Goodnight Sweet Prince

6/21/2009-4/24/2010

Fear and Loathing in St. Louis

Chicago, Columbus, Cincinnati, Lexington.

St. Louis is next. T-minus 10 hours and counting.

a.l.m.o.s.t.

So, three papers, one test, and the majority of a project down --- one paper, one test, and the remainder of that project and it's presentation to go. I may just go buy me some Splinter Cell tomorrow.

This calls for some celebration.

Needly needly needly neeeeeeeeee.



you didnt even know there was a video, did you?

A lot of things are happening. A lot of things aren't happening. A lot of people are thinking things that they don't want to say. A lot of people are saying things they don't want to think.

We're all just watching stars disappear in the spotlights. We hang around hillsides, holding on to exposed roots and juniper branches for security. We watch the valleys, and wait for the smoke to clear. The city may seem so far away, and the buses don't run during times of upheaval, but I know we're going to make it home alright.

So let's start walking. This shit is getting heavy.

tomorrow.

thunder.thunder.THUNDER! over Louisville. 800,000 people converging on a two mile stretch of river front with the sole intent of getting drunk, sunburned, and watching multi-million dollar war machines demonstrating the American Military in all of its glory.

We got fireworks. And a bridge.

Should be pretty b.a.

One of these days I'll anchor my feet in sand, and let the waves spray salt on my legs like the faces of sheer cliffs. The wind will trace the features of my face with fingers fair, and for a moment I will feel solid. I will be bound to the ocean by the water in my blood, and the salts of my pores, returned to its roots like some prodigal son of the sea.

Until then, let these mornings serve as a reminder. I am consistently stumbling; rolling backwards on bruised heels. Balance will be the end of me, and my stability is still an illusion. Security is static, and everything else is progress.

This isn't flying. It's falling with style.

Rounding Up.

Some You's and I's and We's for all of us.

I'll watch you paint your pictures. The canvas reflects such dull and sullen colors. Your skin tones, the color of mucus; your smile like jagged, dusty glass. "A Self-portrait..." you say; "This is how I look. Tell me I'm wrong." You paint with the hands of William Burroughs. Steady your hands. Take a breath. Things aren't that bad. Just turn on the light. Things will seem brighter.

But Captain, the ship is sinking!

At least the water is warm. Let it take you. We can find the shore. All the waves roll back to land, and and through the overcast, the sun will warm the beaches. All you have to do is stand up and walk on to the shore. Scape the brine from your eye-lids, son. The urchins on your feet seem to have made your knees grow weak. Our peripheries mark the boundaries of our line of sight. Imagine the blurred objects to be the sill of your window of opportunity. Everything bounded by the corners of the world as you see it is an opportunity. Take it for what its worth, or die with empty pockets.

If you reach old age without callouses, you clearly haven't tried. Let your hands harden. They were given to you to use, I promise. When your fingers are made of stone, and they still refuse to hold water, you can finally tell me I was wrong.

So you still don't know.
So you didn't really try.
So she didn't see it coming.
So. So. So. If there was no uncertainty, we could all be born 75 and satisfied. Go ahead. Fuck it up a little. Life looks better when it's a little worse for wear.

And the sun will follow the rain.

Things I like

-People working in the SAC who are excited you were courteous and are courteous back.
-The air finally being on in the buildings on campus.
-Riding with my windows down and the radio up way too loud for my hearing's benefit.
-Looking out of windows at people; pretending you're watching some sort of strange television.
-People (girls, especially, I'll admit) who smile at you when you walk past.
-The smell of Ramen
-Convincing myself that Wednesday is practically the weekend.
-Seeing people I know, but don't remember me.
-Last-minute pre-class blogging.
-Knowing pretty much exactly what all of my friends are doing right now.
-Living for Saturdays.



if this weather keeps up, I'll just have to be happy all the time.

On nights when you can drive down the express way, and see the sun setting on the city;
When each building reflects the watercolors in the glass, and becomes a potential pillar of fire;
When the concrete is the same temperature as the bottoms of my feet;
When the trees reach up and crack the twilight sky with their branches like lead-based paint;
When I can see the stars --- I am happy.

Eudaimonia

Saturday. Saturday? Saturday.
Sitting in my bed at midnight on a Saturday is strange. I guess I sort of like it. We'll decide in twenty minutes when I try to fall asleep. Usually, at this point of my Saturday, I'd be drinking something, somewhere, with someone. This should work just as well. I'll end up in fundamentally the same place.

Tomorrow is Easter. This means I'll get up to go to church. My grandparent's will appreciate this. I'll get dressed up and be the most formal person there under the age of forty-five. Ambercombie seems to pass on holy days of obligation. It will be standing room early, which means I probably won't sit down. The upside; no need to genuflect. There is a new priest, who I will probably only listen to for the Homily. The rest of the time I will spend having an internal dialogue with god. We'll probably talk about how I haven't been there in a while, and God will ask me how many people found his house. He'll wonder why he didn't charge at the door, and worry he stocked enough wine for the party. We'll probably talk about how funny "the birthday incident" was. We try to keep it cas'.

Easter means I'm going to hang out with my family. The whole thing. Essentially this entails going to two different houses. Which houses is determined by size rather than cooking ability of the residents, which I don't understand fully, considering our entire meeting is built around food. The meals will be sub-par, but there will be a ton of food. Some of it will be eaten, more of it will be thrown away, all of it will be complemented ad nauseum. After the meal, I will retreat to a room unoccupied with my homework for the week and do as much of it as humanly possible. With any luck, I'll finish enough of it that I'll be able to go to Ryan's after I finish with my obligations. Or maybe I'll hang out with Brian. Or Patrick. Maureen will undoubtedly be doing homework, but I saw her tonight. This is fine.

Next weekend I think I'm going to try to be drunk by 11. This is primarily because I can do this within walking distance of a cheese double cheese. Assuming I can get most of my homework out of the way, I'll be able to fit in ample frisbee and trail running this week. These are the things I like to do. Also, tomorrow I should be getting a violin. Hopefully I can play it proficiently some day.

Today I had a breakfast cup. And Dairy Castle. Twice. Things are doin' alright.

"Upon further review, yesterday was perfect."

That is correct, sir.

I woke up, well rested, at noon thirty Saturday afternoon. Shower, shave, banana. Brian drove again today. I was looking forward to driving a little --- I like driving distances at night, and there was a chance that was going to happen. Still, Brian explained that it was all part of his master plan. Sparky needs to die a beautiful death. We picked Ryan up and headed towards Columbus. 71 runs straight through Cincinnati, so we decided to stop in to see Ben for a bit. The weather was fantastic. We got taco bell, and my order was four dollars exactly on accident. The midget behind the counter was amused at how excited I was about the price and he gave me a free soft drink.

We discussed summer plans, which sound like they might entail lots of driving to Cincinnati, and even more apartment parties. We also played with a ball in Ben's apartment, which should not have been nearly as much fun as it was.

We continued back on our way to Columbus. The venue we went to was very cool. It was a basement bar, and very intimate. Animals as Leaders was so insane. The lead guitarist was a black guy with an 8-string guitar. He was nuts. I loved watching him play because he would do these absurd runs on the guitar, and look so intense and suddenly he would look at the ground and smile as if he had just realized how amazing what he was playing was and he couldn't help but smile. Darkest hour played next, and they played an awesome set. They played The Sadist Nation, A Thousand Words to Say But One, Convalescence, Demons, two songs off their new album, and closed with Doom Sayer.

We walked out of the pit to the bar, and what do I see on television? UK loosing. Oh. My. God. John Wall and Liggens had fouled out, they were down by six and there was less than 30 seconds left. Oh, Bobby Huggins.

We drove back through Cincinnati and met up with Ben again. He used his ID and bought a case and talked our way into a party, which was fun.

It was a pretty great day, all in all. We hung out with Ben's future roommates and and stayed over at his apartment until this morning. Ben is coming back on Wednesday for Easter.

Deliver Us.

This is what I'm doing today. How about you?
God help you if you think you're ready.

Repost.

This is a recycled version of something at least one person already read. I'll add in new material to keep it fresh, but I liked a lot of it before. Most of it will be the same.

I've been talking a lot about dreams with people recently. Sleep is oddly satisfying, though it seems to me that I only get it in bursts anymore. 5 hours of sleep is considered a full night's worth --- for me anyway. My sleep schedule for the past two days? In bed by four thirty, just before the sun starts to peek out at the houses. Awake by eight. Stay up long enough to wreck the place. Back to sleep until eleven. Wake up, get dressed, drive to school, sleep walk for four hours. Drive home. Dinner at five, nap until six. Work at eleven, home by six, sleep until ten. Here I am.

I love sleeping because it comes so naturally now. There was a time I would go days without sleeping; as many as three or four at a time. It would always seem like longer. All the days and colors would start to blend together and my eyes would sag. Everything felt like it was second hand; like I was experiencing an echo of life, somehow. Now, sleep comes when I ask it to. I can sleep on command. Lay on my left side, count to fifty. Roll to my right, count to forty. Lose focus, regain focus, roll back to the left, flip my pillow, close my eyes, and sleep. Like the combination to a lock.

I wonder if where I am in the world has any effect on my dreams. South, at noon on a beach, when my pillow is damp with sweat, and my skin is crisp in the sun. North, at midnight in a snow storm, when my blanket cocoons me against prying cold, reaching to separate my bones.

Sometimes, just before I fall asleep, I imagine the world as a giant glass eye, that reflects us into space. I imagine that we are really something greater than layers of skin draped over feeble skeleton. That we are reflected so minusculely that something ital becomes lost in the translation. That maybe we are stars, or something greater than stars, compressed to an infinitesimally smaller size. The concept of being transferred into dust and sound; slowly resonating vibrations. And maybe dreaming is the appeal to our potential --- a state where we no longer have to negotiate the delays of time and distance.

Our minds are made up of principally the same things. We are all built from the same moving parts, and if I were to lay out on a table all the brains of all of your loved ones, you would not be able to separate one from the next. They are all just masses of cells; concentrations of atoms to make tissues and fluids. The firing of electrical signals. Atoms. Electricity. These things have tendencies, and maybe that is why we all have such common experience. We're all thinking the same things at some point or another, so what is the dividing line between where we are and collective consciousness? If space is nothing, and all that is between stars is space, then there is nothing between the stars. So do they touch? If space is all that separates my thought from yours, are they touching?

I had a dream about a girl who I never met. We were sitting on a bed that was mine, but wasn't, in a room that was mine, which I had never been in. I could see out into the neighborhood that was somehow familiar and completely foreign to me, and everything was comfortable. We sat indian style on the mattress and the covers pooled around our hips and touched my waist like ocean waves. She had a face I can't remember, but would recognize. A white cardigan, and a shirt which matched her dark-rimmed glasses. Green eyes behind corrective lenses. Shafts of light came through the window and landed on my lap. She said she could teach me to play the violin, and I told her I could bring her summer time. This all felt oddly heavy. I was in love with her.

When I woke up it occurred to me for the first time in my life that was I dreaming about someone I had never seen, or met, or heard of. I realized that this person was or will be real, almost certainly. Somewhere, sometime this girl is real. All of the people I have ever dreamed about are potentially real people with experiences and thoughts, and ideas, and lives entirely their own. But how do I know them well enough to visualize them? How can these people be real to me in dream, but not in consciousness?

Do they dream about me?

For the majority of my life I recognized dreams as arbitrary. Every dream was like an episode of Will and Grace; controversial, but mundane. Forgettable. Unimportant. My friends say they don't dream anymore, but I think that they just don't remember. One of them said that this blogging thing sometimes feels like talking to god. I sort of feel like maybe dreaming is like god casually talking back.

I watched waking life, once. I feel asleep, which I find some irony in. It was the most self-indulgent movie I have ever watched, and I hated every second of it.

if i made a video game, you would have to fight this in a boss battle.

Third blog in 24 hours.

Just some thoughts to close the day.
When I try to sleep, I wrestle with thoughts. I recognize how little I know about the people I claim to love; those I hold close to me. In true solipsist tradition, I don't know anything about anyone except how they effect me. But assuming they are real, they know no more about me. This both complicates and simplifies our relationships.

When I sleep, I revel in the moment just before sleep consumes me. I am, for a moment free from the gravity of reality, and the serendipity of my dreams. That level of freedom seems irreplaceable, but when I run at night, I get something close around mile three.

Life so far has been about progression. Graduate from first grade to second. From elementary school to middle school. From High school to College. What is next? Grad School? Law School? Something, surely. What yet, I'm not certain.

Basically, I hope what is dead stays gone, though. We can't go back to the past, no matter how much fun coloring may have been. Memories need to stay memories.

Something is building a house in my sinus cavity.

Windows work both ways

Allegiances are a complex animal, but somehow we all understand how they work.

People important to you seem to fall under the cloak of your charity and sympathy.
Those close to them are invited to join. Its a wonderful system we use to determine who we love and who we trust and who we praise. It simplifies things that are of such a complicated nature.

So what happens when people no longer fall under this veil of amicable thought? Well, a shepherd tends to his flock. The most permanent fixtures take precedents, and you hold up the weakest heads. I suppose you take it on faith that those closest to you were either left or leaving for a reason. It never gets any easier, knowing a shadow, and permanency almost never paints itself in shades of gray.

That having been said, current social standings have no effect on things I may have said in the past. I'm not much of a liar. I spent my childhood being lied to, and I would do well to stay as far away from that childhood as possible. What I say now relative to what I have said in the past is a function of where my allegiances lie. If this implies guilt, we are all guilty.

Even so, I have never spoken without evidence to frame my words around. And If you find yourself with a swiss army knife and a bottle of something, I can round up some spray paint and a new deck of cards.

Summer is so close I can Fucking Taste It.

I'm looking at my syllabi for my classes. I have about 8 of each class left before I'm done with this section of my life. That's four weeks. Spring Break is over, which is terrible. I'm looking at the papers that have page numbers and assignment's due dates, and I'm realizing a lot of these things were crafted to be worked on during the break. That is absolutely diabolical.

They KNEW better. They knew I wasn't going to work. Also, I think I may be sick. Which is so lame.

I'm listening to a mashup of Golddigger and Beethoven's 5th, which is less lame.

To Do List
read 105 pages of Clinch's Finn
read Singer's Utilitarian approach to world hunger (again? probably not).
8 Page paper analyzing theory of McCuller's plays vs. her novels.
figure out what the hell is going on in critical thinking.
shower, shave, and feel less shitty so i can go to work.

I promise I will type the best I can.

I am probably still drunk. I almost absolutely drove home; once by proxy, and once in my own car.
A recap is in order, I do suppose --- a summation of SB-0'10.

I am the best of friends; I am the worst of friends.
Some nights the 25 feet which your headlights illuminate becomes the entirety of the world, and on those nights. every pair of headlights belong to aan officer of the law.
This is alright, because on those nights Adrienne knows what I want, and is more than willing to help me find the son of god, or a bride to buy.

There are people I love, and worry about some of them. I am happy for others, and miss one or two. One more often than the other. I wish he would come back to us.

Also, I want to voice publicly (seeing as how im drunk (thats, right, double drunk parenthetical coherency)) that if my parents actually feel like my sister going to sullivan for nanny'ing is better than my putting myself through college (and eventually law school), and that a bowling tournament is better than ambition to complete the iron man competition, then fuck them. so hard.

i have grown so far beyond that; but it wouldnt hurt for you to help me out and say things to me.
i can barely read what im writing, and i can hear birds chirping more clearly than the keys pecking.

Chi City. Chi City.

Yesterday morning we went to Chicago.

The intent was to go see a concert that Brian had intended on taking a girl to. Seeing as how when he made the decision to take her when they were dating and she now has a new boyfriend (according to facebook), he decided not to take her. So, being the good friends we are, Pat and I toughed out a six hour ride in a car through three states to see Copeland, I Can Make A Mess Like Nobody's Business, and Deas Vail.

We made it to the hotel and went down to a park and ride and figured out the Subway System. We were standing on the platform at Rosemont when Patrick observed that we had left the tickets to the concert in the glove box of the car. The walk down the stairs and thirty feet into the parking lot just didn't seem worth the effort. After a (very) brief cost-benefit analysis, we decided that there were many things in life better than Copeland's farewell tour (which none of us really cared about anyway) and they were probably located in Chicago's Inner-city.

Copeland would have come on around 8:45. At that point, instead of standing in the Metro under a wash of light, listening to Aaron Marsh pour his guts out about how sad he was that Copeland was coming to an end just before singing "Control Freak" to a room full of heart-broken girls, I was sitting on the lower west side of Chicago in a pizzeria called Coal Fire, eating my portion of a White Pizza and a Meat Pizza while I listened to Metallica, AC/DC, and Ted Nugent drift ambiently down through the mood lighting. We had a waitress who was cute, and nice, but nervous. She looked like she had a black eye, and liked to fix Patrick's hoodie and whisper things to him about how much our check was going to be. We figured she was in her mid-twenties. She was closer to forty, apparently.

It was a relief to find out I wasn't the only one who didn't care about Copeland that much. I would have wanted to leave half way through the show, no doubt, if I were expected to stand there. With a table, chairs, and drinks, I could have been reasoned with, but not going was probably the best thing we could have done. We had an absurd amount of fun.

They call it "The Windy City"

Bock Bock

Bill and Ted had a time machine. All I have is this blog. We can work with it.

It is Sunday, somewhere around noon. I am approximately 2 hours away from inner-city Chicago. I'm going to see Copeland with Patrick and Brian. I'm okay with this. I am no more than three hours away from eating some sort of Chicago style pizza. Hopefully, this pizza has sauce on the top. Josh will be happy if it does. With any luck, We will approach the city skyline, and the windows will be down. We will be cruising at an average speed of 55 miles per hour. Seu Jorge's cover of Ziggy Stardust will be playing, and I will be happy.

This weekend should be fantastic.

Upcoming blogs:
Marketing of sports
The amount of reading and writing I have done this semester
Weezer, Pinkerton, and Rivers Cuomo
Irony and lying

Sometimes I contemplate dropping out of school and painting and drawing until I go blind. I was an artist once. Or maybe I wasn't. People hate other people who say, "I'm an artist."

We hope they treat you well.
We hope you don't work too hard.
We hope you get to be happy sometimes.

I had a friend that referred to himself as "Shook Deck" once. I doubt this is related. I miss him. We still talk sometimes, but not nearly as much as I would like.

Pink Floyd: Another Check on my List.

When I was 12 I owned four Pink Floyd albums. I wasn't sure why, but I had them. I listened to them, and I liked them, and that was essentially all that mattered. I had no idea that there were somewhere near 26 recorded products by the band. I didn't know anything about the members. I didn't understand the ideas of musique concr`ete. I didn't really get the point to a concept album. I was just amazed that a band could make an album with two tracks clocking in at a combined 26 minutes that I could listen to in succession and be absolutely captivated for the entire time. Even more fascinating is the fact that an entire album could sync up perfectly with a movie and then the creators of said album could deny the fact that they made any effort to do such a thing.

When I was 12, someone much older than me saw my four Pink Floyd albums and made the statement that Pink Floyd after Syd Barrett left was hardly Pink Floyd. I had no idea who Syd Barrett was and agreed because 12 year olds that deny you are so much less cool than 12 year olds that agree with you. Eight years later I would like to say that I firmly disagree with his statement and my own.

I've done some research. This means reading some reviews and personal accounts and watching videos and so on and so forth. I have, from this, determined that Syd Barrett may have been the most creative and inspired member of the band. I will even grant that he was the most important and influential member of the band, but this has nothing to do with his work with the band.

Three of Pink Floyd's best and most critically acclaimed albums (and three of the four I actually own) are Dark Side of the Moon, Wish You Were Here, and Animals. These albums were recorded and released in this same order. Dark Side of the Moon was released in March of '73. Syd left (or was removed --- I can't seem to find conclusive evidence either way) in '68.

Syd's departure from the band was attributed primarily to the fact that he was insane. This was a combination of preexisting mental problems (Syd was always sort of charismatic, apparently. But, you know, in the crazy person kind of way), and his recreational use of LSD after Pink Floyd's initial success. The Dark Side of the Moon is primarily about mental illness, hospitalization, the frailty of the human psyche, and the human condition. It would be nieve to believe that the leaving of Barrett had no influence on Roger Watters, who was a major creative force in the band, as he and Barrett had been childhood friends. In recent years and interview was published in Rolling Stone with guitarist David Gilmour. He suggested that a large part of their lyrics had been too indirect in the past, and they [then] should be more candid in their song writing. He suggested they discuss the hardships of their way of life, particularly the effects it had on their friend Syd.

September of '75 brought another release, Wish You Were Here. This album was written primarily by Waters. The album stemmed from some demo ideas such as "Raving and Drooling" , and "Gotta Be Crazy" and what would eventually become "Shine On You Crazy Diamond". These tracks were turned into an album's skeleton work by Waters, who felt the band lacked the comradery they once felt while Barrett was still a contributing member. The meandering preamble to the the lyrical body of "Shine On...(I-V)" is alegedly an homage to the progressively improvisational style Barrett was so much admired for in the early days of Pink Floyd. Moreover, the lyrics seem to reflect Barrett's situation, stating "Remember when you were young, and you shone like the sun?... Now there's a look in your eyes, like black holes in the sky."

The irony of this, of course, is that during the finalizing of the tracks for "Shine On", a strange, over-weight man with a pale face and shaved head and eyebrows (an image which would later be used in "The Wall") entered the studio. He inquired about Waters, and was after a few moments was discovered as Syd Barrett himself. This was the cause of great distress to many of the present members, especially Waters, who reportedly wept at the sight of his former friend and fellow musician. This was the first anyone had seen of Barrett in seven years. They sat, talked, and even asked Barrett to critique the tracks for "Shine On". He was ultimately unaware of the song's relationship to his then current state, which had been finished musically as well as lyrically. According to Waters, Barrett stayed and conversed with the band for several hours, but never seemed himself, or entirely there. This would be the last time anyone would see Barrett before his death in 2006. The title track for this album, "Wish You Were Here" expresses the longingness for the return of the once vibrant, creative being that was Barrett, and juxtaposes his absence with the idealist, romanticized nature of Waters.

In January of '77, Animals was released. This album featured the two tracks "Raving and Drooling" and "Gotta Be Crazy" reworked and renamed as "Sheep" and "Dogs", respectively. This album marked the turning away from psychedelic marketing, discussing primarily Orwell's "Animal Farm". The band, disillusioned to psychadellia by the state of Barrett, moved to a downtrodden area of Islington, known for its crime rate and racial tension. The hope of the band was to return to the scene which birthed them. During this era, Waters embraced what he called the "punk rock insurrection" and began working on the next album and the attached film "The Wall". Some cite the former relationship between Barrett and Waters as the catalyst for the more vulgar style adopted while writing the following albums .

I have 4 percent left of my battery. I think, though, that it is apparent my stance. Syd Barrett was possibly the most important part of Pink Floyd; gaining them notice, writing all of their preliminary material, and inspiring them all to create more extravagant works. Even so, the best thing Barrett could do for the band was lose his mind --- and so he did. Pink Floyd was most definitely not the same after Syd Barrett, but I think we're looking at this from two completely different perspectives.

Portraits of ourselves as demi-gods

I am and have in the recent past taken classes on ethics, metaphysics, and morality as a whole. This, no doubt, makes me an expert on all things of this nature. Prepare to be blinded by pseudo-science.

The less context you can give this, the better off it will be, and the cooler I will seem.

Basically, morality is a complicated animal. We can discuss a lot of things involving moral issues, and each instance seems a little different. We can talk about a lot of different facets of the moral right, and try to determine the necessity of a greater moral law. We can contrast objectivism and subjectivism. We can assign values to various levels of cognition. If you wanted, we could even talk about the differences between "want"s and "volition"s and the orders thereof. We could talk about maxims, and universal law, and egoism, and solipsism, and allegory. But I don't want to.

You see, you're reading this, which means two things; You're probably human, meaning all of these things are implied knowledge, and you know me, meaning you are a literate, intelligent being capable of navigating google in order to articulate this knowledge that I insist is requisite for living to the ripe age of say --- 20.

I would much rather talk about the way morality functions relative to relationships. This is pertinent to my interests.

(editors note: This is decidedly one-sided. I attribute this to my external genitalia. Sorry ladies.)

There are a lot of things we can discuss on the topic. It seems all of my friends have relationship troubles in some form or fashion. They are desperately lost. They are hopelessly abandoned. They are heartlessly ignored. They are suffocatingly crowded.

All my friends (for this discussion) are guys (at least most of the time).

People often make jokes about the simplicity that is the male mentality. Sleep, food, sex, and television. All things external to these four are unaddressed by our would-be prime directive and as such are unimportant. The fact of the matter is, there is an underlying network of relationship information and protocol which we have attained, a priori.

We are hard-wired for relationships, despite the fact that we cannot help but feel nature prodding us towards promiscuity once in a while. The need to pro-create and spread the seed is strong, but not so strong that we cannot quell the thoughts of straying with the thought of our wounded better half.

Dogs are qualified as "man's best friend" because man sees an unmistakable likeness between the two. Loyalty. Loyalty is the cornerstone of the male perspective in relationships. That's not to say that one must always be loyal in the definitive sense. There is forgiveness. All men and dogs may ask for is the attempt at loyalty. The illusion of remorse. The attempt at apology. A glimmer of faith. Such is enough for a man to hold his ground and weather even the worst a woman may have to bear. That having been said, a dog can only be beaten so many times before it responds with lax enthusiasm to the call of it's master. Much the same is the mentality of a man.

In my personal experience, you receive one real chance at loyalty. In relationships, I have been disregarded. Discredited. My trust has been misplaced. This, of course, only happens once. After the first offense, though I would remain, I am guarded. Absolutely, I still love, affect for, and all that jazz. But with one foot on the ground. As far as I am aware, most men are like this. Granted, I have friends who work their hardest to shed this standard and will willingly abandon their grudges for a chance at what once was, but even in their rare and beautifully trusting circumstances, I am willing to submit that there is always going to be a hint of reservation. And I am willing to argue that there will always be a final offense.

Why fight nature?

In my mind, there is a biological method to relationships. With each offense it is as if one were injecting a poison into the other. Though the body may sift through the blood and find the toxins and filter them as well as it is able, the blood will never be pure again. Toxicity rises, blood curdles, the body withers, and such things die.

We say what we mean and the rest we call love.

In moments of great distress, it is so easy for us to claim a moral high-ground. We can claim to be willing to do so much in order to gain so much more. When the time comes to own up to our claims, can we live up to them? Are we capable? Do we even care to be? Or are words such a sufficient substitute for action that we can say what we mean, but never mean what we say? Personally, when I die, nothing will be left of me but the words I have said, and it is my sincerest hope that those words echo the person I truly was and not the person I needed to be to get what I wanted. In the end, we all must evaluate the truth of our words and quantify them to measure the truth of our existence. We all are means and have means to an end, but I doubt that you can love the means while you lust for an end.

Morality is perspective.
I know, this is subjectivism, and to be ultimately true to morality, it must be unbiased and universally applicable. Even so, morality lies on interpretation of the scenario, and interpretation lies on the shoulders of perspective.

Perspective is a matter of time.

Some people are born with the capability to quantify all the possible outcomes of a scenario instantly (or at the very least, in an acceptable amount of time). These people are a step ahead of those who are a step ahead. We call them geniuses. Or sociopaths. Depending on if we like them or not. These people are the advice-givers. The manipulators. The prophets. They are the ones who know you better than you know yourself, and see your conclusions before you come to them. Some of these people appreciate their own foresight, and act wisely as a result. We consider these people "safe" (with a varying connotation). Some act without regard to their knowledge and these are the people we call "careless". And some people act without considering the consequences of their actions. We call these people "reckless". These people will never realize what will happen until after it has happened. Only then will they grasp the full impact that their actions held, and even then it is left to chance that they find they are alone responsible. This is a matter of perspective, which is a matter of time. Eventually people see the walls of the hole they have dug, even if it isn't until they are trying to determine the best way to climb out.

Morals are simply a matter of time.

Love is not a fleeting feeling. Love is not a moment of uncertainty. Love is not a distant memory. Love is not an instrument to fill your stomach, or steady your hand, or ease your breath. Love is the product of the work you are willing to give. You can love anyone you want, but never more than one person. Love is a feeling of majority.

Life is long. It is fast, but it is long. And it is by no means over for any of us. Hope, love loyalty, honesty, truth, whatever. It's there. And the way you spend your time looking, or not looking for any of these things is the truest measure of who you are as a person, or lover, or friend.

This wasn't about anyone specific, though I know people will see themselves in what I have written. If you read this far, I'm sure you won't have any trouble taking my sincerity on faith. This was a long one. But at least it was something to read --- whether you think it was worth reading or not. If it was coherent or not. If it was worth reading or not. If it was worth reading.

"no longer easy on the eyes; these wrinkles masterfully disguise the youthful boy below, who turned your way and saw something he was not looking for --- both a beginning and an end. but now he lives inside someone he does not recognize when he catches his reflection on accident."

I'm just waiting for a spring thaw. And a summer-night's thunderstorm.

something to read

This isn't anything official. I'm just sort of greasing the hinges, so to speak.

I've received numerous (2) requests/complaints about my lack of blogging this year. I will admit, I have been derelict in my duties. This is the first blog of the "New Year", unless you count my drunken rant about Fight Club and thunderstorms which I believe only one person saw. If you missed out on that display, imagine me, drunk as hell, cracking my ribs open in front of you. This is a fairly accurate representation of what it looked like, I'm guessing. I did not read it before I deleted it, though I'm pretty sure it said in the blog itself that I would leave it posted.

So I'm a liar.

A brief over-view of life:
I'm arm-pits deep in Kant with no one to talk to about it.
Plans for February have changed a lot. They have mostly decayed into "Drink at every opportunity. Do homework during any time not spent drinking."
I feel like I'm falling out of touch with some people. It's because I never can think of anything to say from all the damn reading and interpreting and transcribing and associating I'm assigned.
Oh, and shit is all fucked up.

Things I would like to write about in the near future, granted I get some personal time:
Marketing of sports
Pink Floyd in relation to Syd Barrett
Relationships
The Weather
My thoughts on the prospective Ultimate Frisbee season

Don't hold me to these.

Things I want:
Some free time
To play video games
buffalo chicken pizza (which i intend on making sometime this month, regardless of what plans are at this point)
a road trip
to buy something i dont need, but will inevitably make me happy
band practice
concerts
a good metal album
to destroy something beautiful.