Why The Hangups?

Ever turn around and look at the past couple of days and wonder: Ok, what the hell is going on and what that fuck am I thinking?

As only partial explanation: I find it strange to be a sex-positive person but to still have my own unique hangups that I can't even seem to control. Did I get so embarrassed today because of the cute boy ...or because of the vibrator he was telling me about?

More on this soon.

A Letter to Christina

Dearest Christina,

The speech is lovely, well done.  I can hear your voice when I read it and it is a comfort to know that the duty of it came to a person of such admirable quality.  I must say however, that the experience of your speech (for me) was different and, in a way, far from comforting.  It may be nothing more than envy and a special kind of sadness that brings this about, and while that is perhaps unfortunate; I believe, and I think that you will agree, that my emotions are valid.

The imagery in the speech is, in part, what does it.  I am jealous that you got to be there.  I am homesick for that sky, and that earth, the adobe, and those mountains, and the air that can be sharper than a knife.  Santa Fe is such a rooted and soulful place that so many of us shared together, that it just doesn't feel right not taking that final step as one, not finishing the dance; having the final note fall silent and the last word on the page gone missing.

Pre-Graduation: A review based on common sense

I don't understand the difficulty in having everyone on the same page.  Here are some steps:

1.  Shut everyone the-fuck up.  If everyone's talking all at once, then who is listening?  If you catch yourself yelling over everyone else, close your trap, get up, and start blinking the lights on and off.  When one sense becomes overloaded, switch to a different sense; audio to visual.

2.  If one person thinks that they are doing the most important job in the room and they're running on a single track mind, cut them from interaction with anything else going on.  Put them in time-out in the hallway and let them do their work there, where they won't be interfered with.

3.  Take a breath.  When silence comes, you only have a split second of actual attention.  Formulate the most concise way to express yourself and get ready to deliver.

Another [Broken] Box

“Author, why are you so fascinated with boxes, and containment, and structure, and assigned purpose?”

The reasons are so cliché I don’t want to put them on the page.  I don’t feel like they deserve to be set in ink.  That might give them power and I don’t know if I could control them after that.  How often can we hear the chorus before we can’t stand hearing the song?  Sure, the verses are different with every artist, but the refrain is sung all together:  This is the song that never ends, yes it goes on and on my friends, some people started singing it not knowing what it was and they’ll continue singing it forever just because this is the song that never ends . . . Maybe this feeling about the song comes from nearsightedness.  I want the future now.

I don't know what this is going to be about

Alrighty Darlings, let's begin.  I have had an interesting week and I realize that I haven't updated in a bit.  I've also been really busy, but enough with the excuses.  Here is another box for you:

We are going to see how our boxes are doing today.  You will go first.  Tell us:  what color your box is today, whether or not it has sprouted any new growth, if it has changed color, if it has died, if it is flowering, if it looks more or less wilted since yesterday, if you fed it yesterday, if its soil is moist or dry, if you are going to feed it today, if it has begun to smell.  If it is dead, or has just died, tell us:  if it is deteriorating, if it has now begun to smell, what it’s color is, whether or not other growth has sprouted in lieu of its death, whether its soil is still moist or has dried, if you will continue to water it, what you believe the cause of it’s death was.

More interesting stuff after the jump.

This is a box about a photograph.

Let’s see how I can focus.  Focus.  Focus.  Flash.  And now you are captured.  In an instant you are depicted in an unchanging state.  This box can be colorful, or not.  How do we escape this one if it is worth a thousand words?  Some of them must still apply, even now.  “Mexican”.  How does one escape this one?  “Male”.  I know this one is not “permanent”, but neither is “young”.  Assimilation or estrangement?  I am stuck in this photograph as I am stuck in the pieces of my life.  I do not want to escape from some:  male, brown, thick haired.  Others I want to rip through, cut out, erase, expose, develop into whiteness, or black, or grey.

The Third Largest, Something on Passion and Grief

One should reflect upon their life at moments like this.  I am on a train, underground, beneath the third largest city in America.  School brought me here.  From the south side of San Antonio Texas, the seventh largest city in America, to Santa Fe, New Mexico, a decidedly less populated place than I first thought, to the Midwest and public transportation.  I have been noticing when Chicago is mentioned in films and on television.  I think it is because I am trying to adjust to the circumstance of living here.  I think I am almost there, but I have been trying for seven months now.  Maybe it is because I have done what I did in Santa Fe.  I willingly changed my life to pursue school and found a job.  It's more than some, less than others.  I wonder if I will feel different when school is over and it comes time to go to school again.  I will say that I won't miss it.  I wonder if that will be true?  It is exhaustive this school thing.  I don't know if I was ever very good at it, but I slid through four years of it.  I don't want that to be how my life is after I don't have to worry about school.  I don't want to be able to "just get through" how I choose to live.

Passion is sought through the experience of moments and only when you stumble upon it, and label it after the fact, do you realize that you found what it was you were seeking.  An active moment of passion is life's orgasm.  That I am "passionate" about writing is not evidence of passion.  At times it may be an acknowledgment of passion previously experienced, or of hoped at passion.  A marker signifying experience at this or that point along the road and through the hills and valleys of whatever it is you were/are passionate about.

So what?  I was once passionate about playing music.  Look where that has taken me - a tour of the East and Midwest of America (and a survey of hospitality from each person and place that helped along the way) - but now music has no place in my life.  I played the clarinet in high school and then in college as part of my music minor.  I wasn't very good, or passionate enough to put forth the extra effort towards becoming better, and now it is a decidedly severed part of me.  I think I had to let it go with one last big, emotive hurrah.