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.

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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).

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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?"