While listening to the new song "Some Boys" by Death Cab I had a thought. Perhaps things become addictive or dangerous when they are used to fill a hole in one's life. I was thinking about alcohol and drugs in my life and I realized that there is a particular mood in which I do things like that. Perhaps that's why I feel safe doing all I do, I'm not doing them to replace something missing in my life. I don't know, I think that's all I thought.
Sunday, May 22, 2011
Saturday, May 21, 2011
Tribute to a Live Oak
He lived closest to the house, the one that was abandoned. The old-style red brick facade and the concrete patio enclosed on two sides beginning to crack. Tall, unmanicured bushes began on the exposed side of the patio and continued to the end of the house, blocking the bottom half of the windows from view. The backyard was overgrown with power lines drooping almost to the ground and isolated trees that seemed too out-competed to grow any bigger. The front yard was kept in check sporadically, enough to avoid city fines. On those days, the yard stood out starkly from the shoddy house and decomposing fence.
It wasn't always abandoned, but it was as good as abandoned. The house used to be lived in by an old woman who was never seen. Only the daughter was seen once in a while, to see her mother and to make sure the lawn was cut regularly. It usually was. The old woman died while he was still at home and he was told a family in Highland Park, the old-money neighborhood that thought itself separate from the city that surrounded it, had bought the house after the daughter had had it for a few years. Apparently the family had bought the house for their high school child, to be passed over upon completion of college. So the house was as good as abandoned, with little difference from before except the extended neglect. Perhaps this was for the best because on the small parcel of land, in front of the unkempt house, was a prize rarely seen within city neighborhoods.
A tree left to its own natural devices; huge with lengthy limbs growing outward, falling almost to the ground with weight, and curving back up to take advantage of the sun. The tree grew as if meant for climbing, and like a staircase one could go up one side of the tree and come down the other. Once, he clamored up one side and rested. Above him there was a chattering and he realized a squirrel was already to the top, wanting to go down but unsure of which path kept the most distance between it and him. Another time he met a cat in the branches; and yet another time he climbed to the top during a light rain and watched all the colors change.
Apart from natural encounters, he also had human ones within the tree. Religious speakers shared words with him from below. A few people have noticed him up in the branches but kept going with their daily routine. One person joined him, though; a best friend. She was the only other person he took into the tree. It was where they got to know each other more and the second time, it was where they kissed. After the kiss, he sat in the branch asking what they should do next and not hearing a word of it. She was blocked in by him and looked at him expectantly. He mumbled some excuse about a toll she should pay to pass and he could swear she rolled her eyes, but kissed him anyway. Still he did not move, wanting to freeze time on the tree, to hold the situation and keep it around a little longer. She pushed him down.
Suffice to say, he had an attachment to the tree, and still does. Though, now it has all changed, as all things do change. The Highland Park connection disappeared, taxes stopped being paid, and the house was auctioned off. Crews started showing up, kicking out the animal residents of the house, tearing down the fence, and butchering the tree. A tree left to its own accord will create the most beautiful living art; however, this comes at the cost of not being easily manipulated by humans. A newborn tree under constant scrutiny can take many forms, of which many look appealing; but once a tree has set its own path, it can only be scarred and mutilated. And so this tree still stands and lives with countless fresh stumps exposed all over its body. No one will easily climb into its arms and nestle into its crooks again. The new owners probably have no children anyway, let alone taste, respect.
It wasn't always abandoned, but it was as good as abandoned. The house used to be lived in by an old woman who was never seen. Only the daughter was seen once in a while, to see her mother and to make sure the lawn was cut regularly. It usually was. The old woman died while he was still at home and he was told a family in Highland Park, the old-money neighborhood that thought itself separate from the city that surrounded it, had bought the house after the daughter had had it for a few years. Apparently the family had bought the house for their high school child, to be passed over upon completion of college. So the house was as good as abandoned, with little difference from before except the extended neglect. Perhaps this was for the best because on the small parcel of land, in front of the unkempt house, was a prize rarely seen within city neighborhoods.
A tree left to its own natural devices; huge with lengthy limbs growing outward, falling almost to the ground with weight, and curving back up to take advantage of the sun. The tree grew as if meant for climbing, and like a staircase one could go up one side of the tree and come down the other. Once, he clamored up one side and rested. Above him there was a chattering and he realized a squirrel was already to the top, wanting to go down but unsure of which path kept the most distance between it and him. Another time he met a cat in the branches; and yet another time he climbed to the top during a light rain and watched all the colors change.
Apart from natural encounters, he also had human ones within the tree. Religious speakers shared words with him from below. A few people have noticed him up in the branches but kept going with their daily routine. One person joined him, though; a best friend. She was the only other person he took into the tree. It was where they got to know each other more and the second time, it was where they kissed. After the kiss, he sat in the branch asking what they should do next and not hearing a word of it. She was blocked in by him and looked at him expectantly. He mumbled some excuse about a toll she should pay to pass and he could swear she rolled her eyes, but kissed him anyway. Still he did not move, wanting to freeze time on the tree, to hold the situation and keep it around a little longer. She pushed him down.
Suffice to say, he had an attachment to the tree, and still does. Though, now it has all changed, as all things do change. The Highland Park connection disappeared, taxes stopped being paid, and the house was auctioned off. Crews started showing up, kicking out the animal residents of the house, tearing down the fence, and butchering the tree. A tree left to its own accord will create the most beautiful living art; however, this comes at the cost of not being easily manipulated by humans. A newborn tree under constant scrutiny can take many forms, of which many look appealing; but once a tree has set its own path, it can only be scarred and mutilated. And so this tree still stands and lives with countless fresh stumps exposed all over its body. No one will easily climb into its arms and nestle into its crooks again. The new owners probably have no children anyway, let alone taste, respect.
Thursday, May 19, 2011
A Past Project
I tried to look for the legal pad I started writing on for the project I started when I met Dandelion. I can't find it, it's not with the loose leaf material I packed. I remember bringing it back to work on during Winter break, but that's it. Even that could be a fake memory - I don't know. This kind of freaks me out because it's a token of the time and I feel like it had a lot of good material in it, a sort of plot line to follow. I guess I'll have to reread what I've already written and go from there on a fresh start...
Tuesday, May 17, 2011
The Problem With Writing
It's difficult for me to finish writing projects I start, large ones I mean. I'm a pretty slow worker and writing means taking myself out of the world. I cannot take in the world and, at the same time, place it in another medium. So by writing something that takes much time, I lose that time and miss whatever I would have taken in otherwise. Even when not out and about, when I'm just sitting in my room, I'm seeing things on the computer from all over the world that I wouldn't normally see. Most of the time I'm just a black hole taking in the world around me. I do feel like I should finish something some day.
The Past Is the Past
I'm undertaking a big step in my life. Every time I go back to school, it is with fewer things and then I come home and am in a filled room. I get used to the sparse living and the clutter bothers me; so the past couple summers I have been trying to get rid of my childhood, so to speak. This summer marks the biggest change. Before I do my first internship in something completely foreign, I'll basically be cutting ties with most of my past. Prior to now, I cleaned out my computer of past saved conversations with old girlfriends and high school diary, as well as my hobby of collecting news stories and information of suicide. Then I removed many of my childhood toys. Now I'm fully getting rid of my old toys and some books and clothes. I just microwaved my CD conversations with my psychologist from high school - letting go of a past me without ever revisiting it. Old summer camp art projects will be photographed and trashed. I need to stop living in the past, stop focusing on the future, recognize the present. I think this is the best way to transition myself, to what I don't know. It will help my parents when they move and I'm in the Peace Corps, anyway.
No regrets.
No regrets.
Monday, May 16, 2011
Things I Wrote
Aug. 19, 2003:
"My mind went dumb with stupid things, and I had to keep it moving with dreams of baseball and would-be-girlfriends."
"I had to daydream and keep my mind busy because boredom was a terror almost as aweful as the work itself."
Nov. 2002:
"It was a calm day at school when suddenly, RING! BANG! POP! All the kids knew that those bells meant there was a fire, killer ant, and radioactive chicken alert. Every kid ran to their locker and browsed through their suits. But which suit should they wear? So they put all three suits on. First, the fire burned away the killer ant suit. Second, the radioactive chickens pecked away the fire suit. Third, the killer ants chewed away the radioactive chicken suit. And finally, all three forces destroyed the kids."
Sept. 23, 2002:
"I was flying high above the sky; soaring with the birds. When suddenly there was a boom! Blood dripped down my arm, when suddenly. I woke up. I was on the top floor of the Empire State building. I leaned against the rail when suddenly a kid pushed me! I was falling at top speed when suddenly... I woke up. I was a file in a computer. The cursor dragged me to the recycling bin and emptied it when suddenly... I woke up. I was standing in a burning building. All exits were blocked by fire. I waited to wake up, but I never did."
Feb. 21, 2003:
"In conclusion, blah blah rippety-snippety blah bling blang blah blah blah. You will notice that I said the word "blah" and some other zangy words, that is because this topic is slow and sluggish. I dislike this topic."
"My mind went dumb with stupid things, and I had to keep it moving with dreams of baseball and would-be-girlfriends."
"I had to daydream and keep my mind busy because boredom was a terror almost as aweful as the work itself."
Nov. 2002:
"It was a calm day at school when suddenly, RING! BANG! POP! All the kids knew that those bells meant there was a fire, killer ant, and radioactive chicken alert. Every kid ran to their locker and browsed through their suits. But which suit should they wear? So they put all three suits on. First, the fire burned away the killer ant suit. Second, the radioactive chickens pecked away the fire suit. Third, the killer ants chewed away the radioactive chicken suit. And finally, all three forces destroyed the kids."
Sept. 23, 2002:
"I was flying high above the sky; soaring with the birds. When suddenly there was a boom! Blood dripped down my arm, when suddenly. I woke up. I was on the top floor of the Empire State building. I leaned against the rail when suddenly a kid pushed me! I was falling at top speed when suddenly... I woke up. I was a file in a computer. The cursor dragged me to the recycling bin and emptied it when suddenly... I woke up. I was standing in a burning building. All exits were blocked by fire. I waited to wake up, but I never did."
Feb. 21, 2003:
"In conclusion, blah blah rippety-snippety blah bling blang blah blah blah. You will notice that I said the word "blah" and some other zangy words, that is because this topic is slow and sluggish. I dislike this topic."
Sunday, May 15, 2011
Just a Kid
It's been a while since I've last posted and much has happened, as always, but most of it slipped my mind. To sum up, there was a camping trip with some of the guys and it was very cold. Andrew decided it was better to make a fire rather than put a sweater on, so we were tied down to the camp spot and suddenly used up the wood we had collected before the sun had even set. I'm don't think certain people would survive in a primitive situation, especially when they walk around a grocery store hung over and leave empty-handed despite having no food for the trip.
Anyway, I was able to snag another hit of acid before the trip, so I took two hits. It was kind of like bloomers except without the emotional ending and the desire to go back; it was on and then off, sort of like how salvia is described. Certainly it was more productive, bloomers tend to incapacitate in the way that you can't write down most of what you think because they're emotions at the core, I suppose. At night we smoked and drank, but I just couldn't get drunk for some reason, no matter how much I took. It was a pretty fun farewell event before finals.
Finals were pretty terrible; I only felt positive about a couple of them and the rest have turned out average as I expected. I just want to graduate.
Then I did the fifteen hour drive home. I didn't think about a whole lot this time so it was kind of lame. There were a couple one-lane highway situations where the other lane was being repaired. I chatted with a couple workers and posed the question of what they would do if they received no calls and no next shift came to relieve them. Despite being in the middle of nowhere, they didn't seem too worried. I might make a play about that or something, sort of a Waiting for Godot sort of thing.
Last night some of my old friends came over and brought everclear and some fruit punch from a Mexican grocery store. We passed that wine around and then a bong and we were all messed up and jovial. I haven't been that messed up since I started CSU; it felt good to let loose and laugh for no reason. Rebekah told me she stopped doing drugs to learn things, about herself of the world, and now just does them to feel something different and get messed up. Well, she didn't use those exact words so some of that may not be true. But I thought about what she said and realized that while I still feel I have things to learn, recently it has been more about feeling messed up and I want to feel it more, but not in a totally self-destructive way. I've been thinking about this idea of doing a certain order or amount or frequency of things to initiate some sort of reality shift.
Today I went to see Dandelion. She was helping Josh with his hair and we played Jenga and watched the Office. I haven't played a game like that in a while. Adian came home from work and he seemed about the same, though I didn't really know what to say to him, or really anyone, today. It was his birthday recently, or maybe today so Kasey was going to make some birthday dinner and do laundry, so Josh and I got kicked out. She seemed pretty eager to do laundry.
Anyway, I was able to snag another hit of acid before the trip, so I took two hits. It was kind of like bloomers except without the emotional ending and the desire to go back; it was on and then off, sort of like how salvia is described. Certainly it was more productive, bloomers tend to incapacitate in the way that you can't write down most of what you think because they're emotions at the core, I suppose. At night we smoked and drank, but I just couldn't get drunk for some reason, no matter how much I took. It was a pretty fun farewell event before finals.
Finals were pretty terrible; I only felt positive about a couple of them and the rest have turned out average as I expected. I just want to graduate.
Then I did the fifteen hour drive home. I didn't think about a whole lot this time so it was kind of lame. There were a couple one-lane highway situations where the other lane was being repaired. I chatted with a couple workers and posed the question of what they would do if they received no calls and no next shift came to relieve them. Despite being in the middle of nowhere, they didn't seem too worried. I might make a play about that or something, sort of a Waiting for Godot sort of thing.
Last night some of my old friends came over and brought everclear and some fruit punch from a Mexican grocery store. We passed that wine around and then a bong and we were all messed up and jovial. I haven't been that messed up since I started CSU; it felt good to let loose and laugh for no reason. Rebekah told me she stopped doing drugs to learn things, about herself of the world, and now just does them to feel something different and get messed up. Well, she didn't use those exact words so some of that may not be true. But I thought about what she said and realized that while I still feel I have things to learn, recently it has been more about feeling messed up and I want to feel it more, but not in a totally self-destructive way. I've been thinking about this idea of doing a certain order or amount or frequency of things to initiate some sort of reality shift.
Today I went to see Dandelion. She was helping Josh with his hair and we played Jenga and watched the Office. I haven't played a game like that in a while. Adian came home from work and he seemed about the same, though I didn't really know what to say to him, or really anyone, today. It was his birthday recently, or maybe today so Kasey was going to make some birthday dinner and do laundry, so Josh and I got kicked out. She seemed pretty eager to do laundry.
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