heading to pilot mountain this weekend for a no-longer-surprise bachelor party (thanks Abe :-P) for Charlie. should be a good time. lots of loud tunes, guitar playing, maybe some mountain climbing. oh, and throw in a few of steph's famous pies, which charlie has a tendency to eat in the middle of the night while everyone else is asleep. we'd better watch him closely.

i lost my driver's license at the kings of leon concert. i thought that the will call ticket booth had failed to give it back to me, but i guess i dropped it somewhere, because someone mailed it to my parents, which i'm both amazed by and thankful for. maybe i should cave in and use a wallet instead of just shoving everything in my back pocket?

yesterday, i was craving a good workout. i mean craving it. i wanted to be on the treadmill, running to music. but it was my day off from the gym, so i refrained. now, today, it is a workout day (i run Mon, Tues, Thurs, and Friday), and i'm feeling a little less motivated. but nevertheless, it's time to go. i know that once i get into my workout clothes and throw on my ipod, i'll be good to go. "it's like a switch..."

i've been inspired to paint by a local painter. no one who (might) read this would know her, but she is the most talented painter i've ever met, and has never taken an art class. it blows my mind, and, honestly, makes me a little jealous. but i also believe that everyone can improve when effort is made to get better at something. so that's what i'm going to do.

just one more month and i'll be out of this apartment. my west coast friend has invited me to spend a few weeks with him, and i'm seriously considering it. everything feels so chance-of-a-lifetime lately. i love it.

tom passaro, equally empty, equally to be loved, equally becoming patient and complete.

kings of leon concert was amazing. the opening band, the walkmen, were pretty good, except they all looked uninterested in the fact that they were playing for a sizable crowd. i believe the lead singer was filing his nails at one point. but the music was good. then kol came on, and there was much rejoicing. and dancing. it was indeed a good time.

work was hard to get through. the first couple hours were easy, for some reason. then, i just had to keep moving or i'd start really slowing down. but i told myself that if i made it through work without coffee, i truly had given it up. and i did. and i have. i drank lots of water, and i felt fine. and it wasn't until a customer asked me about it that i realized that i haven't even had any caffeine headaches.

i'm being interrupted by conversation...

tonight, kings of leon con mi nueva amiga. tomorrow, opening at starbucks. it's going to be a long and short night.

one week, one day, and counting. no coffee. my life feels delicious. ran a treadmill 5k. other things that are blowing my mind and heart to happy pieces are in the works. brevity and patience.

day six of No coffee. i like this like bubbles in chocolate milk. i like this like songs i like without asking others if they like them too. i like this like coming to a conclusion about kerouac's spirituality. i've been told he was crazy and i believe it, and i also believe he was desperate and trying to die only after a good, lifelong search for meaning in everything. and this in itself is commendable. i find myself at once envying his open, humble, good spirit, but also feeling uneasy about his complete collage of religious beliefs. from his writing, it would seem he thought of himself as a Buddhist Christian, gleaning the peaceful, existential beliefs that he found in each religion to build his own system of whatever he wanted. It wasn't completely a self-serving compilation, but his ideas were created and arranged on a daily basis based on his experiences, revelations, and meditations. there is something calming and peaceful in some of the things he says, something pure and goodhearted, but there is also this feeling of incompleteness; a need to keep searching for what it is he is looking for. but he loved the search, the journey. i can tell that he was made to meander and ramble through the world. i think he was a Universalist. but i've only read half of one of his books.

the more i read about history, the less i like where this country is going. it is pastoralism (the past is better than the present/future). the past had it's own problems. it lacked a lot of things that exist today. i guess the most important thing to feel pastoral about would be whether people are improving or getting worse. for example, during the 1950's, Che Guevera and Kerouac hitchhiked with complete strangers for thousands of miles. i could be wrong, but i don't see that happening today. so maybe that's an example of something we've lost...faith in strangers, maybe even faith in friends and family? so what have we gained recently? where are we going as a human population? i hope i don't sound like a humanist, because i believe spiritual issues are at the heart of social issues. i just feel like there is a downward trend in people now. maybe it's the economy, maybe it's missiles being fired in korea, maybe it's wars and rumors of wars. maybe i'm just not rubbing shoulders with enough of this world.

i don't know. today, i'm just the fifth non blonde, wondering "what's going on?" personally, i would love to go to foreign countries and get to know people, see what they believe, talk to them, help them carry their groceries, paint their walls. but in today's world, i feel like an american overseas is just a big target. so the logical conclusion of a passionate person is to go anyway. all i would be leaving behind (besides family and friends) would be a growing mass of Targets, Walgreens, CVSs, RiteAids, and fast food restaurants.

this morning i woke up and made a egg, mushroom, and broccoli wrap for breakfast. the wrap was a jalepeno cheddar tortilla. i know it probably sounds gross, but it was actually good. i like broccoli in my eggs.

i also made my first hard-boiled eggs today. one dozen, to be exact. i think the fact that pepper is my favorite smell goes back to when my mom would make hard-boiled eggs when we were little. we would break them open and sprinkle salt and pepper on them. my mom would also put pepper in mac and cheese, which i still do to this day.

now i'm sitting here at starbucks, sipping some hot passion tea. i have to be at work in an hour and a half, but i don't mind that. it's a good thing. my new favorite thing to do at work is to shake up unsuspecting customers in various ways. all in good fun, though.

today is my fourth day without coffee of any kind. i would've thought i would miss it, but...really... i don't. i think what is weirder is that i don't know why i've stopped drinking it. i just did, last friday. the only motive i can think of at the moment would be my love affair with ice water. it's my favorite thing to drink now. and when i think of drinking coffee, i get turned off to the idea because of the acidicmouthbreathmess it causes. for the past couple weeks, whenever i would get to the counter to place an order for some coffee beverage, i was having a really hard time figuring out what to order. i kept thinking in my head: "some ice water would be good."

so that's that. it's a similar feeling to when you move out of a house or apartment. you might drive by it sometime and think, "i used to live there. i spent a lot of time there." but you don't live there anymore. other people live there now.

it could also be a symptom of something else. lately, i find myself impatient with mundane things. the monotony of certain routines and schedules. certain things were nice and comforting for a while, but just aren't enough anymore. so, i declare myself in a stage of cutting out and replacing, setting out and exploring, finding, creating, and learning.

an interestingly isolated weekend.

when your friends are unavailable, in what ways do you change? in what ways do you become yourself more than at other times?

why is every day now a microscope view into who i am? i seem to find good and bad things as i search. one thing i'm becoming contentedly convinced of:

...some people are born to roam,
some people they roam this world alone...

studies show that 1 out of 4 marriages are happy marriages. about half of all marriages end in divorce. i'm starting to wonder

why bother.

there are so many books to read. so many places to go. so many lines to write.

i know, i know. i'm thinking about all the pros right now. my nephew is a great example of why to bother.

i just....

must we make it so hard on each other?

[stands in the biggest grassy field you can imagine, alone.]

read an incredible section of the dharma bums last night. it took my mind off of something i've been worried about lately. it was the climbing of matterhorn chapters. for some reason, i could visualize it and feel it all. i could feel what japhy felt, his victorious yodalayheeee and i could also feel rays disappointment and fear and clinging to the crevice. and i could experience what morley felt, relaxing down below on the the plateau by the pond in the sunshine. i was there, i know this, because i wobble off my rocker a little more each day. each day i wake up searching again for all the pieces of everything that has scattered in my sleep. but i suppose it is normal, considering.

i'm not sure if i'm ready, today. i have a decision to make, but today feels early. i'm so scared for you is why. the embarrassing thing is that it doesn't matter if you pull the plug on a ghost. you have to understand my side of it, though. you have to understand that it has all been hard for me to believe. perhaps it was a short period of evidence in the long run, but condsider my reasons for hesitating. and yes, my decision is to call off the searches. it has to be. it is the saddest thing, and i almost hate you for making me do it. but the city has been sieged for too long, the people have been starved into surrender. you have hated me and i tried my best to ignore that fact, to love in spite of reason, or reasons. i promised infinite. i promised absolutely no conditions. and in return i have received abandonment and neglect. i am always willing to forgive an honest heart, and that has been my undoing, in a way. despite everything i ever did, felt, said, no apology, interest, or contact comes. it is unbelievable to me.

i have worried myself by gathering information from sources, but not any more. gee, today is the day after all. i have been kicked to the curb, and i'm not going to watch the taillights fade anymore. you had someone who was willing to grow, willing to learn, and wanted to be happy in this life with you. you have made it clear that i can't reach you, that you don't want me, that you don't need me. so this is where it ends.

yes, it may be sad that it took me over four months to get to this point. four months to realize a love and friendship is dead. four months to realize that this weight should be shaken off. four months to accept this emotional casualty. your behavior has been pathetic and selfish and prideful. but you are who are, and you are somehow happy to have lost my love and friendship. it is ridiculous, but it is finally how you wanted it. goodbye.

laissez fair

what makes the leaf turn is that
and that is something we forsaw,
holding your head above your neck
why must you run so headlong?
yes me wrong and wrong and wrong
and in these hands i hold our nothings,
the whole earth must find me the beast
for searching for your resting place?
your fire's inside and i have no right
to know or be anything, that is the
reason i find in your eyes,
that is how the fire would die.
you have no idea what you never believed,
i write these uninvited sympathies
afraid to swim too near or far,
you are my shoreline, you always are.

i finished reading guevera's motorcycle diaries last night. honestly, the end part of the diaries were choppy and a little bit uninspiring. it was like he faded too quickly from a traveling hobo to a political activist. but i suppose that sort of transition, in response to the poverty and conditions he saw, should take place quickly. but for the book, it was a little unsatisfying. and i am only talking about that warm feeling of resolution that often comes after reading the last page and closing the book. i felt like i had traveled the length of south america, only to be abandoned in venezuela.

today, i figured out how to eat mexican for under four dollars. yummy. and during lunch, my friend relieved my sense of isolation in my dream life. it may be subconscious, it may be random brain cells firing off through the night. maybe it is the body's way of forcing us to deal with things we are trying to ignore or forget. whatever the reason or explanation, i'm resolved to make the best of what comes my way. today, i feel happy about approaching myself and this world in honesty. i don't have to talk myself into forgetting things or rushing away from...i dunno, facts, memories, feelings. today, i feel like i can face it all and accept things as they are, even the possibility that perhaps tomorrow i won't be so strong.

but i'm starting to see life in a different way. a better way, i think. a few weeks ago, i told a friend that i was in "overwrite mode," as in overwriting a cd-r with new information. but now, i don't feel that way. in fact, i feel the opposite of that. now i see myself as a book. everything that has happened has been written down. it is there and is part of who i am today.

but there are so many blank pages ahead, and that makes me smile inside.

i do hesitate, unreasonably, though. i admit that i feel a pang of guilt about moving on to write new pages of my life, which may possibly include another love. this is unreasonable because the one i am afraid of being "unfaithful" to has long since given up on me. why do i feel like i need permission to fill new pages? well, the reason is obvious, i suppose, or to me, anyways. she was the first girl i really loved. the first girl who really understood me and challenged me to be a better person. after something like that, the idea of dating someone else who may not inspire me and get me is just dreadful. actually, the idea of someone else alone is dreadful. i fell hard, so i suppose i have a long way to climb.

i guess this post is a good example of my life these days. up and down, up and down. but i can accept that.

there is a possibility on the horizon. two weeks in riverside. a change of scenery. new places. new faces. opposite shores. i save my pennies, i kiss my quarters.

telepathy is an outlet

i'm pretty good at deceiving myself...for a while. whether it be a mask or a rug to cover the dirt. i can see now that it is a survival-mode instinct. men are men. men are tough. men are stone-faced. men snap necks and cash checks. men cut the ties that bind. wild horses and lonesome sunsets. campfire coffee and six-shooters.

but in all honesty (and i apologize for all this to you, reader), i'm a pretty sensitive person. in a relationship, i'm the kind of guy who is too nice. i'm the kind of guy who is probably annoyingly indecisive and overzealous to please. and i figured out the other day why this is.

i am scared to death of going through this life alone.

and so i tend to rush things in relationships. gotta hurry up and get to the place where things are stable and set in stone, especially when i find someone i really like and care about. i don't know exactly how this comes across to the girl, but i can imagine, and i'm not surprised now that i am alone.

as good as my intentions were to put my past relationship behind me and move on with my life, i've found that impossible so far. i spend a lot of time thinking about things, remembering ways that i acted and how my actions may have been perceived. some days the conclusions are very humbling. not surprising, exactly, because i knew all along that i am not perfect. but i remember certain situations, and my heart breaks for another chance to go back and do things differently. at the time, i always thought i was doing the best i could, the best i knew how. but in the end, the mess of it all is haunting.

you live and you learn, i suppose, but what have i learned? how have i grown, what sense of confidence have i gained? i'm not sure that i have learned anything, and i think, instead, that my sense of trust, hope, and confidence have been weakened. in this world, "i love you" may just mean "i have nowhere else to go". (and yes, i understand all the other factors.)

but still, i don't regret everything. i don't regret being a help to someone. some days it is easier for me to see it all as a balanced equation. some days i see the details, though, and it takes a lot of restraint to keep from yelling explanations and apologies out of my car window. my heart has always had a chamber where hope of reconciliation lives, where endless apologies and explanations reside. unfortunately, the only key to this chamber is no longer around. i promised unconditional love, and i give it every day. i have no idea if it is felt, but i send it anyway.

it may not always be so; and i say
that if your lips, which i have loved, should touch
another's, and your dear strong fingers clutch
his heart, as mine in time not far away;
if on another's face your sweet hair lay
in such silence as i know, or such
great writhing words as, uttering overmuch,
stand helplessly before the spirit at bay;

if this should be, i say if this should be--
you of my heart, send me a little word;
that i may go unto him, and take his hands,
saying, Accept all happiness from me.
Then shall i turn my face and hear one bird
sing terribly afar in the lost lands

-e.e. cummings

made a new mixed cd today.

my artwork arrived in california. anxious to read the writing.

reading the motorcycle diaries and lamenting the world we live in today. (ernesto guevera roadtripped the length of south america, on a motorcycle with his friend back in the early '50s. they stayed in shacks, tool sheds, garages, even an improvised lean-to against the motorcycle. you couldn't do this today. the world has changed. people have lost faith in mankind. where do you find hospitality among strangers today? for the most part, you don't; you find distrust and "security measures". and it is sad, because at this point in my life, i want to do this sort of thing.)

restarting my running training. i started off too...enthusiastically... and my knee let me know what he thought of that. so i'll use building blocks to get where i need to be.

lately, i feel as if my youth is fading, as if the adventurous, dream-seeking days are transitioning into middle-class mediocrity. the white picket fences are closing in. i am in control, to a certain extent, of this journey i am on. if i go nowhere, i am to blame. and i can't bear that blame. my days are limited anyways, so why is it that i fumble around with the controls and only daydream about actually...journeying. there is a world to see and understand, and if i don't make a break for it, i'll never know what i'm missing.

it is as i told my california friend.

a beautiful dissatisfaction is brewing inside me.

maybe all we can do is live the best mediocrity we can live. maybe only a small few ever rise above that. the dissatisfaction is with the day-to-day, and yet, the day-to-day is really all there is for us to tamper with. i do not live yesterday, or tomorrow. i live today. but in reality, there is no yesterday or tomorrow for me. i am a continual existence that exists for a relatively short time. whether i am awake or asleep, the time line of my existence makes progress in seconds, minutes, hours, days, years... these are the facts we face, and there are other factors. infinite factors.

y cuanto vive el hombre, por fin?

i stall. i muse on mortality when what i really want to do is be out wherever doing whatever is worthwhile and exciting and real. to be something to myself. to be something to others. to let others be something to me.

logically, i must leave now.

two nights ago i dreamt a vision that you might call a strange dream. i maintain that they are all strange insanities. but this dream, this bit of insanity, centered around the love of my life, who knows who she is. the plot was simple: i had to find where she was being hid. strangely, my family was hiding her from me. my father piloted a small blue aircraft, and was flying her all around the country trying to keep her from me.

at one point, when i caught up with them as they were about to take off, i stood on the runway in the path of the aircraft. the wings of the craft threatened to cut my legs in half, but i stood my ground. the aircraft took off, but somehow my legs weren't harmed. i believe it was because of that certain ability to re-dream a scene until it comes out in one's favor. and so my legs were saved.

i followed the aircraft to its next landing. finally, at last! my family yielded and told me i could find my love in a park across the street. i began to run across the street in a passionate haste. not seeing her immediately, i turned around to see if i had started in the wrong direction, but my family was already walking on to some other business. i started again to the park, in a desperate search. i began crying from inside my heart to my lungs to my chest to my mouth to my eyes. i couldn't see her.

there were others there, other people playing games, walking in the grass, talking next to trees. and then! there she was! sitting in the grass, waiting for me to come to her. i choked with tears and ran with all the heart a man has ever run with. i couldn't get there fast enough! i fell at her feet and crawled to her slowly. i wept with joy. i wept for a restored love. i wept for a dream fulfilled. i raised my hand and pressed it flatly to hers. to touch her hand again! tears ran down our faces as we felt an emotional sunrise—a love that once was, that was lost, had been found again and was already soaring like never before. we knew it and felt it and cried because it was a beautiful thing, a comforting whisper that all would be ok, that we were where we were supposed to be.

in my younger days, i would take some meaning from this sort of dream—a dream that comes at an odd time and obliterates my emotional and mental stability in the waking day. i would make all sorts of assumptions about its meaning, thinking—hoping—that it was some sort of sign. i would let my unending supply of romantic hope run wild inside my head and heart. perhaps i would even make an attempt to contact the person who had appeared in the dream.

but, these days, i know what dreams are and what they mean, as revealing as that is to say. they are strange insanities. they contain everything, fact and fiction, that i have experienced or can imagine experiencing. they contain the deepest hidden truths about me, and they contain absolute lies. my passions and my fears might be revealed in dreams, but dreams also exist in disconnected realities of their own. i may dream that i am in love, and it may actually be true. however, i may also dream that i am a tiger walking lazily near a river, and, while asleep, believe this with more faith than i believe anything when i am awake.

dreams may be comforting, enjoyable, delicious, beautiful. dreams may be terrifying, grotesque, vulgar, disconcerting. no one knows what they will dream when they lie down to sleep. dreams are steered by a randomized autopilot and a weathered sea captain at the same time. they are like real life and not like real life at all. ...this is how i sleep at night.