Fantastic Tales! Also, Not Fantastic Tales.

So! As of today, I have been employed for something like a week, and I got my first pay, so I feel comfortable in saying that I am now For Real employed. It's different from most of my previous forms of employment, in that I am making money from it.

But yeah, for those of you who don't know I am now working as a roofer, which means that I am climbing around on rooftops (good), getting in something closer to physical shape (painful, but good), not sitting around doing nothing (definitely good), and getting on closer closer terms with the sun (it hurts and burns, and is painful).

I have, in my family, a rather long history of being violently opposed to the sun. There are many reasons for this (mainly because I am a heat pansy), but to better explain them to the world I have decided to write the Sun a letter. It follows:

Dear The Sun,

How are you? I am fine. I hope you are fine too. From what I hear, you are still wrenching apart hydrogen atoms and turning them into helium, along with other things which are also important, but that I have forgotten. I am proud of you! There are many stars, but as far as I know, you are the best one at allowing the ecosystem of the planet Earth to continue, and that is an important thing to do, in my opinion. I say this because I do not want to do die in a horrible inferno, or in a cold, empty vacuum as all life on earth freezes to death, and you prevent both of those. Good job.

But I am writing this letter to tell you something, and it is this: as much as I appreciate your existence, and the services you provide, you don't need to to be gung-ho. You have nothing to prove; you are the sun. You don't need to show how good you are at fusion! You have been doing it for billions of years, and you don't need to prove a thing.

I've known you for most of my life, Sun, and we've been through some crazy times together. Like, for example, scientists decided Pluto wasn't a planet. And we both know that they are jerks for that, but we're still cool with Pluto. Pluto's got no beef with us. And the internet became a huge deal! That was good times. Or that was one time when the War in Afghanistan started. Well, technically so far all of these things are still on-going. Or there was that time in the nineties when boy bands became popular, until people became (rightfully) ashamed of themselves, and replaced the boy bands with Hannah Montana and Justin Bieber. So not all of the stuff we've seen has necessarily been positive, but I think that in spite of that, we've gotten to know each other pretty well. I've seen you almost every day for almost 19 years now, and you have helped me get food, vitamin D, blisters, and all kinds of crazy stuff. It's been wild.

And in all that time, you have successfully been the sun. Without fail! It's impressive stuff, no doubt about it. But, like I said, you don't need to showy about it. Just do your thing! It's a good thing, and I'd be sad if you disappeared. But I'm cool with you not always being... quite so sunny.

See, there can sometimes be too much of a good thing. Like kindness! When you are freezing to death and someone makes a fire for you, that's just great. And when they let you come into their cabin to warm up, that's even greater! But when they proceed to lock you to the bed stand so you can always appreciate their charity, well-that's... that's just too much kindness. And also creepy and terrifying. And when they light the cabin on fire so you can always feel the warmth of their kindness forever, that's MUCH to much kindness.

And sunlight is the same way. When I'm cold and you warm me up, that's great. But when I'm warm and you warm me up, that isn't. And when I'm hot and you turn the roofs I'm standing on into living hellscapes dedicated to Charbalingen, the eldritch god of the eternal flames, that's just the opposite of great. It's like you are metaphorically locking me into a burning room, and also very similar to that physically.

In conclusion, you are great but please stop trying to light me on fire.

P.S. I realize that the current heat wave is mainly due to heat fronts and a lack of clouds, but it is hard to appreciate that when I'm walking around on a roof and being slowly char broiled.

Back at House, still finding Home

As of 11 o'clock last night, I am once again a resident of Ohio in fact as well as name. It's... quiet, and slightly disorienting. I have many fond memories of my home, but it doesn't really feel like home anymore (see "it's quiet, above). I suppose every person goes through periods of spiritual homelessness, but it's still a curious sensation.

In other news, I've actually written quite a lot of material in the last few months, but haven't posted it since it was for school, and I'm lazy and forgetful. A lot of it's been poetry, so I thought I'd post one of the pieces here.

Ode to the Passed

Goddess, sing to me!
Not of rage,
for I wish for no discord in thy symphony,
but sing of melancholy,
of chances lost in summer rains
of unsung soliloquies
and unloved maidens.
Sing, I pray,
to memories lost
and never formed,
to endless possibilities that ended

Inspire in the breast of all who hear you
the warm tears of summer
tears not of losing,
but of never having
the bittersweet twist
of endless possibilities come
to a close.

Sing of those who swore
that this night they would truly live
only to find in morning light
that they had merely
survived
and were fated to do so
until greeted with finality

And lastly, sing of me
Give me strength to face
unfilled possibilities,
and let me be rash
and foolish,
and filled with sensation

And when the rain
beats upon my windowpane,
let me think not of sunny days,
but of monsoons that I can face
someday with bared teeth,
and a smile.

I'm rather fond of this piece. I was supposed to put in a line from a song that I liked, and people who know me might recognize some lines from Summer Song, which happens to be an awesome song that you should go listen to.

So Once I Had This Blog Thing...

...But then I graduated high school and stopped updating it. Anyone who reads this should hopefully know me, and anyone who doesn't, good luck getting to know me through these writings. I never really planned on doing any more work on this blog, but last week something interesting happened: I was having a chat with my youngest older brother, and we were talking about writing, and it made me curious to see how my writing had held up, so I stopped by here and reread some old posts.

I was pleasantly surprised; Not all of the stuff on here is utter drivel! And in addition to that, I've been churning out schlock fairly consistently of late, because I have to for a class here. So I won't be updating regularly, but every now and then I will post a piece from my writing class, or a failed idea with some interesting concepts, political manifestos, etc.

Anyway, here's a mood piece I did last week. I was feeling hyper, and couldn't concentrate enough to actually produce something, so I wrote instead:

Spring Fever

2/19/11

Spring is in the air, and my bones are twisting out of their shells. I'm trying to write this all down before I go stir crazy and start punching things, but I'm not optimistic. Spring fever is a gloriously frustrating sensation; it's typified by a burning desire to tear down empires and raise galaxies, but it's accompanied by such a frenetic caffeinated jittering that you can't actually produce much of anything other than incoherent shouting.

I think it's best at night: you get that achy bittersweet remembrance of childhood, unmarred by any recollection of what your childhood was really like. It's a blessing, the night air. It's intoxicating like the sweetest incense, and fleeting like unfaithful love. It makes you remember the smell of baking dust, of roads too hot to walk on in bare feet (but of course you went barefoot anyway, and you tried to find the tarry patches of road because somehow the gooey, barely contained ooze felt cooler than the concrete). It makes you want to run forever, just pick a road and start running until you hit ocean and towering whitecaps, throwing dreams into the sunlit, sea filled air. And you know they're lying, but your bones tell you that when you see the ocean coming, you’re going to go in swimming, and go down fighting.

It makes you want to drink water from strange and dangerous places; wells, streams, hoses if you're lacking in resources. You want to run the through the grass, and maybe wrestle in it too. You want to see people have expressions that shows the kind of wonder that's too happy to stay but still feels strangely, peculiarly right. You want love; fleeting, ethereal, springtime love that's doomed to die by summer but leave you with a bittersweet tang of unused potential.

You want to grow, and die, and live forever. And you know it's a beautiful lie, but you also know, deep down, that this time, this summer, you're going to live forever.