him to fit comfortably. this isn't what caves are like. caves are usually humongous, or at least half of them are. do bears share these huge caves? springtime do they all come shouldering out looking for berries like bats do every night looking for hair to get caught in?

ok. another funny thing about bears comes to us courtesy the colbert report. the colbert report is former daily show expert spin-off correspondent stephen colbert doing a show that comedically mimics anderson cooper, bill o'reilly type personality one-man news shows. to be sure, there's lots of self-important hype, saying things with conviction and terrorizing audiences with conjectured statements about the horrible world outside and its threat to our nice little lives. this is where bears come in. nearly every show they make his 'Threat Down' where he lists the top five threats facing us each day. at the end he always points at the camera fixes his eyes earnestly and says, 'bears you're on notice.' another funny thing about stephen colbert's the colbert report ('report' has a silet 't' like in 'colbert') is that when he introduces his guest the guest is already sitting down at some lower level table waiting for him. colbert smartly wondered why the guest should get to walk in to applause when the show obviously should be centered around him. so instead, after introcucing the guest's name, colbert jumps up to take the applause for himself and then runs down, arms raised as if in victory, to where the guest of the night is sitting. usually he delays greeting the guest for a few moments to turn around and accept the audience's generousity with a wide grin and probably blow them kisses.

this post was forced

unfinished p0st

2005-11-17T18:03:00.000-05:00

so the store's been crazy busy lately. this is mostly why i haven't been writing things lately. but that sounds like something someone with people waiting for them to write things says. heh. we're on pace for maybe 45000 or more just this month and if we hit 40000 then just for this month i get a 600 bonus. that sounds like an xbox 360 to me maybe.

awkwardish things happened today. *palm presses to my face and my knees wobble* while thinking 'what do i get myself into?' just kidding.

mmm got too busy w/shit. this will never be finished

the depletion of my machinations, or, saying words for fun

2005-11-17T13:20:00.000-05:00

the unbearable lightness of being is really great but here i go again. i've learned some awesome frames of reference and they are invaluable to my world of categorizing but it's still just a story about people. it's hard for it to keep my interest. there's nothing to look forward to at the end for me. this kid josh illig once told me that you read a book until you get what there is to get from the author and then lay it aside. at the time i didn't understand becuase i had a special attachment to books that i read. but i don't have time for that anymore and so last night, reading the book julie let me borrow, i, reminded of it by julie the same night i got unbearable/lightness form her, began reading guns,germs,steel again. it was so much more satifying.

but a lot of times it seems like i only like something when i don't know what it's trying to say. if i knew what diamond was getting at i might not care to follow his points. it's the same with music. if i don't pay attention i can listen to the same song again and again. (this pat metheney orchestra song that i've listened to various times as i let the cd play, just caught my attention for real yesterday and amazed me. i've almost got a grasp on it though. meaning i've nearly categorized it into something recognizable and predictable. meaning i've almost sucked the meaning out of it. but also, i like it's extension of tension. also it's comparable to a living organism, this song, it behaves so lifelike)

my new health has made it easier to pay more attention to things. even almost impossible not to.

this is all good.

mmm, 5 till 7

2005-11-16T18:23:00.000-05:00

she was waiting for him in the park. she'd been waiting for him in the park for a while before she saw him walking toward her. she stood up from the bench, walked a few steps towards him and then once more she waited.

he looked up at her. she felt that the pleasure she felt in seeing him was too obvious on her face. she felt embarrassed and vulnerable. she didn't notice she was digging her heel into the ground. she stopped herself from smiling but every muscle in her face was tense and ready to spring into action.

he walked toward her. he caught himself reacting as he normally did when he was nervous: he looked around as if aloof; at the purple flowers and jagged weeds; through the fence at the men playing basketball over her shoulder. he had trained himself to do this. but quickly he stopped himself and looked up at her and tried to hold her gaze.

her eyes went down immediately, hidden by her eyelids, but they shot straight back up again to meet his. this caught him off guard and he was no longer in control of how he was acting and he smiled at her in terrible happiness with his entire face.

she was slightly stronger. her hands went to go up to her face but she realized how this would make her look and so she stopped them halfway, but then she realized how awkward this made her position look and she bent at the waist, fell back a few steps and broke into laughter.

2005-11-05T14:03:00.000-05:00

respect the dovetail

i liked the way a lot of this was put

2005-11-01T18:45:00.000-05:00

from Blurred Clarity

related: now that i've had some years off, i'm starting to appreciate that i was a history major. i'm starting to understand why i would want to learn about it and once i fully (or at least slightly) grasp what i want to know and learn about, i probably will go back to grad school for a related area. i think it's time for me to take a nice broad look at history. my desire to get in depth as possible with any event no matter how small is fading. i never could follow history in high school because it was broad and left so much out and left me feeling helpless to ever understand it. but now that i've seen some more of it in depth i'm satisfied that i know what it would mean to study it real in depth and i'm thinking i'd like to take a look at it in general and look for the patterns that emerge there. all the sudden...i'm making a plan (!?)

gross spider episode

2005-10-30T12:29:00.000-05:00

another themus familiarus. or whatever.

driving down the road, hands on the steering wheel, foot on the gas pedal, eyes straight ahead, when, in the lower right corner of my visual spectrum emerges, rather, worms, as if an alien from out of the stomach of a woman from the movie Alien, this gross black spider who, by the way he tumbled out, over and back into the heating/cooling vents, must have just defrosted from a frozen near-death - like a fly that flutters back to life from out of a cruelly conceived icecube torture tray that i hear the kids have done. so after a bit of mental vomiting i realize that i'm in a lot of trouble. too timid to look closely, yet too timid to keep from glancing over to where that wretched creature had wrecked my proverbial shit, i'm lucky i didn't end up like some person that crashed his car off the road

also, chad, you've got a lot of things on your mind

2005-10-30T12:19:00.000-05:00

hahaha, so untrue. between managing friends and manouvering down the highway to get to work, there's absolutely nothing. i love absolutely nothing. i hate that i love it. that's a bad way, i suppose. i guess i have to accept it.

in this new paragraph, the main topic will switch to me complaining about how i can't see past my own discomfort. it is my most most familiar theme. oh, was what i just saw good? i couldn't tell because i was preoccupied with being so hypochondriacal. actually, i'd think there is something wrong with our bodies if they are not perfectly scissored and lean. i mean, they were designed to work a certain way and be a certain porportion. but anyway, most people are like, 'well, you don't see us complaining about those minor irritations'

yeah, i know, for the most part i don't hear you complaining about that. you probably have more things on your mind

a house, a family, a town, ...a horror

2005-10-29T12:20:00.000-04:00

i started reading The Stand last night. unofficially, that makes 232 books i'm in the middle of. there's something about stephen kind that just bores the hell out of me sometimes, but other times he really is masterful. so many characters and situations just seem like caricatures of characters and situations. they seem like the mtv of situations. they're so obvious and annoy me. but when dialogue heats up or action begins he can suck you in for twenty pages a clip. actually, it reminds me a lot of michael chrichton. i just wish i didn't have to read the boring parts to enjoy the good parts, but you do. but i'm getting better at keeping focused through boring things again and so i thought i'd give the stand a try again (i'd read thirty pages before). let's see what happens with this

update

2005-10-23T16:34:00.000-04:00

i wrote things but then the internet shut down on me. the computer/connection here does that fairly often.

but Lisa, what can I do, I'm only one person

2005-10-20T17:55:00.000-04:00

people argue things like, 'americans forget that they are not the moral superiors of the world.' argue that; it's a good thing to throw around and for a good reason. but americans haven't 'forgotten.' they have never learned that in the first place. no society has ever. it's good to bring up, though, because it helps us learn it.

anyway. it's so hard to say anything. always, on some level, i'd disagree with myself. there's nowhere to stand. it was so much easier when you were oppressed by an evil tyrant or, instead, working to gain more lavishing from one. but if this does go away, and all societies become as america is, where, internally, we don't have much to fight about except for how we treat people and places external from us, then it would either lead us (historically) to civil war(s) or to a new step. maybe a technological lust. a historical paradigm shift? where advancement in technology and the excitement thereof becomes more pertinent than war. but war wouldn't go away.

but anyway, we're evolving as humans. and if you look at it objectively you'd be inclined to say that if you were in that situation you would have acted like that as well - at least most of the time or in general. you can recognize this and try to even things out, but really, it's just tough luck. we have castes in our species, not just in a society, that are based on culture. but these are changing. too slow for you? you can be one of the people that speeds things up by caring about it and protesting it. people will do these things. people will do everything to get to where we are going.

and you wouldn't want the king of england busting down your door and pointing a gun in your face. would you? WOULD YOU?

multitasking

2005-10-16T01:32:00.000-04:00

'i only want to be happy,' he told me. i only want to be happy.

unrelated: i'm stuck. it will pass

from flat on your back

2005-10-13T13:15:00.000-04:00

it's thursday the 13th and the moon is half-full and tonight, at mid-night, the wolfman will sit at home and question the meaning of his life, sipping tea in his new robe he just picked up at a yard sale, and he'll wonder if life is what he's made of it and does everything that seems that is just seem like that because he's made it there and doesn't he often get confused as to the many different perceptions he has on life when he just looks at it from different moods. maybe it's just those moods that need to be molded, refined. life is how he feels. he sets down his mug and reaches for a pencil to write that down and grabs his small tablet of paper that has, written across the front of it in black, 'recollections, recognitions and regrets.'

ah, a friend comes over, and they greet and note each other's physical appearances (or lack of keeping up thereof, ha!), and mention their days, and sit and invite to sit, and talk and interact, and even talk and interact about the subject of thinking and about the subjects of thinking, and then, in front of the living room fire, play chess, and get frustrated and the friend leaves to fellowy goodbyes.

it gets late and the wolfman needs sleep, but first he takes a few moments to pray. he activates a pleasant, strong part of his brain and focuses on keeping it activated. he chants words from habit to stave off distraction and, in effect, he prays to himself, to the part of him that is strongest, to help the part of him that just simply has the most stamina during the day.

so i live near the woods

2005-10-06T23:48:00.000-04:00

as do many spiders. i went outside for a cigarette, as i'd had 3 beers, and i spotted this big spider, not the biggest in nature, mind you, but big nonetheless. and i thought, eh, i don't mind it too much. i walked down my 3 stairs and lit up. full of energy, yet bored, i looked to him again and resolved myself with a sigh. being the largest creature around i thought i'd give him a go for some interacting and walked up a few stairs and leaned toward him. so bud, i thought, and wondered some feeling at him. but just as i realized i was comfortable, i looked down and there, right by my side, was another spider of the same species. i jumped back and laughed at the situation. right as i was getting comfortable with them one was there to shock me to a distance again.

it's funny how they don't move; much more frightening. i liken it to opening a closet door. if someone is inside there with intentions to scare me they might often shout 'boo!' immediately, and cause me to fall down backwards in surprise. but had they not moved at all things would have been much worse. giving me time to see and recognize their unnatural appearance makes for more of a soul-wrecking experience as opposed to just an emotional release. damn those spiders and what they symbolize to me.

just some little things, like a quote and what i'm going to dress like for halloween

2005-10-06T13:53:00.000-04:00

so one of the 'personalities' i play against in chessmaster's favorite quote is: 'being able to play chess is the sign of a gentleman, being able to play chess well is the sign of a wasted life.'

i came to the conclusion that i could probably get away with (even quite well) going to halloween dressed in a shirt and tie and carrying a clipboard if, when asked what i am supposed to be, i would say, 'i'm the costume judger,' and then proceed to eye them up and give them a grade. it would be great to go with another costume judge so that we could act detached from the proceedings, even if confronted by people calling us poor sports, by ignoring them and whispering our opinions to each other about who might be winning the competition. hah! and then if people really did start to get into the fact that we would really judge them and announce a winner we could, of course and with justification, stand on a sofa and announce that, 'well, it seems like there's a lot of excitement over who has chosen the best costume and so without futher ado i'd like to announce that it is me, chad swope, dressed as costume judger! let's get him a beer!'

hmm, i think i'll try to pull that off.

hang your hat

2005-10-04T18:36:00.000-04:00

I'm so fully removed from when i was detached from myself. I guess it could be described that way. being detached. at that time, though, i would never agree that there was a correct description of anything. i was always getting what people said but missing their point. how can you tell someone that's missing your point that their missing your point.

there have been other examples where i've recognized myself and that state of mind, but recently i saw a Next Generation that was especially poignant. i'll mention it because it was most recent but also because the further i get away from Then in time each subsequent example seems more impactful and real and definite. i'm becoming more willing to define what i was and move on. but anyway, i'll crack on with this.

the characters had their ability to enter REM sleep blockaded. eventually, without dreaming, they began to go crazy, as it were. i recognized myself in the way the actors portrayed the exhausted characters. data would try to explain something to picard and you could see him concentrating with an effort. data would need at least a few connected sentences to get his point across but picard could never link anything together. data would state something obvious (perhaps that the warp drives were inoperable) with the intentions of carrying on towards the solution, but picard would get caught up in considering if, in fact, the warp drives were indeed inoperable and after he'd come to the conclusion that yes, by the love of god, they most certainly are and that everyone knows that that's the problem, and then he'd get upset and feel like data was patronizing him. data would realize that picard's mind was incapable of taking any assertions for granted or that he was giving undue concentration to things that shouldn't have high prioritation, and so data'd just carry out his own plans.

the characters couldn't see where people were going. instead they'd incessently examine the truth of each particular thing someone told to them. they'd realize that they didn't know anything for sure and many of them became as animals and tried to fight.

say a word long enough and it loses meaning. take something out of context and it loses meaning. take feeling out of conversation and there is no point to it. language is very key when conveying information, but also for conveying feeling and sharing of strife. i can overlook it if your words don't have any factual truth to them if i can recognize that you're truthfully trying to get across a true feeling. these are times when it is not so important to be exact. i think this is called scope, or something. heh, or maybe common sense.

longest shadows ever cast

2005-10-04T02:38:00.000-04:00

but didn't you remember about the plans that you made. look right there and you'll see a person in excitement. you can rub his head and pull him to your shoulder. he can show you what it is like to be yourself. smoke a cigarette and ash out the backseat window. feel your hand pump itself into a fist and say something, anything. they'll all respond and save you. your happiness is a bravery; it opens you to attack. but so many of them are there with you, helping to keep you where you've dared to go, hoping you'll help them as well. go sit in your room, fear, i'm going out to play.

he'd never robbed a 7/11 b4. he'd never even drank a beer. walking those late night small town streets made him want to do these things, made them exciting, made a smile come to his face. he wondered about doing them but was told they were wrong. he wondered what it meant when he could grow a beard. he hoped that he wouldn't have bad dreams.

he went inside and put his shoes where they belonged. he didn't wonder anything for the rest of that night.

bolded

2005-10-02T23:37:00.000-04:00

Arthur, your feelings don't justify your decision. please tell me that your feelings are with you. they are all that you have.

my feelings have been sacraficed, Lancelot. it is the natue of my position. i accept it as such.

but you must have feelings that justify what you do. even if they are feelings that overcome your immediate feelings. at least explain to me those feelings. it would be the only way that i could understand you.

it is not possible, dear friend. i am no longer as you are. for me it can not be so easy to simply act as i feel. i must be unattached to make the right decision.

you speak with such air of wisdom, but you convey such foolishness. do as your heart tells you.

my heart tells me, friend, that it should not be relied upon. my heart has learned this and much to its depression.

but depression is only part of what your heart will teach you. if all you have learned from your heart is what is wrong then that is the only place that it can lead you.

and much to my depression.

the goodness in your heart strives to be acknowledged, arthur. much like your person strives to achieve goodness through this war, first, you must find it within yourself. you have made your way to a position of much power. how you handle your struggle will be reflected, manifested in this world.

i have given up on my struggle.

then you have given up on this world. all that is left is for you to grit your teeth and be stabbed through the heart.

then that is all that is left.

Familiar Theme

2005-09-28T18:35:00.000-04:00

All right, I'm getting sick about my familiar themes, but that doesn't mean I'm going to do anything about it right now. One of the few things in my life that gets me going enough to post about it is the Annoying Customer. These people consist of middle to upper aged women.

Ok, sure, they're the customer and I'm the one working here, and so I should be kind and helpful and all that, and I am, to a point. But these older women abuse it. It literally makes me sick to my stomach how grossly different they are than I. It matters to me if I feel like I'm wasting someone's time and probably because I get quite upset when someone's wasting mine. By not caring about the person you are talking to, you can reap many benefits. You can absorb yourself in your own thoughts, your own self. This is a desirable thing that I can rarely experience - and is probably a big reason for my having this blog. Until I build up a strong friendship with somebody, I stay very sensitive to their mood. Then again, I often allow myself to gauge people's moods negatively when if fact they may have still been interested. This is because of negative personality traits.

But anyway, that's going way into it. The point is that these women need you to be there to hear their voice. If it does ever register to them or even matter to them that you terribly don't care, they'll think that they can buy some time by turning their attention away from their descriptions of that pretty ethan allen, i said ethan allen valance that they just got 40% off and that their sister would have died to have had, in fact she was just looking at the exact same one but went another way and all because of the price, to ask me a question about a particular piece of furniture we actaully had in the store, or rather they'll usually just look anywhere, at anything and say, 'oh that's a nice piece!'

Anyway, it feels perverted, their extreme lack of consideration. Many times it seems they come into the store only for conversation. They just like to look around and exclaim things. So many of them talk about the guilt they feel. 'Oh my gosh! I really don't need anything, but here I am buying it' or the older women say, invariably, 'I need this like a hole in the head.' Seriously, I've heard that one fifty times. And then I imagine they'll go home to their husbands who are sitting on the couch, minding their own business and not everybody else's, and the I can just see the women guilting their husbands into doing things for them because they just sat at home all day while the woman got to do exactly what she wanted but for some reason it sounds like she did things because she can say that she went and bought curtains at JC Penny's and that her feet hurt because she went searching all over Altoona to find a gift for her son-in-law.

Well, I'm just getting completely carried away, but some of these women really are annoying as hell.

At least you had the option to stop reading.

seriously, this guy's great

2005-09-27T17:33:00.000-04:00

from waitzkin's account on winning the Tai Chi Chuan World Championships

Now I’m sinking on my attacks, playing with feints, tight combinations and misdirection. I’m using his skill against him. I noticed that if I fake inside, without even moving, he feels it and responds. He is incredibly sensitive to intention, so I start unbalancing him with invisible attacks that I pulse into but don’t actually manifest physically. I’m getting in his head. He feels it and gets aggressive, attacks hard and blasts me away. But now I’ve got him attacking, and I know I have a deeper root. I start receiving his blow and bouncing him off. Win a bunch of points. Then I make the mistake of coming in hard and he throws me on the floor—2 points. If I lower the sophistication of my game a hair, he destroys me. He slips into a zone and attacks hard.

****************************************

i especially like the idea of being sensitive to intention. to be able to fake somebody out completely you really have to be there in the moment. you can't fake left if your intentions are to fake left and then go right. you have to actually believe that you are going to go left. somewhere deep in your head you have to have the intention to go right after faking left but then that intention has to disappear, it can't be conscious, you must trust that when the time comes you'll remember. the other benefit this has, and i was thinking driving with a basketball, but now thinking hitting holes as a running back, is a better sense of patience. maybe when you fake left, if you are presently intending to go left, maybe he has left left open and now you can go left. had you planned to fake left go right, nothing would have happened.

you can liken this to lying as well. you must believe what you say.* in the back of your mind you are planning to change your mood, but first you must forget that and trust that you will remember it when the time comes. so you must have a lot of trust to lie well, i guess is what i'm saying, heh.

*i can lie perfectly if there is nothing behind my lie, if there's no pressure. if i have no reason to lie, then my conscience doesn't inhibit me like if i try to lie in order to hide something important. i always lie to my mother for fun, and then come clean again right away. but it's just the same concept of intention.

Josh Waitzkin

2005-09-27T15:07:00.000-04:00

wow, i imagined this guy to look more like a dork. not a lot like one, but less like this guy who looks like a nyc street hustler/The Matrix star.

this guy has been teaching me chess for the last few months and although it's been fun learning chess, it's been just as interesting learning about this josh waitzkin. his explanations of things tells a lot about him. and i like everything i've learned. but then he also gives courses in the psychology of chess, the downward spiral and transitional phases, etc. that relate chess to life, too, and talks all about his experiences with philosophy and eastern religions and there are essays that he writes that i read that are all part of the xbox 'game.' i admire this guy a lot.

but anyway, getting from average to good at chess is much like scoring average to genius on an IQ test. you just have to know what to look for.

it feels like cheating, and takes away the sense of pride you imagined you'd have if you ever got or scored that much better. there's little pride to get out of learning and having knowledge. deducing and anticipating and relating and assuming. when you are right in these things - then you can smile to yourself.

and hard work too i guess. don't forget about hard work i guess.

probably i should be talking in the first person

2005-09-27T14:30:00.000-04:00

it's funny that i've never given a second thought to it when my aspirations change. i simply have new wishes. all that seemed to matter a few months ago is replaced now. what i couldn't see myself not doing is now not being done. my transitional phases seems lightening fast. everything is so much better. dreams are better. what couldn't occur to me before constantly occurs to me now. thoughts about doing. doing things about thoughts. when you don't do anything there's lots more to think about.

but a song from rufus wainwright says something like, 'thank you for this bitter knowledge, it makes you hard but it was worth it.'

being hard isn't worth it. it's pathetic. but the realization of that is what's worth it. if life is cyclical, that's the only part of my life that i ever wouldn't want to repeat. it's tough, though, to accept that all you've learned is that you were wrong. it's tough to accept that very little good came from it. it's tough that a part of life is the wasting of it. especially when you rationalize it all along the way, assuring yourself that, although it doesn't seem like it, you're getting somewhere with what you're doing. sometimes it isn't the right thing to do - to console yourself. to accept failure.

what a magickal world it is - denial. that world isn't ruled by the physical laws. you get to make up what's right and wrong.

AN OLD LADY entered the store.

2005-09-25T13:33:00.000-04:00

Hello.

Hi. I haven't been in in a while. Everything looks new.

It probably is.

I had a broken back. I fell in my room and there wasn't even anything on the floor. I think the doctor's had me too medicated for my health.

Oh. (ending the conversation)

This is Indisputable

2005-09-24T16:10:00.000-04:00

Everybody's starting to seem so much bigger to me. i'm beginning to understand equations like when A increases i can expect B to increase (or to happen or to change, etc.). these variables correspond to my physical actions, mental patterns, ways of thought, immediate perspectives, mood, vulnerability/influencability, etc., etc. i suppose i could throw an X in and it could mean, vaguely, happiness. and then i guess i could adjust the variables' wording so that an increase in all variables would mean an increase in happiness. and then i would have to give sublabels to all variables that don't necessarily relate to happiness but which change with those that do.

Basically, i'm just looking for which variables help increase X the most. then, it's interesting to note how increase in those variables, in turn, effect other (offspring) variables. like, people look larger to me.

(maybe note that the more serious i act, the more serious i am not. when i act with certainty, it's usually just an act, and if you look, there's humour behind my eyes.

kind of like when you ask me for some of my M&M's and i vehemently say no and then dump the rest of the bag in my mouth, and then a few minutes later you open your bag of Skittles and i ask you wholeheartedly if, 'couldn't i get some?' my favorite response of yours, at that point, would be to laugh hard and then finish them off instantly. then we could laugh together. that's what i really wanted you to do when i asked if i could get some.

hmm, i would've taken some skittles though. i guess that's my second favorite response. but my least favorite would be if you got actually angry and yelled, 'fuck you! you didn't give me any of your M&M's.' the latter is usually the most common response, though, and then i usually laugh and say, 'yeah, no shit,' wishing things had gone better.

and he goes on and on with all this

2005-09-22T17:08:00.000-04:00

ah, boredom. my replacement of insanity. when you feel insane there is not a doubt in your mind that you would choose boredom if you could. but after you've been bored for enough days...

new paragraph.

you don't know you're going insane. it doesn't start out that way. your mind starts to imagine patterns everywhere. your brain, once a solid oval of connected signals, begins shooting out pathways that more resemble the ends of tree branches. and the worst of it is that your brain begins to get used to following those paths that strike out far but never cross over another path. things get hazy. your once normal, vibrant pathways begin to shrink in importance and you don't know if eating lunch is more important than going to work.

but boredom. you look around with that look on your fist like it wants to punch the monitor in the mouth. you walk around an empty store snarling at rocking chairs and comtemplate leaning against the wall in order to stand on your head. the phone rings and you're fancy polite, then you hang up finishing your cordial, 'see you later,' with a 'you mother fucker,' that they don't hear. you start to wonder if this is how it started before, back then.

craziness is still just a closed, unlocked door or two away in my mind. i glimpse what it was like from time to time and for an awkward second consider looking back through the keyhole. those seconds have been getting fewer and the glimpses are occuring less often. that is one of many ways that i know i'm getting better.

now, after some time, i'm realizing that i certainly was never badly depressed. it makes much more sense to say that i was going crazy. i never for a second despaired for my future. i wouldn't even call it faith i had such a strong knowledge that i would get better. but at the time i had no boundaries at all. i looked at things and they'd never change. but everytime i looked i'd look differently. everytime i looked at them, i changed. i had a thousand perspectives and every few seconds a wheel would spin and my stance would change.

ah, partial insanity, the most important experience of my life. how boring.

(()) stretching

2005-09-22T13:24:00.000-04:00

blow away you house of leaves
home is no longer a respite
everywhere you see purple flowers grow
reminds you, and that is sadness

grow tall you sunny creature
this world is where you shall smile
purple flowers your decisions will make
may you sing whatever you wish

sauce and spices and a room of laughter
are cold ghosts in shaded gray
streets black and wet for you to lay
and read your tombstone in the stars

he only saw the best in life

eat well my son and wear your comfortable slippers
there's a day ahead that will stretch through the years
and bind you to your decisions for the sake of binding
and handcuff you to your loves

and make end what must end

just listen and change your black in gray
just because you'll regret it doesn't mean you shouldn't do it

yeah, sure, ok, maybe before i said

2005-09-21T22:34:00.000-04:00

(think abe cernicks)

that i was able to live well in the present moment. but fuck that. ok, here's what i'm thinking. i like to believe that i, at least, people in general, possibly, ride a wave. i like to think my wave is quite rediculous in its up and downs. yeah, sure, ok, maybe before i said that i was able to live well in the present moment. but at the same time i believe that i, as me, live in the present moment less than anyone, too. i can walk around in a daze more than anyone, noticing nothing external. oh, i guess i did see that box that i had to move to get into the house. but, heh, i didn't even realize i had to move it. i was just on my way inside, and there was this box in my way that i had to move, and so did so mindlessly, on my way to inside towards the phone or chess or my room etc. i fucking moved that box and didn't even think twice about it. or so it would go.

one, two, three, four pounders and more and it leads me right to jackson, so sayeth sufjan. very much liking that. my mother likes the music i like. is that cool? sufjan, elliot smith, flaming lips, some of bright eyes, jack johnson and on sort of. i have the greatest mother in the fucking world and i feel sorry for the rest of you. (not joking) and not just because of the music thing. she is too good, in fact, that i need to ignore that she's there to try to get on with my life.

i've often felt that if my family could all just die then i could get on with my life. of course that sounds like shit but it would be the worst thing in the world and so then everything else couldn't really affect me. screw embarrassment or failure, i'd fucking slam shit. dominate, right doug. but yet i'm held in perpetual check. so i just move pawns. i won't sacrafice my queen even if it means victory later. i'll die with her by my side. i'll lose, but i can't sacrafice it, the state. choose someone else to solve your oil problems.

do i matter more than us? to a certain degree. you'd have some real explaining to do to convince me otherwise.