nothing special

saved as draft

2012-02-09T01:24:00.000-05:00

this one was about unbridled passion
it was called 'greedy love'
and it expressed my desire to be desired
and wanted
and appreciated
and fucked
and loved

but maybe you get the point now
in less words

damn it
i censor myself
half my hits are from my family

fa[t/d]ed

2012-02-08T12:00:00.001-05:00

these things
i hold dear
as the pressure to escape
strengthens stronger
well, i guess i'll stay now

i thought this song was by someone else
it's so familiar
imagine my surprise when i traced the sound
back to your mouth, to your throat
you, a porcelain doll sitting on the shelf
motionless, only parting your lips to sing

i'll slap myself silly
i'm already crazy
i just need to hear it out
i already know the ending
and it's my favorite part

quickly, run like a man
which means nothing to an animal
why not run like a woman
they're all the same
the meaning behind these sentiments
can only be found in song
your song

these things
i hold dear
are tucked up inside of me
next to my abdomen i keep them warm and safe
but they feed off of me
you see my purple sunken eyes
i'm being drained
it's the force i know
and choose to be part of

i'll keep my truest song a secret
until
until..
until...
i hope i don't fade away first

hello?

2012-02-08T01:56:00.001-05:00

a stranger's vibrations emanate freely
from an iphone
they travel through space and reach a satellite shaped organ
tiny hairs of the inner ear tickle and electrical signals are fired to the brain
and translated.
thoughts, pictures, and words in the mind
then emotion
as intense familiarity clutches
a human.

cue
[[[[memory]]]]

sudden warmth creeps over this man,
the cheeks flush,
he is acutely aware of the heart -
not felt most of it's daily existence -
but now, it pounds, it pounds, it pounds,
physically.
[[[[[the first sensation of parted soft warm lips on your own]]]]]
the phone is ringing.
tiny drops of moisture under his arms, between his legs
a slight tingling up the spine,
an excited rush of joy
of anxiety
of nervousness
of fear
of hope
of curiosity
of desire

he takes a deep breath
stares at the screen
he thought he was forgotten?
a million unanswered questions
another breath
a smile

2012-02-08T01:28:00.001-05:00

letting go
is a battle

2012-01-31T13:22:00.001-05:00

i am aware i am not 'normal' and take pride and strength in that.

but

in low moments i think my most paralyzing flaw is assuming everyone else is 'normal' and they themselves feel 'normal' and as a result in any situation that becomes awkward it is assumed something is wrong with me. forging a human connection can be thwarted by existing too much inside yourself. but coming out of yourself is so difficult...

paralyzing fears, self-consciousness, social awkwardness, shyness...

the weekend

2012-01-30T11:38:00.000-05:00

sometimes i experience a void in my life, an emptiness that stems from desiring a deeper connection with people. i just moved to DC a couple months ago and my social circle is slow to build. saturday my roomy was out of town, and the girls i was going out with bailed, so i went out alone. i ran into a friend at the place i went, but after he left it left me feeling just extremely alone.

so these feelings persisted, and last night [sunday] i went to cafe saint ex because i was lonely. i went to have a beer and to just sit and think and open myself up to the possibility of having a conversation with a stranger though i am paralyzed at the thought of starting that conversation.

after sitting in an enjoyable peace for a while a gentleman approached me and started making conversation. and he wasn't hitting on me. turns out this man, Primo, is an extremely smart philosopher/scientist and we traded words for quite a while. or should i say he absolutely schooled me on all things. and even as i would begin to counter a point he had made he would already have a mind blowing counter-counter argument to sway my thoughts. incredible. i've only ever encountered such genius a few times in my life. and to find this type of intellectual connection of which i've been desperately desiring at my exact time of loneliness/need is incredible. he was a european who had lived in nyc for the past 17 years and now lived in dc. phd in neuroscience. extremely well read. articulate and informative, i feel as if i was blessed with more information in one night than if i read 7 different books.

recently i've been listening to the band the books, and one line that really sticks with me in one of their songs is "if we have no expectations, we have nothing to be upset about", and indeed, last night was a prime example of such a worldview. i forced myself out of the apartment, biked downtown, and had only one intention which was to drink a good beer. the rest played itself out as i could only have hoped.

2012-01-16T21:50:00.001-05:00

there is no where i feel more fulfilled than when i am out surfing or on a trail snaking up a ridge, miles from humanity.

specifically, this past weekend i tried my hand at 'fastpacking' which is the slang for trail running and backpacking. you basically run with all your gear. i packed everything i needed including a hatched strapped to my chest and set off into the cold blue ridge mountains in preparation for an even colder night (15-18 degrees fahrenheit at 1450' where i met my mother and sister and set up camp). at first the weight seemed like it would force me to move extremely slow for most of the trail, but it turns out my body quickly adjusted and i was soon navigating the rocky appalachian trail as fleetly as if i was carrying no gear.

i had everything i needed to survive - tools, fire, first aid kit, light, food, water and warmth. with these essentials i could survive up to a week without resupply (i was only gone 2 days so no need to bring more food and water). i was completely self-sustainable, relying on my own strength and agility to carry me over the trail and my intellect and (limited) experience to survive. it was freeing, simple, and exhilarating.

this adventure is in stark contrast to my new life. i wake up, eat, fuck around on the internet, run, and go to work for 8-10 hours. while i sit at my computer i literally feel as if my life is being sucked out of me. i live a privileged life that makes everything i say sound as if i'm whining, but circumstance and personal happiness are intricate things. many people jump at a chance to have any job, let alone a full time job with full benefits. but i've never measured my success traditionally. success for me is personal happiness.

i'll spare any potential readers anymore of this journal-like entry, and save that for my journal. rather, i think some important issues are brought to light in these times, and it's important to highlight them even if it's just as a seemingly simple short story, so as to implant them in the memory for future rumination.

2012-01-05T01:21:00.002-05:00

dreams of unspeakable horror
unknowable terror

i'm working on it...

2011-12-30T11:38:00.000-05:00

Move me to live
to leap from my place of dormancy with untamed adventure in my eyes
to shed a thousand tears
or to laugh until my insides cramp
but until then do not utter a word

ruminations

2011-12-29T11:53:00.002-05:00

If consumed long enough with any task or activity a thoughtful person will eventually start to question meaning and purpose, even if consumed by free choice, that is to say, even if the activity is engaged in by a person in times of leisure or 'free time'. While under investigation, there can be a reaffirmation of the intrinsic value of the activity and meaning is successfully perceived or the opposite can be revealed - an emptiness will be sensed, and a confused unrest will start to grow within. This may not even be a conscious process, I have oft times experienced it vaguely and subconsciously, which furthermore leads to a general discontent and (again) vague unrest in my being. Further investigation of these 'vaguenesses' will lead to the realization of the emptiness. It is one thing to say "I am happy" and "I am fulfilled" but it is another altogether to actually be happy and fulfilled. Pressure from exterior forces (jobs, people, perceived expectations, a want or desire to be something other than we are, etc.), our own personal motives, and dishonesty within ourselves to ourselves can lead us to feel confused as to how we actually feel.

But, the thoughtful and intelligent human (perhaps even spiritual?) will always, eventually, be brought to critical thought even if never conscious of any unrest or even if in a state of consistent 'vagueness'. It can happen when 'zoning out' - washing dishes, standing in line somewhere, walking, running, or any activity in which the active mind is subdued and the always constant background thought takes over, as if in daydream. This is, seemingly, how insight occurs. Thought seems to come to us from 'beyond', but in reality we have been thinking, unaware, the entire time. Lonergan, in his tome "Insight" would have much more to say on that and the human condition of thought in general, though I am afraid my feeble memory does not recall his thoughts offhand (it has been 4 years).

Now, a human can either embrace this emptiness and continue on, now aware of the vague unhappiness, which in it's realization can become solid, or, perhaps even realize the emptiness and continue in a masturbatory manner, with pleasurable manic highs followed by depressive lows. Still, disillusionment pervades.

However, if the activity truly brings no intrinsic joy there is eventually a recoil from the emptiness and a shift towards meaning. Whether a person is capable of making this shift (ie if the source of unhappiness/that which is inherently empty/that which is devoid of meaning is a task or activity which one is not forced to complete) is an issue, and if they are forced to continue (eg: at a job) then we have the makings of intense despair.

Though, it seems as if the truly 'freed' person (a phrase of which deserves it's own book to explain) would say that no man is "forced" to do any-thing. Which is true (idealistically, in the modern sense). However, when one falls into certain conditions and finds himself in a specific situation, it becomes very hard to break out of that conditioning. Jobs, for example. It is hard to leave any position that upon hard work was earned and simply seek out a new one, especially in a new field. There are, as mentioned before, these pressures. Parents pressure us to get an education, spouses to make money, society to succeed. But what seems to truly matter is personal happiness, which is not as self-serving and selfish as it sounds (radically different from Randian objectivism).

Personal happiness then, briefly (because I have to get ready for this day) seems to involve feeling fulfilled. (This word is not thrown around with levity, and if given the infinite time and peace of a life unconcerned with money and computers and girls and work I would certainly read and write at great lengths about it and many other things as the philosophers of old). Personal happiness is not just about being selfish; doing just what pleases yourself. Quite the contrary, and if one's life is modeled around selfishness then the very things I have just written would plague you. Emptiness indeed! Rather, personal happiness seems to involve feeling as if you've benefitted someone or something, made a connection to something, perhaps even aided the common good, or improved the human condition. These seem to be things that encourage feelings of fulfillment.

And I don't believe this is a utilitarian version of doing things to feel good. I believe in the truest good that actually comes out of them, and as a result makes one feel fulfilled, which is to say, fills one with a sense of meaning.

I'd like to work out the thoughts in the final paragraph more, regarding personal happiness, because it isn't just about fulfillment and the common good, though that is certainly an aspect. However, I need to go (time, cursed time, always time).

today is one of those days

2011-12-16T01:46:00.002-05:00

2011-12-07T03:32:00.001-05:00

pretzel folded legs
looks expectantly to the future
hoping for the best
but demanding the better
little does he see, silly marbled eyes
all glass, long ago unfocused

heroic rivers marched through mountains
carving them down to hills
now dried creek beds meander slowly through the waste
with every rain they surge with strength
they bide their time, they only have an eternity

the flaws are in every-thing
that he can see
it makes them beautiful
demands are as empty as the bed he has made
and with rainy eyes that blink back to focus
the river will cover him up

did you want to be

2011-12-07T03:19:00.001-05:00

when you sit in the hushed lights of the gas stove dreaming of a thought you had last week you will lose yourself in another thought, a different thought that is not better just different. it will consume you and you will lose your focus as the shadows lick your face with their orange-blue forked tongues. visions of reality will blur and stand still as you look into the moment and soon see through it as it freezes in front of you. your mind will be freed for this eternity or moment or year or lifetime and the thought will become a realization and an insight will creep over you as you turn entirely inward, traveling through time while rooted in the illusion of space. and here you stand a physical being completely outside of that existence. your mind is somewhere else. you have left and neither past nor future have any need for your attention, nor you for theirs. it is this that you live for, it is in this you are aware of your awareness.

2011-12-02T12:50:00.001-05:00

cats
photographed with lasers
in their eyes
taking over the world
soon

2011-11-14T21:10:00.000-05:00

i.
sit with me and look around. see all that is before you. ignore the people who pass. they are stuck. ignore their glares, their stares put you down. they see things and think of a word and nothing more. see the thing as it appears and let it affect you. if there is no word, there is no preconception. there is only a new thing to be experienced.

there is always every-thing.

ii.
allow wonder to overtake you. your imagination will never disappear unless you abandon it. if you are too rooted in the science you will not see with your all. dream about it. we are only presented a thing through our senses, but that does not limit our wonder. explore it. allow it to move you, allow your self to feel.

there is.

iii.
live presently. time does not have to exist while you are here next to me. there is no past or future, they are only in your mind. if we let time slip away we will be rewarded with eternity.

there is always.

2011-11-13T20:16:00.001-05:00

i want a girl who has nothing figured out
if you have all the answers leave me alone

i want to suffer through life with someone

i am the protagonist of waking life

2011-11-13T20:13:00.001-05:00

i woke up today
12 hours later i'm still not certain i'm awake

things are happening around me
i am detached

two cowards in love

2011-10-29T19:17:00.003-04:00

follow up

i think jordan said this to me a few days ago when i was home. i was telling him about this girl who was all about me after a couple dates and just was (imo) coming on way too strong. it forced me away, and i ran from that. i was telling him this girl was crazy and he said, simply "maybe she just liked you". so simple, so practical, but this stopped me dead in my tracks and put a lot of things in perspective.

to me it seemed like there was no way a rational and logical person could fall for a person so quickly and just be completely desperate...because i was thinking only about myself. i'm often extremely cynical about love, though i remain a hopeless romantic and idealist at the same time...it's quite the paradox.

so when i put myself in her shoes, finally, and made the connection that maybe she felt something strongly for me and decided to not hide it, it blew me away. maybe she wasn't 'crazy' but just consumed with a feeling for me and wanting desperately to express it. it almost filled me with guilt for being such a dick. still, that's life, sometimes (many times?) it's not meant to be. if your feelings are not reciprocated you can come off as clingy, obsessive, 'too strong', or crazy. the take away is that it's important to remember this - that people are not like this to every person they meet (and if they are, then ya, they are crazy), they don't profess strong feelings immediately if they don't feel them earnestly.

even more relevant was experiencing this myself in the past year, being on the other end of it as the one who comes on strong. indeed, i am a reserved and fairly slow to move gentleman with plenty of cautionary walls up all over the place...so to be the one helplessly pursuing someone and realizing they might be thinking of me as the clingy crazy bro sorta humbled me and blew my mind, just as jordan's comments the other day halted me dead still and slammed an insight into my head.

it takes a lot of courage to come out and just show it, to share how you truly feel about someone with that someone. and you take that risk of it not being reciprocated, and being made to feel like a crazy fool. dopamine and neuropeniphrine (SP??) are a HELL OF A SET OF DRUGS. but to sit back and let it fester inside of you can destroy you utterly, eventually. i had an extremely close friend who suffered through this until they could not hold it in any longer, and it literally destroyed them.

so here's to being honest...most of the time.

sidenote:
this same dilemma has been reflected on in my past writing in tweet haiku's and blog entries, i believe titled "two cowards in love" either that or it's in one of my journals. two cowards in love, indeed. if it consumes you, let it out.

2011-10-28T22:59:00.001-04:00

big
fucking
sigh

a serious question

2011-10-28T16:28:00.002-04:00

i was listening to a song a few minutes ago and started daydreaming...

tell me,
what is crazier:
to fall in love and express it,
instantly,
insatiably,
with the chance of being rejected and heartbroken,
reduced to an unstable mass of emotion
or
to wait,
to hold it inward,
to never express,
to survive weeks of silence from the ration of one kiss,
patiently watching, waiting,
but paralyzed with fear of loss and rejection of the loved,
silently living in torture until it overcomes and destroys you?

false dichotomy? is there a middle ground? there is, i feel, but discuss these two: which is crazier?

kairos

2011-10-16T22:39:00.003-04:00

the warmth of the sun
on the salt of my skin
the sting of the sand
on the hairs of my naked body

run until it hurts with
sunburned blue eyes

never content but
perfectly satisfied
----------------------------------------
to lock gaze with ocean eyes
that mesh so well with your own
to follow a flash of life
into an awakening dream
to sit on the hands of the wind
only to realize she was already there and waiting
----------------------------------------
i can't tell if it was an hour or a year
when you laid down upon the sand
my mind is still there now
every nuanced movement seemed to slip into a river of time
and it flowed, was flowing, and will always flow
with no start or finish
----------------------------------------
you turn your head to look at me
i look down at you
i step closer
closer
a perfect seal, our lips, with just the right amount of pressure
yours part and a laugh reveals volumes
but i remain stoic
our eyes go for a dance as they break free
it's happening again
i hope my smile is mysterious

head explosion

2011-10-13T21:28:00.001-04:00

track 6

i would do anything for you
foster the people
andrew says...
what's new with you

mail.google.com

oh btw kierkegaard

.

nusthells
best of pitchfork
jobsearch GIS jobs
(6) new updates
songmeanings

are you going to p den?
apply server, clarion
national park service law enforcement training
topher says hola
how goes it?
aaron nicholas steely has left a new comment
iphone notification

are you still at your oc address?
track 6
i would do anything for you

track 7
houdini
last.fm scrobbling on
disappear now
w
o
o
s
h

2011-10-10T18:37:00.004-04:00

'in between jobs'
i will eat corn meal
and banana peels
to keep myself from
thinking too hard
about this nothing

but if one more

person asks

what i'm doing

this winter

i will

shrivel

up and

fade

80s

retro

disco

cabana

song

in 2k11

life is an adventure

2011-10-09T18:42:00.002-04:00

been ramping up my mileage.
40-50 miles/week. all barefoot or in merrell trail gloves.

i'll be unemployed come tuesday.

one door closes, two open is what i keep telling myself.

the world is at my fingertips, where to go next?

if only money wasn't an issue. money. money. debt. fucking money.

2011-09-18T18:51:00.001-04:00

meta

conflict