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.