Closer than ever before

Just 54 more days until I'm graduated with a degree. Life up to this point seems to verge on maddness. I've been stranded on the side of the road at 3 am. I've witnessed incredible Accidents involving Semi trucks and automobiles almost weekly. I've seen apparitions in my rear veiw mirror. I've driven right into the middle of a police action involving hostages. I've lived through weeks of only 20 hours sleep for the whole week, working 18 hour days and not even a dime to my name. I've been pulled over numerous times for sleeping at the wheel though never cited. All of this in the past seven months. I feel that once I'm graduated I'll have accomplished one of the greatest feats in history. My personal history anyway. Even though this feat does not stand in competition with the conquests of Cortez or the voyages of Magellan it has forged character into my heart. A boxer when he has fought an opponent 12 rounds taking punches that have rearranged his organs he is said to have a lot of heart. Even though it might be a bit conceited I have to say that it has taken a lot of heart to make it this far, but after this next step into the world I pray to God that my heart does not fail me.

Benny Hinn: Let the Bodies Hit the Floor!

Benny should be a pro wrestler.

A pot of gold at the end of the rainbow

Being young is really the most beautiful thing. Your trust in humanity is complete and hope for the future is bright. You never worry where the road ends. As the years grow we follow it's yellow bricks and burn our bridges behind us. The future always seems so far off ahead of us surreal in it's importance. As the smoke from the bridges of our past loom over us the people we have burned along the way seem so innocent of the pain we caused them.

I've forgotten the songs that I would write. I have forgotten the loves I would write them to. I can't remember their names or how they captured my soul. My dreams are desolate these days. I close my eyes but what I see isn't beautiful. I'm always color blind in these dreams of deafening silence. The person I was at the begining of road is locked away in my dreams. He is there always doing whats been done; never changing what was. I've seen those eyes a million times. I can no longer tell where I end and I begin.

Looking down on judgement

Do you ever get those times when your problems seem to just get bigger and bigger? It's like you'd like to just move away and change your name just to be rid of all of it. Despite my best efforts I've made some stupid mistakes the past couple of days, and months, but life is unforgiving. No matter how sorry I am I pay recompense for my stupidity. There is no mercy for the guilty. There are those days that when my alarm goes off at 10 am I want to just roll over and forget the world and all it is. Reality is subjectively real. It is dictated by your state of mind. If your state of mind is different from everyone elses your said to be "out of touch with reality." However individual reality is dictated by what you have percieved or been told to be true. Lifes decisions are delicate. Small ones affect big ones later in time. The thing that is killing me about this is that I know what to do, but I'd rather just be miserable than be what it would make me. I can't stand being by myself right now. I think I'll take a walk.

"You still wake up sometimes, don't you? You wake up in the dark and hear the screaming of the lambs."

When I was a child I would wake in the night and be afraid of the darkness. I was afraid of what I saw in my imagination. Afraid of what was in my mind. I've been acutely aware recently that society as it is today and in recorded history have been fascinated with darkness and all that is in the dark. I heard a story on the radio the other day about a man who obsessed with "Freddy Cougar" from nightmare on Elm st. made a razor sharp claw like "Freddies" in the film and slashed a sleeping man. In ancient time they made legends and myths about evil creatures that killed and destroyed and sacrificed animals, even humans to the gods to protect them from these beings. We today make movies and write books about horror and grotesque beings and spirits. Millions, maybe billions, of men and women every year flock to theaters and bookstores to feed this fascination of the dark. We as a society analyze, study, and sometimes even honor criminals and psychopaths. Is there an effect of this fasicnation on society? What is this force that drives society to seek out the darkness? To seek out the dark places of the mind? Growing up in a superstitious religious community that believed that Satan, a fallen angelic being, was the force behind this eclipse of darkness in our society. Personally I tend to believe that in the ongoing search of man finding himself and who he is the dark is a reflection of our minds and desires. This assumption though presupposes that man is basically evil and is himself a fallen being. This point is widely debated among philosophers and theologians with whom my thoughts are of no consequense. Even so if man is basically evil why does he find satisfaction in seeking out the darkness? Is it affirmation of himself; the foundation of his being? Are we really just looking at the darkness in our imaginations? In our minds?

Home,.....home where I wanted to go

Writing this blog is like therapy for me. I have all of these thoughts on life, indirect questions, rants, and memories that it's good for me to write them down somewhere. I used to keep a journal on and off from about the age of fourteen. There are a lot of funny, strange, painful, and even sad memories in those pages. It's funny whenever I get the urge to read through one I usually can only read like two entries before I just kind of zone out and playback in my mind what those days were like and what I was feeling at that time. One thing that I've noticed about myself is that no matter how great I would be feeling one day the next day or two I'd be writing about how much life sucks and vice versa. My life has changed so much yet so little in the past seven or eight years. They say hindsight is 20/20. It's hard to see yourself in the big picture of life and the story of the world when your living in that moment, but take a step back and look at what has been. There were crazy times I came so close to crashing and burning and then there were weeks that I'd spend staring at the ceiling reading latin prayers. I'd write about pretty much anything and everything. It's kind of ironic how years make the moment clear in our minds. An edited entry from August 16th 2002 about a girlfriend I had: "Oh my God, this hurts like hell. I had that dream again where you were lost for good in space. A waking nightmare that is only worse when I am sleeping. Your just someone I used to know now. I never told you that it's not so easy, caving in. Your eyelashes falling and wishes washed away. Bottle up the rain my dear and keep the color in your hair. And get to church cause you're a good girl. It's not so cold out here in the fall only in my dream. Go to sleep now and forget about her man. This only makes it worse. Listen to those hazy eyes." It's crazy I can still remember that day. This girl that I had been dating told me that God told her that we had to breakup because we had made out a few times. I think it was her parents though now that I think about it. Looking at the big picture in hindsight I always seem to get where I'm going.

Teenage angst has paid off well.

I have those days when I just hate my mediocre life. I'm sure most of you have felt this at one time or another. For me it's that I see other people doing so well and talking about all the good times that quite simply I'm envious. I'm tired of always being so close yet not close enough. I know the last page so well. I just can’t see the first. So I just don’t start. People say that I have no life, because I'd rather stay home and drink than hang out with perfectly fine people(girls). I'm becoming a cynical bastard. I'm rude, even a bit of an asshole, to those girls that are attracted to me. Why? It's a valid question. I really don't have an answer. My friends, family, even complete strangers think that I'm just going through the "drinking anti-social" stage. You know? But I'm not going "through" a stage. I'm stuck right in the middle of one and I can't see a way out. It's an endless cycle. I just say "Come on out. We’ll both get right off of our heads and float up off the chair. We’ll go on vacation tonight under a sun of neon light. I almost love this town when i’m by your side so I’m putting this night down to bed. 'cause I was sitting at the bar hoping I was dead. You'd walk in the door and there'll be no more waiting no more. You melt all the ice in my head. You woke me from a long sleep and i’m almost back closer than ever to finding those secrets. If I told you the truth you wouldn’t like what i said. I get secrets at night but they don’t stay. I get secrets at night but then they go away. They'll fall off my lips into yours. I'll find them locked. Locked not like all those open doors. Forgive yourself in the morning when the day can see. But I need no forgiveness when my bed is empty."