Marie, this one's for you.

It's been (well) over a year since I last posted something here, mostly because I haven't really written anything interesting in a long time. However, lately I've been trying to put on paper some recurring feelings I've had lately, and as a result I ended up making kind of a poem (I blame my fondness for loosely metered blank verse on a combination of laziness and wishing that regular prose had more inapporpriate line breaks [because if there's one consistent attribute in my poems, it's inappropriate line breaks]).

And now anyone on the internet can read it!

It’s loops.

And loops within loops,

Self defining, self sustaining.

Emulating and immolating

And looping

Like an old tape;

The last song plays

-a click-

                -whirring-

And it loops.

Again and

(I won’t say ‘again’ again, but you get the idea)

Like a sine wave,

Which means

-Mathematically speaking-

There are troughs,

And as high as the heights tower

(and while they’re hard to measure, being abstract,

I assure you they’re quite tall

-and unwieldy

                -and complex

                                -and recursive

-and unsustainable)

There is ALWAYS an equivelant reaction.

After all, that is the law.

Also, -returning to the point at hand-

The nature of loops

Which I suppose is why they’re frustrating:

Because all of us hate watching cheeks turn,

And with all these turns-

Not to mention all these cheeks-

You start to feel like you’re behind and at the bottom

(not a great place where cheeks are involved)

And no matter how high you climb, the wave is still moving

And no matter how many turns you make,

There is always another hand to slap you,

And even when you walk in a straight line,

In a curved universe you’ll always end up home again (I lied).

And you walk in the door, take off your coat, sit down, eat dinner, check your mail, go to bed, wake up, go to work, grab your lunch, go to meetings, head home, walk in the door

-and the tape clicks,

                -whirring-

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.

Well Hullo Thur

It's been a while, and while that's my fault, I am not going to apologize for it. It's a well known fact that Internet speakers (or "interspeaknetterkers", to use the "hip lingo" of "young ones" "these days" "") are like wild animals in that they can scent your fear, and will annihilate you once it has detected. I mean, just look at AOL.
Before I wander off on another tangent, and that almost certainly will occur, I'd like to introduce the central topic of Today. I sometimes read the blogs of my beloved spawn siblings (notice that I have not included Evan on this list because he does not have a blog [this is my subtle way of telling Evan he should go make a blag, and write things on it to entertain me like the dancing capuchin monkey that I happen to know is his totem creature{GO GET A BLOG EVAN YOU HOBO}]), and it occured to me that two of them were both sounding super motivated and stuff, and I happen to know that one of my other sisters is also super motivated with her super cooking, while only one of them sounded as confused by things as I am. Maybe it's because she lives in Utah (I know I would be confused).
Anyway, my own bewilderment stems from the fact that recently I've been spending unhealthy amounts of time working on scholarships recently, and A) I really, really hate the scholarship process, and B) I know way less about my future goals than I would like to admit.
I mean, I know that I want to graduate, then get my Associate's degree at NC State in Computer Information Systems, and then I want to go on my mission, and then I want to... Things. Also words.
This wouldn't bother me much, except that scholarship committees really, really, REALLY love learning about my future. Am I some kind of superentrepenuer? ...Kind of, I guess? I mean, I guess could run my own company, but it's not what I would describe as a burning passion. Or something I want to do at all. Am I super motivated for my eventual super career? Kah-ree-ar? what is this kahrear that you are speak of? Are you a super motivated super learner? YES! Yes, I am that. I like to learn things. Put that one on my check list. Am I willing and ready to write a couple of hundred (thousand) essays to reach my goal of an amorphous, undecided future? Not really, no. Too bad for me, I get to do that anyway. I just feel uncomfortable telling people about how pumped I am to get my Bachelor's in the supertechwizardmaster field so that I can eventually reach my goal of fixing the snot out of EVERY COMPUTER EVER, and possibly also fighting bears. Maybe Computerbears (cyberweasels, even). I hate to admit it, but I am not actually that pumped about getting a career some day. I don't like working, I like learning. Learning is my thing. I want to go to college because I have a passion for book smarts.
That's pretty much it.

And now, because I am a loving (albeit neglectful) blog poster guy person adjective, I am going to
PUMP

YOU UP!

With music. I am pretty fond of it, and while most of you have probably heard a lot of it before, listen to it again. It is good music. First up: Bishop Allen. This is an indie group that I was introduced to by the previously mentioned itinerant hobo, Ervin. Those of you who have Buzz, a handy feature recently released by Google (which Evan ALSO doesn't have, possibly because cardboard boxes don't have internet access), will already know that I am a pretty big fan of Bishop Allen. Here are some songs by them. Most of these are repeats of my Buzz buzz, but they are all good so listen to them again. Next up is the Aquabats! I first learned of The Best Band in The World from Meggan, who at the time was a worldly something-older-than-me visiting from College, bearing gifts of Ska, TMBG, and A Capella. I was enraptured by all three, especially this one A Capella anthology she had (Scottish Spring anyone?), which was listened to until its surface was scratched like a well used ice rink that hadn't been visited by a Zamboni in years (me and my young brood companions were not kind to CD's in the old days). Anyway, after Meggan abandoned me to wend her way to more fruitful pastures, my interest in music waned and didn't reawaken until years later, when I found out that A) The internet is a thing that exists; and B) Youtube has every song ever. At all. Seriously, all of them. And that led to a renaissance of discovery, including, recently, the Aquabats. They are probably my favorite Ska band, and ska is awesome, so go check out their stuff. Also, here are some other songs that I am too lazy to write descriptions for. I have eclectic taste in music.

Lastly, have a good day, or night, or whatever time it is wherever you read this, and go check out Jonathan Coulton, because he is awesome but I don't want to spend even more time linking to him because I have spent a lot of time on this already. And finally, one more link: The whale song by Modest Mouse. It has arguably the most surreal music video I've ever seen, and I LOVE IT. Awesome

Hey you Guys (Gals?)

Hey, long time no post.

Which is my fault.

Let's let bygones be bygones, ok?

Anyway, this is kind of depressing, because I'm going to be going on hiatus soon. By which I mean a month ago. Which kind of sucks. As for reasons, it's mainly laziness. I was never overly dedicated to this project to begin with, and I just started running out of things to talk about. Honestly, I've always thought that was impossible, but.... it's not. So yeah.

Also, I've had a lot of school, the aliens are holding my loved ones hostage, I'm scouting out colleges and jobs... there's just a lot on my plate.

basically, I'm switching the update schedule to its original format, which is "Whenever I feel like it, and my fans can go choke on their anger vomit." Love yall!

Expect an update next..... time.

Thing a Week 47: (metaphorically)

This is a piece I wrote for English a few weeks ago, that I liked enough to post. unfortunately, I lost the paper that had my only copy of it, so until I find it, this is all that's available to read. In other news, I've decided to finally get off my butt and do enough posts to fill out my backlog; therefore, in the following days i will be producing three more posts to catch up.

Also, in quick (but relevant) side note, when I consider my writing habits, I'm reminded of a quote by the brilliant Douglas Adams: "I love deadlines. I love the sound they make when they go whooshing by."

There's a telephone pole located right by my house, in the grass by the sidewalk in front. It's a pretty typical telephone pole, as far as these things go, but it recently struck me that I've become so used to it that it's become effectively invisible.
I've lived in the same house for almost all my life, and I've always had this 50 foot tall stick jutting out of the lawn right by my sidewalk. It's one of the things that I ought to know like the back of my hand-but if it comes to that, how many times have you really paid attention to the back of your hand? It's the most familiar things things in our life that we pay the least attention to.
Most of the details I can think of are snatches of memories of growing up: Making snowballs to throw at the