Break, Up in the Mountains

I thought I may as well post my intentions to take a break from this blog as I prepare to finish my last year of school in the mountains. It's served its purpose, being whatever I needed in the past. Things feel like they're going pretty well now and I've felt like I have less and less to put in here.

In any case, my pocket idea book is finally decomposing after five years so it's time to retire it before it falls apart. This means I'm switching to my new one and if I keep writing in here, there's less to place in there. I'll come back to this if there's something long to explain and remember, or if my life becomes troublesome and requires an outlet.
I'll still be on here to check out the Logcabineer, though.

Forgetful Yesterday

A poem I wrote as the final assignment of Pingree:

The dandelions of my youth have long blown away

Given rise to the pines of yesterday

The cement has surrounded and impounded

Me, thinking of the pines of yesterday

The drive that pushes on and on,

Tomorrow and the next and on

Yesterday left far behind

And with it so the pines

The dandelions of my youth have long blown away

Given rise to the pines of yesterday

To Build a House

Almost halfway through the second week of Pingree here. Because of the High Park fire, the third largest in Colorado history, Pingree was reformatted for the CSU campus. We're still waiting to see if we can go up soon to finish the class at Pingree. 

I'm very tired. It's reported that Pingree is the best thing about being in Warner College, and I'm not sure why. Even if we were able to be doing our lessons up there, we really wouldn't have time to do anything but the classes and study. It's just so fast-paced, as if the teachers think they're the only ones we're responsible for; much worse in a compressed situation like this. To be fair, the plant sections of the class are the only reasonable ones, giving us study guides and word banks and things fitting of a section that is only supposed to be a fifth of the class. Wildlife is the worst, in fact I would say that section is 50% of what there is to do.

Until we move up to Pingree, I'm staying at Bryce's apartment, on the couch. It's more of an extreme situation than when I had my own apartment, but in these situations I get the urge to build and take care of a place of my own, that is fully my own. I found a book by Pollan called A Place of My Own, which is about man's midlife where he feels the urge to design and hammer together a place to work within. I think it's interesting that at a point late in life someone would decide it time to nail a foundation for themselves to the land. If I'm feeling this way so early, while most of the people I meet still live like college students, maybe I can get my foundation earlier and have more time to develop it.

I'm just tired of these nine hour class times and want to travel and get to some sturdy place.

New Mixtape

Summer, She Comes

http://8tracks.com/walking_daydream/summer-she-comes

01 Vega 4 - You And Me

02 M. Ward - Never Had Nobody Like You

03 City and Colour - The Girl

04 James Taylor - You've Got A Friend

05 Danielle Ate the Sandwich - Where I'll Be

06 Allo Darlin' - What Will Be Will Be

07 Vangelis - Love Theme

08 Frank Sinatra - I've Got A Crush On You

09 Kate Havnevik - Nowhere Warm

10 Ivy - Edge Of The Ocean

11 Allo Darlin' - Let's Go Swimming

12 Mathemagic - Always Will Be II

13 The Sea and the Cake - Two Dolphins

14 We Are Trees - Colorado

15 She & Him - Home

16 Paul McCartney - Maybe I'm Amazed

17 Mathemagic - Beechwood

18 Velvet Underground - I Found A Reason

A Conflict of Dreams

I had a strange dream, set in a sort of camp; I remember running back to a picnic bench with people around it.

I think I noticed a pack of wolves, giant ones, hanging at a distance, playing with each other, and one came over to me. I was sitting on the bench and it jumped up next to me and rested its head on my lap as a domestic dog would do. Then I saw a giant red fox, maybe six feet long, and the wolf ran after it and they started fighting. I asked one of the people if the wolf would be okay, and they said, "sure, dogs always beat cats."

 

HOWEVER,

that's the story that makes sense in words (that follow dream chronology), but the images I remember from the dream tell a different, fragmented story.

I remember seeing the six-foot-long red fox at a distance and I went over to it. After picking it up, I ran back to the bench and then noticed the wolves, one of which was watching me. On the bench, I let the huge fox curl in my lap. The wolf came over and sat sort of like a domestic dog, and that's how the scene was for a while. I believe I didn't move at all because I was afraid of any sudden  violence the wolf might do.

Then the fox ran off and the wolf chased it and fought with it. I asked the same person if the fox would be okay and they said they didn't know because it was a wolf fighting a fox.

 

It's like I had two versions of the same dream but can only remember the chronology of one and the images of the other.

Dreams on Repeat

I had a good dream last night, in the depth of sleep. The details of the dream aren't important and are hard to remember; however, the transition to waking was interesting. Ali was up early running around making noise so I woke up slightly, but knew I wanted to reenter the dream. The problem was that I had woken too much, and the best I could do was submerge into a shallow form of sleep similar to meditation; like bobbing in a pool, I would surface and submerge continually. I found that this level of wakefulness couldn't get me back into the dream, it only put me in the last few seconds of the dream, on repeat. It was similar to a record at the end of its set, the needle hitting the paper and popping back a little only to move toward the paper again.

Conventional

It's strange how some things can become conventional. You don't even see it coming, really, or at least it just seems to have changed all the sudden. For instance, I used to do wild things at anime conventions with my Texas friends and now we don't really go, the convention is enormous and had to be relocated, and my friends are finishing school or working jobs. Okay, that example seems like more of a slow creeping change, but it's the same general idea with a different time dilation.

I guess the point is that I hope to hold my views (despite whatever friction that causes with my parents or society) and not wake up someday, realizing I'm just another fuse on some world-scale fuse box. It's scary when people suddenly reveal themselves to be that way.

Composite Man

And I've come to realize my goal in life is to,

look and live like this man:

tell stories like this man:

and think and experiment like this man:

and yet to continue living my own life, with someone willing to put up with me and share the experiences; to live without extravagance and peel back the layers of the world and watch.

Difficult Times

I know I haven't been updating this lately. It's been really busy, this last week many of my teacher have added, changed, or moved assignments, which is kind of rude. So this easygoing week became a race to finish things as I was given them. Even with this effort, I still slacked off in some regards.
Last night I participated in a rabbit count, where we spotlighted either side of a trail/road and recorded the type of rabbit, distance, and other details. We left school at 7pm and began at sunset, finishing a 22 mile stretch by midnight. It was fun and I spotted the farthest away rabbit. I also got to take home a bunch of the leftover treats, which refilled my nutter butter supply.
However, by the time I got home around 1am (and couldn't fall asleep for another hour), it wasn't long before I had to get up at 6am to eat and get to class by 7 for a field trip to a sheep dairy on the border of Nebraska. Everyone was dead on the way and back; the trip and tour was about five hours. By the time I got home from that, I had to walk to the nearby park for a tree ID walk.
Following that, I had a group meeting for the restoration class and I was so tired the talk seemed to go in circles. Everyone is strong-minded and I pointed out things to consider in everything brought up, but it probably just sounded like arguing. One team person pointed out I was being wishy-washy. I just wanted to curl up in a bed.
At least tomorrow is another picnic at Andrew's, who I haven't seen since I refused to go on an alcohol run. He said it wasn't a big deal, but he isn't contacting me with his usual frequency. There's also a lot for me to do to make tomorrow an easy-going day, but this weekend is another hard-hitting homework deal. After next week I should be done with a couple of my presentations, papers, and tests. I like that time seems to keep moving steadily forward, but there's always something else ahead of me, standing in my way of getting out of this semester.

Another Strange Dream

Currently listening to:
1,000 People
Blackfield

This is the first time I've had a dream that took place so far in the future. I was a very old man and Jessica was also old but dying. I was at her bedside and I asked if she really didn't want to live anymore, as if her dying was just her giving up on living, like the desire to live could keep someone going forever. I crawled into the bed and just hugged and cuddled her and started crying. We had just met as far as I was concerned, and hadn't had enough time together. So it felt too soon to be dying, but I was also sad because I knew I wanted to keep living as long as I could and so I would, alone. Then someone else was in the room taking pictures of us. My dad took pictures of my grandpa when he was dying, so it must be from that. Just a strange short dream.

Movie Dreams

Last night I watched a bunch of stuff. I saw many of the Phantom Museum stop-action shorts that are very much like David Lynch, 10 to Midnight with Bronson, Dead Heat about a resurrection machine bringing criminals back to life, and some other that didn't play as big a roll. I was high by the time it was bedtime, so I crashed without melatonin, my stomach full of junk food.
I dreamt I was in some sort of school building, maybe a middle school, which was surrounded by large amounts of abandoned agriculture land that looked dusty and some swamp-like land. The sky was dark and hazy.
I was with some people who were more like the classic stereotype personalities that make up a movie cast. We went inside and turned on the antique looking wall lights, which produced a dull, flickering light as hazy as the sky. The inside of the "school" was surprisingly similar to the layout of my parent's house with added rooms or stories; but this seems to happen with all buildings in my dreams.
A certain level of fear was felt amongst the cast of the dream; apparently, the world I entered when I fell asleep was full of creepy imagery and creatures that wouldn't make sense, but had to be avoided.
One particular scene that stood out vividly to me, because it felt like it was most of the dream itself, occurred in my room. The room was altered such that the bathroom door led to a guest bedroom a little smaller than mine but with a similar configuration of windows. The really long window in my room had the new blinds my parents just put up, but with a break so that half the window could be open while the other was closed. Next to that window was a vertical strip of marbled glass, thick and distorts the view so it's like a natural blind. The last window that mattered was the normal-sized window that had a leafy bush growing right in front of it, obscuring the view. The blinds are the sort that let light through but only shadows can be seen, and are operated by drawstring fixed to the wall. I was with an older man character who was loveable but confused.
In my room the blinds were fully down and in the guest room the blinds were only down on the window half nearest the door. I could hear something breathing or pressing against the large window in my room, but I didn't want to raise the blind. So I went into the guest room and peeked around the edge of the half-blind. A very large, white-haired, winged dragon-shaped creature was crouched by the school trying to see through my blinds. Somehow I knew that if it saw anyone it would break through the house to grab them. Just like in the movies, I also knew to move back to my room, and sure enough the creature started moving toward the guest room to look through the unblinded part of the window. It gave up the search and took flight and on its hairy tail I saw a flag with some eastern looking symbols apparently growing from the tail.
The last memorable scene took place at the normal-sized window with the bush. The bush was thick enough not to see through, but thin enough to make out what was happening inside of it. Right up against the window was a central cavity in the bush of leafless stems. On one stem was a praying mantis and every once in a while it would vibrate, the whole body would shake in place. It would fly to another perch and do it again, and once in a while quickly vibrate greater distances to eat an insect. I know for sure this part came from the Phantom Museums series. Weird dreams, the kind I like.

Spring Break and Spring Break

I went home for the first half of spring break, which meant a plane ride. In exchange for shaving ten hours off my journey I was frisked, scanned, herded, luggage searched, and packed into a metal tube. They also stole my toothpaste that had EXPLOSIVE plaque-fighting capabilities. Then I was on a plane next to a business major looking kid and his mom. I had my scientific papers to read through, but the mom mentioned how her son and I hadn't spoken once we were almost to Dallas. Her son must tell her he's the star of the school, which is why I would know him out of 45,000 meat drones high-fiving and talking about how laid they were last weekend. He said he's a business major because he didn't know what else to do; I said I knew.
And then I got home and prepared for the family trip that was planned months in advance though the family forgot to tell me. It was sort of our last family vacation (like the RV trips), and after sharing a bed with a family member throughout it, I understood why; us kids are getting too big. It was an enjoyable trip to Waco to see a community of amish-like people, and an expensive trip at that. I also got to see Merle and Rosie, and Dandelion briefly to give her the Smashing Pumpkins mix.
After getting back to Fort Collins, I got some busy work done and picked up Jeska the next day. Her flight was late because wind blows one direction, then the next (I'm joking). We finished preparing some lamb to be cooked on the mountain, and the next day we were there! She did surprisingly well for arriving in a much higher elevation at night and the next morning walking around a couple thousand feet higher than that.
We got firewood together and set up our sleeping area in the car, complete with books and battery candles. Once it started getting darker Jeska started the fire and we made mashed potatoes, lamb, and vegetable chili. Unfortunately, the chili was way spicier than it should have been, due to my fault. We slept and woke with the sun.
The next morning we ate chicken sausage and acid. It gave me a stomach ache, which I think was an amplification of the negative feedback my body had for the sausage. In any case, it wasn't visionary and it felt strongly within my body like I was on the verge of a great journey but couldn't cross the threshold. I assume this was because the acid happened to be in sugar cubes and wasn't able to be held in the mouth very long. After a few hours of this feeling, and the sound of gunshots from all our new neighbors at the campsite, we decided to push out. The shadows were interesting as well as the landscape. I felt very tranquil about the drive, but wished it was on a straight highway with no other cars on it.
A lot of cooking was done: Jeska made hushpuppies for the first time, we made broccoli pesto, fried chicken, quiche, breakfasts. She's a fast learner in the kitchen. I took her to Beau Jo's pizza, which was an adventure in itself, and she took me to get gelato. I was able to see a lot of old town by walking around with her; it's much bigger than I thought. We also took a tour of New Belgium. Over the course of a little over an hour, we consumed five free beers: two in the intro (Abbey, their first beer, and a wheat beer I didn't catch the name of), Caocao Mole in the employee lounge (which was an unexpected find for me, almost like a fiery cinnamon hot chocolate), a Fat Tire an hour off the production line, and La Jolie (a three-year-old sour fruity beer they make for fun). New Belgium turned out to be a pretty energy efficient operation and people seemed happy working there.
Jeska and I had Andrew over for a dinner party, just the three of us. We had the quiche with salad, Andrew's fruit salad, and pesto pasta, and a five cheese or so cheese plate. Andrew broke out the Spice and it was good. Jeska said it made her feel like being high for the first time, which could be good or bad. A week later, Andrew had us over for a dinner picnic with some of his friends and his grandpa. He must have had ten pounds of ground beef with hot dogs and with lamb, not to mention the potato and fruit salads. I tried to make a red wine reduction for the lamb and it smelled like wild berries, but I put in too much sugar and it caramelized onto the nonstick. The second go-around it was kept more watery and the lamb was further cooked in it rather than have the reduction as a jelly-like glaze. Still, it was all good and we went on a walk behind his grandpa's house, which leads to a jogging trail.
The ten days having Jeska here seemed so long and so short. I think it confirmed many doubts we may have had and brought us much closer. I really can't wait to live with her in August at a slower pace of life.

The Smashing Pumpkins

"It's the backseat of a convertible driving through a cookie-cutter neighborhood in the heat of summer, when the sky looks as if it could be the ocean, as if you could swim in it. It's the timelessness of the playground, when existence is just a series of time slots without knowledge of anything else. It's the heartbreak of not knowing what you will do without someone, and the heartbreak of the possibility they will forget you. It's the joy of being with someone, two people in a crowd, reckless and imaginative. It's seeing something rough and pock-marked as smooth and undefinable; and seeing the dimensions of something smooth."

When I listen to this music I feel a pain inside and remember MTV memories, not even of my past but of the classic images of children walking down railroad tracks and getting a soda at a gas station after school, all in the gritty sepia-tone camera shot. Their sound is so nostalgic its almost like they were recalling the "golden years" while still in their prime. There's something sad about that.

01. Galapogos
02. 1979
03. Today
04. Thirty-Three
05. Cupid de Locke
06. We Only Come Out At Night
07. Disarm
08. Mayonaise
09. Perfect
10. By Starlight
11. That's the Way (My Love Is)
12. Blew Away
13. Landslide
14. Take Me Down
15. To Sheila
16. Drain
17. In the Arms of Sleep
18. Luna
19. Dancing in the Moonlight
20. Farewell and Goodnight

Class Discussion Makes Me Feel Lost

In class, discussion and questions are encouraged. I'm usually quiet since I prefer smaller groups or one-on-one discussion, but once in a while I ask a question after someone brings something up. It's not that I'm dying to know the answer but a matter of clarification to get people thinking. Somehow when I do this I'm not able to communicate exactly what I'm imagining, so the response is usually a common sense type thing coming from the dismissive graduate students with animal backgrounds, even though herbivore ecology is an undergraduate class. It's frustrating. I think it's also interesting that only in these types of situations do I see pictures in my mind and have to translate them to words. I wish there were more small group discussions.

Overdue Letters

Currently listening to:
Like Rock and Roll Radio
Ray Lamontagne

I know it's really about time I write you, Dandelion.

The Relationship Phenomenon

Someone mentioned the other day that when a guy is single for a long time, girls aware of it seem to take it as a sign that something is wrong with that person. But when the guy enters a relationship, girls become attracted as if they must have overlooked something about the guy and he actually is desirable. Yet when the relationship ends there must really be something wrong with the guy so girls stay away, like the girl was wrong about what she thought was desirable.
I'm not sure if this would be true for a single girl; since guys are supposed to be the ones to make things happen, I feel like girls are able to judge the way described. I don't even know if there's truth to this.

Grocery Symbiosis

I remember the days working for the park service, during the days off when the townsfolk were supposed to be working and things were mostly still. In those small towns I could never tell where everyone was or where they worked. Most places had one person running the store. I suppose many people could work for the local safeway, or whatever local grocery they have. In such a case, people work and are paid and buy food from their store and the cycle continues. It's sort of a symbiotic relationship. I wonder if a store and workers could support and perpetuate each other. The store would still need the passersby, but could it largely continue to exist off the workers? I'm not sure where all this money comes from and goes in those little forgotten towns.

Flashlapse

"The key is to know a lot about many things, and to appear to know very little."
This way people underestimate, reveal things they would normally hide, and not cause a bother in their search for information. Everyone likes the occasional opportunity to prove themselves well-versed and mentally powerful. Information becomes a valuable currency.

*********

I guess I've been tired lately. I pause a lot more during the day, like an instant power-down or daydream. Something comes over me and I get the "bad rum feeling." You know, when you have too much of a cheap-tasting thing and instead of a shiver of disgust you get a light numb feeling. So I'll get this feeling or hear a certain pitched note in some music or maybe a sequence of notes, and it reminds me of my dreams.
I have a certain visual which I associate with my dreams. To make it immediately visual I'll share this painting:Any of Giorgio's paintings of simple architecture and chiaroscuro devoid of human presence are close to what I visualize. It's a simple environment but confusing because it is so unlike anything else, full of unique angles. When I have those lapses of daydream, I see this visualization and feel the nostalgia fixed to it, the nostalgia of dreaming. It's a place to explore without worry of time. It's always halfway to noon or halfway to dusk. Part of me wants to disregard what I have to do for school and take a melatonin and wander. Today I woke up and started going about my routine mechanically and a little after starting at work I wondered when I would wake up. It felt as if I were still dreaming. Perhaps a lingering effect of the melatonin? I took a larger dose last night thinking it would balance my sleep cycle again.
I've never considered the visual representation of my dreams, a symbol for them whether it matches or not. It's a recent thing so I haven't had much time to think about it or experience it. I always forget my dreams when I wake up.

Speed

I've been told I'm a slow person, I do things in my own time. The way I do things is about personal process instead of being goal-oriented. That is why I become sedentary or move aimlessly only to end up at some impulsive end.
Recently I was in a hurry to catch a bus because I knew the next one would be crowded with people just out of class. I didn't run, but I sprinted (one level above power walking). That day was a cold one so maybe that's why I felt so out of breath, my lungs were chilled. I think I could also be out of shape, despite being unable to gain weight. It occurred to me that my behavior and mindset may be causing me to become adapted to a slower way of life, and all along I thought I could run or do whatever at a moments notice. It's good to know one's capabilities; if I'm ever chased it might be a good idea to simply take a stand rather than become futilely tired. Or maybe mine and Jeska's future walking-for-exercise regiment will fix me.

Pregnant Winter

It's a weird feeling to hear a friend is pregnant or is planning on having a child. It happens so infrequently thanks to the small number of friends I keep that I'm unable to get used to it. The shock is that it's someone I am familiar and close to, but also someone in my age group. I suppose my mind lives in a previous set where we are all still innocent children trying to act grown up, and there are those actually doing it: having kids and graduating college. I'm not sure if I still feel like I'm being left behind or if I'm envious of others moving forward or if I'm sad they aren't staying with me. I guess we all grow up. Still, it makes me feel very fragile to see big leaps happening and the happiness over the progression. I wonder when I'll grow up the same way, or if my feet will run forward while my upper body turns to claw backwards. These feelings are almost exactly like the way I feel when I hear The Smashing Pumpkins.

Drugs I Have Known

Since I began life at college, I have been exposed to many new ideas and items, which sometimes are one in the same. I've been thinking about drugs, due to my plants and civilization class, and how they have become one of the biggest impacts in my life, connecting me to a new-found spirituality and shaping my perceptions of the world. Reading Carlos Castaneda has given me specific insight into what I was vaguely learning on my own and a poetic means to discuss them.
I probably won't ever get around to it, but I thought of writing a piece, a series of vignettes, personifying the plants I have met, giving them physical definition and personality.
Here I just want to lay out an outline with some minor notes on how the drugs seem to me.

I. The Natural
A) Mushrooms - The teacher; wise; collected; sometimes male, sometimes I'm not sure.
1. Yellow-cap (psilocybin) - Hesitant, though not closed off. Took more time to open up but once accustomed was willing to share and treat like a friend.
2. Amanita - Greeted like an old friend, almost like a hug. A tranquil vibe, willing to share easily if the right questions are asked. Treated me like a friend, but distrustful of strangers (created the latter feeling with me as a medium).
B) Marijuana - Very unstable and temperamental; felt like a female presence. Each meeting was different. Volatile at first (perhaps because I was approaching with the wrong intention), eventually a sort of complacency as if putting up with me; sometimes friendly.
C) Nutmeg - Meeting time so removed from consumption and meeting so brief it was hard to tell anything.
D) Kava Kava
E) Smoking blend - Just a mixture of other plants with minor effects, more of an "rock" or "water" personality than a "human" personality. Potentiates other plants.
F) Hawaiin Baby Woodrose Seeds

II. The Man-Made
A) ADD Medication - An interesting chemical for someone without the disorder. Although they are similar I feel that there is a difference, but it has been a while since meeting the substance so I don't remember.
1. Focalin
2. Adderall
B) Acid - Similar to yellow-caps, yet kind of hollow. He is like a passionate artist; very productive. Calm, but without so much emotion. It's hard to trust someone like that.
C) Molly - Not much of a person from what I can tell.
D) DMT - The most natural feeling of all the man-mades. Definitely a teacher, but unaware of how comfortable it is with the information, so with comfortable ease it tries to pass too much information. Casual, just trying to make a good impression.

I'm hesitant to call the man-mades people, because they're usually too far separated from the plants which birth them. A mind or emotion separated from the body, floating in a sea of consciousness; over time, without sensory connections to this planet, they dissociate and are purely what they are.

Bus Ride

During the winter it seems the buses are at their dirtiest. Each has a fine spattering of mud across the whole of each side and from the outside it's impenetrable, especially with the darkened windows, while from the inside it's vaguely see-through. When the sun hits directly upon it, the windows become white and foggy, as if we're driving through heaven or the clouds. The sun is blocked once in a while allowing hazy shadows of trees or bikers to pass through. Still, it's all very surreal as if we are travelers in a vehicle passing through the memories of a person, and when one sees a memory one wants to visit, there is always a stop available.

Running Toward a Future

I was thinking about the primitive life today in class. About the possibility of living on land and hunting and gardening to store food for periods of time. Simple cabin life. I feel like I'm in the rat race, or A rat race. People in cities are generally running toward something, there's always a rush. The rush I feel is more of a personal, self-induced rat race within myself. I know I want land, not necessarily in the US, and a simple home where I can live in some sort of balance with the land around me. Oh, and it needs some sort of water access. But I'm rushing towards this dream because I know there is a trade off. I need security apart from being able to afford these goals, so I need to get a job and earn lots of money. At the same time, I know I need to begin following this dream goal before I'm too old to do all the things I'd like.
It's like one needs capital to reach the goal, but the capital has to be gained quickly enough so that the work involved with that lifestyle is still possible. I'm taking so long to get a degree that I'm afraid I'll be too old to adequately live that sort of life. Ideally I would work and live very cheaply and start investing and creating larger savings so that I could get land and the house and then live off of the investments I've made, to cover costs that come up and possible worldly travels.
If I get a government job and retire and leave the country I'm not sure if I can still reap the benefits of my retirement since I left. I'm not sure how complicated it would be to manage investments out of country either, or if I would have to learn the system of wherever I am and invest there. I feel it's a matter of living cheaply and only paying for what is a big part of your life or what you think may be a big part down the line. All I know is I'm getting older and I'm still in the same position as when I was a young teenager. I need to pick up the pace and get the gears turning, after I'm done with the forced day-to-day of college. Sometimes it's hard to take one day at a time.

Transitional Driving

Blue Sky Black Death - Where the sun beats
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ioRxD623Z1g

I run and run and take only short rests
The race against night which turns into day and
the race against day which turns into night
I cross great distances
a dog keeping pace with a sun
which easily slides across the sky
I can't stop, can't turn back
when it is lost,
when the sun is already across
either way is darkness
And I wish for the bed,
for the fire, for the meal,
for the peace
And I keep running.

Speed of Thought

I'm not really as fast as I seem, mentally. Blogging and messaging are very nice ways to communicate because they give you time to come up with a response. The other person might assume you're browsing the web when you're actually finding the perfect witty, "movie" response. Though, I am kind of quick. I make sure to expose myself to as many tidbits as I can from many different fields. By doing this I can call forth movies, music, art, stories, news and so on so that I can find a place in almost any conversation. I seem quick because I can make a reference, usually something the other person doesn't know about, and have reasoning behind why I brought it up. That's the key: not only having a stockpile, but also preparing for if its relevancy is questioned.
I'm very slow in everyday life, however. If encountered by some obstacle or new possibility I need time to just be still and let my mind work through it. Even very small things elicit over-reaction simply because I haven't fully accepted it. It's an unconscious lashing out in tone of voice, and then I realize all the ways around the obstacle and wonder why I was so upset. Another unfortunate aspect is the forgetting of the incidence when others involved don't. Memory, or lack of, still seems like a blessing and curse.

I've also started reading another person's blog: http://www.logcabineer.com/
I think the author is a man in Finland, but I'm not sure. Seeing his pictures, the videos he makes of the landscape or his land with a record player running in the foreground, fishing, and cooking, it all just makes me want to go to that semi-independent form of living, in a cabin with a couple dogs and antique cookware and devices. I'm not sure what the guy does for a living. He hunts a lot and visits his somewhat near neighbors and local diners. Maybe he trades the meat he collects. I'm just envious of the way he's living and owning land with a lake and abandoned dwellings from others who quit the 9-5.

Leaving Feeling

When I first moved back for this school year, I felt very helpless. I was leaving everything I just got used to being home, including Dandelion whom I'd gotten close to, for a new school where I knew no one. The drive was sad and it took forever or fifteen hours, whichever came first, and I arrived exhausted and hungry. On top of that, I saw my room which was much smaller than it appeared on the website; the full-size bed took up half the room. I was tired, hungry, and things weren't what I expected, so I felt lost and lonely. This feeling came back again last night when I got in an hour later than I was supposed to due to an accident. I drove the whole day on little sleep and had just eaten snack type foods the whole day. I got to my apartment tired and hungry and faced with a notice on the door welcoming a new roommate. No one was inside, however, not even belongings. Then my internet wouldn't activate because I hadn't downloaded the extra driver to allow ethernet cables, as I later found out. So I felt all those same emotions which were amplified by being cut off from the rest of the world.
I remembered I felt better after sleeping and settling my static. So I made some pasta for dinner and went to sleep. Jeska had given me the number of the help desk, thankfully, so I fixed my computer this morning. Now everything seems and feels alright. The roommate still isn't here.
Jeska is going to be doing the same thing, though she'll be living with people she knows. Still, it's very impressive that she's willing to move to a whole other state where she knows no one and has nothing set in stone so far. I wonder if she will feel the sort of things I feel when I get used to something and it all changes. I know I'll be supportive and patient and like I said, it's very impressive and I give her lots of credit for it. I'm not sure I'd be able to do the same thing in her shoes.

Minimix and Doctor's Office

Today I went to the doctor's to get my first HPV vaccine of the sequence. I was kind of nervous since I still hate shots and tried to think of a way to get it and be fine with it. The needle turned out to be a small one and it was prepared out of eye-sight, which I thought would help; however, while the needle penetration wasn't terrible I felt the vaccine being pushed under my skin and spreading outward into my body. I'm a skinny guy, there isn't a lot of meat, and I think that's why it's harder with me. So it seemed like I was fine afterward; I got a spiderman band-aid. Once the old chatty doctor and my mom and I stood up to talk more in the doorway I began to feel the creeping sensation of nausea. I heard what was being said but a while later I heard every other word then no words. I saw my mom and the doctor become more like 3D outlines colored in by TV static colored like a rainbow. Then the background got blurry. I kept trying to formulate the thought "sorry, I need to sit down" and say it, but I was afraid I might throw up and I didn't want to interrupt (irrational fainting thoughts). But I was noticed and they got me sitting down. This experience was much more different than the previous time I got a shot standing up and just blacked out pretty much. It's the first time I've been able to examine a fainting spell in slow-motion. It felt like a second but my mom said it was more like five minutes. It was just a shot, yet it seemed like a got some short drug trip.

Then I got to see Dandelion, probably the last time before she gets married and buys a white picket fence; maybe just the married part. I might see her during Spring break, though. Anyway, I gave her a minimix of a larger parent mix themed "last human on Earth." I kind of liked the way it came together in such a short list of songs:

01 Air - One Hell of a Party
02 Horse Feathers - The Drought
03 Alexi Murdoch - Breathe
04 Röyksopp - Senior Living
05 He's My Brother She's My Sister - The House That Isn´t Mine
06 Loudon Wainwright III - Missing You
07 S - Wait
08 Belle and Sebastian - Fuck This Shit
09 Tim Buckley - Once I Was
10 Salim Nourallah - Endless Dream Days
11 brian eno & robert fripp - meissa
12 josh ritter - see how man was made

It's a tale of a harsh Earth and loneliness with a glimmer of wishful hope. Dandelion said Adian cried because of the sixth song. I don't know if it was in context of the mix or just the song alone; I like to think I setup that climax of emotion in the scheme of my storytelling.
Tomorrow morning I head out for Colorado, probably around 6am. I always put off packing until the very last minute and leaving home again makes me feel depressed, and I haven't felt sad in a long while. It's hard getting attached to some place with certain people. But I'll sleep a couple times and forget the feeling. It's an improper and immature way to live in the present, but it comes naturally to me.

Cowboys and Indians

I woke up today thinking about cowboys and Indians (read: Native Americans). Both evolved, though in different spaces, to their conditions at the time; however, one was more technologically advanced than the other. So I was wondering why that was. Both continents had a wealth of resources, but perhaps the Europeans had a stronger will to expand, a conquer mentality. I came to the conclusion that it was probably a respectful stance which separated the cowboys and Indians. If it's true, then the ability for a society to become more technologically advanced is correlated to the stance of non-integration with the world and disrespect.
The Indians were more communal with the environment, so the extent of what they could do to manipulate it was limited?
Today we seem to be heading for a hybridization of the views, combining our advancements with a sense of sustainability, but there's still the old group that wants to use up everything.