Overwhelming silence

I love the rain. I miss the snow. The whole world quiets down when it rains. Everything slows down when it rains. People do not seem to move as fast, almost as if someone has hit the slowmo button on life. I can sit and stare out of my front window into the pouring rain, and a sense of peace comes over me. I cannot explain the feeling well enough, but the closest I can get is that everything slips away. Watching it rain, watching everything change color, especially here in California is breathtaking. The pavement, the cement, that covers every inch of this place darkens as it soaks in the water.

In the rain, people look so much more vulnerable than they do at any other time. Huddled in their clothing, in their coats and jackets, with the hoods up or beenies on, no one is trying to hide behind their normal masks. With the focus on staying dry and warm, no one can hide who they are. People look so different in the rain. People look so honest, maybe just in comparison.I miss the days that I could spend playing in the rain, or in the snow. It is not the freedom that I miss, but the act of walking and jumping and playing in the giant puddles left in the street that ran in front of the house that I grew up in. The rain makes me think of snowball fights with my brothers and sister on Christmas Eve four years ago, when the snow came down in almost a foot of beautiful, silencing white powder. It covered everything, and we scrapped it off of the back of Mom and Dad's car to throw at each other. It was amazing.

Maybe it is that on a deeper level than I consciously think on, I realize that the rain is life for this world. Without it we die. Simple. This is not a rant about clean water or conservation. I just wonder if we recognize naturally how important water is to us. Maybe we all enjoy days huddled reading while it rains outside because it is some sort of connection. Or maybe it is raining and I took a few too many Tylenol flu, night time. I do love the rain. And I do miss the snow.

-Richard

Look, a soapbox!

Do the blind hate the same things that those of us who can see hate? How about the deaf? Is hate tied to visuals? Sound? Or is it a combination of the two? Or is hate tied to language? I mean, if we had no words to define the differences between each of us, would those differences still be there? I know that words only have the power that we give to them, but what if those words ceased to exist? Would it be so bad for a generation, or for all generations, to never hear the words that we use to convey our hate, our misunderstanding, our fear of the differences between each of us?

I know that just because no one says these words out loud does not mean that the hate is not there. You cannot do a whole lot about the people that are so afraid of the things in this world that are different from their definition of the norm that their only response it to hate them. But, if there was no way to pass that fear on to other people, wouldn't that be a good thing. I believe that the fear of these differences between us is a learned trait, because I do not believe that anyone is born hating anyone.

The argument can be made that there is no way to go without hearing these words, or that “censoring” humanity to keep out hateful words is wrong in it's own way. Me, I cannot see how the effort could ever be wasted. Isn't trying the important part? Not in the “it's the thought that counts” way, but in the “we should be trying to leave a better world for those that come after” way.

As for the idea that watching what we say is wrong in itself: total crap. We already watch what we say and who we say it around. That's why the joke about racist jokes works. You know, the one that goes, “how does every racist joke start?” followed by the joker looking over each shoulder. We know what the words we use mean, so we make sure that there is no one around to hear them. But, by saying them at all we keep them alive.

If no one ever said another joke about a Jew, or a black guy, or a woman, or a midget, would we actually lose anything? If no one said them and they were forgotten forever, would we be worse off? The answer to those two questions is pretty damn obvious. I hope. I have in my head the hope that this world of ours is not so far gone that it cannot get better. I have this hope that hate is not a stronger emotion than love, that understanding can beat fear, that someday people will just be people.

Would the world be better off if we were all deaf and blind? Or would we just find something else to hate? I can't imagine how if there was no way to communicate the differences to each other. Then again, that hypothetical is pretty dumb anyways. I think I lost my train of thought somewhere.

I do not want the point of this whole thing to be that we should all just get along, mostly because I love to argue. I guess I just wonder why people do not pay more attention to the things that they say and the impact that they have on the world around them. It wouldn't take a lot of people to stop saying these things to have an actual impact. Community by community, city by city, state by state, country by country. But waiting for someone else to do it, for someone else to change, is just cowardly. Starting somewhere is important, so why not start now. Right now.

Derailed Pie

It is amazing to me how little it takes to throw me off. As an example, I had planned to work on my paper last night. No, not the paper, but another one of the seemingly endless essays that my english professor seems to feel the need to inflict on me. (The auto-correction feature is telling me that I misspelled english and misspelled, which is pretty effing hilarious. And I misspelled effing. Nice.) See, right there, I was thrown off of my original train of thought onto a different one, speeding off into a new and exciting direction. I am not sure how I knew that it was exciting, but we can just call it a hunch and let it go.

Ok, back to last night. (How the hell can this thing say that I misspelled ok?) I was ready to work on my paper. Had everything ready to go. I just needed to one thing that I had been craving all night. A few days ago Prof and Steph took me to Marie Callenders for dinner. It was delicious. For the road we all picked up some pie, and I got me some chocolate cream, pie that is. Took it home, put it in the fridge and went to bed. A couple days later, or last night, and it was on my mind all day. I have no idea why, but it was.

So I get to the fridge, and it is not there. Puzzled, I search again. I move everything, even things that it could not be behind. I figure that Dave would not have eaten it, as it was not his. With only one other option, I head over to his room and ask the new guy if he had seen my pie. (Translation: My pie is missing and I know that you ate it. Oh, and I am pissed off about it. Just an fyi.) He had in fact seen it, seeing as how he had eaten it. Frustrated yet again, this time by my roommates disarming tact of telling the truth, I headed back to my paper.

Sitting at the table, I realized that I was not going to be able to work on it at all. I really, really wanted that pie. In fact, I still do. I finished my paper tonight, and it is ready to go. But I am still left with this craving for pie. Aargh!

The next problem will be when I get the pie and it is not even close to being good enough to cause this much annoyance. I did not have it in me to ask my roommate if it had been a good pie. I bet it was. I bet that piece was better than any piece of pie that I will ever get to eat. Ever. It is like a damn metaphor for something or other. Like life, or something. I do not even know. I just know that I want pie.

That's right, it's my frakkin' table!

It's funny... I am sitting here at this huge round table in RCC's Wrinting & Reading Center, reading and writing. The table is big, as I might have mentioned, and it could probably fit six to eight people. Right now though, I am the only person sitting at the table. I have been the only one at the table for a while now. Suddenly that changes when a blonde girl puts her books down and pulls out a chair, sitting down without making any noise at all.

Now the funny part of this (no I hadn't forgotten about the funny part, I was just taking my time in getting to it, setting it up and all) is that I feel like she has somehow invaded my space. As if it is my table by right of being the last one sitting at it. My island. My precious. As if she did it on purpose, as opposed to sitting there because all of the other tables are more occupied than this one. Then again, she did do on purpose as she did not trip and fall into the chair, which would have made a ton of noise and annoyed me for that reason in addition to the whole taking up space at my big empty table.

I wonder if being territorial is what this is, if it is instinctual or something. I mean, she sat down real quiet like so what is my issue here. I think the only reason that I noticed her sitting there is that she is sitting in front of the clock that I have been checking every ten minutes for what feels like the last four hours, but has only been the last two. I did not hear her because I am reading and writing while listening to my iPod (Dave rocks!) which helps me to focus on what is in front of me.

She did manage to distract me enough to force me to write this, instead of the outline I am working on. By the way, our enviroment is going down the shitter. Seriously, I just read about it. I wonder how much paper has been used to write about the excesses of our culture and how we negatively impact our enviroment. I wonder how much of that paper fills landfills. I suppose it is biodegradeable, but it makes you wonder. Ok, it makes me wonder. I refuse to make assumptions about what makes you wonder.

My life wears bigger shoes than I do.

I should be studying right now. Or I should be sleeping. Or maybe both. Sometimes I get the feeling that I am a part of my life in the same way that I am a part of a roller coaster. I know that without "me" I have no "life", but I feel about as in control of the whole thing as I do in the afore mentioned coaster. Especially since, regardless of where I sit in my life, it seems to have way too many twists and turns, up and downs, and vomiting. Way too much vomiting.

I can always seem to see a point where I will have more control over my life. I have goals and plans, and I control them. But when I get to that part of my life directly affected by those goals, they seem to want to run off of the tracks that I have so carefully laid. Usually into the water. Is it because the plans are in a vaccuum? That whole, "plans of mice and men often go awry" stuff? (Which begs the question: Are all of the other animals better planners?)

Is it the planning that leaves me with a detached feel for the present? I feel like I am just going through the motions because the things I am doing now are only stepping stones to get me to newer and better stepping stones. Is it because I have not gotten into any kind of rhythm? Will I ever? Does anyone? Have I deluded myself into thinking that there will be a time when I have everything figured out? I hope not.

I mean, I have this really nice dream where I understand everything and everyone. I am honestly not that far from this dream. Admittedly, I am still missing the throne, the crown, and all the other trappings that my royal self so richely deserves. Oh, and the scepter. That is the important part.

No alcoholic beverages were hurt in the production of this blog

Where do we learn to use a towel to dry ourselves off? Was there some starting point for the whole idea, some super genius mother who showed her kids how to do it and then it spread from her kids to their kids and so on? Did those kids populate the world? Did they live longer? For that matter, who came up with the idea of the towel in the first place? Was it born of a need to be dry as fast as possible to avoid some sort of danger? Or have people always been as impatient to move onto more "important" things, so much so that we invented the towel to speed up the bathing process? These are the questions that keep me up at night. Everything else I write about is crap. This is serious shit!

I am sure that I am not the first one here to wonder about the birth of the towel, or how it has impacted the march of history, whether it is responsible for starting or ending wars, or just responsible for people getting to work on time, refreshed and dry. Because let's face it, without toweling off, you would have to wait FOREVER to drip dry. I wonder if the best part of bathing is getting to use a fresh, warm towel to dry off afterward. And you never realize how important a towel is until you are standing in your friend's shower, wet and cold, when it dawns on you that there are no towels to use, and no way to get to one without freezing your ass off, because putting your dirty clothes back on is not an option. Ever. And using those clothes to dry off is also a no-no. Add in that your friend is listening to music loud enough to bring stuffed animals to life, and all of his/her towels are dirty anyways. Because your friend is a slob. Who does not make sure that there are clean towels for a guest?! The lazy fuck. I mean come on! Where was I again...

If we are taught by our parents, and they by their's, are there cultural differences in the way we towel off? Is there an Irish style? Italian? French? Is it like languages, and we as Americans are all just using a bastardized style of drying our bums brought with our ancestors to this land, and corrupted by television and easy drugs? Wow. The implications just boggle the mind. Is there a true style, an original "correct" way to dry off that is faster and more efficient then what we are taught today? Were there wars fought over it? Did or do people die because of how they towel off?

On the other hand, getting more than a couple of hours of sleep here and there, along with regular meals, may get rid of these thoughts. But the question is, should I?

Burdens to be carried

In some ways, and to different extents for each of us, we are all conceited, all self-centered. (Holy crap, a rabbit seriously just ran in front of me as I am typing. A real fluffy white bunny, that seems hell bent on making it to the very busy street behind me. Crazy.) We are all dependent on the feeling that we have a direct effect on the people that we come in contact with every day. We have this idea in our heads that we have this huge affect on someone. We do affect those around us with our actions, our attitudes and in many other ways. But, we do not make them happy, or make them sad, or make them upset. They choose whether or not to respond to anything that we do, they choose whether or not they are affected by anything that we do. In effect, they choose the importance of any of our actions by deciding their own reaction to them.

We choose the importance of any event in our lives by our reaction to it. We choose the importance of someone in our life by our reaction to them. Someone that we find to be unimportant gets less of our time then someone that we find to be vital to our lives. We have only a limited amount of time each day, each week, each month, each year or even in our lifetime. Who we choose to spend that time accordingly a very important decision. When we make time in our busy lives for someone, even for a phone call, we are showing how we value that person. With a limited amount of time we are forced to prioritize how that time is spent, and dole out the time accordingly.
Love is something that cannot have a price tag put on in. In the same way, time being irreplaceable means that it is priceless.

So, with a very limited amount of time, telling all of you how much you mean to me gets harder and harder. Take away my access to the internet for an extended period of time (Charter can go and die in a horribly painful and disturbing way) and I have an even harder time with it all. I miss so many of you, and have no chance to see many of you for very, very long periods of time. While I may not be able to spend my time with you, I do think about you. It may not count for a lot, but it's all I got.

First day of school, again

As opposed to everyone else here, I do not look up when the door opens. I do not wonder if anyone coming through the door is someone that I know, or someone that I worked with, or someone that I went to high school with. I am not in this class a few months after graduating from high school, or a few months after finishing last semester.

And yet, I do not feel any older than any of the other students in the classroom. That may have more to do with the fact that everyone feels old when they have to get up at 5:45 in the morning. Or it could be that everyone is quiet, as we are waiting for the professor to arrive. With no one talking there is no voice to use to gauge any of these peoples ages, no subject or context to measure their years. Of course, I have also never been very good at measuring age by a person's looks either.

Age in general seems to be a flawed way to determine how old someone is. I am 29 years old, but I certainly do not feel that old. Than again, how old is 29 supposed to feel? I recently had a birthday, but I do not feel any older than I did at 28, 27 or 26. I know that I look older, show outward signs of how much this poor body of mine has been put through by my heart and mind. Is it just our body that ages, or does our consciousness age with it? Does it age at a different pace, slowed down not by time but by the events that we live through? Or is it ageless, something that will go on when our body fails around it?

Or am I just really, really tired? Does this train of thought mean that I should never pass on breakfast? Maybe. Maybe not.

Elephant curses

Why do we find it so hard to forgive others for their mistakes? Not just the ones that hurt us, but any of their errors? I can see how the things that are done to us personally have a longer shelf life, but we all hang on to the oddest things before, if, we find it in ourselves to forgive someone for their transgressions. Is it because we find it so hard to forgive ourselves for our errors, for the times that we have hurt those around us? We then carry that weight around with us and it affects everything that we do, all of the decisions that we make. Are we waiting for someone around us to do the same thing, make the same mistake, so we can can justify whatever we did?

We all make mistakes. We will all, at some point or another, hurt others. Sometimes we do in unknowingly and other times we unfortunately intend to cause pain. This is especially true the closer you are to someone. The truth of relationships between people is not that you can hurt each other more than those that you are not as close with, it is that you will hurt each other more.

Or is the problem not that we have trouble forgiving others, but that we have so much trouble forgetting? We are so scared of being hurt, and rightfully so. The problem is that this worry keeps us from truly enjoying new people, as we are so positive that they are going to hurt us the same way that someone has hurt us in the past. All of the new people we let into are lives are set against the events and people that have come before them. It is surprisingly hard not to attribute the faults of those that came before to those that come later.

I find it hard not to be worried about the wrongs that I have suffered through repeating themselves. What I realized is that if I do not open myself to the chance of them happening again, I will never find the love and acceptance that I seek. You have to take the chance of being hurt. Even if it has happened before. Even if it has happened more than once. Even if it has happened every time. I have to believe that it is worth it when you find it.

I mean, if it's not that I am so suing Hollywood for a seriously huge amount of money. Especially Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan. Fucking Sleepless In fucking Seattle.

You control your level of involvement

The things that we do in our lives, the decisions we make, color the rest of our lives forever. No matter how small, no matter how big, they will always affect us. I have made good decisions and I have made bad ones. I do not think that there is a way to find out whether or not they have balanced out, other than to say that I am happy with who I am, with my life in general. The challenge seems to be making all of them, good or bad, affect my life going forward in a positive manner. I suppose that as long as I have learned from my mistakes, my bad decisions, that I can avoid the problems that those choices led to. I suppose that as long as I have learned from my good decisions (which seems to be harder than learning from the bad ones) than I can repeat them.

The most important part of this seems to be making a decision at all. Whether we realize it or not, when we do not make a choice we are actually choosing to avoid it all. Which is a choice in itself, and not the best one. I feel like I chose to avoid life for a long time, as if I was scared of it's myriad possibilities. Scared of the scale of it. I hid behind my bad decisions, let them be what my life was about, let them be who I was.

I do not think that I am scared of life any longer. My life is what I choose it to be. I control my life simply because that is what I want. I will continue to make choices, good and bad, and will continue to learn from them. I will be the person that I want to be.

*Because it bears repeating, I wanted to thank my family that are friends, and my friends that are family. You have been with me while I have taken the long time to decide on living life. I will always appreciate it.*

No one understands the words that are coming out of your mouth.

Understanding of any kind seems to be in such short supply these days. As an example, I realized recently that I will never be able to understand how anyone could not enjoy reading. I just cannot see it. I take pride in being able to put myself in someone else's shoes, to see their point of view; but I just cannot do it for this one.

I cannot understand how we can all take life in all of it's amazing complexity for granted. Or, how we can take all of the good things in our lives for granted. Is it a shortsightedness common to all people? More common to us as Americans? I believe that as a "people" we do take everything in the world for granted and are amazed that we get bit on the ass every time we overlook the important things.

Maybe the problem lies more with us as individuals. Is there really understanding to be had if we do not even understand ourselves? Can we even begin to try to understand anyone at all if we cannot be honest with ourselves? We lie to ourselves about why we do the things that we do, and I do not understand why. We try to make things more complicated than they already are, and I do not know if it is to impress others, or to convince ourselves that our motivations are not as basic as they actually are. As much as we try to fool ourselves, we seem to do the things we do for the simplest or reasons; we want to happy. You can label it whatever you want, but we all want to be happy.

We spend so much time worrying about the motivations of others, and never really looking at our own. We spend so much time putting road blocks in the way of our happiness. We do not catch it until it is too late, but there is always a point when we decide to either push our motivations, our desires, on others, or we decide to ignore them. Maybe the simplest answer is that we will not understand each other's motives. As we are not the one doing the thinking for the other person, this makes an odd sort of sense.

I feel like I have a pretty good understanding about people, I mean other than the book thing, but that does not mean that I will ever understand everything that there is to know about people. It would almost be disappointing to not be able to learn something new about people, as in that stagnation of thought we would stop learning about ourselves.

To be honest, I am by far the most interesting person that I know. Well, not really. Pretty close to the top though, and moving up like a rocket!

Face Painting

We all desperately need someone to know us, to know who we are, to know everything there is to know about us. Every little thing that makes us who we are. We desperately need someone to find these things out. We want to share it all, but we are so scared of someone actually knowing us, of someone finding out who we think we are. How do you explain something you don't even understand yourself? How, when we are so terrified of how someone will react to us, to us without the masks that we wear everyday? Which is scarier; that someone could know us, or that someone might know how we see ourselves?

I wear a physical costume at work, a disguise(only because I get paid for it!). The thing is though that we all wear disguises, costumes that we put on for people, and we end up wearing different ones for every person in our life. We tailor who we are for each person based on who we think they want or need us to be. Add in that we all know how society says that we should act, we all know what group or stereotype that we have been assigned by the rest of the world. We are, of course, expected to act accordingly. All in our endless need to categorize and label everyone and everything in our world. It would be better if we were just labeled as a person. Nothing more, nothing less. Instead, I am a "book nerd", "movie nerd", "sports nerd", "star wars geek", "dance maniac", "nice guy" and a self-professed "funny man". It is so bad that I actually see myself with these labels attached.

I am a man. I am a son. I am a brother. I am a friend. How about I stick with these. All the other labels are more about my interests than me, boiled down for the lowest common denominator.

Oh, I forgot to add "elitist", "snob" and "asshole" to the labels back there. Oops.

Try not having one

There are no bad days. Things may happen in a day that annoy us, or make us mad, but the day can be neither good nor bad. When we are frustrated with the events in a day, we say that we are having a bad day, when in fact we are choosing to let those events dictate how we are going to feel, how we are going to treat the world. I suppose if you spent your day being tortured you could definitely claim to be having a bad day. Or, if you catch on fire. That will also get you a bad day sticker. At least from me, though at the moment I am all out.

In reality though, there are events and circumstances that can, and most likely will, lead to us being unhappy. Or in other words, having a bad day. Now, we can say that we wasted a day doing something other than what we wanted to be doing. Some might call that a bad day. I personally cannot stand anything that might even remotely be a waste of my time, as it is irreplaceable. Though isn't experiencing anything at all preferable to experiencing nothing? Isn't any day that you have a good one? When compared to having none, aren't they all good? Doesn't the potential that every new day has make every single one of them good days, regardless of whether or not we feel it met that potential?

Rough days, hard days, relaxing days, happy days; these all work and make sense. Bad days; this term takes too much for granted. It makes it easy for us to focus on one or two events and ignore the rest of the day. Having a checklist, a balance sheet of things that have to happen for a day to be good or bad just seems to be a bad idea. I mean every day that I wake up I am still me, still the oldest of four awesome siblings, still my parents son, still the bestest of friends with my friends. Even if I have no more days after this one, none of that will change. All of us have things in our lives to be grateful for, and saying that we are having a bad day makes it seem like we are forgetting those things. As if none of those good things are enough to overcome one day of bad things.

There is also the strong possibility that I am nitpicking over something small, that everyone is entitled to apply whatever label they feel like using. I doubt it though.

I'd like to take a mulligan. You know, a do over.

Our dreams never give up on us, never flit away to another place. We never lose them, but when is it that we lose hope in them? When is it that we redefine them in our head from dream to fantasy? I know that as I have grown older I have become less trusting, more jaded, cynical and unfortunately, less hopeful. We call it growing up, becoming more realistic, or practical. We do what we have to do to survive, to stay comfortable. Most of us never reach our goals, or achieve our dreams. We stop taking the risks that you have to take to get there because we have been hurt, because we've seen others hurt and maybe because we are scared of succeeding almost as much as we are scared of failing. Not trying is not the same as settling, which is actively choosing to accept less than you need. Anyways, no one ever "settles" for their dreams. As if.

When we are kids, we dream so high. Or at least it looks high as we get older and look back on those dreams, after life has attacked those dreams. Clawed at them, torn them down, broken them. When we first dream, they are all attainable, everything is within reach. You can still see that same hope in children, that inability to fear that time will take everything away from us. Or maybe you can even remember it from before you lost it. The question is, can we get it back if we lose it? If yes, than where do we look for it?

For me, I found that hope again in my family and in my friends. The faith they have in me, their belief that I will succeed in anything and everything helps shake the fear off of me. I mean, if everyone thinks that I can do it, that I can make it, than at least we are sharing in the same delusion of grandeur that I am building for myself. I'm not alone with my inability to connect with reality, you are all here with me.

For the moment though, I dream only of a full night of sleep. As this is being posted at 1:51 in the morning, I am obviously going to be disappointed. Oh well. At least I have my stuffed animals and Captain Jack standee.

Plastic blue tumber vs. Holy Grail

Why is the search for someone so all consuming in us? Why are we looking for someone who is "perfect" (those are rock quotes for those in the "know"), who has to match up with all of the different checkpoints that we have for someone in our heads? Isn't it the flaws, the imperfections that make a person interesting? Those flaws are what make us different, what make us individuals. I mean, if we could attain perfection, whatever that might be, wouldn't there be a bunch of people there? The same way that everyone knows someone that got a perfect score on the SAT, everyone would know someone that was perfect.

How could anyone be perfect? The idea itself is insane. As if anyone could ever be everything that everyone wants/needs. I know that I'm not everything that everyone wants. I mean, most do, but not all. I figure that the idea of perfection in a person is a personal thing. One person will have a different version than the next person, and so on. It's when we focus on those specific traits and things that we want that we start to lose the fact that we are dealing with a person, not a grocery list. Most importantly, we forget that what people find interesting and engaging in us, are our flaws and imperfections. We try to hide these things, try to be a different person. I mean, if you are a dork, than that's what is going to do it for you, so stop fighting it. Let the actual you, not the one that you allow people to see on a regular basis, but you be what people meet. If that doesn't work, than screw those people. They are probably an asshole anyway. Better off not knowing them at all.

By a round of applause, how are you feeling?

Time is the only thing that you cannot put an actual price on. We try. We pay for things by the hour, day, week or month and get paid for the same amount of time. It is not real though. You cannot get that time, those moments back. Lost forever, and all we get is X dollars per hour. The greatest gift that we can ever give anyone, or get from anyone is time. There is no way to put a price tag on the time that someone gives us. Maybe the most important decision that we make everyday, ever minute, is how we spend that time? Who we spend it with? Too often we take for granted this simple, basic idea. Apply this idea to the material things that we give each other and it changes them. It's not just a sweater that your mother gives you; it is the time it took to earn that money, the time to shop for it, wrap it and give it to you. When we use that cliche about it being the thought that counts, it really is. Our lives are defined by how we choose to spend out time. Do not ever doubt that it is a choice. Every minute of every day. And so we try to cram in as much as possible into every minute. Then again, is there a right way or wrong way to spend out time? I guess we all decide that for ourselves, and probably only have issues when we let other people define what is and isn't a waste of our time.

For me, I regret none of the time that I have spent with my family, with my friends, any of the time that I spent laughing, dancing and enjoying life. I only regret one thing; all of the time that I have spent making my bed. I swear, how much time do I lose making it every morning? It just gets messy again. Every single day. Fuckin' bed.

I want you to hit me as hard as you can.

There is a cost for everything that we do, a consequence for every single decision. Even the smallest looking of decisions can lead to major changes. Something as small as a smile can lead to something much bigger, or cause problems for something that is already there. The problem comes in when we worry about every single one of our decisions. When we spend more time worrying about the effect of our decisions instead of deciding on something. We miss opportunities, things pass us by. There are consequences and costs for not making decisions, and they tend to be worse than those for making the wrong decision. Fortune does not favor those that do nothing, that sit on their hands. This is a hard lesson to learn, as I have only learned it slowly and painfully. I now have to actually decide to trust people, as in the past I trusted too soon and without thought. Hurt too often and on too regular a basis, my trust is not doled out as easily. Which means I come across all understanding and nice, and in fact I am just waiting for my inner voice to be proven right. A self-fulfilling prophecy, I understand, but I tend to be right. I tend to right about everything, but especially about these things.

Funny enough, the person I seem to trust the least is myself.

A tasty kharmic filling

The world is a much brighter place than it seems on a regular basis. A much busier and complicated place than we seem to think. We have this idea that we can, or even need to understand the world around us. Maybe we should spend time trying to understand ourselves? Maybe a little reflection on me? We all want people to focus on us, to figure us out and we complain when no one can or does. How can we expect someone to do that when we can't? Especially when we are too scared to talk about any of the things that we actually want to know, or want people to know about us. If we realized that we are all that scared, no matter the mask we put on it, maybe we could get things straight. Maybe make some progress. Toward what, I have no idea. I'm just as confused and scared as everyone else. I have as bad a problem with telling people the things I want them to hear, just as scared about taking risks with people. The most confusing thing in the world seems to be my life. Or maybe it's life in general.

No, upon further review it is definitely my life. I mean, I totally understand everyone else's.

Everybody wants to ride Mr. Toad's Wild Ride

Why the hell do we try to make everything in our lives so complicated? As if the harder it is, the better our lives will seem when explained to others. I mean, we all basically want the same things. We just define those things differently, which I suppose is the biggest problem. As an example, we all want to be happy. Which is obviously going to be something different for every single person in the world. I mean, I'm pretty easy. I would be happy with a lot less than I have materially, as long as I had my family and friends. Does the problem arise when we use other people's definition of happiness? Is that where the "I can't settle" attitude comes from? Why can't we be happy with the things that we have. I understand, and have no problems with trying to get/wanting more. On the other hand, if the pursuit of those things is making us forget what we already have, than what is the reason for it? If you can't be happy on the path, than why the fuck take the trip in the first place? You know, I don't know a single person that I call a friend that shouldn't consider themselves "blessed" for the things that they have, that most of them take for granted. In fact, most people take the best things in their life for granted. As stated earlier, I get trying for and wanting more. I just don't get how that pursuit should ever replace what we already have.

I suppose it won't kill me, but it sucks all the same.

I am having to relearn patience. Or maybe, I am learning to be patient for the first time. I felt that for so long I had to put what I wanted behind what I needed. I had to keep my head down, work toward my goals and not stray from the path I had set myself. Now that I have attained most of those goals, and all I have left are the things that I actually want to get done, want to do, want to experience, I am antsy. Fidgety. I don't want to wait for them anymore. And It's not as if the goals that I have left are small or even remotely easy. I am going to have to work harder at these than I did on my other goals. They are just more rewarding, because I want to do them. It's not the "I have to do this to get where I want to be".

There is also the possibility that I'm nervous because I have not been in this position before. For a good portion of my life, I did not try new things, did not stray from my comfort zone. All of these things that are going on in my life are new. I guess if I was to be honest they all scare the crap out of me, and having to wait for these things is quickly driving me insane. It could also be that I was eaten alive by bugs this weekend.

Screw this, I'm going to go get some donuts and something for these bites. I hate bugs. Especially ants and those creepy potato bug things. Ugh.

As fast as you can

We run day to day and seem to miss all of the things that make the whole thing worth it. We run so hard toward our goals that we lose sight of the trip itself. I was so focused on how crappy it was to take a seven hour trip to northern Cali', but I got to see some of the most beautiful scenery in California. Other than the cows. They were not very pretty at all. I got to meet new people, see new things, drink new things, etc. My heart is definitely at home, wherever that is, but I think I could spend a lot of time just traveling to nowhere in particular. Then again, if you aren't going anywhere in particular is it still traveling?

I did learn that you should not play drinking games with people that have not drank as much as you have. Bad idea indeed.

It takes so little time to actually smell the roses

I have been living here for a year and a half, and I seem to resist actually making it my home. I don't decorate my space. I live in it with as little impact as possible. Am I just waiting to move again? Am I scared of making it something "permanent"? I tell myself and others that I don't have the money, or the time, but I do. I could put up pictures, paint it, do something with it. I mean I have a couple of stuffed animals (always watching, always judging), a broken clock and a ton of books, but nothing that screams me.

The more I think about it, it's not just here. I don't seem to try to make a physical impression anywhere. I know that I could move from here, and this house would have nothing that would be left behind that would show I had ever lived here. Or work. Or anywhere.

I suppose the impression that I make on those around me is more important. I'd like to think that if I left this place, or even moved somewhere else I would leave an impression with them. For some reason I have been thinking of friends and family that are not here, that left too early. As if there is ever a right time to go. We spend so much time running around doing things that in the end don't mean anything, when from an early age we learn about those things that make us the happiest. Family and friends. People. Chocolate.

Well, I think that is as depressing as I want to get right now...

You don't even have to feed them

I'm trying to figure out exactly why it's so "weird" that I have two stuffed animals (a pig and a bear) on my computer monitor. Is it because other people are just not comfortable with their own love of stuffed animals? I mean it's not like there are a ton of them. Two! And they aren't on my bed. Because that would be weird. A ton of stuffed animals on my bed, that I have to move everytime I go to sleep. That would be weird. It's not like I talk to them. Or sing to them. Or dance with them. Unless I'm drunk. In which case, any inanimate object is fair game.

They just remind me of living at home. Of my brothers and sister. Of a time when I never worried about any of the things that I worry about now. When vacation was a few months long. When a day consisted of nothing more important that where we left the baseball the day before. When playing hide & go seek/freeze tag was a totally worthwhile expenditure of my time. I guess I worry a lot about forgetting about those things.

And the pig, of course, is wearing my Darth Vader "Who's Your Daddy" pin.

Less than promised, more than I expected

Is there a specific time in our lives that we become comfortable with lying? Not just lying to others, but lying to ourselves. Is it when we learn that pointing at our siblings can sometimes deflect the blame for the food on the ceiling, or holes in the wall? Do we learn it, and do it at a young age in order to avoid letting our parents know that we have done something we know we shouldn't have done? So we don't disappoint them? Do we learn to tell lies in order to avoid letting down those that are the most important to us?

As I think about it, I have told the worst lies for that reason. I have not told lies in order to get anything or to get anyone. Sometimes it feels like the people that I am most honest with are strangers, because I don't care about their opinion at all. It's only when it was something that involved my friends or family that I instinctively feel the need to either hold back the whole truth or to exagerate it. I guess the biggest lie is the one that I keep telling myself. I seem to believe that my friends and family can't read me, don't know me, or could somehow be so disappointed in me that they would leave. Even now, as I write this, I'm scared of what people that read it may think about me.

I spent so much of my life lying to myself about being happy. I lied to myself about the things that people did to me, tried to hide the fact that I saw what was happening because I was embarassed that I hadn't done anything about it, scared about anyone seeing how I let myself be treated like crap. Again, I should have trusted that my friends and family knew it and were ready to help me. Live and learn I suppose.

This is what happens when I clean the kitchen

The strangest things bring us comfort, or at least they do for me. I have a clock in my room that no longer tells the time, but it makes a loud ticking sound, as clocks are known to do. For some reason I find it very comforting to hear it. I like watches that tick instead of those that are digital simply because of the noise. I find a little clutter, as opposed to lots of empty room, to be comforting. Especially in my own room. Than again, my room is tiny so I might have just adapted to my space. Or, I could be lazy. I find just holding a cup of hot chocolate to be soothing, even if I haven't drank any yet. Thinking of my Dad, who will always seem so unmovable to me, and yet so warm, always calms me down. Cheez-Its, my old Vans, my Disneyland hoodie, my sweats, cleaning the house and baking are a few of the others. I wonder how sane I would be able to stay without these things. I mean some of them aren't that old, and I can't remember at the moment if they have replaced anything. I guess I could just drink more.

If I told you dancing could save the world, would you believe me?

The thing I love about dancing, of any kind, is that you can't do it and stay unhappy. Try it. Right now. Stand up and dance in front of your computer. If you are still unhappy, than dance some more. Maybe play a little music a little too loud, and dance to that. I can usually dance to the music playing in my head. Sometimes though it does help to have a musical aid of some kind. You should know that what I refer to as "dancing" might be catergorized by grumpier people as "wildly flailing yourself about, with no regard to the safety of others". Also, alcohol can be used as an aid to "better" dancing. It has been known to help me on occasion, though I am positive that the dancing I do around the house when I am the only person here would be considered "inspiring" by most, and "life-changing" for others. The best dancing is when you can dance with friends, again with or without music. This probably has more to do with how the best times are the ones that we spend with people that we care about, but again I will state that it is impossible to really dance and be unhappy.

If you are seen dancing and are laughed at for the way you dance, you should immediately ask that person if they want to dance with you as their comment is surely a sign of their sexual interest in you. Trust me, this is true EVERY time.

Salsa, swing, waltz or flail. With or without anyone else, just dance. There are far too many things in our lives that we do that are guaranteed to make us unhappy, upset or angry. So dance. Or bounce. That works as well, but will have to be a totally separate subject. I do so love to bounce.

My friends, my family

So I've been thinking a lot about my friends. I realized that I have a very thin distinction between my friends and my family, almost so thin as to not be there at all. For all the things that matter they are the same, and I name my siblings as friends, though I swear, if I could just get my youngest brother to change his background on his myspace to something where you could read even some of the stuff on his page.

I take for granted sometimes what my friends offer, or that they offer anything at all. I learn so much from every one of them, and it seems that I will always learn from them. I have learned that you can overcome any obstacle, even yourself. I have learned that sometimes doing something crazy, following your heart with no regard for your head, can lead to amazing things. I have learned that you cannot run away from yourself. I have learned that by letting go, trusting my friends, I live life in ways that I didn't think I ever could. I have learned that having more stuff does not mean having more happiness. I have learned that I rock. I have learned that if I fall, my friends will be there, maybe not to pick me up, but at least to take the fall with me. If there is anything I could do in this life, any goal that I could accomplish, it would be to spend more time with my friends. I find myself missing the ones that I never thought I really was affected by. My friends keep me honest, especially about myself.

Dear friends,

Thank you. For everything you have done, and everything that you will do. For everything that you teach me, for eveything that I teach you. For listening to me. For trusting me enough to talk to me, to listen to my advice, to let me drive. For letting me be a part of each of your lives. For everything. I can never put into words what each one of you means to me, but my life would be a little darker without any of you.

-Richard