I am "The Man": Musings of a White American Male (WAM!)

Renaissance of Manhood, Part One

2010-07-12T12:19:00.000-04:00

[Disclaimer: This post started to run away from me, so I've gone and split it in twain. My brain can be really frustrating when I'm writing expository stuff because I find myself unable to corrall it towards one tidy, coherent objective. Hopefully halving it helps, but if you feel dissatisfied now you know why. More to come soon!]

It's a funny thing, getting older.

Not that I'm old. I mean sometimes I feel old, but that's not what I'm talking about. I'm not talking about the fact that most of my friends are married (!), on their way to being married, or at least have some semblance of a career which would allow them to get married today if they so chose, while I am and have none of those things. I'm not talking about how I observed today that 20 of the 46 players in the World Cup final were younger than me, and felt a pang of regret for my comparably wasted life. I'm not even talking about me the way I used to be able to admire girls of all ages, but now have been railroaded by age into being cautious with my innocently flirty gaze and smiling eyes, lest I be labeled "that creepy older guy."

No, I'm not talking about those things at all.

What I'm talking about is how person can go twenty-five mutha-effin' years without ever learning how to do some very basic things. The person in this scenario, of course, is me -- I am nothing if not a narcissist. Allow me to provide you with a couple self-deprecating examples:

I confessed to one Rich Howell*, on a trip to what we like to call "The Office" (Atlantic City), that I did not know how to make coffee. He laughed and patiently explained it to me the way I would explain to a kindergartner how to sort objects into two piles. I've made coffee before, but I'm not a coffee drinker, and thus the knowledge never really stuck.

If you know me at all, you know that my relationship with my recently passed father was complicated. If you don't -- well, I just told you. Because of this, I never learned many of the things that fathers are "supposed" to teach sons. I can't grill a perfect steak or hamburger, my knowledge of construction is limited to what I've gleaned from IKEA manuals, and if you ask me to throw a baseball I will probably flat-out lie and tell you that I hurt my arm the night before**.

What this amounts to is I've been doing some self-analyzing lately -- say for the past 13 years or so -- and I've decided to reevaluate, from scratch, the things I think I should and shouldn't know, and pursue accordingly. There are some things, like coffee-making, which I am utterly content to never learn. Rich told me how to brew java in AC and I can tell you right now that I soon forgot nearly every word he uttered (1. Sorry Rich 2. Is it okay to use "uttered" and "utterly" so close together? Whatever, I'm gonna go with it). There are other things, though -- grilling and fixing basic car problems, for instance -- which strike me as valuable and perhaps even fun. It is to these things that I now direct my attention.

I have some deeper thoughts as to my motivations behind this life renewal, but those I will save until Part Two. Please comment if any of the following applies to you: 1) You have a side-splitting anecdote about something you should have learned as a child or teen but never did, for whatever reason. 2) You possess a talent such as grilling, fixing cars, etc. and want to patiently teach me or perhaps even barter skills. 3) You care about me and the life of this pathetically haphazard blog.

I grilled some sirloin steaks and asparagus last night. As with nearly all things, I consulted the internet first, but I have a feeling that may always be the case for me, and I kind of like it. The meal turned out quite well, though not superb, and I've got a long way to go before I could call myself a griller. But baby steps. Baby steps.

Peace.

*This is the same Rich Howell that once nearly solicited a prostitute accidentally in the same city, but I'll leave that as a story for another time.

**I can throw a football fairly well, and a Frisbee with pinpoint accuracy, but a baseball? Warn the children and cover your face/genitals***.

***I'm not implying that your face and genitals are the same or similar in appearance, unless your name is Zackery David Bogaczyk.

Remember, Remember Glorious Relaxcember

2010-06-29T19:29:00.000-04:00

I just moved back to Pennsylvania.

I realize this new development demands some explanation, however I'm not sure if I can provide it here. Heck, I don't even know if I'm a blogger anymore.

What I will say is that I'm happy about this change. I wouldn't go as far as to say that moving to New York was a waste, but it may have been a misstep. While I love the city, I was operating under the common assumption that finding a teaching job within its stony limits would be a cakewalk -- an assumption which proved to be painfully false. Now I'm forced to go elsewhere. First I will venture home to Pennsylvania, and then likely onward to Towson, Maryland to live with my brother-in-arms Ryan Casey and explore the allegedly bountiful teaching opportunities there. But first, a story.

In the summer after my freshman year of college, I worked a menial and tedious job with my friend Zack. We loaded trucks on a dock for a massive party supply company, and while it gave my bones that kind of satisfying ache at the of the day, the job was a soul-sucker. Maybe it was that I was utterly sleep-deprived, maybe it was the lifeless aura emanating from the ironically-named "lifers," or maybe I'm lazy, but at the terminus of just two months I couldn't take it anymore.

What I did next I consider one of the best ideas of my life: I quit my job for the last month of the summer, refusing to refer to it as August and rechristening it with a glorious and more appropriate new name: Relaxcember. I played video games, I visited friends, I went to the beach. I quickly had my sleep schedule completely reversed and goaded my friends who still had jobs into staying out until the wee hours of the night. Basically, I did what every lazy college kid does or wants to do. But I celebrated it. I gave it a name, and in doing so I made it a thing. And because I did, people wanted to join in the celebration with me.

Now, I totally support doing this in life. Celebrations are amazing, and anyone who knows me can tell you that I excel at the big things, the grand gestures, in contrast to the day-to-day. But contrary to popular belief, it's not my desire to spend my whole life wasting time. Relaxcember is like chocolate mousse cake: a little slice was divine, but here I am on the verge of devouring the whole confection myself and I just feel sick and embarrassed.

I'm not a sob story, and I'm not trying to get your pity. Where I am right now is a result of every decision I've made in life, and every decision I've made is my own. But I feel like my life is aimless at times. I have friends and family who love me, but a teaching degree which I have yet to use. I have great life experiences, but no real contribution to the universe, let alone to God's plan.

I'd really like to change this.

The problem is I don't know exactly how I'd like to go about changing it. For an extremely self-analytical person, I've become increasingly muddled over the past few years. I'm not sure whether I haven't found a teaching job because of these random issues in my life, or because of some deeper thing keeping me from really pursuing it. To put it bluntly: I still don't know what I want.

But I'm considering options. I'm looking at teaching jobs (mostly in Towson), and I'm also looking at the possibility of getting a job that I don't like so that I can go to grad school. What grad school options you ask? Well, currently my top three choices are education psychology, creative writing, and ... law school.

So yeah, I'm all over the place. If you have an opinion about what I should do, please sound off! For now,

Peace.

Question:

2010-04-27T07:21:00.005-04:00

Question:

We're damn near as different as two men can be,
but some part of me hopes he starts a fight tonight.
Pain's friend is clarity, and I need to think;
he's one of the few I'd sucker punch someone for,
without a thought, without a blink.

We stay in one place, it's the world that moves.
The sidewalks and hallways and buildings slide by.
Life's a buffet and we know how to eat.
But by no-man's-time between last call and dawn
All that's left is a table, and him, and me.

He looks at me that certain way that lets me know he's gonna speak,
takes one last drag on his cigarette,
leans forward, twisting out the ash.
Then he asks me: "Have you ever been in love?"
And I laugh. And tell him, "I"ll have to get back to you on that."

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

Definitely unfinished. First blog in over two weeks though, so ... yay for writing. Hoping to post more soon and get a better handle on my crazy life.

Peace.

Beautiful, Terrible

2010-04-12T18:53:00.005-04:00

Beautiful, Terrible

I want to wake up when I choose
But I'm losing time to lose
A little hair of the dog splits the morning fog
Or at least that's my excuse.

And it seems I'm always found
Cracking up or breaking down
Not something I learned or grew to yearn
No, I was born a crooked clown.

So I'm gonna give to life more than I take
Don't give me a funeral, I'd rather a wake
And just a small scratch of sleep
Is all I'll ever need
For a beautiful, terrible day.

Have you ever seen the moon
on a bright sunny afternoon?
I see it often now, and I wonder how
How so long I never knew.

But your blue might not be mine
What would you see with my eyes?
Colors in the air aren't even there
Just a ghost of former light.

I've got a trick or two up in my sleeve
But magic can't happen if you can't believe
Would you give me a light?
My hand's full of sleight
On this beautiful, terrible eve.

Is life real, or just a play?
Can I believe a single word you say?
As a kid I thought you were all robots
Now I see it's me who's made

Of circuits and lifeless steel
With no concept of "hurt" or "heal"
Not a fleshy mess beating in my chest
But a cool and sterile wheel.

But I'm not a puppet, and I won't be a pawn
I'll cannonball in the Zen Master's pond
We'll say our goodbyes
In the morning we'll rise
To a beautiful, terrible dawn.

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

Yo! I blogged! How about THAT. Now, some notes on this one:

Stanza Two: Most of my favorite writers in the world (Conor Oberst and Adam Duritz are two clear examples) have recurring themes in their writing. I think I may adopt the term "crooked clown" to occasionally refer to myself. I like it on numerous levels -- deep and superficial, literal and metaphorical.

Stanza Three: I really like the idea of an Irish wake (i.e. a kickass party) as opposed to a sad and somber funeral.

Stanza Four: I normally write what I know, and this stanza cropped up into the ol' noggin because I saw the moon in the sunny sky last week. I looked up "moon in the daytime" on Google, and was pretty surprised to find that the moon is visible during the day for most of the month. Is anyone else surprised by this? I guess between cloudy days and just not really looking for it, you could easily not know. But still.

Stanza Five: This is a favorite "blow your mind" topic of mine. Early in high school, I can vividly remember having a conversation with my friends about what we called "The Color Theory" -- the idea that what I see as blue, for instance, might not be what you see as blue. We've learned to call it blue, and we both recognize it using the word blue, but it might appear differently to each of us. Whoooooooooooa.

Stanza Seven: As a kid, I often thought everyone else in the world was a robot. My working theory was that they had predicting my actions down to a science. When I would leave a room, the robots would shut down, because they knew for certain when I'd be coming back. For this reason, there were times when I tried to do "unpredictable" things, even something as small as looking in a direction I hadn't been planning on looking, to throw them off (à la The Truman Show, which I LOVE by the way). So ... yup.

Stanza Eight: I've been told by more than a few people in my life that I am somewhat emotionless, with the comments ranging from complimentary ("even keel," "stress-free") to pretty critical ("you're such a robot," or as my mom has said, "calm-atose"). I was re-watching Lucky Number Slevin recently, and I feel that I may have the imaginary "condition" Slevin calls ataraxia, which he describes as "freedom from worry or any other pre-occupation, really."

Stanza Nine: I really want to jump into a Zen Master's pond. I've always had a propensity for destroying beautiful things.

That's all! I really like this one, and I'm glad to be writing at least semi-regularly again.

Peace.

The Nitor Chronicles

2010-04-06T18:48:00.012-04:00

I'm on the train again. Something about the train makes me want to write blog posts.

Maybe it's my romanticized notions of what riding the train should be like -- somewhere along the lines of writing an actual letter to a loved one instead of an email, or going to watch a Broadway show in a theatre with fantastic architecture instead of always hitting the newest IMAX. Or maybe the source of my creativity on the train is the lack of distracting wifi, revealing the prevalence of my own ennui.

Regardless (if you say irregardless I will slap you in the mouth), here I am again. Today I'm feeling inclined to write about a blast from my past, an entry in the sordid time vault of young Keith Becker's shenanigans.

When I was fourteen or fifteen, I was feeling motivated and wrote up this little proposal I called The Nitor Chronicles (yes, I was pretentious and narcissistic then, too). The word Nitor was a Latin word I found, meaning "to strive, to exert oneself." I had this thought that I wanted to make myself a better person, and so I outlined a plan to do so. I still have The Nitor Chronicles somewhere in one of my notebooks in Brooklyn, but as I don't have access to them from the train right now (and don't feel like touching up the post later haha), I'll do my best to recall from memory.

My general idea was to split the betterment of myself into three categories: spiritual, mental, and physical. Some might say that "emotional" would fit logically into that scheme, but I would answer that with one of the slogans we chose for our May-scheduled Man Weekend 2010: We Don't Have Feelings Because We Shoot Them. No but in all honesty, as a less-than stereotypical adolescent WAM, I probably already lamented my being overconcerned with matters of the heart.

If memory serves, this little venture of mine lasted for three, maybe four months. That, dear readers, was a lifetime when compared to many of the other things I pursued in my years of pubescent self-discovery. I diligently and honestly documented my "progress," starting at the end of the school year and going well into the summer. I was honest about both my great failings and my paltry successes, and of course I was more motivated about this growth excursion in the beginning than I was in the end, when my interest in the Chronicles begin to wane and then wax instead onto other things. But I do think I grew in that time -- I can still remember books I read in that period, or time I spent reading my Bible, or running suicide sprints on the crumbling macadam of my childhood home basketball court.

There's not much about the person I was ten, five, or even two years ago that I envy. All in all, I consider myself a much more whole and complete, much BETTER man now than I ever have been before. But at times I'm jealous of the me that existed in these three to four months. And I think that ... is probably something worth paying attention to.

So I'm going to bring back The Nitor Chronicles, at least in spirit. I might not be so crazy about it as I was back in the time of cracking voices and making excuses for why I couldn't go to the chalkboard, because I have more on my plate now than I did then. Life gets in the way, but I'm making a plan to make some goals and track my progress consistently. I might post more about it later, but not all the time because I'm not really a fan of blogs that become redundant with posts about the same stuff all the time. I want my life to be more disciplined, but I actually really like that my blog is not. I hope you do too (though I will keep trying to post more often).

Peace.

Oh. And watch this. It starts out slow but the middle to end part of it is so worth it:

Stand Clear of the Closing Doors, Please.

2010-04-02T19:20:00.000-04:00

I’m sitting on the train to Carlisle right now – a three hour tour (a three hour tour) – and I finally told myself that I don’t have an excuse to avoid writing a blog post. Not that I had one before either.

I spend a lot of time these days in train cars. I sold my car when I moved to the city, and so I have no choice but to use the train. But really, it’s a wonderful way to travel. I heart public transportation. I was talking to Tyler Heishman about this very topic earlier this week, and he was saying he had an hour-long commute. But his commute is on a higher-end bus provided by his company; he doesn’t have to drive his car and maintain all the alertness and focus which that requires. This frees him up to read, listen to music, even nap if he had a rough morning (or previous night, you party animal).

I feel the same way about my beloved L-train. The title of this post is a phrase that is repeated after every stop on the L, and already it has become a thing of comfort and familiarity to my ears. Part of why I enjoy riding the train might be something I’ve discussed before: my inability to focus on more than one thing at a time. When I’m driving, I obviously can’t read, but I also am normally unable to really think about the obstacles and problems currently requiring my attention in life. I can casually touch on these topics with my brain, but not really hone in on details. In my car, I wouldn’t be able to think about the lyrics in music that I like and how I might adapt that same artistic style to my writing. And when I’m honest with myself, I even find it difficult to carry on sophisticated conversation while behind the wheel. Tobin used to laugh at me because when I was talking in conversation I would slow down, and when I was listening the car would pick up speed again – although to be fair to myself a lot of that mocking took place early in our relationship, when I was a terrible listener and was used to just waiting for my turn to speak.

But on the train, I’m free to focus on whatever I wish. I’m not an extremely big portable music guy, so I don’t listen to music that often while out and about. However I have already had some good journaling times on the train, and even more times when I’ve just thought of something that I wanted to write down later. In hindsight, I really wish I acted on my impulse and bought a Kindle because several buttloads of extra potential reading time has just been dumped into my lap.

Another of my favorite things on the train is talking to people.

I’ve found that people on the train are often taken aback when you talk to them. Public transportation’s a funny thing, because there are so many people all together, and yet everyone’s alone. (Actually a lot of NYC is like that, but maybe more on that in a later post.) Obviously there are the many, many people with earbuds making communication an impossibility, but even excepting them it is rare to hear conversation on the train, unless some people boarded together.

I like striking up a conversation, especially with girls or with people older than me. With men I always feel a little hesitant because there is a large homosexual population in the city, and a bold gesture such as starting conversation on the subway can easily be misconstrued as flirting. I’m not a homophobe, I just don’t want to broadcast the wrong signals, or end up going to “hang out” at some guy’s place with us on very different terms about what that means. So with men I normally don’t venture to break the silence unless there is some common ground – for instance I saw that a guy was reading a poker book that I recognized (and now own) back when I visited the city in November. I started talking to him about it, and he invited me to his semi-regular game in Manhattan. I emailed him since then and may actually finally attend the game soon! The conversations on the train are really short, but it’s surprising how interesting they can be sometimes. It’s like the impending end when your stop arrives creates a pressure that forces the subject matter to either get interesting fast, or die. But I like making “single-serving friends,” to quote Tyler Durden.

Public transportation is also one of the main reasons why YOU SHOULD COME VISIT ME! We can bum around the city for a low price, and meet surprisingly interesting strangers on the way. What’s more, we don’t have to worry about parking, and if any crazy shenanigans happen, we always know we can get home safe. The L train will cradle you and lull you to near-sleep with its soothing trainy-train sounds, and whisk you nearly all the way to your bed (or my bed, bow chicka bow wow).

All desperate and pathetic pleading for visitors aside, I’m enjoying the city. I’m really enjoying exploring the city when I’m not working or being a recluse in my room on the computer. I’m pretty positive my roommates at this point think I’m a weird loner guy, but it’s just taking me some time to adjust to city life and particularly the idea of living with roommates again. For a long time I had my heart set on living alone in my next residence, but I want to open back up to this idea of interacting with people who share the same address as me. I’ve done a bad job of it so far, but I’m hoping to change that. Maybe I’ll make some Easter resolutions. Hm, that sounds like a really good idea, actually … foreshadowing for an Easter blog post, perhaps?

Peace.

"I Don't Want To Be A Jerk, But"

2010-03-19T15:29:00.001-04:00

"I Don't Want To Be A Jerk, But"

I don't want to be a jerk, but
let's make sure that we're on the same page.
You might be fun to hang out with,
but I am running out of time to mess around.

After all, the hourglass with the sticker
"My Five-Year Plan for Life" is winding down,
and the window of time for having kids?
I'm not sure when it closes, but it's gotta be soon.

I'm sorry, there's just two things that I always do:
tell the truth and sing in the shower.
I mean, actually, there's a bunch more,
but I like to say there's only those two
because it makes me sound clever.

Look, time's a fossil fuel and I don't want to waste it --
I'm not saying you're a waste of my time, necessarily,
but honestly. Honestly.
What are the odds that you're the type
of girl I could end up with?

Do you even believe in God? I do.
(Is it me or is it going out of style?)
Do you believe in the specific God that I do?
Would you die for that belief?
You thought it was inconsequential until that last question.

And even if ALL the big stuff lines up,
the little things are important too.
Will you challenge me? Are you okay on your own?
Can you make me laugh and let me know when I'm not being funny?

I'm not picky, I'm just looking
for a very specific type of woman.
And I can tell -- yes, I can already tell
that you're not her.

I don't want to be a jerk, but
let's save some pain: tonight is just tonight.

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Sorry for the lack of posts, but I'm recovering from the worst case of writer's block. It's not that I've been too busy or haven't had time, I just haven't been able to write. Up until now I thought that writer's block wasn't even a real thing -- I mean, I'd have a few funky days here and there, but wow.

Anyway this poem/snippet is crappy, but touches on some thoughts I've been having lately. First of all, the fact that it's pretty nigh impossible for someone like me to meet a girl I'll end up with (or even have any kind of relationship with) in a public place. The things I want are just too narrowing to all be found together in a random setting.

The other thing is that I think there's this funny social contract between people who meet at bars, which is this: There's an understanding that the interaction is very likely only for that night, but there is also always the possibility for more. My theory is that even the sleaziest guys and girls that I know entertain the thought of finding the hottest, most fun, most wonderful and caring and right person -- their love -- amidst their galavanting.

Everyone wants to have that crazy romantic story that comes out of nowhere and is great to tell at parties and over dinner. Eliminate that possibility, by having a conversation (or rather, a one-sided diatribe) such as the one above, and the interest is sapped. This also relates to why some people hold onto relationships that are doomed from the outset: they're attached to the romanticism of it. So many men and women end up dragging their feet to end relationships -- and sometimes never ending them at all -- when 70% or 80% of their non-negotiables are met, when to really work it has to be 100%.

Note: I'm not advocating that EVERYTHING has to match up, but everyone has non-negotiables, and they should be just that: not negotiable. But we waver. We settle. I've done it too.

Also note: I don't normally have conversations like the one above. They usually transpire in my head. (Like that's better, hah!)

Peace.

One thing at a time. Most important thing first. Start now.

2010-02-17T15:59:00.003-05:00

I can't take credit for the title of this post. It comes from this article on Lifehacker, one of my favorite new web resources. The article is titled "Productivity in 11 Words."

I've adopted the title of this post as a sort of maxim for my life at the moment. It helps me get things done. I ~~enjoy~~ need maxims. When my dad was really struggling with depression and I transferred to West Chester and lost approximately a buttload of credits, I was frustrated. I teetered on the edge of just giving up and not trying anymore. To try to help, I would constantly repeat to myself "you can do anything for [an hour, a day, a week, a year]." I think it's generally true, and it helped me to have perspective and focus on the immediate rather than the overwhelming entirety of my position in life.

Another place I've needed a maxim lately is when it comes to spiritual things. As I discussed briefly in my last post, I have a lot of questions. I'm not in a secure or safe place, faith-wise. But there are still important things that I know, and things I know I want. So I've taken to saying to myself, "people who love God [pray, worship Him, read the Bible, etc]." Because I know that despite my major obstacles, these are simple things that I can and should still do. I'm kicking and dragging my heels, I'm digging my nails into the door frame -- metaphorically speaking -- but I'm forcing myself to rediscover the presence of God. And ... well, it's wonderful. Literally full of wonder.

Anyway, I find that the places where I need maxims are where I am weak. Faith. Discipline. Concrete motivation. These are facets of my life where I don't perform to my potential, and so I need help. I'd like to say that I've "come to terms" with my struggles, but I'm not sure that I ever will. There are some fights you fight all your life, and I think these might be mine. What are yours?

Peace.

The Long Road Home

2010-02-10T18:07:00.002-05:00

I tend to overthink things. I get full in the brain and spend way more thought time on stuff than is really necessary.

Take writing, as an example. I'm pretty much terrible at blogging, because when I post I want it to be mind-blowing, and I think about my posts really intensely and for quite some time. But blogs are actually designed to be more like journals, where I post everything I write, even the random and inane ramblings that I jot down during my days. A large part of me balks against that idea, and I doubt it will ever happen. I'll probably always be a spotty blogger, posting dense essay-ish articles and well-thought-out poems about every week, rather than off-the-cuff posts daily.

Like most weaknesses, this is also a strength of mine. While I'm terrible at the little things, my crazy cranium comes in handy when it comes to major events like my dad's funeral. I spent a really long time thinking about what I wanted to say and I was really pleased with the end result. I felt like I was able to honor Dad, speak the truth, and touch some people with my words. And that's all I ever want to do with my writing. Ditto for our Roast of Lieutenant Patrick Line. I thought for a long time about how I wanted to make fun of all my friends, rehearsed, and getting laughs up on stage was like crack for someone who struggles with narcissism as much as I do.

(Sidebar: The Roast was absolutely amazing, by the way. Everyone performed great, and it was a lot funnier than I think any of us expected it to be. If you want a copy of the audio -- we took video but the lighting was pretty terrible and none of us have high-end video cameras -- I'm planning on putting it together with a little slideshow soon. We're not posting it online because some of us have or aspire to have respectable employment, but you're welcome to have a copy if you're part of our "inner circle." Buckle up, though. In the true spirit of a Roast, we all were quite vulgar, myself in particular.)

Faith is another place where my brain has been a handicap. My heart wants to believe and make a leap of faith, but my brain is frustrated by many things about Christianity. There are things in the Bible that I feel like are incongruent with the person of Jesus Christ, yet most people I know want me to accept every word of the Good Book -- although there are many Christians who don't do so, and even Protestants throw out the Catholics' Apocrypha. I'm told not to "pick and choose," but it's what everyone has done, and I'm not sure I trust the people who picked and chose for me. If that makes even a lick of sense.

There are many minor issues like that, but I feel like the biggest logical struggle for me arises when it comes to Christianity's implicit condemnation of people of other faiths. Jesus said "no one comes to the Father except through me." As such, the major Christian tenet is that we are to assume that people who believe in anything other than Jesus are on their way to burn in Hell and we should desperately convince them to change their minds. I struggle with this, because I am always trying to see things from someone else's perspective. These people often believe in something with nearly all the same moral values as Christianity, with as much or more fervor than any Christian, and with just as many verifiable claims of miracles and life-changing experiences. And I'm supposed to tell them they're completely wrong? That everything they've experienced is ... what? Not real? A lie? A scam? As I've said before, it just feels so utterly arrogant.

I suppose part of this is because in my life, I've never heard the audible voice of God. And so I often struggle with whether my great experiences in Christian community were truly works of God, or just really nice coincidences. And the only time I ever felt like I did know God's will ended in disaster. I thought for sure that I had found the woman God wanted me to be with, but that relationship ended, and since then I've had to re-learn how to trust myself. As for trusting God? I'm not sure I've ever actually spoken to the guy, although I still try.

Anyway here's what I know. I know I've experienced a transcending love and grace from the Christian community, something that I have yet to experience elsewhere (although I haven't spent time in Muslim, Buddhist, Jewish communities, etc.). I also know that as much as my fellow academes may scoff at me, I'm not an atheist. My heart is just as crazy as my brain, but it knows that there is a larger purpose than just this rock on which we live. And I know that there are people, broken and humble people within the Christian community, who have the same questions and struggles that I do. They might not have answers, but they've come to peace about them, and I know I want that. When I last talked to my friend Ryan Casey, he reminded me that in C.S. Lewis's Narnia book The Last Battle, a warrior from the other side -- symbolizing a devout person in another religion -- gains favor in Aslan's (God's) eyes. If C.S. Lewis wasn't above this issue, I'm certainly not.

So I'm going back to church this week. Alex, my roommate from West Chester, suggested a church here in NYC that sounds pretty great. I'm nervous (scared?), and I'm not exactly sure how to enter back into this community. But I need to spend time with Jesus again, and so I'm gonna go find some people who know Him.

Peace.

Give More, Do More, Don't Pay More: Why I Won't Be Buying An iPad (Yet)

2010-02-04T00:09:00.009-05:00

There's been a ton of hype recently surrounding Apple's latest business endeavor -- on January 27th, Steve Jobs announced the launch of what he called a "magical" and "revolutionary" device -- the iPad. I would like to share with you my thoughts on the product, and why I won't be buying one.

I'm not here to knock Apple. I think they make products of a fantastic quality. If I wasn't on Verizon and tied to their service in a number of ways (and very happy with it too), I'd own an iPhone. It's hands-down the best phone on the market, and there's almost no argument to be made otherwise. And I probably would have bought a Macbook when I made my latest computer purchase if they weren't prohibitively expensive -- I think Mac makes a tremendous laptop, I just think if you knuckle down and do some investigative shopping you can get the same deal or better at a lower price point.

When it comes to the iPad, I think I can break my reluctance down into three major reasons. The first is financial, the second material, and the last reason is philosophical (I wouldn't be me if I didn't overthink everything).

1. iPad My Wallet

The financial reasoning is pretty straightforward: the iPad is simply too expensive for a new device, filling a nebulous and yet-to-be-defined niche. Here's ol' Jobsy, detailing the price options for the paddy pad pad:

To clear things up, this means that the starting price for the iPad, if you want to use it everywhere, is $629. And I can't imagine that many people would buy the iPad with wifi only, because a major incentive for this product is its portability. Okay, so $629. But then, this thing is allegedly made for uploading tons of pictures. Listening to your music collection. Watching and editing movies stored on it. These are all things which demand obscene amounts of storage space, and it starts at 16 GB? Silly. Just. Silly.

As a matter of comparison, my new and awesome laptop cost a mere $100 more than that, and has a hard drive of 500 GB. Not to mention the other myriad advantages that it has over the iPad, which brings us hurtling to my next point!

2. Simpler is Not Always Smarter

When it comes to the material shortcomings of the iPad for me thus far, they are three-fold: lack of Flash, lack of multitasking, and lack of a well-designed input system.

Flash is the platform by which nearly all videos on the web are viewed. Steve Jobs may have lambasted Adobe for not updating it often enough, but it's not going away anytime soon. Some people expect a new version of HTML -- HTML5 -- to completely replace Flash, but as this article aptly outlines, that will not happen for the foreseeable future. What this means in layman's terms for the user is no Hulu videos on the iPad for at least a while (which would have been a major selling point for me), as well as impeded interaction with many websites. Think internet on your phone, not your computer. This is a major drawback, one that I was disappointed to hear.

Now, when it comes to multitasking, I'm what you might call a "power user." A lot of people might be content to do one thing at a time on their computer, but that's not the norm for me. I download .torrent files while browsing an insane number of tabs on Google Chrome and editing documents. I have been experimenting with multi-tabling in online poker, and I'll play four poker tables at once on my HDTV while watching a movie on my laptop (I extend my display onto both screens) or listening to music on Pandora. For me, then, lack of multitasking is a huge letdown. On my computer, the times when I do choose to narrow my field of focus to one task are when I am attempting to create something worthwhile, as I feel the creative process demands all of my cranial, intestinal, and testicular fortitude. But would I create on the iPad?

3. Stuck in the Lab, with a Pen and ... an iPad?

My last and final reason for not purchasing the iPad has to do with the philosophical approach I take to the internet. You see, when I'm at my computer, I prefer to be a creator, a contributor, rather than a consumer.

When I'm on Facebook, I enjoy responding to my friends' posts and sending messages. I crack jokes at old friends' expense in the captions of photos, I send occasional thank you notes to friends when they let me crash at their place or make me food, I respond to status updates. I use Facebook as a social tool. Same with Twitter, although I've strayed from Twitter a bit because I haven't found the same interaction as there is on Facebook. I blog, I send things on Facebook, I use Twitter (I still refuse to say "I tweet"), and I send emails. These are some of the things I do most often on my laptop. Catching the theme? They all involve typing!

I don't want to be a hypocrite, so let me admit that I do more than my own fair share of consuming. I watch multiple TV shows on Hulu, I listen to music and read stuff online, and while it involves creativity, I wouldn't call poker "contributing" to the internet. However, as a matter of philosophy, I want to fight this urge in me and keep it at bay, and I don't want to enable myself by purchasing what seems to be a purely consumptive device. Additionally, normally after I consume something that I thoroughly enjoy, I have an urge to share it or write about it. That's normally what it comes down to -- I'm a writer at heart, and to write I need a method of input. So what has the iPad got?

Well, they've got a touch keyboard. One that doesn't seem that innovative -- really just like an iPhone keyboard enlarged to fit on a tablet. I don't know about you, but I cannot imagine pounding out a blog post or even a lengthier email on a touchscreen keyboard. Messages would probably be limited to text message length, which is fine on a phone, but I expect more on a tablet.

I'm not sure what the solution is to this. Maybe it's as simple as a stylus input, such as on the Microsoft Courier which has me super intrigued in its development stages. Or maybe some new crazy technology will come out, that creates a screen that somehow changes into tactile buttons when you want it to, making keyboard-like speeds possible. I don't know. I just know that right now, the lack of a high-volume capable input method is one of the things keeping me from buying this device. Overall, I feel like it's either a supersized phone or a keyboard-less laptop. And I want neither of those things.

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I'm not ruling out the Apple iPad for myself in the long run. Actually, if I know Apple, the next iterations of the iPad will be increasingly more interesting and attractive. Apple's great at releasing an average-to-good product as a first generation, depending on its rabid masses of fanboys to purchase it and allow them to make a profit. All of these fanboys and more people then purchase the 2nd iPad, which will add, say, multitasking. All of those people and more will buy the 3rd, and they'll continue in this pattern, adding features with each update and making bank, when they could just crack down and include all the features in the beginning. It's devious, underhanded, and incredibly business-savvy.

So there may be an iPad for me down the road, and as it is actually yet to be released, I would say there's even a 5% chance that this thing totally wows me and I purchase the first generation, as I'm often an early adopter. But for now, I'm holding out on the iPad and the general idea of a Tablet computer. I just don't get it. But I won't judge you if you buy one. Hope you enjoyed my ranting!

Peace.

(edit) DISCLAIMER: I know that I previously discussed purchasing the Amazon Kindle, a single-task and purely consumptive device. However, I feel this is different for three reasons:

The Kindle is not touted as a multi-purpose device. It's dedicated only to reading, and it performs that task -- creating a pleasurable reading experience -- incredibly well. The iPad, in my mind, is set up to perform many many tasks at a level of mediocrity.

The Kindle is for reading, and in contrast to the distracting hullabaloo of the internet at large, reading aids in my creative process, allowing me to writer better in the future than I have before. For this reason, I feel it is consumptive as a means to a better creative end.

Ironically, I love the fact that the Kindle doesn't multitask, because it allows me to shuck the distracting world of technology and forces me to concentrate solely on reading. I need singular focus for reading as much as I do for writing, probably because of the aforementioned creative synapses that it causes to fire.

So I'm not a hypocrite. On this issue. Though my hypocrisy elsewhere in life is well-established and as yet limitless.

Something Old, Something New, Something False, Something True: A Critique of the Modern Church Response to Gay Marriage

2010-01-27T07:07:00.018-05:00

First, let me say that I am proud of my longest post title yet. I think I will probably just continue this trend until I am writing entire posts in the title line and the content of the post simply reads "Peace." Now onto the nitty gritty.

I consider myself a pretty understanding and open-minded person, politically. I've covered quite a distance when it comes to ideology -- I've been on both sides of nearly every issue. Because of this, I pride myself on my ability to accept that while I may not agree with many conservative values, I can envision how a rational and caring person might arrive at such conclusions. However, there is one particular stance taken by the religious right that I have been unable to reconcile with reason, faith, or compassion. Try as I may, it escapes me.

I speak of the adamant stance of many conservatives to outlaw and condemn gay marriage.

Now, I'm not even going to talk about the concept of homosexuality as a whole. I'm not going to bring up that the most common verses used as an argument against homosexuality come from Leviticus, in which shellfish are described as equally abominable, and yet I don't hear many Christians in outcry against Red Lobster. I'm not going to touch on the fact that Jesus spoke volumes about poverty and not a word about sexual orientation, and yet I hear the latter conversation much more than the former in Christian circles. I'm not going to discuss that even if homosexuality is sin, the obvious truth is that Christ told us to love sinners and dwell among them, and that's not the way the Church approaches the gay community. We welcome alcoholics and thieves, adulterers and fornicators, but for some incomprehensible reason homosexuals are separated out as the unloveable members of society.

No, I'm not going to mention those things at all. Heh.

Instead, what I want to talk about is the outlook and legislation aimed at gay marriage. A common statement I hear in regard to this issue is that gay marriage is "destroying the sanctity of marriage." Now, this I have never understood. How is it that the decision, of two men or two women, to be wed, makes my decision to marry a woman any less sacred? I mean no derision or disrespect -- this is an honest question to conservatives: How does gay marriage make straight marriage any less sacrosanct?

In my mind, if this is true, then the same could be said about other sins tarnishing virtues. If gay marriage violates the sanctity of marriage, then lying violates the sacredness of truth, and alcoholism is an affront to the holiness of moderation. And yet, I don't hear these arguments nearly as often, and never with as much fervor. Is marriage more important than truth or moderation? That would seem peculiar to me, as one can live a completely holy life without being married, i.e. matrimony is not a prerequisite for entrance into the Kingdom of Heaven.

Another thing that strikes me as odd is that Christians in a worldly society generally seek to outlaw those sins that cause direct harm to other people, be it financially, physically, or psychologically. We outlaw stealing because it harms another individual's financial well-being. We penalize assault and rape because they inflict physical harm on members of our community. And we have laws against libel and slander because they are psychologically damaging. But gay marriage fits in none of these categories.

If it's simply a diluting of the definition of marriage, then shouldn't the distinctions "marriage" and "gay marriage" suffice? Is this really just a discussion of semantics? I hope not, because that seems to me to be petty and disappointing. A curious thought I had recently was that if you believe that homosexuals shouldn't be able to use the term "marriage," then neither should people who have "open" marriages, or adulterous and unfaithful ones. If you believe that God designed marriage to be between one faithful man and one faithful woman, then there should be many more legislative objections to many more situations. But that clearly is not the way things are.

Why, then? Why the ardor, why the intense and vindictive assault on the proposed institution of gay marriage? I speak not in judgment, I just want to understand. Help me to understand.

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A few utterly unrelated sidenotes:

I am planning a big organizing spurt in my life. I moved into my place in Brooklyn, and I've already talked to Zack about the exciting prospect of installing a loft, as I have 15-foot ceilings which amounts to a lot of wasted space. A long-term goal of mine is to create a space similar to the one seen here, although it will be slightly different as the two-dimensional measurements of my room are smaller (which is where the loft comes in).
I'm trying hard to pursue writing and blogging more in 2010, and so far so good. But I need YOUR HELP! I know that there are people who read my blog regularly, whether here or through Facebook, and don't respond in any way. I'm calling you out: if you enjoy what you read or have thoughts about it, then comment! I don't mean to beg, but you have no idea how much it helps me, even if you disagree with me. Some of my favorite blog moments have been my open political and religious discussions with Justin and Zack.
That's all. More to come soon from my life in Brooklyn!

Peace.

Blackheart Jean

2010-01-25T18:08:00.002-05:00

Blackheart Jean

When I was a boy, not even thirteen
my grandfather told this here tale to me
I'd sit with my sister and he'd sit between,
and he'd tell us the story of Blackheart Jean.

Way back in the summers 'round 1917,
on an oil rig just south of New Orleans,
in a place where a man can never get clean,
worked that heinous bastard called Blackheart Jean.

Blackheart Jean, half man half machine,
strong as a crocodile and twice as mean.
The hardest man you've ever seen
went by the name of Blackheart Jean.

Now ol' Jean was a fightin' man, you see
Fightin' man and beast and everything between.
He'd kill 'em all just to hear 'em scream,
scream for mercy from Blackheart Jean.

Blackheart Jean, big and mean,
heart full of cold blood and warm Jim Beam.
The cruelest man you've ever seen
went by the name of Blackheart Jean.

Now killin' was just ol' Jean's routine,
he didn't do it for fame, didn't do it for green.
But one day the townsfolk met as a team,
and conspired to stop that Blackheart Jean.

Blackheart Jean, wits strong and eyes keen,
you don't get that way from eatin' green beans.
The nastiest man you've ever seen
went by the name of Blackheart Jean.

So they went to the home of Blackheart Jean,
and found him dreamin' a Blackheart dream,
It wasn't quick and it wasn't clean:
They put a knife in the heart of Blackheart Jean.

And as they stood there, eyes agleam
A sound rang out that just didn't seem
like it belonged in the home of Blackheart Jean--
out of the night came a sob, and a scream.

And there in the midst of that gruesome scene,
there in the doorway, what did they see?
There in that house there in New Orleans,
sat the two little daughters of Blackheart Jean.

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I am really pleased with this, for once. I managed to branch out and write something which is very different than what I normally write, and I still feel like it turned out well. Enjoy!

Peace.

Changing of the Seasons, Stoning of the Shoes

2010-01-21T10:30:00.010-05:00

Whether by nature or nurture, I cannot say, but I am in love with the changing of the seasons.

Give me cold, blistery winters where I curse because the wind stings my ears and chaps my face. Give me hot, stifling summers where I curse just as much because I can't find a way to be both comfortable and sweat-free at bedtime. I'm no fashionisto, but afford me the opportunity to wear, within one calendar year, both the sweaters and scarves that I like AND the flip-flops that feel great on my feet, and I will be one happy WAM.

I suppose it's because I enjoy variance in my experiences. For this reason, my friend Liz has often compared me to the character of Ted Mosby from the popular show How I Met Your Mother. In the show, Ted is interested in having experiences just for the nuance of having had them.

I'm the same way. In my short time on this earth, I want the entire gamut of human experience, almost to a flaw. I often find myself pontificating about the possibility of something horrible happening to me or people that I care about -- being diagnosed with cancer, being put in a situation where I have to kill another human being, having to choose between the lives of two people I care for deeply. It's not that I want these things to happen, I just think the experiences would be so ... poignant. So rich and vibrant and full of the things that make life, life.

Let me try to make myself sound less repulsive. I also think that the good experiences of life are rich and valuable. Having a baby, getting married, finding a career that you love and being successful at it, stuff like that. I think those things interest me less artistically though, because in general they happen more often. Don't get me wrong, I think that in general life can be pretty bad, but if you're talking about extremes? I think in most (particularly middle-class American) lives, extremely happy things are more common than extremely sad. And a corollary to the greater prevalence of good experiences is the fact that it's hard not to be cheesy about happy topics. Not only do they happen more often, but people love the "power of positive thinking." We focus on the happy, not the sad. We are so inundated with positivity that happy poems or artwork or songs become cliché and trite. Happiness itself, I think, is amazing. Writing about happiness, in most cases, is boring.

But I digress. As I said, it's not that I want terrible things to happen. I think that I just don't like it when life is ... temperate, placid, boring. Especially from an artistic perspective. The best writing I've ever done in my life has come from 1). The end of my relationship with a woman that I loved deeply, and 2). My father's death. Both terrible things, and yet both have allowed me to achieve greatness in my art that I don't believe would have been possible otherwise. And I've only just turned twenty-five. Who knows what wonderfully awful things may happen to me in the years to come!

I kid, I kid. But these are the things that bounce around in this deranged skull of mine. At any rate, I don't want to be comfortable. I want things to change around me constantly. I want new and exciting experiences and challenges, whether they come from hardship or not. I read an interview recently with Hugh Laurie, star of one of my favorite TV shows, House. In the interview, Laurie was saying that he fights a battle against being comfortable in any area of his life. "I mean, if I don't have a stone in my shoe, I'll put one in there" he says, and I love the metaphor -- especially because Laurie's character on House has a limp.

Moving to Brooklyn is a start, but I'm gonna keep putting a stone in my shoe. I'm not gonna get comfortable, I'm not gonna become complacent, I refuse to slip into a rut. Any suggestions? Feel free to sound off in the comments! Otherwise and as always, thanks for reading.

Peace!

Pain is a Panacea.

2010-01-19T15:54:00.007-05:00

Pain is a Panacea

I used to hit the sidewalk with a sailor's swagger strut--
nothing to lose, nothing to prove, and scars are hard to cut.
When you don't have any holes then there's no way to get fucked,
and purebreds always wish that they could scrap and romp like mutts.

In my step there was a subtle limp that only you could see,
a shift from right to left to nurse a wound of history.
But you're long gone, and so it slipped by so unremarkably,
and now it's imperceptible, ephemeral, to me.

Build up enough walls and pretty soon you've got yourself a cage,
chambers of a heart become the chambers of a maze.
And all at once those nights you filled are melting into days,
and you laugh because you're scared and that's what makes it all okay.

Because fear's an indicator that you still feel enough to wince,
the real killer of a soul isn't hate, it's indifference.
Maybe you know all of this, maybe it's all just common sense,
But for me it takes a while for my heart to get my head convinced.

This poem sucks, is unfinished, and is pretty emo. But I needed to write and post something. I hope you find some kind of enjoyment, peace, or truth amidst the rabble. A more normal, psychological slash philosophical slash introspective post is coming soon. I think.

Peace.

I Live in Brooklyn.

2010-01-13T17:31:00.003-05:00

Historically, in the life of this blog, I pride myself on titles. I think a title, be it of a movie, an article, a poem or a paper, is what pulls the reader in. Normally for this reason, I spend nearly as much time on the title as I do on the content itself.

But this time, I don't know any other way to say it: I live in Brooklyn now! Here's a picture from my roof:

By the by, I may share a few pictures here, but if you want to see more pictures of my Brooklyn shenanigans, head on over to my Facebook photos. I've made my photos visible to everyone, because I ain't got nothin' to hide. You want my contact info though, you better make nice.

So I've moved to Brooklyn. My great friend Zack helped me move -- I can't thank him enough for his help -- and it was a thankfully non-eventful moving experience. We moved my entire life from Carlisle, PA to Brooklyn with nary a mishap, -step, or even -demeanor.

Now, I can say I live here! But just barely. I'm not even completely unpacked, I need more furniture, and I am sure I look like a bumbling tourist navigating this crazy place. As it is now, I am a New Yorker in the same way that people who visit the Caribbean in the summer are "island folk" -- I'm not.

But that will all change soon. The other day, I navigated to IKEA and back to do some furniture research on my own. Today, I went to the grocery store. Okay, well I actually had to go to three grocery stores near each other before I could get everything I wanted, but it's a learning process. Tomorrow I'm planning on moving my financial assets from my Pennsylvania-centered bank to one I can more easily access. And I've been discovering my new environment: just today I had this amazing Eggs Benedict at Rabbit Hole in Williamsburg, Brooklyn:

As you can see, I've been taking this week to get acquainted with the city and settled into my surroundings.

And after that? Well, after that ... I've gotta get a JOB.

Peace.

Twenty-Five, Twenty-Fifth, Time For Me To Split.

2009-12-26T19:03:00.001-05:00

A lot has happened since I last posted:

I turned 25. Twenty-five. The big two five. Rounded the quarter century mark. I got to spend some time with family and friends in the week leading up to the big day, and the day after Zack and I trucked out to Atlantic City and met up with Rich and Evan and had a blast. We all lost, but we all lost small, which is a victory against that Eastern Hussy and her grimy clutches. Plus, I found a poker tournament with a structure that I really, really like (the one that starts at midnight) and I think I'm going back to play in it again when I go with my family on Monday!
Between my birthday and Christmas and getting a little bit of money from my dad, I got some pretty sweet things for Christmas! Mostly clothes and gift cards, and then a much needed new laptop and phone! If you know me at all, then you know these things make me all sorts of happy inside. For whimsy's sake, I took pictures of each of them using the other:

Picture of my Motorola Droid taken with my laptop. This phone is so fun to play with, you have no idea. And it's become very functional for me too -- email, facebook to get in touch with people, not to mention the free GPS turn-by-turn directions which help because I am TOTALLY INEPT when it comes to navigational skeeeeelz.

My new laptop! It's an Asus UL30A, voted by Gizmodo (high-falutin' tech blog) as their pick for notebook of the year. It's kind of an in-between size, not quite a netbook but not quite a regularly-sized laptop either. I love it. And what's almost as good is the wireless mouse I got, also pictured! Both are sleek, fast, and easy to use. Wunderbar.

Lastly, if at any point after my previous post you still had doubts, it's official: I'm on my way to New York. I've sent a large check for my security deposit and first month's rent, I'm selling my car -- sniffle, Saturn, I knew ye well -- and I've received many city-friendly gifts in the form of visa gift cards, warm clothing, and even police-grade pepper spray! (My family thinks I'm moving into the GHETTO, when really it's just a big community of hipsters. Hipsters so cute with their painted-on jeans and their unironic mustaches.)

Incidentally, my brother-in-law Mark demonstrated the pepper spray for me outside, and I was wowed. I thought it would just be a little burst like an aerosol can, but this thing expels a frightening cloud of spicy death. ... And then the wind changed direction and we got a slight whiff. I was coughing and my nose started to run for nearly a half-hour. We had a good laugh about it though. Mark stressed the importance of WASHING YOUR HANDS, as apparently he had previously made the mistake of utilizing the spray and then visiting the little boys' room. I have no interest in discovering the effect of capsaicin on my Master of Ceremonies.

**Standard segment thanking you all for still reading, followed by rant about how I'm going to post on my blog more.**

Peace!

New Year, New Beginnings, New YORK

2009-12-06T23:14:00.019-05:00

Let me begin by saying that my well-intentioned and ambitious goal of posting more times than I did last year will almost certainly NOT be met. I have been a bit sidetracked.

Because I'm moving to New York! Brooklyn, actually. And to be precise, here:

That's my building on the left, 248 McKibbin. It's part of two buildings known as the McKibbin Street Lofts, and the photo comes from their Wikipedia entry. The buildings were built in the 1930s as textile factories and have been converted into loft apartments. I think my favorite phrase from the wiki entry is "raucous all-night loft parties." Oh, and those windows aren't missing (at least most of them), they're just open. I'm guessing the pic was snapped in the summer.

So I'm moving to Brooklyn. In January. Into a place that's been dubbed the "Art Dorm." I think this will be great for me, because I'm going to try to write. And by that I mean actually write. New York is a place where there are poetry open mics, creative workshops galore, and lots of vibrant writing opportunities. What's more, I'm moving into a building busting at the seams with people who are at the very least wannabe artists -- even if they have no talent, the drive and the atmosphere will be present -- and at most experienced, talented, and successful artists by whom I can be encouraged and from whom I can glean.

Maybe New York won't change a thing for me, and that'll be fine. Who knows, maybe I'll hate it there. I don't know for sure, although I doubt that. Or maybe I'll get started teaching there and I'll be so busy and passionate about teaching that I'll forget all about this pipe dream of writing and it'll settle into a hobby. But I'm willing to take a shot -- a serious, disciplined, gritty and no-holds-barred determined shot at becoming a mature, sophisticated, great writer. Because right now I might put my "talent" in the paraphrased words of Apollo Creed: I write great, but I'm not a great writer. (Watch the video below if you don't know what I'm talking about. Then go watch Rocky I through IV, and maybe VI if you feel like it. Never, ever watch Rocky V.)

Anyway I've been crazy busy lately, but it's a good busy. An exciting busy. There's the usual craziness of the holidays, which I love, moving to New York, and on top of all of that I'm organizing a Roast of Pat Line before he ships out to Afghanistan. But if anyone wants to hang out in this crazy hectic month of December, let me know. There's still lots of PA fun to be had before I'm gone!

Oh! Also, I know I complained about it recently, but if you know anyone who lives in New York who you think I need/want to get in contact with, let me know. Seriously. I might not take you up on it, no guarantees ... but connections are fun. (And yes, I just linked to my own Twitter page. My narcissism knows no bounds.)

Peace!

Strong Like Embers, Not Weak Like Match

2009-11-07T13:25:00.004-05:00

When I was a freshman in high school, I spent one season as a pole vaulter.

Not many people know this, because frankly I was terrible. Like many pubescent boys, I felt like my consciousness had been transported into a new body, and had a tough time adjusting to the sudden influx of size, strength and quickness where there had been none before. Pole vaulting for me came at a time when I simply could not bend my body to my will.

So I spent the season mostly lying on the red, cushy mat during track practice, watching the good pole vaulters clear bars high in the air, while lamenting my own lack of success. However, I was able to have some moderate success near the end of the season, thanks at least in part to an instructional video that we watched near the midpoint.

The video was narrated and presented by a foreign champion pole vaulter. Many of the details have long since escaped me, but it seems to me that he was from a country that started with an L -- Latvia, or Lithuania perhaps. He had a thick accent, and he discussed the basics of pole vaulting and what needed to be done to achieve pole vaulting stardom and land all the ravenous pole vaulting groupie chicks. There was one dictum that he passed along, which has stuck with me to this day:

To pole vault, you must be hard like rod, not limp like noodle.

The thick accent, the zen-master-like delivery of this maxim, and the fact that it is one big, hard euphemism which was certainly not lost on we high school boys made this sentence stick to my brain like an old bumper sticker. By the end of the season, I had taken the sage's advice and was making progress. I stopped being afraid of falling off the pole, I cleared bars, I even placed in a track meet. But alas, when the season's end came, I was still jaded and I didn't pay attention to my progress. I just knew I wasn't doing well, and to a freshman boy that's all that matters. So I quit.

It's one of those things that I wish I had stuck with, not because I think I could have necessarily been really successful, but because it was great fun. Pole vaulting when done right feels like flying, and I wish I would have experienced that feeling a few more times before stowing it away on the shelf.

Anyway I've been writing again, and my lack of consistency with my writing frustrates me. I feel that I am spread too thin. For instance, I am currently learning Arabic, re-teaching myself Calculus, planning several parties for December, shopping for a laptop, blogging (of course), watching a ton of tv shows, reading no less than five different books, and working virtually full time. I need to cut back.

I've decided to start by cutting back on some of the TV shows. This will be difficult, because I thoroughly enjoy all of them. There are at least 20 current TV shows for which I have seen every episode. I am someone who can find value in a lot of different styles of media, so I think they're all great (to varying degrees of course). However, I do find that they interfere with my own creativity. I once had a discussion with my friend Todd Drager in West Chester about this, and we both agreed that TV shows tend to fill that creative void and make us less likely to seek to fill it ourselves. I like TV, but I don't like that.

When I was student teaching, I was writing too, which was strange because I was crazy busy then too. But I wasn't spread all over the place, and I was passionate about what I was doing. So my urge to write was strong and consistent, like the embers at the bottom of a long-standing fire. Those are my favorite parts of a campfire, the embers -- I find it mesmerizing to just sit and stare at them.

As it is now, though, my Muse is more like a match or a sparkler. It burns brightly, it dazzles, but it's very temporal, very fleeting. I don't like this either. I'm hoping to change this by cutting out some TV and thinning out my life, attempting to focus on only a few things. I find this difficult because I enjoy all disciplines -- one of the very reasons I decided to pursue elementary education. Balance has always been hard for me. As I've written in one of my poems, "I was born imbalanced in my gait, like a one-armed tightrope walker. For every sure and steady step I take, there's another two that falter." But I'm going to try.

If all goes well, I will be strong like embers, not weak like match.

Peace.

Phair Weather Phan.

2009-11-04T00:35:00.011-05:00

This may not be a popular post at this time of year, but here goes: When it comes to the Phillies, I am and as far as I can see always will be a fair weather fan.

Let me try to break down why this is. I've narrowed it down to two primary reasons (although there are secondary reasons within each of these):

Reason Number One: Baseball is BORING

Seriously, it is. How often is something actually happening in baseball? I would wager that somewhere well over 90% of the time, the ball is not even in play. And even when it is in play, at most three or four people are even involved in that play. Everyone else watches. You could argue that during those times and in the in-between times, the players are being disciplined, staying focused, and playing a psychological game. But that element is inherent in all other sports as well, and it is accompanied by action.

***Minor Sidebar***

Incidentally, I have had several arguments with people about whether or not baseball should even be considered a sport. Heresy, I know, but it just stands in such stark contrast to me with other sports. Baseball to me seems like a game based on technique, not athleticism. To me, athletes are people who are conditioned, particularly with endurance. They are people whose entire bodies are in exquisite condition (not just their arms, like pitchers), people whose heart rates are a ton lower than everyone else's, people who will outlive you and I and can perform all tasks involving coordination better than we can as well. To me, baseball players do not exemplify this.

Endurance, for example, is barely required in baseball at all -- the longest distance to run is what, 180 feet? Maybe 270 or 360 if you are really chugging for a triple or a rare in-the-park home run. And then you get a long rest afterward. Contrast this to soccer, hockey, or even football, which involves stops but also involves players trying to hit you and stop you from moving, which is a hammer-blow to both anaerobic and muscle endurance. Many baseball players do not seem to me to be athletes. They are extremely, impressively, and overwhelmingly good at their game, but they're not athletes.

***End Sidebar Ranting***

Even if you like baseball, it's boring. I know plenty of people who are "die-hard" baseball fans, and yet while watching regular season baseball games (not even during commercials), they will change the channel or strike up conversation because it's not worth paying attention to. I don't think I know anyone who insists on watching or even tries to watch every regular-season game. Not only because it's boring, but also because of Reason Number Two.

Reason Number Two: We Lost A Game? Who Cares?

A major league baseball season is 162 games long. 162 games. Seriously, let that sink in. If a team makes it to the World Series, they could conceivably play a game of baseball every day for 1/2 of a year if you strung them together. And I'm supposed to care about individual games, particularly early in the season? You must be off your flippin' rocker.

Now, I know that in reality, every game matters. Teams make or don't make playoffs by very narrow margins, and that season-opening loss that you thought would be easy to overcome may turn out to be devastating. But psychologically, for a fan, I at least find it nearly impossible to keep this perspective and be passionate about early or even mid-season games. But late in the season and especially in playoffs, when the crucial survive-or-die mentality is palpably present? Count me in. I dislike watching baseball on TV (I actually thoroughly enjoy being at games, even regular-season ones, but that's more of the camaraderie and the pleasure that comes with cheering anything on as a group, not the game itself). But I will say what I have said before and will always maintain: anything is good in overtime or playoffs.

So that's what I have to say about that. I may be a hypocrite for being mad when people say they are "fans" of football but only tune in during the playoffs, but I stand by my position that it's very different. From where I stand right now, I'm prepared to cheer passionately for the Phillies tomorrow night (and hopefully as they win Game 7 as well!) ... and then not care at all until next October.

Peace.

Morning After

2009-10-28T08:05:00.013-04:00

Morning After

I don't smoke, but there's a cigarette behind my ear tonight,
and the flask inside my pocket's filled
with something hard and amber brown.
These thoughts afloat inside my head are warming to take flight,
but I keep them heavy, keep them chilled,
the way a sick but driven woman
keeps her surly cancer down:

By force of will. But there's more still, and inexorably
will is not enough.
And then my pen
of course will spill these words that thrill and words that
kill for sport or chore or cure until
I down four pills;
sleep comes quick, and rough.

Daybreak causes me to swear
and swear to not give life to such
injurious thoughts again.
And yet, I find I always find an excuse to carry a pen.

Blah. Just a poem I wrote last night slash this morning (here I hit it right -- our Romeo hath not seen his bed tonight). I like it, hope you do too. Might post something more conducive to conversation and comments and what-have-you later today or tomorrow. But no promises, haha.

Peace.

Motivation of Musings

2009-10-25T22:42:00.006-04:00

I've got my work cut out for me.

On Friday, I wrote a blog post about my dad. Here's what happened:

As you can see, my readership on that day spiked like whoa. It was by far the most people I've had visit my blog in a given day, with most of the visits coming unsurprisingly from Facebook (my blog posts automatically import into everyone's favorite blue and white social networking site). Also unsurprisingly, no one commented even though tons of people visited. This wasn't really shocking because I would guess that a blog comment seems somewhat of a paltry and impersonal way to comfort someone in a time of need (note: I disagree, please comment, I love comments, haha). However, I did receive some very nice and thoughtful messages on Facebook and a couple of comments on the post there.

I say I've got my work cut out for me because although I know keeping all of these first-time visitors is unrealistic, my hope is to at least retain someone's rapt attention from here on out. This may prove difficult, because things that happen to me in my everyday life are not nearly as attention-grabbing and dramatic as what has happened in the last few weeks. Sometimes I like to give the impression that my life is crazy and important and worth hearing about, but that's because (as I've been told) I'm somewhat pretentious. I'm working on that.

So in thinking about this, I've been thinking about why I write. I know that it makes me happy when I hear that people enjoy my writing, but that's a double-edged sword. I love that people can find some small measure of truth or peace, something that they can relate to, in the words that come into my head, out of my heart. I want to evoke that feeling in my fellow human beings. I think that's a humble and honest desire, maybe even a ... noble one.

But I also struggle from time to time with feeling like I need compliments about how good my writing is, the same way I struggle with needing to make people laugh (among my friends I am often known for spouting out one-liners, and this is again both good and bad).

I also know that I hope to write for more than a hobby someday. However, at least at this point I can't see how it will happen. I know that my writing is not good enough or ... universal enough, at this point, to be successful in the public sphere. Further, a large portion of what I write is poetry, and that is a struggling genre almost by definition. And I would never want to be just another modern poet who writes about love -- though I write about it often because it's one of the most interesting things I've ever experienced. I want my writing to evolve, to improve, to grow ... so I'm trying to put myself in a position where it has to grow or die. A place where I either come into my own as a writer, or realize that it's just going to be this blog and my many journals and that's it, just a hobby, and that's fine.

So I'm attempting to write here more. I'm going to try to cultivate a place where I publicly claim to be a writer and prove it by actually writing (radical, I know). I'm trying very, very hard to let go of the idea that everything I write has to be completely amazing and life-changing before I click on the "Publish Post" button. I'm also hoping to be able to talk openly about writing anywhere and everywhere, so if you read, I'd appreciate comments if you feel like you have something to say, even if it's a disagreement with me -- one of my favorite times in this blog's life was when my friend Justin and I were discoursing back and forth about important political topics.

So that's that. I've got my work cut out for me, both in this area and in my plans to move to New York, but I'm ready to rise to the challenge. I hope you're out there somewhere cheering me on, even if you are one of those annoying stalker people that reads my blog regularly but never comments. Jerks. :-)

Peace.

EDIT: Picture keeps automatically updating to be for the past seven days, so in a little while it'll be out of date. All you need to know is that I had way more visitors on Friday than I normally do. Cheers!

Find Your Peace, Dad.

2009-10-23T01:47:00.007-04:00

I was going to try to write an unrelated post, but that seemed silly. So ... here goes.

My dad died, three weeks ago today.

I've been hit ... a lot harder by this than I would have thought. My dad, in many ways, has been "gone" for a very long time. My dad had severe depression for the last ten years, and because of the way it affected him, my family and I "mourned" his "loss" starting a long, long time ago.

But I've been remembering good times with my dad, and it's been ... sad. Hard. But good. Because to be honest, I had forgotten about some of them. My relationship with my father, overall ... I feel comfortable saying that it was terrible. And I've spent so much time focusing on that, so much mental and emotional and spiritual energy on not becoming my father in certain ways, that I forgot about the stuff that made me like my dad.

Anyway we had the funeral a little while ago, and I wrote a eulogy. A few people have been asking if they could have a copy, which has been so nice. I've sent it out as an attachment in several emails, but I thought I would post it here too, so that people who weren't able to attend the funeral could read it, and maybe get a better picture of what my dad was like for the latter part of his life, and why we all loved him. As always, I hope my words speak to you.

Friends and family, thank you for coming.

We are here today to honor and remember a good man: my father, Tom Becker.

I don't want to dishonor my father on this day by spouting meaningless platitudes about him, or do him a disservice by using five-dollar words to talk about all the wonderful times we shared together in the past few years. I want to be honest, and so I will say here today that my relationship with my dad was complicated, but I know this: I loved my father and I will miss him.

Throughout my life, I have wrestled with whether or not I love ... loved ... my dad. Dad and I were perhaps as different as two people can be. He was aggressive, I am calm. He was a construction worker and a self-made man, I am a writer and a teacher by nature. Dad was a details man, a realist, even a cynic. I have always been and remain an absent-minded dreamer.

And so what my dad and I did was we fought. About the most frivolous of things -- the leaving open of cupboards or the garage door, or the way I stopped the car too suddenly for his liking. I can remember vividly a particular argument that we had about the best way to empty the waste baskets in the house. I insisted that I should start upstairs and work my way down, dad figured why not start with the baskets in closest proximity if you were downstairs. I still don't understand your rationale Dad, but that's neither here nor there.

Those are my memories of my Dad, and those memories are all from over ten years ago, when I was an increasingly obstinate adolescent boy and my dad seemed to me to be an obstacle to my manhood.

The reason that's how I remember my father is because after those memories ... depression hit dad. I think ... I believe ... I know that this disease took something from my father. And he spent the next ten years of his life searching and fumbling for it, like a person in a dark hallway looking for a lightswitch. And I don't think he ever found it.

And so Dad stopped trying to get better. It was a gradual decline at first, but it led to a steep dropoff in which my dad increasingly gave up hope. And I don't think I can say ... I don't think anyone can say for sure how much of that was his choice and how much was this ... this sickness. And so I pitied this person, I cared for him ... but he wasn't my Dad anymore. Depression stole something from my dad, and it stole him from all of us.

So I guess the reason that I know I love my dad is because I can look back and remember moments of happiness with him, glimpses of times when our personalities didn't clash, or if they did it didn't matter.

I remember my father as a groundlayer and a provider. He built houses for 30 years to make a life for his family, and even built our current house with his own hands.

I remember vaguely a time before the indignation of boyhood set in, when I was very young. I remember wrestling with my father, this tank of a man ... ripping on his ears and beard, slapping him on the stomach ... wanting, hoping to hurt him but thinking that there was no way I'd ever be able to.

I remember when Dad installed a zipline for Todd and I in our huge backyard on Bonnybrook Road. Nothing else to say about that ... ziplines speak for themselves.

And I remember early in high school, when my dad would harass my friends. Rich Howell and Dan Kenyon come to mind, referred to respectively by my often off-color father as Big Dick and, after Dan joined the Navy, Admiral Semen.

I realize now in hindsight that my dad was not an obstacle to my manhood, not an impediment, but rather a force, perhaps the most important force, that helped to make me the man I am today, particularly in those happy moments.

I wrote a poem about one of those moments with my father, and I'd like to share it with you today. But before I do, I want to thank you all for coming here. In times like this, friends and family are our strength and our breath, you are the legs on which we stand. I look out at all of you today and my heart is full. Thank you so much and God bless you.

This poem is titled "I Loved My Father Once."

A few things before I go:

I'm moving to New York City. I'm saying this here because I've been lackadaisically moving in that direction, but I want/need/HAVE to have this happen sooner rather than later, and I feel like saying it out loud on my blog means there's a greater chance of it turning into reality in an expedient fashion. Incidentally, if you know anyone in NYC, let me know. I'm trying to make as many connections as possible.

Running Update: In my last post, I said I was going to start running again. I actually did run a few times, and then all the stuff with my dad happened. Hm. I feel like I have to say something like "all the stuff happened." That's silly. So then my dad died. I'm not an expert on grieving, but I think it might be adequate excuse for a temporary bye on running. I'm hoping to resume efforts soon. More to come on that later (probably).

Every year, the number of posts I have made on my blog has gone up. Last year, I posted 65 times. It's October 22nd, and my lofty goal is to post 66 times by January 1st, 2010. This is going to kick my ASS as a writer because I hate putting non-interesting things in the public eye, and I think I have pretty weird and unreasonable standards as to what is interesting. So let's see how THIS pans out. Excited?

Peace.

Going Hot Turkey

2009-09-20T02:17:00.004-04:00

People say that cynicism comes with age. Idealism takes root and solidifies into realism; persistent and youthful optimism gets whittled down into stoic, worldly wisdom.

Is this a good thing? I'm not sure I can say. It makes me think, though, of the tendency for people's politics to go from liberal to conservative, as opposed to vice versa. Either Benjamin Disraeli or Winston Churchill -- no one's sure which -- said it best: "If you are young and not liberal, then you have no heart; but if you are old and not conservative, then you have no brain."

People interpret this different ways, of course. I tend to think that the liberals are the dreamers, while conservative folks (heh, I use "folks" because it connotates geezers) may be safer in their choices but are afraid to dream, afraid to take a risk, afraid to trust in humanity. But then we all know which way my ballot lever skews.

I don't know about all that, but I do know that as I get older, I find certain things that I thought would be easy -- or at one time were easy -- are now exceedingly difficult.

One of those things is running.

I'm gonna be honest here and say that I, plain and simply, hate running. I feel awkward and vulnerable saying this, because running is one of those things that you're simply supposed to like. Like reading. Last night, I was out at a bar with a group of people, and about to recommend a good book, and so I asked a girl we were with if she liked reading. I was being sincere, but everyone with me laughed, and I probably would have laughed too if I had heard the question from someone else. Because I hang out with mostly very well-educated people, and so it's a mandate that we all like reading (and, for most people, put on a façade that we read MUCH more than we really do. But that's another discussion). Anyway I feel the same way about running. I feel guilty that I don't like it. But I really don't.

I made a flippant, off-the-cuff remark to my friend Lyz last night about running, and the more I think about it, the more I think it describes my personal experience. Maybe it speaks to yours too:

For me, trying to start running is like trying to quit smoking.

This simile works on a few levels. For example, I have tried to start running many times, but never seem to stick with it. As Zack pointed out today, if I have been running for a couple of months and take a break, even for just a week, I feel like I am right back where I started. And starting to run comes much more naturally to some people than to others. What it boils down to, I suppose, is that both quitting smoking and starting running require discipline of the mind and of the body.

Now, I'm not very good at being disciplined, and I am arrogant. So I struggle with running, because I want it to be easy. I think it should be easy for me, because I think everything should be easy, because I tend to think in my head that I'm preternaturally good at anything I attempt. So finding out that I'm wrong is frustrating. It's humbling. It's good, but I don't like it.

So anyway I've been attempting to pick up the habit. I'm going hot turkey. I'm getting off that wagon.

Historically, it never goes well. I'm not sure what the problem is. I do know that I'm naturally not a very good runner. I don't think that my body type is very fit for running, and I am fairly certain that my form is terrible. I also have somewhat weak legs, but my brother Todd and I just started a yearlong workout program, which includes leg workouts (I would never do them of my own volition, but I have committed to this program). So perhaps that problem will be addressed. Maybe I've just never gotten to that point where I'm good enough at running for it to be actually enjoyable. I enjoy lifting, for instance. When I'm lifting weights, I feel exhilarated and productive. But when I'm running, mostly what I'm thinking about is how much I can't wait for it to be over. And when it is over, I feel only the slightest glimmer of pride that I accomplished something. The rest is utter relief that I don't have to plod along anymore.

It has crossed my mind that perhaps I am simply not meant to be a runner. I really want to be a runner because I know it would make my heart happy, and I want a happy heart. But maybe I just need to join sports leagues and get my cardiovascular fix that way. Today I played some great pickup basketball with Zack and Jason, and maybe things like that are the method that will end this madness. I'm not sure, but I'm not ready to say that I'm doomed to be a non-runner for the rest of my life just yet. So I've printed out a new beginner running plan, I've set up my schedule to be conducive to running, and I'm ready to give it another shot.

I feel fairly sure that I will keep this up for a few weeks, trying something new -- adding music to my runs, running with a partner, maybe attaching candy or a cheeseburger to a small woodland creature and chasing it. And after that I'll most likely peter out and end up at another Non-Runners Anonymous meeting (Hi, my name is Keith and I spent the last few months on my couch eating Oreos by the sleeve. When I'm at a store and need to visit another store in the same strip mall, I drive.)

But there's a hint of an inkling of a chance that I might stick with it this time. I haven't given up on running ... yet. I don't believe in luck, so wish me "good discipline."

Peace.

(_______).

2009-09-14T01:31:00.004-04:00

We're all born into pain.
Violently wrenched into the cold, harsh world
from a safe, warm place.

1.
My father woke up one morning

and the sky was black.

Now he's fumbling, looking for something
but can't seem to get it back.
He's always saying that no one knows

what it's like to be him,
that if we had any idea, it would change

the way we see him.
Oh we wouldn't be so quick to judge him.

And if I felt like him, then I'd already be dead,
the only question would have been "pills, rope
or a gun to my head?"
I can't figure out why he hasn't done it yet.
Maybe he's afraid, maybe he's lazy, maybe he's lying,
or maybe a miserable, pathetic, fucked up life
is still better than dying.

I don't know, I don't have any answers,
don't know whether to yell at him to suck it up
or treat him like he has cancer.
But this is normal life, it's been this way for so long
That we've tried all the rights and most of the wrongs.
So I just shut the door behind me, and he is gone.
But the questions live on,
The questions live on.

2.
I went to an Islamic temple with a college class,
and in bare feet I met a bearded man

with the softest hands.
He touched my shoulder, saying

"God is great and He loves you."
And honestly my first instinct

was to say "Hey man, fuck you.

I'm the one who came to tell you the truth."

But his miracles were just as real as mine were,
and I saw joy, and faith in a designer.
They didn't call Him Jesus,

but He sure made them kinder.

So I was sent to tell them they are blind,
that we both say the same thing,

but I'm the one who's right.
That their love, their faith, their God

all are worthless,

And it feels so arrogant to me, but then again
sometimes so do churches.

Yeah I know, I know His ways are higher

and He knows best,

but those threads aren't enough to scale
the stony limits in my breast.
I always think I'll be fine once I get some rest.
But remainders are left,
remainders are left.

3.
There once was a man

who saw his life as punishment.
From the moment he was born,

things were taken from him.
And there were people

who cared for him passionately,

one of them a woman

with the brightest eyes that ever held me.

But their love couldn't outweigh the pain

inside his belly.

So he plotted and planned and one day took his life,
and on that day, out spilled all my insides.

On the gravel, to be trampled by passersby.
Parts of me, things I thought I had found,
dripping and leaking and seeping out onto the ground.
My love, my faith, my God, but I don't blame him.
Because I know if I had to walk a mile in his soul
I wouldn't make it.

Now it's been so long since I've seen the sunrise.
By the time I lift my head, it's already high in the sky.
And it always burns one question behind my eyes.
I've rehearsed it so well:

How can anyone who's loved and does good go to Hell?
How can anyone who is loved go to Hell?
How can anyone go to Hell?
How can anyone? How can anyone?
How?

When I go, let me be unborn.
Swaddle me in blankets, but cover me with love,
give me back to that place safe and warm.

I wrote most of this poem a few weeks ago, and I just finished it. I don't know if I ever intended to publish it. But because of recent events, I feel compelled to. It's untitled, or maybe the title is (_______). I'm not sure.

Before anyone jumps to start ... I don't know. Witnessing to me, or something ... let me say that I know the "answers" in my head to these issues. I could easily argue against myself about why all of this makes sense and Jesus is the way and everything wraps up in a nice, neat little package. But at heart I have never been satisfied by those answers, and this ... this is my heart. My insides.

I don't normally post stuff like this. I post what I feel, and I'm pretty open, but ... not like this. Anyway there it is. I need to try to sleep.

Peace.

The Best Hindsight is At the Bottom

2009-09-09T14:15:00.002-04:00

Yesterday I started writing in a new journal. I just wanted to write, but I also had a secondary objective of maybe coming up with a blog post.

Everything I wrote was awful. So instead, I ended up doing this:

This first video is me playing At the Bottom of Everything by Bright Eyes. I really just like some of the phrases found in this song, and just the overall message about death possibly being more of a celebration than a sad thing. Oh and I love how the monologue leads into the strumming on the guitar too ... took me a few takes to get that right, but I really like playing this song so I enjoyed it.

The lyrics of this song (including the beginning monologue) can be found here.

The melody and general song concept for this song came from Bright Eyes - Lua. The lyrics are my own original work, though. I'm working on making my own melody for these lyrics, but I'm finding that for me, notes do not come as easily as words. When it comes to writing, I can often just ... "play," as Matt Damon puts it in Good Will Hunting, I guess. But music is a much more frustrating trial-and-error process.

Anyway enjoy the videos. I've decided to start blogging again, and I think that maybe whenever I can't think of something to write, I'll record a video -- probably of me playing guitar, because I don't particularly like just talking by myself at a camera. It'll certainly be a step away from some of my previous intentions for this blog, but I'm already posting poetry about half of the time anyway.

Side note: I apologize if the videos are a bit quiet. I'm still tweaking the input volume on my microphone in an attempt to record as loud as possible without a crackling sound.

Maybe this way I can avoid not posting for months at a time. We shall see.

Peace.