Couldn’t sleep last night, at all. Periodic bouts of insomnia are nothing new. So, when I know it’s a lost cause to even try, I kind of go off the rails digging into basic front end dev. I’ve been slowly making the Marfa theme (Hugo/Micro.blog) my own, with little tweaks.
Some things I got done last night:
I failed at:
On my to-do list:
We shipped our kids off to my mother-in-law’s for the night and drove out past the gorge to Dalles Mountain Ranch in Columbia Hills Historical State Park. The wildflowers were in bloom and the cloud cover kept us cool. It was very peaceful, and it felt good to burn some calories in preparation for a well-earned beer.
My car is 13 years old and recently turned over 150,000 miles. I got it used in 2013 with 55k miles on it, so I’ve done fewer than 10k miles per year, including several cross-country trips. It’s been a great car with very few issues, but it’s showing its age and I’m debating if I should put the $4k in repairs it needs into it or get something else. I’ve loved not having a car payment the last 5 years, but I also don’t want to keep sinking money into it. Keeping it would cost $6k over two years, including gas. An electric would cost $10k after incentives over the same period.
Continuing to struggle with my weight. writings.bryan.lv
For the last five years or so, I’ve used the space next to my driveway for raised beds. I’ve got a 3,100 gallon rain cistern in my backyard and I hand dug a trench to the front yard for my drip irrigation system.
It’s worked pretty well, but there are pros and cons. For starters, the beds are pretty close to the driveway, and my wife already ripped my bumper off once and tried to pass it off as if nothing ever happened (I caught it on camera). That was just a one-off incident, thankfully.
Another negative is that I’ve had kids cutting through my side yard on the way to the light rail or on their way home from school. They’ve trampled my pumpkins and zucchini squash a handful of times, and it’s pretty annoying to have put in so much work to grow a few healthy plants from seed only to have them trampled under foot by a careless teenagers.
I’ve also had little old ladies stop by and help themselves to some tomatoes, which isn’t a huge concern, but it does feel a little weird to know my neighbors regularly steal from my garden. I’d gladly give them the food if they’d just ask. In fact, I’ve put extra food out with a “take me” sign before.
But really, I’d like to use that space along my driveway for something else someday. I’ve had this crazy idea for a while now to make our house look a bit like an old craftsman by converting the garage into living space and a front porch.
If we do decide to go through with the renovation, I’d like to shift our driveway to the right to make room for a walkway to the entrance. Since our backyard is so shaded, that leaves my front lawn as a new location for our garden beds. This poses a couple of issues though.
First, I’d have to get the beds moved pretty soon; something I’m not really looking forward to doing in the dead of rainy season. Another issue is the situation with the rain cistern and having to figure out a new solution since the underground pipes can’t really traverse the underside of the driveway and would need to go around the other side — loads of work that could be done later, but a job I don’t want to do. Finally, there’s the issue of my lawn and the appropriate way to retire it without making my yard a complete mess and nuisance.
I’m not sure I have the time, energy, budget, or motivation to tackle all of this. It’s a hobby, and one I quite enjoy, but the food is merely supplemental and the cost-benefit ratio can get out of hand fairly quickly if one’s not careful. Yet I don’t want to give it up.
Maybe some interim solutions will present themselves in my brainstorming, but right now, I’m coming up short as to how best to approach the issue.
We had some wind last night and it knocked out our electricity at around 1 a.m. My son was already sleeping in our bed, but my daughter woke up screaming bloody murder and wouldn’t go back to sleep, so I had to bring her into our bed as well.
The worst part about power outages is that I can’t sleep without my CPAP machine anymore. I have a battery for it to get me by, but I must not have charged it after camping last summer. I got another hour out of it before I was awakened again not being able to breathe.
I had to get creative because I needed sleep. I had an early morning meeting today and needed to get the kids to daycare/preschool earlier than normal since my wife is still in California and couldn’t help.
I started my car, plugged in an inverter into the cigarette lighter, and ran two extension cords connected together from my car and upstairs to my CPAP machine. I got a few more hours of sleep before I had to start getting ready for the day.
I got enough sleep to get by, but I’m charging my big back-up battery in case it happens again.
This morning, I accidentally bumped my HomePod while cleaning off the desk and some music started. Land Locked Blues by Bright Eyes came on, from his 2005 album I’m Wide Awake, It’s Morning. It’s making me nostalgic. That is about the time I stopped listening to Bright Eyes and stopped buying CDs altogether.
I was 24 that year. It was before smart phones became popular, and 2005 was about a year after I got my first iPod. I still actively managed my library for a few more years, but that slowly started to change as streaming became more popular.
My music listening habits are so much more random since streaming became a thing. I struggle to even answer when people ask “who’s your favorite band?” or “what kind of music do you listen to?” I miss the more intentional nature of it all when I’d manage an actual library, even if it wasn’t in the form of physical media.
I have tried to go back at times and explored the underground and alternative music that I didn’t have the privilege of knowing or experiencing in my younger years before the Internet, and in this way, I love the archeological digging and discovering. However, that takes a lot of work and patience because it’s really easy to find a shinier new object of my affection, however fleeting.
I don’t think breadth of content has improved anything about the experience for me. If anything, it’s too easy to push things aside without giving them a chance and I don’t listen to entire albums very often anymore.
I’ve toyed around with having my own library again on a Plex server, but adding new music is not easy, and if we’re being honest, it can get expensive in a way that feels unnecessary. Also, I have so many other things going on in my life that I don’t have a lot of down time to manage it. But these are just excuses. If it were important enough for me, I’d make it happen.
It’s entirely likely that the shift in music medium has caused a psychological shift in me in such a way that I care much less about music now than I once did. If I sit with that feeling for any amount of time, I feel a little guilty about it.
All this to say, music feels very cheap to me these days. It’s everywhere in abundance and therefore it feels much less valuable. As a musician myself, this feels strange to admit, but it’s what I feel in my gut. I don’t have a solution, but I wish it were different.
I want that feeling of freedom again, driving around on the first warm day of the year with the windows down, listing to my favorite album. I want that feeling of finding an album and it becoming the soundtrack that defines a season, a year.
Recently I got into the world of management and I’ve noticed e-mails coming my way in the evenings and on the weekends from director types and such.
I am committed to my job and enjoy the work, but I’m not sorry to say that I’m not getting into a habit of responding to emails on Friday night, midday Saturday, etc.
What I did do yesterday was take my two young ones to a birthday party at Conestoga Recreation Center and ran around a gym for a couple hours while they had the time of their lives. We had a lot of fun and we all got some exercise playing soccer, basketball, etc.
My wife leaves for a trip to California today to visit her grandparents and I will be very busy with the kids by myself until Wednesday night. I’m happy she’s going but also a little bit jealous. We’ll be good, though.
I slept in until about 8 this morning and watched some Italian IPTV after I blogged a bit about our trip planned for later in the year. I’ve been trying to get into the mindset.
Our friend offered to watch our kids for a couple hours, so we took her up on it so that me and my wife could go to the gym. We went for a swim. I tried to talk her into doing laps outside, but we only made it one lap before she was too cold, so we went back inside and soaked in the salty indoor pool and then hot tub.
I made a single serving friend named John who was in his 70s and seemed lonely, so we talked a bit. He spoke of his nearly 30 years at Intel as a project manager of some sort, how he tried to retire many times but it just wasn’t the right time and his job kept offering him more flexibility and money. He’d take summers off with his wife and go sailing around Norway and Sweden, spent a lot of time in Mexico, etc.
He’d recently had heart surgery and was trying to get back into being a little more active, and his doctor told him that exercising in the pool was good, low-impact activity.
It’s hard for me not to envision myself at the end of my life speaking similarly, having similar experiences. Not that I felt sorry for him; he had lived a good life. But with every sentence I imagined myself near the last 10% of my life and looking back and I imagined myself missing the time I am in now.
My kids are still so young but I don’t want the time to move any quicker right now. They are the loves of my life and I don’t even like being away from them. I hope that I am able to provide them a life they can look back on with fondness, to see me as someone they are proud of.
I am in a bit of a winter funk right now, but they bring me joy. We are heading out the door for a birthday party for some of my wife’s friends’ kids, at a recreation center. They’ve rented out the gym. Hopefully chasing around some kids will help shake off the blues. If not, I’ve got a date with the treadmill later.
Before the holidays, I had my first phone conversation with a distant cousin I connected with on one of those genetic testing sites. I don’t make it a habit of reaching out to complete strangers with loose genetic ties, but I had been looking for Italian family on my father’s side in the United States and he had the same surname as my my paternal grandmother before she got married. I didn’t have a relationship with my father, so I didn’t have the benefit of having direct family introductions. So I sent him off a message and we’ve been connected for a few years now.
William lives down in the Berkley area, so it’s nice we’re in the same time zone. He’s in his 60s, has been married for many years, and has kids and grandkids. Our connection is that his grandfather was siblings with my great grandmother Louisa. My great grandmother’s parents moved to Iron, Wisconsin from Italy for a better life and there were a lot of mining jobs there and in Michigan’s upper peninsula in the early 1900s. That’s how one side of my Italian family got here.
Anyway, I spoke to William on the phone and we talked about his trips to Italy that I’d seen him posting about on Facebook. He’d posted some photos about his trips to the Dolomites (3 times per year!) where our Italian family is from. We exchanged a few messages and he decided to just call me up on Facebook Messenger instead of typing it all out. It was nice to have a real conversation with someone I’ve never met in real life but for whom I’ve grown to appreciate from afar.
He knew that me and my wife were planning a trip to Italy in late spring, so he wanted to give me tips. I told him of our tentative plans and he guided us to some better decisions, even connecting us with a personal friend and mutual family in Cadore. Two sides of my family are from Vigo di Cadore, and he gave me the details of a great Air BnB the next town over.
I took a sneak peak of the town on Google Street View and the walls of mountains surrounding that area are both majestic and intimidating. The town is Lorenzago di Cadore and I think we’re going to book the apartment this week.
The way Italian citizenship works through the Jure Sanguinis (citizenship by descent) is that if you weren’t born there you have to register in the comune (town) of your last Italian ancestor, so I’m registered up in Vigo di Cadore, right next door. From family records, I have the address of the place where my great grandparents lived and the cemetery where they’re buried. Although they emigrated to the U.S., they ultimately didn’t end up liking it here and moved back!
I’m excited to finally get to visit the area. We are lucky to have my parents watching the kids for us while we’re away for 10 days, which will be strange for sure, but this will be our first vacation alone of any length in 5 years since having our son. We love to hike and are really looking forward to some mid-elevation hikes in the Dolomites for a few days before we head south. I hear the people are nice and welcoming, and the family I still have there sound excited to meet distant family who were descended from the Italian diaspora of the early 20th Century.
Things are feeling more real and I’m looking forward to my first international adventure since 2007. Hopefully many more to come.
This week, we started going back to 100% analog books at bedtime for the boy and I feel good about it. He’s almost 5, and we’ve read to him nearly every night of his life since before he was able to understand what was going on.
It started out as 3-4 children’s books. We ran out of material after a while, so Libby (library app) and Amazon Kids+ filled in the gaps. But over the last 6 months or so, he’s been wanting more and more to watch books read from content creators on YouTube. We’d still read him a book or two, but then allow him to watch books being read on YouTube Kids.
The great thing is, he somewhat surprisingly didn’t complain when we cut out the iPad. It seemed pretty harmless, but we agreed it was basically too much like watching cartoons. The readers often have too much commentary, or act out the characters in the books. He also wasn’t getting as much explanation or oversight. It took away the fundamental purpose of reading.
His preschool teachers say he’s ahead of where he should be, doing work of kindergartners and a little bit of first grade work. We don’t push him too hard on the learning to read and write, but I want to make sure he stays interested and engaged. It will come.
Tonight I read him four books, two of which were longer. I spent more time asking him questions and sounding out some of the words, all the while pointing to each word as I read them. He was really interested, and asked a lot of questions about the meanings of words. It was just nice to have more one on one closeness with him.
I had my last cigarette 7 years ago yesterday. Since that time, I've saved something like $25,000 in direct costs and have hopefully added years to my life. I don't write about this anniversary for praise or pats on the back, but instead to honor myself and explore my own feelings on the subject, which are complex.
Avoiding lung cancer and saving money are of course two of the biggest motivations most people cite for wanting to quit smoking. But what nonsmokers might not realize is that many smokers experience profound psychological stress about their addiction, which in my case was what ultimately motivated me enough to successfully quit for good. I wanted to write a bit about this experience.
Over the course of my life, I've heard countless people express their disdain for smokers, writing off nicotine addiction as a mere habit. These same people paint smokers with a broad brush, characterizing them as low-life, selfish people who could quit at any time if only they'd exhibit a little self control and motivation. I think this thought process is severely flawed and shows incredible ignorance. While some people can more easily quit than others, this is rare and fails to take into account epigenetic and environmental differences.
It's well documented that nicotine is highly addictive, and the human brain changes dramatically as a result of its continued use. For example, nicotine receptors increase over time and addicted smokers have billions (yes, billions) more nicotine receptors than non-smokers, making it increasingly difficult to quit the longer one smokes. Furthermore, this deep chemical addiction causes new neural pathways to form in the brain as a result behavioral associations, reinforcing the chemical addiction.
It's a fact that most smokers want to quit, but the vast majority are unsuccessful. For example, around 70% of U.S. smokers say they would like to quit, while 55% have actually attempted quitting in the last year but have failed. As a result of this intense desire to quit, it's not uncommon for smokers to live in denial of the bodily harm being caused by the simple act of inhaling and exhaling smoke hundreds of times per day. For me, this denial was a defense mechanism against the deep existential dread I would feel if allowed to dwell on the reality of my addiction.
Perhaps even more depressing is that smoking addiction in low-income populations perpetuates intergenerational poverty and poor mental health outcomes. This is because low-income smokers will prioritize smoking over getting higher order human needs and goals met, such as the human needs for safety, food, social belonging, love, and self-esteem, or life goals such as improving their economic situation. Although the bodily harm caused by smoking is much slower than hard drugs, its legality and availability at every corner store makes it virtually impossible to break free.
In my own case, the cognitive dissonance I experienced over 15 years of failed attempts to quit was intense and certainly took a mental and financial toll. Like other smokers, I desperately wanted to quit, not just to improve my health, but to improve my life. I felt that smoking was the major hurdle to reaching my goals and life potential, but I just couldn't get off the treadmill. At one point in my 20s, I was making around $6.50 per hour and was charging my cigarettes to a high interest credit card (25% APY) that ultimately had around $2,000 on it at its highest point ($3500 in today's dollars).
The life consequences beyond health impacts were real as well. Being a smoker severely limited my relationships, most notably my career and dating prospects, and I internalized that as both shame and resentment. Consequently, I went to great lengths to hide that I was a smoker, especially from those for whom I had great respect or romantic interest. I would wear nicotine patches before and during job interviews or dates, trying to keep the smell of smoke off of me, only to light up immediately afterword. I gained a reputation among friends and colleagues as being aloof and clandestine as I frequently absconded from work and social situations to sneak in a cigarette. It's all really silly to me now, but mostly it's just sad that it had such a hold on me.
Now that I've quit, I certainly enjoy no longer smelling like an ashtray and not having to hide parts of myself from coworkers and other people due to embarrassment. I no longer feel like a pariah. I don't lose my breath going up a few flights of stairs. I probably sleep better. I can certainly tell the vast improvement to my breathing. But there have also been negative consequences as a result of quitting, too.
Most notably, I have gained quite a bit of weight. I was always a healthy weight as a smoker but I gained 40 lbs after quitting, pushing me into the obese category. This has taken its toll on my self-esteem, energy, and motivation. I have also noticed changes in how people treat me as a result of my physical changes, which can be pretty sad thinking how superficial our world has become.
I'm proud of myself, but my next goal is to continue working on my mindset. In 2024, I want to work on self acceptance while making small but steady improvements in my physical health through achievable goals and habits. And for those on a similar journey, I wish you strength, health and wellness in the new year.
I'm just not feeling the holiday spirit this year. Both my kids are young and I am trying to show up for them. I even saved up quite a bit of cash to pay for toys and gifts and take some of that stress off us, but I just can't get in the mood.
I think more than anything, I'm feeling tired of Oregon and feeling the pull to move back to Michigan. We’ve outgrown our house and feel trapped due to prices and interest rates. Looking at real estate back in the Midwest looks like a bargain. The pay isn’t even that different in my field, and we’d have a huge down payment if we sold our current house to buy there. It’s even more appealing to me also because my family lives there. But I can’t convince my wife.
Take for example this house:
It’s in an affluent suburb with good schools, in a major metro area with good jobs in my field. A house like this barely even exists in Oregon, and the ones that do would cost double what this one is listed for. Here in Oregon, we live in a tiny place in a less desirable location despite being in a higher income group. It’s crazy to me what is unavailable to us given our education and income levels. We worked so hard to get where we are and barely feel we can get ahead. Why people stay here is beyond me.
We had a very busy but fun weekend with the kids celebrating the holiday season.
We went and saw Santa Claus in North Plains on Saturday, and then went to Steeplejack Brewing for pizza. Then, on Sunday, we went to the SHARC for swimming and later went to Zoo Lights at the Oregon Zoo.
Lately, both of my kids have been learning so much and it’s intense seeing them grow before my eyes.
No. 1 is 4 and has known his ABCs and how to count for a while now, but he’s become so articulate, annunciating every letter perfectly (no elemenopee anymore). He’s also counting into the 40s and higher when reminded of the starting digit. Even more impressive are the questions he’s beginning to ask. Existential questions, and reflecting on complex topics, even accompanied by sadness and even anguish when speaking of loss. Wow.
No. 2 is 23 months and is saying short sentences and asserting her personhood by claiming ownership of things and not shying away from telling you what’s up, especially to “stop it” when something is bothering her. It won’t be long until she’s speaking in full sentences and becoming her own person, too. In addition to playing with the magnet tiles and more traditional “boy toys”, she’s dressing up and playing with dolls, unprompted or promoted by us, which is just so different from our son’s preferred toys, even though he had access to all the same things she does when he was her age.
Parenthood is a trip and I love it. Hard, yes, but awesome in all the best ways.
An excerpt from an interview with Noam Chomsky prior to the October 7 conflict.
For 50 years, Israel has been explicitly trying to use the Holocaust as a propaganda weapon to justify crushing the Palestinians, occupying Palestinian territory illegally, practically destroying Gaza [which is] almost unlivable now. A million children can’t even get potable water. The constant atrocities in the West Bank. You read journalists like Gideon Levy, Amira Hass, others, daily reports. They think they can get away with this as long as they can wave the Holocaust in front of people’s eyes.
I should say, this is explicit. So if you go back to 1973, Abba Eban, a leading Israel statesman and highly respected, wrote a very interesting article in the more liberal Jewish journal in the United States, Congress Weekly. In this article, he said the duty of American Jews is to show that any criticism of what he called Zionism, meaning the policies of his government, any criticism is either anti-semitism if it comes from non-Jews, or neurotic self-hatred if it comes from Jews. And he actually mentioned two people. I was proud to be one of them.
Noam Chomsky, Chris Hedges & Dr. Shir Hever on Israel & Palestine
It’s been a busy couple of weeks. But I guess life is just sort of busy now anyways. In no particular order:
Real estate prices have been going down a little, but affordability is still a major issue. For example, a 984 sq. ft. house with 3 bedrooms and 2 baths in my area just sold for $400k.
To put this price into perspective at current interest rates, a buyer would need an annual household income of about $120,000 to qualify with 5% down.
The median income for a family of 4 in the Portland region is $114,400. Median income for all households was $81,149 in 2021, according to the Oregon Employment Department.
You would have to be in about the top 85th percentile of households in terms of income to afford this home in today’s market. The payment would be about $3,100 per month on a standard 30-year mortgage.
As a parent with anxiety, I can already tell that raising two young children to have confidence in themselves, and to approach new and uneasy social situations with bravery, is going to be difficult for me.
I had a difficult childhood, complete with a fatherless upbringing and abuse, which affected me in various ways, including low self-esteem. I didn’t participate in many extra curricular activities due to my anxiety. I struggled in school for that reason, too, both socially and academically.
Now I have to work up the courage myself to encourage my kids to participate in healthy activities when it doesn’t come natural to me. The thought of even being on the sidelines of sporting or music events gives me the a lot of stress. What a strange thing to follow you through life. I guess this an example of generational trauma, in the mildest sense.
I had a flashback this morning as I was getting the kids ready for school that reminded me of a time in my life when everything was so unsettled and chaotic. This seems to happen to me a lot more whenever summer starts to give way to fall, when I can smell the change of season in the air and the evenings get a little bit shorter. The memories of back-to-school anxiousness come flooding back and I get a pang somewhere in the recesses of my brain. Usually I’m transported back to being 13 and crying in the dressing room at Sears while trying on school clothes, but today’s memory was different.
A couple of decades ago, after my third term at an enormous university, I flunked out of engineering school. It used to be a pretty big source of embarrassment for me, but after many years of learning about myself, I've come to understand the difficulties I experienced then were less a personal failure than they were the very obvious result of my crippling anxiety and undiagnosed ADHD. I no longer look at that time negatively, but rather an inflection point in my life when I had begun to understand myself better.
For the next two and a half years after dropping out, I worked various service jobs and other menial labor for minimum wage, which was $5.15 per hour. I had worked as a pantry cook, gas station attendant, cell phone sales rep, water purification system sales rep, surf and skate shop associate, and I even working for an asbestos abatement contractor one summer. I was always broke and things weren’t going so great, to say the least. Often I found myself wondering what could have been and fell into a major depression.
There were a few more twists and turns over this time period that I won’t get into here, but this week marks the 20-year anniversary of me going back to school and restarting my educational journey at a community college. After two years there, I transferred back to university and finished a bachelor’s degree, only to find myself working in a kitchen again because of the Great Recession. During this time, I applied to graduate programs. I was accepted at a top 3 public university, and a couple of years later I received my master’s degree in urban planning. As a result of that, I was finally able to gain a foothold in some meaningful work that actually paid a living wage at the ripe old age of 29. And the rest is history, or so they say.
I likely would have avoided a lot of this hardship had I had financial support, well-connected parents, or even health insurance and medication for my anxiety. However, the fact that I did it on my own is a great source of pride now. I look back fondly at my time at community college. In a lot of ways, it was my best higher ed experience of all three I attended. But more than that, it laid the groundwork for the life I love now.
I was having a text conversation with my brother this evening. He hadn’t heard of ChatGPT yet, so I showed him an example and he told me that this reminded him of that song by Tool about California being flushed away into the Pacific Ocean.
I said, “Arizona Bay?”
“Yeah,” he said.
I asked ChatGPT again: “Tell me about the song ‘Arizona Bay’ by Tool.”
This was its response:
“Arizona Bay” is not a song by Tool. However, it is a term coined by the band’s lead singer, Maynard James Keenan, and it is the title of a comedy album by comedian Bill Hicks.
Bill Hicks was a renowned American stand-up comedian known for his thought-provoking and often controversial material. He frequently discussed topics such as politics, society, and religion in his performances. “Arizona Bay” was recorded in 1996 and released posthumously in 1997, following Hicks' death.
The term “Arizona Bay” itself refers to a hypothetical scenario where the state of Arizona, along with parts of Southern California, would be submerged underwater due to a massive earthquake, resulting in the creation of a new coastline. Hicks used this concept as a metaphor for his vision of a better society, one that would emerge after the collapse of the current societal and political systems.
Maynard James Keenan, being a fan of Bill Hicks, drew inspiration from his work and incorporated some of Hicks' ideas into Tool’s music. Although “Arizona Bay” is not a song by Tool, the band has paid tribute to Bill Hicks in their performances and even sampled some of his comedy bits in their songs.
So while “Arizona Bay” may not be a Tool song, it holds significance in the band’s history and the influence of Bill Hicks on their music and worldview.
Normally I try to keep things fairly light and impersonal here. I may tend toward the dark or sarcastic from time to time, but over all, I’m usually a pretty happy person. However, lately I’ve been feeling a little more easily bruised, overly sensitive, and just generally melancholy. I’ve been wanting to write a little more at length in hopes of lifting some of the weight up off from me, but life’s been pretty busy lately up until right now. And so here I find myself after some dust has settled.
If you’ve just joined me, or stumbled across this place, my blog, or even if you’re just passively following me from some federated service, you'll probably want to take a pass on reading any more of this post. Fair warning: this is just my petty ramblings for my own personal therapy, nothing more.
So, as I said, I’ve been experiencing some mild depression lately. This is pretty out of character for me given that it’s mid-summer. It's not the same old SAD-induced stuff I’m used to experiencing in brief episodes during the wintertime when I’ve long been trapped indoors for weeks and Vitamin D deficient. My skin has been sun-drenched and the evenings have been long. By most accounts, I shouldn’t feel like I do.
Although nothing super weighty has happened in my life recently, I’m coming out of a few bad years. I thought I got through most of my feelings, but my grief still pokes its head out from time to time, and sometimes smaller things add up to more than their constituent parts, especially when they're piled up on top of that previous stuff.
What’s been bothering me more recently, for example, is that some summer plans have just not gone so well. I took my four-year-old son to Michigan recently to celebrate my step-dad’s 60th birthday. And to be completely honest, I didn’t really want to go at first and had to really rally and build up my motivation because the last several trips home haven’t been the most positive experiences.
For example, a few years ago I flew back home in support of my mom when she was going through post-op chemo for breast cancer. I went back again a couple of years later in 2021 when my brother went into hospice, where he then died a couple weeks later from the brain tumor he had been fighting since being diagnosed in 2014. Then, last year, some drama unfolded between my youngest (living) brother and his now ex-wife over some custody issues with my nephew, all while my whole family was there vacationing.
So, I might be excused from not being totally thrilled at the prospect of returning. Although much of it was well beyond anyone’s control, it sometimes feels like bad energy just surrounds the place, and I’ve begun to dread going ‘home’ for these kinds of visits because something is always.going.down. My wife even refused to go back this year given past years' experiences, so she stayed here in Oregon with our daughter.
Despite all this, I did my very best to put my negative feelings aside, for my dad’s sake, but also for my son, who still hadn’t met any of his cousins yet. So I put on my game face and tried my best to just roll with it. And it all really had been going pretty well, too, until about halfway through the trip when I had an argument with my brother and my parents.
It started when I had something come up at work while we were up at their RV park vacation home, so I had to finish a few things remotely. No big deal. I had already discussed with my parents that I’d have to work a little on this trip, so it wasn’t completely unexpected. They were just happy we were there.
So when this bit of work came up, my dad asked if he could bring my son down to the beach for a while. I agreed, enthusiastically. My dad’s a great guy and really good with the grandkids. We had just been to the beach the day before and we all had a great time. I figured it would be great bonding time for all of them. Thumbs up. So away they went.
When I finished my work about an hour later, I walked down to the beach to join them. At first, I thought everyone had left because I didn’t recognize anyone there. But then I noticed my son’s voice from afar. Surprised, I saw that he was swimming a long ways from shore. And although he was wearing a life jacket, he was about 35-40 feet out from the beach, essentially unsupervised.
It turned out that my dad had left to take a friend back to camp and he put my brother in charge over my son. However, my brother wasn’t anywhere within line-of-site of my son when I arrived. He was in the water, but on the other side of a floating dock, completely out of view. My son, who cannot swim, was playing by himself in 15 feet of water without an adult watching over him.
How long had he been out there? How long had no one been watching him? I struggled to make sense of what was going on. At first, I gave my brother the benefit of the doubt. I just watched. With me there watching, I knew my son wasn’t in any real danger, but I observed to see who was paying attention. As time went on, it became clear that my four-year-old son was really out there all on his own.
No one was paying any attention to him for at least the 5 minutes I was observing, long enough for something to go horribly wrong. I watched long enough for me to have seen my 4-year-old son struggle to get out of the way of other kids much older and larger than him, playing and jumping off the floating dock in his vicinity. Some kids were jumping right over his head, and he showed signs of struggling to stay above water. It was at this point that I called to him to shore, my brother still out of view on the other side of the floating dock.
Once back to shore, I kept my cool and didn’t yell, but I told my brother in a bit of an upset tone that my son shouldn’t have been that far out, and that he definitely shouldn’t be left unattended like that. He quickly got offended by this, arguing that my son wasn’t unattended. He acted as if it would’ve been impossible for anything to happen to him while wearing a life jacket.
I just couldn’t believe what I was hearing. The icing on the cake was when my brother said something along the lines of “you’re welcome for entertaining your kid for the last couple of hours.” This just left me feeling very hot given that I had just spent 5 hours with his son without my brother the day prior, like he was doing me some enormous favor by spending an hour with my son, his nephew. I know he was just deflecting the fact that he failed to provide the most basic level of care and oversight to my son.
I was upset at him, but more than anything, I was upset with my dad for his negligence. Later, my brother told me that my dad didn’t even tell him that he was leaving. I was flabbergasted. My dad’s brother died by drowning at the age of 18, so this fact surprised me even more.
To top things off, my parents sided with my brother, and my dad basically denied any wrongdoing. My mom has always been protective of my youngest brother, but this was just over the top. She blamed me for stirring up things unnecessarily.
I went over the situation again and again in my head to analyze whether I had done something wrong or if I had overreacted. I felt like I was being gaslighted. I wanted to leave, but I was trapped because I was far out in the country and didn’t have a car. And to make matters worse, my dad’s 60th birthday party was to be the next day, the entire purpose for the trip.
Thank God nothing happened to my son, but I kept coming back to those first few moments when I saw him out there in the water alone. My stomach turns at the thought. But to be made to doubt the own validity of my feelings instead of acknowledging a mistake and just apologizing? I’m not exaggerating when I say that this experience had me looking back and questioning my own upbringing.
It all left me feeling completely disappointed and disrespected by people I thought had more common sense than this, people whom I thought I could trust. I am still working through a lot of feelings about it.
I spent the evening and much of the rest of the next day removing myself from the situation, staying in another camper. The following evening, I smoothed things over with my brother for the good of the order. It felt like I was lying to myself in doing so, but I didn’t want to ruin my dad’s big event. I’m still feeling deeply hurt by what went down and I’m having trouble trying to figure out how I can move forward given that it’s gone completely unacknowledged since.
I left Michigan still pretty salty, but was trying to forget about it, focus on the positive, and look forward to a camping trip I had planned on the Oregon coast the following week—this past weekend. I booked the trip six months ago because state parks open up their registration that far in advance and the good places fill up pretty much instantly out here in Oregon (maybe it’s the same elsewhere, too). I knew the trip would be difficult with a young family, but I really thought we would have a lot of fun, too. Turns out we were not ready for that kind of trip.
After days of preparation and loading the van to the roof liner, it was five hours by car until we reached our destination. My first mistake. My one-year-old daughter screamed and cried for at least half of that trip downstate, likely setting some kind of record, but also laying the groundwork for a pretty rough trip.
Both kids thankfully fell asleep right before we got there, which allowed me and my wife to setup camp fairly quickly and undisturbed. We thought we had gotten over the hump, that we could just enjoy our time there, but unfortunately we were wrong.
The coast ended up being pretty cold at night, dropping down into the upper 40s and low 50s, but it was the 35 mph wind gusts that really did us in. My wife, who had on several layers of clothes, a sleeping bag, and blankets, couldn’t handle the cold. Then, my daughter kept waking up periodically throughout the night before waking up permanently at between 4 and 5 a.m. each morning. As a result, we were all pretty miserable the entire time despite being in such a beautiful place. After two nights of that, we promptly packed up the van and checked ourselves into the nearest Best Western.
For the most part, that went a lot better, albeit with an underlying air of defeat that permeated everything we did the remainder of the trip. Still, $500 later, we had a pool, a hot tub, and a couple warm beds to sleep in. But that wasn’t the end of it.
Everywhere we went, the kid (my daughter) screamed. Hour trip up the 101 for a hike? Screaming child. Trying to grab some grub at a local brewery with great food and beer? Fussy, crying, screaming child. Spending time at the beach? Screaming child. I think she had just had enough of the road trip life. We all did. I lost my cool at one point and raised my voice, which I regret, feeling completely wiped myself. Most ironically, my son had a great time through all of it and didn’t want it to end. But for me, these experiences have made me want to stay home for the next couple of years.
I would sometimes think how great it was that I had the opportunity to really plan for my family. That unlike my mom, who was thrust into motherhood as a teenager, I started a family in my late 30s because I had lived so much, settled into my career, and was so financially stable. But then other times, I am just so completely drained that I think I must have been crazy to think this would be easier.
At any rate, the month of July can go to hell. I will remain within a 15 mile radius for the foreseeable future. I love my family and I love my life, but this summer is testing me. Until next time.
Love, Dad
Long couple of days, but feeling more alive today after some rest and lots of coffee.
Got in about 2 a.m. (5 a.m. Eastern) the night before last. Had a couple hour delay with our connecting flight out of Seattle. All told, a 13-hour travel day with my 4 y.o.
Carried him (40lbs) and his cargo about a mile according to my watch. My legs and arms definitely feel like they got a workout today. I guess that’s how we acquire that coveted “dad bod”.
Overall, Pax was a trooper though, and is a great traveler despite me having kept him up way past his bedtime.
At one point, he spilled a half-full glass of apple juice all over himself an hour into our 4.5 hour flight from Detroit and had to fly pants-less (pictured here) for the remainder of the flight. I dried him off with a clean pair of undies I brought in my carry-on, and away we went. I don’t think he minded so much.
My 18-month-old sleeps great at night, but she has a hard time napping by herself during the day. My presence is usually enough to calm her anxieties so she can sleep, so I just hang out with her a bit after lunch on the weekends.
I’ve come to really enjoy this hour (sometimes two) of downtime with her while she sleeps soundly next to me. It’s a bit of a siesta and lets me focus guilt-free on reading, blogging, catching up on news, or checking Mastodon.
It’s been a while since I’ve had the time to conquer anything this big in terms of home projects. Honestly, I don’t have many full days to dedicate to projects like this, but I’ve been sneaking in an hour or two here and there. Even though it’s nothing fancy, it feels good to work with my hands.
Last week I removed a soffit, which previously held some cabinets I removed a few years back. Mostly I’ve just wanted to remove it because it was aesthetically ugly and functionally useless.
However, we’ve always heard a “knocking” noise from this area whenever anyone showers. It was just enough to be annoying. So, two birds, one stone.
The knocking was from the expansion and contraction of a plastic pipe across wood. Whenever hot water rushed through the cold pipe, it rubbed against a joist ever so slightly.
Thankfully I did open it up, though. This is right below where two showers meet on the second floor, so lots of tight plumbing. Turns out that the master bath shower drain had a small leak. We were worried something like that might be the case and didn’t want mold growing under there.
I pulled out the side wall because it wasn’t mounted well and bowed in the middle. I also wanted to check for mold there.
On Friday, I replaced the side wall with mold resistant drywall and added outside metal corners. Yesterday, I fixed the leak (and the knock). Tomorrow I drywall the ceiling and start patching.
Honestly, I might hire out the texture. I’ve never done a job this big and it’s pretty much right in the middle of our house. If I screw that up, there’s no hiding it.
no
On the drive to school this morning, the kids were being unusually quiet, so I asked my 4-year-old son if he’d thought anymore about what he wanted to be when he grows up.
He’s been really interested in Spider-Man lately, so I was expecting to hear the usual stuff like ‘super hero’ or ‘fireman’. But he flipped the script and said he wanted to cut tumors out of people. That caught me off guard and tugged at my heart strings a little.
Unfortunately, I’ve had to have some tough conversations with him from a pretty young age. One of my younger brothers (his uncle) died in 2021 of a brain tumor at age 37. It was a mixed glioma he had been dealing with for 7 or 8 years, the incurable kind. It was a terribly sad time in my life, one that no doubt impacted my family life. As a result, my son has asked us a lot of questions about my brother and the circumstances surrounding his death.
These are not topics I ever expected to discuss with him at such an early age, and I hate having to tell him about these realities of life. My natural inclination is to shelter him, and I’ve tried to avoid the topic when possible, or to reframe the discussion, but he is very perceptive and can be quite persistent.
I try to wrap these conversations up within feelings of gratitude for the lives we have, or in celebration of the life he lived, or with a focus on being in the present moment. But I also don’t want to deny his real feelings on the issue. It’s a lot for a kid to process, coming into awareness of our finite nature, but it’s clear he knows when I’m not being completely transparent with him.
This morning, he didn’t mention my brother directly when he brought up the tumor comment, but I’m certain that’s where the idea came from. I used this as an opportunity to talk to him about what a surgeon does, how they help people, and that it requires learning a lot of science and how our bodies work. I told him that he could absolutely be a surgeon one day.
I didn’t have a dad at his age, so I’m especially sensitive to how my words and actions might influence him. Whether he becomes a surgeon or a mechanic, I hope more than anything that I can be a good role model for my kids, and to do a decent job preparing them emotionally to recognize their blessings, weather the difficult times, and have the confidence to go after their dreams.
If I could talk to my teenage self, I would try to convey just how much value there is in being in a field that’s in high demand, and to maybe try to focus on getting a creative role in such a field.
For the most part, I like what I do as a planner, but there is very little creativity, and the options are extremely limited in terms of where we can go. It hamstrings your ability to move about the country or world, or work remotely for yourself, when you have a career in a field that is so competitive and tied to locations.
When looking for a job as a planner, not only does there have to be an opening where you want to live, but also the competition is incredibly high for these jobs. Hundreds of people applied for several of the jobs I’ve held. It took me 5 years of applying to land a job in the Portland region because I didn’t live here already or know the state and local land use policies. I had to take a job in an allied field for a few years in order to make my way into a planning role within the same organization.
The universities just produce too many of us land use urban planners, selling it as a much more interesting and desirable role than it actually is. What we’re sold is this idea that we’ll all be designing livable cities and helping communities become better places. But in reality, It’s mostly thankless work, often viewed as obstructionist to people’s hopes and dreams, and very bureaucratic. We are blamed for things beyond our control, when in reality we implement plans driven by elected officials and their constituents in the community. Too much of our jobs are dictated by accommodating the automobile, too.
It took so much struggle and hard work to get where I am now, in both my career and in getting to my current location. I am only now at a senior level in my 40s when many of the people with whom I went to grad school left the field altogether long ago to chase better jobs, in better locations.
Right now, my wife and I are still pining to move abroad for a couple years with our small children. But I am struggling thinking of anything I could do to make a living. There really is no way for me to do my current work and go on such an adventure. I can’t help but think that if I had gone into another role, I would have a lot more flexibility. I am having some regrets about my life choices in this respect.
I bought my house in 2016 before I was married or had kids. Coming from the Midwest, housing prices were pretty crazy out here in the Portland region. Not like the Bay Area by any means, but I only had my own income. I was pre-qualified for a mortgage based on my Midwest salary the year prior. I had very limited options, so I bought a short sale fixer upper.
When I moved in, the place was in really rough shape. It had been a rental and I'm told that the last renters had multiple animals, including a potbelly pig. I keep a copy of my inspection report, not only as a list of things that need to be done, but as a reminder of how far it’s come. I’ve done most of the work myself, something I’m pretty proud of considering most of our neighbors even hire out their yard work. Blame it on my blue collar Midwestern upbringing. I’ve invested a lot of sweat into the thing. I have an emotional attachment to the place.
Don’t get me wrong, there’s still a lot to do. It’s still got some pretty ugly laminate flooring downstairs and an old, dated kitchen from the 80s. And there are a few partially completed projects around the house. Those don't bother me too much, although I'm certain my wife might have something to say about that (she says we're not buying another house that isn't "done" -- I don't have the heart to tell her that it's not ever "done").
What bothers me is that it can feel like the walls are closing in on me now that we’re a family of four. Our house is 1300 square feet and it feels like we’re always right on top of one another. But for us to move into a larger house, we’d be looking at tripling our house payment.
The plus side of this is that our housing costs are very low. Most of the houses like ours are selling for about double what we paid. Our monthly housing costs are one-half to one-third of what many of our friends pay. For now, this is suiting us fine, especially considering that we have two children in daycare that costs us a couple thousand dollars per month
Some other financial positives are that, as a result of keeping our housing costs low, we’re able to save 20% for retirement and also put away a few hundred dollars per month for the kids’ college funds. We don’t have a lot left over at the end of the month, but we have an emergency fund that we almost never have to touch and don’t have to budget every penny we have.
We don’t have any pressure to move except for our own desires. I’m trying hard to ignore my feelings, but I think social media hasn’t helped (one more reason to perhaps get off it). Since I come from a place where housing prices are way less, I get so see a lot of people back home posting photos of living in beautiful houses. I’m trying very hard to ignore my own jealous feelings and to deny my very American drive toward “more, more, more”, but on the other hand, why should it be so tough when we are considered upper middle class? I know we have so much more than most. I am grateful for what we have. Still, our homes are more than just backdrops, they frame so much of our daily lives. I am still trying to sort my feelings out on this stuff.
Spent a good chunk of the weekend cleaning the house and making the yard look presentable because we had some friends and family over on Sunday for a barbecue.
The kids played with water balloons and a cheap slip and slide I picked up from Sierra. It was kind of cold but they didn’t seem to mind.
When they tired of that, they played on the tire swing. That has to be the one thing I’ve ever done that has ever been worth anything, installing that tire swing. It has paid for itself in free entertainment. No matter who comes over, they’re always using the tire swing.
We all sat out on the back deck, had a few drinks, and ate too much food. My mother-in-law and one of her good friends' family came, too.
After our barbecue, we ran over to the coast on Monday for a short hike. Both of the kids seemed to really enjoy it. I was a little frustrated at first because the trails weren’t clearly marked and we couldn’t find the waterfall we were looking for. But it was hard to stay in a foul mood because the weather cleared and the beach was pretty nice.
I also got most of my tomato starts planted:
After a nice long weekend, things have been pretty busy at work in preparation for me starting a new position in a few weeks. I unfortunately got behind on some monotonous tasks while we were out of the office due to Covid, so I’ve been playing catchup with filing and such. I’m also managing a project that is transitioning a very offline bureaucratic process into an online format. It’s unfortunate that I won’t be able to test out the system in real life, but I feel good about leading this project and hopefully providing a good tool for whoever takes my job after I’m gone.
I heard from my new boss today. He and the director would like to get coffee with me next week as an informal way to get to know each other better and talk more about the position. I’m looking forward to it, and excited but nervous about the new direction my career is taking.
You ever look in the mirror and wonder, “who the hell is that?” Seems every day my beard gets a little grayer, my skin a little worse, my body a little more exhausted. I’m trying to age gracefully but the thought of death has been living rent free in my mind since my younger brother passed two years ago and the signs of time passing don’t provide much comfort.
To be fair, things have been better the last few months. I’m getting good sleep, waking up earlier, showing up in all aspects of my life. In a lot of ways, I feel on top of things, and have a lot that is going well for me. I think I’m a pretty good dad most days, I try to be a good husband, I’ve made a good home for my family, I’m making advances in my career.
Still, I have lost a lot of myself since becoming a father a little over 4 years ago. My life is so focused on others that it’s hard to ignore that I often don’t recognize myself anymore, not just physically but also in spirit. I am no longer a naive young man with too much to say, I’m a middle aged guy unsure that he has anything to say at all.
I know that this is just part of parenthood and that things will never be the same. I also know that I’m in the thickest, deepest part of these woods just given my two kids’ ages. I don’t take for granted that they will never be this age again. I really do try to pour myself into this life and enjoy it at the same time. I’m happy nearly every single day. I find moments of peace and pleasure in small things. I don’t wish this time away for anything.
Sometimes, I just wish we had a little more help. I just know that I need to block out more intentional time for myself.
My wife and I are watching Fleishman Is in Trouble on Hulu and I’m really impressed by the writing. No real spoilers here, but I do talk about some basic plot info and some experiences of a supporting actor if you want to skip reading this.
The main character of the show is Toby Fleishman, a recently divorced middle aged hematologist. His successful ex-wife, a New York City talent rep for performing artists, just disappears one day and doesn’t come back, leaving him and his preteen kids in the dark about her whereabouts. He and his kids are in shock and struggle to make their way in a new life without her.
Although Fleishman’s experience is the main plot arc, we also learn about the various struggles his friends are experiencing in mid life.
One of his best friends is Libby, and I find her character especially relatable. Her character is about my age in real life, has been married to a lawyer for a long time, and is having a difficult time getting the recognition she deserves as a female writer at a men’s magazine. She watches as male writers get promoted as she’s passed over.
On the episode we watched last night (S1 E6), Libby was out at a once-a-year party with old friends whom she knew from studying abroad in Israel in college. She’s drinking and having a great time, but as the night turns late, her husband begins to get snippy with her about wanting to leave. She insists on staying while the husband storms off.
As she gets more drunk, her feelings about life start to overwhelm her on how dull life becomes in middle age.
She begins to realize how good her life was when she was young, about things she took for granted. In her search for success and carving out an adult life, she somehow missed that she had so much power in her freedom, which she things she let go of too readily in exchange for stability and security. Now the spice of life has left and all she longs for are the unknowns, the freedom of figuring it all out.
Personally I’ve been feeling some similar things, although not as deeply. I love the life I’ve created, but there certainly is some personal growth involved in settling into life while also trying to meet some of those core needs and desires we all tend to put aside when starting a family and getting on with a career.
It’s a struggle to figure out which needs and desires are reasonable when you have to make sacrifices. That can be a tricky negotiation, one that I’m still figuring out and will likely continue to figure out forever. In my heart I know it’s necessary to carve out some life for myself on this never ending path toward self-actualization. It’s the guilt that can come with that negotiation that can be so difficult to get over.
I don’t know what’s in store for Libby’s character, but it’s comforting just seeing characters in my life stage, at this moment in history, working through similar feelings. In a way, it affirms my feelings that I should be giving myself permission to feel what I feel and explore who I am instead of letting guilt force my hand.
It was what feels like a lifetime ago, but I still have some lingering trauma left over from my teenage years when my mom married my stepdad. I know she didn’t mean to do any harm and was in fact trying to do something positive for herself and her kids.
She moved me and my brothers out of the city and into the country. It wasn’t cross-country or anything, but it was still far enough away to lose all of my existing friends and to feel very isolated. We were also unable to walk anywhere given the location. Basically the middle of nowhere. Tough on a city kid who was used to running around the neighborhood everyday until the street lights came on.
I was also bullied for being quiet and different back then. And looking back, it’s pretty obvious that a lot of that had to do with politics that I was too young to fully understand. Even looking at my report cards, I definitely think I was treated differently coming from a more liberal family. I even remember our physical sciences teacher telling us that radio carbon dating was a hoax and that God put dinosaur bones in the ground to trick us, but the world was much younger. Imagine having such a twisted worldview and proselytizing about it to children.
My wife didn’t fully get it until she visited my parents with me this past year. She used to roll her eyes at me. Thought I was being dramatic. But she could barely handle being there a week before she went crazy. I woke up one morning to her walking up and down my parents’ 200 meter driveway with the baby because the road is a county collector, too busy with with fast cars coming and going between cities. Lots of blind curves and no sidewalks. Besides, nowhere in which to walk.
Don’t get me wrong. I like being outdoors and visiting rural areas. I even daydream sometimes about having more space, especially since the houses are larger and more affordable the farther you go out. But I don’t think I could ever do it permanently, especially to my kids.
Now that I live in a larger metro area, the conveniences are many, but more than anything I think it’s about being surrounded by people with similar values. There’s a lot of diversity in our area, education is important, and there are good jobs and opportunity. Say what you will about how the right and left should talk more, try to understand one another, but I had a really hard time with oppressive rural attitudes and I would die inside if my kids ever had to live through anything similar.
When I was looking for a new job, the main criteria was to live in a city that aligned better with my lifestyle choices and personality. I had a good job in Michigan, but I wasn’t thrilled about where I lived. I really just wanted to try something new because I was in a rut, but decided if I were going to make a big move, I’d have to be very deliberate about it because I tend to make decisions with my heart and that usually ends up biting me in the ass.
I was as analytical as possible when I finally decided where I was going to focus my energies in terms of locations where I wanted to apply for jobs. Location was the single most important decision for me when deciding on a job.
First, I put together a spreadsheet of all the things I wanted out of a place. Job prospects, transit, live music, plenty of outdoor activities, weather, you name it. Whatever I valued, I included. I went to all kinds of lengths to find websites that ranked cities and regions by their various characteristics, and then I assigned my own point values. After that, I added up all the points for each place and ranked the cities. Then I applied to jobs in my top 5 places.
I landed in Portland just about 2 years ago and I feel like my analytical decision-making paid off. I have a decent job, I met my amazing fiancé Shar, and I bought a house. I’m lucky to have the ability to spend most of my free time doing things I love, such as going on hikes and spending time outdoors, exploring Portland and the pacific northwest, working on my fixer upper of a home, and seeing live music. But now my life season is changing again, and it’s time to recalibrate because I'm not just making decisions for myself anymore.
I bought a house while I was dating Shar and I made the decision based solely on my own lifestyle and what I valued. I wanted to be less reliant on my automobile, so I bought a house on the MAX light rail line dead center between my job and Portland. I didn’t want to have a long commute to work because that can be miserable, time-consuming, and expensive.
But now that I’m planning on spending my life with someone else and starting a family, my decisions don’t just impact me. My commute is a breeze, but I’m not married to my current work. However, it provides the majority of our income. Shar loves her job but she is about an hour away from her work, both ways in bad traffic. She also drives as part of her job, which doesn’t help things. She comes home satisfied with her work but exhausted because of the drive.
Therein lies the predicament. I’m big on living close to my work, but she wants to be closer to hers. Our current jobs don’t allow either of us to be close to work at the same time, so that means we have three choices. Maintain the current living arrangement, one of us get a new job, or move again.
We haven’t decided what we will do or what values are most important to us in the long run. Right now, there isn’t a win-win situation, and we both are making sacrifices.
Is having a more fulfilling but lower paying job more important than location? For Shar, the answer is yes, and for me the answer is no. At least for now, but maybe not forever.
As time goes on, we’ll have to make some tough choices and continue to work on aligning our lifestyle with our life goals. How do you and your partner make decisions on where you work and where you live? What has been most valuable to you?
For someone who studied urban planning, I am not naturally very good at planning ahead for activities in my everyday life, particularly when it comes to how I spend my precious free time. I got into planning because I like cities and I want them to be better places for people to live. But planning for my own happier existence just isn't one of my natural strengths. I've had plenty of happy moments, to be sure, and not all happy moments are planned. But I have to be very intentional and focused to change my natural inclination to not plan ahead because I think it's an important ingredient to living a meaningful life.
For as far back as I can remember, I've been more of a go-with-the-flow type of person. I like spontaneity, and still value it. And more than likely if someone suggests that we do something fun and I don't already have plans, I'm probably going along for the ride. But there was a time when I relied too heavily on other people to bring value into my life by hitching onto their plans.
There is nothing inherently wrong with allowing others to bring value into your life. But if you rely on other people for your happiness, you're also giving other people a lot of control over your time, focus, energy, and resources. You may also be putting your friendships at risk if there is a lack of reciprocity by not bringing value into your friends' lives if you're leaning too heavily on them to support your own happiness.
Now that spring is upon us, it's the perfect time to plan some summer get-togethers or getaways. You may already have been bombarded with invitations to open houses, weddings, barbecues, and camping trips. If not, I assure you they will come. Sooner than you think. You may even feel an obligation to fill up your calendar with everything that comes your way. But know that planning ahead allows you to be more selective. Planning is being intentionally selfish with your time, but not in the negative sense of the word 'selfish'. The positive form of selfishness ultimately empowers you to spend your time doing what makes you happy with those people who make you feel the happiest. Choice is happiness.
Before your calendar fills up and spring comes to an end, take a look ahead and think about how you actually want to spend your time this summer. Block out an hour or two on your calendar this weekend (with your partner if you have one) and start brainstorming some of your bucket list items and how you can make them reality in the coming months. If you're tight on cash, think of creative ways to save a little money right now. I'm currently trying out an app called Qapital which helps me save automatically whenever I swipe my card. Without getting too wonky, there are even some cool integrations with the app IFTTT which can reward your savings account when you do things like reach your Health app step count for the day. Maybe it will work for you. Alternatively, maybe you can sell some things from around the house when you get your spring cleaning done. Get creative.
Even though I'm not a natural planner, I love that slow build of anticipation and excitement that comes with waiting for a trip that I've planned, even if I'm only going away for a long weekend. For a couple of months now, my partner and I have been anticipating a trip to the redwoods, a bucket list item I've wanted to check off for a few years. There is absolutely nothing extravagant or spectacular about what we've planned (aside from the trees, the trees! And if you didn't know, its National Parks Week! Admission is free to parks for Earth Day weekend!). But the anticipation makes it so much sweeter, especially after the hibernation-inducing winter we had. And most of all, it allows us to spend some time on our values instead of letting others dictate them for us.
On their very popular podcast, the Minimalists recently posted an episode on debt. Generally I think the ideas they espouse are really good, and I've learned a lot of helpful tips from them. In a country where far too many people live in excess, the Minimalists provide a road map for people interested in living happier lives with less.
However, for those who enjoy their podcast as much as I do, you may have been as disappointed as I am with some of their views on debt. Ryan Nicodemus sort of takes a back seat on this topic, and actually seems more reasonable than Joshua Fields Millburn, suggesting that debt can be used responsibly if necessary. In this episode, Ryan's view is to take on as little debt as you can and pay it off as quickly as possible. Josh, on the other hand, takes an extreme stance that any and all debt is bad — and that the only option is to pay it off immediately — even at the expense of your sanity, precious time, or opportunity costs.
My suggestion is to not be too hard on yourself if you have certain kinds of debt. Obviously, take an honest assessment of your individual situation and use your gut. If you want to get on a path to freedom from debt, talk to a financial advisor or a friend who is good with their finances if you don’t have the skills yourself. In most cases, the quick payoff is the smartest way to go.
I won’t go into depth on the Minimalists' ideas about financing your education. Sure, in a perfect world, no one would graduate with any debt for trying to better themselves with higher education. The system is naturally flawed. But just because you did not plan on becoming a doctor or lawyer doesn't mean that it was a bad decision to take on student debt to get ahead and give you leverage to follow your passion. Sure, there are arguments for not getting a degree in certain situations. Sometimes you can work your ass of for a decade, proving yourself over and over again before finally (maybe) winning the lottery for that job of your dreams. But for the vast majority of us, that just isn't an option. Getting a degree is the quickest path to success.
The long-term earning potential for a college graduate far outweighs the costs over a lifetime. Someone who holds a bachelor’s degree earns almost double that of someone with a high school diploma, on average. Should you minimize the debt you take on? Absolutely. Schools should also do a better job to help students understand the long-term implications of taking on student debt so that a financed summer in Italy or spring break in Cabo just don't look so compelling to an 18 year old.
In the Minimalists' episode on debt, one caller posed a question via voicemail. She took on $70,000 in debt to go to graduate school and now works for a nonprofit. She is part of the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program, and her question for Josh and Ryan was whether or not she should just pay it all off as quickly as possible or put in the 10 years in public service required of the program and have the remaining debt be forgiven? At first, Ryan started by saying that those programs are there for a reason, but Josh quickly responded that she should just “pay it off as soon as possible."
This is where I wholeheartedly disagree. Because of math. Let's begin with the fact that there is no way for her to erase her decision to take on this debt. Even in bankruptcy, student loans do not go away. However, by working in a public service field, she has the opportunity to have some of her debt forgiven through the Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF) program through the U.S. Department of Education. Under this program, if you do not make a lot of money (a meaningful career in public service — go figure), you can get on an Income-Driven Repayment Plan. These programs can limit your student loan payments to 10% of your discretionary income, as defined by the amount you make over a certain percentage of the national poverty line. If your loans are big enough, you may not pay even the interest on that loan. I know that sounds scary, but hear me out. After 10 years of payments in a public service job, the remainder of your loan is forgiven. And guess what else? All of that interest that you pay? It’s a tax write-off (up to $2500/yr). Depending on your income, you could get a pretty substantial percentage of your payments back at the end of each tax year.
Below I run a few basic repayment scenarios outlining why JFM's advice is not only financially bad, but why, in my opinion, it is counter intuitive to a minimalist lifestyle.
Bear with me while we look at some repayment examples.
Scenario 1 — Normal Payment Plan:
$70,000, 7.5%, minimum payment ($517.29) @ 25 years (normal gov’t pmt plan) = $155,188.15 paid in both principal and interest.
Scenario 2 —Pay Off ASAP (assumes double payments):
$70,000, 7.5%, double payments ($1034.58) @ 7 years 5 months = $91,277 paid in both principal and interest.
Scenario 3 — The PSLF Program:
$70,000, 7.5%, income based repayment plan ($400 @ 2% increases annually due to income growth) = $52,558 repaid (the rest forgiven).
Potential savings on the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program as compared to the double payment scenario is $38,719. And that doesn't even include the tax benefits of up to $2500/yr.
This is no small sum. Think of all of the things you could do with that money, not least of which would be saving for retirement.
With a conservative hourly wage at a nonprofit earning $20/hr is $31,200/year after taxes, or $2,600 per month. Double student loan payments would be almost 50% of their income for 7.5 years. We in the affordable housing realm have a name for paying 50% of your income on anything: poverty.
If she paid the recommended 30% of her income on housing, which is nearly impossible these days with the way that rent is going up, she would be left with about $600-700 per month for ALL of the rest of her needs for seven and a half years. That's less than what the average person living on social security and living in public housing makes.
I can all but guarantee that if she takes their advice that she is going to have the most miserable seven and half years of her life scrimping and budgeting, all while she was trying to have a better life by going to college, not a worse one.
The opportunity costs, wasted time, wasted money, and lower quality of life all to repay something that would be forgiven anyway just does not compute for me. We can debate whether or not it was a good idea to get into this much debt in the first place, but the ideas presented on the program represent unsound financial advice.
Since I have Fridays off, I had a four day weekend due to the holiday today. I could use more of these. I didn't get any reading done like I had planned, but I had a fun and relaxing weekend regardless.
On Friday, Kate and I went down to Cedar Point to indulge our need for some cheap excitement. I wasn't feeling the best that day, but we still got in seven or so big coaster rides that shook my general malaise and made me feel truly alive for the first time since I can't remember when. I almost got sick on the Millennium Force, but the initial drop of over 300 feet got me ramped up with a big shot of adrenaline!
I made it a point to not shy away from any coaster, despite my fear of heights. I wanted to feel afraid. I probably feared Power Tower the most. Usually there are long lines, but since it's an older ride, we got right on it, without the usually mental prep that goes along with waiting and watching others experience it. Power Tower is an ominously tall tower that either shoots you up…or drops you down. We did the version that drops you down. You get cranked up to the top and you sit there for maybe 10 or 15 seconds and the view of lake Erie is tremendous. It was the only thing that kept me from freaking out up at the top. And when it shoots you down the long steel beams faster than gravity, you really almost have an out-of-body experience. At least that's what it felt like to me.
Top Thrill Dragster was by far the most intense, but still incredibly fun. It shoots you to 120 mph in a matter of a couple seconds down a steel course like a dragstrip, only then to be projected straight up in the air over 400 feet, rolled over a curve that points you straight down, and then careened 270 degrees while still vertical, and back to the origin of the ride. It's short, but that's the fun bit. You're not jolted, save for the initial launch of 120 mph, and you have just enough time to get scared out of your mind before you're back down to the safe ground at sea level. By far my favorite ride at the place.
The only disappointing thing about the park is that the people there seemed so trashy. I really tried not to judge people too much, but when you're waiting in an hour-long line for a ride, you get pretty up close and personal with a lot of strangers. The girls dressed so raunchy and the guys were all Hollister-wearing surfer wannabees or dirty backwater Midwesterners. I guess that's what I should have expected at a place designed for cheap thrills. But this didn't ruin the day, it was just eye-opening, especially since I don't have a lot of contact with teenyboppers in my everyday life.
Saturday I went to the lake with my folks and it was jam packed with the same kind of people. A lot of bad tattoos and guys trying to be macho, poor people with kids trying to get a cheap, yet fun, weekend in before they went back to their blue collar lives on Tuesday. I feel like an outsider in those situations, like I don't know how to interact with these Michigan lifers. I know they exist everywhere, but I have to admit that outside of the South, the Midwest probably has the most uncultured white trash in the U.S. I know because I used to be one of them. All the while I try to be more accepting of people, but my lack of understanding of the lives they appear to live has me mind boggled. Funny part is, many of them are no doubt more happy than I am, so who am I to judge?
I'm not wanting to start the week tomorrow, but it's inevitable. I'm going to get some cleaning and laundry done so I don't have to think about it during the week. Hopefully this weekend recharged my batteries enough to get me through for a couple of weeks. Our next trip will be a small one to Saugatuck on Lake Michigan, where hopefully the quaint beach town feel and lack of campgrounds will keep the crazies away long enough for a nice, calm weekend.
I find myself coming back to this place when I'm in transition. Now that I have some extra time, I'll write a little bit.
I've just finished all of my coursework for graduate school and I turned in my professional project proposal on Friday for approval. If it comes back approved, then I have the go-ahead to start filming a documentary on public participation in the planning process. I won't name the community, but the project involves demolition of homes in the floodplain and gardening on the empty lots. It's exciting that I might get to be critical, but I just want school out of my life.
Minus 1 year, I have been going to school non-stop since I was 22 and I'm now 29. For six of the last seven years I have worked to support myself while pulling a full course load, right in the heart of my 20s. I feel like this is such a critical developmental stage in a person's life. Despite truly feeling as though I've learned and accomplished much, there is a lot I missed out on. I see my friends who have traveled the world, backpacked, rode motorcycles across the U.S., lived in interesting places, etc., and I've just watched from the sidelines. Year after year, sacrifices. I got in a couple of good experiences here and there. If it wasn't for living in London that Summer after undergrad, I might have exploded. But I've come out the other end of school feeling a bit like I've been in a coma, not knowing who I really am anymore or where I should be or what I'm supposed to do now. It's probably common, but that doesn't make it feel any less real.
After living at such a fast pace, I'm thinking about getting back to basics and in touch with myself, and in touch with my community. I want to sell my car and remove that payment, buy a bike and really make the effort to use it whenever I can. It leaves me with a feeling of calm the way I'm able to just drink in the neighborhoods at my own pace. I feel a part of it.
I want to know what it's like to read for pleasure again. I found a book I bought a few years ago, recommended by a friend, that I started and never finished. I want to relax enough to read it and feel like I'm not doing anything wrong by taking time for myself. I want to lay in the yard until the sun creeps behind the trees and I'm forced to go inside for light.
I will concentrate on being comfortable where I am, while making strides to save money so that my next adventure, a move, is a real possibility. Goals are good.
It feels so good to write this, like a weight being lifted off of me.
I've found my way back here because of an old friend who always has the right things to say. The funny thing is, I don't even know where to start because I've been bottling things up for so long that I feel like I could explode into a mess of flesh and Type O Positive all over the tacky wayne's coating of my parents' basement. I guess I'll start small, with humility, and without lying to myself anymore. The truth is, I haven't been happy in a really long time. I was just tired of being unhappy and looking unhappy and sounding unhappy, so I adopted a "keep on the sunny side of life" facade, always trying to find the optimist inside of me. In doing so, I neglected a lot of negative energy that should have naturally come out of me in small bits. They are instead now causing nervous breakdown. I thought that writing in this shit once again would help organize some of my thoughts, and vent out some of my frustration. Sounds so generic to say that. But I'm not going to worry about how things sound. I need to do this. Besides, anything over 2 lines in a journal entry always gets skimmed over anyways. Don't worry, I do it too. I'm a hypocrite.
I have trouble talking. It's not that I don't have anything to say, I really do. My mind races fast with thoughts, but I can't organize them to come out how they should. I linger on statements in my mind before they get filtered down to my mouth, and they never come out as I plan. I pay too close attention to what comes from my mouth, with many pauses. I envy those people who can flow at the mouth as if there were no second thought to what is being said, even if what they are saying is complete and utter garbage in my mind. I call up my friend Derek out west and he's got this brilliant head on him. I don't think he would be offended if I said that he's not what you would call "book smart", but fuck if this kid doesn't have the wit and quickness. He will drive the conversation about his life and somehow make even the most average of everday occurances completely original and awe-inspiring. I don't think I've ever told him that, but Derek, if you're reading this, I really look up to you and admire your fresh look on things. I wish I had that. I just can't think like you do.
Second is my apathy, which controls life situations as well as speech. I don't really watch TV, so I can't speak about that. I barely even watch or listen to the news anymore. It all sounds like hell and I can't even form my own opinions on what I should feel about certain situations and topics. Perhaps I'm just a coward and afraid to be wrong. I don't have a mind for names, so even if I do watch or hear something, I can never remember who was in it. I can't tell a story for shit. Music is another thing. I've stopped playing music and that really bothers me. I barely even keep up on music anymore and that really bothers me. But at the same time I just don't care to try. I only read one book all summer. Usually I read at least 6 or 7. The scary part is, if I have any down time at all, all I want to do is sit or lie on the couch. I don't like that about myself. I don't like that I can zone out of my life and be complete apathetic about the direction in which it is going, or the person I am becoming.
There are things in my life that I should feel proud of, but I don't. I'm a senior at at top university in the country and all i can do is kick myself in the ass for not getting it done sooner. I came back to finish a mistake, to finish something I started, and I'm doing well, doing really well, and all I can think about is if I'm doing the right thing. If I shouldn't have cared so much about this stupid degree. I don't feel any smarter than I was when I started back up, and by the time I'm done I'll be 25k in debt (even after the thousands of dollars in grant money). I feel sometimes that I should have followed my passions more instead of compromising myself for this thing we call "growing up". I've just been poor for so long that I wonder what it's like to have nights and weekends off and enough money to actually survive on. I see tons of people that I went to high school with that are married with children and a house and a nice car, and even though I don't want most of these things at this point in my life, I feel like I'm judged for not having them. I feel smarter and more creative than most, yet here they are "successful" by society's standards. I need some validation of my own. Sometimes I just need someone else to tell me that I'm doing the right thing. But where is the moral support these days? We're all just supposed to suck it up and expect nothing from nobody because we're adults now and we can only rely on ourselves.
I've learned a lot about myself the last few months, while dating Sarah. Come to find out, we're almost emotionally identical. So getting mad at each other was like getting mad at one's self, to find fault in the other was to find fault in one's self. I'm actually furious at her right this moment, but in being so I have to be mad at Bryan. Bryan doesn't like that. Bryan is a stubborn bastard. Bryan shouldn't refer to self in the third person. Maybe this is a topic best left for a later post, for this is ending up to be a nonsensical bunch of words on a page with no order. I don't really care anymore. At this point I'm just talking and letting the words flow as they come because I'm so sick of them staying, battering me from the inside, and giving me headaches. Sarah and I broke up, and I think it's for the better, but I've always been the nostalgic type and have never found it to be easy to let anyone go from my life. I'm sure many can attest to that. Done for now.
Yet another contributor of Bryan's DNA in a long line of Barnette and Robb dead-beats, has died.
Meet the other "grandfather" that I'd never met:
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I love how they always chaulk people up to be these amazing people in their obituaries. As if setting up franchises should be held in high esteem.
John Barnette, Jr., 79, of Comstock died Friday, September 9, 2005 at Golden Age Manor in Amery. He was born July 18, 1926 in Enman, SC to John and Willie Sue (Hunt) Barnette, Sr. John served on the USS Dyson during WWII. He was married in Watertown, SD on November 18, 1977 to Mardel Catlin. John worked on the railroad in South Carolina and was a supervisor at the St. Croix Casino. He was past commander of the Charles R. Knaeble VFW Post in Crystal, MN and was a member of the Cumberland American Legion. John was the past grand Hospital Chairman and past 4th Area Commander of the Minnesota Cooties and was a member of the Disabled American Veterans. He was a very active volunteer, enjoyed making homemade crafts with Mardel and was always fixing things around the house. He is survived by his wife, Mardel of Comstock; 3 sons, Keith Barnette of Saginaw, MI, John Barnette of Florida & Shawn Barnette of Comstock; 1 stepson, Tony Hall of Michigan; 4 daughters, Dianne (Fred) Lipton of Rosalyn, PA, Kelly (Isaac) Bennett of Michigan, Debbie Barnette of Michigan & Rebecca Barnette of Paris, France; 1 stepdaughter, Patricia Richards of Comstock; 25 grandchildren; 13 great grandchildren and 1 sister, Kitty (Ted) Music of Chesapeake, VA and also many nieces and nephews and his beloved Yorkshire Terrier, Peanut. He was preceded in death by his parent, his parents-in-law; 12 brothers and sisters; 1 sister-in-law and 2 brothers-in-law. Funeral services will be held at 11:00 AM Wednesday, September 14, 2005 at Skinner Funeral Home, Turtle Lake with Rev. Brian Perry officiating. Burial will be in Northern Wisconsin Veterans Memorial Cemetery, Spooner, WI. Pallbearers are Patti Richards, Vern Catlin, Emmett Catlin, Gene Doster, Larry Verby and Mike Catlin. Military Honors will be accorded by Wisconsin Military Honors Team. Visitation will be 4-8 PM Tuesday at the Skinner Funeral Home in Turtle Lake and one hour before the services on Wednesday.
<img src="http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v41/inthedeltawaves/kindergarten.jpg" alt="Image hosted by Photobucket.com"> <img src="http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v41/inthedeltawaves/imlovinit.jpg" alt="Image hosted by Photobucket.com">
Did you ever “french roll” their pants when you were a kid?
I just thought of that and I’m laughing hysterically.
A simple Google search for the terms "defense spending" (in quotes) returns 477,000 results.
On the other hand, a Google search for the terms "offense spending" returns a measly 161 results.
Man, they've really got those fucking terms switched around.
Who does that?
I must say, though, that despite how impressed I am with Google’s spam filter, those Orwellian tele-programmes target advertisements “powered by gooooogle” work a little too good. Awesome to know that I can get a hotel at a decent price when I go to cash in on this deal.
I'm finally doing it. I'm attempting to write again, and not just in a rambling, psuedo-poetic sense either. This time I actually have a plan, a general storyline, and I'm in the process of creating character sketches and doing geographical research. There is still much work to be done, but once these hurdles are out of the way, the actual writing will be a snap, and fun! It may be slow going when fall begins, but this should give me something creative to focus my energy on in the downtime. I'm thinking about calling it Ink&Watercolors, but this is only tentative, as I'll never know what's really relative until it's polished. I'm really excited.
I'm red as a lobster. I went out on the lake with my dad yesterday for about 5 hours and we ran out of sunscreen. No bueno. Thank god for aloe.
Also, I have a pretty good prospect for a place to live thanks to
Between a few thousand dollars in grants and a few thou in loans, school is set and keeping me comfortable…for now; though I don't like the loan part too much. I guess all that I can hope for is a decent job when I graduate so that they won't become too big a problem.
But I'm definitely getting one of these sometime next month:
four hundred pages into crime and punishment in two days. it's been sitting in my library for about 4 years and it has just now felt right to read it. i remember the exact day i bought it, too. from one of those creepy booksellers at the flea market 4 summers ago on my way to lansing. he was absolutely mad. i offered him $100 dollars for the whole box (they were collector's books, but none were in great shape), all classics. i did some quick calculating and presented my offer to him, though he turned me down. i took 3 of them and told him that he of all people should know that he wasn't going to get that much money for them in a hundred years, especially judging by the character of his 'clientel'.
i guess that is beside the point. now i think that maybe i wasn't supposed to read them. i don't know why, but i'm a firm believer that certain people and things come into our lives at certain times, not fatefully, but instead to set out their hands for you to grasp if it is your position to do so at that place and time. our lives are nothing but a series of these events, thousands of hands lining a gauntlet where at any time you're free to grasp the ones you want to take with you. sometimes you're not in a position to do so, or you're concentrating on other things and fail to notice. other times you're presented with too many choices and can only make but a few, leaving the others forever in the past.
the loophole for me is books. they are frozen in time, but at any point can influence your life emmensely. not necessarily the world around you, but certainly your outlook can change in a matter of days. you can give them as gifts and alter other people. you can converse over them with people that have grasped the hands of those books, too, and it's as though you were both at the same place at the same time, even if you've never met said person beforehand. intimate relationships can be sparked.
as i've said, i have books that lay around that i never read until it's in my guts time for me to do so. you cannot force these things.
been a while, old friend. clean slate? tell that to the ghosts. they've been knocking around in this old head of mine...conspiring through the walls where they've been captured..err...were captured. i should probably leave that analogy dead in its tracks. but the fact is they're here, really here, and i'm not bottling them, and hiding them in places any longer.
mystic thought would have me forgetting my ego, transcending myself so to speak; and believe me, i've tried on a daily basis for years. when i really concentrate i can get it, and other times when i'm not paying attention–mind so numb it doesn't want to function anymore–i get it then, too. those are the islands. was it Huxley that said we are our own island universe? i forget. i don't think my transcending self has been natural. if there was a line, say from chicago to new orleans that represented a natural progression toward enlightenment, or simply a calm, quiet, well being, then i would have to say that when my mind goes black i'm somewhere in the upper stratosphere falling toward some point along that line. the harder i fight self, the stronger it comes back. this has led me to believe that i've needed these few steps back in order to make it a couple steps forward, comfortably. one foot in front of the other, firmly planted on the ground. everything out in the open.
i've been considering lately the possibility that all of the drugs i've taken have come back to bite me in the ass, and maybe i'm permanently fucked up because of them. i don't know how seriously to consider this for the sheer fact that i've known plenty of people who have done more drugs than your average touring funk band, and all in all, they are quite fine individuals. i was never a junky. i never did drugs on a regular basis, ever. i've never done heroin or crack or meth, but given the mental state of certain family members, i would say the drugs could do nothing but compound the problem. i have my doubts, but i won't rule it out.
the truth is things aren't bad. things certainly aren't fantastic, but i shouldn't have anything to complain about, or be as grumpy as i am. family is alive and well. on a decent course in life that i feel confident about. i'm beyond broke and quite a bit lonely at times, but the money thing doesn't bother me so much because i'm disgusted with 'things' anyway. i could use some love. i hear there are worse things than being alone, and i believe that to be the truth.
i am a fear-filled person. i may look and sound like a hard ass on the outside sometimes, but rest assured those are just well developed defense mechanisms. i'm scared of people. i don't like public places because i hate people. yet i force myself into those places and situations constantly in hopes that maybe i'll develop as a person. im an adolescent again, entering freshman year, completely the object of scrutiny; but instead of all of the hate coming from the farm kids picking on the city kid, coming from the outside in, i'm turning my insides out with self-doubt, feelings of inadequacy, and sometimes all out self hatred. the best example i can give of what goes on in my head is in the movie Adaptation. Kaufman's monologues are very similar to what goes on in my head on a second to second basis, 85 percent of the time. i have done some reading up on the brain and from what i've gathered, thinking at the rate that i do uses a hell of a lot of energy. this would explain the constant fatigue, and also might have something to do with my not gaining weight. ever.
even with my closest friends, despite their subtle and even not-so-subtle reassurances that should tell me i'm an a-okay person, i still question my worth as a person in their company.
i don't feel better than people. not even necessarily do i always think that i'm worse than people. i just feel different than people. i don't understand them. i don't understand the constant striving for money and possessions. i don't understand the constant diluting of a culture by the next pop sensation. do people read anymore, or is that a lost art? i don't understand the closed-mindedness. i don't understand the fighting against stereotypes when they are reinforced, in my eyes, day to day. i don't understand why everyone is so standoffish, and when somebody such as myself isn't, there's always something that comes back to kick that person in the ass three-fold.
i am an old person who doesn't want to grow up? until recently i would have been ashamed to admit that i'm a very intelligent person who lacks a lot of so-called common sense knowledge, and/or life skills. before this year i couldn't have cooked anything unless it came out of a box with instructions. i set my bills to pay automatically because i'm so forgetful of things, they'd never be on time. i've relied on people too much, such as family. i don't have a savings account. small talk is a big deal. i've no wit whatsoever. just cynicism that rubbed off on me in a friendship that no longer is, that i try to pass off as wit in those situations that call for quick comebacks. i'm super bad with names. i'm a super good listener if there's a chance that i can have some sort of relationship with the person, but if i don't like them, tough luck. i can't see that side of the coin, and i don't expect them to see mine. i'm stubborn as hell. i change my mind all the time. <?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" />st1:placest1:Citynew york</st1:City>, st1:StateLA</st1:State>, st1:country-regionnew zealand</st1:country-region></st1:place>…fuck it, i'll end up here working at a gas station, or a bum/prophet. meet me behind the new chain restaurant. the food is still warm.
i don't know if i'm lucky or damned to have people who support me all the way, but i can't help but feel like someone should have thrown me into the deep end a long time ago. here i am, all dry, with the attention span of a 5 year old dyslexic, delusions of grandeur, sexual frustration and inadequacies of a pubescent boy, "knowledge" beyond my years, and the senility of a 75 year old dementia patient.
crisp grace notes like a flowing falsehood flavored to taste after brazen attempts to pare film on the firmament, light broken apart and bent aberrancy for the sake of itself, or if for some other thing, I did not see it cross sections of old films and well-functioning defense mechanisms healed better, not so pretty “I feel” kissing you made me sick-frozen from fright of bite troubled is as troubled does scapegoats fancied like play lists played as bedtime stories for empty people with excuses between the bed sheets shrills to a march, whose heart is not there to solidify a fog into all-out rain, to further menace a drear grope my rain-soaked trousers, I’m meat worry not: your name is safe with me and there will be no lies handed out because we’re fiction enough to ourselves to tire us even in sleep
b.robb
Finals week is always a blessing. I'm apparently the reigning champion of procrastinators. My work load isn't all that bad, considering I quit Japanese sometime in the middle of the semester, but I did manage to save three papers for my other classes till the last minute. I ended up writing through the night, first for American Studies and then a reflective piece in the morning on Rumi. I ended up e-mailing it and I got a little bit of much welcomed praise. Things like this make my day:
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Thanks Bryan. I enjoyed the class a great deal--I really found your willingness to think about these ideas and be honest and open in discussion to be important to the success of the class. You are a smart and thoughtful student--best wishes in your future studies and in life in general.
I still have a couple of your papers–especially your Walt Whitman-esque poem from the first project. The Whitman poem is excellent, and the connections you made in your Gilded Age paper showed a comprehensive grasp of the themes we have been talking about.
Good luck in the future, and keep thinking.
Jeff
Earlier in the semester we had the choice between a)writing a paper on the Transcendentalist movement in the midst of the westward expansion, or b) create my own original artwork in the style of my choosing that reflects the ideas of Transcendentalists. So I wrote a quick poem before class where I tried to emulate best I could a Walt Whitman prose piece, reflecting the time frame:
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt 27pt; TEXT-INDENT: -27pt"><SPAN style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US">O, this mighty fortress built upon eloquent words and powerful ideals spewed from soft lips,<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" /><o:p></o:p><P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt 27pt; TEXT-INDENT: -27pt"><SPAN style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US">This nation, carved from a continent and gilded with ambition and deceit-filled purpose, with your settlers never settled in their ever-changing notions of will!<o:p></o:p><P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt 0.25in; TEXT-INDENT: -0.25in"><SPAN style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US">Your people, scattered and numerous across the plains and the mountains, the cities and the countryside, who have grown up with a distance that has failed to set them apart from a nation, tiring and romantic all the same,<o:p></o:p><P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt 0.25in; TEXT-INDENT: -0.25in"><SPAN style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US">This young mindset, charismatic and naive, brilliant and baffled alike, and though through many faltered steps you have not ceased to believe strongly in yourselves, <o:p></o:p><P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><SPAN style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US">And hardships, they have not been few,<o:p></o:p><P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt 0.25in; TEXT-INDENT: -0.25in"><SPAN style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US">Struggles far and large, stretching the extent of this country’s vastness, but it is through this toil that your cheeks grow rosy and body restless, feeding the spirit of this land,<o:p></o:p><P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt 0.25in; TEXT-INDENT: -0.25in"><SPAN style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US">From the defeated scalawag groaning under the pressures of the other-worldly north, knowing not another way to make his livelihood, who interred his progeny for the ideals that he knows true,<o:p></o:p><P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt 0.25in; TEXT-INDENT: -0.25in"><SPAN style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US">Blessed be the Yank that has not permitted this vessel to break in two, and has gone lengths to see that freedom and liberty are extended to all of God’s creatures; a challenge that extends beyond the battlefield,<o:p></o:p><P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt 0.25in; TEXT-INDENT: -0.25in"><SPAN style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US">May you rise against the difficulties that await!<o:p></o:p><P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><SPAN style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US">To the freed men, weeping with joy at the sight of a generation born into freedom!<o:p></o:p><P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt 0.25in; TEXT-INDENT: -0.25in"><SPAN style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US"><SPAN style="mso-tab-count: 1"> and to those children, beaming with veneration for their fathers, and hope for their futures!<o:p></o:p><P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt 0.25in; TEXT-INDENT: -0.25in"><SPAN style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US">Yes, <?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" />st1:country-regionst1:place<SPAN style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US">America</st1:place></st1:country-region><SPAN style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US">, frothing at the mouth with hysteria and genius, the garden of a great people; loathsome and proud, amiable and generous; you are all of these things,<o:p></o:p><P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt 0.25in; TEXT-INDENT: -0.25in"><SPAN style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US">With startling ambiguity you exist, for you are the wicked and the heavy at heart; the chain that binds and the torch that lights the way,<o:p></o:p><P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt 0.25in; TEXT-INDENT: -0.25in"><SPAN style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US">And as I sit here in my reverie, change do you still, moving forward and backward concurrently in your narcissistic godliness, with all your juvenile follies that are sure to make you grow wise and mature in your years, <o:p></o:p><P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt 0.25in; TEXT-INDENT: -0.25in"><SPAN style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US">This is my hope for you, st1:country-regionst1:place<SPAN style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US">America</st1:place></st1:country-region><SPAN style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US">.<o:p></o:p>—- – -
As far as I know, I'm done with Lansing Comm. College. Funny, every single one of my professors were MSU profs too. I saved like $20,000. Thanks LCC!
Everybody, do me a favor and:
a)go to google b)copy this—-> Camp Striker Iraq "Bradley Robb" <—–directly into the search bar c)watch the chaos ensue
cleaning out/throwing away all of the boxes i left here from before i moved to florida. funny, i saved so much. the best part about it are the photos and all of my writing assignments that i saved over the years, from grade school on up. the evolution of bryan was/is hideous. i should scan some memorabilia. everyone would have a good laugh, including myself.
i also found a record player with needle intact! listening to the kinks with neverending zealous!
today i woke to the sound of my focus-challenged, seventeen-year-old brother, and my 43 year-old mother fighting because she didn't wake him up in time for school. my brother, who has been through four high schools, for various reasons, many of which i believe to be fiction, has once again accumulated more than nine (9) absences in the better half of his classes this semester. meanwhile, in a not-so-distant corner of the house, where i was coming out of a dream where i was supposedly some kind of motorcycle pro who has just come out of a coma and is getting back into his training regiment, hear the sound of an adolescent boy's whine reverberating off the freshly de-carpeted wooden floor of the house, down the hall, and into my dreaming head. five years ago i would have screamed back. today i just opened my eyes to the sun coming through my bare windows and listened. i felt for my smokes, which are never farther than an arm's length from me at all times. i pulled one out, lit it, and took a drag that would have knocked me down if i hadn't already been in my bed, and when i exhaled it did that thing where all the spinning smoke is automatically highlighted when it reaches the rays of the sun, contrasted to the shadow where the sun doesn't reach. i listened to a little bit more of the conversation as i finished the cigarette, yells and stomping feet…"it's all your fault, and now i'm gonna hafta take those classes overr!"…"NO, whose the one who had all of those absences to begin with?!"…"well i was gonna go the rest of the year…why didn't you wake me up??"…"you're seventeen years old, can't you set your alarm?"…yada yada. it's funny, but not so funny. i mean, i've known for a while that my brother has been fucking his life up. and as i lie there smoking, i thought to myself, "oh, eric. if you only knew how hard you're making this on yourself". and it's too late. we've done everything for him, from helping him, offering to help him, offered counseling, fought with teachers to keep him, changed schools to get a fresh start, tried medication. he spends a lot of time on his car. more than a healthy amount of time sanding, inhaling fumes, painting, ripping this out, welding that. he's pretty good at it. the trouble i had lying in bed there, listening to the fighting, was my belief systems. i'm not quite a fan of our economy, our political system, capitalism, the american dream. sure, we all dream about stuff. we all have dreamt about being a great (fill in the blank). and it has us chasing these things without heart, recklessly. not just things, but status and power, too. and on countless occasions, i don't know how many (but probably far too many), i have sat my brother down and tried to get his goals out of him, push him towards something, to use his brain. to focus. to set the bar high. but as i look back, i wonder why i should put any more effort into it. why should i have him chasing these things? if he finds happiness in simple things, like working on cars, so be it. if he achieves that, then that's more than i can say i've accomplished. why should i give advice to someone who doesn't want it? in addition, why should i, the giver of that advice, say anything at all when i could use some counseling myself? so i continued about my day in the normal fashion. smoked a lot of cigarettes, did as minimal as possible. i sat in my car an hour for the warmth and the silence, clearing my head of all the trials my head fabricates, trying to dissolve fears, narcissism, clutter. i dressed up to go no where. i looked at myself in the mirror, "i'm ugly, i'm pretty, i'm ugly, i'm pretty…","…my mother was a real woman and my father a real man, what am i?" i cannot go back to working mindless jobs. i can't stand to work with one more person who's about as bright as a fork in a microwave. then i think, "goddamn, that's such a mean thing to say. what's wrong with manual labor and finding enjoyment, maybe even enlightenment in it?" thus i teeter, back and forth in my thoughts, only becoming clear when i force meditation upon myself. can it balance? i think that i'm great, then i think i'm worthless. i wonder how much is indoctrination. how many of my dreams are prescribed by this place in which i live, how many aren't complete fabrications. what won't i accomplish by my lack of commitment to anything or anyone? what will i accomplish by wanting to do everything, be everywhere at once, and be everything to everyone? absolutely nothing. but will i die happy? i'm still working on that.
It's times like these that I'm glad that I don't keep a lot of personal possessions. I'm moved out of my apartment and it really didn't take more than two days to get everything organized, packed up, and moved. There is one thing that I'm neglecting, though, and it's painting over the walls. I shouldn't have ever done it, being that it's an apartment but I was tired of living in mind-numbing white. Hopefully I'll finish that up tonight.
I've been thinking about heading over to the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship as a spectator on one Sunday to see what they're all about. I'm not really into organized religion, and I'm sure those who know me the best would say that I've said more than my fair share against them. But I think that these people are kind of the anti-religious-establishment establishment. I was researching their stuff and at very least they sound uncommonly interesting to me. They're so open minded that I've been wanting to check them out for the sheer sense of community…and possibly so I can do some volunteer work. I don't know what I'd do, but I feel that I've got a lot to be thankful for, and there are plenty out there that have nothing, so why not do what I can instead of griping about things all the time.
Also, I'm probably a little late on this train by a couple of months, but I've been listening to Bloc Party and it may just be true that they saved music for me. I was starting to think that there were no truly sincere bands out there…that also whaled like nobody's business. These folks most certainly do, and I'm rockin' it like it's hot. Don't listen to the hype, just grab the album Silent Alarm before you're the last person on earth who hasn't heard this heroic band. Also, I'm pretty damned excited about the 6 re-releases of all the Super Furry Animals discs. Too bad I'm pretty much flat. British Sea Power also. I do have the ole iPod. Someday I'm going to need and repent for not paying these wonderful people. My logic - they're a lot richer than I am, and they're not eating kraft dinner…so when I'm old and loaded from retirement and booze, I'll go through the old collection, and any band that I feel changed me positively in some way…I'll buy two of every copy. No I won't.
Lately I've been so incredibly lazy. I think that the last year has caught up with me, working and school and partying and trying to balance it all out. I don't have much motivation to do anything this week. It's like a mini vacation. My body is catching up, and maybe I'll be recouped by this weekend. Until then, I'm just concentrating on myself. I've neglected that person.
i spent the afternoon and much of the evening right here
much of the morning too
the sun hid for the better part of a season this midwestern gray with its skies drained like my lungs suffocating with a Camel’s all deliberate speed
but today no, yesterday the sun decided he was tired of suicide notes and came out with guns blazing forcing me to class
to those trite teachers flagrantly approaching godliness to themselves and to the mindless dummies who grasp convictions based on cynicism– like fashion coughing up whatever hasn’t been stated except in the vague references of music and the undercurrents of a popular-by-unpopularity- existential- bullying weak who at first surprise with vocabulary but who still haven’t any idea what the fuck they’re talking about
they’ve found a taste for coffee by day and despondence by night bellowing obscure words like swooning disaster at the end of the bar to the girl with the pink pink skin pink pink skin
legs long as knives in loins dress hiked to the barstool peeking white cotton panties when she laughs, she laughs
what was her name
Last night the fill station attendant wore a thigh-length, faux fur coat, a garment whose strands were at least three inches in length, and black like that of his own locks. A subtle, pink neck bore the only separation of the two, leaving his head dangling in space above the jacket like a dot atop an upside down exclamation point. My excitement was not for the coat, but instead for the passion in which he wore it as he collected bags of trash from outside!
it's not everyday that i'm drawn to someone's personality and demeanor just as strongly as i'm desirous of their physical person. today is gorgeous.
I'm dreading my return to Lansing. I'm absolutely 100% tired of my roommates. 2/3rds of them are okay people, but the novelty of living with them has worn off and the whole thing has started to become kind of awkward. I think it would suit me to get one of those studios, 5X5 with a kitchenette and bathroom and that's it. Have everything I own in one room to save my concentration. The truth of the matter is that I'm only living there because it's dirt cheap and I don't know exactly where I'm going to be in the fall, so a lease is out of the question. I've actually thought about going back north for the seclusion; I kind of miss the country and the peace & quiet (and my sanity). But that probably won't happen. I'm getting kind of too old for that? Whatever. But this song has me in a good mood and thinking happy thoughts so enough about this garbage!
What's the big deal with individuality? If you ask me, it's more just a means to an end, a reason to draw lines around and/or between EVERYTHING. I'm speaking of individuality, not to be mistaken for creativity. Why are we always making up these boundaries about who we are and who we are not when most of the time this individualiaty is just dogma or stigma or hypocricy. What is the desire, the positive outcome? I'm not talking about that "friends come in all sizes" bullshit; I know, people are yellow and brown and fat and skinny, I'm not talking about making clones of everyone. It's just that we try so hard to define ourselves, to constrict what our values and ideas and lifestyles and everything are. It's just such a bunch of bologna. Shit, I bet half of you probably spent 4 hours on your keywords for livejournal trying to create what you believe to be a good image of yourself to save face. Lose a little face. We're human.
I'm slowly coming to terms with the fact that I'm completely, utterly afraid of commitment, almost in all aspects of my life. From who I am to who I want to be, to what I wear, to who sleeps in my bed with me, and the only things that stay constant in my life are fears and addictions. Good Goddamn it feels awesome to be truthful with myself. And now it's time to move towards the positive, to keep with the general flow as of late. Thank you Rumi, once again, for your insight.
I've also come to realize that I have virtually no life at all. This is good because I've had so much time to think that I'm actually figuring things out (kinda)! I'm also learning a lot about history and early American Civilization, which is really opening my eyes to a lot of things. I have a humanities class (AMERICAN CIVILIZATION), which the professor has taken as, "HEY, let's have two hour discussions and write a paper every week about whatever we feel." I've been coinciding our dates and history discussions with my reading of A People's History of the United States by Howard Zinn. So far this has proved dynamic, and compliments one another quite perfectly.
P.S. I think that becoming a Senator or Representative should literally be a prison sentence, where their sole job is a community service of holding that position. That way we only get people that care so much about what needs to be done that they'll actually put up with being in prison to do what needs to be done.
Today is also my second day of not smoking. Yesterday was so much worse than today. I'm still jittery, but it's probably from the coffee which I needed to keep my hands busy. I was a 1 pack a day smoker so that's at least 5 dollars a day in the Great Lakes State, or in other words $150 dollars a month. Believe it or not, that extra $150 a month is going to help me so much. I may actually be able to go away for spring break like I had been hoping to do And my lungs, jeez, they have been so pissed at me! Yesterday when I didn't smoke my mind said to my body, "HEY YOU LITTLE FUCKER. I KNOW WHERE YOU LIVE. I CONTROL YOUR FUNCTioNS. TODAY YOU WILL NOT FUNCTiON IF I DOn'T GET MY FIX!" But my lungs were screaming, " HEY! AIR?!?! FRESH AIR?!? THANKS, DUDE* ".
*But fuck you for making me put up with this shit for so long.
…trial separation from the life i once knew
man, i never update anymore. i should start again.
i've been fighting off so many urges lately. i'm stuck here, right in the middle. "here i am…stuck in the middle with you."
there's a girl, two floors up, waiting for me to arrive, but she's pretending she's not waiting. that's the way it's been. we dance and drink and screw. then we don't call eachother. sin, repent, repeat. is this the way the mid-twenties are? don't get me wrong, i love swervin' to the berv, but damn, what happened to intimacy. shit my ninja. shit.
by the way, jen, jessica…i had a blast the other night, too. thanks for the cheers.
He flicks his cigarette over the ledge. “It’s one of those things you think couldn’t happen here, not in New York.” A pigeon lands. He shakes his head. “But I guess I’m living proof.” The pigeon flies away.
The next day, Gabriel García-Cohen moved to Bruges.
As he might say, if he were still here and not in the fourth-largest city in Belgium: “For real.” Because it’s not just T-shirt designer/aspiring documentary filmmaker/vintage-ashtray entrepreneurs on the Lower East Side, and it’s not just Bruges. It’s D.J./blogger/illusionists in Williamsburg, sneaker model/jewelry designer/fashion PR assistants in Nolita, and independent homosexual artist/vegan-sake-bar owners in the meatpacking district. Like García-Cohen, they’re moving, or already gone, or talking about moving, even if only for the winter. They’re headed to places like Belgium and New Hampshire; Marfa, Texas, and Mobile, Alabama; to Canada, to Australasia, to Los Angeles.
[bullet holes]
[the orchard out my bedroom window]
[backyard west]
[backyard east]
[an all too typical sight]
[slightly less typical]
[it rained while it was sunny, this day]
so i'm looking through history pages to see what has happened on my birthday, february 20th, throughout time. i came across this:
born on feb 20th:
20/02/1898 - Enzo Ferrari, Italy, sportscar manufacturer (Ferrari)
20/02/1901 - Louis I Kahn, Estonia, architect
20/02/1902 - Ansel Adams, photographer (1966 ASMP Award)
20/02/1967 - Kurt Cobain, rock vocalist (Nirvana)
died on feb 20th:
20/02/1431 - Martinus V, [Oddo Colonna], Italian Pope, dies
20/02/1790 - Joseph II, Emperor of Holy Roman empire, dies at 48
20/02/1985 - Clarence Nash, voice (Donald Duck), dies at 80 of leukemia, in Calif
20/02/1993 - Ferruccio Lamborghini, Italian auto-designer (Miura), dies
Ferrari was born and Lamborghini died on february 20th. i don't know why, but that is just FUCKED UP to me. also interesting to find kurt cobain and ansel adams on that list. word.
But in the morning on the sober dawn of Sunday you're not sure what you have done Who told you love was fleeting? Sometimes men can be so misleading to take what they need from you Whatever you need to make you feel like you've been the one behind the wheel the sunrise is just over that hill the worst is over Whatever I said to make you think that love's the religion of the weak this morning we love like weaklings the worst is over.
Monthly draft calls will increase from 17,000 to 35,000 - the highest level since the Korean War, when between 50,000 and 80,000 men were called up each month.
It will take the US force in Vietnam up to 125,000 but officials say at this stage demands should be met by conscription, without calling upon the reserves.
President Johnson | ||||||
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Speaking in a televised address from the White House President Johnson said: "We do not want an expanding struggle with consequences no one can foresee."
"Nor will we bluster, bully or flaunt our power. But we will not surrender, nor will we retreat," he continued.
The President gave the news conference after a week of intensive talks with senior military and security advisers in Washington.
He explained the decisions were in response to requests made by General Westmoreland, the US Commander in the South Vietnamese capital, Saigon.
Mrs Johnson and her daughter looked close to tears as Mr Johnson admitted: "I do not find it easy to send the flower of our youth, our finest young men, into battle."
The US leader also made clear his desire for peace and recalled the - unsuccessful - efforts of 40 countries to bring an end to the fighting on 15 occasions.
He called upon the United Nations to redouble its efforts to restore peace to Vietnam and detailed a personal letter to that effect being personally delivered to the UN Secretary-General, U Thant, in New York by the new US Ambassador to the UN, Arthur Goldberg.
The Secretary of State, Dean Rusk, and the Secretary of Defence, Robert S McNamara, are to persuade Congress of the need to finance the US' new military commitments, in the light of a reduced defence budget this year.
President Johnson explained: "We intend to convince the communists that we cannot be defeated by force of arms or by superior power."
(c) BBC, All Rights Reserved
Original text found @ [news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday...](http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/july/28/newsid_2754000/2754033.stm)
China convicts baby traffickers | ||
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Six of them were sentenced to death and five to life in prison in the biggest single baby trafficking case in recent Chinese history. Over a two-year period the smuggling ring is thought to have bought and sold 118 babies, many of them girls. It was unmasked last year when police boarded a bus in south-west China and found 28 babies stuffed inside travel bags. One had died from the cold. To outsiders it is a shocking trade, but in rural China it is ancient and it is growing. It is driven by China's strict family planning laws which limit many couples to one child. Desperate for a boy, farmers often sell a baby girl before its birth can be registered. Ironically, the baby will often be sold to other poor farmers as a future bride for their son. All over China there are poor villages full of boys who have little chance of ever finding a wife. -------------------------------------------------------------
My family left me home and today is the family reunion. Now I just need someone to play Joe Pesci's part and that other dude, chasing me around the house in Home Alone. Any takers? |
Shit, this record is…awesome! Still my favorite jazz pianist ever. He left the John Coltrane quintet in '65, two years before John died (they say free jazz died when he did), but this guy is still rockin' it into his sixties.
Worked another 9 hours today. Can't wait for my day off [thursday]. Gotta get a car, gotta talk with an advisor, gotta sign papers for my new place [i need money…so any of you rich people out there, i have a paypal account, just let me know if you like funding good people. ;]
PS: Michigan girls are such snobs.
sign the petition to save the statler hotel from demolition: www.petitiononline.com/statler/p…
this building is a detroit landmark that needs to be saved; we don't need any more surface parking lots! stop tearing our history down!
they almost tore down the beautiful
i want this lil house:
Do this:
stolen from
Name: Age: Reason for LJ username: AIM sn: Reason for AIM sn: Do you enjoy reading my LJ: Why: Interesting fact about you: Weird fact about you: Quote: Will you post this in your LJ:
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why i was not aborted, i do not know. bryan barry robb II, born to bryan barry robb sr. and deborah lynn barnette-robb on the 20th day of february, 1981. my mom was a strong woman. gave birth to me at 19. she gave up her full-ride to nursing school and we lived in a motel in detroit because my dad wouldn't get a job. my mom walked the streets of detroit in order to find a job to support us while she was pregnant for my brother. she gave birth to my brother bradley at 21. at which point my father split [never paid a dime] and from then on she raised us herself, worked full-time, and still managed to get her assosiates degree [without the full-ride]. and never did i feel unloved. she smothered us in love.
then in '86 she had a new boyfriend named jim. he had money but he liked to spend it on booze and gambling. the first words he ever spoke to me were 'chew with your mouth shut' while i was eating my corn pops cereal. as if he knew etiquette. i may be wrong, but i'm pretty sure good etiquette doesn't involve taking a girl and her two young children to the casino and laying her in a hotel bed while the two children hide under the covers and plug their ears in the bed beside. he would beat us. he would cheat on her and come home drunk. if we did something 'wrong', he'd make us get in the push-up position and pile phone books on our backs while we held that up-right position for long periods of time while he sat on the couch and watched HBO. and if we dropped the phone books from our backs, the clock started over again. i remember once my brother and i were playing in the drive way. jimmy [jims eldest son] jumped in the car and started backing up in his camaro and roled right over my little brother. ran him over with the tire. it's a miracle he wasn't killed, but i guess he was in a sandy area so he didn't get more than a few scratches. jimmy picks brad up and runs him into the house and a little while later jim comes out, grabs me by the arm and starts beating me because I [yes, me, 5 year old bryan] DID NOT TELL JIMMY THAT BRAD WAS BEHIND THE CAR. yeah, my mom put up with a lot of shit because she didn't have anywhere to turn.
i, on the other hand, don't know why i exist. i say i have troubles but i do not know troubles. i have it easy.
but then why do things seem hard? why is my complete lack of inspiration for living not subsiding? she always tells me 'you do what you have to do. having children shocks you into reality i guess'. you'd think having her as an influence and positive force in my life for so long that i would have learned something from it. maybe i am learning now, but i'm 23. i'm going to school and working but i still feel like i'm doing the bare minimum. i'm not 'conquering life' so to speak. sometimes going to the post office is an eventful day for me. i'm thankfully off drugs but sometimes when i look back at who i used to be, i miss myself, because it seems like i was such a lovely, creative person then. i had emotion and i had fun. now i do not have fun, even doing things i used to love.
i went back to detroit with jonathan this weekend to visit my friend pelot. he got a beautiful new place in midtown. we went to a few bars and acted crazy and had a few laughs, but it was nothing like it used to be. while driving around seeing the littered streets of mexican town and the abandoned buildings of cork town, all i could think about was my mother, walking those streets to find a job to support me. worn out old motels that rent hourly, nightly and weekly. hotels that were probably not too much unlike my first home. hookers and crack heads. steam coming from the man holes.
shit, i got it easy. what the fuck's wrong?
I don't like giving up on people, I really don't. When people hang by a thread, I try my best to reinforce it, best I can. I call people out of the blue to see if they're still alive. I go out of my way to drive to peoples' places, all over the damn state. Hell, I was the only person who called Nathan regularly after he was sent to Germany, and I wasn't even his closest friend. But do people ever call me out of the blue? Very rarely. Who went to your birthday party? Me. Who even so much as called me on mine? When was the last time anyone came to my house? Years? Sure, distance and time is a factor. I live out in the middle of nowhere. But has that stopped me from visiting people everywhere, from Kalamazoo to Lansing, to Detroit, to Chicago, to Sault St. Marie? No. And I'm the least likely to have the money for the trip…and I most definitely have the most unreliable vehicle. But I don't care. Even my closest friends never come out here. They complain when they have to drive 20 minutes out to my place. Yet, like clockwork, I drive my ass to their places a few times a week. It's not like anything particularly more interesting ever happens at their places, I just always go.
I'm kind of getting sick of peoples' apathy. And everyone being so egocentric. People not taking the time to listen. People always trying to get in the last word. People looking down their noses at me. People taking me for granted.
If I disappear, who'll notice?
" expect me like one waits for mail, all lost dropped and cancelled. like foreign post, i leave twice a day but take a week to get there.
expect me like one waits for rain, or sleet or hail or snowfall. like foreign post, i'm lost on the way and take a week to get there.
i want to be delivered 'til i'm gone gone gone.
the way it's sealed in my heart, i t's guaranteed that i'm in your hands
by morning, when you're ready to read between the lines and the paper isn't telling you anything.
if you miss me, drop me a line in care of fin de siecle, mit luftwaffe.
it's the end of the end of the end."
If you are lucky enough to find a way of life you love, you have to have the courage to live it.
I am but one small instrument.
Hrm, the sounds of last summer are starting to be recirculated. Anyone know what I'm talking about? Of course there are cd's that you listen to, that compliment the mood you're already in, but theres just certain songs or albums that make me feel a certain way. I usually tuck them away for safe keeping, for those times when I think they'll be therapeutic. Summer is weird though. Only some albums are strictly summer albums. Albums that remind me of good times, hell, even bad times that somehow look sweeter looking back.
So it's June already. One month ago I was frying in the desert, worried how the semester would end, wondering how things would get done. Well everything got done. Now all I have is work. I've been kind of looking for a place in Lansing. Originally the plan was to move down with my friend Trevor and his buddy Tyler. Tyler was in the coast guard and he got a housing allowance. So I figured they'd be okay by themselves and began looking for a place with my old roommate, Adam, from my first year of college at Michigan State. He's still one of my good friends. One of those friends that I don't necessarily see all the time, but when we get the chance to hang out, we really just clique. Well as it turns out, Tyler dropped out on Trevor, so Trevor is sorta up shit creek without a paddle. I'd like to help him out but he doesn't seem to be showing much initiative to sign up for classes, look for a place to live, etc. For example, last week I said I'd take him in and get him registered for classes. We planned for Tuesday to be the day [yesterday], and he'd take the day off work. Well yesterday morning I get up extra early [for me, about 8am], But when I tried calling, he wasn't answering. So I go over there and he'd gone to work. He could have taken the day off because he works for his family. So basically I took a day off for nothing [and I could really use the money] and scrapped other plans to do this FOR HIM. He's been nothing but a good friend to me and has helped me out so much and I know we'd be good roomies but I don't like this flaking out shit. So I really don't know who I should be getting a place with…someone who is going to have a positive influence on my lifestyle or someone who I've been a little hellion with for years. Guess I'll figure it out, but it's gotta be soon.
OH yeah, did I mention I'm broke because they CUT my hours after school ended? Make checks payable to Bryan Robb. XO I love this shit.
That will be some other tribe, some other me. You'll hold it like it should be held. A glowing flask, an odalisque, a cherry red-ripe flame, with its selling points filled with the narcissism of a serpentine alma mater. Rip it off, tongue it up and chew it with your teeth. Your finger will trace the cracked glass, in its beauty and in its metaphor that you'll pretend you do not see. But you cannot run from something that has already caught you, already nailed its sweetness to your lips and sewn your eyelids with lace. Yes, I see you tracing the glass, but all that's there is a silhouette, a chalk outline of a soul-less you that shed its pristine aura forever ago. And right now I know what is happening. I know that this isn't all you, Isabel. After all, these are my eyes that see and not your emotions I feel. Maybe you need to be there. Maybe I do, too. It could be like old times, when you'd wet your lips and bite my cuff. When your teeth would clench and those lacey eyes would look up and puncture me.
words once came easily from lips and to paper now there is no triumphant clause. no daydream memorandum. all is trite. bed sheets only get soiled further and ashtray contents climb. washes of gray and gold on walls from sunlight filtered through cloth haze. words from voices that are not my own words that make bad singing sweet. and despite their sweetness contain no benevolence.
life has not been so succinctly self. i have participated as three witnesses: first, the barer of bad news. sinister and childish, where the only growth is cancerous. next, the insecure. who has tasted truth, but remains disillusioned by the first. finally, the other-worldly euphoria that floats in clouds, stair less and without law. there are no more words. there is no feeling. there is absolutely no balance.
i don't care who started what, this is just absolutely distrubing. i could vomit.
FALLUJA, Iraq, March 31 — Four Americans working for a security company were ambushed and killed Wednesday, and an enraged mob then jubilantly dragged the burned bodies through the streets of downtown Falluja, hanging at least two corpses from a bridge over the Euphrates River.
Less than 15 miles away, in the same area of the increasingly violent Sunni Triangle, five American soldiers were killed when a roadside bomb ripped through their armored personnel carrier.
The violence was one of the most brutal outbursts of anti-American rage since the war in Iraq began more than a year ago. And the steadily deteriorating situation in the Falluja area, a center of anti-American hostility west of Baghdad, has become so precarious that no American or Iraqi forces responded to the attack against the civilians, who worked for a North Carolina company.
American officials said the civilians were traveling in two sport utility vehicles although some witnesses in Falluja said there were four. "Two got away; two got trapped," said Muhammad Furhan, a taxi driver.
It is not clear what the four Americans were doing in Falluja or where they were going. But just as they were passing a strip of stationery stores and kebab shops around 10:30 a.m., masked gunmen jumped into the street and blasted their vehicles with assault rifles. Witnesses said the civilians did not shoot back.
There are a number of police stations in Falluja and a base of more than 4,000 marines nearby, but even as the security guards were being swarmed and their vehicles set on fire, sending plumes of inky smoke over the closed shops of the city, there were no ambulances, no fire engines and no assistance.
Instead, Falluja's streets were thick with men and boys and chaos.
Men with scarves over their faces hurled bricks into the blazing vehicles. A group of boys yanked a smoldering body into the street and ripped it apart. Someone then tied a chunk of flesh to a rock and tossed it over a telephone wire.
"Viva mujahedeen!" shouted Said Khalaf, a taxi driver. "Long live the resistance!"
Nearby, a boy no older than 10 ground his heel into a burned head. "Where is Bush?" the boy yelled. "Let him come here and see this!"
Masked men gathered around him, punching their fists into the air. The streets filled with hundreds of people. "Falluja is the graveyard of Americans!" they chanted.
Several news crews filmed the mayhem. The images of a frenzied crowd mutilating bodies were reminiscent of the scene from Somalia in 1993, when a mob dragged the body of an American soldier through the streets of Mogadishu. That moment shifted public opinion and eventually led to an American pullout.
The White House blamed terrorists and remnants of Saddam Hussein's former government for the attack. "This is a despicable attack," Scott McClellan, the White House spokesman, told reporters, adding that "there are some that are doing everything they can to prevent" a transfer of sovereignty to an Iraqi government on June 30.
American military officials said the violence in Falluja, however chilling, would not scare them away. "The insurgents in Falluja are testing us," said Capt. Chris Logan, a marine. "They're testing our resolve. But it's not like we're going to leave. We just got here."
Captain Logan, who is stationed at a large walled base on the outskirts of the city, said Falluja was becoming "an area of greater concern." Last week, a contingent of marines, who recently took over responsibility for Falluja from the Army, fought gunmen in a battle in which one marine, a television cameraman and several Iraqi civilians were killed.
"This is one of those areas in Iraq that is definitely squirrelly," Captain Logan said.
Many people in Falluja said they believed that they had won an important victory on Wednesday. They insisted that the four security guards, who were driving in unmarked sport utility vehicles, were working for the Central Intelligence Agency.
"This is what these spies deserve," said Salam Aldulayme, a 28-year-old Falluja resident.
Intelligence sources in Washington said the four were not working for the C.I.A. They worked for Blackwater Security Consulting of Moyock, N.C., providing security for food delivery in the Falluja area, according to a statement from the company. The occupation authorities have hired hundreds of private security guards for a range of duties.
Witnesses in Falluja said several of the men had Defense Department badges, though such identification is common for contractors working for the occupation. A senior military officer said the four were retired Special Operations forces — three Navy Seals and one Army Ranger. American officials declined to immediately identify the dead men.
In the last three weeks, more than 10 foreign civilians have been killed in Iraq, though no attack provoked the spasm of brutality that followed this one.
Since the war in Iraq began, Falluja has been a flash point of violence. Of all the places in Iraq, it is where anti-American hatred is the strongest. The area is predominantly Sunni Muslim. Many families remain loyal to the captured dictator, Mr. Hussein, who is also a Sunni Muslim. Over the years, Mr. Hussein cultivated a network of patronage and privilege among the tribes and elders of Falluja. Many became top army officers. Some ran big companies. When Mr. Hussein was ousted last April, the people here lost their jobs, their businesses and their power.
That set off a cycle of killing and responses, a bloody feud between a clannish society and occupiers from thousands of miles away. Last April, American soldiers killed more than 15 civilians at a demonstration in Falluja. In November, an American helicopter was shot down outside the town, killing 16. Townspeople danced on the wreckage.
In February, insurgents mounted a brazen daylight attack against a convoy carrying Gen. John P. Abizaid, the American commander in the Middle East. He escaped unscathed. But two days later, gunmen blasted their way into a Falluja jail, killing at least 15 police officers and freeing dozens of prisoners.
Last week, the First Marine Expeditionary Force formally took control of the city, population 300,000, which sits on a desert shelf about 35 miles west of Baghdad. Marine commanders said they were going to try a different approach from the Army, which had basically pulled back to bases ringing Falluja and left policing up to the locals.
"We're doing work outside the wire," Captain Logan said. "We're running patrols. We're rebuilding things. We're working with Iraqis."
Most of the Sunni Triangle, north and west of Baghdad, has become so unsafe that American forces stick to their bases, their movement usually limited to heavily guarded convoys.
Around 7 a.m. on Wednesday, an Army convoy passing through the town of Habbaniya, west of Falluja, rolled over an I.E.D., or improvised explosive device. The bomb was buried in the road and blew up under an armored personnel carrier, killing five soldiers. Roadside bombs are everyday occurrences in Iraq. But few have claimed as many casualties. "It was a very large I.E.D.," said Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt, deputy operations director for the occupation forces.
A few hours later the men from Blackwater Security drove into downtown Falluja. After they were shot, the scene turned grisly. A crowd of more than 300 people flooded into the streets. Men swarmed around the vehicles. Some witnesses said the Americans were still alive when one boy came running up with a jug of gasoline. Soon, both vehicles were fireballs.
"Everybody here is happy with this," Mr. Furhan, the taxi driver, said. "There is no question."
After the fires cooled, a group of boys tore the corpses out of the vehicles. The crowd cheered them on. The boys dragged the blackened bodies to the iron bridge over the Euphrates River, about a mile away. Some people said they saw four bodies hanging over the water, some said only two. At sunset, nurses from a nearby hospital tried to take the bodies away.
Men with guns threatened to kill the nurses. The nurses left. The bodies remained.
Christine Hauser contributed reporting from Baghdad for this article. (c) NYTIMES
done this before, but i'll do it again because it's fun [and i always copy jeannie]: Step 1: Open your Winamp or other lesser MP3 player. Step 2: Put every song you have on random (no pre-made playlists) Step 3: Write down the first 20 songs it plays, no matter how embarrassing
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driving home. from wherever, so long as home is my destination. i catch myself looking around my surroundings and criticizing everything; bitching about every little thing, at first. "why can't….how come….where's the…." but then a peace usually washes over me. i see a bridge and a sign that reads "pine river" and i think how i would have killed to see that bridge so many times before when it was an impossibility. projecting myself into the future i see myself in a far off place, tied down in roots of stability, no more big questions about the future, no more big dreams, wishing that i was back on those country roads in my car and in my head with the most infinite of possibilities and color schemes. i think of the old saying 'those who have lost everything are free to do anything' and mold it to my own liking. 'those who have never had anything are free to dream about everything.' maybe it's the snow falling and the endless white and the slick roads in their entrancing straightness and the hum of the tires that hypnotize and chill my spine. i try to hold onto that shiver, make it last as long as i can. it helps me feel like i'm in touch with something much larger than i. for when it's gone, the clarity goes with it and the empty passenger seat becomes too much to handle. if i hold the chill, i feel the moment that is. i don't feel old tears or embraces. i don't think of impossibilities or the unfathomables. i don't get caught up in thought and miss the moment that is. but when it's gone my head starts-a-dreamin' of days that will never come, and days that have and never will again.
Live At Ibiza: what's up man? spira infinitas: heya. just posting some pictures online. spira infinitas: what up Live At Ibiza: not shit, just turned in some laundry and took ashower. spira infinitas: i see. amy came over tonight with maria. i think she's trying to hook us up or something. Live At Ibiza: did she? is she still there? spira infinitas: no, she went home Live At Ibiza: dammit Live At Ibiza: she said she was gonna email me what time she worked tomorrow but she didn't. spira infinitas: she didn't know what time she had to work… Live At Ibiza: she didn't? Live At Ibiza: even after work yesterday? Live At Ibiza: how'd that absinthe taste? spira infinitas: i guess not. maria had to leave because she has to get up at 6 and when they left, amy said she didn't even know when she had to go in tomorrow. i guess today she was over an hour late. she thought she had to be there at 5 but she was supposed to be there at noon. they called her and she went in. spira infinitas: the absinthe tastes like really fucking strong jagermeister. Live At Ibiza: hahaha Live At Ibiza: i want to try it. spira infinitas: well, like i said, i didn't take very much at all so i didn't really feel the effects Live At Ibiza: is it a big bottle? spira infinitas: well it's shaped weird, like a circle, but i think it's probably a fifth. Live At Ibiza: cool. spira infinitas: yea. sorry dude-i won't drink anymore. Live At Ibiza: we'll drink it when i get home and just get all kinds of shitty off of it. spira infinitas: sounds good to me. it's like 60 percent alcohol. you'll definitely get plenty kinds of shitty. Live At Ibiza: hahah Live At Ibiza: yeah i know this man. spira infinitas: can't wait. Live At Ibiza: soon Live At Ibiza: hahah Live At Ibiza: i can't wait to come home man. spira infinitas: i know you can't. it's probably going to be like heaven for you…and you'll get to have a little taste of spring before it gets all hot Live At Ibiza: yeah. it's gonna be nice. Live At Ibiza: i'm super excited about marrying amy man. spira infinitas: yeah, it's going to be cool. i think you guys are right for eachother. Live At Ibiza: thanks, me too. i love her a lot. spira infinitas: and she loves you a lot Live At Ibiza: yeah i know, it's wonderful. spira infinitas: what time is it there Live At Ibiza: 9:52 am spira infinitas: weird. Live At Ibiza: yeah Live At Ibiza: we're 8 hours ahead of you guys, it always confuses me whenever i try calling home. spira infinitas: so what kid of building are you in? just a computer lab? Live At Ibiza: it's a tent. spira infinitas: haha Live At Ibiza: yep spira infinitas: what's the temp like Live At Ibiza: it's nice in here, it's pretty cold this morning though. i work up freezing my ass off last night Live At Ibiza: woke sorry not work spira infinitas: gotcha Live At Ibiza: yeah spira infinitas: brb. gonna grab a midnight snack. Live At Ibiza: aight. spira infinitas: that's cool you get to use the internet bro Live At Ibiza: yeah i know, i pretty much always have, but the last place i was at, we were behind a really nasty firewall. Live At Ibiza: i found one way around it but i had to pay for it.; spira infinitas: well don't go getting your armd chopped off for looking at porn. Live At Ibiza: i won't Live At Ibiza: haha Live At Ibiza: oh well. Live At Ibiza: don't need to worry about it anymore. Live At Ibiza: well bro, i'm gonna go get something to eat myself. Live At Ibiza: i'll probably be on a little later, but you'll probably be sleeping but if i don't talk to you later, i love ya and miss ya. and i'll talk to you soon. Live At Ibiza: peace.
my brothers and i out front of my grandmother's house before brad left to go back to iraq. he had come home on leave in september because my father died.
eric, bradley and myself.
"This Coastie is ringing in the new year on patrol down here in the Carribean. I'll be with you guys next year though! Leave no beers behind and take lots of pictures for me! And remind T-Mills to watch his drink for GHB (GR Girls are sneaky)!"
haha
what an interesting month this has been! i wish all of you could see the scene out my back window! the woods across the river completely blanketed in snow: absolutely gorgeous. if i find my camera, i'll snap a shot or two.
completely different world than florida. but i guess that goes without saying. i had a nice trip…wish i could have visited a few people i've been meaning to. beyond my control!
oh, and bryan might have a love interest. though as much as i want it i'm not sure i'm ready for that sort of thing right now.
god and i had the best make-up sex ever, today. oral report for government went extremely well and i got many good responses from it, especially concerning my comparison of the patriot act to george orwell's 1984. i also received a 96/100 on the exam. bought a cd for the first time in months, though i had to pay with credit, music is one of the only things that really puts that excitement in me with the giddiness of a child. got interviewed by a camera crew on the sidewalk in front of urban outfitters in east lansing. i thought i'd play the part of the optimist when they asked if i believed in god and if so, have i ever witnessed something where i thought god was at work. they may have been theology majors at msu or something but i couldn't pass up the opportunity. i said something to the tune of, "well, though i don't subscribe to any particular religion, i do in fact consider myself to be in touch with what some would call god; with my spirituality, and despite some major disappointments i see in the world, i can't help but look around sometimes and simply relish in the miracle that is life, our place in the cosmos, and the overall beauty in all things…" The guys just stood there kind of slack-jawed and said, "uh, um, uh thank you…" as i walked away. also, i saw paul at urban outfitters…talking to the gal that i'm kicking myself over for not asking out [still working on that confidence thing]…but we might hang out this weekend. maybe i can get to her through him? haha. i'm evil. evil. the entire time, pick up a book, pretend that i'm reading something really interesting, put it down, pick up another, glance over at her behind the counter and feel my heart go thump-thump, then shy away again, looking at clothes i know i won't buy, but every second i spend in there is a chance that maybe she'll trip over me, where then i'll have to pick her up, say extraordinarily meaningful things, promise her the world and then live happily ever after. uh huh.
no matter how cliche it may sound, i really do have a whole lot to be thankful for…
Once again we ride these beasts to the said tributary of un-originality, where we will watch them drink, where we ourselves will drink, as Christ did with closed eyes and beard dripping, where he has and we will urinate what our bodies did not want, and on down the delta Buddha speaks between handfuls of nourishment and excrement, cupping his stubby fingers he sips without second thought, touching holy lip and tongue, all the while his purity never eluding him, who speaks not of an originality that lies in one man alone, no beast or tree, earth or stone, but instead in all things equally as one, where each is granted right to express by any medium, his thought which is not his, such as opening a window and allowing others to look in, as well as for himself to look out among their faces, reflecting their own remembrance of that chord within.
this house, it was haunted the moment he took aim with no apparent motive crimson now flesh's fate
pistol plane stayed tangent and in-line with the face of a once quiet child who'd always take the blame
'cause even a swift hand was attention still desired and through tired tenaments those wishes, they transpired
the quiet buzz of appliances ping pong down hallway walls soft water from the faucet echoing it's whispered call:
"come way with me come way with me down the drain and hide never they'll find you here nor there with the ocean we'll collide! come way with me come way with me down the drain we'll roll free from this, forever we'll be release that tattered soul!"
and with this something came as if to reawaken the past all those nightmare sessions they swore would never last
in the recesses of the psyche there they had found their niche unconsciously tormenting all those years now missed
and so there lay before me a withered, aiming man right above my brow is where he had that bullet planned
but in this dream, i swear to you i murdered him that day this house, it was haunted the moment he took aim
ok. so i made an animation to commemorate mars volta. more importantly though is that it emphasizes omar's package. ode to tight pants.
no charitable hello or glance in my direction just a graceful walk-by to test my lacking patience warming sensations, thoughts of sexual situations dark brown on gold and hand-me-down kisses denim wrapped candy skin to envelop my senses congratulations, this autumn has brought with it temptation inspiring scribbled sonnets on white diner napkins beige coffee ring stains over my love confessions heart-choked logic in thump-thump succession that's all i need is another superficial distraction to cloud progress by reality's definition "what a waste" whispered at my funeral procession but even a bland rhyming scheme can ease my tensions when my heart seems bigger than my chest's dimensions