NOTE:

I want to fade away into rock and roll oblivion, engulfed in the sounds, washed away on the waves.

END NOTE.

-ccm

"It's important to practice good hygeine,
at least if you want to run with my team.
I'm about to get into some shit that I've seen"

Sitting.

It's 3:27 as I write this first line, which isn't the first line.
Class is at 2:30. I've got some time to kill.

So I've been thinking about the whole lady thing. Maybe I should follow the grand(e) advice that I recieved long ago from someone very small, but with a big spirit and good fashion sense, and befriend the ladies. It works out a lot better that way, and honestly, for someone like me, that's more of what I want.

Ass is nice. A relationship is better.

Ass. Ha.

But hey, form over function, so they say. I say that because I'm making very liberal usage of skipping lines here to suggest sarcasm and verbal pauses. Man, I'm just feeling funky like Del right now. So on to the day:

I convinced a girl to become an Anthropology major. It didn't take too much pushing, but she needed to meet someone who was really into it, and not a fairweather major. I love the stuff, and I hope she got that impression. I'm lending her some books to try and give her an idea of the more out there stuff she will encounter. No one really knows how out there it can get. I don't even, and I've been at this for a good 3.5 years, thanks to that high school class.

Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck your mom.

Now my blog is more foulmouthed than Caitlin's away messages.

Can you believe the language that she's begun to use? Who knew that girl knew all of those dirty words? Where has the wholesome Caitlin, who used to yell at Chris and myself for cursing, gone? Oh how the times have changed. Ever since she tried that crack cocaine, she just hasn't been the same.

Just kidding.
On second though...
ever wanted to get high?
No?
Lame.
Let's go get wasted?
Too low?
Go.
Class is in session.

What was that? Don't really know, just letting the thoughts flow out, much like I used to way back in the day, when I used to write. I've never been one to edit, to go back and reformulate my thoughts. I figure that the most emotion comes with the first iteration. The first thing that you say is what you really want to say, or else why would you say it? Why would one say it if one didn't think it, mean it? Never edit, it takes away the force that you want to convey. You can fix spelling, but don't change your thoughts and the intensity. That's where the powere really comes from, the intensity that you put into a work. Don't change into jargon either. Say what you want, and say it plainly. Why make up a word when you can just say what you want to say so that everyone can understand it? That's a problem Anthro had. They got so jargon heavy that the once large following of anthropology was scared off, and has never come back. Jargon is the death of popularity. It may take away meaning to some, but really, there are a thousand ways to skin a cat.

I prefer to do it with a knife though. Easier than with your teeth. That just tastes unpleasant.

out.


-ccm

(lyrics by Del tha Funkee Homosapien)

"L A T E R that week"

Caitlin's away messages are getting more risque by the minute. Soon she'll be posting naked pictures of Freddy Funk and Tiger Woods.

That aside, today looks like it very may well just crush my soul. But I have a saving grace: java. The cup o' joe will save my day, keep me going, and let me conveniently crash when the time comes, later this night. Class in a half hour, and then paper time, then another class, a research outline to be constructed, and then another class. I hate Monday night thesis seminars. A lot.

But as tired as I am, I still have a drive. Not a big one, but it's something, and it'll help me keep going. I want to do some of this stuff, and the other stuff I can just suck it up for.

On a bright note, I said "hi" at the girl. My "hi" didn't connect, it would seem, skimming off of her starboard side and splashing harmlessly in the concrete near the library. Undaunted, I pressed on.

Ok, someone you like not returning a simple greeting is so depressing, but yet I find it wildly amusing. It must be the writer in me, but it just seems so soul shattering that it has to be funny. Call it a defence, but man, you don't sink lower than that.

I love a good story, or at least something that I can potentially recycle in a scene or a play. Wouldn't that little tidbit be great in something concerning the worst day ever? To quote the Kool Aid Man, "OH YEAH!"

(lyric from that "Steal my sunshine" song, I think it's by LFO or some 3 letter acronymn)

No lyrics this time.
Why?
Because I just wrote the words to the first song I'm going to try and compose. This could be interesting.

On a totally unrelated note, my parents are back from France.

On another unrelated note, my great aunt rita is just about ready to head out west, so to speak...probably this week.

I'll plan on absences.

Still, I am undaunted in my awesome outlook.

-ccm

"It's lollipop time with you"

So yesterday rocked beyond all estimation, and today is going to be the best day of my life. (HA)

Tim and I decided to go to a They Might Be Giants show, kind of spur of the moment. He knew their songs, but is not and obnoxious fan like myself, so he was psyched, but not insanely. Well, we don't have tickets, and we head to New Haven in order to see the show and procure our entry passes. We wait around on the street in front of Toad's Place with all the hipsters and the nerds. We see a small girl who can kick over my head. She says that she used to do Tsang Tsu Do, or however you spell that, and that her dad was a marine. When someone's dad is a marine, that makes them tough, you know how it is. What bullshit. Anyway, we get into the show at about 7:30, let's say. We mill around until about 8:30, when this man comes on stage. He resembles Meatloaf in looks, except he has an accordion. He is Corn Mo.

Corn Mo is an interesting performer. His songs are manic in the most manic sense of the word. He has an insane amount of energy, and I think can be seen as outsider music. Amazing voice on that cat though. But man, his accordion playing was awesome. There was a guy who kept yelling for freebird throughout the first half of the show. It gets so bad that Corn Mo just spends 5 minutes berating this guy for yelling for that song, and then he plays it. Freebird, on an accordion. Not the full thing, but a good part of it. How badass is that? Maybe not badass, but awesome.

After Corn Mo, more down time, and then TMBG came out, and rocked it as hard as they usually do. They played a lot of newer stuff, but I must say that it really sounds good live. They did play a lot of really awesome tracks. They played "Don't Let's Start" which rocked my fucking socks off, and they closed the show with "The End of the Tour", which was amazing and made me laugh. Any time a show closes with the line, "And we're never going to tour again" I'm wildly amused.

After the show Tim and I hung around for a bit. I was wearing a ConnColl Freshman Orientation shirt, and a kid comes up to me and asks if I go to Conn. I say yes, inquire if he does, and find he does not. He did however see TMBG live there, at Floralia, in 1999. How much does that suck? Why can't they come by again? That would rule. Probably the last good band we've had here. In a funny twist he asked me what my major was. I said Anthropology, and he said, "Dude! I have a friend that graduated from Conn with an Anthro degree. He's unemployed...well, not really...he just started this new job selling switchboards or something..." I said everyone has to start somewhere.

Tim goes to the bathroom. Dan Miller, TMBG guitarist walks by. Tell him nice show, he says, "Thanks Bud." and walks away, trying not to draw attention. Tim comes back, we go to meet Corn Mo.

Corn Mo is imposing and commanding on a stage. In reality he's about 4 foot 9 and nervous. Said that I play accordion too, and he told me about this Rock Accordion Festival that some guy he knows runs. Shook his hand, introduced Tim, talked about our notion for a band, and he said if we ever get up and running to give him an email, maybe get in on that big accordion fest in the sky.

Who knows if it was the truth, but by god, it inspired me. Reading and intending to practice very hard from here on in.

On an aesthetic note about Toad's Place, the Iron Wall of Rock is gone. They redid the place. In the past the drinking area, or bar, was seperated from the main area of the stage by a chain link fence. This fence ran from the stage to the back wall of the club, and was awesome in its old school feeling. They have now ditched it in favour of plexiglass and wood. It looks pretty, but it's just not the same, at all.

Tim stole Linell's coffee cozy. You know the cardboard thing that goes around a coffee cup? That thing. It was sitting on his keyboard table after the show, and I was joking how that would be the uber nerd souvenir, and after I went to the bathroom he presented me with it. How awesome. I plan on really playing it up, possibly framing it.

And to cap that all off, I got accepted into the Worlds of Warcraft closed beta test. Who knew? I never win anything like that, and by win, I mean get selected for. What that means is that I get to test a video game before it's released. This is the second wave of beta testing, so hopefully it's not incredibly buggy...but I'm just happy to be there.

Going to try and talk to SOMEONE today.

"I wish you were my home"

(lyrics by Corn Mo. Check him totally out @ www.cornmo.com)

-ccm

"This is killing me"

I want to do so much right now, but I'm worried about some stuff, nothing really. You may notice this, but I'm just going to type what comes into my head at this moment, the instant of this occurance. Probably spelled that wrong. I got drunk at a party, 2 nights in a row, a new record for our hero with the once pristine liver and kidneys. The first night was fun, as was the second night, except for the piece of chicken mcnugget that lodged itself in my nose when I threw up, but I've been there before, except then the cause was "the slingshot" and the meat was a hot dog. Yum. The thing that bothers me though, the thing that really burns me up, is that the girl i like was there. She was here, literally standing above my head and a few feet over. She existed in the domicile that I call home, and what did I do? Talk to her? Tell her about all the crazy things that I think, woo her, etc? NO. I did a shot of tequila, then another, and another...soon enough I was gone. Just out of it. And then she left. That's the worst. When something like that happens, a thing that depresses you. I spent the rest of the night lamenting my choices, drunkenly. It was sad and heartwrenching, if you are me.

But what the hell. There's always tomorrow. And let's be honest, there is no way that this is going to work at all.

But on the bright side, I'm going to try and see TMBG tomorrow in New Haven. That would make it my 3rd time seeing them there. It would also mark the first time I would be seeing them without someone named Shannon in quite a long time. I really like that band a lot, and John Linell is the reason that I started playing the accordion.

Things are crazy.

I emailed her today, the ex, told her about my life. Part of me is wondering about her life and wants to hang out with her, but there is another part of me that knows that it would never work.

Pleasantries exchanged, the two pass into the darkness that is the world. Nothing more shall pass betwixt them, only more pleasantries, empty of meaning, devoid of emotion. Not devoid, restrained. Everything is loaded from that moment on. Nothing can simply be, there always has to be some motive and drive behind everything that comes out, that is said. Things can never go back. Forward is the only direction, and like the kamikaze, we plummet towards the target with reckless abandon. Oh what a feeling of freedom the suicide pilot must feel. To be flying, to have total freedom, not having to care about anything else other than flying to one point. Harming yourself, harming others, it all does not matter. All that matters is the flight, the arc, the trajectory towards the target.

In my thesis, I am a kamikaze. I have motivation and don't care what I have to do. It will get done. It has to. I will tear through this campus to find what I need. Observe and participate, I will. No matter what needs to be done, from this day on, I am kamikaze, flying towards that deadline in May.

"Ich heisse super fantastik"

(Radiohead up first, followed by Franz Ferdinand)

-ccm

"Karma Police"

It's late at night. I went to bed really late last night, was up early, and was out, as in not returning to the apartment, for 12 hours straight, thereabouts. I am drained emotionally and physically, from what I don't know, but right now I could almost cry, though not really.

I am on a down right now, like the kids when they toke up. A girl named Leigh was once talking to me about drugs, and she tried to define this feeling of infinite emptiness that fills you when you come down. I'm feeling the drug free version of that right now. There is just some space inside of me that I need to fill. I think that it has to do with human interaction, the old angst from yesteryear coming back to haunt me. I think I need a girlfriend, but will that really be the answer? A large portion of me thinks so. I mean, there is just a sort of comfort in having another person around, right? Makes sense.

But the other gnawing aspect to it is that I really am unsure about the future. I don't know what goes on after this year, and already it is flying by. I see my friends, close ones, and I think that I will stop seeing them regularily next year. I think of how their lives will be after I leave, and though that sounds self centered, they won't be the same. I'm there for some people, and then I won't be. It's crazy. It's like modernity creeping up on the tribe in the wild.

But then I think that things will be okay. Things never change that much, when we come down to it. People come and go, and we live on. Phil left, and now I have no one to watch wrestling with or talk to about it. He was a sort of anchor for me, and a good friend. I don't see him at all anymore. It's part of the college experience. You make good friends, and then you never see them again. You keep in touch, but you don't hang out like you used to. It's all nostalgia after a while. You see it in the old friends you've had for years. The new experiences are always overshadowed by the times past.

Time rolls on, slowing for no man, nothing at all.

"You don't remember, you don't remember! Why don't you remember my name! Off with his head man, off with his head! Why don't you remember my name, I guess you do!"

The ex IMed me, in passing a day or two ago. It's funny how you just don't think of a person as a person anymore, and then boom, there they are again. It made me think about where she is, and what she is doing, or should I say, who. The former is always curious about the latter, and when you completely lose touch with a person, you wonder about all aspects of their life. Hell, I don't even know how to get in touch with her anymore. Does she still have the same email? Phone is out of the question, and the me of today doesn't want that.

In a bit of pent up rant, I just want to say that this is one of those situations where we were saying we would be friends after the fact. Cut ahead 6 months after the break, and I make a friendly gesture, offering coffee to catch up and see how life is. She freaks. She's always been skittish, just like the album. So being in Japan, I vowed. Fuck her. I had basically refused to get really angry the whole time after the break, but then I did. Really angry. It was a realization that I knew this person for the better part of 3 years, and suddenly she wanted nothing to do with me, even in a platonic sense. She didn't have the balls to say it outright, so she would give vague answers. That bothered me.

I'm a hypocrite though. I'm vague as all hell, but I was always honest with her.

"We don't need no water, let the motherfucker burn, burn motherfucker, burn"

I'm on fire right now, but in a very controlled way, unmoving and contained. My brain is clear right now, I notice nothing but the tactile sensation of the keys below my fingers. I see the letters forming words, listening to other words, and knowing that in words, the words that I write, I can express myself better than I ever could with spoken words. In type people don't talk back, so I'm not afraid.

"If man is 5 and the devil is 6, then that must make me 7: this honky's gone to heaven"

I'm done.

-ccm

(first two by radiohead, last two by the bloodhound gang)

"I'd smoked my mind the night before
With cigarettes and the songs I'd been pickin'
But I lit my first and watched a small kid
Playin' with a can that he was kicking
Then I walked across the street
And caught the Sunday smell of someone's fryin' chicken
And it took me back to somethin'
That I'd lost somewhere, somehow along the way."

The loss of creativity is something to be lamented to the greatest degree. Something I just realized while sitting here, feeling really sad for no reason at all, other than that I was intending to stay up all night to work, but I aborted that mission. I am now coming down off the caffeine, and thus feeling low. Psychological effects of chemical dependance.

Love would be nice. That would be very nice, but is it really love that I am looking for? Is it just having someone there, a body of some sort? Who can really tell until one is actually living the situation, the immediateness of company tells all. Ideas are nice to chase, but reality always creeps in. Something must be done to make visions real, and something should be done, otherwise the effort is wasted, any effort wasted, it all wasted.

Movement is needed. Kinetic energy was always my favorite, thanks to a cajun man named Gambit. Comics are funny like that, but I also have a penchant for potential energy. It's more dangerous. Potential energy to me is the bowling ball about to fall off of the shelf onto your head. All that energy is just waiting to be unleashed, but it's not going anywhere. Yet. The yet is the biggest factor of them all. When that energy is released, there is trouble, but it is in check.

Potential energy is temper.

But what is it all.

I spoke to Kyle for a while today, randomly coming across him in the Blackstone common room. Always liked him. Great sense of humour on that kid, very easy going, and willing to take that step to the absurd with me. Never really had issue with him in the slightest regard. He's a kid I don't know overly overly well, yet can joke about very freely with. He's tall and goofy, but just awesome on all fronts I can think of.

Fetching, isn't he?

I work at the coffee grounds on thursday nights. I am working with Rachel, who is a million tons of fun to hang with. Just so much energy there. She's just a kick to hang with. Very open, chill, and I get to make coffee when she's around. Not that the two are overly related, but I love coffee and the construction of drinks relating to that magical bean. Mmmm.

Living across the street makes me feel very detatched from campus activities, and I think that it's going to hurt some friendships I've had for a long time. I find that people aren't as open as they once were to me. Oh well. Things change. Entropy, you know?

By the way, I love being morbid. Life's a lot funnier when you can laugh at it all. Keep harping on this point, but really I love it. The morbidity, that is. It's not even morbidity, it's the absurdity of life. I live that word. I LOVE the absurd. The stranger things are, the better. If you can laugh at the worst of it, you can get through it all.

By the way, I hate "art fag" types. Not that they are gay, but that's the 80s terminology for the kids. "Indylectuals" is more modern. These are the kids that are all about looking distressed over nothing. THey are about an image. Constructed identity, I say. You can look like anything you want to, and still feel the same way about the world. I dress the way I want and I act the way I want to act, but damnit, there are these kids that just have to look all annoyed and pissed all the time. Then they act all smart. Man, I'm smart enough, but I don't go rubbing it in. We've all read some Marx man, but you don't hear me quoting Das Kapital all the time. It's just a general annoyance with some people. You don't need to go out of your way to be interesting, just be yourself. Stop dressing like everyone else and do something that is REALLY artistic. You know what I'm talking about...none of this "oh life is hard shit"...do something that evokes an emotion. You can talk about how hard life is, but do it well.

(not even sure where that rant came from, but I know that it applies to all sorts, myself included. Perhaps it is some sort of self hating thing or something, but whatever. It's too early in the morn for this shite. If you are offended by this thing, talk to me.)

You can have a play about the lack of food in the world, the hunger in Africa, America, everywhere. You can be desperate and down, but in the end you'll reach more people by having someone getting hit in the face with a pie. The pie gag will appeal to more people, but you can layer it with meaning.

"Well I shot a man in Reno,
just to watch him die.
When I hear that whistle blowing,
I hang my head and cry"

I hope they buried Johnny Cash in black.

-ccm

(lyric by Johnny Cash, the first, "Sunday Morning Coming Down" is honestly one of the sweetest, saddest songs ever)

"Couldn't say where she was coming from,
but I just met a lady named Dinah Moe Hum"

Right now I'm wearing a mask. Not a metaphorical one, but a mask of vanity. Once again, not being symbolic, but I am actually wearing a cosmetic oil cleaning skin clearing mask. I feel very...um...gay?

I don't mean that in a derogatory term, or anything, but it would be how the middle school me would describe this, or how my friends would. Yep. Liberal arts college. It'll do it to you. Haven't done this since I had a girlfriend. Suddenly I'm sort of conscious of my appearence, something which I have been pleasently ignoring as of late. Thinking of shaving the beard, and perhaps getting a haircut, or even more drastic, dying my hair. Would not be the first time, but it would be something indeed. Probably a good idea to cut it short THEN do that. That way it can grow out some, and look kind of funky. Or something.

Time to wash off the mask.

More vanity to come.

(lyrics from Frank Zappa)

"Sitting for lunch in a square in this town (this town that I'm new to),
new fellow from my new town sat me down and explained it to me:
how when I spin from him I spin from myself,
the center can double the speed of the crust.
Thank you, my treacherous friends.
I'm cringing for myself when I cringe for you."

I think that a girl is fetching, so I am told, by people that I can trust, but do not know as well as one would like to know people that they do not really know all that well. The sources, however, are reliable enough, but the content that was delivered by said sources defies the source, the authenticity that I would bring to my own words. Who exactly describes someone as fetching. There isn't anything really wrong with that term, mind you, but I don't really use it, unless joking. Not to intend serious meaning, I avoid using the word, or similar vocabulary, until I want to envoke a semi comedic tone in my wording.

(I am feeling very wordy right now, and probably am not using half the words that I am employing in the proper way. A shame really, as I wish that I could be this wordy all the time, but sound intelligent.)

But will the adventure of a lifetime, the playful hunt that is having a crush backfire on our focus? Who the hell knows. All I do know, and that really isn't much, is that this is just part of life, and a whole lot of fun.

On another note, I am probably feeling the best, overall, that I have ever felt in my life. Who knew?

Tim is disenfranchised, Josh is minus a Nami, Sarah and Robert are together, Elly is fretting over chili, Erika is Erika, and Brian and Nat are still rocking the casbah.

Somewhere along the line, things ended up semi-right with the world. Through intention or folly (or both) something happened, some stars aligned, and things are really going nicely.

Except for my thesis. Kind of fucked on that one. Not fucked, but it's going to be an uphill battle. On the bright side, I have until October 13th to put together my proposal to the IRB, and until Friday to have a draft of my proposal ready for Prof. Ganti. I really hope I don't have to abandon my project. That would ruin my good streak, but at the same time it wouldn't ruin it TOO much.

"owowowowowowowowowowowowowowowowowowow
ANT MUSIC!
ANT MUSIC!"


(lyrics by OKGO...check them totally out at www.okgo.net)

-ccm

I have my writing hat on and I am sneezing.

I realized recently that I had a lot of potential, and maybe I still have it. Maybe the way that I look at the world is really different than that of other people, maybe I'm strange. Maybe a lot of things.

I know some things though.

I know who I am now. I kind of stopped caring about a lot of shit, as of late. Things that upset other people don't upset me as much. I will say how I feel, and that's that. I'll get pissed, annoyed, irked and all sorts of other words, but I will keep on going, and going, amen. I go. What else can one do?

Morbid? ME? I am. Elly says that I'm morbid. Honestly I haven't been called that since middle school. It really is true however. I am an absurdist, at heart. Everything about the absurd appeals to me. Part of this is using really dire and, well, morbid things to a comedic effect. That has always been my way, and it always will be my way. I enjoy the strange satisfaction of it all. I mean, if we can't laugh about the most dire things, like death, what can we laugh at?

In WW1 there were many trenches stretching for hundreds of miles. Day in and day out the soldiers, British, French, and German would "go over the top", charging headlong into barbed wire and machine gun fire. Needless to say, at this point in the war, survival was not very likely. In battles like the Somme and Verdun over 1 million people would perish, a generation lost. In one trench in particular things were looking down, and when you may die the next second, down is not where you want to be looking. You want to see the sky, the beauty of life, not the mucky ground where people have shit and pissed, died, and where the remnants of poison gas lingers. Something needed to be done. As if from God, but more likely a corpse hit by an artilery shell, a hand was flung down into the trench. The hand was attatched to a forearm, but nothing else. Puzzled, but not overly surprised, the Brits took this hand and stuck it into the wall of the trench. The next time they went over the top the all shook this hand, faring the former master a fond "cheerio", hoping they wouldn't be meeting the dear departed person in the afterlife.

The hand gave them comfort. They realized that they were in the most dire situation that one could find themselves in, and they did something about it. They took control. By accepting the horror around them, and possessing it they controlled it. Sure they would still die, and the war would still rage on, but that hand let them be human for a bit, to see how absurd the whole situation was, and how little it all really mattered.

People should realize how little it matters, but not in a bad way. What is a word? What is it passed between friends? What are feelings hurt? They will heal, life will go on. It is better to cope and recover than keep angry. Being angry doesn't accomplish anything. I know. I have been very angry for days at end, miserable. When I think of the things that I could have done in that time, I feel foolish. I wasted it. I will never get that time back. Enjoy the time that you have. There's nothing after it (see the previous post for more).

Tim will apologize, Jess, I hope, will accept. No harm was meant, no lives were lost. Life will go on.

People underestimate Tim horribly. I can honestly say that he is one of the smartest, most together people that I have met at Conn. I don't mean to disrespect the rest of the campus, my friends included, but I've never seen anyone so disregarded. People literally treat him as if he is retarded at times. This really irks me (ha). He knows what he is doing. He's human though, and slips sometimes. He'll say something stupid, offensive, or whatever, but the fact of the matter is that he won't say it out of spite, to hurt, to harm. He'll say something, or do something, for a reason. There was a reason behind him saying what he said to Jess.

It was comedy, in the highest form.

As a writer of some very limited renoun, I know that comedy is something that is very hard to master. Tim has perfect timing. He knows when a joke is ripe, and when to pick it. He knows when to say just the right thing, and at Rosie's diner he said something offensive to my friend Jess. The catch is that we were at two seperate booths. At my booth, the one with Tim, a story had just been elaborated upon, and Tim saw an opportunity to continue the joke, and did. At Jess's table, the did not know about the joke, and didn't take kind to the insult that it prompted, even though there was no malice behind it.

Feelings were hurt, people will move on, and really on a totally detatched level, I don't care.

It's something to write about though.

And on a sexist note, why can guys, in general, take so much more ribbing and insulting than a girl? Is it an issue of socialization or what? It there some huge construct that protects women from joking insults or what? Men are tried by fire by their friends. I know. I was sensitive and I was ribbed by my pals. I would get pissed, but now nothing bothers me, as long as I know that it is a joke. If it is not, then I can be...dangerous. But do girls have the same sort of thing when they grow up? It may be interesting to look at, someday, when I am a famous Anthropologist/Sociologist/unemployed pedophile.

WHAT?
(scratch that last one. The last two for that matter. Perhaps the last word of the 3rd, and the first two options)

Unemployed?

Here's to graduation.

-ccm

Inspiration, thy name is self reflection...

THE STATE OF THE CHRIS ADRESS, or something to that effect

"Love is only a feeling, drifting away"

To begin with, I took an hour long shower, or one that seemed like it was that long. I had played golf earlier this day past, and had not been able to shower since. Friction burned on my shoulder, I looked at myself. I looked at the scars, the skin, the bones, the muscle, the fat, I looked at it all, myself, and I realized that this is who I am. This is the body that I am stuck with, for 21 years and counting. I need to take care of it. I've developed some bad habits as of late. I like to smoke cigars once in a while, and maybe a cigarette or two. I need to cut that out. I don't want to drink to excess: I need to keep this thing going. I want to work out more, to ensure longevity and to feel good. I enjoy working out, in an active way, and I intend to do so. Squash is my game as of late, as is golf, as is. The two of them combine to make me feel good about myself and my poor habits of consumption and complaining.

Always cynical, it would seem to me this year that I have become quite vocal in my objections, my feelings, and in my being. I make noise now, and though I am not a scene stealer by any means, it is a step up. Now people know what I feel about things. This comes from my trip to Japan, and how I was loud and boistrous over there because the majority of people had no idea what I was saying. This gives a person with confidence issues a major boost, as you can rant and rave to your heart's content and not worry about people getting offended. I hate offending people. I try to avoid it at all costs, but there are some times when I do it and I don't mean it. I feel like I may have offended Dana this past eve, but I doubt that she will hold it against me forever. I hope.

Love. I have eyes for a girl, one that most of the readers of my self indulgence do not know. I have never actually spoken to said person, but whenever she is around she steals my eye. I find myself talking to people I don't like so I have an excuse to look in her direction, and then I make like I am thinking so I can just stare into the distance. I think I may end up building her up in my mind without a good image of her to work off of, but what the hell. The school year is early, and while everything around me is dying, I can only hope that love may grow and blossom. Preferably beating out the actual blossoming of trees and the such by a good few months.

Did I mention that I am a hopeless romantic at times? Probably not. I tend to be the cynical one. I think love is possibly the most amazing thing in the world. No single emotion has evoked such a wide range of actions, perceptions, and thoughts. It really amazes me what people will do for love, or the search of it. I know I am trying to use people I know to meet her, but that's minor. There are people that kill for love, maim for it, cry for it, and curse gods for the lack of it. We've all been there, maybe not the killing, per se, but we have all longed for love, the ultimate in human experience.

When you find that person that you love, the one that holds you so tightly, so dearly, so warmly, don't let go. Don't be creepy about it, but cherish that person as if every moment that you spend with them could be your last. The thing about life, the really crazy thing, is that you never know when it's going to end. Tonight I smoked a cigar. I could get lung cancer from that. Not a habit, but from THAT cigar. Is it likely? No. Possible? Maybe. Life can end in an instant, so hold that special someone dearly. Love them like they are your world, make them feel welcome and at home. You should be their home, the place that makes them feel warm. Wherever you are, they lay their hat, and they are at ease. That's what one should do for the one they love.

I don't believe in God. I did for a while, but I can't buy into it now. It's funny. I want to believe that there is something after all of this, after life, after death, but the coldness in me creeps back in, and I see that after you die, things happen very mechanically. Energy disperses into the atmosphere, we rot, are consumed, and new things grow. The circle of life and death. Souls? Nice to think that they exist, but I don't even know where to begin on that one. We are all unique, like a dog or a cat. The only thing that really is different is that we can say what we want to each other, and articulate our diversity. I'm sure Rover and Miffy are different, but we just can't hear them explain it. Well, we can hear, but not understand. The point is that we are animals, and we created this crazy concept of God to let us cope with the dire inevitability of death. That's how I think of it. The thing that I want to believe the most is not that there is a god, but that when we die we get recycled and get to live again. That would be amazing.

I realized something about humans one night while watching a dvd that I piked up in Pearl Harbor. The dvd focussed on war photography, really movie making. By war, I'm talking about combat photgraphers. The footage was in colour, and uncensored. The revelation came when an American warplane crashed on the runway, WW2 era plane that is, and burned. After burning itself out, the ground crew pulled the remains of the pilot from the plane. What the hooks retrieved was a charred piece of flesh. Cooked. Like steak. Like the meat that we eat. In that singular moment, that late night, I realized that we really are just another animal. We cook like they do. You put us on a spit with some rub and we are bbq. The death of that one man, who died in a war over 60 years old, showed me that about life. Think of the squirrel, run down in the street. That squirrel didn't see that coming. He wasn't special, he didn't have a lot to live for. He lived, and died. Do we think of squirrels going to heaven? No. We created heaven to distinguis us from the animals that we see dying all around us, that we eat and enjoy. We cook like the squirrel would. We are complex, but we are still animals. Dogs may believe in god, but does it matter? We don't know that. Would god believe in a dog? Who are we to say what is omnipotent or encompassing of life. Who are we to create out own restrictions? Why should one live by these arcane codes? Why do we run our country by them? Why do women live in fear, why do people hate? Why the hate?

We are animals who learned how to talk, to band together, distinguish someone as the other, and hate them. Organized hate is dangerous.

Though I intended to talk more about my state right now, I wandered. In a way however, I think that I articulated my particular state at the moment.

(lyric by The Darkness)

-ccm

"Chop me up into pieces, if it pleases, if it pleases"

Mixed drinks are fun, but dangerous. I'm really liking living up this whole apartment thing, the senior year thing, all the things that one can conceive and interpret. Dig.

I really don't miss the summer at all right now. This is the summer to me. The way things have been going is awesome. I have people around that I really like, things to do, and just a good vibe. This summer lacked that. I was bored for a large portion of it, which sucked. The end of the summer was good, but that didn't make up for a general crappiness. Don't get me wrong though, Japan was really cool and fun, but once I got back I had nothing to do at all. Not. A. Thing.

But school, glorious school! Work to be done, deadlines, people to see, groceries to get. This is what I was missing during the summer, just activities. Or the potential of activities, the kind that I care about, that I am motivated to do. Not getting gas for the grill and that sort of shit, but things that affect me and the people I live with and know all around. Now I'm going to lunch on campus.

I rule.
So does everyone else, for that matter.

(lyric by TMBG)

-ccm