Reggie in the Dark

The Northward Way

2010-12-04T16:42:00.002-05:00

I stood on the Mudmah plateau, not far from base camp at the end of the main road that wound down fromt the Sainjeem Mountain pass, which led high into the watchman hills and eventualy branched out to the various villiages and cities southward along the cliffs and cosps that were the homes of my people. Around me sparse reeds in tight twisting bundles bristled up from the stony graveled earth.

The wind was strong today. The banner on my javeline stood sidways as I took in the view around me in this last moment of civilisation for what could turn into a month or more. The long support ropes that held down the main village tent in the center of camp flew banners of the king and emblems of rock and water and crystals and wind, embazoned with briliant collors, though fraying at the ends in the gale.

Up high in the atmosphere, higher than the highest clouds, a winding band of soft orange snaked its way through the cobalt of the noonday sky, and every once and again, tiny streaks of pearcing gold streamed through it and dissapeared into the blue surroundings.

Four women had just arived from the West, I had seen their quivering silouettes peak above the horizon just north of the Bandehm Mountain Root early this morning. They had heaped a mound of skins on top of a large beast and strapped ladders to its sides, and now they were tying it's snout to the ground with tethers pearced in it's ears preparing to unpack their load. The women were dark and wrinkled like spring mud, and they pointed and shouted vigorously at the young sherpa boy that had come out to meet them. I could catch bits of their screams on the wind, but at my place just out of camp boundaries, and about to head northeast to the Mudmah cliffs, the firey tradeswomen wouldn't bother me today. Or any day soon, for that matter.

I had a small beaten leather vest onto which a skin sack had been sewn, and which I could remove with two ropes that dangled at my right side. I wore light leather boots that covered my knees and overlapped in layers down to my feet and a pair of shorts "to keep me modest," mother had said. My weapons were my javeline and a square sharp bit of flat hammered iron with a stone handle lashed to it with leather thongs, and a summer axe that I wore bound above my bottom. I had rope wound around the skin sack on my back, of which was filled with various supplies and a bit of water, and a length of reed paper rolled and sealed with the Kings emblem and fastened with metal caps on either end, not to be read by me or anyone else till I got there."

Messenger Day Three: Concerning a Desert Storm, The Last Cliffs, and the Eastern Road

I swallowed, and the last of my water dripped down my chin. I dragged my finger under it and licked as I stared out East and North seeing nothing but windblown wild sand, Gehban trees and shafts of bedrock jutting toward the sky.

I had been following an old riverbed for miles hopping for a pool or spring, the slow slope of the terrain suggested that the water table should be very shallow here, but nothing upon nothing is all that I’d found.

My thirst wouldn't wait for me, I had to find water, my strength wasn't going to hold out for even another two hours. And without a place to rest in shade, I'd bake for certain without water.

Still I followed the riverbed down hill and the banks grew steeper. The water course weaved to and fro, the steep banks hiding the view down river. Though not a half hour’s worth of trudging on brought me out to an open place, like a wide dry pool, seep banked with rivulets and tributaries cutting down into it that I could use to climb up on top of the banks and see where I was. The riverbed stretched not more than a quarter mile down a sort of slot in the rock before it ended in a U shaped gouge in a cliff-side. Standing at the lip, leaning against the wall, I could see straight down onto a valley floor stretching off to the horizon. The Lom Plain, finally. And sure as I’d thought, there was a thin dim strand of shimmering silver just beneath the horizon, the Eastern Road stretching northwest.

Tossing my spear in the air I whooped twice and, turning to run back to the wide dry pool, I caught my spear by the thongs and twirled it as my feet slipped in the loose desert sand.

Hoping for a better look around, I clambered my way up the nearest rivulet, placing my pack beneath an outcrop just beneath the top, and I mounted the ledge where I took in the scene.

“I had been following what seemed to be a drainage basin and from upon the top of it, it looked like a small canyon as most of the rest of the terrain was flat and waste, save far off ribbons of shadow, presumably other slots of the same type. All emptied, one like another, out over a cliff that extended as far as I could see southeast and north west, winding like a broken spine. And there was the road. Clear like a silver ribbon sparkling in the glaring sun, and I could see a brume and a smattering of green growing around it. I was so close, there I could see the desert giving way to grassland, and somewhere that direction, just over the horizon, I could see it in my mind from the old stories, the fabled Living Temples and sunken water mazes of the King of Hohnm, the High plains Lord.

I smiled and wrung my fist tight against the javelin, My skin making a squeaking sound, and I turned to look upland, directly south. I could see distant mountains - even still - so far off. West I could see rolling hills as well, and between the two, a long flat expanse of desert, broken with fingers of rock and Gebahn trees, sponge lichen spattered the ground in odd shapes here and there, some with little dunes forming against them on the windward sides. The sand was mixed with coarse black rocks like paint splotches across the tan dust, and my eye was drawn up and far off to the south west, where I was met with a puzzling sight..

The horizon that way was a fuzzy dark streak, hard to make out. The sky was clean and blue till it met the earth, and then wavered into a thin haze. “Wait, what is that... could it be?

I had heard stories. But I had never seen it myself. It was said that sometimes the South Ocean wind, punching hard and fast against the mountains, pushed air high up over the peaks, and the wind would grow cold and sink down the northern slopes. Mostly the air would settle in the valleys of the mountains, but there was a glacier field far off, just south, that sometimes would collect air and send it barreling down west into the desert. Air sinking from the northern hills would sometimes chute the system of sinking air northeast causing fantastic and violent storms that would scour the desert. I had heard of people caught in these storms that had died or disappeared in the torrent, and stranger things than that. I had heard, once, of living things that awaken in the desert when it rains, and wander about looking for people or animals that had lost their way, to devour them.

Strangely enough, one of the deadliest perils of this desert, though certainly it’s least frequent, was not thirst, or madness, but water.

Rain,” I whispered. I needed a drink, and any water that was to be found surely would have been found by now, so close to the cliffs, and not a puddle or spring presented itself, even in the low places. The only way down to the valley floor from the desert plateau was a dangerous slow climb down from the chute that I had first looked out of. Just beneath the riverbed stood what looked like a dump for stones, a large fall of washed rubble built up from flash floods carving out the dry stream-bed above. If that was a storm, and if it was coming my way, it would be upon me before the day was out(before noon, before mid afternoon?), and the decent down the rock falls was a slow one. If it rained up here, all that water would end up pouring down on top of me, and I would be washed down the rocks.

This fall of talus would, of course, be my way down to the plains floor and North eventually, just not yet. Not till I knew what the weather would do.

So I sat under the outcrop of rock, I leaned my javelin against the wall inside the small space and smeared a fresh layer of fat mixed with powdered gypsum on the top and sides of my pack, working it into the leather for waterproofing.

After finishing, I peaked out from my hiding place in the shade of the outcrop and, sure enough, it took only an hour to see the weather system grow exponentially. The clouds were massive. They grew, towering like the surrounding hills, broad with a deep shadow, and reflecting brilliant white, billowing peaks, as though they were covered in snow. Here and there they bespeckled themselves with reams of lightening.

But would it rain? There had been many clouds in the mountains, even through drought, without rain, and even thunder wasn't a sure sign of water. But as these clouds rose higher and nearer, I could see something riding the feet of the storm front like fog.

Oh, crap. Here it comes.” My throat formed a lump.

There, obscuring the ground, shot through with muted flashes of light and distant peals of thunder, and moving like billows of smoke, fell a great and mighty wall. It was like I had never seen rain before, it came as though a mountain cliff were on the move. It blocked the light, it hid the desert sands and the horizon beyond, the blue brilliance of the sky was blotted out completely as it edged forward. I could see it from here, moving faster than the swiftest “horse,” barreling down at me. It would be on top of me within an hour. Such fantastic speed. For a moment, I was truly terrified with what I was seeing. I could see how someone could easily die in such an onslaught.

And sure enough, not much longer than an hour and the whole storm front had continually risen and swelled to almost upon me. Half the sky was gone, and still the storm threatened, shaping and reshaping itself as the clouds bashed against the rising hot air from the desert earth. I could see the cold air of the storm raking against the heat of the day, scraping the clouds into odd twisted spectacles of themselves.

I could hardly contain myself, though I feared for my life. The temperature had dropped thirty degrees, at least, over the last half hour, and still the rain poured and poured, blotting out the world. The ground trembled with the sound of the approaching rain, and I could now see it moving along the desert sands, not a mile away from me.

It took only minutes for the water to overtake that mile between us. I stood my ground to see what it would be like, and a great wind pushed sand into the air before it. The water, like a curtain closing, hit me hard and cold, the shock knocking me from my feet. Without a moment to think, I was soaked through, my breath stolen from me, and mud rose from the ground around my body in an instant.

My drenched hair stuck to the folds of my eyelids, the rain ran pouring down my shoulders tickled my arm hair.

The old eroded and dried riverbed that I had been following for the last few days now carried fresh muddied water along its swollen banks and belched a new waterfall, sending thick brine cascading through the clefts marred down the cliff wall, and erupting into the air above the floor of the Lohm Plain below.

My pack was still sitting beneath the outcrop of stone, and a large bulb of fingered lichen that had been dried by the sun now swelled twice in size and shuddered as it drank water from the sand. Just above the outcrop, near the rivulet, a swirling pool had formed in a wide hollow that I had not noticed, and now drained slowly into a small, slivered mouth where the dry dirt had been clogging a skinny shaft in the rock. The pool spun and roiled as I ducked back under the rock eve to grab my water bag.

I climbed back on top in the torrent and bent down, lying in the soaked sand under the liken bulb. Squeezing at the base of one of its arms, I drained a mouthful of water, thick with an herby tang, and then filled my water vessel with all the rest that I could strain. The pool had grown double in size already, and was deep enough to swim in, though it seemed to be draining swiftly. I dropped the bag back down under the rock and jumped into the swirling pool.

The water was hot, my breath shot out and I swallowed water. I didn’t touch bottom, the water was murky, and I swam back upward as fast as I could, coughing and gasping as my face burst into a cold breeze. My eyes were filled with stinging water, though my voice laughed and my mouth smiled between wet coughs. I swam to the banks of the pool and fell on my back, face to the rain where I lay till my lungs were cleared of water, and my laughing was spent.

Ihmahm flowers began sprouting around my head as I lay watching the clouds boil and sag above me, white and pale with pallid peals of light and thrashing thunder. The cold wind that the storm had brought blew freely across the landscape, pricking my skin to look like a plucked birds’. The stagnant heat that had hung all about me for days now had been pushed to the north and I rejoiced in the unexpected water that fell from the sky, and I wondered about how strange a thing the rain really is, though I wondered with my eyes closed and my hands and heels buried in the soft, grainy mud that the water washed all around me.

But almost as fast as it came, the rain lessened to a smattering over the next hour, till it stopped completely. The clouds, that had first felt crushingly close to the ground, pitched higher into the air, and formed fingers and whisps in the upper atmosphere. The sun cast rays of broken light across the wet sand, and shadows moved freely here and there across the world.

But I just lay there. Figuring I should wait for the water to run off, I let my head sink into the mud. I could hear the river coarsing in it’s banks, and glancing down the rivulet, I could see the wide pool still filling with water and soil.

...

I packed the water in the bottom of my pack and then stacked the rest of things on top, careful with the paper scroll, and then lashed the top closed, throwing the whole thing back on over my shoulders.

And, with his freshly waterproffed leather pack beading and shedding water like a bird, he trecked with new heart off north eastward into the thinning rain, disappearing into the rivulet as the thunder pounded hard, shaking the swollen desert earth.(?)

The "Of My Lifiest of Things"

2009-12-01T16:35:00.000-05:00

Willingness to live below our means
Love Jesus more than she loves me
Very similar sense of humor
Love of outdoors
Love of living self sufficiently
Mountains, caming, hiking, farming
She has to be hot
First responsibility is to G-d and the Earth and it's people
Talking, communiciation

Learning if we could be best friends
Learning about eachother
Learning what sacrifice looks like in our relationship
Learning if we even get along
Learning to communicate and read each other
Learning honesty
Learning intimacy with our clothes on
Learning motivations and setbacks, fautls and frailties to help eachother be strong
Learning goals and dreams, habits

The Horrible Truth

2009-03-31T12:43:00.019-05:00

Something Jesus might say to the modern church if he were here in America:

~)o(~

You hipocrites, you two faced, double standard fork tongued liars! Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you, for he wrote:

These people honor me with their lips
but their hearts are far from me
Their worship is a farce for they teach man made ideas
as though they were commands from G-d.

Cause you ignore G-d's law and substitute your own tradition. You skillfully sidestep G-d's law in order to hold on to your own tradition. For instance, the prophets in the Greek scriptures said that the body is the dwelling place of the Spirit of G-d. But you build extravagant houses of wood and glass and drywall and electricity and flippantly call it the "House of the Lord" and lead all these children in believing that G-d and his people can only be found in this place for an hour on Sunday, and when it is the most important for my body to be united together, that is to say the rest of the days of the week, they are found scattered across the countryside unable to unite because they have been duped by you that the house of G-d is a refulling station to be visited once a week, and not the gathering of entire lives together to make disciples of this whole town, this whole state and nation. Come and live together, if you cut your hands off and send them to live in Cincinnati and your arms live in Fort Mitchell and your shoulders in Florence, how can you do any work? Move close to eachother, stop division in it's tracks and live life together. Stop talking and dreaming about it and do it already. You'll need to practice this now in your lives, there is a time coming when all the exes and favor that you all have in America will come crashing down around you, and then what will you do?

You teach your children that the altar is a stage in your building, when all altars are made void through My cross, leaving the only remaining place of sacrifice, the human heart.

You teach your children that this building you call church is the House of G-d, Hypocrites! The human body is the only house of G-d, and as a result of your teachings you demand the money of your government from them to pay for the electric bills to power the media and technology that looks more like submitting to the flash and desire of American consumerism than it does discipleship, and heating costs of adjusting the atmosphere in the building that you aren't called to build to maintain a level of comfort that you aren't challenged to satisfy, and to pay the salary of staff that you aren't commanded to employ. And then you use tithing as the method of paying for it all and the poor goes hungry and unloved, and the children you steal money from under the guise of a command from G-d, you don't lift a finger to help them when they are also made poor by your greed.

Children, come close! Use your ears and your brains to hear what I'm saying: beware, dear children, of the virus of American Christianity, the rampant disease of the Western World. Eat good food, healthy food so that your immune system keeps strong and you aren't caught unknowing by the disease of religious tradition because you don't know what G-d's life looks like for you. Don't live the life that a Pastor tells you to, just because they say to do one thing or another. Learn to hear G-d's voice before anything else, and test your Pastors, the things they say and teach. Respect them because they know more than you, but none of you will ever know it all. Be humble and loving to eachother, but submit to G-d before anyone else, and when tradition divides you from Me, scrape it from your lives in the same manner that you would dog crap off of your shoes, ridding yourselves from every smelly trace, so you can keep your house clean.

The Worlds that Changes Make

2009-03-04T20:06:00.016-05:00

It's the way you mess with time in my mind
And just because you might be on the street
I duck and weave behind the moving cars
You threw me when you touched him
I back down from the heights of love
Because you both seem fit for moving on

I wasted time wondering
I made the worst mistake in hoping things would
Turn out like they should

Just cause the stuff I want to say won't make sense
And cause I know it wouldn't change a thing to try
You'd catch me staring at the ground
You thought I wasn't thinking
But if there's anything that's weak in me
It's what would make me kiss you where you stand

You make me hotter than the beating summer sun on my back
You take my breath away and I don't think that I want it back
I can never tell you about the things that make my heart burn
You chose that bastard friend and I can't stop you, I don't want to

I feel like moving far away from this town
I think of nothing better than the road
Beneath my hot blurred summer white walled tires
The meanings come back rootless
All the time I spent inside my mind
Was wasted time

No matter where I go the girls look like you
No matter how I try it's hard to find
A place that doesn't nearly smell of you

You made me lose track of where I was going
I can't collect my thoughts, they're full of you
You just can't tell what I am going through

"The worlds that changes make,"
they said that time would heal my heartache
"You'll learn from your mistakes"
Another line that I don't relate
150 for the train that's southbound out of this backwoods town
A one way out of here is all that I can think about now

Listen

Musings on the Science of Friction and the Touch of Her Fingers

2009-03-03T23:12:00.006-05:00

~)o(~

Her shoe touches mine under the table.

I run my toes across her socks.

Her pant hems folding over my foot.

I open my mouth and mutter things that I can't remember now

And her fingers stop to play at my knuckles

And hers are blotched and blushing

And flecked with scratches

That she can't remember now.

Warm, is her hands.

Partly from her cup of coffee.

Partly from her quickened blood-flow.

We sit at other ends of the cafe booth.

The clean metal gleams cold bright and terribly inappropriate for a warm cafe in wintertime.

And we stare.

And we completely miss it when the waitress comes around and asks our blank lost faces the question that's been in every cafe since their inception in the 40's, and as would be unusual in any cafe, this time her inqery found deaf ears in the form of she and I.

"How 'bout a topoff, honey? Topoff?

I imagine it to be a very awkward moment for the poor waitress, though maybe not a moment uncommon in this little college town, to ask a direct question and get back nothing but silence from a pair of young'uns letting their coffee run cold, slowly, like their drinking of eachothers eyes, the sitting with un-remittent smiles and their downcast gazes.

"I got coffee here for you..."

I imagine the watiress brandishing a steaming pot, bloated glass, regular painted text across the front, dark brown plastic lip, catching a few bright drops of coffee after some other fill up down the line of booths and philosophical soothesayers and the "doomed to lovelessness" and the bright and sprightly tongued english majors in the form of the youth of our Union that find themselves here, somehow, every night about three, and there among the unknown mental elite of the world, the waitress waits slightly patiently for some sound to the affirmitive or otherwise.

"Anyone, coffee? No? I'll just come back later, how 'bout? Mmkay."

I imagine the waitress spining about with a perturbed noise, but I can't say for sure, because it was all a blur.

All, that is, besides her fingers against my skin and her feet under mine and the words we whispered long, long into the night, the sugar packets slowly mounting.

______~the end of all things is where you will begin new again

The Waiting Line

2009-01-26T18:29:00.002-05:00

It's been along time since i updated. I've moved into a house with some friends, had emotional breakdowns, arguments, a broken car, a flat bike tire, the winter depressios and lots of strong feelings that I feel helpless to do anything about these days.

As well, though, I've been baking and reading tons and we've had a fire in the fireplace almost daily for the last few months, which is phenomenal.

Just a lot of frustrations in general these days, I guess.

And I've drunk the last of the good coffee in the house.

There have ben many things that I've wanted for my life that I feel powerless to achieve, like I'd metioned above. But alas I feel like not making much more of an effort to write at the moment, so I'll probably be back on some time soon cause there's internet in the house now.

Not all who wander are lost, that's for certain's

But some who are lost never move back their curtain's.

I Cannot Fly a Car This Way

2008-03-17T17:10:00.011-05:00

As the plane drooped swift tward the land beneath the clouds, the blue was swallowed up with whites and bitter greys, empty and full greys in shades. I was reminded of the flakiest of biscuits, layerd and pitted, and as the clouds reamed along vertical streaks and plains above and below the field of view from my regular window, I wondered that I could be moving in a giant one, even now. A giant biscuit grands.

But as it plane rose, hours earlier, quick to the canopy about Tampa that concieled the bright blue and it's briliant roving star, the plane jostled, but bickered little as the clouds closed in.

A column of mist rolled from the engine along the curve of the wing, wining off and then on, hollow like a tube but only was it water moving faster than it would and breaking all to bits in a spinning misty row along the metal. It dropped off the back edge there, where sheaves and leaves of shining steel had unfurled downward tward the ground and pulled the air this way and that to have the plane set sail, up and with the wind.

the same sheaved sheathes would once deploy when dropping down mere feet from the ground, and flail up as the engines pound the air reverse to keep the plane aground, and in a powerful moment, a time of strength and wheel friction and momentum, the wing panels fly up and expose the tender inner parts of hoses and cervos and motors and wire kept covered during all the other LESS violent parts of the parade. But all that has two and a half hours to wait, for now the potent clouds enwrap us all, giving way here to white wide caverns, and filling back up to dim the view.

But they all had a certain erand or other, the copious low cumulus, and our climbing brought us soon out into the sun. The farther we climbed, looking down at the tops of the cloudy day, the less like clouds they all became.

At first I had the thought, "So this is the top of an overcast day!" Then they all became trees. At once they were a flat forested plane seen from a tall fire tower or a bald mountain ridgeline, a summer of white leaves and boughs, and still higher we climbed. Then it was a field of snow or the whitest sand but merely at my feet, the imperfections of a windswept field, rocks or trunks or earth or shells sticking up and though the thin places instead of merely cloud shadows.

And then I saw the drop off, the place, either at the head or tail of the wather front, where the dim ground and trees and water looked back at me. The Atlantic shoreline blank and grey from this height, but ending hard at the dark dim trees, sometimes the faint white of sand peaked around to see us passing by.

And I, as of yet, still havent seen any state lines. Oh, the puzzlement.

The Ambition, You Haven't Got the Ambition

2008-03-07T14:10:00.000-05:00

In the Next Year...

Plant a garden
Read the Lord of the Rings again
Start making my own clothes
Spend at least one month overnite in a tent
Milk a cow
Travel to a foreign land
Learn to can food
Learn to blacksmith
Buy less "packaged" things
Get a diesel car and go all Bio
Learn more about diesel conversion
Learn to bake bread
Get a pipe
Sell my present car(fix all the little problems, too)
Get the rest of the climbing gear that I lack
Replace the disposable paper products I use with washable cloth

Car's and Such

2008-01-16T18:55:00.000-05:00

New car, folks! Pittsburgh hopefully in the February, I can get to work on my own, unlike the past month or so, and already, i'm thinking about selling it to get a diesel car and run in on Bio fuel. I believe it can be done with what i make and whatever that means.

Nothing creative to say yet, just an update i guess.

2007-10-16T19:32:00.000-05:00

My hands hold tight.

The old man bends low, eyes to mine, and unfolds his right arm as his hand holds tight.

I black out.

I come to.

My body is alive with movement that I was unaware of, the long blade snapping like a whip in the air. Sparks rain. His blade is swift.

But his neck is not.

I have his head like a basket.

Oh, Ye of Little Schooling

2007-09-28T18:57:00.000-05:00

Please love... http://www.hotsoursaltysweet.com/

So, tretcherous I arrive at the end of the month, the moment of truth comes within twenty four hours... will I be able to pay rent? And everything else as well?

I've been kind of stupid with money lately, I owe more than I need to, I could have made alot of smarter decisions, but I didn't.

It's weird, I want to go hiking so bad, but i dont have money and I've been spending what I dont have, man, it just makes me sad sometimes.

And something else I've been thinking about: "The grass withers and the flowers fall, but the word of God stands forever." How exactly does it do that? Does it stand forever because we keep printing bibles, or cause people keep buying them, or is it because of something else? If we(somehow) burnt all the bibles in the world this saturday at, oh, i dunno, let's do three in the afternoon(Mountain Standard Time of course, so add or subtract hours accordingly) would the word of God STILL stand forever? Ok, so the bible is the "word" of God in a certain sense(and in another sense, depending on the view held by whoever is reading this right now, it might not be the word of God at all if you dont get in to that sort of thing) but not actualy words in conversation(though sometimes I get an eery sense that the bible is reading me instead of me reading it) like words I exchange(or wish I COULD exchange) with the hot girl at Starbucks, or my Mum, or that lady at work or the people I have to talk with over the phone cause we live so far appart. In the bible, it talks about "the Word of God" alot, like a whole lot, and tons of people today interpret those passages to mean the bible itself, when in all actuality, there was never an intention(not that it's present state is at all wrong) to collaborate, several thousand years after the books and such were penned, certain books and letters. In fact, when the bible is taking about the word of God, it seems to me that it is either talking about the "Old Testament,"(the Jewish books of Law, History and Prophetic writings) or the actual experiential voice, if not inconcieveable, and knowable deliberate interaction with the inteligence and vocality of a being unphysical(actualy, in time and space, listening to and talking back to God). It would seem to me that if, indeed, the "word of God"(whatever that means) does stand "forever"(whatever THAT means) then it would not be necisarily because any of us care to buy bibles or even read them( not to mention that a bible, left in the rain will fall apart, and left to sit after said rain would eventualy dissintegrate or get torn appart by birds to make the nests that Jesus never had, or to line the fox holes that Jesus never used cause he was a homeless man, which brings up another interesting point, how can the Christianity of our "Modern Age" (whatever(yes, you guessed it) that means) worship a homeless guy on Sunday for a couple heart felt, tear jerking hours, and ignore all the rest of the global homeless population the rest of the god damned year?) and it wouldn't be because the bible is really anything special on it's own, like oh, boy, leather and ink and pages and, goodness ME!! Gold leaf Holy Freaking CAPITAL LETTERS on the cover!!

whoooooopee.

No. That does not make it special. In fact, it may be that without God actualy being a real thing, a certain someone who word, the bible is just another kinda sketchy on the fringe of relevance book that no one would read unless their parents made them, or some church would make them feel bad for Not reading. I submit that "God's word" is not a book, but is represented with a book cause that's honestly the best way to transmit data that is thousands of years old(yes, the internet is not a viable option for those pre-millenial/even-died-naught-but-60-years-ago kind of folks).

In other words, I dont believe the bible is the word of God, but an accurate representation of the word and activity of God in our, "Great Great Grandparents(old dead people in other words)" lives, and can teach us an awful lot, even teaching us what to expect from God now and in the future, but as for the actual "word" of God?

Heres where it might get interesting...

I think the word of God is forever because "He(whatever THAT means)" has never stopped talking.

~)o(~

Music Update: The Bowerbirds

2007-06-06T06:52:00.000-05:00

Tampering with heartstrings, as you well know
Makes tender moments all the more tamper resistant
To future love and longing stares like these
After this fast and un-lasting love-life
Takes the turn that it was always meant for
The turn to breaking
The Churning Edge
Upon my wrist
Ah, but of course!
The sun breaks again 'ore the fingers and clouds
Your breath used to make
On my cold glasses
And with your face that close to mine
The rich whirl of that summer smell of you
On this cold cold morning
Had my eyes closing once again
And how your shirt could wipe it all away,
The clouds and trembling fingers,
If you were but the antithesis of gone

How Can This Compare?

2007-05-21T22:36:00.000-05:00

And in the natural order that children will often go off into forests, we decended the back yard, sloping into the trees, like a stair case. The largest in front, the smallest running fast behind. Just as it should be.

Summer does strange things to the minds of free people, especialy little ones who, in certain romantic and philisophical senses, are more free than the most of us could hope to, even remember being. And in states such as these, we all would march to the place we all knew.

It wasn't just some afternoon that these adventures would come to mind. We were all kids under the same household-last-Name. There was alot of drinking under that Name. But afternoons opened the backdoor with a vaccum with the wind and we would sweep away, our hearts in our throats to keep us from breathing too loud, and we would run from His Words, His alcohol Breath. Sometimes He'd hit us with a beer can crushed in His Fist. Line us up like a firing squad in the kitchen for no good reason.

But we always had that airlock backdoor out past the sagebrush and up the mountain and there, somewhere past the pine, was the ledgendary lake.

It was always blue. Even if a storm sprung up over the mountains and we had to hide from lightning, we still stayed long after we should have been home. Some call it escape, i dunno. It was kind of like bliss to me.

I don't remember how we got the idea, but there was this tradition that was founded on some Tuesday afternoon where, when all the kids lined up along the crystal water, the oldest would throw a rock in the air, and the glossy picture of whoever it would pummel with a splash would have to try his hand at walking on the water. I think it might have had something to do with not understanding prayer, you know, trying to talk to god somehow by pretending to be him.

Every day we'd try it out. And it never really worked. Eccept for that one time, that was really weird, it was one of those moments, im sure you've had one, where nobody's sure what exactly has transpired. It was getting dark anyway, and the smallest one of us was just about to do the customary "leg straight out, clench your eyes shut and jump!!" when a big horned sheep and her lamb came running out from the trees, like someone had shot a gun, and everyone but the little one scattered as she careened through the line and in down the edge of the pond. There was alot of splashing, he thought that she had hit him, he thought that he'd been hit himself, but the littlest one of us didn't say anything, just stared at his feet with his mouth open slack, the splashed sheep water gleaming the sunset light like a thousand teany golden lightbulbs, slow motion we one by one caught one anothers glances, and looked his way.

She stopped about twenty yards off in front of her little one and turned a regal stare at us, breathing deep lungfulls of mountain wild out against the sky wearing her gigantic swirling horns.

One of us blinked at the moment some say was the poeticaly perfect equivelant to the wrongest of moments.

Another sneezed. Out of nowhere. Who sneezes in the midst of getting trampled by suprise wild sheep?!
Come on!

The sun was in my eyes.

There was grass in the others'.

It was all very confusing, with the water and the sheep and the sneezing...

But i'm pretty sure, after years of thinking back, even after we walked in silence back to the house and Dad was fast Asleep on the floor again, even after the summer wanned into wyoming winter, even after we all graduated from college and got married, well most of us anyway, but that's another story entirely, I'm pretty fairly sure, even today, that the littlest one, the one who got the most out of His Fists and Kicks, the one who never quite got off his feet unless we all were there, the one who's strange turn it was to take the leap out 'ore the water, the one who deserved it the most, even if it never actualy happened, he, the small and lowly with a suden bubbling splash, dropped into the water a grand total of three fantastic and ledgendary inches.

Chocolate Music, Mexico Music, and the present flavor of Piano

2007-03-23T20:23:00.001-05:00

~)o(~

Sunrise on the spring, "bustle cross the freeway," says traffic god Melinda. It's gonna be a beautiful day.
Besides the fact that there's a certain strange and sadistic beauty in thinking about jumping from three stories up, and besides the fact that this kind of thinking hasn't scared me yet, and besides the fact that i miss him and i find myself continually distracted by less than lovely things, the stuff that really blows compared with him, It'll Definitely Be A Beautiful Day.

And speaking of beautiful, on my walk home several morrows before, i found this hole in the fence near the interstate where i could weave through the thorns and briars and stand in the grass to the south side of the busy road. It was a magical moment, among the trees. I had an Over the Rhine concert playing just for me in my own personal ears, and i could hear the pedals of the piano being danced upon and the echo of the hall while standing on the old leaves in the briars. The speeding cars passed me by so close i could see the faces of the people driving.

and I realized

Everyone of these people has had immense pain, everyone of these people is driving to see someone they love or dreading seeing someone they hate at their favorite restaurant, every one of these people has been a kid, been raped, is arguing with someone sitting next to them, is starry eyed over someone else, is driving home to feed the dogs, is playing in a concert this weekend, is having sex with someone else's husband, has been driving for eighteen hours straight, and it's always something. Everyone of these people driving past is real and their movement struck me. Face after blurry face. Dipping piano, beautiful voice and thorns, hands deep thrown in my pockets.

This is my special place. could this be ours? if only i could know you and bring you along to the grassy hill near the quicking interstate, the space between the worlds, the brine stone trees and oak finger bushes, the prickle vines and wet grass times would be for us, you and me.

And I just hope no drunk guy skids off the road over our crouching, kissing bodies.

_________~

Dance Me With You Tonight

2007-03-18T09:59:00.000-05:00

I don't know what to say about this weekend, honestly. There was alot of stuff that happened that was grand, but I've tried thre or four times to write this entry and nothing has felt right. So, that is a picture of the lead singer from mewithoutYou, Aaron Weiss who me and a good friend met this weekend at their show, as well as half of the rest of the band.

I wanted to write something poetic and descriptive about the weekend, but I don't know what's missing tonight. Anyway, heres a list.

-mewithoutYou
-Hundreds of Scene kids
-Burning sunset
-Plenty of pictures
-Canon Rebel
-Panera
-Tossed around, liken to a rag doll, with old memories
-Lot's of Lovely Driving
-Very little train jumping
-Invisible Children
-Curch and friends
-Passing the book along
-Myst memories
-Buying the same shirt as her
-Long bridges
-Mud. !!!
-Cold sidewalks, city streets, earth and dirt and You

______~

Tendency to Err'e

2007-03-10T13:00:00.001-05:00

Do you know what you do to me...

~)o(~

I read a story today called The Lady of Shalot by Alfred Lord Tennyson, an old tale of an age long dead, castles and knights and a fair woman who'd be cursed if ever her gaze fell toward Camelot. I cried and cried.

Oh, the barley fields, the sheathed wheat and grain in the late of summer, brimming dust and chaffe allong the afternoon wind a straigh't. Mum wounded there by the hunters spear fell dust warn an a'tremblin in the boiling field so golden fayre. A trumpet corus across the plain had brother and sister and father again up with sword and whip and burning brand for bandits and foolish men, and out through the wooden gate and plain we ran with speed like winter wind replayne. Few bandits we did find. Hoards of treasure naught nigh, and theivery hourses dressed in night, old gypsie carts and raping types were naught the eyes that met our fam' and loving might rolling across the ebbing grain and seed agold. It was a humble man, leather coat and blooded hands, which stood straight like winter reed to the setting sun, and like winter, his countenance cold and taken far'way. H' plant his feet at mothers side, he drew the spear and held it high with lung blown trumpet and wind tossed hair, he gazed at father slowing there, and held out the guilty sp'air.

Fair sister let her whip unfirl, bold brother let his fear uncurl.

Father let his screams untrill.

Strange hunter stud stone still.

The summer stag and doe had wand'red throu the evening weeks before, and faithfull straynge did follo.'

The stag was tall and clean, and lost it seemed, till hunter saw him spin and gleam in barley summer glare, and whiter sun had dazzled th' eye of spearman lean and waiting.

But it was mother fayre and limbre, mother tall and spinning there dancing in the barley fields, against the tipping sun, and her flewwing hair like antlers across the ocean of a sky caught the sunns true light and falsified. And in moment, long awaited, the hunting man did threu the mighty sp'air and sailed it to the mark. The bucking and snort consistent, of sorts, was the sight expected and truthly rejected, by mothers simple supries'. A heavenly breath, liken to the passing of the breaze in the barley groves, shew forth from mothers lips, wounded, running red like blackburry, and the quick of the hunter was at her side in an inst'nt to slit the troat of his fayre prize. Blade ball'd in the wind, the spear with it's ribbon and the shock of the fayrest of women, stalled by the hunter, did pause his skilled'd hand.

The shok of the beuty on mothers eyes, the eyes black as midnigh', her summer wheat hair with the barley dirt there, and trembling spear tall in the air, had cleft her clean and true. And as he did with ev'rykill, he covered his hands with the fresh blood, the blood of the bonny Lady, and stood. Remorse was't not about him, but not for of his pride, but the cloth around her wrist echoed of a bride. The art of death was one of his, and he standing in a bloodi' pool, bleu his trumpet hard and long, and tears ran free and cool. For today, it turns, was to be his last, like the Lady at his feet. Like the Lady, seems, with currant eyes, did take his spear so ease, there was but one fate he could stand, to be slewn by her galiant lover, on the very ground his last kill lay. To mingle blood with anouthers, they say, there's no other finer a'redempsien' to say.

So straynge did'st stand till father and brothers and sister over hill and dale did came, and with white sun and clear blue open blowing ayer, Father screamm'd a mysterie. On his nees he fell at best, and gripped her face and breast, and Straynger held his tongue and fear, and offered up the sp'eir.

And with a smyle, the truest of gesture across his mighty chest, the fine hunter invited father with cordiality, "We all, treu to us, kill'st the most lovely of the world. Too treu to the most of us i fear. I pray you strike treuer than my forbidden hand doth deu. Make right the blood of two."

We children blinnk'd and it was through, our father quick with hand did move at sp'ier and fayrest straynger through did open wide his chest, with swooping swirl and srieking lange', our father's turn to weep so straynge, had come in fields of wheat and gold, and together, all there grew too old in a moment from the fold. A moment tall and like the wind, what makes it come and goe? What makes the tyme, with hands so long, decide who else to slow?

That man and Mother in the field, the blood and summer sun, with Father and Sister and Brother and Son, what makes the cowards run? Such things were bare in summer ayre in Barly and Wheat and sheathed seed sweet as the afternoon cooed like the loon and breeze tugged softly at our feet.

______~i just made that up...

Blech.

2007-03-06T11:21:00.000-05:00

~)o(~

So i talked with this girl last night about relationship stuff and it was Jesus crazyness. It just feels like there's so much healing going on it's not even phunny. At 2:something in the morning we finally got off the fone, and i whent to bed. At 3:48 am, i woke up and felt like someone had folded me in half five or six times. It was aweful. I cursed the darkness and blamed hell for making me feel so bad. I dont even know what caused it. I vomited alot, and some other more disgusting stuff. I didn't go to work today.

It turned out to be a good thing, most of the building was evacuated cause of high fumes from this fiberglass that was being used in some of the exibit instilations. So i would have had to leave anyway. meanwhyle, i slept and tried to drink water, and i dont know what else.

I found it rather compelling that, an hour or so AFTER i stepped out and took a risk cause of Jesus, for the sake of healing and reconciliation and forgiveness and Jesus Body Unity, i get unbelievably sick.

Weird.

And please note, to all who love summertime and deep brown eyes:

...

...will have their way with you.

______~brothersister

"Casino Clouds"

2007-03-04T23:58:00.000-05:00

~)o(~

so, i have a buddy at community that blogs and reads hundreds of other blogs all the time, and he said he'd show me how to use Wordpress and where to get a domain name to make this thing look better than just some regular bloger template. So i'm exited. FINALLY!!!

the new Lovedrug songs sound great!

Also, I have started wrighting a song. After four years of trying!!!

it is a very sad one.

_______~Matches

Yes, Fin Indeed

2007-03-02T02:04:00.000-05:00

~)o(~

I had a strange desire tonight, once the Museum's done, to just sell all my stuff and go live with homeless kids that jump trains across the country and go to rock shows, become a squatter and talk about jesus all the time, dred my hair and get lost in the Americana countryside, or fly to some country and serve broken people the love of jesus... i dont think you understand me.

I. Want. To. Sell. My. Stuff.

I want, with all my heart, all that is in me here at one thirty in the morning, to be an amazing failure in this world. I want to screw up bigtime when it comes to sucess and the american dream, it's all lies anyway. I want to waste my life away. I want to "waste" my talents on the helpless folks instead of making money for myself. I dont want to care about me anymore. I cried talking to Margie about this tonight at Barnes and Noble.
Coffee for me, Tea for her, we talked for like two and a half hours. People came and whent around us.
She's going to Romania in May to work with orphans. These kids live in sewers. Get bit by rats. Become prostitutes. No one loves them.

I have a whole church who loves me, friends and family across four states, wonderfull friends, god i love you guys so much...

and i get concerned with what i look like, i get concerned with my clothes and my hair... how well i sing, how well you satisfy my desire for affection...

damit
i just feel so american it's sickening.

I dont deserve anything that i have. Nothing is mine. It's all vanity, it's all worthless and stupid and full of lies. My life isn't about a new car, sexy pants or girlfriends is it?

It's all smoke and endless mirrors and we're all as good as dead.

...somebody hold me

__________~fin

Soothing Monuments

2007-02-25T12:27:00.000-05:00

~)o(~

I just ate these buiscits and gravy off this mist green plate with a fork. The ashen gravy, sausage in state and with profound oldentimes lingering, i mouth full after mouthfull the forkfulls and lick the gravy from my beard. There on my tongue crumbled the flaking crust and buttering tantalizing, and, God, i just wish you could have been here...

It was an odd moment when Andrew came up to me with a plate of breakfast, having been smelling it from downstairs for ten minutes, and then realizing that food was in front of me! Mine!!

Oh, the state of mine...

It was like a monument on my lips that brought me back to the moment called now. It was a little messy, tantalizing and satisfying, just the way i like it.

and i can still smell the dream.

The Pride and the PastLives

2007-02-25T07:47:00.000-05:00

~)o(~

So I whent to a certain giant bookstore that not everyone likes, and i walked around. I've almost filled up my old journal, the one i've had for years, since before Pittsburgh and Certain October Weekends, theres only five pages left in it. So i finally just whent out and bought another one. Exiting. The thing about being one of my posessions is that you will probably fall apart with loving overuse. and with that in mind, i bought a journal that, hopefully, will fall apart gracefully after the next couple of years.

I also, in my foolishness which i shall elaborate upon in mere moments, bought Pride and Prejudice yesterday. Apparently, every single girl anywhere has read this book or seen the movies based on it. I've been doing a little secret quiz when i talk to girls to see how many of 'em have, and so far it is true. Every girl has seen or read it. And no one told me that I was supposed to at all. It's very frusterating. All the girls I know that have read it tell me, without hesitation, to read the book first before the movie. all the girls that tell me to see the movie haven't read the book. Ergo.

So, as a response to all the girls around me not telling me that i need to know this thing, i will read the book first and laugh at all the girls who have only watched the movie. And that's why i am foolish.

And very funny.

Lyrical revenge or something stupid like that.

Anyway, I'm sitting here in Amanda's house on a sunday morning in February. Andrew and I slept here last night. For those of you who don't know them, they are pictured up a'top for your convenience!! ^

I was out cold on the floor by three.

Lately in consideration: The topic at hand, which differs greatly from sleeping, but not so much with books and girlfriends of guyfriends, has been something of a ghost from the past lately. And the last couple weeks i've caught myself in the middle of random unexpected long walks in stranger places, old comfortable places that I forgot to miss the last year and a half, then snap back out of old memories to find that i'm not really where I thought i was. I'm right here. Not back there. With her. Theres gulfs of emptyness that i've been filling up with worthless fantasies. And i dont often call fantasy worthless. By worthless i mean not getting me anywhere. Not to health, not to reconciliation, not to moving on. None of those things. Just wondering why, what happened? Where've we gone to... what the hell is going on...

and now some of me that you didn't know about:

The Five Love Languages

My primary love language is probably
Physical Touch
with a secondary love language being
Quality Time.

Complete set of results

Physical Touch:		10
Quality Time:		9
Acts of Service:		6
Words of Affirmation:		3
Receiving Gifts:		1

Information

Unhappiness in relationships, according to Dr. Gary Chapman, is often due to the fact that we speak different love languages. Sometimes we don't understand our partner's requirements, or even our own. We all have a "love tank" that needs to be filled in order for us to express love to others, but there are different means by which our tank can be filled, and there are different ways that we can express love to others.

Take the quiz

I once heard someone say,
"These drives home just get so long..."
and the Tank rolls on...

________~

Losing Out With Transliteration... whatever that means

2007-02-24T10:21:00.000-05:00

Weird

Original English Text: poop cereal

Translated to French: épuisez la céréale

Translated back to English: exhaust cereal

Translated to German: Absaugventilatorgetreide

Translated back to English: Exhaust fan grain

Translated to Italian: Grano del ventilatore di scarico

Translated back to English: Grain of the download fan

Translated to Portuguese: _ grão download ventilador

Translated back to English: _ supreme download fan

Translated to Spanish: _ ventilador supremo de la transferencia directa

Translated back to English: _ supreme ventilator of the direct transference

Have fun...

"Lamp Post Precinct," or "The Now And The Heartache," or "The Reach," or perhaps, "Just a Story of a Woman, a Man and a Delicious Savior."

2007-02-12T21:25:00.000-05:00

~)o(~

I encountered my past in a rose lit room, in a curtained foyeur, in a coffee shop, in a kitten chewing my fingers. I encountered my past in the salty street whyle on my knees to change her tire, in the familiar smell of old friends, the taste of older things brewing hot like coal on my tongue.

It's hard to express just what kind of confusion comes, even after years have passed between the Now and the Heartache, when you come back around to things like this.

Girls.
Dude.

anyway, with failure tried, i end up passing through old freeways and rolling country like drawing memories, rivers wrapping under steady bridges to hold the old town in a water cradle. Not quite Trembling this time with foot and pedal dancing, map disconnect the parents and the pronunciation handed down from fathers unearthly, and undetered headlights breach the ocean freeway flowing like tide beneath my tires. The deep winter stars roll tranquil like a dark hand with glowing pores laid across my blue winter eyes. Road wraps the backlit hills and ribbon is the ocean stringing me along on the tide. Doors found their way, though lost, i'd not to remain.

I'd not remain any longer without the try for forgiveness, the reach. The reach for to be reconciled. The oldest reach that spans the millenia, across pages and generations, it trys for our mangled hearts, intent to mend, and with eyes desperately searching files labeled "Me," it makes a noise like a tested sigh, air swishing from skyward teeth that has it's way in making me go down to the come-on-down river. Won't you come on down, oh wonderous dream-breakers? Oh, fantastic heart-achers? Wont you wash this time in the Jordan like I've asked time and again? Wont you make yourself drown in the swirling tide of the freeway to find your dying eyes seeing? Unlock that door and step out into the drifting waters at seventy miles an hour, rolling in the drawing helplessness of loosing control...

Oh, wont you lose control? Wont you come on down? Wont you unbuckle your safetynet and step from the drivers seat this time?

Just swing out over the edge like there's a soft floor to land on and let yourself fly free out over the air. And dont worry about seeing her face again, even after all these years, because you are found in me.

Not lost in her.

It's You that brought me to their house, it's you that urged me through Sarah's familiar voice to take this girl aside and try to set things right again. Just do it. Ask for forgiveness for my selfish apetite, the Unending Dream of Romance that has gone unquenched till now for so long. There's quenchingness in his satisfaction. It's true that i miss being loved like... like water turned to wine. Like hope.

But i give up my control willingly, like a candle that i blew out one winter christmas evening. How the wax spilled like my hot tears on the table. But still, even though my nerves were quaking like a box of oldest times cereal, I sat in her room across from her there and wondered aloud along with her if there was things that make her think, if there were things that move and breathe, if things here and there on occasion make sense and If Jesus Is REaL... I believe that room was filled with blood. I believe whole heartedly.

"What happened." I'm not even sure what to call it. We never really dated. We..

Just loved.

But "Just loved" has it's own untruthfullness glowing like a truth in the red lit-curtained room.

And since this yesterday, I've been wodnering if any of it was important, feeling like it was all a mistake, and tearing apart what i should have said, when the real is that i did just what he wanted me to. We laughed and connected like friends learning to trust again.

Oh, Lord, may you forgive us for being so blind, may you forgive us for being lost in fake love, may you forgive us for everything. May you find unity and growth, health and vibrant love when you make your home here with us on this earth. May you find your Kingdom has come ahead of your drought-ending parade, the solution to the mystery, oh Rabbi, and the tome of life that grows like trees just because you love.

May we all die good deaths before we taste the last heartbeat of our souls. May we all die. Turn us, water, into wine

and drink deep of your children

_____~

The Deeper Push to My Depravity

2006-11-27T22:38:00.000-05:00

(...)

I had a dream last night.
In a long bunkhouse stood ten or twelve beds against the walls, walkway down the center, people bustling here and there getting ready for bed. I was there. All the folks around were teenagers and people my age unrolling blankets and sleeping bags. I felt like i knew them all, like we were going to get up the next morning and go to school or a job or something. Guys and girls all pushing for a bed like a big family who doesn't care about guy girl things. Covering the walls like wallpaper were strange neon lights, wires, electric lines all set up ascew and glowing. Each bed had a bunch of switch, and one by one, the lights, fitted for each slumbering mind and looking abit like an electricians dream, went out.

It's not often that i dream to music.

I think i can count the times on one hand.

I set this computer to loop starflyer 59, Milosh and Imogen Heap all night.

Somewhere in the process of making my dreaming rounds in the middle of the dark earth's spinning, my sleeping ears caught the sound of this song, Time Steals the Day built by Milosh, and my mind played it to my unconcious conciousness as part of the dream of the bunk house with the guys and girls all tucked in their blankets. All the younger kids had fallen fast asleep, thinking of the next day, or who they had crushes on or what they'd have for breakfast at dawn, whatever it is a person thinks about at eventide.

But the older ones, ones like me, like the short haired blond guy staring unblinking at the ceiling, or the curly haired girl with her head to the side on her pillow, were much too awake. The song hung in the air. I could see each and every one of them, the two sisters together, the dark haired guy only a year older than me, under their blankest and sleeping bags, listening. I could see their faces, the eyes in the dark. They were out of sight, as far as they knew, and their emotions were raw.

The song carried on the still air, and each and every one of the older folks awake with me in the dim eveninglight had tears in their eyes. They all seemed to have lost their strength to hide what was inside in that moment, and they all seemed to be thinking about the same thing. The same painfull thing that the younger kids just wouldn't understand. They all, the sisters, the blond haired guy, the curlyhaired girl on her pillow, all had these drawn stares, these flat mouths trying to keep the catching breath in, firm muscles if only to fight the welling tears.

Something sad had been before.

And the song on the air had it all coming around again.

~)o(~

2006-11-02T08:20:00.000-05:00

Only one.

Too long have i been starving and remained unsatisfied, even in the midst of stuffing my body wholly too full, wholly too completely. Too long have I rank of rotting, too long have i wanted more and more, too long have i recieved more and more and gained nothing at all.

Twelve years too long. A grave of a body. I have been a whitewashed tomb. I have gleamed in the morning sun shining in the east, i have kept my doors latched and i have rotted away inside of my own.

Freedom. Freedom.

Freedom.

.Kaht mihn fah t'veelaioy b'fahsee

It is Often Awhyle

2006-09-19T23:01:00.000-05:00

~)o(~

It is 11:55

I have just tonight, completed all the claws for a Raptor. Will give pictures later.

Speaking of raptor, this is what was sitting on my hand late last week.

I had him staying for an hour or so. His name's Dagger. He's five months old. He likes me.

I, also, have a beard.

~_____

Clear and Noble Passion

2006-08-18T16:32:00.000-05:00

~)o(~

checkitout, kids. Heres the words to a song i'm working on. I'm finding it really hard to come up with a sound that fits just right, but i'm finally trying. finally.
It has a very very specific meaning to me, all of it is symbolism and all of it means something which is pretty cool. This song is about something that i've been living in for a little more than a decade and how i feel about all that.

uh, anyway..

Where Maidens make decisive nests
in my backyard
Trembling Mare with long black hair
trimed back far
And both these sights strike deeply
deep and golden star
somber settling

Evening trees cornering
Shrieking girls running and always glowing
For Maidens of the Midnight have
Few things to say
But they take my breath away

Dark eyed and moving lips becon
men like me
to come
and see
just how brightly they glow

nightly and
Majesticaly

If you could only see and hear their breath
Lisping simmering on my tongue
Trimming my consistency
Brimming creativity

Noble, promise hips and legs
Ribs and palms and ribbon
A nest hatches after what lays it
Is long long gone

Dear midnight friend so long,
Where have you left me bare and drawn
The dark crisp winds my shirt and shoes
God knows i'll do my best
Run most high and pass the rest
To make it back to one more crest
Where I feel alive
So alive
And never true to me
Never ever true to anything

After you flicker dark away
All that you give me
All that you gave me
Was the bitter dark you left for me
Like a kicked torn present on christmas morning
Mom and dad yellin
My eyes clenched shut, my hands on my mouth
And i scream at you in silence for leaving me in the place I'm in

Didn't you promise me more than this?
god, you were so beautiful... but now you failed

_____~

There and Back

2006-08-12T20:31:00.000-05:00

~)o(~

if not flying cars by now, gosh darnit, why not cool stuff like this?! FUTURE, YO FAIL ME!!!

*shakes fist*

_____~

Nihilism Has Been Lapped

2006-08-07T18:33:00.001-05:00

~)o(~

More for everyone to talk about. Swing your hips to this thing guys! You aint never had reptiles so cool!!

Showbread, baby!

but BEWARE... Raw Rock Kills

_____~

Nomad Eyes

2006-08-07T17:20:00.000-05:00

~)o(~

You made me a Palace with crackers and spit, a grand thing standing tall, and said to me, "Come in, precious, you are cordialy invited to share your life with me in drowning pain. And the best part is, you'll never feel a thing."
You tear me terribly with calling beconing things like drowning, things like this have brought me tears like love some say. She told me my tears taste like the sea, and my eyes gleam like the grey folding sky as her ship sails off the edge of the world. Dragging tattered sails.

And flanked with dolphins playing merrily in the golden sunset water that only people with broken hearts can see she tells me she longs to dive and drink in lungsfull
and drown

and she swears she wont think of me with every passing moment, with every bitter mouthfull she says that she'll look her own way and go not blind.

Much too much pain on the ocean, they say.

I think it's getting crowded out here on the waves

____~

Sales Rep.

2006-08-05T20:24:00.000-05:00

This lady came in to work today, and she mentioned something about having to decide move to Atlanta by monday. We asked why and she started crying. She said her job has put her into a position where she has to decide this thing. She's lived in pittsburgh all her life and now she's being forced to move to keep her job.

You know what i did? ...nothin. I watched her walk out. I stepped to the door and watched her walk away into the midday heat wavering the sidewalk and trees out there on the street. I had an image in my head of me praying with her and jesus touching her real hard core like

and i did nothing.

In my head i was calling her back in the store...

...and I go sour in paper and plankton sand

Gentleman

2006-08-04T12:58:00.001-05:00

If i could become...
The servant of all...

there'd be no lower place to fall...

______~

the CLAW!!

2006-08-03T20:49:00.000-05:00

You might want to check out my other site, i think it's LDW2006.blogger.com. It's gonna be all about the trip. so GET TRIPPIN!!

Ice and Sky

2006-07-29T23:30:00.000-05:00

This is Robbie Tim and Jen H.

At this place we all had to clip into a fixed line to head up this slope because, down the snowy hill was a lake, and all around that lake was nothing but snow. It looked like Alaska, my friends. We were expecting whales to surface at any moment. But theres no such things as mountain whales.

Anyway, theres snow all around, and if someone fell in the water, not only would they go hypothermic real fast, but it would take a long time to get em out. There'd have to be a line dropped and anchored so as to keep more folks from falling in whyle the first somehow gets dragged out.

cool stuff! more to come...

So, Ya Wanna Change the World, Do Ya?

2006-07-25T13:17:00.000-05:00

This is the Farley Mowat.

She is a Pirate ship of sorts.

She represents an organization called Sea Shepherd and intends to enforce national whaling laws in place of the laxing actions of countries around the world. In her history, she has sunk eight whaling ships to the bottom of the ocean and is considered by several countries to be acting out of terrorist intentions.

She has a small army on board of fourty eight volunteers and was recently featured in National Geographic Adventure magazine. The article, which i read in the van back from Wyoming, blew my socks off. It speaks of a high seas chase in antarctica between the Farley Mowat and a Japanese whaling fleet, and let me tellya, the Mowat wasnt the one on the run.

the Mowat deploys non lethal tactics of "law enforcement," things such as steel cable mouring lines tossed overboard to entangle props of large ships, like this:
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and guys that stand on things like this:

The ship's got some outboard speakers that plays music when they "attack," songs like Flight of the Valkaries, which is pretty cool.

Heres a pic from one of the Mowat's Zodiacs, "outboard" fast little boat things, fore of the Nisshin Maru whale processing ship during one of the many attempts to intimidate and slow down the fleet.

Here you can see the Jolly Roger that the Mowat flys under.

Quote:

"Perhaps it is time once again to remind the Australian government of the crimes being committed by Japan:

The Japanese are whaling in violation of the International Whaling Commission's global moratorium on commercial whaling. The IWC scientific committee does not recognize this bogus research that the Japanese are using as an excuse.
The Japanese are killing whales in the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary.
The Japanese are killing whales unlawfully in the Australian Antarctic Territory.
The Japanese are targeting fin whales this year and humpback whales next year. These are endangered species, and thus, this is a violation of CITES, the Convention on the International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Flora and Fauna.
The Japanese are in violation of IWC regulation 19(a) The IWC regulations in the Schedule to the Convention forbid the use of factory ships to process any protected stock: 19. (a) It is forbidden to use a factory ship or a land station for the purpose of treating any whales which are classified as Protection Stocks in paragraph 10. Paragraph 10(c) provides a definition of Protection Stocks and states that Protection Stocks are listed in the Tables of the Schedule. Table 1 lists all the baleen whales, including minke, fin, and humpback whales and states that all of them are Protection Stocks.
In addition, the IWC regulations specifically ban the use of factory ships to process any whales except minke whales: Paragraph 10(d) provides: “(d) Notwithstanding the other provisions of paragraph 10 there shall be a moratorium on the taking, killing or treating of whales, except minke whales, by factory ships or whale catchers attached to factory ships. This moratorium applies to sperm whales, killer whales and baleen whales, except minke whales.” Fin and humpback whales are both baleen whales and are subject to this moratorium."

Source:http://www.seashepherd.org/whales/blog/whales_blog_001.html

So. Heres a PDF link to the N. G. Adventure article that has changed me a little more, I hope it works: Read me!!

I whent to a prayer meeting at Justin's church this morning at five. afterwards i was talking to a man about some of the things i've been thinking about lately since the trip. Stuff like being a good steward of the planet and such, how I want to buy food that honors the world around me and stands for the fair treatment of animals and the rest of the people that live with me on the planet, and he responded strangely. I don't know if he misunderstood me or what, but he told me,"These things you're thinking about, you don't need to be thinking about right now. Give it ten years or so," or something like that. I'm not sure what he meant. He gave me his number to get a hold of him later on. I might, indeed, but something tells me that I'm not going to be the man that he thinks i should be.

So, whale slaughter. Hm. Have a plesent day.

Lookout Mr. Commings!

2006-07-24T17:13:00.002-05:00

I made it. Will tell stories soon! Till then, here's a picture for everybody to gander upon.

After that whole thing, Pittsburgh looks very, very small.

HUNGRY!! going to get some food.

Secret No. 3

2006-06-09T14:55:00.000-05:00

The following is the conclusion of Secrets. This is my last posting for the next six weeks. I am leaving in a couple hours to meat up with the team that I'm going to Wyoming with. I will be virtualy cut off from all comunication during this time. I will be back, and i will be changed. I hope that all 'yall are well and continue to be well. Talk to Jesus an awfull lot for me, and ask him to bring you adventure like you've never known.

Anyway, that's all i got to say, i gotta pack, and finish school stuff, so take care!
And i love you all.

Winter still tugging at his bare skin, the dark shop sucked him up as the door closed behind. He stopped, and breathed deep a moment longer, then searched.

He found the old crate, squeaking as he moved it aside with his toe, under the shopkeepers workbench. Empty. Packed with dried grass. The thin kind, tall kind that grows in the deserts of the south.

Crowbar still sat near the door. Coffee scorching on the burner.

He left the lights out and let his eyes expand. Then he turned over this and that, looking in old gray file drawers, behind hanging animal heads and paper piles.

Eventualy he found it. It was just a matter of time.

Stuffed behind a stack of books under the counter was a battered briefcasse, enamle worn off the handle and clasps, ripped and worn. The shopkeeper had forgotten to lock it. Maby it was a moment of quick thinking or carelessnes, but the clasps sprung open. The book was under a small pile of old pens, worn documents and papers, maps.
It was beautiful.

It was slender and tall, longer than his young forearm, and dusty. It wafted of an old dry dust, thick dust. The front cover was plated with filigree, fine metal lace and thorns, curves and shapes, eyes and hands and books. In the center of the cover was a large round seal, rimmed with words he didn't recognize.

He sat on the floor unable to speak. He stared for a long whyle.
He smelled the leather. touched the cold metal. Then his fingers split the covers open.

Hazy blue light filled the room, spilling past him onto the wall under the counter.
His arm covered his face and the book dropped, open, to the floor.
He stood rubbing his eyes, head bent down.
For a moment he couldn't move. A strange realization that this was no normal book made him think twice. Hepeaked through his fingers at the book at his feet. Sure enough, the page was glowing merrily. No, not the whole page, a part of it, a section at the top. A panel.

He leaned in close, then dropped to his knees.

In this moment he wasnt sure wether to be amazed, terrified, wether he should run or dance. There on the page was a spinning image of a sunlit forest, strange rocks climbing high from the canopy, all topped with windows and chimneys. Smoke puffed into the sky as the image dipped down into the treetops. Bellow the leaves, the trees glowed with amber streaks. The ground rushed at him in the paper, and buildings emerged. Twists of old tree trunks carved into houses, streams dammed off with strange machines, pathways pooled in golden lamplight, then the ground rushed away. The sky burst into view, and he could see mountains. As the image rose higher, past the rock towers, he could see and endless sea of mountains.

His eyes dialated. His fingers twitched. The shadow of his open hand passed across his face.
He couldn't believe it. "Just like a movie," he said to himself. "Just like one."

No.

Not just like one.

Danger was waist deep in that moment. And he never saw it coming. Never would have thought to guess the peril.

His fingers brushed the glowing image.

Flaming sparks shot through his skin, electric haze swathed his mind in an instant. He tried to jerk back his hand, but it took only the blink of an eye for the book to work it's magic.

And the boy was gone.

`~haze.

blue haze. burnt coffe. maps and adventurous memories.
books...

...were all that remained in the old dark shop in the mountains of Montana.

______~

Secret No. 2

2006-06-06T20:19:00.000-05:00

Eyes full of snow. Mouth cold and wet. Matted hair. Jacketless, bare hands freezing as conciousness curls. Whimsy wanning to onslaughted newfound longing

and dreams refraining.

...early morning, but bitter and cold. He only half remembered the rush out the door as his eyes opened. Ice on his eyelashes gave the tree branches a deep blue and silver shimmer that wrapped his vision like a halo. And then it all became clear.

It became clear as he wiped his eyes. It became clear as he rubbed his arms and shook his head of snow. It became undoubtedly clear. A matureness sprung like weed in his mind as he pumped heartely through his first taste of greed.
So, so clear.

He wanted that book.

Theres no reason to scream at a kid for seeing a book right? That old ancient leather thing?
Filigree metal cover shimmering?

greed.
is what it was.

He got to his feet, breathing deep a new air, cold like winter. "I'm going to take it..."
...and ran off to the forest.

He was gone for two days. His mother called the Police. They searched nonstop, but it was hard getting around in the deep snow, which had begun the day before and hadn't let up.

They found his coat and gloves in the old bookshop, but when they questioned the bookeeper, he had suspicious responses. At first, stuttering, then commetns not matching up. He was visibly nervous about something, but wouldn't budge.

He was taken in for questining late on the second day. He insisted that he remain in his shop, or that someone else stay there whyle he was gone, mumbling about "somethin' important bein' there."

Everyone left, eccept for two pale eyes, patient and mischevious, watching from the cold.

It was easy to sneak in once the old shopkeeper was gone. The back door had this little quirk with the handle and a stick in the gap at the bottom, and in no time, the door swung free.

The shop was dark, smelled like coffee... Bairn stepped inside.

______~

Secret No. 1

2006-06-04T23:09:00.001-05:00

It was mid winter, a cold thick winter. Folks dont live in Montana for long and escape without scars.

Winter scars.

Small town, just south of the Canadian border, nestled in the rolling folds of the Rockies.

Calm eyes.
Grey eyed boy. His mother named him Bairn. Old Scott for child.
The only thing she ever really wanted was for him to stay young forever.
But he was thirteen. No father. And in a backwoods town embering of the smell of clean mountains, wild air, something awoke in him. Maby it had something to do with wanting to prove he was a man, maby it was to show his mother that he was strong, "THIRTEEN damit! I'm a man now!" Whatever it was, the one thing that was sure, he made trouble. And the whole town knew.

Stole from the convenient store on the corner. Poor old man Randal never did understand that boy. Randal never cussed to no grown up when he was thirteen, never would'a crossed his mind! And these days, old man Randal didn't take no lip, either. Bairn learned quick to dodge that shriveled farm fist when it cocked back.

But there was this little basement bookshop that Bairn would always run to when someone was hunting him for doing whatever it was that he had done wrong that day. It was at the end of Morigan St, out where all the coal miners would stop and talk before dawn, out near the last gas station for fourty miles, out where the rust and wildnerness mingled like myrr and sweat, it was here that he would try and stay a boy. After all, it was hard being a man. Especialy so early on. Standing up to superiors, ignoring advice and threats.

There had to be an escape.

It was one of those places that needs a good paint job, wood paneling needs a good sanding. Not to mention a good dusting. Mostly paperbacks, all of them faded. The owner was sometimes nice. Big man, black eyes, beard untrimmed. He was the kind of man that exudes a scent of adventure. And not the movie kind. There was stuff from all over the world tossed in corners, hanging from above the door lintels in this little basement shop. For sure, this man was a traveler. There were times when the shop would be closed for weeks on end, but that big burly owner always came back.

Bairn was usualy allowed to go wherever he pleased in the book shop. Sometimes when new orders came in, he was allowed to help unpack. But that was a rarity. Reading wasn't a prized pastime around these parts.

But books were the bait and hook for Bairn. The bait and hook.

And it was Winter. A deep winter that'd never leave his mothers soul.

Bairn had left early and burrowed through the snow, like a worm, to the old shop. The door pushed hard with ice on the hinges. Snow piled thin on the welcome mat inside.

"I dont need yer help today, Bai!! You just stay out, you hear?"

Bairn, frozen with his gloved hand still on the door handle, decided once again not to pay attention to what someone was yelling at him to do. He closed the door. Walking down the front steps and past the shelves and shelves, he striped off the sweaty jacket and gloves and dropped them under the table of old maps by the street window. With his hands in his pockets and shoulders dropped, he clomped up to the counter. From here he could see to the back where the shipments were usualy dropped. That room through the narrow doorway, had a tendancy to collect battered UPS boxes or things with alot of tape wrapped around them, but this morning, Bairn got a glimpse of something he had never seen in all his young days. The wide dark shape of the shopkeeper stood up, back facing Bairn, with something in his hands. Between the shop keeper and the back door stood a small wooden crate, stainded and decrepid. Leaning against the crate was an equaly decrepid lid and a used cold press crowbar. Several bent rusty nails were strewn about the furrowed carpet.

And in his hands was a book.

Bairn had his first taste of greed in that moment. It was an irrational emotion, but one that promised delight and adventure like none he had seen. The book was old leather, and, from what Bairn had glimpsed, had metal work all across the cover, perhaps even hinges.

Bairn must have made a noise, for the shopkeeper spun and glared, the book dissapearing in his shopvest.

"I told you boi, get OUT!! You nevva saw this thing, did ya?! DID YA!!" The shopkeeper's voice rising to a din in the small basement space, his treetrunk shape stepping forward. Bairn backed several steps and tripped over his own boots. He tried to brace himself with his hands stretched back, but falling to the ground he bumped his head and the world spun. The next thing he knew, he was running up the front steps and the door was opened by his dissembodied hand, and he tumbled out into the snow...

To Be Cont.

___~

Falling Short, Like Arrows

2006-05-27T18:49:00.000-05:00

the moments you know you messed up.

you don't even have to be told.

and you run to get your leftovers, hands full of yourself cause you aint got nothin else. you know that moment. you know that well, my friend.

it's like the flat grey sky, towering like a sleeping watchman, sleeping with his eyes open, seeing you when you're sure you wont be seen, knowing you when you're all alone. theres nowhere, no reason to run. you can see the horizon, you know it's far, too far off, the rocks are sharp. your clothes catch the thistles. you feel rain in the air.

and it fills your lungs.

liechen glistens in the riven landscape like the memories in your brain, rummaging deep in yourself for recognition and adoration, only to get back just what you paid for. unsatisfaction. derelict.
Jetison.

come and find me... i need the thin place

Oonraiot Yehshooa

______

Connect

2006-05-27T17:03:00.000-05:00

So. I was talking to this guy i know back from columbus just last night, Josh Correra if any of you know him, and he told me a crazy story:
Josh was telling people about this trip that i'm going on in a few weeks, you know, just letting people know whats going on and stuff, and this guy that's been going to Joshua House, the young adults community at Vineyard Columbus, who's been hanging out with everyone, and it turns out that this kid knows a guy who lives here in Pittsburgh by the name of Isaac.
And i know this Isaac.

AND it also turns out that the reason that thus one guy has been going to Joshua House is because I told Isaac about Joshua House and how cool it was, and he told this guy who HAPPENED to move to columbus for a job and thought about this Joshua House thing and tried it out and loved it. Then he meets Josh, and Josh tells me about it, and that is insane.

also, i remember this one time i heard about this guy in Japan, i think, who was some kind of monk or priest, pretty hard core guys, and he was accused of raping a 12 year old girl. He totaly confessed to it saying, "The temptation was just to great."

uh... i remember feeling kind of strange after hearing that. today in the bathroom, just like ten minutes ago, i pieced it together. he was passing the blame, guys. the temptation was just too great... it was... the TEMPTATIONS fault. it was all that temptations fault.

can we stand up, guys, and find a place in our very souls that can say, "I admit that I actualy did this. It was me. no one's faylt but me," and not pass it off, not blame, just accept and announce that you are screwed up sometimes?

maby?

One last thing, we become like the things that we worship

___________

Why Reggie Loves the Dark

2006-05-24T16:47:00.000-05:00

so i've been milling over this fact for several weeks now. I wasnt sure what to think at first.

and i wont bother trying to describe it just yet, seeing as i have 'bout five minutes before i have to be in Ethics, but i wanted to declair it to the world, or at least to those of you that read my thingies.

Dreams are comming

It's back.
Pack for the long haul. We're gonna be in this one for a whyle.
Take flashlights, plenty of dehidrated meals, climbing gear, sturdy boots, and always remember: don't drink the water.

Keys

2006-05-19T18:33:00.000-05:00

i moved out.

i packed all night wednsday till four thirty piling stuff into my car alone.
the appartment is empty. it echoes itself. i dont have to ever go back there.
my car is packed full of things. three days of moving has payed off.
Thanks to tim and his roommate, Isaac and Malory for helping me, and thank you Kane's for letting me have your basemeent for my stuff!

three weeks till i leave. three. and till then...

...gah.

I'm homeless.

The Real Folks Blues Pt.2

2006-05-05T18:29:00.000-05:00

So i walk in the sunlight, dodging shadows, swimming in amber pools of gold, heading for the bridge. i unstop my coffe thermos and pour some steaming stuff in the lid, grab a hunck of the bread that i now own, and shove the rest back in my pack. Mouthfulls, eh? yea.
mouthfulls.

thirty, fourty feet abouve a river, i work fast across the bridge, loveing the sun, loveing the coffee, loving the food. I aproach and lean on past the stout and ever present Station Square, rounding the lefthand corner, and head to the south side. half way there.
is when i notice the train tracks, and when i pull out Wild at Heart, and give my heart away to a little adventure. I head up this not too steep embankment and walk a whyle along the tracks, reading and dreaming.

Steel. Trees . Meee.
Wood and oil, dirt and shoes, eyes open in the crisp air.

Eventualy, i cut down through some trees back to East Carson, and weave my way to In the Blood, this little tattoo shop i sometimes go to.

southside is its own unique thing.
and i will talk about it next. time.

photo courtesy:http://www.fiatvera.com/

Concrete

2006-05-02T08:18:00.001-05:00

downtowntuesdaymorning
had its own suprise for me this morning

i was talkin to god and wonderin about some pretty hard things that are going on with me
and i was like this to god, "dude. how are we getting out of this, baby? i've tried so hard, but over and over again, i just cant do this. i cant. i know i cant. i need you."

i stepped over a piece of paper.

"pick that up," i heard in my head.

"na." i told it. "thats rediculous. i dont need to pick up no useless picece of paper." I said to myself confidently.

several steps later, i still think i should pick up the paper thing. so i turn around and bend over.
It's a fortune from some fortune cookie somewhere that someone probably ate.

i stopped breathing...

if you dont get why this is amazing, im sorry.

You see, this is one of the reasons that i love Jesus so much.

stupid fortunes... speak the words of God. At least they did this morning.
and for those of you wondering, i am not advocating human ability, this is discovering the strength inside(where Jesus lives, by the way) that you deny because you are convinced that you can do nothing. Drilled into our heads, isn't it, church-goers? you can do nothing.
There is little spoken about how we can do anything because of Jesus, isnt there? One part of the bible says we are capable of doing nothing, the other says we can do anything... wheres the compromise? this seems like contradiction, right?

Nope. The crutial element of this whole fenomenon is Jesus. Is Jesus around you? is he in you?

The fortune today spoke to me about the strength that i have that i must be taught again that i have
solely because of jesus.

...and i can do anything...

Streetsleepers

2006-05-01T16:37:00.000-05:00

Started.
Saturday April 29, seven o'clock.

Earlier saturday, i found out about it.

Ever hear of Uganda? Ever hear of rebel militia abducting kids, brainwashing them, desensitizing them to violence, and enlisting them in military combat?
well it's happening right now. as we speak. And every night, tens of thousands of kids in northern Uganda walk miles to try and stay safe.
Imagine carying your bed every night and sleeping in a crowded town square
on the street
and having no choice other than abduction.

Started.
Saturday April 29, seven o'clock.
Global Night Commute.

So this girl i know, Kelc, stops me and tells me about this walk thing that's going on later that night, having to do with this Uganda thing that she procedes to tell me all about. I decide i'll go. It turns out that i had a bunch of buddies doing this homeless thing in Market Square where they were making sandwitches for peoples and playing music, and the guy organizing the Pittsburgh branch of the Global Night Commute was there and he answered all my questions.

And this is what i did Saturday night.
I trucked home and stuffed my sleeping bag in my backpack, grabbed a couple layers and some mack and cheese, and left the house again. i got downtown about seven.

There were hundreds of people packed into Market Square, everybody had blankets and sleeping bags and pillows, and everybody was there for the same reason. To remember the kids that do this every night on the other side of the world and have no choice.
Mostly everybody started a couple miles away in the Southside Works, and marched uptown. I was looking at apartments, so i didnt make that part.

But it was amazing. you ever open up a can of sardines? That's what all the people looked like saturday night, but hundreds of sardines, all in sleepingbags, haphazardly lying about.

Eric, the black guy with the thick Afrikan accent who organized everything, spoke and answered questions.

i guess the final count was 490. me and the buddies didnt get to sleep till three thirty.

abunch of us whent for a walk around the city, down to the river and around the convention center. It was briliant. New friends make me happy. Unity makes me rumble with contentment. there were so many different people there, gheto kids, punk kids, Point park artsy dance kids, soccer(football for those of you using PROPER names) kids, and now that i think about it, i dont think i saw a single face, other than parents dropping their kids off, that was over like, twentyeight or something.

there was this awesome Irish girl i got to talk to for a bit. She's an exchange student and's going back home in a month or so.
I asked her to talk some more, at one point. I got a real big kick out of hearing all the little linguistic changes in the things she said. her "mum" is from scotland, and i could hear the hard tones in her accent influenced by mother.

oh man... i loved listening to her talk. the way she said "bahk hoom, in ierlaand,"
...turns out i got a weakness for irish girls.

but i digress.
sleeping was hard core. i think that there wasnt a single body there that was not touching another person. The sense of comunity, cause, movement, thinking, caring was intense, an atmosphere that had nothing to do with downtown. Not to mention that sleeping in the city is incredible in itself. Looking up at the sky, your view framed with skyscrapers, intense baby. glowing ember windows like starlight.
body heat. comunity.

So... Represent. Represent The Family.
Represent The World.
Represent.
Represent The Voiceless.
You Are Where Change Begins.
Represent.
These, The Least Of These Are The Invisible Ones.
Represent The Unseen Kids
Who Have No Childhood
And Will Have No Voice.

No Voice
But
US

http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendid=66264655

A New Age

2006-04-27T07:51:00.000-05:00

WONDER

behold.
the places you thought you'd never go.
are at hand, my friend.

the life you thought you'd never have
is brought to you
as we speak.

Jesus talks about life abundant, life thrilling, life to the full.
What do you think that means?
what do you Really think that means?

it means you will be satisfied, and satisfied in ways you never thought you needed to be satisfied, thrilled, pushed and mended.

His life is waiting.
come and get it

wonder...

The Forgetting

2006-04-24T22:59:00.000-05:00

i want you to forget everything you've ever learned.

wink at me to let me know you hear

hear me loud
and hear me clear

i want you to forget it all.

Ye merry are merry no longer, ye humble are lying low, ye are a pirates life, ye are the maker of danyube and meriment triumverate. relenquish your hold and dont ever forget... you aint nothin without love.

so forget everything you ever learnt. forget proper english, it aint keepin you noplace.

who ever said that giving means getting? who ever was stupid enough to tell you that the reason you care is that you'll be cared for?
is that the porpose of comunity and love?
sometimes i think it is. no, sometimes i know it is. and i am the center of that porpose.
forget everything you ever learnt.
cause you aint the purpose, and you need to give without ever wanting back anything.

if you get, its cause theres something amazing out there that gives. if you love its cause theres something equaly as lovely loving in you.

so.

forget everything you think you know. barefeet on the pavement, oh man. i'll tell ya. that sure is a more dangerous place to be. If you got your trusty shoes on, its for sure that you wont get cut up, you got a good half inch of stuff betwixt you and the "razors of nature."
but take em off, and momma yells at you, "GET EM BACK ON!!"

and how. now you got nothin to keep you from glass and dirt, pain and gravel, do you?

yea. thats something like what jesus woos us into. something dangerous like that, i think.
dangerous like tender skin, dangerous like cliff heights, dangerous like wild meat eaters.
dangerous like something i havent lived, a danger that is deffinately not American.
and deffinately not sterile. and

dare i say it?

infinately more alive

forget everything you know
About Christianity.
And Safety.
And Peace.

learn love, love like jesus, and you'll learn things about danger, things about fighting and battle, and things about the freeing breath that letting go of religion brings. the kind of deep breath that no one ever told you 'bout. no not ever. cause no one ever told you
forget everything you know, dear lovelies.

everything.

Mist

2006-04-22T10:13:00.000-05:00

Things here are coming to an end.
Theres things that I have loved about the last year of my life, things that have changed me deeply, and things, even now, i hear echoing and trickling down my imagination, making me stir and look about
as though someone had said my name.

Things here are telling me goodbie.
I have come to the point this morning where i realise that i must let alot of things, places, experiences, games, music, alot of things
go

If i dont, I'll get stuck here.
and the problem with that is... that i'm not going to be here, but here i will remain, if that makes sense.
And being stuck in a place you aren't in, goodness. That is hard. And you miss everything that is beautifull around you whyle your out wishing for everything that was beautifull to come back and be with you. Be with me.

This isn't the end of beauty, i know that, in fact this could be the opprotunity to make more beauty than i ever thought possible, but

In moments like this, when i'm staring out the second story window, watching as the trees take their time to green up finaly, smelling that dim moist scent of morning rain, metal flower aroma seep through the opening in the wall, it's rather bittersweet. knowing i'm moving.
It isnt the apartment I'll miss, it isnt the building, it isnt the carpet or fridge or the fact that we have three microwaves, or even the view of the city that I'll miss so much as the time and dreams that have been defibulated to life here, the sparkings of imagination, the things that make me whole.

It's just hard to imagine life being better than what you can imagine it being.
that's all, really.

Lesbians

2006-04-21T20:55:00.000-05:00

J: "You know one thing that Jesus talks about that's so powerfull, is forgiveness. Jesus calls us to love our enemys, to love those who hate us. How well do you forgive?"
G: "Oh, well, you see i let things go..."
J: "No no, i mean forgive, the ability to bless, to love those who hate you. See, ya know, if we pray right now, I bet you, if you want to learn how to forgive, Jesus will come and be with us and start to empower you to do that."
"This lesbian couple look at me like, what is going on? The whole world is coming unglued!
Do you know what I mean? Like, I'm supposed to be the guy, the pastor that's like, i dunno, mean or...something."
"So we pray, and boom. There's this encounter with Jesus, they're crying..."
"They call me a week later and tell me about how they're working at this coffee shop, this homosexual coffee shop, where christians were picketing outside. So what they did is they made some nice coffee drinks for these christians and went out, and with tears streaming down their faces, they hand coffee to these christians and just say"

"We think Jesus would want us to forgive you."

"do you feel your world cracking a little bit? do you feel that, do you hear that cracking noise?
That might be God breaking out of his box..."

There's the stuff baby. There's the stuff.

Jay Pathak. this will change your life.

listen to the thing above here along with other cool things!

Jolly-man Dreams

2006-04-11T08:30:00.000-05:00

so Santa, right?

yea.

Santa.

i remember a moment when i was eleven or twelve, it was around christmas time, it was late.
The tree was glowing bright. One of my favorite things has been christmas trees. In fact, our christmas tree here at the apartment is still up as we speak, even though none of us are actualy speaking...
Anyway, it was late. I think I felt it coming on the air, i felt something creaping and was scared to death of it.

a plate of cookies sat stout and full with a whitewashed glass of milk unmoving, slightly chilled
the stone fireplace was cold.
so was the world outside.
and so were the cookies bright.

again,
i think i could feel it coming on the wind... i knew it...
and i started crying.
it was dark, and sneaking nearer even as new tears flowed.

"i believe in you... i believe in you... i believe in you..."
i told the man in the sky, flying high, heavenly sleigh piled deep with treasures
for me

sometimes Santas cookies would have little bites out of them.
sometimes the carrots would dissapear during the night.
sometimes there would be mouthmarks in milk on the glass.
and always, i'd be exited.

i remember waiting up one night, or being determined to stay up, and see him come.

i cared about him.

but Santa never seemed to care for me.

he never talked to me.
never came by to see me.
never let me "in"

and always wrapped my presents with my parents wraping paper.

that night i was determined to keep believing in him.
and i dont remember when i stopped, but i did. it was subtle and unnoticed, my fall from grace.

Santa left my life.
Winter continued to grow inside me like a root, cold and gleaming, white and thick.
Santa shriveled away.

I grew away into winter and things that are just bigger and earthier.

Theres this lady i heard of once, Julia Sweeny, who does these monologue things that are really neat. I'ts called Letting Go of God, and it will mess you up. so beware.
She whent through a thing that was just likle me and Santa. It sounds really the same.
Except with God.

Elves are lies. Flying sleighs are lies.

And i cant tell you why God is different than Santa, at least in a simple phrase,
but i'm sure gonna try.

Santa never touched me. Santa never talked to me.
My parents seemed to have this IN with him, they organized my presents to be delivered to my dad's house a week early when i'd be there with him, and told me interesting things about the ins and outs of Santadome.
honestly, Santa was their thing.
and i just accepted it, cause obveously, if my parents think this thing is real, it must be.
but i guess the trouble was i started thinking.

i weighed him and found him wanting.

Santa is this thing that no one really believes in but everyone pretends to believe cause its a nice idea, a kind idea, its a thing that brings hope and peace, or at lest it's supposed to.
It is a part of the American Religion, just like evolution and the Easter Bunny, and McDonalds. Walmart is also an American staple of patriotism. As ecential as Holy Eucarist. Cheap is good, after all, and if it's cheap, it must not be hurting anyone, right?
Christianity is in there too. It's something that alot of people dont really believe in, but millions pretend to cause its a nice idea, a kind idea, its a thing that brings hope and peace, or at least it's supposed to.
Just as charming
and just as fake
as

all

those other things.

There is no Christianity. There is no Santa. There is no imporance or wholeness or completeness that you will get from a 99 cent extra value meal. There is nothing that really lasts to be found in slashed prices.

And even though God is alot like Santa, those Jolly-man Dreams never made me really take a good long look at my junk and then help me figure out how to grow out of it. and neither does Walmart. When i step in stores like that or see a plastic(Hollow) glowing santa in a yard, i feel like i can forget everything. I feel like its ok to just buy or believe in an idea, or whatever, and not worry about what's wrong with me. Whats wrong with the world I'm in. I dont care about Walmart ripping thousands of people from their right to life, and life abundantly, cause i get a really good deal out of the whole thing.

I want to let santa and Ad campaigns and fast food and seasonaly changing fashions go.
I want to let this wimpy western orthodoxic pansy Christianity go.

I want to know Jesus. I want to be changed forever. And i want to follow him because he doesn't ignore me. He doesn't leave me crying in the middle of the night when all i want to do is believe in him.
He takes me into real painfull stuff on porpose, theres no wrapping the razor in marshmallow fluff, no holding back. He has hurt me deeply. Everything about America says "get comfortable, no payments for three billion years, do what tastes right, you deserve it, be safe, make things sterile and unpassionate, you'll feel much better if you just buy something for that heartache. listen, heres some shoes."
God doesnt let us castrate ourselves like that. he hurts you. and you heal and are so much stronger and wiser. He doesnt make people more perfect, he grows people like trees.
he changes you where it matters.
And he doesnt settle with leaving presents under your glowing idealism.
and he doesnt eat your cookies, either.

i think im done.

2006-04-02T23:30:00.000-05:00

things to come:
Santa!!!

and for those of you who dont know already, heres a little thing i got accepted into...
you will be thoroughly informed within the near future of the nature of things....

and dont forget santa, either.

Venturing into the remote high mountain wilderness is an unforgettable experience. It is also very unforgiving to the unprepared or ill-prepared. The items on this list are essential for your well being. This list is considered minimal, meaning that if items on this list are not secured, then your involvement is jeopardized. Individuals will be checked for the possession of the listed items. If you experience difficulty in securing some of the clothing items, there are various items available for an additional rental charge.

SPECIAL NOTE: NO COTTON!! Cotton is the WORST possible fabric for outdoor activities. Cotton acts like a sponge for water and in doing so, offers NO insulating value. Wet cotton is actually a cooling agent! WOOL and synthetic fabrics (polypropylene, pile, fleece) are the best and only acceptable items.

There should be few items to purchase new. Check through family closets, trunks and borrow from others (especially for old woolen clothing). If you must purchase items, visit a thrift (Army/Navy, Salvation Army store) or outlet store to greatly reduce costs. Function is of primary concern! Fashion is nonessential! Be creative and improvise.

MINIMUM CLOTHING LIST: ALPINE MOUNTAIN CLOTHING
2 pr of loose fitting sturdy pants: 1 pr needs to be wool (See NOTE Below), the other should be a pr of light cotton or nylon wind pants. Absolutely NO blue jeans. Blue jeans are too restrictive, preventing body movements. Also, the color blue attracts bugs and when wet provides NO warmth.
3 wool shirts or sweaters
4 pr wool socks (additionally, some like to use polypropylene sock liners)
1 wool knit hat
1 pr wool mittens
1 pr wool or polypropylene gloves
1 hat with a brim (baseball style is acceptable)
3 T-shirts
1 long sleeve work shirt
1 lightweight nylon windbreaker with hood
1 pr sneakers (around campsite and river crossings) Teva type sandals are not sufficient for river crossings. You may bring Teva type sandals in addition to sneakers.
2 or more bandanas
1 waterproof rain suit, (coated nylon, Gore-Tex, etc.)
1 swim suit
2-5 sets of underwear
1-2 pr nylon athletic gym shorts w/ nylon liner (can be worn as underwear)
1 pr Mountain Boots (see lengthy description pg. 2)
1-2 pr long underwear (polypropylene and/or wool blend -at least 50% wool). This is a very important item. Absolutely NO cotton. Synthetic fabrics such as polypropylene that “wick” moisture away from your skin are ideal. Running tights are acceptable.

PERSONAL ITEMS
1 pocket-size Bible -OT & NT (in a Ziplock bag)
1 Journal notebook 5’X7” min. (in a Ziplock bag)
1 pr Glacier-type sunglasses with side shields-need to be very dark, 100% UV ray protection
4 large, heavy-duty plastic garbage bags
1 sunscreen-minimum SPF 20
1 Chapstick/lip balm and hand lotion
1 insect repellent (no aerosol cans)
1 day pack (large book bag, min. of 2,000 in3 w/ a waistbelt)
1 non-breakable bowl, cup and spoon
1 small towel or pack towel (optional)
1 belt or suspenders (if pants are loose fitting)
1 flashlight (headlamp) plus extra batteries & light bulb)
1 pocket knife
1 toilet kit (toothbrush/past, comb, feminine hygiene items)
1 watch -preferably with an alarm
1 shower bag - you will need to pack a shower bag for our shower stops during our travels. Include in this bag: money (for meal stops in route to/from Wyoming), soap, shampoo, deodorant, shaving needs, towel, wash cloth, and a fresh change of clothes. Pack all these items in a well marked, separate bag.

NOTE: Any wool item can be replaced with polyester piles (e.g. Thermax, Capilene, Polarite, Polarplus, Synchilla, etc.). Wool is significantly less expensive than polyester pile. Polyester piles are significantly more comfortable than wool.

You may also bring, with our approval, the following:
Camera (extra film and in a waterproof bag)
Small binoculars
Any prescribed medication that you require
Contact lenses (recommend glasses with croakies (strap) and case)
Fishing gear ($ to purchase a Wyoming fishing license)
Musical instruments (no electronic devices, radios, etc.)

SUGGESTED INDIVIDUAL ITEMS
Additional Individual Items To Bring (These items can be provided if you do not currently have them.)
Compass
Gaiters
Mitten shells
Climbing harness(able to fit over bulky clothing)
2 nonlocking, 2 locking carabiners
20’ of 1” tubular webbing
sleeping bag and sleeping pad. Sleeping bag must have a nylon shell. NO COTTON or DOWN. Must be compactable (in a waterproof stuff sack). Must be mummy-style w/ hood & drawstring, min. of 3 lb. of synthetic fill and rated to 20° F or lower.
backpack (very large, at least 6000 in3)

Additional Items on the clothing list that can be provided if you are unable to secure them before the trip (there are only a limited number of these items available). There may be an additional rental charge for the use of these items.
Rain jacket and nylon wind pants
wool sweaters
wool knit hat
wool pants
wool mittens
Mountain Boots

Use of any personal equipment items (both camping and climbing items) is permissible and encouraged, but subject to instructor approval. There is no reduction in tuition for bringing your own equipment.

Participants assume responsibility for program equipment and remuneration for lost or damaged gear will be demanded.

GROUP ITEMS PROVIDED
tents
food
cooking gear
water purification devices
first aid kits and supplies
all technical climbing equipment, including, but not limited to ropes, helmets, ice axes, crampons, harnesses, etc.

GETTING READY
Physical Preparation: Please refer to the separate training schedule to be provided. You do not need to be an athlete to complete this program; however, you will be exerting yourself, perhaps more than ever before. You will be hiking and climbing at altitudes in excess of 13,000 feet. This experience will be physically demanding at times, so plan to arrive in good condition. In preparation, concentrate on stamina, breathing capacity and strength.

Many past participants express regret for not investing more effort (or any effort at all) in physically preparing for the trip. Make the most of this experience by seriously preparing (physically) for this adventure - you will be very grateful you did!

OVERVIEW OF MOUNTAIN BOOTS
1 Pair of Mountain Boots are required for this expedition. They should be suitable for hiking and climbing with heavy backpacks in very rugged terrain, including snow. They must have fairly stiff soles with a 3/4 (three-quarters) or full length shank. Must be suitable for use with crampons. Full grain or top grain leather is most desirable, with the fewer seams the better (the best boots only have a heel seam...forget boots with more than 3 pieces of leather). The type of welt (the attachment point of the leather uppers to the midsole) is also important. The Norwegian (stitched) storm welt is the best. Littleway & Goodyear welts are second best. Accept only synthetic thread in the welt. Expect to pay over $100 for quality boots. Boots must be well broken in BEFORE the trip. Waterproof them well (treat oil-tanned leather with bootwax or oil, treat chrome-tanned leather with silicone wax). Soft-soled hunting boots or soft-toed boots or Gore-Tex day hiker boots are not adequate. Vibram soles preferred. Quality boots with proper care will last many, many years and many, many miles. Any questions- please call your trip leaders.

BOOT FITTING INSTRUCTIONS: Place bare foot in boot without lacing it up and push the foot as far forward as possible. Stand with full weight on the feet, with toes touching the end of the boot, and bend knees forward. There should be enough room between the heel and back of the boot to insert two fingers without pressure. This is the minimum space for preventing toes from hitting the end of the boot when descending slopes. Typically, people will require 1 full size or larger boot. People who wear larger sizes should allow for slightly more space. Next, try on the boot with two pairs of heavy wool socks. Stand in unlaced boot with full weight on feet. The sides of the toes or ball of the foot may lightly touch the inside of the boot, but if there is pressure that tends to stretch the boot outward, it is too tight. Lace the boots comfortably, not too tightly. Kick the toe of the boot against a solid surface. If this action causes the toes to touch the end of the boot, try an additional larger size boot. Please inquire if considering plastic boots.

The following is a suggested endurance and strength training program to help you adequately prepare for LDW.

Training time frame: 8 weeks

Cardiovascular Endurance Program
Guidelines:
1. Because the availability of training equipment and facilities differs among individuals, this endurance program offers a variety of activities which can develop endurance.
2. Helpful hint: A jogging/running program is the easiest and fastest method for developing cardiovascular endurance from the options provided.
3. Warm up before and cool down after each exercise session for 2 minutes at a lower intensity than the training period.

Possible Modes of Aerobic Exercise:
Jogging/Running Hiking (on hilly terrain) Rowing
Rollerblading Cycling Nordic Track
Swimming (20 min duration)

Duration: 23-35 min

Frequency: Wk 1-3 3 days/wk
Wk 4-6 4 days/wk
Wk 7-8 5 days/wk

Intensity: The target heart rate you want to maintain throughout the duration of the exercise session in order to increase cardiovascular endurance.

Find resting heart rate (RHR) = count # beats for 15 sec and multiply by 4
Find maximum heart rate (MHR) = 220 - age
To determine your target heart rate (THR)
Wk 1-2 THR = 60%(MHR-RHR) + RHR
Wk 3-5 THR = 70%(MHR-RHR) + RHR
Wk 7-8 THR = 80%(MHR-RHR) + RHR

Strength Training Program
Guidelines
1. Strength training must be regular to be effective, so a commitment is necessary to achieve the desired results.
2. Bend the knees and use the legs to lift the weights rather than using your back to lift.
3. Do not use your momentum or bounce the weights against your body to lift.
4. Lift the weights smoothly and slowly with proper form. Stop the workout if you are too fatigued to lift using proper form.
5. Never hold your breath while lifting. Exhale while lifting and inhale while lowering.
6. Each training session should result in complete fatigue of the muscle group being exercised.

The weights needed in the exercises described are hand weights. Using dumbbells, or in some cases a bar, would be ideal, but any weight with enough resistance will do the job. I suggest using small brick, or perhaps filling plastic milk containers with water (adjusting the amount of water will adjust the amount of resistance you must lift) as substitutes for dumbbells. This exercise program provides variety and balance in training for your excursion, as well as encouraging personal creativity in choosing the exercise activities.

Exercises for large muscle groups:

SHOULDERS
Shoulder Press: with elbows bent & arms out to the side, bring weights overhead
Lateral Raises: holding weights in each hand, raise straight arms sideways away from the body
Upright Row: hold weights down in front of body, then pull weights up to chin, keeping them close to the body
Shoulder Shrug: hold weights in each hand down at each side of the body, lift the shoulders almost to the ears, then roll the shoulders backward, down, and forward

ARMS
Biceps Curl: alternately flex the elbows bringing the weight to the shoulder
Running Dumbbells: holding a weight in each hand, keeping the legs stationary, do the arm motion of running
Triceps Press: holding one weight in both hands behind the head, press it overhead
Bent-arm flys: lying on back, with elbows bent and arms out to the side, bring weights together over the chest

ABDOMINAL
Reverse Curls: lie on back, bend the knees with feet flat on the floor, lift the knees to the chest raising the hips off the floor
Straight Crunch: place hands on ears, curl up until shoulder blades leave the floor (to increase resistance, do it on an incline or rest feet on a bench)
Side Crunch: lie on your side with back straight and knees bent 90 degrees, with shoulder on the ground and hands on the ears, raise shoulder blades off the ground (do on both sides)

BACK
Upper Back Lift: lie face down with hands behind neck, raise elbows, head and chest off the floor
Leg Lifts: lie on back, slowly lift both straight legs and slowly lower them
Side Curls: lie on your side with the back straight and knees bent 90 degrees, touch the bottom elbow to the top knee (perform on both sides)

LEGS
(Choose one of the following)
Run stairs (stadium or anywhere with distance of at least 2 flights) do 8 sets
Run hills (at least 20 yards with a very steep incline) do 12 times (7 facing forward, 5 facing backward)

(Choose one of the following exercise)
Heel Raises: holding weights, stand on a step and raise up onto toes
Lunges: holding weights, take large steps, lower body until back knee touches floor
Jumping Squats: hold weights by the shoulders, with one foot in front of the other, jump and switch feet before landing

Frequency: 3 days/wk

Mode: Choose 2 exercises from each major muscle group

Progression: Wk 1-2 3 sets of 12-15 reps
Wk 3-5 4 sets of 10-12 reps
Wk 6-8 4 sets of 8-10 reps

_____________________________________________________

A List

2006-03-29T01:31:00.000-05:00

Shadow of a Doubt

Rear Window

A Walk to Remember

I Am Sam

The New World

Once Upon a Time in the West

Four Brothers

The Machinist

Saw II

The Real Folks Blues pt. 4

2006-03-27T20:44:00.000-05:00

a part of me that i dont show very often. not cause i dont want to, i just forget about it.
when im with you all.

im romantic to the core, friend. sometimes i think im bleeding it.

and its especialy confusing when girls treat me like a person. like i deserve to be loved or something. like

im important to them.
i've had three girls in the past two days tell me wonderfull things, or spend time with me, or hold me up in a place of importance in their lives for a moment, link arms, watch a movie, walk the dog.
i dont feel that i deserve these moments to enjoy. not to lust for, just enjoy.

i crave lust way too much anyway.

crave it

anyway...
i spent saturday night at Kate's house watching
Shulze gets the blues.
watch it imediately. photo above's from here.
we piled under blankets and passed thin mints and over-salted popcorn back and forth. here and there she'd get phone calls from somebody or whatever and i'd walk around. or check my email. or do this journal thing. we talked like we were important to eachother.
i remember talking about all kinds of things, how romantic we both are about stuff, and... really, we just opened hearts a little.
and i realized something talking to her, under five of my own blankets(none of this sharing blanket buisness) that theres more to that quote from Pirates of the Carribean where Jack says something like,"theres two things in life that really matter: what a man can do, and what a man cant do."
fu'r instince: i could have fallen in love.
i could have said screw love.
i could have done many things.
there realy didnt seem to be any element of what i couldnt do.
it was what i decided not to do in that moment on the couch. i decided not to fall in love. i did. i said no. i wanted to be able to enjoy this person like a person should be enjoyed and not an objective to pursue.

i really cared about our time just then.

and plus i know just how rediculously unrealisticaly romantic i can be, to a psychotic degree.
"no, nate, just cause your feelin's say its good doesn't mean it really is. you know that."
"YES I DO, BUT COMON!!"

now dont get upset, theres a certain few out there that might be reeling right now.
i found it interesting that the thing we talked about the most was Jesus. i really feel he had a hold of my reigns saturday night, and really helped me to keep things in perspective
and to understand the deep reality of what friendship could be

to me.

i thought it was an amazing time.

the end.

Markings of Matchstick Men

2006-03-26T22:51:00.001-05:00

heres an example of me makin stuff up: it was a saturday. one of those deep saturdays. theres this place in the city you could go for a market on saturday mornings. gosh, i must have been at least twenty seven then, it seems so long ago now... heh. things sure do change. but back to saturday. market day, i'd call it. a twothousand four kind of market saturday. smells in the market always were stronger than other smells, especialy accented with the crisp morning chill. i loved mid autumn market day. theres shops that sell stained glass sculptures and places that sell eastern food cooked hot out on the sidewalk for five fifty a plate full. fresh meat. awesome smell that is, fresh meat. powerfull. smells wild to me, it does. but im getting distracted. yes. that's right. there's this kind woman with dark hair and dark eyes that runs a little flower stand, at least she had up to this morning. her little crowded plot on the sidewalk where usualy you'd have to duck under a tunnel of floral, and suffer petals in the shower drain later that day, was nothing but empty sidewalk that day. it was mysterious. i stood there missing her for a whyle, smelling things other than flowers. just standing. i didnt know just how important she was to the morning routine till she was just as gone as my childhood. it was strange. and stranger still, i found it to be, was a small stained sack, no bigger than my fist, lying in a puddle where her bench used to sit. now, im not one to get down in the gutter, but im also not one to turn down mysteries either. so, i guess it was a "compromising" day. so i picked up this strange small bag, half soaked and squeezed it a little. brown flecking water ran down my arm. i remember how cold it felt. just a little too cold. it could have been the breaze, but im convinced it was something more. it had this red draw string that looked like it was bright and bold one day a long time ago, but it was faded and dirty, fraying and knotted. i pulled the ends and peared inside. seeds. huh... yea, i remember looking around like someone had called my name, or that i was expecting someone to come running up to me asking for their bag back. i pulled the small sack to my chest in reflexive defence from nothing. and in that moment, the notion of someone taking it back made me jealous. i was gripped with a need to know. just what they grew. so i took them home and placed them on a shelf in my kitchen window where they waited for spring. yea. it was a long winter. like the weather was waiting for something. but it was dissapointed. nothing came from my house exept me to my things here and there all winter long. she broke about mid march, letting lose the simmer of spring. my little garden would come to life soon. i had tomatoes and things planted, but that shelf in the kitchen was burning a hole in the house. i remember half desiring to do nothing with the bag, and half dying inside for them seeds to be planted and move on, so the mysterie would be over, and walking out of the back screen door, which screeched and bolted on it's spring back to the door frame, i walked barefoot through the dirt with the tiny bag in hand. i was compelled to plant them everywhere, once i started, i couldnt wait for them to bud, or whatever they would do. but in order not make a long story longer, i'll skip the planting bit and just tell you that the winter wasnt the only thing to be dissapointed. no flowers. no bushes. no bulbs. no shoots all summer. no nothing. well, exept for tomatoes and such. every morning on my way to market, i was frusterated by the dead seeds i had been given. and i just let the whole thing go. i didn't care anymore after that summer about the stinkin seeds. and promptly forgot about them. dissapointment can do that to you, especially if your a man. but most men won't tell you that. the brisk of autumn came and ebbed back into winter again. i've always had this strange urge for winter. it's always been a strange longing, like winter fits or something. you know that feeling? when something just fits? like a sweater. how ironic. they were saying it was going to be a bad one. and they did no amount of lying, the weather people, that year. it was bad. the worst in seventy years, they said, the kind of bad that your grandparents talk about. the kind of bad that just belongs seventy years ago. there was hardly any sun, it was dark all the time, and it snowed. and snowed. and snowed. it was crazy. there were points where the entire city was closed cause no one could leave their houses. people slept at work to make sure stuff got done. cars didnt work. the roads were cleared just long enough for the snow plows to move on to another road. im serious. it was that bad. i did alot of looking out my window that winter. it was, i think, the worst night out of all of them that winter, dark and stagnant, but the wind still managed to pierce and scream, the streetlights turned down because of the chaos of snow falling. purple lightning cleft the low clouds. it was hard to hear the thunder gathering, but the electricity in the air chilled the bones, even without the sub zero temperatures and moaning, ripping wind. i was almost terrified that night. i tell ya, i'll never forget that night for the rest of my entire life. and no one believes me either, so whatever you want to believe is fine. it wont hurt me any. i know what i saw, so whatever. i was gazing out of my kitchen window at the fog of snow falling sideways in the gale, and i noticed something very strange in the yard. little black specks in the snow. there had to be almost three feet of snow out there, what were those things? not leaves, the trees were bare. are those things purple? man, i didnt understand what i was seeing. i grabbed a coat and mashed on my boots and ran out the back door. off the porch, i sank into the snow waist deep. my hat almost flew off in the wind. my ears tore from the bitter temperatures. why am i out here? what the crap was i thinking? i couldn't tell you. before i knew it i was outside and lightning was thrashing over me, and hard snow was pelting my eyes. it was hard to see. i dug through the snow like high tide. slowly. i'll always remember that pain, that cold pain. i came upon the first black speck and reached down to grab it. the city lights whent black. somewhere a power line snapped, or a breaker blew. i never found out just what caused that blackout. i never cared to. no stars. only purple flashes and bass thunder and screaming. wind. and tiny purple and blue everywhere. it was confusing. i screamed. very loudly. and not because of the blackout. everywhere in my yard there were tiny lights glowing in the snow. tiny purple and blue embers everywhere. i leaned down to one close to me and cupped the drifting snow from under it. there was a string attatched to it, no it looked frayed... no, it was a stem a flower stem!! it was a flower!! the seeds.... oh god the seeds!!! i think my tongue froze that night, my mouth was open for so long. the pitch darkness broken by life unexpected. the tiny lights pulsed brighter with the coursing lightning. i stood there for an hour, freezing to death, but unable to move, surrounded with a night sky below me, a night sky i could stand in. the storm grew worse. as the lightning crashed and raged even more, the field of winter flowers began sparking and spitting, little flairs caught on the wind and spread and faded. i cried. i remember that. crying very hard. men dont usually admit that either. it was like snow was falling from the ground, glowing snow. a second storm made outa' light dancing with the first in the darkness. i eventually went inside because i couldnt feel my face or hands or feet, and felt it spreading to my brain, like i'd pass out soon. i dont remember much after that. i must have fainted on the rug. the next day, the winter backed off. i went looking everywhere in my back yard for the flowers the next afternoon, but i found nothing. it was almost pointless, anyway, there had to be another foot of snow on top of what was there before. i could hardly get the screen door open, let alone swim in my yard. they were gone, by the way. i never saw them again. they never grew back, not in spring, not the next winter, nothing. of course, winters never seemed to get bad after that, though. all my life, i've never seen a winter like that. and no one believes me. about the flowers. when the snows melted that year, i saw one morning, what appeared to be signs that something had been digging all over in my yard. i thought it might have been a dog or rodent or something. walking arund, turning over the grass and filling in holes, i was lost dreaming. dreaming of winter. and how much i wished spring would just give it up. stop trying. you know. the last of the holes i filled with a nudge of my shoe, and uncovered something very curious. a relatively new looking burlap satchel, drawn tight with a bright red cord laced with gold string. empty. torn bottom. i picked it up and looked around like someone had called my name, or that i was expecting someone to come running up to me asking for their bag back. i pulled the small sack to my chest in reflexive defence from nothing. and in that moment, the notion of never knowing the sparking flash of midnight chaos and bitter tearing wind saddened me to the core. absolutely crushed my heart. i almost couldnt stand it. that had been the second bag i found. the first filled me. the second emptied me. something tells me, too, that it wasnt no dog that had done the digging in my yard. whatever it was, whoever it was, dropped a sack by mistake. and stole my dreams from under me, while leaving tiny bootprints in the earth. and so that's my story. if you ever see me wandering around in the wintertime staring at the treetops, or down snow strewn aley ways, maby you'll understand. some men in their later years stare out their windows at the city lights and wonder, were'd it all go wrong? those longing moments for understanding. i get those. but not for things to be better, or for things to shape up. it gets to be its worst on cold nights, flurries, drifting. i wont be able to pay attention to you, and i apollogize for that. but... you just werent there... __________________________________~

The Real Folks Blues pt. 1

2006-03-26T00:03:00.000-05:00

it looked something like this

the forgotten lost of the city underground standing in line against an old brick building waiting

for nothing at all.
a small crowd of slowly sauntering products of society, dropped and weary, facing back to front and beard covered
and uncared for.

i was talking with this homeless guy last night and he said that St. Marrys surves food between ten thrty and eleven thirty, and that he'd try his best to meet me there, and i said i'd try the same. "is it ok?" "of course it is, of course. look... go to learn something. you'll see people throw food away. half the people there arent really homeless. you know the homeless ones. they never throw anything away."

i got up this morning, out of the door and on into downtown on time.
i got to St. Marrys. he didnt. but that's ok.
i stand in line for a soup kitchen thing, wondering if i should even be there, wondering what other people would say when i told them where i was at ten thirty this morning. "you shouldn't be there, other people could have used that food, you dont need it, this is rediculous!"

but i was there to learn something.
i was treated kind of like one of them, by them.
wait... here i am speaking like these people are all the sudden a "them" and not a part of "us." how degrating. forgive me for that, guys.
the line moved slowly. an old woman, age spots, thin white hair, arched fingers blue dress and a glimmer deep in her eyes when she smiled, was passing out bags of food along with chocolate milk(both sugar free and regular, of course), and a second, equaly beautiful and old woman was passing out oranges. she said the one she was holding had a bad rind, but it was still good inside, and handed me a second, also. two oranges. both women with their little heads sticking out of a door or window of St. Marrys church onto the sidewalk of the underground.
and one self appointed intruder.
a box of bread sat next inviting intrigue. i gave a delighted "oooooo!" and grabbed a particularly lucious loaf.
trash can.
corner.
traffic light unnoticed.
my thumbs digging into a spitting orange.
citrus mist.

this one man with big glasses who walked with his upper body bent back at an odd angle passed me and said, "are they still open?" "yea," i said.
...as i ate my orange like a little animal in the cold element and cold dirt.

the whole time, i keep telling myself how wrong it was to be here now.
and the whole time god is telling me to look and learn. to understand something more,
and that right here was where i was supposed to be.

this homeless world is a culture that is alien to most people. partialy because it's very scary.
you dont know if the person you're going to meet's gonna be schitsophrenic or schytsotypal or psychotic or melancholy or paranoid delusional, or just plain "normal." you dont know when Joe is gonna yell, "GET OFF OF MY CROSS WALK!!!" as loud as he can, or wisper, "alpha bravo victor niner three deuce," to remember the license plate of some screaming jerk passing buy. you dont know if the guy your talking to is really going to have a conversation, or just ramble on in an almost cohearent way, a three hundred mile out of the way corse in telling you he's covering his butt for feeling guilty for something he said to you, a way of apologizing without apologizing, as it were.

i end my time at St. Marrys sidewalk by walking east. streetwise.
i pull out my library copy of Wild at Heart and a rather sizeable hunk of bread and head to the southside, hitting every pool of sunlight i could find on the way.
it was a brisk morning. soaking up the sun seemed as inviting as anything this morning.

i had an hour to get to In the Blood, a tattoo shop run by some jesus lovers on the other side of town, and a city to climb on the way.
the walk there would be exiting, and the day to follow would be engaging, eye opening, freeing, new and amazing:

homeless.
someone smash faced drunk.
train tracks.
girls.
mayonaise.
movie.
children.
tattoos.
blankets. lots of blankets.
Tom's Diner.
Life stories.
new friends.
new loves.
new lives.
new sandwitches.
and most of all

the worlds that changes make.

Monday Evening

2006-03-20T23:34:00.000-05:00

so, i dunno. what if Jesus were to sit down right here in this empty space next to me?
somehow he's here in Pittsburgh visiting me, maby with a cup of tea in his hand or something, right? so he sits down here, the lights are low, just like they normaly are in the appartment, and he looks at me. he doesn't really glance me over, he just stares with those deep arabic eyes, the eyes rimed with sun stained yellow, open wide with years of outside life. his hands hold the steaming cup, his skin knicked with scars and fine filigre cuts, calouses from endles splinters, one of his knuckles still bruised from a stray hammer hit.
a carpenters life. leaves its scars.

he likes his tea black.
no sugar. no cream. just hot.

hes not the kind of person you'd think of when conjouring up images of someone to desire, he's kind of short, over weathered for a man of thirty or so, and he deffinately smells like a traveler. he seeps a pungeant aroma, like spices and something salty, a product of his eastern diet.

after laughing for a whyle about stupid stuff...
he leans in, those dangerous eyes, midnight brown, middleastern, filling the room.

"what can i do for you?" he'd ask. and he'd say it in such a way that speaks other things without using other words. things like, "yea, i fully expect you to say whatever you want to say, and it doesn't really matter what you want. im a pro at this. it dont matter none. i can do it. whatever it is. do you worst, kid."

he wouldn't even try and qualify what he'd be looking for. he'd just sit there, waiting. and waiting. god, i hate it when he does this... like im supposed to say something profound or ... give me... like... miracles or something, give me lazer vision, that'd be neat! what do you want from me? i wish youd specify, you really make this hard.

knowing your sitting across from a person with real power is a scary thing.
this guy can do whatever he wants to me. and he's asking me what i would want him to do to me? thats rediculous. i dont have that position, i cant tell jesus what i need. he must've been drinking the wrong kind of tea, or something.

but the question still lingers in the room
wisping like pipe smoke

"what can i do for ya, nate?"

i dont know about you guys, but... i think i'd get reall quiet just then.
my head would drop.
i cant look at eyes that are going to suck me up. i want to stay me. dont drink me dry of me, jesus... i like where i am, right? isnt that what im supposed to do? like where i am? be content with what you've given me? why do i even invite you over. you always bring these awkward silences... its so frusterating...

the question waves gingerly like winter candelight, dripping like honey.
"what do you want?"

alright.

fine. i'll break.

but i wont be able to look at you when i say it.

"i want to be free..."

and he'd know... EXACTLY... what i mean

2006-03-19T23:49:00.000-05:00

i tried a pipe.
my friend pulled it out and packed it from his truck.

it was a clear and gripping evening after Three Nails, the comunity i go to here in the burgh. the evening of community and friends was ending, people were going their own ways, Kelly D had her dog out and it was very delightfull watching her big black monster drag her along behind like she wasnt there at all.
the trees were ecceptionaly large tonight.

we talked about pipes, Katherin O'Leary stood for meer moments next to us, just long enough to say something that sounded like she was too tired to really comunicate anything at all just then. Ian left, waving, and said he got his pipe in Dublin Ireland. i didnt know he had one.
"im going to bed," Katherin mumbled under blond dreadlocks.
her car rolled away toward home.

a flame worth moments came from in my friends hand, and then the embers glowed like a miniscule amber galaxy, free form and floating between me and his deep, burning, underlit features. orange spillway. and then it was dark again.

the scent reminiced my mind of evenings at the cousins house. Isaac's dad smokes pipes, at least he did. i thought of the old days, all of uncle Dave's pipes stacked on a shelf releasing aroma and memory.
there's this deep old wood scent, when it comes to pipes, that has always made me smile. it's hard to explain. there seems to be solemn history with pipes. not to mention aroma that surrounds your head like froth released from gravity, seeping in your nose and eyes...

here in the street, next to Kelly's dog eating sticks, my friends mouth was leaking like white blood billowing in clear tropical ocean tide. cold and ancient. there was a deep romance that called me in that moment. i had to know.
i just had to.

i was smiling wide.

"what do i do?"
"dont inhale, just let it fill your mouth."
"i dont understand..."

he wipes off the end, and it comes to rest between my fingers.

"stick it all the way in there."

needless to say, like most things, i caught on real quick.
just three. the third i inhaled.

tonight, i did something that i have never done before in all my life.
never, ever inhale, you guys. dont ever inhale.

2006-03-14T01:29:00.000-05:00

"dont you dare feel un-worth it just because of something you read that someone else wrote. dont you dare think you arent amazing, nate, dont you ever think that."

its too late. it just that it's time for bed.

i finally washed some clothes.
i think i might have an idea of what i might smell like if i was homeless.
and yes, i do hope you're all eating as you read that right now.

hmmmmmm...
you want to know what happens to me when it gets late?
alright:

fell in love at monterey, not because of the jungle deepness or bustle of market morning, or take home aroma and smell of earth deep and drawing, but monterey led me to her. and im turning off here
she was brilliant, glimering in the rain, sun breaking through a perfect mahogany sunrise, lightning in the west, storm front creaping off to the pacific.
she was dancing.

i'd known her for the three months i'd been traveling, but never quite seen her like this. blue liquid sun stopped to stare at me.
i hate when my hair gets soaked.
im afraid she wont care for me in this moment
im afraid she'll trade me for me
i think of all the times i'd wanted to grab hold of her
and honestly, even if i could, i dont think i'd want even to stop staring at them eyes
dark, deep
endless

echo

ever get a feeling when you look at someones eyes?
well to me, staring at these, i feel like wind is tugging at the cuffs of my pants, i sense my balance slipping off, i smell the edge
and i am deeply afraid again

like staring through the mouth of caves

deep, dark
endless

echo

and im turning off here
to a place...

...i know

that's what happens at 1: 45 in the morning...

2006-03-12T22:02:00.001-05:00

Queensland.No punctuation allowed here. Dont you DARE snap that comma or clear your throat
Dont you dare
there could be a FONT WHERE YOU FORGET YOUR name

HAND of Jenine, of course.
Ancient text states mesmerization. new socks stand Soaked and soiled after romping in fallen skys abysmal. read this... . it is

your death
repeating

withering torent was my car in the midst of the stacking of myth and human scent. it's about there that i finaly questioned the driver on his, oh, so persistent lack of stopping, and apparent love of burning his own face, for flames did leap and eat his features even as i stumbled upon my own words and faster-than-tongue thinking. i did jump with his fare out the nearest and fairest window pain, and like a dream, did rain down with glimmering glass akin to falling water in the moonlight, sprinkle and star flick across shadow and silent soaring moment, and did crack hard on the sidewalk and ramble on with tinkling sensation to gather round YOUR patiently waiting feet

poor thing, freezing out here,

why didn't you let
yourself
in?

yourself innnnnnnn......

....

2006-03-12T17:11:00.000-05:00

just bought a sleeping bag trail rated to zero degrees farenheit.

that is all.

2006-03-11T23:54:00.000-05:00

today was the St. Patric's day celebration down town. a parade.
i think the entire city was drunk.

i sported my kilt today. there was this big guy who was also wearing a kilt, specificaly a Utilikilt, and said to me "Lookin good, man!" as i approached him. he shook my hand. and offered me a drink.
everyone was irish today.
not just me.
and, no, not cause of the kilt.
and, yes, Irish wore kilts.
once.
not just a Scott thing
anyway, there were horses and people on poop cart duty and a dude dressed up as an Eat'n'Park cookie as well as a cookie float, both of which were terribly amusing, guys dressed up as Union soldiers with bayonetted guns and dirty faces,

and men in kilts everywhere.
it was AWESOME.
kilts and kilts.
i was haunted this morning by whirlling bagpipes through my second story window. bagpipes are like a call to wonder for me. i really like them. and their about as easy to play as a cat.
so it was a grand day.
dismissing, of course, the people peeing everywhere. glad it rained tonight.

George, a guy i go to school with, totaly said this thing to me tonight:
"the thing i dont understand about christianity is if you really believe this thing, why aren't more people like you guys" pointing at me,"i mean theres people that say they believe in jesus and still have premarital sex. it just doesn't make sense to me."
and here's why this is cool, at least why I think it's cool. George doesnt really care about jesus all that much. some of you out there might say that he isn't a "christian," so i guess i'll say that for all of you out there that still think that christianity is what your supposed to be believing in.
i just find it frusterating, too. i find it really depressing and opressing that the stuff that jesus talks to us about, the stuff that he says can change the world has become a religion to convert people to. this Jesus stuff was never meant to be a religion. it was meant to be lived on the streets where the hearts who really need him are, not in a church on sunday mornings. who does anything on sunday mornings, anyway? what does the "church" think it's doing, what good do they think they're doing when the only time they really meet to focus on jesus(and alot of times THAT doesn't even happen) is on the laziest day of the week, and the only people they deal with and work to change the lives of is themselves?

TELL ME THIS:

WHAT GOOD IS A CHURCH THAT DOES NO GOOD?
that, my friends, is when you get religion.
when it's a routine. when you do it cause your mommie says so.
when you go cause your afraid of daddies belt.
when you go cause your, i dunno, supposed to or something rediculous like that.

could it be?

that church...was never supposed to be about religion?

could it be?

that jesus, the real thing, is about changing lives and building community and spreading like a contagion the love of himself?

im willing to make a statement that is bold. im willing to say something scary. if you're into jesus because of the safety that he supposedly brings you, the nice bubble you climb into with your christian everything(shirts, music, restaurants, coffee shops, neclaces, bumpers)then you might want to take a good look at yourself. it just might be that you really dont care about jesus at all.
be cause when jesus walked around, he would do crazy things, my friend. he would lead his people into dangerous things. he was wild, baby. totally sleeping in a boat that was capsizing in a storm, everybody freaking out trying to guide the boat in the raging wind, and then somebody trips on him and says, "holy crap, why are you sleeping? cant you see were sinking?!"

and heres the neat part. he goes, "guys, guys. look. i got it, it's all good, watch:" then he stops the storm.

and if you notice, it wasnt jesus who said, "hey, uh, i think we should walk cause i forsee a storm..." they just got in the boat. and he probably knew that a deadly storm was coming.

you see, it was HIM that was the safety of his people.
not their christian music
not their christian t-shirts
not their christian coffee
not their christian bubble.

it was jesus. and jesus never once called anyone to be a christian. partly cause the word wasn't invented till after he left the earth, but thats splitting hairs.
listen very closely...
the whole time that jesus was here he was like, "you dont have to be Jewish to get in on the kingdom of God, you need me!" and he points at his own chest. and all the jewish people freak out.
lets see what happens when we walk into a church and say "you dont have to be a Christian to get in on the kingdom of God, you need that guy!" and we point at Jesus. i bet you'll get beat with something.
heres the whole deal. christianity is not the point, and we need to learn to let it go. it is the life of jesus that will change us

and nothing else.

2006-03-10T23:48:00.000-05:00

-i have impossible things to do

-we're moving out in a month

-i want to apply for another job

-i need to wash my clothes
-i need to wash my hair
-i need to CUT my hair
-i feel so tired

-im lonely with people in the room
a kind of lonely that doesnt happen because your not around anybody
a kind of lonely that happens when your just certain someone's supposed to share your soul
or something like that
and theres no one around
to be that part of living
to help pay bills
to help out with ACTUALLY washing clothes
to stand in the abbys of a nightime city street
watching the yellow lines
and yellow streetlights
and towering yellow windows
no one there to help you make you better
to love you "like that"

to make you
stronger

to help you be
dare i say it, a man

and i am scared, more than many other things, of being alone

and then i think of somebody who i've never seen, but has never failed me yet.
and is always around
so im getting bittersweet feelings just now

and i hope he hears me
cause he says he's inside me.
he says he hears me...

*hands around lips*
I'M LONELY, ALRIGHT!?! a lonely no person can cure!! i need you like trees!!! i need you like east wind when my breath is stolen from me!!"

"...please..."
"...please find me..."

2006-03-10T23:08:00.000-05:00

this is my moment:

my sister just described what its like to be drunk

im terrified

litteraly.
i dont feel this way about many people
i

am

terrified

why is she getting drunk?
am i misunderstanding things?
this is a moment
maby it'll pass
maby its just that she doesnt care what people think when she gets this tired.
when she gets this exausted.
maby its cause she likes when people freak out.
i hope she's overly satisfied, i guess

because im so scared im not thinking straight

alright. time to rant.
i want to jump out the window
i want to scream so people on floor five can hear me
i want to grab her roughly
i want to hug her
i want to bash my head on the keyboard
the corner of the desk
i've
lost
my breath
i want to vomit

_____________________________

all of a sudden

i remember something.
this was just now, like two seconds ago
i remember a question...
can i understand her and what she's going through?
can i say, and really mean it when i do, that she's beautifull to me and worth my strong love in this moment, even if i cant actualy talk to her right now?
can i remember that she will do stupid stuff wether i like it or not
and in contrast, i think oh too often that my stupid stuff is not that big of a deal?
can i really understand that porn and getting drunk are symptoms of something bigger than themselves, and its a big something?
and it infects us all?

can i REALLY
understand
that my lust
and her depressing, imperfect, irrational stuff

are one in the same?
that we are unified in our imperfection?
that i dont have to freak out like this
just because she isnt perfect?

that we are together in this?

2006-03-08T23:33:00.000-05:00

Sunday.

from community, walked home the whole time talking with a french girl.
flat tire.
homework, where the day before wasnt working out too well, finaly happened.
broken promise.
some food in there some where.
decides to learn french.

Monday.

work at eight.
keep working till four thirty.
drink more coffee and tea than is good for me.
feel good drinking more coffee and tea than is good for me.
school for homework.
less food than there shoulda been.
Allie didn't call me back.
im sure i went to sleep. i must be sure...

Tuesday. bloody tuesday.

work at seven thirty in the morning.
bank.
a woman whose lips fascinated me. and her eyes didnt help any.
heh...jesus was stronger than that, too. weird.
to school early for homework.
he tells me about breathing.
gets no homework done.
return books to library.

kids come over to read the bible at my house.
like jesus.
Justin and me, we give George the homeless man a ton of food.
George likes jesus alot.
randome nose bleed.
watched it bleed for a whyle.
go to bed late, hazy conciousness, a bloody finger.
my mouth tastes like metal.

WHENSDAY.

is how it should be spelled.
some kinda breakfast.
thinks ahead. packs bag full of food for lunch.
school at eight.
group project.
wig hair.
9.60
or something.
English Breakfast. Hot and Steaming. Popcorn.
Bringing to life
which one, you think, was hot and steaming?
.
finaly, math homework. Counselor. Friends.
a bunch of kids come over to talk about jesus.
food. happens. later.
derelict spacecraft.

uh...

2006-03-04T13:22:00.000-05:00

heres a little of what it looks like to be inside my head.

just a little.

this was built by a french man named Facteur Cheval, whose name means mailman(his profession). In 1879, after tripping over a fascinationg stone in the road, an inspired Facteur began building the pallace of his dreams, the palace of his childhood imagination from the stones of the french countryside. Operating at night when not working his "real job," he would pile high a wheelbarrow with rocks and delightfull stones, sleeping under the stars and in barns. For 38 years he worked alone, and built his dream.

oh, yea. they thought he was crazy.
you know.
making piles of rocks in his yard.

i dont think they do anymore.

by the way, i'll be workin with my room mate to change the look of this blog soon. it should show more of who i am than just a cookie cutter template like everybody else.

--STAY TUNED!!--

i hope you all enjoy the things to come!

2006-03-04T11:48:00.000-05:00

here's a little something that i posted on a friends Xanga yesterday that i was rather exited about.
hope it makes you think.
COMMENTS?!?

hey buddy!

i dont mean to make excuses for other people, so dont think im tryin, but i think that personaly, i can understand when people just dont want to show what jesus means to them.
the reason being that its very scary.
AND

are you ready?

i dont believe that people have really and deeply been taught how to share what jesus is in a natural and meaningfull way. i think that alot of what the church tells kids, and well, just people across the board, is to sell their jesus to as many people as possible.
convert 'em all, baby!!
get out there on those street corners and raise a rucus. get in peoples faces.
ok. maby in not so many words, but it seems that the church tells us all to defend jesus at any turn, get people to say a prayer(which i dont mean to discount), convert them, and then say: have a good life with Christ! and of course, theres good reasons behind this stuff. christians knwo what jesus can do, what he means and how he changes people, and they just want as many people to "get it" as possible.

but there's a problem.
i dont know about you, or them or her, but to me, and i think theres lots of people out there that are frusterated like i am with the churches unintentional deception, but i dont think that converting and defending and just in general being uptight and tender when it comes to jesus, is what jesus really wanted. i've seen lots of people, and i've even been one of them, who just gets really scared and angry when someone says something "blasphemous" or defaning about jesus, or even just being judgemental of everybody who smokes or wears shirts to tight or whatever. and as a result, i get scared about talking about jesus with people because i'm afraid of getting angry, or yelling, and someone hating me for it. so, cause of all that,
I
have
not
been the kind of person to share my faith with anyone
for a very long time.
i feel like the evangelism that i've been taught by the church is part of the same beast that makes marketing work. that makes comercials work. that makes companies thrive on the backs of "convinced" people.
i feel that i've been taught to sell jesus.

Here it is. the thing that has changed my life. the thing that has brought me freedom to speak passionately about this guy who bled for me. theres much more to it than this, but i've already written a gigantic reply, and im sure im breaking thousands of internet posting rules because of it,
but i believe that the only thing that we are supposed to do about jesus is

invite people to get to know jesus
relate jesus to people
and represent the life of jesus to anybody and everybody.

and heres the trick. if your going to do any of those things, you HAVE to have a life with jesus.
IT WONT WORK WITHOUT IT!!!
if your just religious, it's all gonna feel weird. you'll feel like theres something your supposed to do and you dont even know why, you'll be getting upset to the degree of bi-polarism, and your life will be miserable.
i think that christians just might be the most depressed people group out there.
there is no christianity without Jesus.
and there is no evangelism without love.
and most of the time, evangelism never says a word. there is no preaching sometimes. it's in the things you do.
not to say that your actions save you, but your actions show your love, and your love leads your life.

oh.

and jesus ain't no Christian, baby."

take home the good news.
now all i need is your credit card number.

2006-02-26T16:02:00.000-05:00

i have a theory.

its too big to just slop down here in one simple journal entry, but
this sheds just a little light on what might be one of the biggest, most profound, complicated and convincing deceptions in the world that we live in today.

think about it.
what do you let money tell you about you?
do you feel secure when you have it?
do you feel unbalanced and uninteligent when you dont?

i work at this coffee place in downtown, and the other day this lady came in. buisness was a bit slow just then, so there was time to talk a little. she was rummaging around in her purse, trying to find enough change to pay the 95 cents for the small cup of freshly brewed coffee now steaming heartily, looking oh so deep and brown there in it's white rimmed cup, her hand rummaging for the last bit of change, penny after penny in small piles on the deep green counter.
poor lady, she said to me, and im not even kidding, she said "Gosh, i feel so stupid. i dont have enough."

89 cents, people.
89 *)$@%#*% cents.
and this lady vocally stated, TO MY FACE, that she was ACTUALY a stupid person because she was six cents short.

she was smiling, kind of like the words that she was saying were some kind of understood joke or something. but hey...look people, how am i to know if she was only kidding, or if she actually meant what she was saying? i mean, really. what if she really believed what she was saying, what if she genuinely understood that talk like this is supposed to be normal, that in situations like this, you are actualy stupid to be short on change? i mean, isn't it inteligent to make sure you have enough money to buy what you intend to buy when you go out? i mean, duh... come on!

...well.

i picked up this damp towel from somewhere behind the counter and started wiping down the espresso machine, and i said to her, "Well, you know what frusterates me? What really frusterates me is how we let money tell us how much we're worth. i mean, we really do. Money tells us wether we're inteligent or worth anything at all. And thats just not true. it just isn't. Money shouldnt be the thing that tells me my self worth, but it totally does."

still standing on the other side of the smoothe counter, and as a pile of change six cents short dissapears in my hand, she looked down at her coffee, still smiling, and as deep aroma stirred the senses, her lips moved again.
"Words of wisdom," she said back to me.

and as i turned to get back to buisness, she stopped with coffee in hand. in almost mid step she looked at me again.

"Whats your name, anyway?"

...she said.

2006-02-23T19:12:00.000-05:00

Heres something REALY interesting that i learned in class lat tuesday.
theres a strange phenomenon that's occuring in the western world, a phenomenon specificaly in the U.S., but here's not the only place. Amaricans, more than mos anyone, believe that happines is something that we deserve. that contentment and comfort is something we are born to receive.
"Do what tastes right."
"Obey your thirst."
"You deserve it."
But a strange reality of the world, and contrary to the beleifs of Americans, is that life is really hard. If you get moments of Happyness and contentment, enjoy it whyle it's here.

cause it's not lastin.

how many times have you wondered, "Why dont i feel wonderfull?" "Everyone else seems to be having a great time, happy and content, but here i am, doing the same stuff that 'they' are telling me makes a person happy, the stuff I see on T.V., the stuff i read in the paper, but something just isnt right. What's wrong with me?"

you ever think that?

something i've found, and it could be that im just nuts or something, what most Americans, specificaly, consider to be satisfaction
is just a bunch of things that other people tell them makes a person whole.

Sex. ever want sex too much? ever get it in your head and not be able to shake it?

hmmmm....

smokin with your buddies.

ever wonder why it just doesnt hit you like it used to?

ever wonder why you hate the world?

shouldnt you be loving it if all this stuff is supposed to make you smile?

Shopping.

shoes.

...money...

ever think about any of that stuff?

well.

isnt that interesting.

2006-02-23T18:52:00.000-05:00

Marriage with brickwork sirens, plastic bagged wingspan, tendrils of
Jetstream branches.

I look down at the cracks in the street and Plaxa.
Market Square has its own oxygen, a kind you dont find on golf courses or High Class Lexus dealerships.
here, the dirt filling up cracks and folds is the kind of dirt thats made up of bits of everyone,

everything.
Staring down i see a cardboard, oh so thin

Match

Mingled around and worn down with pine needles from these little green potted trees that move about on their own from time to time. I see thick dirt, pine cone and peanut shell, stone and free birds, small and invigorated by the
winter
chill

A tall black man smiles at me sitting
on the stage steps as he passes,
his gait long and porpose driven
white plastic wrapped over something
hidden, pulled by gravity in this place
he calls
"from here to there, you know!"

the big clock
and my phone

both agree.

breaks over.

11:14 2/23/06

2006-02-22T22:33:00.000-05:00

"Tremors here and there,"
she wispers in my ear.
"Faulty value begets faulty formality,
and in this moment there's hardly a moment left,
if you know what i'm saying."
I nod my head.
Because i didnt hear a thing she said.
lips so close
to my ear so near
but wispering wind is all i hear.
I cradle forth my grinding
to froth up her spine,
cause in moments like these
the last thing she wants to hear
is that i, indeed, refuse to hear
and swim away with laughter.

Just such a poor girl...
"I'll just tremor over here, thank you,"
I'll say.
"Cause even though things beget faulty things
in this place most weakening,
wild men and women brave the very edge of the world
as it folds away into deepest space
managing to dodge and weave on mile wide pieces
of backyards,
churchyards,
the weeping meadow,

it is the wild ones here and everywhere

that will break their gravity...

...running free...

2006-02-20T22:47:00.000-05:00

heh. And for those of you who didnt believe me....

BAM!!!

how bout THAT!?!1? flying squirrel suits baby!!!
and heres a vid to prove it.
bird-man
and theres this high performance flight that makes me throw up, its so cool!
dont forget to hit the play button, kids
tell your friends to buy one!

oh. and dont forget the rediculous joys of strapping rockets to your feet and jumping out of a hot air baloon at 2000+ meters in the air.

2006-02-19T22:58:00.001-05:00

i do believe that the first entry calls for a very special announcement.

*ahem*

the newest developments in the promise of the future...

i hope that you all enjoy.