The fatal joust

From a conversation in a car, today:

"What did you think of the quote I put on the board?"
"I joked about it with Mom and Rachel -- that you were trying to get me to quit my job."
"Hah. Well, no, that's not exactly how I meant it. I read it in a book. One of the books I'm reading. And then I was watching a show about Sergei, and I'd heard of him. He worked at the UN as vice president of the UN or something. He'd go to countries that were having troubles and make them whole and heal them. He was in Sierra Leone before he went to Iraq. He brought democracy to them. I read that he'd died in the paper a couple days ago, but it was a blurb so it didn't mean much to me. But watching the show, how he was killed in Iraq doing what he really wanted to do. I don't think enough people do what they want to do."
"They do what they think they have to do."
"Yes. They don't follow their passions. I don't think many people do what they really want, because they are afraid to do it. They get stuck on their obligations and what they think they should do, because they're afraid to step out."

The highway is busy at rush hour, and the sidewalk is covered with molding leaves. A storm is calling from a few days away, and one can hear it on the breeze. The skies clear in anticipation.

"Steinbeck wrote that every man battles with greatness, but most lose and become mediocre."
"What?"
"It's not exactly how he says it. I'm paraphrasing it. But he basically says that every person battles with greatness, but that few become great because most people don't want the responsibility. Greatness brings a heck of a lot of responsibility."

The cars ahead stop. And so do the cars behind. A river pauses for a moment. Eyes wandering out the windshield, and the window lowered an inch to sample the air. Eyes unfocused, and clear again, like when a movie is flashing back to the past. A long green field, stretching away, far, probably around the world. The grass probably grows like this, a giant watchband around the world, even under the sea. Sea sponges make their vacation homes in the grass, far from the coral reefs. But the grass stops at the highway. The grass is full of clover; and probably bees, but the road is too large, the window is too far away, too blurry to tell. A viking hefts his wooden shield, levels his lance. His skin must be goosey, exposed like that. And his opponent is a skinny kid, curved like a shrimp. There is no question who will win. The shrimp steadies his lance. This isn't about killing the viking. He won't feel anything, now that he's writing his victory speech in his head. "The great pontificate, lord of the sword!" The shrimp in a pot turning red. Past the butterflies and past his mother's admonishments, he'll charge into grandeur, and crash. The shields will meet and the lances will fall, and perhaps one or the other will bleed. Each will hear their eulogies, as all boys do -- on the walk home -- when they die and become men.

"I've forgotten what my passions are. I've talked to God about it, and I'm asking him to show me again. There are things I enjoy doing, but they're not the sort of thing you make a living doing."
"Like waxing cars."
"Hah. Yea, like waxing cars."

"Did you see that?"
"I wasn't sure I did."
"Those boys were jousting."

"The light is green."

Far better it is to dare...

I thought this was pretty apt (which, I've just noticed, is an abbreviation for "appropriate") considering the hike I and a few friends (yes you) took on Sunday.
Thanks for pointing these out again, Azina. You can see the rest of them, which Azina wrote, at her website. Thanks for reading.

"#6
At this point I'm thinking it would be better to be up there with Dave climbing the wrong mountain than to be stuck here making plans about climbing mountains, but not actually climbing any at all. So what if you get all the way up there and realize you're one peak off, at least you've gone somewhere, given it a shot, instead of sitting around making plans that never pan out. Climb a few wrong mountains, eventually you're sure to end up on the right one, and even if not you'll have some great stories to tell of adventures with Dave."

This also reminds me of one of my favorite quotes, which perhaps my friends think I quote too frequently, considering its duration. Our beloved president Theodore said it: "Far better it is to dare mighty things and win glorious triumphs, even though checkered by failure, than to take rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy much nor suffer much because they live in the gray twilight that knows neither victory nor defeat." Well said. I think I'm going to try again on Sunday. Anyone up for Mt. Si?

Crash

"It's the sense of touch. In any real city, you walk, you know? You brush past people, people bump into you. In L.A., nobody touches you. We're always behind this metal and glass. I think we miss that touch so much, that we crash into each other, just so we can feel something." -- Crash

You want to see this movie. Crash. Rent it.
Or come visit me. :)

The midpoint of Oktober

Seeing as Octoberfest is half way over, I'm posting the first half of the Oktoberfest story Andrea requested. What happens next? You'll know when I know. Enjoy. And any advice is welcome.

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There is a quaint town on the northern slopes of the French Bavarian Alps, named for its benefactress, the Duchess of Pontoof. M'me Pontoof is a ravishing creature with hair so golden, Rapunzel was locked in a room to spin its equal. The Duchess does not age; nor has she ever. Legends tell that her husband discovered her collecting butterflies in the deepest parts of the Forest Noirtier. She was beside Edelweiss, a spring named thus because its color is the scent of that rare bloom. And it is said that the Duchess of Pontoof was made beautiful by this pool. It is told that she was once a homely, calloused milkmaid, but upon pouring her despairing tears into the pool, she was bade wash her face with its color; when she did, the water filled her eyes and she became enchanting, and enchanted. Her eyes turned from brown, to clear -- the color of Edelweiss. Now the Duchess has returned this greatest of favors by one still greater: she has built her estate around the spring, and around her estate has been built a town, named for M'me Pontoof.

Each year a festival is held remembering the day the best-loved Lady d'Edel became beautiful. All throughout the town, in every available square, great striped tents are erected and filled with teeming crowds from throughout the canton. And in these tents, in nearly every one, actually, a bar is built against a back wall; and at this bar are queued the masses. They wait hours to drink, each taking only one pint and savoring it, for in Pontoof, no golden beer is consumed. In Pontoof all beer is like the Edelweiss -- rare, unique, and again, rare. The only beer in Pontoof is beer drawn directly from the spring. And when all the beer is gone, a collective sigh flows about the town, rustling the last autumnal leaves from their perches and hurrying them along to the ground. Upon this annual sign, every citizen and stranger directs their footfalls towards the large tent, striped orange and red alternately, the large tent placed beside the Pontoofian Manor, beside the spring Edelweiss.

It is here, at the bar along the back wall, that each year a very important person is announced: the recipient of the last pint of sparkling beer. For ages this tradition has been repeated. My own father told me of it, and how as a child his father had charged him at his bedside to pray to one day be the lucky man to whom the Duchess of Pontoof presents the last pint of the year. But before you think the Duchess might descend to standing behind a bar in a striped tent doling out beer, you had better know that the Duchess is much more beautiful than that. Her eyes would light the tent, and it might burst into flames, on account of their clarity. They do seem to channel the sun. If one is not careful, when gazing at her, one may find themselves rapidly falling in love. But, to return to the beer; it is her dear friend, the mayor Viktor Von Pontoof, who does the announcing, and the last pint is presented at a masquerade ball which lends one memories of the Carnival at Rome. This ball is days of dancing and cheering and messes of confetti thrown about by the elite, masked revelers -- elite in their social class, not in their talent for frivolity -- capped at the climax by the presentation of the last alcohol imbibed at the festival.

There is only one more thing you must know before we may join current events as they play upon the stage, and it is this: M'me Pontoof is a spinstress. That is all.

We join our hero and our villain on the third night of the ball, the final night, when the important people deem to condescend to the mess the not-so-important-but-elated-to-be-invited revelers have already made. Amongst the company of the important is one rather unimposing being dressed as a musketeer; he trips over his cape and flails his scabbard behind him like a labrador; he is a short fellow, wearing a recent fashion behind his feathered mask: spectacles. This unimposing man is Hans. Hans is to be the recipient of the last pint. He has perhaps not yet comprehended his exaltation to the throne of men's admiration, as he is still apologizing profusely to the other guests, and is still breaking vases with that sword. We must be fair though: Hans has reason to be nervous. He is a simpleton from the town, a watchmaker. He is used to walking with his chin tucked to his chest, and even now, in the midst of this gala, he walks with his eyes fixed on his knees. It has been long since anyone has seen his face, and if they had, they would not remember, for his face is not remarkable. He is on his way to the main ballroom, where the Duchess will soon present him with a pint of blue beer, which Hans is still not sure he has won. Hans never wins anything, you see. He did once win a raffle as a child, but all it gained him was a wooden stick from the treasure chest in his brother's fort -- and the ticket had cost him an amount of silver. When his name was announced by the mayor, Hans stared at the man in disbelief, for reasons we will address before ending this story, but suffice it to say Hans was not one who hoped for fortune's benificience. But here he is, without regard to his doubt, standing before the chair of the Duchess, whose face I cannot discern, so closely do her eyes resemble the Edelweiss. She wears a obsidian mask, and I cannot help thinking of her eyes as jewels adorning a Polynesian volcano. It is as if the myriads of revelers are all standing in line at a museum, to see her eyes and to care nothing for the momentous occasion, or the beer or Hans at all. And then Hans did something that is still talked about in Pontoof, to this day.

Hans, though timid, was not entirely plain. Hans was the sort of fellow who doesn't talk at the bar, but always wins at arm wrestling; he does eat black chilis; and he holds his liquor better than any man you or I have known. And so Hans bent to the ear of the Duchess, then took her hand and together they twirled the length of the ballroom. All the best ladies stepped back a bit, and all the best men stepped nearer to the couple, so attracted are crows to bright shiny objects, whether they be dimes or Edelweiss eyes. The ladies murmurred that the Duchess did not look her usual dignified self on the dance floor. She did not bear herself as a swan upon a pond; no, she did not dance with poise at the hands of Hans. No, she danced like a child on a swing, and Hans was her father pushing her faster and higher and she laughed with delight. Between her laughs, the Duchess attempted to forward some conversation. "You wear spectacles, do you?" she asked. Hans wondered at her powers of observation; "Why yes, you are kind to notice, my lady." She appeared as bemused as he, and continued her theme of interrogation. "And you have begun wearing them recently, have you?" Hans was all politeness. "Well, no, my lady; I have worn them since childhood, my lady." And now she is confused. "But do you wear them in public at all?" He is confused as well. "Yes, yes my lady. I do. I have poor eyes." Hans' poor eyes searched for another topic of conversation. The Duchess was insistent though: "But how do you see when you give your speeches and presentations before the council..." And here her words slipped away unheard, because the song had ended. Hans kindly helped M'me Pontoof to sit. The two of them beside each other cut a dashing figure, with posture perhaps more familiar than one might expect from complete strangers. Hans, always the gentleman, slipped away to acquire the M'me a drink to refresh her for the presentation. A few moments later a trumpet was sounded and a herald entered bearing the last pint of the year, borne upon a tray inlaid with diamonds and sapphires and other gems that sparkled like a crayon box. And still, next to this radiance, the eyes of M'me Pontoof shone like the afternoon sun on a deep blue sea. All eyes watched hers, as the valiant musketeer approached her with a glass of water. He offered it to her and she in exchange, with much fanfare which I am of course leaving out for expediency, she presented him the last glorious pint of beer. The musketeer stood and, facing the Duchess, drank to her health and swallowed the pint in two breaths. As he set the pint back upon the shimmering tray a cheer erupted from the bystanding revelers, the trumpets sounded again, the Duchess smiled, and Hans returned to her side with a glass of water.

The future latent in the people

Returning to Les Mis, one entire chapter later, I was knocked off my socks by this little paragraph. I couldn't sleep for another thirty minutes. I really like it, and I'll explain why after you read it.

Part 3, Book 1, Chapter 12:

[The narrator is talking about the Parisan street kids] "They cannot read. So much the worse. Will you abandon them for that? Would you make their misfortune their curse? Cannot the light penetrate these masses? let us return to that cry: Light! and let us persist in it! Light! light! Who know but that these opacities will become transparent? are not revolutions transfigurations? Proceed, philosophers, teach, enlighten, enkindle, think aloud, speak aloud, run joyously towards the broad daylight, fraternise alphabets, proclaim human rights, sing your Marseillaises, sow enthusiasms broadcast, tear off green branches from the oak trees. Make thought a whirlwind. This multitude can be sublimated. Let us learn to avail ourselves of this vast combustion of principles and virtues, which sparkles, crackles, and thrills at certain periods. These bare feet, these naked arms, these rags, these shades of ignorance, these depths of abjectness, these abysses of gloom may be employed in the conquest of the ideal. Look through the medium of the people and you shall discern truth. This lowly sand which you trample beneath your feet, if you cast it into the furnace, and let it melt and seethe, shall become resplendent crystal, and by means of such as it a Galileo and a Newton shall discover stars."

One of my heart's rationalizations for helping the poor and oppressed (other than the sheer morality of it, and Jesus' insistence upon it) is that if, for example, all of Africa was given the same level of opportunity we in the "developed" world are offered, that continent would throw off its misnomer, "The Dark Continent", and quite probably supercede our innovation. It's not like Africans are stupid! The library of Alexandria and the University at Timbuktu are both African institutions. There is proof that African's landed in the Americas long before they were named for Amerigo, or by Columbus. If they were only given a chance to breathe and think instead of having to scramble for the scraps of our tables, they might just change the world and change our cliche lives. If this sand which we trample beneath our feet and upon which we offer our libations were allowed to feed themselves, were stirred up by education, were allowed to self-determine the course of their lives without the spectre of AIDS hung by a string above their heads, perhaps, through this replendent crystal, a Mandela and an Achebe will discover stars.

This picture is nearly perfect

Since our existential world allows us to find meaning in anything, I'd like to point out that the chicken and the barge, before which he struts, match. Click on the image to see the larger picture.

Who is Cambronne?

I was interested by Hugo's reference to a clay pipe owned by Cambronne, so I looked him up. There's quite the controversy surrounding his words upon being defeated at Waterloo. The French hold that he said, "The guard dies; it does not surrender." Apparently other accounts hold that he uttered merely, "Merde!" (No, you look it up). There are other sides to the story, but all that is not quite as interesting as the gentleman who, in 1932, wrote to The Times (London, not New York). He informed the editor that he had, in his childhood, known an old German General who relayed to him that it was in fact he, the old General, who had captured Cambronne, long before the Old Guard was broken by the Prussians. It's fascinating. Read the letter here.

To dare; progress is at this price.

If you have a copy of Les Miserables close at hand you may wish to read Part 3, Book 1, Chapter 11. I'll quote the pertinent portion for you:

"To dare; progress is at this price.
All sublime conquests are, more or less, the rewards of daring. That the revolution should come, it was not enough that Montesquieu should foresee it, that Diderot should preach it, that Beaumarchais should announce it, that Condorcet should calculate it, that Arouet should prepare it, that Rousseau should premeditate it; Danton must dare it.
That cry, 'Audace', is a Fiat Lux! The onward march of the human race requires that the heights around it should be ablaze with noble and enduring lessons of courage. Deeds of daring dazzle history, and form one of the guiding lights of man. The dawn dares when it rises. To strive, to brave all risks, to persist, to persevere, to be faithful to yourself, to grapple hand to hand with destiny, to surprise defeat by the little terror it inspires, at one time to confront unrighteous power, at another to defy intoxicated triumph, to hold fast, to hold hard -- such is the example which the nations need, and the light that electrifies them. The same puissant lightning darts from the torch of Prometheus and the clay-pipe of Cambronne."


Well, dear reader, what do you dare? Will you carry humanity any closer to Shalom -- to completeness, to right relationships with environment, self, humanity and with God? Will you dare?

oktoberfestic

Just a momentary update: the Oktoberfest story had stalled like a butterfly in a tailwind, but tonight I was grabbed by a thought and the train is back on the trestle.

If you only have the money for one movie right now, the one you'll want to see is The Constant Gardener. I'm serious. See it.

First Annual Summer Galen Awards

I watched 53 movies this summer. At least. Some sucked. Some were amazing. Some were forgettable and some said something important. Here are my awards for movies this summer (not all were released this summer, or even this decade). You may be surprised.

Best Comedy:
Guess Who?

Best Drama:
Life as a House

Best Political Commentary:
Good Morning Vietnam

Best Documentary:
The Story of the Weeping Camel

Best Classic:
Gentleman's Agreement

Best Romance:
Love Actually

Best Film with an Overtly Religious Message:
Saved!

Best Indie:
Garden State

Best Foreign:
Lagaan

Best Actress(es):
Cate Blanchett
For: The Aviator

Natalie Portman
For: Garden State

(Gwynyth Paltrow should get a nod for Shakespeare in Love, but this is getting long)

Best Actor(s):
Johnny Depp
For: Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Finding Neverland, Pirates of the Carribean, What's Eating Gilbert Grape and Chocolat

Leonardo DiCaprio
For: What's Eating Gilbert Grape

Best Narrator:
Morgan Freeman (he just has the voice for it)

Lifetime Achievement Award:
Morgan Freeman
(Can you name a bad movie this guy has been in? Shawshank Redemption, Driving Miss Daisy, Million Dollar Baby, Amistad, High Crimes, Se7en)

Best Soundtrack:
Moulin Rouge, Amadeus

Best Cinematography (ie Most Beautiful Film):
Out of Africa

Best Picture:
Shakespeare in Love

So, there's my awards. There were many great movies this summer, so it was hard to choose a couple times (that's also why there were two actresses and two actors). I almost included movies I saw this Spring, which would have added When Harry Met Sally, Finding Neverland, Good Will Hunting and Hotel Rwanda into the mix, completely changing everything.

Please feel free to disagree. Or agree if you like.

there's a signpost up ahead

Tucked safely into my warm home again, out of the flailing rain, I am occupied with these thoughts: How wet my socks are, and how nice it is to own a raincoat. How oddly dogs eat, and how no matter how much we personify them, they still eat wholeheartedly like dogs. How harmonic the smells of decay and life are on the fingertips of a September wind. How a cold rain on a warm night is a perfect time for a walk, and how taking my off my hood and letting the rain soak my hair makes me smile like a kid again. How idyllic it is to pick up the cat and tuck her safely inside my raincoat, her purr muted against my chest. How the tension of muscles, even in an inquisitive cat, is a sign of vitality. How much I want to write about these things that don't matter, but do matter so much still; how they shouldn't be the last words to a chronic patient, but should nonetheless dot an invalid's life; it's these moments we savor in this life, but to end on these notes, to take them with us... no, that would be like going to Disneyland for the express purpose of reading the guidebook. These are only signs, only reminders of where we're going, of whom we're going to; and so we should repeat them to each other, for encouragement, but only till just before the end of the journey. At the end, we won't need cats wrapped in raincoats, for will see our destination with our own eyes.

must we beach our coracles no more?

"He studied the sign on the deli window.
I - L - E - D. E - E - F - F - O - C. Then, on the other side of the glass, there was Pooh, passing between two parked cars. And now Pan, hands on his hips two stories above the street, looking for an open window. Snoopy tore past with Linus' blanket and Toad bowled through traffic in a Jalopy. All his childhood playmates, for these past years phantoms hiding behind doors and lounging in shop windows at Christmastime, were out again, eager to play again. Or were they always there? He looked away, watching the leaves float about in his tea, wondering what little Piglet, peering from beneath the table, could possibly want with him."

to address the luck of the Irish

Vision without action is a daydream.
Action without vision is a nightmare.
- Japanese Proverb

Listening to bears

Again, by no means an excuse. Andrea's Oktoberfest story will be done before Oktoberfest is over. There's just been a lot going on here recently and I've hardly been at home for two days. I'll try to finish it in the morning, or after work.

And now Amber has upped the challenge with Lego. Thanks Amber.

This story was inspired by Krystle, who told me if I wanted someone to listen to me, I should go talk to a bear. But don't take that the way it sounds. She's nicer than that.

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[ Begin in the Yukon territory. Find the smallest river, like a wrinkle in a forehead of pine needles. Look at the hairline of the forest. I sit there, on a leftover stump, on the side of a hill, me, and a bear.]

Bears are perhaps the most intimidating animal. Lions roar, but there's a reason that things we are afraid of "bear" down on us. When a bear charges all you'll hear is the crunch of earth beneath her paws. The feeling is the same as when all the junk on the top shelf of the closet tumbles down on top of you. You can't stop it. You know that much and so you cover your face and wait for the impact. You know it will hurt, but if pain is inevitable it's not really pain, because there was no better option. Bears really are painful creatures.

And yet I sat on a tree stump and looked one in the eye. Sometimes when people stop listening, we have to talk to our worst enemies. I had come to the forest to get some time alone, and found myself hating it all the more. I got exactly what I wanted, but didn't want it anymore. Which is why I had come to the forest in the first place. I always got everything I wanted, but didn't want what I got. I felt like a man reaching in his pocket for something he forgot was there, only to bring out a diamond and be disappointed because it wasn't the thing he couldn't remember. I knew my life was an errant ship, floating only because it was so attached to the icebergs that punctured its sides. I needed a week to clear my head. A week with no inputs, no new information, nothing to confuse me. A week to find myself and clean me out.

And yet I was talking to a bear. My hands rested on my chin. My breathing was steady. My eyes calmly surveyed the scene. I should have been scared, but for once I knew exactly what I wanted, and I was about to get it. A bear. Six feet away from me. Getting nearer, quickly. Finally, someone running towards me. Perhaps they will find me interesting, charming, entertaining. How do you talk to a bear?

"In my left hand is a hole, and my right hand is open wide. But the breath that flows in my left hand doesn't leave through my right hand. It's stopped at a big intersection in my chest. Like a cartoon hose with a kink in it. It's getting bigger and blocking more breath. Pretty soon it could choke all the air out of me. Or it could pop. Either way, a disaster. But since it's deep inside me, half way between my hands, I can't exactly unkink it myself. My ribcage gets in the way."

People stereotype bears. They think they're all dirty, all bulletproof and that every bear has fish breath. It's just not true. The bear I talked to at the hairline of the forest had breath that smelled like strawberry jam.

So that's how I arrived here. The kink in my heart is gone, but so is everything else. God, you fixed me alright. The breath enters in one hand and flows out the other. So, even though I think there were gentler options, thanks for sending the bear. It wasn't a very professional surgery, but when people don't offer any hope, sometimes a bear will do.

and this is by no means an excuse

In the meantime, check out the only site listed under the "Inspiration" folder in my bookmarks: gapingvoid.com's "how to be creative"

The guy says a lot of truth.

You'll like it. It'll inspire you. If you're of the inspirable type.

The story is coming, and so is something else. But first, two questions:

How many of you know of babies who laugh a lot? Yea me too.
How many of you know of babies who watch Comedy Central? Hmm... maybe there's something to be learned there. And this was one of the most profound things I discovered tonight at the School of the Spirit.

Ok, hold your horses, just another short while and the story and the something else will be here. I'm already half way through both of them. It may be a couple more days though, cause I'm going over to Whitworth for two days, beginning tomorrow. Which doesn't mean I can't blog, only I'll be analog a lot of the time.

Much love and lots of cheerios! Wow, I sound like a Danish cupcake.

Story time?

Shall we do it again?
A name.
A villain.
An object of desire.

Ready, go.

Story one: The biggest game of all

Every now and then, there is a game so huge, the world holds its collective breath to watch. Devyn Aud was holding his breath. He had searched eBay, Craigslist, the Times and even gone to the stadium to search for a scalper. The lady at the ticket window was not moved by his tears. "Honey, if there's no tickets, I can't sell them to you." Sound logic, but Devyn Aud was not in a reasonable mood. He put his sweaty palms to the glass and leaned his head in. "I... need... tickets... to THIS game." It was a huge game. The Ticket Witch closed the window. Devyn closed his eyes.

"You do want a ticket, though, right man?" Devyn's eyes snapped open. He peeled his face off the glass and turned, slowly, calmly, so as to avoid frightening the voice. A cocked blue hat mocked his passion. The thin guy in the windbreaker put his hands in his jacket pockets. "Yes..." Devyn finally answered. "Do you have --" Devyn looked down the street. "Do you have... tickets?" Cocked mocking hat smiled like the cheshire cat. Devyn nearly expected him to fade away. Devyn closed his eyes. "How many tickets do you need, man?" The man was still there, hands in his pockets, wide smile and mocked cocking hat. Devyn bumbled, "Four, no five I mean three at least, but if you only have one I still want it." The man in blue drew his hands from his pockets. He held a wad of money in one hand, and two tickets in the other. "Do you want both of them, man?" Devyn nodded. But his eyes were on the wad of cash. Either the man had sold a lot of tickets, or this was going to hurt. "How much?" Devyn half said, half choked. He reached for his wallet. "One-fitty," the mocking cocking man in blue laughed. And still he didn't disappear. "Each or for two?" The wad of cash said, "Too much old man? I can find someone else who wants them." Devyn shook his head. "No, I want them." The three hundred dollars exchanged hands. Devyn held his palm up for the tickets, like a dusty farmer who senses rain. The tickets were in the air, in his hand, grasped by his fingers. He stared at them. He had them. The man in blue laughed a cheshire laugh and sauntered away. Devyn extended his hand into the sky and inhaled a shout. He had his tickets.

I know you all expected something to go wrong. The scalper may have given him bad tickets, or perhaps Devyn would have dropped them during the hand off, or maybe the man in blue would have drawn a gun and asked for the tickets back. Scalping is a lot like dealing drugs. But none of those things happened. Instead Devyn pointed his tickets at the sky just in time for your average, streetcorner raven to fly by and pluck them from his fingers. That's just happened, so let's watch his reaction.

His eyes were closed again. The raven was a block away. "I have my tickets!" Devyn praised himself. He peeked one eye open, just to see them again, at the end of his fingers, fluttering in the wind. The sky was gray, and felt like snow. And the only thing in his fingers was carelessness and perhaps a bit of a childhood insult, "Butterfingers."

But when it comes to football, one must think on one's feet and quickly too. Devyn jumped into an athletic stance and sized up the situation. This was not about three hundred dollars lost, or even tickets to the big game. This was now primal -- this was man against nature. Devyn looked to his left, then to his right. He pivoted on his right foot and bolted down the block like Michael Johnson in the hundred meters. His muscles were twitching, his knees were tweaking and his fat was bouncing like a washing machine. But he was light on his feet, quick, powerful -- a machine. If a Hummer had been in his way, he would have hit it like a tackle hits a kicker in the fourth quarter. Nothing could stop him. He was a monster.

He reached the corner, panting like a V12 at ten thousand feet. He leaned against the light post and waited for the light to change. Even Randy Moss needs to rest once in a while. The light changed and the raven was just across the street in a tree, waiting for the show down. "Cocky bird," Devyn thought to himself, "But he's never gone head to head against the Audacious Aud." It wasn't much of a pep talk but contenders don't need pep talks. He chugged across the street, sweat streaming behind him like froth from a boat. He was at the tree, and now the raven was about to meet the "Audacious Aud". Devyn reached for the low branches and started to climb. The raven bedded down for the night. Devyn swung his sweaty hamstrings like wrecking balls until he had enough momentum to gain the first branch. It was an unparalleled victory. "OOO who's afraid of the Aud!" Devyn crowed to himself. Peter Pan would have felt his exorbitant cockiness far inadequate to compete with Devyn Aud. It had been a while since Devyn had honestly considered his strengths and weaknesses. Like since high school.

The raven had estimated him though, and by the time Devyn had breached the second branch, during the moment his lovehandles got stuck on two branches Devyn was sure he could fit between -- by that moment, the Raven had left. He was in the next tree and Devyn was stuck. But when a man wants tickets to the game, he wants tickets to the game. He clambered down and made for the second tree. He was limping a bit now, and his chest was starting to hurt.

He tried the wrecking ball swing again, and nearly made it. Nearly. He laid flat on the pavement, his face staring up the tree at the raven. The raven cawed loudly, and that's when Devyn realized just how many ravens there are downtown.

But never fear, I'm a kind writer, and I know in these dire times, everyone needs a happy ending once in a while. So here you go:

There may be thousands of ravens per city block in every city in the world, but in this particular city block there was only one. And this particular raven had just dropped two tickets to the big game. Devyn stared into the heavens and heard the clouds split. Rain fell like it does in the movies, glass balls filled with lightning. The lightning lit more than the rain though. It sillouhetted the tree, and the raven, and it highlighted two scraps of paper floating like feathers between the drops of lightning. Devyn smiled: his tickets were returning to him. It had all been worth it. He was a machine, a monster, unstoppable. He closed his eyes and inhaled.

It was there, on the sidewalk, that five teenage guys discovered him. His body was stiff, blue and chilling to the touch, but upon his chest rested two tickets to the big game. One of the guys, visiting from Oklahoma, saw it as a sign. He plucked the tickets from Devyn's chest and handed one to his friend, Matt. The two went to the biggest game of the season: the Seahawks' first ever Superbowl appearance. And though the Seahawks lost, like they usually do, this story still has a happy ending. You see sometimes it's not winning that matters. It didn't matter who won the big game, only that there was a big game at all, and that both teams showed up to compete. And so it is with Devyn Aud. He may have lost the tickets, and his life, but at least he was a monster, a machine, a madman, unstoppable, on his way out.

let's try something new

The oneword.com thing has inspired me. What if we had a bit more time and could convert it to story? Let's try. This will take two though. I'd like all you commenters out there to get your comments ready. I'm going to write a story, impromptu, no editing, ad-libed and improv'd, and I'm going to write it based on your input.

So here's what I want from you:

1. A name. Any name. Male or female. Something not boring though. Something with a connotation, perhaps.
2. A villian. Not necessarily a Cluny the Scourge, or Philip Tempest, or Sauron, but just an antagonist.
   
3. An object of desire. Something passionate or platonic. Anything that someone might possibly want.

That's it! You can give a setting too, if you want.

Then I'll write a story and post it!

Yay! This will be fun!

A manifest

In my head are:

• A cobalt house against a monotone cobalt sky
• A piece of velcro, rolled and unrolled in dirty fingers
• Lots of sunglasses and rainy days

And they're all waiting for a train.

I'll wait with you.

These colorful prison walls

The hardest part of writing is choosing the correct environment. The music, the posture, the lighting, the time, the level of silence. Do you write better when it snows out? With tea in one hand? Hemmingway wrote standing up. Capote lying down. Do you let your uncomfortable chair or your droopy eyes stop you from writing? Do you want to be a writer, or to write? To be is imprisoned is to be restrained. Do your whims and fancies restrain your writing? What if, just once, all the variables were perfect. Then could you write?
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The wardens released the prisoners early this year, before the snow had properly melted from the sidewalks. Under orders from the courts, all prisoners in ________ must be given a day of freedom. The intent, according to the city, is to ensure no criminal forgets the pain of his sacrifice. Was that TV or that little girl or that joint worth it? Can a uppercut possibly compensate for 23 hours a day locked in a cage? No, nothing is worth prison. I would know.
The snow was the color of an Oreo milkshake, but it clung tightly to winter. It was the sort of snow that twists knees and breaks ankles: hard on the outside, soft on the inside, like freezer-burned ice cream. The prisoners stood in the street at the end of the prison drive, in a line like expectant school children all sure they'll be picked last.
It was as if the road with its two yellow stripes was the line, and on the other side was the underdog. Do you join his side? Will your risk it out in that world? One crossed. He didn't look both ways. The snow was his insurance. The twenty something convicts and the guards at the gate watched; would he survive? This ritual is repeated every year. One always risks it alone. Freedom is that important to him. The hazard of the road, which is trafficked when the snow melts, doesn't deter him. Neither do the stares from the free people -- perhaps even the stare of the shop owner he robbed. But the village people are kind this one day of the year; the prisoners are to be pitied. They greet the lone adventurer with politeness and condescension. He says little; this year he says nothing. His arms hang limp at his sides and he is hunched like an elderly man who has forgotten why he crossed the street. What does a convict do with his day off? His hair is speckled gray, like the dirty snow. Perhaps he has forgotten. The younger prisoners silently inch their way across the street. One, then another make their way into the pub. They finger the dirty cash in their pockets. They're self-conscious, and everyone watches their hands move about beneath their jeans. The next few make their way to the theatre, and another group goes to the grocery store. The town begins to bustle again, carefully. No one wants to slip on the snow.
I watch from my window. I've drawn the curtains back, and their black forms are stark against the white sidewalks. It is a large window, one I had installed following my accident. I wheel up and down the length of the window, to get a different perspective on the world outside. It is my only view of the world, because the other windows are too high. I am content with it though. I couldn't go outside anyway, even if I had an immune system. The snow would wreak havoc on a wheelchair. Darn near impassable. I'd get stuck and then I'd be cold as well as look the idiot. Like the old man. He stood there, looking at the snow. He held his breath, then hyperventilated for a few seconds. He must have been recently transfered here. If this was his first glimpse of freedom in years, no wonder he gasped. If I could walk again, after these thirty years, I'd probably gasp too. But I don't want to walk. Not if it was only for a day.
At first I got all the therapy I could, to try to walk again. It crushed me every time my noodle legs shriveled up on the shiny hospital floor. Hospital floors are shiny, to trick people into thinking they are clean. It makes people think being in a hospital isn't that bad. It's a lie. Hospitals smell like death. There is no worse place a living man could dwell. When I fell, I would only want to walk all the more, so I could leave that place sooner. I was adamant that I would walk. My failure depressed me. It was only when I gave up on recovery, and accepted my movable prison, that my spirit recovered. It became where I wanted to be.
The old man is comfortable in his prison. It is what he has accepted. To have freedom, to walk away from his prison permanently would please him more. But to walk away, carrying the obligation with him; that is not worth it. It's like putting a vacation on a credit card. If you can't afford it, it's not a vacation. It'd be better to accept reality and learn to love where you are, sans vacation. You wouldn't enjoy the vacation anyway.
He turned, probably with these thoughts on his mind, and shuffled back to the prison side. To my side. The guards heckled him of course. They always bother those who go back early. Those free men take liberty for granted. They can't comprehend how comforting and stable prison is, once you adjust to it. Once you accept it. I'm happy here. It's where I want to be. You see, then, that it's not really a prison. And that man, hunched and heckled, he with his speckled hair is the freest of those convicts, though he never takes his day away from prison. Because he's not in prison, inside those walls. I think if you could ask him, through that smudged glass and tinny voicebox, I think he'd tell you it's better to accept your lot, and live.

The feeling of rain

The bravest leaves, still green and clinging to the trees, not yellow like the ones on the ground, shimmered like a windchime in a tornado. The yellow leaves, a crushed poultice for the cracked earth, tremored like china in a cabinet when a train passes.

The river, though now it was a mudflow, popped and burbled as if the frogs were feeding. Poosh they hopped and ploop they bellyflopped in the mud. But there were no frogs jumping; even the hardiest had buried themselves in the mud. The horses stamped in the silt and snorted dust weakly. They had lost their lustre; their ribs were washboards covered with Apaloosa or Palamino. Their hooves were cracked like old pottery, caked in the dust of Vesuvius. Their fur, and the wolves, dogs, cats, and camels, too -- all their fur bristled and they panted in fear. Their dry tongues hung limp, hopeless. The animals all watched the ridge, Mabhannatan, the highest ridge of all the mountains that circled the valley. The ridge shook too, and avalanches slammed down the side and puffed into the lower ridges like powdered sugar.

Bahavata'a and I watched the ridge too. He tied a knot on a saddle, as his horse pawed the ground. His trembling fingers dropped the rope. He fumbled to find it, and his eyes never left the ridge, where the Sun stood. The Sun reached down and drew a golden line along the crest; "This line you shall not pass," he said. Hands on his hips, the Sun guarded our valley from all clouds; a giant dictator baking his charges.

Many valleys away, at the same time, upon another high ridge, God laughed at the sun. And then he yelled. The leaves stood up straight, on the ground, on the trees, in the air; the river jumped out of its clothes; Bahavata'a dove to the ground and hid his ears. God's voice sounded to us a trumpet blast signaling a charge. God yelled, and the stampede began. From valley to ridge the roar rose, shaking the sky. The wolves ran-slunk away, tripping over themselves in their rush. The horses reared up and pawed the air. Bahavata'a held his rope tightly, but his horse broke free.

The stampede came on, and though the sun stood firm, the approaching army kicked up such clouds that the sky grew dim. The line on the ridge faltered like a mirage, and then blinked out. The Sun shone for a final moment. He held his hands out as if to stop a speeding train; and then he disappeared, trampled beneath the hooves.

Black horses with lightning for manes and thunder for breath, breached the ridge like a river consuming a dam. The sun shone and the next moment horses covered the sky. They hurtled down the ridge, tumbling and cavorting, a solid river of white water. When they had covered the sky and all the land was dark, the horses exploded and diamonds replaced the oxygen -- the rain had come, and everything else disappeared.

I pulled my raincoat tight around me and hunched to avoid the rain, but it soaked through my layers and soggied me. I looked at Bahavata'a; he was braver than I. He was not hiding from the rain. He stood leaned back on his hips with his face bent towards the sky. Rain formed gulleys in his skin and ran off like waterfalls. I had my bottled water to drink, but he, he opened his mouth wide and swallowed the rain whole. God had yelled, and the horses would be fat again. The river would run and the frogs would hop. Bahavata'a ran about like a child, back and forth between me and his horse, wild, pumping his arms twice for every step. He danced, jumping, his knees reaching his chest. And he yelled, back to God, "HALAL! HALAL! HALAL!" He screamed and laughed. He thrust his hands into the rain and caught it in his palms. He opened his mouth and drank God. The tree, with its green-not-yellow leaves, followed Bahavata'a and stretched its branches into the air, like a castaway on the beach thanking his rescuer.

one of my kids just biffed it

It rained today, and I wrote a story to mark the occasion. I liked it a lot. Then it froze and ... it's gone. This is ironic because just Friday night Matt was marveling at my ability to remain detached from my writing and toss stuff that didn't satisfy. And now I lost a piece I really liked. How do I react?

• Like it's a gift from God? He gives and takes as he wishes. If he wants it written, he'll give it to me again.
  
• Like all good stories are better with practice? This is just an opportunity to practice.
  
• Like I'm disappointed? Well, one of my children did just die.

Perhaps all three. And I'll sleep soundly tonight.

But now the larger question: how to act next. Do I rewrite it? Or move on to something else.
I don't know. I want to rewrite it, but then the disappointment of losing a story is always sort of overwhelming. I'd rather take the easy route and walk away. Especially tonight, when I'm tired. I think I'll sleep now, and dream about it. I'll decide in the morning.

a dieu (to God).

Finally

It's raining.

microsoft rex nihildum

Update: After another two hours of messing around and research, I got it to work on every browser except IE5.5 for Mac. Yay! So, you're looking at it! But still, MicroSoft rex nihildum.

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Well, I have a new template for you. One that doesn't confine my words to such a small box (thanks Azina). One that is a bit warmer and friendlier and just looks cooler. It's green and orange and white all over. It has transparencies and pictures. It's really very cool. I like it a lot.

Then how come I'm not showing it to you? Because internet explorer screws it up. It works in all the browsers but IE. IE has it's own standards and own way of doing things, which makes it difficult to design for. So, until internet explorer is updated or annihilated, you don't get to see the new layout. Sorry.

Unless, of course, you promise to use Firefox. If you promise, maybe I'll show you. Just for a day or something.

lest history be lived again

"I have been a witness, and these pictures are

my testimony. The events I have recorded should

not be forgotten and must not be repeated."

-James Nachtwey-

View his testimony here.

expressed without language

People have been saying really important things today and as much as I want to respond, I feel like I have a lightbulb in my mouth.

I'm sorry. I just don't know what to say.

Have a very merry unbirthday, indeed

Not only is today hump day, it's also my half birthday. I'm 21 in six months. Holy shit. And I'm clueless as ever.

coldplay, etc

I've just left a Coldplay concert. How I'm feeling: a bit sad. Because the music stopped? No, the concert ended perfectly. In fact, the concert as a whole was well played. Even the staged encore pleased. It may have been the most entertaining part, actually. And an accoustic-style set in the middle, dedicated to Johnny Cash, was great. So why so sad? After thinking about it on my drive home, alone, I decided it was just that: loneliness. I sat on a hill side with 20,000 people, interacted with maybe ten and connected with: zero. There was a grab-bag of interesting people all around me and I didn't talk, joke, laugh, fight, anything, with them. My three somewhat meaningful interactions involved a guy, Mike, who wanted to smoke a bowl and believed I was hiding pot from him; then there was a girl who couldn't light a lighter, so I lit it for her, handed it to her and watched it go out; then there was that girls' chaperone, who was wearing earplugs and studying Spanish. We spoke politely for a few seconds. Hurrah. I don't blame anyone else for my lack of interactions. Rather, I think I'm emotionally broken. As in I don't feel much at all. It's been months since I've laughed. Snickered, chuckled, politely shook my head bemusedly, yes; but not laughed. Or hardly even smiled, except to deflect the question marks in pitying eyes; pityful people are frightened away any sign of teeth.
I guess I've never had much tact. I'll look a passer-by in the eye, unblinking, until they look away. And often I see them ponder me, even though they don't know me. They wonder, perhaps, how I can look for so long and give no reaction at all. I don't smile, or flinch, or glare, or search. I just look. And when they are gone, I look at the next person. I never connect. I'll never let anyone see me. My walls are not steel, screaming "Stay out!" Instead, they are white paper: vanilla, blank, nothing. They'll break easy enough, if ever anyone tries. They're like a curtain between an artist's premiere and an expectant audience. People are asking questions with their eyes, and the walls will soon fall to reveal a(n) -- masterpiece? essay? wall? nothing? fiasco?

Until this summer, I've been really laid back. I'm generally a pretty laisse faire person: don't worry, let it happen. But this summer, I've gone nuts. I've turned OCD, ADD, control freak, worry-wart. It's really frustrating to be the annoying one sweating the details and freaking out. I don't know what my rush is, but I do rush, everywhere I go. I miss telling people "Don't worry; it's all going to work out." I think I don't anymore because I've stopped believing it will all work out. I think I give myself too much credit. Can one kid like me really stop God? Can I really mess up his plans? Is this something to be insecure about? No. What he wants to happen, will happen, regardless of what I do. I really do want to "be still and know he is God." I've just lost all faith in his good will. Thankfully, he's willing to be faithful on my behalf. Even when I can't believe it, he's still making my feet like hind's feet, and is enabling me to follow him to the high places. He is a God of hesed: unfailing love; and when we lack, he overflows.

---------------
Here's some observations I jotted at the concert (what else is there to do?):
"Twenty thousand electric stars, eatingHuggingDancingLaughingTalkingSingingScreaming, blinking to the music. Twenty thousand beating hearts set to drums; the chords strike a message home. Twenty thousand syncopated forty-dollar-ticket-buyers unite in one rythym -- for a beat. All eyes, set in rows, in a greengrass smile, lift the rythym, lift the spirit, wrap themselves around a man."

"Electricgreen river, murmur through the blades -- of people, of chairs, blankets, laughs, smoke, grass. Hope plastered on a TV screen, echos of a stage; a man reflected in a river, electric and... alive."

"It's the small things, which no one sees, that make me feel special, as if God created them (that moment) just for me."

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And now for something completely different. I want to remind you, the reader, that this is blog is a diablog, not a monoblog. That means you get to respond. See the comment link? Click it. Say hello. Interact. I know it's digital and virtual, but you're still human.

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And finally, a quote from Shall We Dance: "I think we get married so that we'll have a witness to our lives." Personally, I don't want to get married yet, but I'm tired of being unknown. I'd like a witness, in the form of a friend. Hmm... I really miss having a roommate.

Goodnight dear void.

words worth a thousand images

I have read a lot of books. Most of which I don't remember. But there are scenes, even after so many other books since, scenes I cannot forget. They occur to me at odd times. Jane Eyre in her curtained window seat on a day too rainy for play -- I see it when I touch a velvet curtain. The rain on a house which has pulled its roof down over its ears like a hat -- when the rain kicks up the dirt "like gunfire" (The God of Small Things). Phillip Tempest and his portrait in the hall of Rosamunds grandfather -- when I see a man with dark sideburns and brooding eyes (Long Fatal Love Chase). And from the same book: the ship, the boardwalk at Nice, the balcony from which Rose escapes. Or how about the cabinets full of things, down the Rabbit Hole? The last party at Gatsby's and the Library there? Edmund Dantes in prison with Abbe Faria? John, Michael and Wendy learning how to fly?

Somebody told me that people won't remember the things I say to them, or the things I do around them, but will remember only the way I made them feel. I think perhaps these scenes are the same way: I remember them for the way they made me feel.

So now, I want to know, what scenes in which books do you remember best?

Defining Imagination

Last night I figured it out, but I'm having the hardest time deciding the best way to say it. Tell me which you like the most.

Basically I'm trying to say that imagination is something true that you stumble upon and everyone is skeptical of, until it becomes popular to agree with you.

1. Imagination is merely knowledge one is the first to discover.
2. Imagination is something you know before everyone else believes.
3. " " is knowledge you know before everyone else.
4. " " is knowledge one possess that is not yet common knowledge.
5. Imagination is something you believe before everyone else agrees.
   

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Explore the vast realms of simple faith; some cowardly pragmatist is depending on you to tell them what they've missed.

The Devestation of the Hundred Acre Wood

We may be sure that even today, Peter Pan leads many children to the Neverland. And we know from the children among us that Peter and his home are the same as in our ancestors' day, for no ambitious adult can reach near enough to ruin it. You see, as J.M. Barrie discovered, most Neverlands are islands, and islands are hard to reach, especially since to reach the Neverland, one must fly for months.

This is not, however, true about all the Neverlands. There are some that are not islands. You may remember one such, for just like the Neverland, you have probably traveled to it in your childhood. It is called the Hundred Acre Wood, and it is known for a series of legends which arose from it in the past century, mostly centering around a stuffed bear "of Very Little Brain", his cadre of adventurers and his friend, Christopher Robin.

Adults call this wood, "Ashdown Forest" and it is in no danger particularly. However, there are many forests and woods like Ashdown which have served as portals to the Neverland for many children, and some of these are becoming threatened. In a sort of mechanistic march those woods once called "Hundred Acre" are now called "Seventy-Five Acre" or "Twenty-Seven Acre" or even "Three Quarter Acre" Woods.

Developers march relentlessly against great groves of pines and ash and elm, like those of Bonney Lake and of Maple Valley and Sammamish. They enter idyllic lands with zeal and leave behind them only scars on the hills and houses where homes once stood. Surely hundreds of Homes Beneath the Ground have been dug under by earth movers, and many a Swiss Family Robinson lookout has been manufactured into a dining room wall.

Naturally the catastrophe is not limited to the physical world. It seems these Captain Hooks are intent on destroying all creativity by squishing gigantic imaginations and their families into cookie-cutter boxes devoid of aesthetics.

As they crush a generation of free-thinkers and wipe away Neverland, one can only ask, "Did these developers, as boys and girls, never meet Peter and never fall in love with Tiger Lily or feel the fear of Piglet and the unfettered joy of Tigger?" One must wonder, "Did they have mothers?" or "Did their mothers close the window? Did they chain them to their beds until they forgot how to fly?" Only be thankful your mother was happy to let you fly freely too and from the Neverland and adventure, before she made you grow old in school. Only be thankful you have not turned out like these crocodiles, chewing the arms of children, and handing them a gaming console to replace their forest haunts.

Oh heavy day it is that dawns to find the Hundred Acre Wood buried beneath a shopping mall, stuffed full of stores selling rememedies to a depressed generation.

Safe? Who said anything about safe?

I've been reading a book that is reputedly very good. It's about God, which always gets a book off to a good start. It's intellectual and scholarly, which I appreciate. And it's really frustrating. That's the part that has me writing a post now.

The book is entitled, "Knowledge of the Holy" by A.W. Tozer. I'm sure many of you have heard of it, and possibly even read it. And it's been killer, let me say. I do appreciate it and would recommend it. Only it's not what I was hoping for. When I picked up the book I was hoping to learn a bit about God. See, I want to know God. It was recommended as a book that would tell me about God, so I started reading it. So far I've found out God cannot be known, God is a deity and God is triune. Now, I'm not being pedantic here: it's not that these attributes are rather elementary to most Christians; it's really that they're attributes. So far reading this book has been a bit like a friend telling me about a girl I should want to date, "You haven't met her, she's female and she's got a personality." Thanks... but does she prefer daffodils to daisies and is ice cream her favorite breakfast cereal and does Captain Hook have her sympathy?

Again, I do really appreciate having the attributes of God reiterated to me, but I was hoping it'd be more of a letter from a friend sort of book. I was hoping Aiden Wilson Tozer would have found out a bit more about him. I know some people have. It says in the Song of Solomon that the Bridegroom is "charming." Which raises the question: Would Jesus be the center of attention at a social gathering? I previously envisioned him as so unassuming... And I think a beaver in Lewis' stories may have another insight: When one of the children asks Mr. Beaver if Aslan is safe, Mr. Beaver responds, astonished, "Safe? Who said anything about safe!? Of course he isn't safe. But he's good." Good is such a hollow word until that scene. He's ferocious and wild and uncontrollable; and he's there to protect me. Hmm... now you have me interested. I think I'd like to meet this God -- I want to know more.

____________

Another thought Caboosing on the previous train:


At the end of The Last Battle, Lewis describes a scene in which a devoted follower of the enemy god is welcomed into Aslan's heaven. In my C.S. Lewis Survey at Whitworth, my classmates were up in arms that Lewis would be theologically inaccurate. I was annoyed then, but now I've decided what I wish I had said. "But let's just hope he's right: that sinners go to heaven, and that people who only half believe in God get to spend eternity learning to believe the other half. Perhaps he's theologically wrong; or perhaps our theology is wrong. Let's hope it's the latter, or none of us will be let into heaven."

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It's been a while since I've posted. I've two excuses:

1. I've been working on the template. What do you think? A bit dreary for summer, I'm sure; but still, any structural suggestions?
2. I've been taking a sabbatical from the computer to give me time to see people in the analog world. I think I've seen a friend every day since two Saturdays ago. Quite nice, I assure you. I'm a little worn out from the 1600+ miles I logged on my Jeep in a week and a half, and harried from the lack of time to breathe, and a bit aghast at the gas money I've spent, but then, I wouldn't have it any other way. Only, I would prefer if social events would spread themselves out over the summer instead of getting through in two weeks. I've had hardly anything to do for two months, and last week I had to turn down four events/coffee-dates/parties in two days. I won't bore you with the details, but if you'd like to get together next week, I'll tell you more. That means, "I'd love to see you." Sharon, that last sentence was typed in your general direction.

I work tomorrow, and so I get up early. Like Matt early. So now I go. Stay well. Shalomle'atem.

In reply to

Unfold the tattered pages, stapled at the corner. Smooth the wrinkles, spread the words, smell the anticipation. Curious, with my first letter, a letter, a real letter. Written in ink, a pen's ink, in a flowing script I strain to read: this is not Times New Roman -- no, this is human. And what will I find today? I'll hold my breath and see.

"You are free now, you've been set free, you've been liberated." Is this what you've been looking for? Permission? "Please," reads my narrator, "Please, show me Saturn's rings, the butterflies' wings and how the faeries in Neverland sing." Someone saw, someone read, and responded. I stirred the broth, with a dash of basil and passion and rosemary and love. And now the soup satisfies with love.

"Would you compare a friend to a soup?" But aren't all friend's soup? A delicious blend of 70% water and all of life's ingredients? And they're comforting on a dreary day, awful at the wrong times, and if you stick them in the fridge they'll congeal and become stiff to you. People are soup, and writers stir the pot.

If you'll believe it, writers season the soup; if you'll understand, the soup inspires the writer. But here's the thing: writers are soup too. Therefore some soups are writers. And this soup, that's just strengthened me... no, he's not a writer. He writes. And that is far better.

Do you want to be a writer, or to write? A haunting question. One that stills the pen and tosses me upon my bed, that rolls about in my head like the ballast in a ship. And this ship will not stop rolling till the ballast settles.

I'm wide awake. I'm not sleeping.

Do you want to know? Mount Rainier is growing. So is the moon. No one will believe me; no one agrees. I tell you they are! Bigger by the sunset. Bigger at midnight. "We flatten things, put them on postcards," states my little black book. We consider the horizon a wallpaper. But it's real. It's not the edge of life. It's getting bigger. Look up from your couch. Look at your wallpaper. You live inside this, but it's not just for decoration. It's getting bigger. I tell you, the mountain and the moon -- they're growing.

Can I say: in Neverland, the streets aren't numbered. If you want to find me, you'll have to search. You can't dial my number. You have to walk the cobblestones, between the ivy on the alley walls. And after you find me, I won't answer your question on the doorstep. You'll have to come in for tea.

Do you understand how big this means?

It is not only my imagination: the winds on Jupiter really are like your breath on a gnat. And Saturn's rings get dust all over my shoes. And the moon guides the butterflies while it shepherds the sea.

I am on a planet they call earth, looking up, 90 degrees into the air. I have the distinct feeling the air does not belong to me. The air is black, thin; it looks like it isn't there. It isn't there. I see three planets. On the horizon is Venus, and in Orion's fist is Saturn. Mars watches from the middle of the sky. There are many stars. Many tiny dots. White dots in black air that isn't there. And I think to myself, "Really though, Mars is red. Saturn too. Venus is big and gold. And they are there. Not just as dots in my air, but there. Venus is bigger than my planet; it's a huge chunk of rock enveloped by clouds. It's very big. Bigger than the dot. It is bright. Bright because it reflects the sun. The sun is shining on Venus right now. Right now. And the light I see, looking through the air, the air that isn't mine, is the sun's light. It has traveled very far. The distance is inconsequential. It's too big to matter. Too far to make any sense in my head, which breaks road trips into sixty mile increments."

Saturn doesn't move. It is faster than any rocket ever made. It spins faster than any top a child has spun. Saturn is in the air, a white dot, and it was there in January, in Hawaii, clenched above Orion's head. It will be there a while longer and then it will not be there. It moves -- like my planet moves. They move together, to different places, but both move at once. They hurtle around another bright dot, the source of all light in my eyes. I see three planets, but no; I see three mirrors, one light, in my eyes tonight. They do not belong to me, but to their light. They orbit the light, as I do, and they are not mine.

They are not white dots, as White Out on black paper, but are like airplanes in the sky, which only look small because I'm not looking at them up close. If I were looking up close they would be big, bigger than me, bigger like this planet. I would see only the land six feet in front of my left foot and two miles out to sea. But now I see the whole thing, because they are farther away than I can understand. How far? You can't understand because you think "big" is the earth, which is only twenty-five thousand miles from here to the other side to here. Venus is far away like Greenland is from a crocodile. Saturn is far away like a penguin from the West Nile. Mars is far away like home is from Siberia.

When you really think about it... but then, maybe don't. It might make you stop breathing. It might make you hug the next stranger who asks you to take their picture. Because Venus is far away like you are from Joseph and Mary. And right now, basking in the light the sun glares on Mars right now, the light that is not warming me right now, these three planets are closer to me than you are. And that scares me. But I'm not afraid, because there is no man on the moon. There is only the moon, a ball of gray dust, and it's really eighty long walks around the earth away, and the dust would filter through my fingers and fall, because the moon is really there. When you really think about it, it makes you put your hands in your pockets and say, "Ah." It's day on Saturn and I wish you were here, to hold my dusty hands, and wonder and be...

The highlights of my day were:

Buying Nalgene knock-offs for $2/ea.
Seeing a girl from across church.
Hugging Grandma Ware.
Shakespeare in Love.
Finding out a dear friend is lesbian.

Ok, now what?

I was wrong about Will Shakespeare.

If you have not yet seen Shakespeare in Love, do so quickly,
for it does the bard well and renews my faith in poetry
and passion and love and swords and a grave bit in comedy.

Periodic sentences are my friends. I need none but them.

is role-switching a sin?

no really. I want to know.

role-conflict is a pain in the ass.

but is it a sin?

heeeeeeeeeeeelp

AIDS, Hunger, Traffiking, Genocide, Terrorists, Wars, Empirialism, Globalism.
College, Scholarships, Proposals, Papers, Research, Research, Research.
Legislatures, School Boards, Church Boards, Live8, G8, Communities, Students, Friends.
Futures, Destinies, Plans, Opportunities.

It's all very overwhelming.

I'm being presented many opportunities, which are rather ideas right now:
MTV Grants to tackle global issues: $1k in exchange for a very good proposal.
Writing the legislature to encourage state grants for students (the Promise Scholarship was canceled this year).
Travel this fall.
Work on a ship this fall.
Go to Whitworth this fall, or Green River.
Learn to cook, sail, photograph, fly this fall.
Start a small group with the younger guys at youth group: someone needs to lead them.
Start volunteering otherwise, now.

It's all very overwhelming. What do I do? Where do I start? Do I start at all?

Playing Paused

It's 9 o'clock. My life is on pause. The trees blow past me in the wind. I follow the sun as it sets, and I think, "My foot isn't touching the ground." A friend runs past, like the roadrunner, dust flying twelve feet in the air. I shout, but my breath puffs like a balloon and pops. I think, "If only I could inhale." I think, "'If only' is synonymous to 'should'." I should inhale, but there is only to do or to not do.

My name is Galen and my life is on pause. I think, "I'll catch a train to Princeton. I'll get up early to get to the station in time to catch the train." I think, "I may be only quoting a friend." I hold my foot aloft, like I'm in a marching band, but I don't play the trumpet. Instead I watch a small fish chase a large fish in a TV in a shop. The smiling clerk speaks in clipped sentences. I hear the music, but I don't play a trumpet. I hear the bass, the dialogue, the score and the silence. The movie plays till the credits, and they roll by like a bus.

I see a bus, a brown bus; I see a child in a brown sweater, seventies style with the popped yellow collar and rose colored glasses. He carries a guitar which weeps, and the tears blur my eyes. He plays and I think, "My fist is clenched. My face is wet." The wind blows a sign, a bag and a dirty man who smiles with twelve teeth. I think, "He gets a lot of smile from each tooth." I think, "I would smile if I had twelve teeth." I would smile, but there is only to smile, with thirty-eight teeth, or not.

On my couch, my life is on pause. My finger hovers on the remote and I think, "If only I could push play." If only I could.

Won't you? The dog is barking, the rain falling, the leaves blowing and it's September now. Push play, before Labor Day, or I'll miss the first day of school, or I'll miss my plane.

America the Gray

I was having a discussion with Azina about fruit and it dawned on me how shielded Americans are. Everyone is protecting the general populace from all forms of knowledge and experience. There are thousands of varieties of fruit in the world, yet the grocer only sells ten. We get apples, bananas, pineapples, mangos, kiwis, oranges, grapes, pomegranates, some berries and the occasional apricot. How boring. When researching Thailand I learned there are fruits there that we've never tasted; that disappoints me. How much have I been sheltered from, living this "good" life in the US? In this land of plenty, of materialism, where I can have whatever I want, what are we missing?

Isn't there something amiss... doesn't it make you think, and even terrify you, that even the grocer is hiding something from you?

And this is just fruit. What else don't we know? We who are so superior?






(Don't any of you go and tell me that tomatoes are a fruit. They were omitted for dramatic impact.)

free write

I want to write so badly. It aches inside me. My laziness is a dam holding back a flood of words and life and hope. Laziness the Dam. Damn Laziness. Write first, edit later. Write what? Edit what? Words. Which words? There's a lot of them. Take one: desert. Desert. Place it next to another: town. Desert Town. Two more: and here's the hard part, because settings are easy -- we see them all the time, but we refuse to see stories, because we're looking at ourselves in every situation -- but here we go anyway: old man. Desert Town, an old man, stumbling from an old car, carrying an old crutch. Is it windy? No, that's cliche. Well, nothing is rather boring. Ok, it's raining. In the desert? Sure. It rains in a desert? Don't you think that's a little unusual? Isn't an old man in an old car in a desert town a little unusual? -- he is stumbling. Why is he stumbling (I concede the rain)? He's dying. Of what? He's only one leg, amputated, he's dying because there's a cancer eating at this other leg. He'll soon be without any legs. That sucks. Yea, he's limping on one crutch and a bad leg. Don't take your fingers off the keys: you'll never start again. Relax, I know where this is going. He's from the West, and he's heading East. He's from California, San Joaquin Valley, 93, One legged, with cancer eating the other. He stumbles on one leg in the rain. He reels as he slams the door: it's an old car with heavy doors. What do you mean by reels? I mean he sort of hopskips, like someone just shot at his foot. He uses the crutch to prop himself, but it takes a few hops to get it right. Ok, now he's... standing in the rain? Yes. He's looking at the closed gas station. And? And the rain drips off his silver hair, onto his face. It channels through the wrinkles on his face, and runs down off his chin. It looks like he has a water beard. It's raining that hard? It rains hard in the desert. How long does he stand there? Not long. There's an elderly woman who yells at her daughter to get that man out of the rain. She's in a house behind him. The daughter looks out the large plate glass window, the one streaked with rock chips from the highway that's only been there 20 years. Does that matter? Yes. This is a story about letting go. Oh. So what does the daughter do? Gets the man inside? Yes, of course. He turns slowly. Then limps a few hops in her direction. When she sees his leg, or lack thereof, she runs into the rain. It soaks her obviously, soaks her cashmere sweater. Sweater? I thought this was the desert! When's the last time you went to Arizona in the winter? It snows in Arizona. More than it snows in Seattle. You're crazy. You're ignorant. I'm you. Not right now. Fine; so she gets soaked. And... Helps the grandfather into the house. It takes them a few minutes, and they're both shivering when they get inside. The old woman has a walker, one of those metal ones with tennis balls on the feet. She lifts it and sets it down with a clunk, steps twice and does it again. It takes her almost as long as the man to get into the kitchen. She smiles at the scene, but he hasn't seen her yet. Do they know each other? Is this a lucky coincidence? No, they don't know each other. He wasn't looking for her. Do they end up in love? That's so predictable. No, no, not in love. But love. You'll see. You know where this is going? Yes, sort of. Can you tell me? Sure, the joy of this sort of story isn't the suspense, but the process. Ok, then what happens? The man came to the town, the desert town, in search of an old brother and sister, who'd lived their whole lives in this town. They're both older than him, and had left when he was still a boy... That'd make them in their hundreds. Yes, and he's angry that they left him behind in Mississippi. He's come to finally confront them about the bitter life they condemned him to when they left him with their alcoholic father. Another cliche! No, no, not this time. This time it's true. This really happened. It did? When? About 5 years ago. To whom? My Grandfather, and my father, and me, and to you. Me? I was there? Yes, the critic is always there. You are the whole reason the brother and sister left this boy behind, and went west. Me? Yes. Criticism is potent. Now the grandfather has come searching for his siblings, to confront them, but he won't ever find them. Why not? They're dead. I knew it! You were right. So end of story? Nope. He finds her instead, and her daughter. He'll stay there for a few days while he searches for his siblings, and during that time, they'll love on him, and compliment him and encourage him and make sacrifices and he'll be loved. And love will erase all wrongs, blah blah blah, blah blah. Yes. He'll be loved, and he'll let go. And end of story? Still no. He'll work his own magic. The old woman has clung to her dear old house for the 20 years since the highway came through. It's getting busier and busier as evidenced by the every multiplying scratches on the window. The daughter keeps telling her to move. It's too noisy. The old days are gone. But the house is where her husband lived with her for 49 years. She'd almost given in, when the man arrives. She'll die at the end of the story. In the house? No, she'll have sold the house and moved to California with the man. Aren't they a bit old for... that? Not everything is about sex. Somethings are about affection and love. Love. It's an amazing reality. Reality? Yea, it's more than a concept. It's enough to teach him to let go of his bitterness, and her to let go of her memories. Instead of letting these anchors drown them, they'll cut the chains and be able to truly love their dead relations, instead of loving -- or hating -- their memories. It's about forgiveness, about forgiveness for the abandonment they both experienced. They're starting over. They're kind of old, don't you think, to be starting over? No, and that's what this story is about. It's never to late to forgive, and to let go.

Starting over

mat. 6.33

"Seek first the kingdom of God and his Righteousness and all these things shall be provided for you."

ie. Look God in the eye and he'll be so very happy that he'll make absolutely sure that your hunger will not distract you.
ie. Care about God and you won't have to care about that other crap.
ie. Love God. Period.

"And for the support of this declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor." (Signed by 56 men on July 4, 1776).

Wow. I don't think I've understood the weight of that line before. It ends the Declaration of Independence and it's quite the pledge: "In life and death, in wealth and poverty, in popularity and disgrace, I've got your back. My life is yours, my money is yours, my honor is yours."

I want to say that some day.

Happy Independence Day! Happy Birthday USA.

Are you my hero?

The message of America is of hypocrites and sinners helped by God to change the world. This should inspire us. For if our heroes were not perfect, then we need not be perfect to be heroes. And so, we may consider that each of us has the same potential to change the world heroically; as Jefferson and Franklin did for our ancestors, so we can do for those dying from AIDS, ethnic cleansings, slave labor and hunger. God helped those broken citizens become heroes; therefore, no one is exempt from their duty to love and protect their neighbor. With God's help, we all might change the world, we all might be heroes.

"Looking? You mean catching. No, I haven't caught anything yet."

I didn't belong on that pier. I don't like the slime of fish, nor the taste of salt. I can't stomach hours tying tedious knots, lit by sodium lights, my hands numb and bleeding from the wire traps and raw ropes. I'm not one to spend half a chicken to catch a few crabs. So, I put my face to the breeze and inhaled the adventures collected by the centuries, carried by the wind. And I wondered: if not here, then where? Where do I belong?

Who am I?
Who will I be?
What will I do?
What are my talents?
Where will I go?
Where am I needed? Wanted?
Why will I at all?
Who will I know?
What way will I dress?
Why will I care?
What if aliens invaded?
What would I do?
Would I survive?
Would I be devestated? Or excited?
What if I won Lotto?
Would I be the same?
Would I use the money to stay in school?
Or would $11M be an excuse to drop out?


What will I dream of in twenty years? Will my dreams be the same as I dream tonight? Is that a travesty -- or is that humanity?

Take that, writers' block

"A writer must teach himself that the basest of all things is to be afraid."
William Faulkner

I've heard writers' block described as the fear that what is written will not come out right. That's something I should quickly get over; as Forrester said in that great movie, "Write first. Edit later."

Later. Sleep now.

This, butterfly.

First try:
I think

Start over:
I wish I could tell you how I felt when I saw that butterfly, or rather the shadow from his stained-glass wings. I wish I could describe how it rained and then the red glow from the sun through his wings fertilized a small seed of hope in my heart and how that made me smile half a smile.

Say it simple:
Until today, I didn't know butterflies had wings like the windows in a church.

Elaborate:
I don't remember what I was doing, or how the weather was or what I had for breakfast. What I remember is the flash of red, like a shadow you could see through, when it bounced off the ground and I followed it just in time to see a stained-glass butterfly eclipse the sun like an airplane in a movie about love.

Now I'm desperate:
Oh that I could put into words the picture I would have taken had I had a camera when the butterfly crossed the sun and left a trail of stained glass in the sand. In holiness, hope cast a kool aid colored shadow, and then...

Here, try this:
If you stood with the sun on your back and stared out at the sand, lost in thought. And if you poured strawberry kool-aid in the sand, or if you held a stained-glass window above your head, and if you blinked and it was gone; and the sand was sand again. And the sand wasn't red and wasn't magical, but you knew, regardless, that holiness had graced you and would again, with the next butterfly. Then, then you might tell me how to put -- that -- into words.

Thanks:

What one decides at Wal-Mart

1.) I have a sunburn.
2.) Fish are not human.
3.) Rain is depressing or refreshing, depending on whether you are inside wishing you were in it, or whether you are in it.
4.) Fishbowls are cages made out of glass.
5.) Lives are fishbowls made out of money.
6.) If you write it for them, they won't read it; if you write it for you, it doesn't matter.
7.) "It doesn't matter": those are poor words to end on.
8.) I smell like a fish. My life smells like a fishbowl.
10.) Which needs to be cleaned.
12.)

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

I may not have enough money to go back to college next year. That's something to be praying about. I'm ambivalent. Which I always thought meant "good," until I realized it meant "the state of being ambiguous," and now I'm not sure what it means when I say I am ambiguous. I will be happy if I go back to college next year. I will be happy if I don't. This circumstance, though one of the largest in my life, holds no sway over my apathy.

I feel I'm in a fishbowl, not because everyone can see me, but because I can see everyone, and no one notices me. I can see my own reflection wherever I swim, and I can't swim far at that. No matter how much speed I gather, the glass is unrelenting; I am trapped here. Now I sit and stare at myself, wondering what it could be like. How are the fish faring in the river? And those goldfish who live... where do real goldfish live? My life is a farce and I stare at my cage, at me, and like Narcissus, I will die in this water. If I could blink you would see a human expression of boredom; since I cannot, imagine a goldfish in a fishbowl and you will see me, in my life.

Death and hope.

I know I'm losing her. That's why the stew bothers me when I see it left on the stove. It's evaporating, and it needs to be put away. That's my job, to put it away, because she is too weak to do it. She's gone upstairs; she's left the stew behind, for me to put away. She's left me behind to deal. I know it's coming. Whether now, in 8 years, or in 25, it's coming. People whose kidneys fail don't live as long as everyone else. She must know that. What agony to know the end is coming quicker, and inescapably. Her sickness happened in the past; that cannot be changed. And so, her death is inescapable. None of us can avoid death, but for us, death is over the horizon. We don't think about it, because there is so much sea between us and the far shore. Her sickness has placed a new horizon near her, and she can see the shore. She cannot turn back, this is not reversible. God could heal her, but this is irreversible.

And these thoughts haunt my 21st year. That I'll be left alone, and soon. And that I'll have not put the soup away. That she'll die, and the soup will simmer on the stove. I'll have been a bad son, and not put the soup away. I'll have been a bad son and only watched movies with her, too afraid to talk. Talk about what? About those things that scare me. She knows I'm terrified. I don't want to talk about it. Maybe she does. Maybe it will validate her illness. Maybe it will affirm that she's human and that it's ok to talk about her fears. Maybe it's ok and she doesn't know that. Maybe she was raised believing weakness and frailty and transparency to be signs of complaint, of ungratefulness towards God. Maybe she doesn't remember that Jesus asked to be excused from the crucifixion. Maybe she needs to know it's ok to be afraid, cause Jesus sweated blood, and I'm scared too.

***

I don't think too many happy thoughts. Not me, stuck in these two worlds. One is of reality -- and it is painful. The other is my fantasies -- and it too is painful. I look at the death, the Rwandas, the mothers, orphans, sick, diabolical, poor, rich, unhappy, experts, soothsayers, prophets who've got it all figured out. All figured out. Right. This chaos? No. Liars. And this world really hurts. I close my eyes. I dream of tropical islands, my island, with the wrinkled Japanese soldier, defending his nation from me, and American. "The war is over" I would tell him, and we'd be friends. I'd visit him, sailing up to the island and splashing through the blonde sand to his lair. He'd tell me he would die soon, and in peace, and that he had one more thing to show me. He'd lead me through the cave, holding an ancient lantern guilded with gold, azul and rubies. The false wall would swing open and he'd tell me, "All this is yours." I'd be amazed by the glistening treasure and by the stories all the pirates told on their voyages to this island, my island. The pain deafens me to all those who say, "Write first, then look for islands later." I know this is a fantasy, people. It hurts, because by it reality appears so much worse, as a bright light makes the shadows darker in my father's worried brow. I know it's a fantasy, that I'll never have my island, and this makes me want to write less. There's no way out of this reality, so why try? There's no better it could be, so why dream? Hope deferred makes the heart sick; hope will be deferred till death. Funny, the hope kills us, and the death presents us finally with that for which we hoped: a reality we can stand. The glass isn't half full damnit; I'm not a pessimist. There is no glass, no hope of a glass, and there's this pouring rain that I can't drink; the few drops on my tongue only ravage my thirst. I want to think happy thoughts, but hoping for happiness hurts more than just being honest about reality. Maybe this is why my mom is a realist. She knows she'll die someday; now that she's ready for it, it hurts less. She's got it beat. Beat death? We can only hope.

Dawn.

The dawn creeps up on us, and we do not wish to acknowledge its coming.
Why do we roll, pull the sheets over our eyes, hide ourselves from something beautiful?
It comes, but we deny it; we'll meet it when we're ready, on our terms.
It fills us with joy, if we are happy to accept it; with resentment if we long for just a few minutes more of darkness.

Why do the birds greet your dawn so early? And must I resent them for their joy? Only, they shouldn't be happy yet, not till I too am ready to see your sun. They annoy me now, so full of their righteousness, because they have no shame, no pride, and love to leave early from the dark.

I'm tired of the dark. I'm ready for the dawn, but I do want to sleep. I hate my slothfulness. I hate that I've missed so many sunrises. I hate that I've wasted hours. You do realize, it will take all of your blood to erase this. But, I don't want to be separated, and you say you don't, so let it be enough.

Worry.

A man is rich in proportion to the number of things he can afford to let alone.
Thoreau

the rain i fall in

Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Sinclair Lewis, Steinbeck. These men wrote for the twenties and thirties.
John Knowles, Orwell, wrote for the forties and the fifties.
John Irving wrote for the Baby Boomers.
Yann Martel, he wrote for postmodernism and pluralism.

Who will I write for? My generation? Can my generation be said to have a voice? It seems all of us each have our own. It will take thousands of writers to speak for all the different voices. One for the goths and nihilists, one for the partyers and preppies and white girls who love black rap, one for those who give a damn... Bob Dylan, he can write for us, one for those who need a reason to wake up in the morning, one for those who want to smile though our teeth are covered in blood, one for those who find answers in people, one for those who find answers in books, one for those who drive hondas and live in the suburbs, one for those who will never have a real job, one for those who would rather be bums, one for those who want to write but cant find the words, and one for those who have words to say and no friends to listen. And perhaps this is the voice of my generation. We are not blue, or red, or yellow. We are all the colors, thrown together in a mudpuddle, and we make white. Our voice is chaotic, and many, but symphonies sing many parts, all at once, and we stand and applaud. We are independent and unique, all of us together. We are each raindrops; and our voices are the rain.

Love, what is it good for?

What is it about love that makes the whole world beautiful?
People who fall in love or in like seem to forget there are millions of people crying.
I'm happy they get this release, but is it real? Or is it just mere momentary denial?
And what is it about falling in love that sweeps away every possible reason for tears?
People who are in love only cry during sappy movies or when they get dumped.

Can the affirmations of just one human being assuage the rejections of a universe?
And does anyone ever truly get rejected? Who has ever rejected a friend? An advance, yes,
but a friend?

Smile people who are in love, smile, to give the rest of us hope.

I think the world's greatest inventions have been squashed beneath the weight of obligation.
We have not yet cured cancer or established colonies on other planets or perfected teleportation because the men and women who conceived a solution to such problems have since died beneath menial chores and deadlines.
Perhaps it is no fluke that Einstein conceived General Relativity while working as a mail clerk. Many men would have liked to have done what Einstein did, but he was the only one with any free time.

Woke at 4:30 this morning to someone's incessant video game.
Trudged down stairs to beat of narrator in my head: "Who the hell is up at 4:30 playing video games."
More of THEM in the lounge. Changed the wash; now my fingers are sticky. Blame THEM.
More questions: "Why is the moon rising at 4:30? Will I get back to sleep tonight? And am I living next to this guy next year?"

Mood: Grouchy, sticky and placid.

The birds are singing now. I'm going to go wash my hands.

sometimes i dont like falling asleep because falling asleep is inextricably attached to waking up and sometimes i really hate to do that

This is an excerpt from a letter to Jesus, written this morning about 1am.

"I'm not much of an instigator. I kind of pick up on what every one else is doing and express the need. Someone else has to make it happen though. I'm a good problem finder and problem solver. Which is important. It's not funny though. Or buff. Or simple. Or carefree. And I bear the weight of problems I've not yet solved."

Hmm. Negative again. I'm actually a pretty positive person. Maybe I'm that way because I bottle up the negativity. And then it all comes out in the wrong places and hurts people and makes people think I'm negative. So am I?

Tonight is ending with questions. Ending with chaos. That feels frustrating. But, I think I'm going to let it be. I don't think I can worry about chaos, cause everything is always chaos, and I don't want to always be worried. So, on a positive note, I still haven't stopped since I've been back at school. I've spent maybe 2 hours in this room, other than sleeping, since I got back Monday at 6. Ok, that wasn't positive. But it was honest. And that's positive.

Good night. Morning?

anagnorsis

what happens sometimes is I see the glint of my Dad's skin, shiny where he shaved this morning,

or I see my roommate's pimple, which he pops before saving the world from its mediocrity or from porn,

or I see the bones in my sister's back, where her new shirt folds beneath the collarbone,

or I hear my mother's cough, and realize she could die,

and I am shocked at their humanity.

Life is a metaphor for God's love of metaphor

"I guess I spend most of my time eating M&Ms and thinking about molecules."
- = * = -

Ok, so, I'm a philosophy major. That doesn't mean anything about my interests. I really enjoy philosophy. But lately the idea that's captivating me is the disparity between quantum mechanics and general relativity. All the recent advances in physics have been based on one of these two theories, yet the two are incompatible. Or so physicists say. Many of them are looking for a way to make them work together, but no one's having much success. So I've been putting my own head to finding a solution. Yes, me with no knowledge of physics. Yet, here's the thing: philosophy deals with the exact same questions. And, I'm realizing now, so does theology. And get this, all of life asks these questions, and provides examples of what could be an answer.

More to think about. It's not time to present my ideas. You'd call me crazy anyway. Later. Some other time. Once I've gone insane. :)

Just wanted to let you know.

I want you to know two things:
1.) I'm still alive. Jesus didn't kill me for my honesty.
2.) Jesus is here with me now.

A couple of nights after my rant, he met me in a car on a deserted stretch of windy road. We, and my roommate too, spoke for hours. He brought peace with him, and in our intimacy, we three, we found heaven.

Thanks Jesus. I still don't understand, but at least I know I like you anyway.