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.

End of the Year

This will probably be my last post of the year. I just got back to Dallas from St. Louis. The holidays were different this year because I was with the family less and the other cousins were gone from the main events. Though we stayed a day less than we thought, I was able to see Jeska more than expected. She met a bit of my family and I chickened out of meeting most of hers, though it sounds like it probably would have been a fun tipsy time. Seeing her in person after a year wasn't very awkward at all, which I take to be a good sign. I gave her a mix and took her to a fancyish French restaurant. It was in an industrial-looking side of town, like where the steel mill and soup kitchen would be, but behind the dull brick facade are lofts and Franco, the upscale eatery. We sat on one of the window benches so we looked like nobility eating and looking down upon the other diners. After a cheese plate, we shared a Moroccan vegetable stew and duck with potatoes and beets. If we could eat food like that every night, I'd be willing to sit in the window seat like a restaurant couple fixture. I also spotted a Mark Twain look-alike dining there. Then Jeska took me for iced cream where all the pretentious 20-somethings like to go. I don't think I've ever been with someone as openly interested in possessing me as her. It will be hard to wait the two-and-a-half months to see her during Spring break.
Oh, yeah, I also got a speeding ticket right when I entered Missouri. It was my first one and I didn't know what all I was supposed to say so I didn't get a warning. Basically cops just sucked some life out of me right before the holidays; I've never needed a cop before, they've always just been a hindrance.

Notes

Today I'm going through old textbooks to see about selling them to Half-Price Books and I found some notes in one. Here are a few:

Land taken from the Amazons and abandoned is being reclaimed, not by the same species but still serviceable habitat. Amazons aren't as fragile as thought.

Why are beaver dams good and human dams bad?

Do man-made lakes shift the weight of the world? Water that should be flowing isn't, thus weight.

Would there be life on Earth without a moon?

Culture is human adaptation.

Water on Earth may have come from comets hitting during early formation.

Lights

I still keep seeing those lights and atmospheric iridescence. Usually they're just points or spheres that appear, but I just saw a crackling of light almost like plastic wrap used on caramel apples shining in parts of the folds. It was in the corner of my vision so I turned my head to see it full on and it was gone and there was nothing there that was remotely reflective. Things are going on within my eyes. I feel like I'm breaching into something.

Holidays

I still feel uncomfortable with holidays, like they're a disturbance in my daily life. My gut says no and I'm just not able to bring myself to go to a friend's house to eat. I think it might have to do with knowing the people. If I have met and talked with people during a normal day, I probably wouldn't hesitate to be with the family on a holiday. I can't join in a holiday and meet people for the first time while eating their food and such. Yes, I know people probably don't mind and it's part of the holiday but I'm still put extremely on edge by it. There are so many things about holidays that agitate me, and I have the feeling that they are actually things about me that agitate me. I'm still to rigid about some things.

Muses

It's good and true that disturbance and emotional overflow are keys to creativity. Words, only the right ones, flow easily at these times because there is only time for the truth - if just the truth at that time. However, this being lightly touched upon, one cannot exist for any extended time in this particular state of creativity; one needs periods of peace. Like a plane in a strong storm, the wind can slowly peel plates away until the frame remains, and is too peeled away; like a sand castle in high tide, the water can touch and take a few grains at a time, melting the whole away. We must be careful with ourselves, as people and muses.

Dandelions in Winter?

I message Dandelion and she doesn't message back, but she reads the blog. Why don't you message back?

The Furnace, The Human Body

As humans, we stoke the fire which keeps our bodies moving, like coal to a train. I am the furnace which produces no soot, no accumulation. Logs are added to the stone bottom and they catch and vanish, leaving no trace. While it is not good to gather too much soot without sweeping the furnace out, it is equally not good to have so efficient a furnace that there is no residue. Without the residuals of fuel, there is little pay off, like putting money in a bank without earning interest. The soot from a furnace, after all, goes on to nourish a garden and bring further growth and prosperity.

Hospice

Jeska's mom was moved to a retirement home today for hospice purposes. Apparently it's more of a status than a place and retirement homes are good for it because someone can be on hospice for days or weeks on months. Just stopping at that broad thought, I had this idea about a person around my age who just signs up for hospice because, after all, we are all dying just at different rates. So the person goes into a retirement home and has adventures or something. It has a very Woody Allen/Curb Your Enthusiasm feel to it. Not that I mean to make humor of a serious event or anything.

The Setting Sun

As the winter sun went around the planet today, the sharpness increased and hit the buildings and trees and fences. It was a sharpness in light and in shadow; the light being brighter which caused the shadow to seem stricter. Everything had a light and dark side, down the middle, and the tips of trees (where the branches become very thin) appeared frosted like white specks. The scene looked like an example of chiaroscuro in some painting; something I don't want to forget but that a camera cannot capture.

Another View

Everything in the world, apart from humans, is innocent. There is no desire to harm for harm's sake - the world is like a barb, able to move forward but to try to go against the grain brings pain. For example, poison ivy doesn't want to cause discomfort, it is people that want discomfort placed onto us. Our lack of understanding or knowledge or will force us to harm ourselves. It causes a person to rub a plant the wrong way or treat most animals as if they were harmless attractions. It's true that animals and plants develop behaviors or mechanisms to help with survival, but it's up to the forces that act on them if the threat of harm is even necessary. I don't know, this was a before sleep thought last night and I'm just now writing about it so it doesn't seem as clear. I won't write pre-sleep thoughts as I get them, though, because it would keep me from sleep.

Finally the Week Ends

Even though it's just Thursday, it basically feels over; I even watched my weekend movie tonight instead of waiting. It was Blindness and I really liked the music and story, even though most of it was disconcerting. Then I started getting all these Sean Connery James Bond movies. He's my favorite.
Devin, Brandon, and Matt came for the week and left this morning. They did a lot of camping this time and browsed the city on their own. They went to the Sand Dunes and told me the condition of it during the Fall. It's really interesting how many faces that place has. We ate Beaux Jo's and they would have passed it over without even knowing it. That's the one pizza place everyone is told to go to when they first come to Fort Collins. Basically, we just had nights together because of my schedule, and we drank good beer (even though I usually hate it) and smoked their strange St. Louis weed and wild dagga and kratom and lots of stuff, and watched crazy kung-fu movies. I really didn't get to study for my weed test as much as I should have, but I feel pretty good about it - maybe a B. I really studied for the first test and only got an 89, but that was over more material. So now I'm totally pooped and I wasn't able to get the car totally fixed like I had hoped. Unfortunately when Autozone read the computer they cleared the lights, so I have to waste gas waiting for it to reset and turn back on so I can take it to the Toyota dealership. I don't understand machines, but I like using them.

Wolf Day

Today was a wolf sort of day. This is different than a Fox Day because it lacks underhanded intentions. Other than that, they might be very similar. Essentially, in every class today, I've felt physically sore and tired, like my body was a spring. And there was electricity in the feeling that set the hair on my body upright. I kept in a crouched position waiting for each class to end and this was especially trying in composition, waiting as the teacher explained things multiple times as if we were idiots (something which really grates on my mental state). I had the recurring daydream of transforming into a wolf and leaping out of class and running, just running, never looking back. It's a sort of physical vigor I don't feel often, something I imagine the spiritual use of the datura plant causing. I guess it has just been too long a period of sitting, staring at powerpoint presentations.

The Killer's Spirit

Today I practiced my killer's spirit/intention. On the way back to my apartment I saw a couple ravens, big ones, picking over garbage in the street. I walked toward them and made a hiss sound and they took off but only a foot away, as most big city birds do. Since they weren't in my way I kept on for my apartment, but noticed they were staring after me between pecks at the garbage. So I looked at them and stared in a particular way, more with thought then a physical change. Both birds went alight quickly, all the way to a distant tree where they still looked after me.

I recall reading about different ways of seeing and nonverbal communication, probably in a Castaneda book, so this was a neat experiment.