A Long Overdue Ramble

So, over the past couple of months I have written up a few blog posts, but after writing each one I would read it and scrap it. Some were too whiny (even for me), some were a little too revealing (don't think my family would appreciate some of the personal health problems I would have been posting), and a few were just too personal. Over the past couple years I have put up plenty of stuff that is VERY personal on my blog, but these were a little much even for me.

So here is this post. I am just going to ramble on about whatever comes to mind; I'll probably throw in some song lyrics and/or quotes too. We shall see.

Work: Work is hell. Ok, not hell, but it is stressful. I could leave it at that, but I won't. The past few weeks at work have been too hectic. Between holidays, deaths, and many outings, things are just running at 1oo miles a second and I can't seem to keep caught up. Now, not everything is bad. I mean, some of the outings are great. I mean, I got paid to drive up to Chicago, watch Phantom of the Opera, and eat at a Chinese buffet - awesome. Last week I got paid to go Christmas shopping and then got a $30 meal at Red Lobster. When you couple these fun things with the emotional boosts you get when you realize how much you are actually helping some of these guys, and the job is great. It can be REALLY stressful though.


Family: Hey regular readers, I have a shock for you! My family members are sick! Ok, if you know anything about my family or have read about half of my blog posts, you know that my family is always sick. If it isn't my mom's knee or shoulder, it is my brother's gastro-intestinal system, or my dad's neck, back, diabetes, arthritis, heart, or whatever his newest unknown malady is. This time it is Dad, Tom, and my aunt all at once. Oh, and my ankle has been acting up lately too. Luckily my family's doctor is great. I mean, the man refuses to let us call him anything but his first name, and has a habit of theatrically joking with us. Take this example:

The setting is a hospital room. My father has been admitted for testing because his blood pressure has been spiking dangerously. After 12 hours of testing and a night in the hospital my family is sitting in the room waiting for our doctor. The nurses know us, so they have been joking with us about how the doctor is just avoiding us because he doesn't know what is wrong.

A few minutes later our doctor saunters in. He says his hello's to all of us and sits down on the radiator. He looks over at my dad and smiles as he puts his feet on the hospital bed.

"Well, Tim," he says with an exaggerated sigh. "The nurses tell me that you have been whiny and bitchy. But we'll deal with that later. First the results of your tests. As usual we have know idea what the fuck is going on with you."

And yes, that actually happened. The nurses weren't happy he was putting words in their mouths, so one of them kicked him in the butt as he was walking away from the room.

In addition to the health problems in my family, I am also suffering from another problem regarding them. I am feeling weird when I'm around most of my cousins of a like age. Currently there are five of us who have graduated from high school, and I am the only one who isn't married. Ok, sure, all of the others got married because they either got pregnant or got someone pregnant, but still. It feels weird to look around at a family gathering and realize that I am the only legal adult in my generation without a significant other. Now, don't get me wrong, I don't want to have any kids yet, and I am glad I am not on the fast track to whitetrashdom like some of my cousins (nothing like leaving the Navy because you got pregnant and spending the rest of your life working at McDonalds).

Edumacation: In two weeks I am taking my GRE so I can finish my applications to various Grad schools. I'm torn though. I want to go to grad school and get my Master's, but at the same time I want to be home to help my parents. I want to get a higher paying job that I can consider a career, but I want to pay off my student loans as soon as possible. I want to get out of my hometown, but I want to be able to visit friends. It is an interesting conundrum. I'm going to go ahead and apply though, and see what my options are after that.

Women/Love/Romance/Relationship Status: Uhhh. . . . not sure at the moment. I think there is one person who fully knows what is going on with me right now (and that is because I had another case of "George has no internal filter when intoxicated" syndrome... Yeah sorry about that again, even if you refuse to allow me to say sorry). If you want to know what is going on with me, ask and depending on my mood I might tell you.

Random Thoughts: Hmmm, what random thoughts should I include here? Should I talk about how much I dislike going to any of the bars in this area because the three times I have been in one over the past six months at least 10% of my high school class has been inside?

Maybe I should talk about how this past Tuesday REALLY reminded me of some of the things I miss the most about college? Sitting in Cup o' Joe, just talking, laughing, joking, and hanging out really made me nostalgic. I miss being able to just take a one minute walk to find a place I can sit and be with friends. I miss having a group of people readily available to just relax with. I can't do that with my family because any time my parents and I are all off work they end up finding something around the house that needs fixing, or cleaning, or remodeling, or some other inane thing.

Perhaps I should talk about how I have lately been one of the things I hate the most. . . a hypocrite. I continually talk about how we should be honest with people and just say how we feel, but I think I do it mainly because it is something I wish I could do. Instead, I skirt around issues. I drop stupid little hints and joke about things in an attempt to convey what I am thinking without having to actually say it. I hate myself for it, but every time I do express how I feel things seem to explode in my face. *Sigh* Oh well.

Quotes/Songs:

"If I could spend every minute of every day with you I would. I think about you all the time. I think of you when I go to bed, and you're the first thing I think about when I wake up. I can't go through one day without wanting to see you, needing to see you. You're addictive, I don't get it ... what is it about you?"

I thought that by telling myself and everyone else that I hated you. That sooner or later I would come to believe it. But I now realize that by lying, it makes me want you even more.

"You know, I used to think it was awful that life was so unfair. Then I thought, wouldn't it be much worse if life were fair, and all the terrible things that happen to us come because we actually deserve them? So, now I take great comfort in the general hostility and unfairness of the universe." - Marcus Cole from Babylon 5

Nuzen felani enaliz medrawn

“I like fruit baskets because it gives you the ability to mail someone a piece of fruit without appearing insane. Like, if someone just mailed you an apple you'd be like "Huh?", but if it's in a basket you're like "Nice."” - Demetri Martin

"If You're Not the One" by Daniel Bedingfield

If you're not the one then why does my soul feel glad today?
If you're not the one then why does my hand fit yours this way?
If you are not mine then why does your heart return my call?
If you are not mine would I have the strength to stand at all?

I never know what the future brings
But I know you are here with me now
We'll make it through
And I hope you are the one I share my life with

I don't wanna run away but I can't take it, I don't understand
If I'm not made for you then why does my heart tell me that I am?
Is there any way that I can stay in your arms?

If I don't need you then why am I crying on my bed?
If I don't need you then why does your name resound in my head?
If you're not for me then why does this distance maim my life?
If you're not for me then why do I dream of you as my wife?

I don't know why you're so far away
But I know that this much is true
We'll make it through
And I hope you are the one I share my life with
And I wish that you could be the one I die with
And I'm praying you're the one I build my home with
I hope I love you all my life

I don't wanna run away but I can't take it, I don't understand
If I'm not made for you then why does my heart tell me that I am
Is there any way that I can stay in your arms?

'Cause I miss you, body and soul so strong that it takes my breath away
And I breathe you into my heart and pray for the strength to stand today
'Cause I love you, whether it's wrong or right
And though I can't be with you tonight
You know my heart is by your side

I don’t wanna run away but I can’t take it, I don’t understand
If I’m not made for you then why does my heart tell me that I am
Is there any way that I can stay in your arms?

Is this how addicts feel?

Is this the feelings that addicts feel? This want, that borders on need. This yearning for one thing to the exclusion of others. This hunger that consumes all other thoughts and wants. I know I shouldn't want it. I mean sure, giving in to this desire and fulfilling it will lead to happiness, but I know that it will only lead to more pain and suffering in the long run. Granted, it is a near-blissful moment in which everything seems right with the world. Colors seem more vibrant, sounds more melodious, smells more intoxicating, and touches electrifying. Therein lies the problem though. . . it is just a moment. So far every time I have indulged this want, it has been a singular moment. A few solitary moments of the dizzying high, each of which inevitably spiraled into a painful crash.

One would think that these crashes might be enough incentive to not want to risk them again. Then something happens. Some isolated event that means nothing reminds me of the highs. They make me think of the joy that fulfilling this want made me feel. The sheer unadulterated happiness that I felt. When I think about that, I forget the lows. I forget the pain and grief I felt when it was over. I want that happiness. I want that high, but I want it to last, I want to continue indulging in that want over and over to keep the low from coming.

Is this what addicts feel? It sure sounds like it.
Am I addicted? It is possible.
Should I give in? . . . I'm not sure.















Ah, what the hell.

*Eats a piece of cake.*

Ah, that's nice.
Ok, so this actually had nothing to do with cake. *Walks off muttering something about being an idiot and brick walls.*

High School called. . .

It said it wants its drama back.

Oi! I mean really people, the sheer magnitude of drama in the past year or so at Saint Joe is staggering. I think I have been through more drama in the past year and a half than my entire high school career and 2/3 of my college career. . . and those earlier years included both September 11th, the beginning of the Iraq war, and the 2004 election.

Now, some of this drama involves friends, while other apparently involves me (some warranted, some confusing, some as a result of relativity). Apparently some things have been said about me that don't jibe with the way I remember things. I think that this discrepancy between versions of the story might have led to some of the awkwardness between me and some other people, so I am just going to say the following (and this doesn't just apply to this situation or just to me): If you have heard something about me (or someone else) ask me to hear my side of the story (or ask them to hear theirs). Drawing assumptions from one side of the story leads to some false assumptions. Sure, my version of events might not be what other people remember, but every person's views are tinted by their own emotions and perceptions. If they say A and I say C, well maybe B is right and we are both wrong, but at least you know where each of us is coming from. If you are friends with someone, you owe them at least the courtesy of hearing their side of the story before you decide what you think about a situation.

My rant is finished, now for a few random quotes and a poem that has no relevant connection to anything other than the fact that I was listening to a radio program that was talking about the sun on my way home:

Could you imagine how horrible things would be if we always told others how we felt? Life would be intolerably bearable. – Randy K. Milholland

Perhaps nobody ever accomplishes all that he feels lies in him to do; but nearly every one who tries his power touches the walls of his being. - Charles Dudley Warner

All it takes to fly is to hurl yourself at the ground... and miss. - Douglass Adams

I ran into someone the other day and we started to talk. Somehow the conversation mentioned your name, and they asked me if I knew you. Looking away I thought of all the times we had together and then how, without an explanation, you were gone. I looked to where they were waiting for an answer and said, "Once ... or I thought I did..." - ????

Five billion years from now - maybe to the day, the sun burns 90% of its hydrogen.
The balance is destroyed.
More energy is created than released.
Quickly - a few million years - the sun radiates all of its potential power.
The star swells...
Mercury - Venus - the Earth - Disappear... swallowed.
The sun truly, finally touches the sky.
Life vanishes beneath the glow.

Eventually the sun shrinks, decreasing to the size of the Earth, which reappears from the red dwarf's grasp.
With no gravity to hold it, the Earth slowly floats away.

Elsewhere, stars are born.
Other solar systems, older, larger, continue to breathe.
The solar system dies a cold death.

If that's what it takes, then ok.
If I must wait that long, then all right.
Because when I think of this, nothing is more desirable than the hope of watching that last day
When the sun flickers out
With you beside me. - Poem by ?? (Found in JP's away messages)

Why society makes people unhappy

This post will be a look at happiness, or more precisely the lack thereof, in the majority of society and some of the reason I believe we are headed for a depressed society. One of these days I will do a more thorough study in this and probably write up an actual paper regarding it. Hell, this could evolve into my thesis when I eventually get back to school. As it is, this will be based upon personal thoughts, examples, and beliefs along with some ideas introduced in the amazing book “A General Theory on Love” which is about so much more than love.

Humans are social creatures. That is a given. At some level, everyone knows that we are social animals who could not long survive without others. Sure, there is the occasional hermit who can live alone, but they are an aberration and not the norm. No, humans are about as social as you can get.

Look at babies. At no time more than infancy is our reliance on others more pronounced. I am not talking about our needs for food, shelter, and hygiene. Rather, I am talking about the basic human need for social contact. Our limbic brains NEED social interaction – human touch, the sound of a human voice, the sight of a human face – to function. Studies have shown that without social interaction babies will die. An infant can be raised in the most hygienic of environments, but without an actual human touching, holding, etc. them, they will die.

Oh, and before I forget, I should probably talk some about the limbic system of our brain. The limbic system is the part of the brain that controls our emotions. It is the limbic system that sets mammals apart from amphibians and reptiles. The limbic system allows us to relate to other limbic animals. Through our limbic system, we can tell when a dog is happy or frightened, we can tell what a person we are talking to is feeling, and we can even know the reasoning behind the cries of a newborn baby. It is a mother’s limbic connection to her child that allows her to differentiate between a hungry cry and a hold me cry.
____


“But George,” you ask, “what the devil does this all have to do with happiness or unhappiness?”

And to that I say, “Hold your gorram horses. I’m getting to it.”

____

Our society is obsessed with Hollywood. Between the movies and the celebrity culture, you can’t spend a day in America and not hear something about a given celebrity’s latest escapades or the latest hot movie. Hollywood movies have given rise to a very strange view of relationships. Everyone is searching for the stereotypical Hollywood movie romance. They want to have the kind of experience where the wind picks up and tosses their hair as the music swells to a crescendo as they kiss someone for the first time. It is a romantic view of things, but exceedingly distorted in the probabilities that it will happen unless staged to happen so.

Celebrities are no different from anyone else in this respect. They want to have the kind of amazing scripted beautiful relationships that they portray in their movies and TV shows. They get caught up in a whirlwind romance with their latest fling, and the paparazzi go wild. Every tabloid, women’s and teen’s magazine, and half of the “news” magazines are about nothing but the latest “who’s dating whom” stories. Our society thrives on it. We have even come up with a method of referring to the relationships by making a conglomeration of the names of those involved.

Of course, everyone wants to be like their favorite celebrity, but therein lays the problem. Celebrities are as (if not more) fallible than the average person. They get caught up in their newest fling and rush straight into marriage, thinking that this is finally the one . . . unfortunately, life catches up to them and they aren’t as deliriously happy six months later and they get a divorce.

Seeing their favorite celebs do this, the average person gets into a relationship, and when it isn’t as picture perfect as their favorite movie romance, or they aren’t as cute a couple as Couple AB, they end it and break up. The majority of the time, they also cut off most if not all ties with their former partner.

And now we have come to the crux of the issue. As humans, our day to day functioning is as much based on external forces as internal. Our interactions with friends and family determine our moods and feelings. Our limbic system works with the cues (both conscious and unconscious) given off by those around us to regulate our bodies and minds. Much like my star analogy a month or so back, how much a given person affects our mood is based upon how influential they are and how close to them we are. We are connected to every person we interact with on a regular basis. Our memories, bodily regulations, thoughts, beliefs, and actions are influenced by this connectivity.

By creating extremely intimate relationships with our “significant others” we bring into our lives a star that is extremely close. These people warm our days and nights, and we thrive with them around us. Then we sever these connections because the relationship isn’t living up to the Hollywood Romantic-Comedy ideal. Of course it isn’t, because only in a scripted interaction could something as silly as this happen:

Jerry: Hello? Hello.
I'm lookin' for my wife.
Wait. Okay...okay...okay.
If this is where it has to happen, then this is where it has to happen.
I'm not letting you get rid of me. How about that?
This used to be my specialty. You know, I was good in a living room. They'd send me in there, and I'd do it alone. And now I just...
But tonight, our little project, our company had a very big night -- a very, very big night.
But it wasn't complete, wasn't nearly close to being in the same vicinity as complete, because I couldn't share it with you. I couldn't hear your voice or laugh about it with you. I miss my -- I miss my wife.
We live in a cynical world, a cynical world, and we work in a business of tough competitors.
I love you. You -- complete me.
And I just had --
Dorothy: Shut up. Just shut up.
You had me at hello.
You had me at hello.

That’s right, the guy screws up, and all he has to do is show up, make a long winded, horribly canned speech, and BAM! Everything is fine again. It is sweet, it is corny, and it is utter horse shit. It doesn’t work that way in real life. In real life we get into an argument and break up. Then, because we are so used to the deep limbic connections between ourselves and the person we just broke up with, things get uncomfortable. So, we remove these people from our lives to remove the discomfort. But this person was the one who we currently had the deepest limbic connections with, so things are thrown off balance. To use my earlier analogy, we are just removing the sun from our sky. What would happen to the earth without the sun? Chaos would ensue. The earth would be engulfed in almost utter darkness after perpetual sunlight. We would drift aimlessly through the cosmos. In much the same way, our moods are thrown completely out of whack when we cut someone thoroughly out of our lives.

Why would we be so affected by the loss of one relationship though? It is actually a simple explanation. In much the same way that a baby looks to its mother to learn how to react to the environment (although to a much lesser degree), humans look to each other for emotional cues during our daily life.

Don’t believe it? Well, consider the following scenarios.

A. You are cut off in traffic, and a few seconds later you come alongside the car that cut you off. The driver is singing and dancing to thumping rock music and is completely oblivious to what they just did.
B. You are cut off in traffic, and a few seconds later you come alongside the car that cut you off. The driver mouths, “Sorry” and sheepishly looks away.

It is likely that those two nearly identical scenarios would elicit completely different responses. The first would cause most people to become irritated if not outright angry. The second is more likely to cause little or no emotional reaction because the other driver is expressing regret and remorse for what they did.

Thus, when we remove the most influential limbic relationship we have, our brains need time to adapt. It is like the average person losing one of their senses. We would need time to adapt to the lack of sensory information coming to our brain by relying more heavily on our other senses. The loss of an important limbic relationship is a direct parallel to this. When we lose a major source of limbic input, we turn to secondary sources and draw more upon them, but we aren’t used to drawing on these sources for some of this information.

In our society these gains and losses of limbic relationships are omnipresent. We are a culture of serial daters. When partner A doesn’t fit our ideal, we drop them and move on to partner B, C, D, E, and F. If it isn’t us doing it, it is one of our friends, and even if one of our direct peers hasn’t recently broken up with someone, the proof is as close as the nearest newsstand. You can’t pick up a newspaper or magazine without reading something about a famous couple breaking up. Our society encourages us to “shop around” while looking for a mate.

Look at our ancestors. When marriages were arranged and divorce was highly discouraged, the prevalence of depression was much lower. Now, I am not advocating arranged marriages, I am just saying that there appears to be a correlation (this is all hypothetical at the moment of course). The introduction of serial relationships to our society may be partly responsible for the apparent depression epidemic.

____

“But George, what about people who have been single for long periods of time? Why aren’t they happy?”

“I’m getting there”

____

Unfortunately, single people in our society aren’t spared from this whirlpool. No, they are as susceptible as the daters are. As I said earlier, we are inundated with Hollywood Romance and Hollywood couples. On TV, in movies, in books and magazines, everywhere you look you see happy couple after happy couple (followed a few months later by a story about their break up, but I digress). Any single person looking at this yearns for this apparent happiness. They see the smiling faces of couples, who haven’t yet decided that their relationship isn’t Hollywood perfect and should be scrapped, and wish that it was them. The longer they remain alone, the more they get sucked into the idea that a relationship is blissful happiness.

Of course, this leads to problems when they do get into a relationship. When the lonely single person finally finds someone and gets into a relationship, they are expecting things to be as immediately perfect as the latest Romantic Comedy showed that they should be. These people are even more likely to fall victim to this kind of thinking and terminate their relationships early . . . which of course leads to them being emotionally disoriented when these new and deep limbic connections are closed off.

In our society, it appears that you are damned if you date and damned if you don’t.

Oy

First off, to my friends who have been trying to support me over the past few days - Thank you all.

Second, if I get told by anyone "I never liked her" or "You deserve better" one more time, I might stab that person. I know you guys think you are being supportive, but look at it from my perspective. When I hear "I never liked her", I think "So you were just pretending to like her because I did. Any nice thing you said about her was bullshit... well great, who else do you only pretend to like because friends like them?" When I hear "You deserve better", I think "Well, if I deserve better but can't get this, how am I ever going to get better. And where the hell is better anyway? I apparently have shitty tastes in your opinion, so maybe you should point out who would be right for me."

For those of you who have actually sat down and talked to me (be it in person or over IM) thank you, but for those of you just offering canned platitudes, please stop.

Now for some song lyrics that just fit the situation - Light as the Breeze by Billy Joel (my mother would tell me that I am too damned cynical about love for my age)

She stands before you naked
You can see it, you can taste it
But she comes to you
Light as the breeze
You can drink or you can nurse it
It don't matter how you worship
As long as you're
Down on your knees

So I knelt there at the delta
At the alpha and the omega
At the cradle of the river
And the seas
And like a blessing come from heaven,
For something like a second,
I was healed, and my heart
Was at ease

O baby I waited
So long for your kiss
For something to happen
Oh - something like this

And you're weak and you're harmless
And you're sleeping in your harness
And the wind going wild
In the trees
And it's not exactly prison
But you'll never be forgiven
For whatever you've done
With the keys

O baby I waited
So long for your kiss
For something to happen
Oh - something like this

It's dark and it's snowing
Oh my love I must be going
The river is starting to freeze
And I'm sick of pretending
I'm broken from bending
I've lived too long
On my knees

And she dances so graceful
And your heart's hard and hateful
And she's naked
But that's just a tease
And you turn in disgust
From your hatred and from your love
And she comes to you
Light as the breeze

O baby I waited
So long for your kiss
For something to happen
Oh - something like this

There's blood on every bracelet
You can see it, you can taste it
And it's please baby
Please baby please
And she says, drink deeply, pilgrim
But don't forget there's still a woman
Beneath this
Resplendent chemise

So I knelt at the delta
At the alpha and the omega
I knelt there
Like one who believes
And like a blessing come from heaven
For something like a second
I was cured, and my heart
Was at ease

O baby I waited
So long for your kiss
For something to happen
Oh - something like this

Uhhhh

I know I have a tendency to be overly verbose and loquacious when typing up blogs, but today I only have three letters to explain my mood. . .


WTF?

Edit - Well, I thought three letters would be enough, but my new Jason LeVasseur CD keeps singing songs to me that are fitting as well, so I will use my earlier three letters, and here are three songs from Jason.

Edit2 - I normally don't edit my posts once, and this one is getting edited twice. Oh well. As to my earlier three letters, "Ah, ok then. Cool." And as such, two of the Jason songs go bye bye because this post is way too long.

The World Spins Around Again

So you climbed up that hill
Just when you thought you had your fill
Took a good look at the big lights
Took a good look at the bright sights

But you never saw the warning sign you thought that you would be alright hanging out doing fine singing sweet songs in the sunshine

So can you make it home tonight
Do you think you’ll cry yourself to sleep
Will you have a dream about
Nothing ever working out
Of being that lucky one
Like that one time
you danced with the sun
And you woke up in a bed of four leaf clovers
And you picked every one

And the world spins around again
And you laugh at the way you’re feeling
And it all goes around again
And you laugh at the pretty girl singing

Aren’t you tired of getting pushed around just when you thought you’d broken out you climbed the hill and laughed at love and that’s about the time that you got pushed down

But you never saw the warning sign you thought that you would be alright hanging out doing fine singing sweet songs in the sunshine

But it’s not your time

And the world spins around again
And you laugh at the way you’re feeling
And it all goes around again
And you laugh at the pretty girl singing

Lalala lalala
Lalala lalala
Lalala lalala
La La La La La La

I think too much. . .

I think it is about time for me to post something.

Work is going great, not too much to talk about there. Family, well, my family is the same as it always is (in other words, medical problems abound). They are currently on their way back home from Nashville where they vacationed this week.

My family being on vacation meant that I was home alone this week, so I did a lot of driving around to visit people. While driving, I got a chance to do one of my favorite things - ponder. I thought about a lot of things this week - life, the universe, friendship, love, and communication.

Life - Life is funny sometimes. I am currently living with my parents to save up some money before moving out on my own. I want to move out, but at the same time, I know that my parents really need my help around the house nowadays, especially with my father’s current health problems (a long and sordid story I don‘t feel like getting into at the moment. If you are reading this and don‘t already know, give me a call or drop me an e-mail and I might explain it). Because of this, I am torn. Do I move out, or do I stay and help my parents? Oi. . .

The Universe - I love having a convertible sometimes. Driving through the country at night is a beautiful experience (so is sitting out at a drive-in in a convertible). Looking at the stars always gets me to thinking. As always, it reminds me how small our little ball of dirt and water is. At the same time, looking at the stars makes me question the rationality and sanity of anyone who believes that there is no higher power. I truly don’t understand how an atheist can look at the wonder that is the universe and not believe that something sentient had a hand in its creation. Looking at the stars also inspired my next thought -

Friendship - I think that our relationships with people are much like the relationship between stars and the Earth. Every person gives off a different amount of influence on others, and every star gives off a different level of light and energy. When we are closer to a star, we see its light more brightly. It doesn’t matter that a star is naturally dimmer than another, because we are closer to the dim star it appears brighter. Friendship is like this; we find our friends to be more influential and important than other people in our lives because of our proximity to them. This of course, brings us to. . .

Love - Drawing on the exact same example, I thought about how people we truly love influence us. Someone we are truly and deeply in love with is like Sol (that is our sun if you didn’t know). When someone we love is around us we can’t see anything or anyone else. The intensity of our feelings for them wash out everything. That is why we can’t see any other stars during the day, we are too close to our sun. Sol is far from a large or bright star. Hell, it is a puny and feeble star when compared to some of the giants out there, but to us, oh to us it is different. To us, Sol is the biggest, brightest, and most important star there is, and nothing anyone can say or do can prove otherwise. Loving someone effects us in the same way. It doesn’t matter how anyone else sees the person we love, to us, they are the sun. It doesn’t matter that to everyone else they appear to be a sickly star barely flickering in the darkest of nights, we love them and that is what counts to us.

A curious thought just came to me as I was writing this. Even when the sun isn’t in the sky it tends to shed more light on us than the other stars combined. We see its luminosity reflected off of the moon, and even our darkest nights are brightened by Sol. Once again, this is like the relationship we have with those we love. Even when they aren’t around, we see them in other things and they effect our lives.

Communication - For all the talking we humans do, communicating is still one of the most difficult things we can do. How do you tell your father that the one thing you fear right now is losing him? How do you tell your parents that you are willing to sacrifice your social life, comfort, and independence to stay home and help them when the one thing they want most is for you to be able to stand on your own and see you happy? How do you tell someone that you truly love them when every other attempt to do so has been met with laughter or shocked silence? What do you do when your heart is of two minds and your mind doesn’t have the heart to force your heart to make up its mind? When is the point when you stop trying with verbal communication and move on to physical?

When? When do you stop thinking about the right things to say, and speaking, and hinting, and cajoling, and stumbling over your tongue when you want to say something important? When do you stop worrying about what might be and start thinking about what is and should be? When do you stop thinking about possible negative consequences and focus on the amazingly positive possible outcomes? When do you stop trying to express yourself with words, and you instead take her in your arms and kiss her?

. . . And what happens if I did that? What if I did just stop over thinking things and just grabbed her and kissed her the next time I saw her? What then? Would I get slapped? Would she hate me? Would I lose a friend? Would she kiss me back? Would she finally actually believe what I have been saying all along?

And now I am thinking. . . If she reads this, will she realize it is her I am talking about? How many of the people reading this know who I am actually talking about? Oh sure, most of you have guesses, but how many of you are right?

I’m just rambling on now. I guess the conclusion of the above section would be “Yes or no?” Hmm. . . Quotes:

What do you do when your heart is of two minds and your mind doesn’t have the heart to force your heart to make up its mind? - George White

Am I so much to blame, that yesterday, when you were pleading
Warmly the cause of another, my heart, impulsive and wayward,
Pleaded your own, and spake out, forgetful perhaps of decorum?
Certainly you can forgive me for speaking so frankly, for saying
What I ought not to have said, yet now I can never unsay it;
For there are moments in life, when the heart is so full of emotion,
That if by chance it be shaken, or into its depths like a pebble
Drops some careless word, it overflows, and its secret,
Spilt on the ground like water, can never be gathered together.
– Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

"Some people come into our lives and quickly go. Some people move our souls to dance. They awaken us to a new understanding with the passing whisper of their wisdom. Some people make the sky more beautiful to gaze upon. They stay in our lives for a while, leave footprints on our hearts, and we are never ever the same."

Somebody should tell us, right at the start of our lives, that we are dying. Then we might live life to the limit, every minute of every day. Do it! I say. Whatever you want to do, do it now! There are only so many tomorrows. - Pope Paul VI

She was the one to hold me
The night the sky fell down
And what was I thinking when
The world didn’t end
Why didn’t I know
What I know now

Would you look at her
She looks at me
She’s got me thinking about her constantly
But she don’t know how I feel
And she carries on without a doubt
I wonder if she’s figured it out
I’m crazy for this girl - Evan and Jared “Crazy for this Girl”

I don't know why I even bother with these...

Disclaimer: This post is going to be random and rambling.

Life is a bitch. Life throws shit at you and you never know what is going to hit next. One day, everything seems hunky-dory. . . The next everything is FUBAR. Funnily enough, for once, I’m not going to talk about all the shit. I worked out my need to vent earlier, and I just don’t feel the need to anymore.

Add to talking to someone earlier the fact that I took a nice long walk tonight after I got off work, and I am in a serene mood right now. I absolutely love living in a small town. There is no light pollution like you get in the city. I spent the majority of my walk just looking at the stars. The sky was gorgeous tonight, and it made me remember how incredibly small and insignificant we each are in the grand scheme of the cosmos.

Now, we are insignificant in the scheme of the cosmos, but on the universally small scale, we are incredibly important to everyone around us. Each action you make, effects everyone connected to you, and in turn, the effect on them effects everyone connected to them, etc. It is an infinitely expanding loop. The butterfly effect so to speak.

========

Which brings me to my next point. In life we lean on people, and they in turn lean on us. Sometimes funny things happen. Sometimes we go to lean on someone and they aren’t there. Other times, they are so busy leaning on us that they don’t realize that we need to lean on them. Every once and a while though, when we can’t find someone to lean on we start to lose our balance. We have nothing to support us, and we start falling. Then life surprises us, and there is someone there we aren’t expecting. They support us and let us lean on them when we would otherwise fall. Finding these unexpected supporters when all others have disappeared is one of the best experiences in life. Sometimes someone is there for us and they can help us in a way that nobody else could have. I would like to send a thank you to the person who was there for me this week (you know who you are).

========

Nerd Rant Alert!

I don’t know why I even bother watching movies based on books, old TV shows, or comic books anymore. I am almost always disappointed by them. The only one recently that hasn’t wholly enraged me was Transformers. Between the gorgeous Megan Fox, the always entertaining Shia LaBeouf, amazing special effects, and a very nice job of translating the Transformers characters to a live action movie, Transformers was a fun time and I found it well worth my time and money.

Spiderman 3 - So not worth the wait. Between Emo Spiderman when he was supposed to be super-aggressive evil Spiderman, Venom being almost an afterthought, and the heartless Sandman being turned into a sympathetic character, this movie was sad.

Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer. . . Wow. . . Just wow. I don’t know any other way to describe it. I mean, the powers of the characters (with the exception of Dr. Doom) were true to the comic, but the storyline and the personalities were horrible. Mediocre at best.

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. . . I am sickened by this movie. Absolutely sickened. After watching the movie, I asked myself, “Is this movie based on the book I read? Because it wasn’t even close to the same.” The book was good, but the movie was frighteningly bad.

I am worried about the upcoming movie Stardust. The book by Neil Gaiman was amazing, but I am afraid that the movie will be a butchery of it. Only time will tell.

=======

Work is going great. I love helping these guys. The majority of them are just confused kids who made stupid mistakes. Sure a few of them can be jackasses at times, but for the most part they want our help. Unfortunately, I know I can’t do this forever. I like helping these guys, but counseling psychology isn’t really my cup of tea. Honestly I am already starting to look for decent grad schools where I can focus on biopsychology and/or forensic psychology. Hopefully I can find somewhere nearby and go to school while still working at the same place. Here’s hoping.

=======

It is funny how there are some things in life that, no matter how hard you try, you can't change. Sometimes these things are good. Other times they are bad. And every once and a while, they are just there. Sometimes it is a feeling. How you feel about someone (or multiple someones) that you can't change. Maybe you have done something that should have changed your feelings for them, or maybe they have. It doesn't matter what should have changed. No, should's are not a concern of this kind of thing. Should is a word that our brains laugh at and push to the side.

I shouldn't care about this person, but I do, and I can't stop myself from caring. I mean, this person has done pretty much everything imaginable show that they don't care the same way, but for some reason I still care, and I don't know why. Maybe I am a masochist. Maybe it is just that I like the constant struggle to even get this person to have a conversation me.

I don't know why though. I have plenty of people who are perfectly willing to talk to me. Hell, I spend my workdays with 13 guys who want nothing more than positive attention from a male role model. Why don't I just pay attention to them instead of worrying about this person?

Bah, this is just a circular rant in which I will just keep going round and round the idea that I should stop caring, but for some reason I can't. . . Oh well. C'est mon vie.

QUOTES!!!

“God does not play dice with the universe; He plays an ineffable game of His own devising, which might be compared, from the perspective of the players, (ie everybody), to being involved in an obscure and complex version of poker in a pitch-dark room, with blank cards, for infinite stakes, with a Dealer who won't tell you the rules, and who smiles all the time.” - Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett

“Sometimes it seems the harder you try to hold on to something or someone the more it wants to get away. You feel like some kind of criminal for having felt, for having wanted. For having wanted to be wanted. It confuses you, because you think that your feelings were wrong, and it makes you feel so small because it's so hard to keep it inside when you let it out and it doesn't come back. You're left so alone that you can't explain.” - Henry Rollins

“You want to think and say that you have everytning you need, but then you realize that something is missing, someone is missing... and once you think you've found it, it goes and disappears on you and you don't understand what to do or even where to start looking for that missing piece of the puzzle. You sit at home in lonely frustration and you just wait...wait...and wait. No where to look, no one to look for...”

“Somebody should tell us, right at the start of our lives, that we are dying. Then we might live life to the limit, every minute of every day. Do it! I say. Whatever you want to do, do it now! There are only so many tomorrows.” - Pope Paul VI

“God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.” - Reinhold Niebuhr

“My mind tells me to give up, but my heart won't let me.”

“I don't wish to be everything to everyone, but I would like to be something to someone.” - Javan

Who comes to Claim? Who dares the Dream, and daring ---

Strangely, even though things are going swimmingly with me currently, I haven’t been finding things to write about. I’m working a lot, occasionally finding time to visit Elizabeth, and working on things around the house. Nothing all that exciting that I need to write about. . .

I was reading a book the other day and came across a very interesting story and moral. The story is told near the climax of the book as a test to determine which of two claimants is the rightful king to a throne. At the end of the story he asks a question.

Here it is:

---

Listen to me. Listen to the sadness I must relate. Live it.

Listen to me. Live it.

Once there was a woman married to a blacksmith in Ruen. As wives are wont to do, she waxed great with child, and one afternoon her time came. Her husband sent for the local midwife, but she was busy elsewhere, and the midwife from the neighborhood next to theirs answered the call. She was a short woman, stout, and she had a hunched shoulder, a twisted arm, and wall eyes that stared at deviant angles. When she entered the birthing chamber, the wife cried out in shock and terror, and the midwife took affront.

In spite the midwife sat back when the woman bled, and let her life’s blood drain into useless pools in the bed. And from these cooling pools she lifted a baby girl even as the mother took one last shuddering breath and died. “I curse you,” the midwife cried to the infant, “to a sad life!” Then she picked up her instruments, laid the infant down by her dead mother, and left the room.

The blacksmith mourned his wife, for she had been useful, and blamed his infant daughter for his loss. He put her out to a wet nurse, begrudging her every coin he had to pay to let his daughter suck at the woman’s breast, and only reluctantly took her back into his house when she was four. The blacksmith already had three older sons, and he did not want this daughter, but he was obliged to take her.

She grew, but following the midwife’s curse she grew only into sadness. Her father and brothers treated her with cold indifference that too often bordered on hostility. The girl spent her days attending their needs, never leaving the house or the forge that abutted it, keeping her head bowed, never smiling. She had no reason to smile.

She grew into young womanhood, yet her days were as gray and featureless as they had been as a child. Her only comfort was her mother’s small collection of books which she kept under her bed and only pulled out to read once everyone else in the house was asleep. These books were her only friends. Until . . . until one day a young man came to the forge, bringing his horse which had cast a shoe. He spied the woman as she sought to hide in the shadows, and managed a quiet word to her. Over the next few weeks, with increasing courage, she met him for snatched minutes in the alley behind the house, exchanging words, hopes, dreams. For the first time in her life she learned to smile.

Alas!

Alas! One night she determined to run away with the young man, run to an inn nearby where they planned to consummate their love and from there move into a world of hope. But she was careless, and in her eagerness left her father’s house before she had dried the dishes washed from the evening meal. Her brothers followed her, furious at her slovenliness, and found her even as her lover’s lips were for the first time lowering to hers.

They seized him, crowing with fury, and bore him to the ground. They were strong men, and could have killed him quickly, but they chose to take their time, and they drew out his death until his screams shattered the night. And yet no one threw open their shuttered windows to investigate. No one. When he was dead they turned to their sister, and one took his knife and, as the others held her down, he put out her eyes so that she would never be tempted again.

Now even her treasured books were denied her. Long hours she would sit on her bed, late at night, feeling their taunting shapes beneath her hands, her tearless sorrow ravaging her face. There was nothing for her now. Her father grew old and died, and her brothers took wives, bringing them home to live in their house. She continued as the household drudge, creeping blindly about the house, sometimes but not always evading the sharp corners of furniture deliberately moved into her path and the stabbing fingers of her sisters-in-law. Nieces and nephews were born, and they soon learned the sharp ways of their parents. The woman learned to accept pinches and punches, and she bowed her head to fate.

After some years, she became aware of a comforting presence that lingered in the back alleyway. It was a great shaggy dog, a stray, that someone had discarded. Gradually he became used to her, and accepted careful scraps from her fingers, licking them gratefully when he had finished. He was her only friend, and somehow she conceived the idea that the dog was her lover’s soul come back to aid her. The thought comforted her. One day, the dog went a-roaming, as dogs are wont to do, and he caught a squirrel, wandering madly through the back streets of Ruen. As the dog caught the squirrel the rodent bit him, and the dog yelped in surprise and let the creature go. Two days later he felt a madness building in his mind.

The woman was relieved when she heard the dog scratching at the door, and she hurried to give it a pat and a hug. But as she leaned down the dog snarled and bit her hand, and she screamed and tore loose, and the brothers and their wives and their numerous children came a-running through the house and dragged her inside, slapping her for her foolishness, and stomped the dog to death.

But it was too late. She grew feverish, her body wracked with convulsing agony. Her sisters-in-law tended her only enough to keep her alive, but they wished they had not bothered when the woman finally struggled up from her sickbed. The fever had crippled her back and twisted one leg shorter than the other. Even as a drudge, she was useless.

There is not much left to tell. They threw her out to wander the streets, where she begged what food she could and slept in doorways when she was able. She accepted the abuse meted out by those who prey on the week and helpless, and knew her time was short. Winter approached, and winter is never kind to those lacking both home and comfort.

So she curled up about her rags and sought the only answer to her pain. I ask you now to venture the ordeal. What was her answer? What answer could she find to her pain and her sorrow?

---

Well. . . what was her answer? What did she do? What would you do? I am glad to say that I answered correctly. I will post up the answer given in a few days, but I would like to see what other people think. What answer would you give?

---

The answer given was “She laughed. She laughed. It was the only thing left for her to do.”

The short stanza I used as a title for these posts was used repeatedly in the books, and after that story was fully finished the end was revealed.

Who comes to Claim?
Who dares to dream
and daring - laughs.

To which the test giver responds - “Yes. Laughs. To laugh is to dare, because laughter dares fate and sorrow and the weight of all injustices.”

So people, laugh. Laugh at life. Don't take it too serious.

Remember “A thing derided is a thing dead; a laughing man is stronger than a suffering man.” - Gustave Flaubert

The Reports of My Demise Have Been Greatly Exaggerated

Sorry everyone. I realize that it has been almost a month since I last updated this baby, and the three or four of you who actually read it were probably getting antsy (I know Trips was. . . He said he needed my emotions “injected into his life”).

I guess there were two main reasons I didn’t post up anything in the past month. The first was because I was nearing my graduation, and I knew that anything I posted would end up being a sappy, teary-eyed, emotional goodbye to everyone (which this post will end up turning into anyway). I didn’t think I could handle that kind of goodbye or even really admit to myself that my college career was ending. I had a hard enough time saying goodbye to people, and I think I came off as a little cold and detached, but that was only because I was attempting to keep myself from breaking down. Last week was rough (and I’ll get into that more later).

The second reason I didn’t write a post recently has to do with my relationship status. Four days after my last blog post I started a relationship with an amazing woman (even as I write this I wonder what mental illness she is suffering from that makes her think I am in any way worthy of her affection) . . . and I think that I was afraid that if I wrote a post saying how happy I was, I would wake up and find that it had all been some elaborate dream. Or maybe I thought that if I wrote a post, the Almighty would let the other shoe drop and suckerpunch me in some new and creative way. As I once said to BJ, I am a romantic hypochondriac. I may put forward a happy and brave face, but for some reason I am always thinking things like - “Have I done something wrong? Is it going to end? What if I screw up?” . . . I hope for the best, but envision the worst, and I don’t know why. . .

Anyway, as I was cleaning my room so I would have space to unpack my junk, I found an old CD that a friend made when we were in a barbershop quartet back in high school. Not knowing what songs were on it or their order, I laughed, said “In Bob I trust”, and hit random. I was regaled with the following song:

Our song was a song of tomorrow
Our hearts were as high as the sky
But songs are forgotten and skies often grey
Nevertheless there is this I can say
From the first hello
To the last goodbye
It’s been awfully nice to know you
So excuse the parting sigh
And I’ll watch you go
With my head held high
You’ve been dear and sweet
A pleasure to meet
A special treat
Say I...
From the first hello
To the last goodbye

I hadn’t thought about that song since we sang it back in high school, but it fits my current mood perfectly. I know that I will probably see almost all of my friends again, but how many of my acquaintances are now things of the past? How many of the people that I met in college but didn’t get too close to are now just people I once knew? How many of my friends will move on to distant jobs never to be seen again? It is disheartening to think that Saturday May 5th was the last time I may see some of them, and I am not sure how I really feel about the idea. It is still sinking in right now.

As always, some quotes:

“It's sad when someone you know becomes someone you knew.” – Henry Rollins

"Love is when the woman of your dreams becomes a reality and sleep stops being a priority."

"If I could spend every minute of every day with you I would. I think about you all the time. I think of you when I go to bed, and you're the first thing I think about when I wake up. I can't go through one day without wanting to see you, needing to see you. You're addictive, I don't get it ... what is it about you?"

*Sigh*

You know, for one day - just one short day - I would love to be able to have nobody ask me about my post graduation plans. I don't really want to think about it any more than I have to. Right now I just want to spend as much time with my friends as possible (and get all my stuff done... I hate all of my professors right now).

Hopefully today will be that day.

---------

I had a semi-philosophical moment earlier and wrote down a weird paragraph:

There are some things in life you can’t change. You can’t stop the weather or the inexorable change of tides. You can’t turn lead into gold or buy yourself more time in life. Try as you might, you can’t change your past choices or choose how others feel about you. But there are things you can do. You can weather any storms that come and plan your arrivals and departures based upon the tides. You can use lead in countless more ways than you could gold and use the time you are given well. And you can learn from your past choices and you can choose how you feel about others. Embrace the choices you have and accept those you don’t. It doesn’t help anyone to dwell on the things they can’t change.

--------

I confuse the shit out of myself, but I would like to think that certain others contribute significantly to this confusion. Sort it out Crazy Fool. Sort it out.

---------

Quotes:

When a man is thinking about matters of the heart, the most common expression on his face will be one of confusion. - Me

I enjoy talking to you. Your mind appeals to me. It resembles my own except for the fact that you happen to be insane. - O'Brien, 1984

To me, there are three things we all should do every day. We should do this every day of our lives. Number one is laugh. You should laugh every day. Number two is think. You should spend some time in thought. And number three is, you should have your emotions moved to tears, could be happiness or joy. But think about it. If you laugh, you think, and you cry, that's a full day. That's a heck of a day. You do that seven days a week, you're going to have something special. – Jim Valvano

Don’t cry because it is over. Smile because it happened. – Dr. Seuss

Am I so much to blame, that yesterday, when you were pleading
Warmly the cause of another, my heart, impulsive and wayward,
Pleaded your own, and spake out, forgetful perhaps of decorum?
Certainly you can forgive me for speaking so frankly, for saying
What I ought not to have said, yet now I can never unsay it;
For there are moments in life, when the heart is so full of emotion,
That if by chance it be shaken, or into its depths like a pebble
Drops some careless word, it overflows, and its secret,
Spilt on the ground like water, can never be gathered together.
– Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Insomnia Sucks

Ok, those of you who are reading this should be warned that I am running on empty at the moment and I will probably say some things that either don’t make sense or that I shouldn’t say. At the moment, I just don’t care.

---

This first section is something I have been thinking about a lot lately – my spirituality. I can’t call it my religiosity, because I don’t follow any specific religion. I mean, if I absolutely had to subscribe to any one religion, I would have to choose to be a non-denominational Christian (ok, I know that even that isn’t truly choosing a religion, but it is as close as I can get).

I am not sure why I have been thinking about my spirituality lately. Maybe it is because I have actually sat in on a few religious ceremonies lately. Maybe it is because I have been hanging out with several highly religious people recently. Maybe it is just because once again I have reached a point in my life where I just don’t know what I should do.

Whatever the reason, I feel like I should explain my views on religion somewhere that people can read them. I will try to be as non-judgmental and honest as I can in this explanation.

1. I believe there is a God. I believe that this God is a benevolent being.

2. I believe that this God has revealed itself throughout the ages to any number of people in any number of ways. I believe that miracles described in Greek, Roman, Norse, and Egyptian mythologies probably actually have some foundation in truth. I believe that the Jewish/Christian/Muslim holy texts have at least some basis in fact. I believe Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, and every other major religion in the world has some kind of connection to this same God. Miracles happen, and the only way to explain them is a God.

3. I believe that the idea of being religious and to worship God is a respectable and necessary thing in life.

4. I believe that the basic tenets of every major religion in the world are basically good. From the Ten Commandments to the Four Noble Truths and the Eightfold Path, every major religion has some kind of foundation that is easily followed or understood by most people. Very few of these tenets conflict with the other religions. Heck, even “You shall have no other gods before Me” isn’t contradicted if you believe that all religions are just different ways to worship the same God.

I think those four basic beliefs are commonplace and respectable. Here is where I step away from most people. I don’t go as far as some people (Jesse Ventura) and claim that religion is a crutch for people. Far from it, religion has throughout history brought people together in ways nothing else has. No, I don’t believe that, but I do believe that religion is not universally good.

Established religion has been the basis for wars, discrimination, homicide, genocide, feuds, and hatred throughout the centuries. Arguments and conflicts between religious groups have caused more problems through the centuries than anything else I can think of. Blind faith leads people to do exceedingly foolish things.

It isn’t only disagreements between religions that cause problems. Misinterpretation of religious doctrines has lead to almost as many problems as the conflicts. It leads to irrational hatred of people who are different, terrorists blowing themselves up in order to kill “infidels”, witch hunts, inquisitions, and civil wars.

For these reasons, I, while being extremely spiritual, cannot bring myself to claim any specific religion as my own.

---

Wow, I am proud of myself. I stayed on topic for much longer than I expected to.

This next section though. . . I am going to do a lot of rambling. I am not good at typing about my personal life really.

Looking back on the past year or so, I find that I haven’t changed at all. When I say I haven’t changed, I mean that I am finding myself in situations like I was last year at about this point.

I am like a man in quicksand. I feel myself sink down, and my hand finds itself on a branch, so I grab onto the branch and begin pulling with all my might. Unfortunately, the branch seems to always break and I find myself sinking right back into the quicksand.

Maybe I should just stop struggling against the quicksand. Maybe I should just let myself sink into the quicksand and accept my fate. I tried it once, but my timing was atrocious. Maybe I was supposed to grab the branch then and let myself and the quicksand adjust for a while until the branch broke. Well, the branch has broken. Should I surrender?

Looking at things from the perspective of Rational Emotive Behavioral Therapy, I can say to myself, “What is the worst that can happen?” Honestly, the worst thing that could happen is getting shot down again. The thing is, I am used to that. It would just be another “Suckerpunch” from the big man upstairs. I’ve lost track of how many times that has happened over the years. It isn’t that bad really. I can laugh it off nowadays.

What else am I scared of? I can’t put it in words. I don’t really think there is anything holding me back. Maybe it is because I know I won’t be believed. I mean, I have said point blank how I feel countless times, but I don’t think it has ever really sunk in. Then again, disregarding one time, every time I have said how I feel, I have used my signature sarcastic tone or said it flippantly. Maybe I just need to be dead serious the next time I say it. It isn’t a joke, but I feel I sometimes have to joke about it to keep from exposing my feelings to people honestly. I need to stop doing it.

Alright, I am just going to let go. I am going to surrender myself to the quicksand. It is all in the hands of God now. I am going to trust that things will work out as they should.

. . . Oh, sleepless nights give one a lot to think about. As always, comments are welcome and encouraged. I like to know when friends are actually reading this and what they think about what I write. Now, as I like to do, here are some quotes:

The risk of love is loss, and the price of loss is grief -
But the pain of grief
Is only a shadow
When compared with the pain
Of never risking love.
- Hilary Stanton Zunin

“Love is a special word, and I use it only when I mean it. You say the word too much and it becomes cheap.” – Ray Charles

“The most human thing we have to do in life is is to learn to speak our honest convictions and feelings and live with the consequences. This is the first requirement of love, and it makes us vulnerable to other people who may ridicule us. But our vulnerability is the only thing we can give to other people.” – Leo F. Buscaglia

Metaphors

There Person G, are you happy? I mentioned you. Now stop whining and bitching. (I just hope people H-Z don’t start bitching at me now.)

I have also had a request to mention how amazing Poopsie’s boobs are. Poopsie, you know who you are and how much everyone loves those perky little love-muffins. I mean really, any man whose mouth doesn’t water over those gazongas is no friend of mine. Ok, now to get my mind off of those luscious love puppies and back to the task at hand.

--

Now for the main purpose of this post. I want to talk about metaphors. Everyone uses metaphors as part of their daily life. Hell, I used several when I was talking about Poopsie’s delicious funbags (whoops, there’s another one).

But that isn’t really the type of metaphor I mean with this post. No, this post is about the metaphors people use when they are talking about someone and they only want specific people to know who they are talking about. Sometimes these metaphors are silly and easily decoded. Other times they remain viable code words for many months.

Another interesting thing to look at when considering metaphors is where the metaphor itself came from. What is it about the word that fits the person or event that you are trying to talk about without talking about it? I know that personally it normally comes from some comment made offhand by myself or my coconspirators that makes some kind of humorous impact. It can be an offhand comment, or an away message the person has up that sticks with us. Whatever the source, I rarely use metaphors with no reason behind them.

Sitting here and writing about metaphors is making me think of all the metaphors I have used or heard in the past year or so. Let me see how many I can name.

Groceries, Bicycle, Brick, Oot, Canada, Mexico, Iraq, Switzerland, Teddy Bear, Frog, Toad, Economics, Explosion of Boobies! (the exclamation point is mandatory), The List, Noble Weasel, and finally, the funniest of them all, CD!!

These are just the ones I have used or heard (and can remember) from the past year or so. If I went back any further I could probably come up with any number of additional metaphors I have used. All in all, metaphors for me are a fun way to talk about people (not necessarily in a bad way, in fact, normally in a very good way) without most people knowing who I am talking about. They are fun and harmless. Isn’t that right Statler?

Well, that is all I have to say about those, here are some quotes of the moment as is traditional.

“When you stop putting yourself on the line, and you don't touch your own heart, how do you expect to touch other people?” – Tori Amos

“Without wearing any mask we are conscious of, we have a special face for each friend.” – Oliver Wendell Holmes

“Whether you call my heart affectionate, or you call it womanish: I confess, that to my misfortune, it is soft.” – Ovid

“It is the privilege of those who fear love to murder those who do not fear it!” – May Sarton

“Loving someone that doesn't love you is like reaching for a star. You know you'll never reach it, but you just got to keep trying.”

Poopsie is not a real person. Sure, I love looking at several different people's dirty pillows, but I would never single any of them out in a blog post.

Oy vey!

So, I was planning on writing a post about a Futurama episode that was on earlier this week, but unfortunately as I got about halfway through writing the post, I realized that it would be taken the wrong way.

The episode is one of the many involving Fry's unrequited love for Leela, and is my favorite Futurama episode of all time. As I got further and further into the writing of the post, I realized that people would assume I was talking about myself instead of the episode.

Person A would think I was writing about Person B. Person B would see it as either a post about themself or Person A. Person C would laugh at me and make jokes about how I was writing about Person A. Person D would assume it was about Person B. Person E is getting annoyed I am writing about all these random people, and Person F is pissed that I haven't mentioned them.

*Sigh* Sometimes I wish a ball could just be a ball, a tree could just be a tree, and the Washington Monument could just be a tall slender building.

So, rather than write a post about my love for a sappy episode of Futurama, I will just post up a couple of pictures I got of my cousin's baby girl. She's a cutie, but too bad her name is Savannah White.

Poor kid.




And now a quote or three:

“I'm sick of following my dreams. I'm just going to ask them where they're going and hook up with them later.” - Mitch Hedberg

“Don't go for the looks, it can be quite deceiving. Don't go for wealth, even that fades away - go for someone who makes you smile because only a smile makes a dark day seem bright. Hope you find that person.” - Anonymous

“The reason people find it so hard to be happy is that they always see the past better than it was, the present worse than it is, and the future less resolved than it will be” - Marcel Pagnol

Two in one day? What?

Yeah, so this is my second post of the day, but it is just to post up the article I just wrote for the Observer.

I love writing these last minute columns, but I can never think of anything to write about. Consequently, I tend to ask for topic ideas from friends. The suggestions I get are all over the map. Here are a few of them: “Write about politics.” “Write about people going to college just so they can get more money in later jobs.” “Write about how Ninjas are better than Pirates.” “Write about how Jason Keller and George White are the sexiest men on campus.”

Now, some of these topics are completely stupid (I mean, everyone knows Pirates are better), but sometimes a topic clicks with me and I can run with it. Three people suggested various Hollywood topics to me. These ranged from Britney Spears’s recent head shaving to why Vince Vaughn was responsible for Brad Pitt and Jennifer Anniston’s divorce. After quickly dismissing these things as topics, it struck me how sad it was that Hollywood gossip was the most popular topic suggestion.

Not one person I talked to mentioned Iran, the peace summit with Israel and the Palestinian authority, the multiple outbreaks of salmonella infected foods, or the asteroid that threatens to impact with Earth in 2036 (it is true people).

No, I got suggestions regarding Anna Nicole Smith, Britney Spears, and Brad Pitt. Is this what our society has come to? Well, apparently the answer to that question is yes, because as looking at the “Most Popular” news articles on Google, I find that 6 out of the top 10 stories are about Sports or Hollywood.

What is it about Hollywood celebrities that so enthralls our culture? Is it the flashiness and glamour of their lifestyle that makes them seem more important than global politics? Is it that they make more money in one year than most families will make in a lifetime for pretending to be other people?

Here I am complaining about this phenomenon, but at the same time, I am fueling it. Earlier in this article I wrote about various things that have happened recently in Hollywood. Now, unfortunately, I think this article will spawn more conversations about them than about the truly important events in our world.

I will just leave you with this question: Do you know what brand of peanut butter has been recalled because of salmonella? If not, you may want to start looking at news stories that are a little more important than “which celebrity just had a breakdown/breakup/breaksomething”.

Heh, I rock. Also, Trips is amazing.

Cognitive Dissonance Sucks

Just a little blurb here.

Don't you just hate it when you disagree with yourself?

I mean, part of you wants to think or do one thing, and another part of you is vehemently against it. What do you listen to? Do you listen to the rational, calm, and intellectual side or do you listen to the spontaneous, heartfelt, and emotional side? How do you decide which part of yourself is in the right? Or should you just flip a coin and go with the winner?

. . . I dunno. . . I am just rambling.

One quick quote that I thought of when I was contemplating my cognitive dissonance:

If your head tells you one thing, and your heart tells you another, before you do anything, you should first decide whether you have a better head or a better heart. - Marilyn vos Savant

C’est mon vie

Ok, I originally wrote up a post with this basic topic on Wednesday night/Thursday morning, but for some reason it didn’t post on my blog like it should have. I haven’t been in a blogging mood the past couple days, so I waited till now to write it up again.

Hindsight - recognition of the realities, possibilities, or requirements of a situation, event, decision etc., after its occurrence

Yeah. As I said in a post back in June, hindsight can be a real bitch, but hindsight can also be helpful. Hindsight can cut through all the bullshit of life and let you know that you have done the right thing in certain situations.

Looking back at my life, I am glad to say that for the most part I have made the right decisions. When I was a kid, I read and learned instead of sitting around watching TV and movies 24/7 (I only spent 18/7 doing that). When I was in middle and high school I didn’t go out and get drunk every weekend like so many of my classmates did. I came to Saint Joseph’s College and made some of the best friends I have ever had.

Unfortunately, there is one area of my life in which I haven’t always made the best choices. I repeatedly make bad choices in this area, and I don’t seem to learn from my past mistakes in the slightest.

This area is of course . . . women. BJ and I were talking about our past history with women and the guy actually made a comment worthy of quoting for something other than shock value.

“If you would just stop existing, I would stop falling for you. . .”

(Ok, I added that ellipses at the end because he actually said, “If you would just stop existing, I would stop falling for you, bitch”, but then he said, “Nah, just kidding take the bitch off that.”)

But he was right, that is how I have always dealt with my feelings for women. I have always developed romantic feelings, and then when it doesn’t work out I retain the feelings. For some reason I can’t explain, I just don’t let go. I have always clung to the feelings, perhaps clinging to some vain hope that if I keep feeling that way, it will change things. I have done this for more years than I would like to remember. It is unhealthy, and now that I look back at it, I am somewhat scared by it. Why would I do such things to myself? I can’t answer that, but hopefully I will never have to again.

Now that I have said that, I can also honestly say that I am not doing it anymore. I am learning from my mistakes, and the change feels good.

Some lyrics to wrap up this post:

Lithium, don't want to lock me up inside.
Lithium, don't want to forget how it feels without...
Lithium, I want to stay in love with my sorrow.

Don't want to let it lay me down this time.
Drown my will to fly.
Here in the darkness I know myself.
Can't break free until I let it go.
Let me go.

Darling, I forgive you after all.
Anything is better than to be alone.
And in the end I guess I had to fall.
Always find my place among the ashes.

I can't hold on to me,
Wonder what's wrong with me.

Lithium, don't want to lock me up inside.
Lithium, don't want to forget how it feels without...
Lithium, ...stay in love with my sorrow.
I'm gonna let it go.

Ok, I lied, that isn’t the end. Just because I haven’t used it since my New Year’s post, my favorite quote:

“Have you ever been in love? Horrible isn't it? It makes you so vulnerable. It opens your chest and it opens up your heart and it means that someone can get inside you and mess you up. You build up all these defenses, you build up a whole suit of armor, so that nothing can hurt you, then one stupid person, no different from any other stupid person, wanders into your stupid life...You give them a piece of you. They didn't ask for it. They did something dumb one day, like kiss you or smile at you, and then your life isn't your own anymore. Love takes hostages. It gets inside you. It eats you out and leaves you crying in the darkness, so simple a phrase like 'maybe we should be just friends' turns into a glass splinter working its way into your heart. It hurts. Not just in the imagination. Not just in the mind. It's a soul-hurt, a real gets-inside-you-and-rips-you-apart pain. I hate love.” – Neil Gaiman

I’ve never been so alone. . ./She can ask for the truth. . ./Politics. . .

Ok, so this is going to be a three part post. I am not sure if any of the parts will be all that long, but oh well.

--------

. . . And I’ve never been so alive.

Those are lyrics from Third Eye Blind’s “Motorcycle Dive By”. Not only is that song one of my all time favorites, but right now it also fits my mood.

As the lyrics say, I’ve never been so alone. . . well I have been, hell I have lived the majority of my life as alone as I am now, but what I mean is that I am just by myself now. Lately I have been relying on others less. I have been whining about life less. I’m spending time to myself when I could be out with friends. I’m not becoming a hermit by any means, but I am just not as connected to my friends as I once was.

And funnily enough, I haven’t felt this happy and relaxed in a long time. I am finally learning how to do what is best for George. I’m stopping myself from saying/doing stupid things that feed the emotional masochist in me. I’m finally content with being single. Do I wish I wasn’t? Sure. Do I see certain people and think, “what if?” Every single day, but I don’t let it get me down. I don’t let the fact that I am alone rule my life anymore. I enjoy what I have, and I have stopped dwelling on what I don’t.

--------

. . . But she’ll never believe you.

Why do women not believe a single word out of a guy’s mouth? It can be about anything, and they still won’t believe.

Take this even that happened twice in the past two weeks with me -

Woman - “Is this test going to be hard?”

Me - “Not really, that professor’s test are normally pretty easy.”

Woman - “Are you sure? Should I study more than I normally do?”

Me – “No really, they tend to be really straightforward if you have read the stuff and looked at your notes.”

Woman – “But you are smart, what you think is easy is probably really hard.”

Me – “*Sigh* . . . I quit.”

What was there not to believe in that exchange? Was there some hidden message I was transmitting that made them believe I was lying to them to sabotage them? How about this conversation that I had (again twice, but about VERY different things) –

Woman – “How did I do?”

Me – “You did really well.”

Woman – “Are you just saying that?”

Me – “No, you really did a good job.”

Woman – “You are just saying that because I am your friend.”

Me – “No, really. I mean it. You did a good job. I wouldn’t lie to you about this.”

Woman – “. . . Okay.”

Me – “*Resigned sigh*”

I don’t know what it is, and maybe it is just me, but for some reason it seems that women have an underlying distrust of anything said by a man. Have we as a society so fully blackened the reputation of men that nothing they say is believable?

--------

This third section is only going to be a few sentences. Politics belong only in the political world. Leave them out of things involving talent and skill. . . Grah!

Now a quote and some lyrics from the two songs used as titles.

Your feelings may be as clear as traffic light signals, but what if the person watching you is color-blind? So, tell them how you feel.

-----

Motorcycle Drive By – Third Eye Blind

Visions of you on a motorcycle drive by,
The cigarette ash flies in your eyes, and you don’t mind, you smile,
And say the world doesn’t fit with you.
I don’t believe you, you’re so serene.
Careening through the universe, your axis on a tilt, you’re guiltless and free,
I hope you take a piece of me with you,
And there’s things Id like to do that you don’t believe in,
I would like to build something, but you’d never see it happen
And there’s this burning, like there’s always been,
I’ve never been so alone, and I’ve, I’ve never been so alive,

And there’s this burning, ah ha, there was this burning.

. . . .

I go home to the coast. It starts to rain, I paddle out on the water alone,
Taste the salt and taste the pain. I’m not thinking of you again,
Summer dies and swells rise, the sun goes down in my eyes, see this rolling wave, darkly coming to take me, home,
And I never been so alone, and I’ve never been so alive.

-----

She’s Always A Woman – Billy Joel

She can kill with a smile
She can wound with her eyes
She can ruin your faith with her casual lies
And she only reveals what she wants you to see
She hides like a child
But she's always a woman to me

She can lead you to love
She can take you or leave you
She can ask for the truth
But she'll never believe
And she'll take what you give her, as long as it's free
Yeah, she steals like a thief
But she's always a woman to me

CHORUS
Oh-she takes care of herself
She can wait if she wants
She's ahead of her time
Oh-and she never gives out
And she never gives in
She just changes her mind

And she'll promise you more
Than the Garden of Eden
Then she'll carelessly cut you
And laugh while you're bleedin'
But she'll bring out the best
And the worst you can be
Blame it all on yourself
Cause she's always a woman to me

CHORUS

She is frequently kind
And she's suddenly cruel
She can do as she pleases
She's nobody's fool
But she can't be convicted
She's earned her degree
And the most she will do
Is throw shadows at you
But she's always a woman to me

Snoopy is street

I just had to post this picture somewhere after I found it.

Valentine's Day Sucks!

Well, that fateful day that everyone loves to hate is coming up. No, not Arbor Day. Valentine's Day. This has just been driven into my head by the dozen or so e-mails I have already gotten about it. Some are from friends, some are spam, but no matter who they are from, they annoy me.

Now sure, not EVERYONE hates Valentine’s Day, but the majority of the population does. I don’t blame them either. There are plenty of viable reasons to hate Valentine’s Day.

Here are a few I have compiled in the past twenty minutes:

1. Being alone on Valentine’s Day sucks. That is right. There is nothing more disheartening than being alone on a day that is dedicated to couples. I mean really, what kind of sick fuck decided to create a holiday that would alienate between one third and one half of the global population? What kind of twisted mind does it take to come up with that kind of thing?

2. Valentine’s Day has introduced the idea of forced romanticism. For those of us who tend to be naturally romantic, it has cheapened the idea. For the rest of the population, it is a day in which they are expected to act like someone they aren’t. This is just another example of our society asking people to change who they are to fit in.

3. Valentine’s Day breeds contention. If a guy isn’t romantic enough, it causes problems with his significant other. If a guy is too romantic, it can cause problems. Finally, if a guy just says, “Screw it, I am not a romantic person” and blows off Valentine’s Day, he will be lucky to survive the day. On the flip side, guys get upset because they are expected to buy expensive and extravagant gifts on this day. What is special about the day? Well, we are just told it is special, and things need to be bought.

4. It doesn’t matter how good your Valentine’s Day gift to someone is, you just have to be better next year. It is the ultimate game of one-upsmanship with oneself. If you do something amazing on your first Valentine’s Day together, every other year will just be compared to that year unfavorably.

5. Being alone on Valentine’s Day sucks. Yeah, I know I already said it, but oh well. It needs to be said more than once.

And now for fun, a Jay Leno quote:

“Today is Valentine's Day - or, as men like to call it, Extortion Day!” - Jay Leno

Puppies!

This post is just because I miss my puppies and was looking at pictures of them. While looking at the pictures, I decided that everyone must see them.


Little dog looking at my brother as he plays Nintendo (Regular Nintendo, nothing fancy for him).


Little dog looking demonic and crazy.


Big dog looking scruffy and cute.

I miss my puppies

Deja vu. . . all over again

So yesterday I was searching for a quote that fit life at the moment.

Richard had noticed that events were cowards: they didn't occur singly, but instead they would run in packs and leap out at him all at once. - Neil Gaiman

I couldn't find it anywhere though. It wasn't in my quote document, and it wasn't on thinkexist. I was confused. I knew I had used it in the past.

Well, it turns out I had. I had used it in a blog over the summer and as I found it and read that blog post, I couldn't help but laugh at myself. Apparently something had set me off that week and I can't remember what it was. Heck, I'll just copy-paste the majority of the post so you all can see what I mean.

Femmes!

I've said it before, and I will say it again - I don't understand women, and I know I never will. I don't think that there is a man in this world who truly understands women and the way their minds work. Oh sure, some guys may know how their wife thinks, but that is one woman. Women as a whole are one confusing bunch.

Now, after reading the above paragraph, many a woman would counter, "Women are easy to understand. Men are the confusing ones." Women may actually believe this argument, but the truth to that argument is that men seem confusing . . . because they are confused. Men don't know how to act around women because women say, do, and think different things. They say one thing, mean another, and think a third, but somehow they expect men to be fully cognizant of what they want.

A classic example is the "Where do you want to eat" dilemma. Most of the time when a man asks, "Hey, where do you want to eat", he will get one of the following responses: "I don't know", "I don't care", or "Oh, it doesn't matter, you pick". Do any of those three things really mean what they seem to mean? NO! They normally mean something more to the effect of "I know exactly where I want to eat, but I want you to prove that you know me and pick the place I want". Every once and a while a woman will be honest and actually say "How about (Insert overpriced eatery here)", and the man involved will internally dance a little happy dance.

Or how about the ever popular "Are you mad" question. Most women have several types of anger that they can express, and the most frustrating of these is the type where they profess to be completely calm, collected, and not in the least perturbed, and all the while they are seething inside about some slight that the man probably doesn't even realize he has committed. As the man remains blissfully unaware of his wrongdoing, the woman continues to allow her anger to build up without expressing it in any way other than to become slightly withdrawn (perhaps with a few surreptitious glares in the man's direction). When confronted about her behavior, the woman continues to deny any anger until finally exploding at the man.

Then there is always the question of what a woman wants in a man. I have heard countless women say that they look for a man who is "Smart, funny, kind" etc. etc. etc. Unfortunately I can count on my hands the number of times I have actually seen a guy who is all the things listed, but not physically very attractive, with one of these women. This is another case of women saying one thing, and their actions saying another. Far too many women date guys based solely on physical appearance, and then when the guys turns out to be an ass, complain that men are all jerks. A great many men are not jerks, but we are looked over because women are as shallow and hormonal as men (they just don't like to admit it).

Due to these - and other - situations, men have learned think things through and tread carefully around women at times, but these are not the main cause of stress between the sexes. In my opinion, the one situation which has caused more stress between men and women than anything else is the question of honesty.

Most men like to be honest about things. If a buddy is doing something stupid, men point it out. If a guy is wearing a hat that makes him look like a moron, his friends will point it out and tell him not to wear it.

Women claim to love honesty, but at times they prefer to be lied to. "How do I look?", "Does this dress make me look fat?", etc. . . . why do you ask these questions if you don't want us to be honest? If any man ever answered either of those questions with a "Sorry honey, that dress does not flatter your figure at all. Maybe you should wear that other one" he would not only be sleeping on the couch for the next week, but he would probably have a few things thrown at his head.

The question of honesty also comes into play when a guy has feelings for a woman. If a guy just comes out and says how he feels, he risks several possible complications. First, he could say it at the wrong time and make the woman upset and uncomfortable. Second, she may have no feelings for him whatsoever, in which case he has probably just flushed a friendship down the toilet by being honest. Third (and in some guys' cases most likely) he can get the always popular "I don't like you in that way", the "I don't know how to respond to that", the classic "You aren't boyfriend material", or my personal favorite "You are just too nice, and I don't want to ruin our friendship".

Of course, if he keeps these feelings in when she wants him to say them, then she can become upset that he is too closed up emotionally. Maybe, while he is wrestling with whether or not he should say anything (probably for fear of one of the above complications), she will decide that he doesn't have any feelings for him, not tell him, and just move on to one of the shallow pretty-boy asshats talked about a few paragraphs ago.

So, with all these confusing possibilities and complications fouling out male-female interactions, men muddle on slowly and confused. Do they tell the truth this time, or is this a case where the truth will get you slapped? Does she really not want to talk about what is wrong, or does she want you to just automatically know what is wrong and apoligize for it? Graaaaaah!!!

From now on, I just want everyone to be honest with me. If you want to say something, say it. Please don't hold back (except for you Mike and BJ . . . I don't even want to know what Mike is thinking, and I already know what BJ is thinking). Just cut through all the bullshit and come out with it already people.

That just makes me laugh.