Along with the beginning of a headache my body has also begun to redo an old blog.
You see years ago I started a travel blog that quickly became a regular blog (you are looking at it BTW), years later after realizing I couldn't use this just as a travel blog anymore I quickly created a really shabby awful travel blog for a project I was doing for school at the time. I am not sure the Professor ever even looked at it, and I certainly did not spend a whole lot of time on there either... but eventually I posted a bunch of half assed bullshit posts about my trip and got an A in the class. Woot!
The thing is, I was so unimpressed with that blog that I stopped using it, stopped linking to it, totally abandoned it forever... or did I?
Lately I have been feeling really unproductive... my creativity drive is empty and my desire to be productive is up but I couldn't think of anyway to remedy the two... until today when I decided to revamp the old with the new tools I know about on blogger.
Now this is an ongoing project... not only am I going to go back and redo the old posts, but I am going to add more content (Bigger Better Newer BADDERASSER)
anyway... this will take a while. I am planning on adding as much fun content as possible, both from my own storehouses (pictures, movies, quotes, poems etc) but also from the interwebs and other folks (full on copyright infringement badassery!)
Anyway... feel free to check it out
so far I have only redone a few from way back at the beginning... but I think you can tell the difference no? NO?
Thursday, December 30, 2010
Wednesday, December 29, 2010
"Tied Prom Digs on the Docks" (is amazing)
Not my hair, but certainly my wig and fez
My little brother has more hair than me.
This has never happened in the history or our lives.
My sis and her boy
Lace glowing
Illy foxed up
Chris Animated
Chris normal
Everyone loves a train
My little brother has more hair than me.
This has never happened in the history or our lives.
My sis and her boy
Lace glowing
Illy foxed up
Chris Animated
Chris normal
Everyone loves a train
"My devil makes me dream
like no other mortal dreams"
Oh I have nothing to say at all lately.
That's not true, I have nothing new to say about me I think is what I am getting at. I spent most of the day conversing with people so it would seem rather foolish to say I have nothing to say. Hollie and Chris heard a mouthful and a half, my voice now strained.
I just spent some time going through the archives... its funny how there are periods I don't really enjoy. I wonder if this will be one of them.
Part of me wants to make a resolution that I will start posting more often, but for what?
My bank account is in a sorry state and I haven't made it through the week yet.
I should have plenty-o-checks in my box when I go back to work, but I spent pretty much what I got back for X-mas and the time off is not an easy time to be cheap.
-Some ideas I have been throwing around ( and will probably happen)
Make some mix cds
Make some videos/vlog/poem vids
Get my compy fixed
Go to work (get shit done)
Pay the bills
Start some projects
-Some things I wish I were throwing around but don't seem likely to happen
Painting
Music
Writing
anything awesome
like no other mortal dreams"
Oh I have nothing to say at all lately.
That's not true, I have nothing new to say about me I think is what I am getting at. I spent most of the day conversing with people so it would seem rather foolish to say I have nothing to say. Hollie and Chris heard a mouthful and a half, my voice now strained.
I just spent some time going through the archives... its funny how there are periods I don't really enjoy. I wonder if this will be one of them.
Part of me wants to make a resolution that I will start posting more often, but for what?
My bank account is in a sorry state and I haven't made it through the week yet.
I should have plenty-o-checks in my box when I go back to work, but I spent pretty much what I got back for X-mas and the time off is not an easy time to be cheap.
-Some ideas I have been throwing around ( and will probably happen)
Make some mix cds
Make some videos/vlog/poem vids
Get my compy fixed
Go to work (get shit done)
Pay the bills
Start some projects
-Some things I wish I were throwing around but don't seem likely to happen
Painting
Music
Writing
anything awesome
Saturday, December 25, 2010
The annual angst filled holiday message
What is it with me and holidays?
Its not just the big ones its like all of them, but the big ones... or rather the family ones are the worst.
On the way to church tonight all I could think about was what I would say if I had a second before I died. I imagined it happening on the way to church, imagined it being the perfect time, since as far as I know I am at peace with everyone and everything in my life. It seemed only natural to be hit by another car or have my own slide on some ice and I might be in a coma for a few weeks and I might die some time around my birthday.
But I wanted everyone to know it was ok... and the words that I came up with were not the normal ones I think about but something more like
"God gave me the gift of seeing you through his eyes for a bit, and oh how beautiful you are, oh ow much I love you!"
but it didn't happen.
I made it to the small church, dark and quiet. Waited there for the people to show.
It was a small gathering but as large as we ever have. I was in a weird mood, contemplative maybe, or maybe just in my head... but from the first song I knew I was discontented.
"Oh, come, oh, come, Emmanuel,
And ransom captive Israel,
That mourns in lonely exile here
Until the Son of God appear.
Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel
Shall come to you, O Israel! "
And all I could think about were the captives of the current state of Israel, the people around the world waiting for some savior who has not come. Christians have lost all meaning of what it meant originally to believe in a savior, it was to believe in the ending of your misery. Christ for most Christians throughout time is not that, but rather the promise that this life is not eternal, that there might be something better... and I don't believe that we should wait.
So interpreting that song through the Spirit of Truth lens, means recognizing that God is with us now. Which I believe, but I don't feel it on these holy nights. I feel the absence, or rather the work undone. These holy holidays feel broken, like my family, I feel the loss more than the wholeness that is promised. I feel for the suffering who cannot celebrate, I feel a need to embrace so strongly that I shut down... I withdraw and its always this way.
Every holiday its melancholy mike, angsty boy, selfish if not sad... and tonight as the service went on I realized that part of it really was just sadness. Almost hidden and yet so heavy... by the end of the service I cried for the loss of my Grampa, because these small dark christmas eve services remind me of him, and though I believed in them very little at the time, I knew it meant something to be there... and it never will again. So I cried for my gramps. Cried for lack of fully authentic episcopal regimented traditions (which tonight certainly was not).
Cried, as I believe I cried then, every holiday saddened by the distance between my family, saddened by the extra hardship, the unsaid things that couldn't be said like "I miss you" or "I love you" or "things shouldn't have happened that way" (at the very least). That feeling that young children have when they have divorced parents where when they are with one, they want the other until they are with the other and realize they want both and it won't ever happen...
Cried like maybe I cried when my grandmother died, not because I knew her well, or loved her well, but because my father did. Because there is a hole in his heart where the love he exchanged with his mother was kept, and now its bigger with my grampa gone too... and in her case, Christmas was when she died so though he was with us, he still seemed somewhat hurt all the time.
But there is something else there too...
Its that whole cheesy rejoice! thing, that whole "Merry Christmas" thing that doesn't look lightly upon my scroogery. The anxious shopping, the guilt and pleasantries, bah humbug.
Rejoice for your salvation? or rejoice for your materialism? or rejoice for your desire to fit in?
Why are these days different? Either rejoice for your reasons daily or perhaps in the moment or shut up.
Fake merriment for what? Bah humbug.
If the point is to take a moment to love your family or your god, then why plasticize it? Why gift wrap it? Why even make it sacred as if to say the other days aren't...
But today I was fed by the Lebanese. Lunch from Emily's and dinner from Soho, I am glad they come in so many varieties or I would not get to eat. It struck me my family is dependent on a small restaurant for all we have left of our traditional ethnicity. True each family has a recipe or two, but rarely do they make them... so its all about Emily's.
I wonder if the people there know about families like mine. Know that they carry a weight for us that if dropped would mean ties severed finally.
It makes me wonder and it makes me cry to be so American now.
Its not just the big ones its like all of them, but the big ones... or rather the family ones are the worst.
On the way to church tonight all I could think about was what I would say if I had a second before I died. I imagined it happening on the way to church, imagined it being the perfect time, since as far as I know I am at peace with everyone and everything in my life. It seemed only natural to be hit by another car or have my own slide on some ice and I might be in a coma for a few weeks and I might die some time around my birthday.
But I wanted everyone to know it was ok... and the words that I came up with were not the normal ones I think about but something more like
"God gave me the gift of seeing you through his eyes for a bit, and oh how beautiful you are, oh ow much I love you!"
but it didn't happen.
I made it to the small church, dark and quiet. Waited there for the people to show.
It was a small gathering but as large as we ever have. I was in a weird mood, contemplative maybe, or maybe just in my head... but from the first song I knew I was discontented.
"Oh, come, oh, come, Emmanuel,
And ransom captive Israel,
That mourns in lonely exile here
Until the Son of God appear.
Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel
Shall come to you, O Israel! "
And all I could think about were the captives of the current state of Israel, the people around the world waiting for some savior who has not come. Christians have lost all meaning of what it meant originally to believe in a savior, it was to believe in the ending of your misery. Christ for most Christians throughout time is not that, but rather the promise that this life is not eternal, that there might be something better... and I don't believe that we should wait.
So interpreting that song through the Spirit of Truth lens, means recognizing that God is with us now. Which I believe, but I don't feel it on these holy nights. I feel the absence, or rather the work undone. These holy holidays feel broken, like my family, I feel the loss more than the wholeness that is promised. I feel for the suffering who cannot celebrate, I feel a need to embrace so strongly that I shut down... I withdraw and its always this way.
Every holiday its melancholy mike, angsty boy, selfish if not sad... and tonight as the service went on I realized that part of it really was just sadness. Almost hidden and yet so heavy... by the end of the service I cried for the loss of my Grampa, because these small dark christmas eve services remind me of him, and though I believed in them very little at the time, I knew it meant something to be there... and it never will again. So I cried for my gramps. Cried for lack of fully authentic episcopal regimented traditions (which tonight certainly was not).
Cried, as I believe I cried then, every holiday saddened by the distance between my family, saddened by the extra hardship, the unsaid things that couldn't be said like "I miss you" or "I love you" or "things shouldn't have happened that way" (at the very least). That feeling that young children have when they have divorced parents where when they are with one, they want the other until they are with the other and realize they want both and it won't ever happen...
Cried like maybe I cried when my grandmother died, not because I knew her well, or loved her well, but because my father did. Because there is a hole in his heart where the love he exchanged with his mother was kept, and now its bigger with my grampa gone too... and in her case, Christmas was when she died so though he was with us, he still seemed somewhat hurt all the time.
But there is something else there too...
Its that whole cheesy rejoice! thing, that whole "Merry Christmas" thing that doesn't look lightly upon my scroogery. The anxious shopping, the guilt and pleasantries, bah humbug.
Rejoice for your salvation? or rejoice for your materialism? or rejoice for your desire to fit in?
Why are these days different? Either rejoice for your reasons daily or perhaps in the moment or shut up.
Fake merriment for what? Bah humbug.
If the point is to take a moment to love your family or your god, then why plasticize it? Why gift wrap it? Why even make it sacred as if to say the other days aren't...
But today I was fed by the Lebanese. Lunch from Emily's and dinner from Soho, I am glad they come in so many varieties or I would not get to eat. It struck me my family is dependent on a small restaurant for all we have left of our traditional ethnicity. True each family has a recipe or two, but rarely do they make them... so its all about Emily's.
I wonder if the people there know about families like mine. Know that they carry a weight for us that if dropped would mean ties severed finally.
It makes me wonder and it makes me cry to be so American now.
Friday, December 24, 2010
Part 1
Well what to write about?
I been seeing friends lately, the music is playing beautifully lately, quite often I have been stopped in my tracks by a song or two. Most recently I believe it was Beirut at Pizza Luce… something about those horns… (so now I am listening to it again). A few days ago at Ben O’s apartment it was Atmosphere and Ben Folds, what about the music in my car from Victoria Astronautalis, or Joanna Newsom at Laurel and Huck and Jared’s (and again in my home), or that fleet foxes cover song those british girls did on youtube… oh the music is quite clear and beautiful.
I like the snow lit streets, I have always loved that orange glow and the way the sky lights up and makes me feel not alone in the dead of cold cold winter. It snowed again tonight and it seems sometimes that it will just go on this way forever.
There are plans for sledding, and movies and hot chocolate, and lunch dates and probably dinner dates and games… I lost really bad today in Settlers, I never really gave myself a chance thinking more about possibilities for adventure than realistic strategy… I think sometimes I get excited and don’t use my brain. I won one game of darts out of 4 and was happy to lose to Lacey though I didn’t let her win, I just like to see her smile. We bowled and I did aight during one game and not so hot another… but it was fun with the company and bowling should be fun.
So who have I seen so far?
Well… Jessica and Jess, Kelsey and Hollie, Zach and some others… Illy and Lacey, Laurel, Huck, Jared and Joey. Jenna and Christ(ina), Melissa and Alicia last week. My fam…
I guess I would say I am doing pretty good.
I talked to Pete today and he sounded good, happy, moving forward (which is a nice change).
Part 2
But what makes me really want to write?
The overwhelming feeling of love unrequited? The unwelcome sense of entitlement? The jealousy and insecurity inherent in anxious thoughts? The defensive protection, but for their sake or mine?
I was having a really nice time tonight when a familiar notion popped into my head. I remember first having this idea rather strongly with Gabi and Pete way back whenever that was… or maybe it was earlier… maybe it’s some childhood feeling I developed that transformed me into the oddity that I am. Anyway… I am sure it is not so rare to think this, I see it in movies sometimes… the friendship love that becomes threatened and suddenly feels like romantic love… but it isn’t really… it’s that sense that what you have with another person is special, that you know them, have invested in them, want more for them… and when you see that “threatened” it suddenly becomes too much and you want to claim them.
But having no right… you just act jealous.
But it’s not so special… no because I have felt this how many times before? And will undoubtedly feel it again… even when I have someone to love me… it’s just that love and infatuation are not so easily reconciled, it’s just that love is not so easily confined to single spaces… sometimes it grows in the moment and in those moments it’s not always easy to know whether it will shrink or grow some more... The expansion of the heart can be a lonely process…
Tonight I felt so loving and lonely.
Easy to start to believe you are the only one going through it, even if their smiles and eyes and reassurances tell you otherwise.
Part 3
In other ways though I find myself shrinking away… it’s easy to see that the work required for the maintenance of such giving two way exchanges is no longer something I am as open to. I mean, how many of these people I have at one point in my life or two points or many points been overwhelmed with. How many times I felt heart break for each of them, longed for them, comforted them, was comforted by them, though each relationship distinct…
but why is it that I suddenly see them on a break, in the past I am pretty sure I would have braked for them. I would have changed course for them. No? Or maybe I wouldn’t, but I would have spent the nights and days obsessed with the idea of it. Even the ones who don’t know it… how radiant they seemed to me… and now? Is the charm gone? Am I spent on my giving, are my magic eyes warn out?
I still see glimpses, just as I still hear music.
Its small jokes, its small glimmers, it’s small gestures, its space between words, reassuring words and hushed secrets.
Perhaps in order to be a better teacher I had to let go of those who carried me here? Or perhaps I am always traveling on with the specters of love my passengers, stuffed in my suitcase, spilling out, spilling out of the ideas I share and the smiles I smile.
Perhaps I am just in need of refreshing, a new spring or a night adventure, a trip abroad or a lover.
Maybe in my dreams tonight…
Which is what it felt like tonight, like dreams are the only place it feels in reach.
Well what to write about?
I been seeing friends lately, the music is playing beautifully lately, quite often I have been stopped in my tracks by a song or two. Most recently I believe it was Beirut at Pizza Luce… something about those horns… (so now I am listening to it again). A few days ago at Ben O’s apartment it was Atmosphere and Ben Folds, what about the music in my car from Victoria Astronautalis, or Joanna Newsom at Laurel and Huck and Jared’s (and again in my home), or that fleet foxes cover song those british girls did on youtube… oh the music is quite clear and beautiful.
I like the snow lit streets, I have always loved that orange glow and the way the sky lights up and makes me feel not alone in the dead of cold cold winter. It snowed again tonight and it seems sometimes that it will just go on this way forever.
There are plans for sledding, and movies and hot chocolate, and lunch dates and probably dinner dates and games… I lost really bad today in Settlers, I never really gave myself a chance thinking more about possibilities for adventure than realistic strategy… I think sometimes I get excited and don’t use my brain. I won one game of darts out of 4 and was happy to lose to Lacey though I didn’t let her win, I just like to see her smile. We bowled and I did aight during one game and not so hot another… but it was fun with the company and bowling should be fun.
So who have I seen so far?
Well… Jessica and Jess, Kelsey and Hollie, Zach and some others… Illy and Lacey, Laurel, Huck, Jared and Joey. Jenna and Christ(ina), Melissa and Alicia last week. My fam…
I guess I would say I am doing pretty good.
I talked to Pete today and he sounded good, happy, moving forward (which is a nice change).
Part 2
But what makes me really want to write?
The overwhelming feeling of love unrequited? The unwelcome sense of entitlement? The jealousy and insecurity inherent in anxious thoughts? The defensive protection, but for their sake or mine?
I was having a really nice time tonight when a familiar notion popped into my head. I remember first having this idea rather strongly with Gabi and Pete way back whenever that was… or maybe it was earlier… maybe it’s some childhood feeling I developed that transformed me into the oddity that I am. Anyway… I am sure it is not so rare to think this, I see it in movies sometimes… the friendship love that becomes threatened and suddenly feels like romantic love… but it isn’t really… it’s that sense that what you have with another person is special, that you know them, have invested in them, want more for them… and when you see that “threatened” it suddenly becomes too much and you want to claim them.
But having no right… you just act jealous.
But it’s not so special… no because I have felt this how many times before? And will undoubtedly feel it again… even when I have someone to love me… it’s just that love and infatuation are not so easily reconciled, it’s just that love is not so easily confined to single spaces… sometimes it grows in the moment and in those moments it’s not always easy to know whether it will shrink or grow some more... The expansion of the heart can be a lonely process…
Tonight I felt so loving and lonely.
Easy to start to believe you are the only one going through it, even if their smiles and eyes and reassurances tell you otherwise.
Part 3
In other ways though I find myself shrinking away… it’s easy to see that the work required for the maintenance of such giving two way exchanges is no longer something I am as open to. I mean, how many of these people I have at one point in my life or two points or many points been overwhelmed with. How many times I felt heart break for each of them, longed for them, comforted them, was comforted by them, though each relationship distinct…
but why is it that I suddenly see them on a break, in the past I am pretty sure I would have braked for them. I would have changed course for them. No? Or maybe I wouldn’t, but I would have spent the nights and days obsessed with the idea of it. Even the ones who don’t know it… how radiant they seemed to me… and now? Is the charm gone? Am I spent on my giving, are my magic eyes warn out?
I still see glimpses, just as I still hear music.
Its small jokes, its small glimmers, it’s small gestures, its space between words, reassuring words and hushed secrets.
Perhaps in order to be a better teacher I had to let go of those who carried me here? Or perhaps I am always traveling on with the specters of love my passengers, stuffed in my suitcase, spilling out, spilling out of the ideas I share and the smiles I smile.
Perhaps I am just in need of refreshing, a new spring or a night adventure, a trip abroad or a lover.
Maybe in my dreams tonight…
Which is what it felt like tonight, like dreams are the only place it feels in reach.