Category: Essays

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The best part about singing Neil Young is that it doesn’t really matter if you hit the notes or not.

Since I have Fridays off, I had a four day weekend due to the holiday today. I could use more of these. I didn't get any reading done like I had planned, but I had a fun and relaxing weekend regardless.

On Friday, Kate and I went down to Cedar Point to indulge our need for some cheap excitement. I wasn't feeling the best that day, but we still got in seven or so big coaster rides that shook my general malaise and made me feel truly alive for the first time since I can't remember when. I almost got sick on the Millennium Force, but the initial drop of over 300 feet got me ramped up with a big shot of adrenaline!

I made it a point to not shy away from any coaster, despite my fear of heights. I wanted to feel afraid. I probably feared Power Tower the most. Usually there are long lines, but since it's an older ride, we got right on it, without the usually mental prep that goes along with waiting and watching others experience it. Power Tower is an ominously tall tower that either shoots you up…or drops you down. We did the version that drops you down. You get cranked up to the top and you sit there for maybe 10 or 15 seconds and the view of lake Erie is tremendous. It was the only thing that kept me from freaking out up at the top. And when it shoots you down the long steel beams faster than gravity, you really almost have an out-of-body experience. At least that's what it felt like to me.

Top Thrill Dragster was by far the most intense, but still incredibly fun. It shoots you to 120 mph in a matter of a couple seconds down a steel course like a dragstrip, only then to be projected straight up in the air over 400 feet, rolled over a curve that points you straight down, and then careened 270 degrees while still vertical, and back to the origin of the ride. It's short, but that's the fun bit. You're not jolted, save for the initial launch of 120 mph, and you have just enough time to get scared out of your mind before you're back down to the safe ground at sea level. By far my favorite ride at the place.

The only disappointing thing about the park is that the people there seemed so trashy. I really tried not to judge people too much, but when you're waiting in an hour-long line for a ride, you get pretty up close and personal with a lot of strangers. The girls dressed so raunchy and the guys were all Hollister-wearing surfer wannabees or dirty backwater Midwesterners. I guess that's what I should have expected at a place designed for cheap thrills. But this didn't ruin the day, it was just eye-opening, especially since I don't have a lot of contact with teenyboppers in my everyday life.

Saturday I went to the lake with my folks and it was jam packed with the same kind of people. A lot of bad tattoos and guys trying to be macho, poor people with kids trying to get a cheap, yet fun, weekend in before they went back to their blue collar lives on Tuesday. I feel like an outsider in those situations, like I don't know how to interact with these Michigan lifers. I know they exist everywhere, but I have to admit that outside of the South, the Midwest probably has the most uncultured white trash in the U.S. I know because I used to be one of them. All the while I try to be more accepting of people, but my lack of understanding of the lives they appear to live has me mind boggled. Funny part is, many of them are no doubt more happy than I am, so who am I to judge?

I'm not wanting to start the week tomorrow, but it's inevitable. I'm going to get some cleaning and laundry done so I don't have to think about it during the week. Hopefully this weekend recharged my batteries enough to get me through for a couple of weeks. Our next trip will be a small one to Saugatuck on Lake Michigan, where hopefully the quaint beach town feel and lack of campgrounds will keep the crazies away long enough for a nice, calm weekend.

I find myself coming back to this place when I'm in transition. Now that I have some extra time, I'll write a little bit.

I've just finished all of my coursework for graduate school and I turned in my professional project proposal on Friday for approval. If it comes back approved, then I have the go-ahead to start filming a documentary on public participation in the planning process. I won't name the community, but the project involves demolition of homes in the floodplain and gardening on the empty lots. It's exciting that I might get to be critical, but I just want school out of my life.

Minus 1 year, I have been going to school non-stop since I was 22 and I'm now 29. For six of the last seven years I have worked to support myself while pulling a full course load, right in the heart of my 20s. I feel like this is such a critical developmental stage in a person's life. Despite truly feeling as though I've learned and accomplished much, there is a lot I missed out on. I see my friends who have traveled the world, backpacked, rode motorcycles across the U.S., lived in interesting places, etc., and I've just watched from the sidelines. Year after year, sacrifices. I got in a couple of good experiences here and there. If it wasn't for living in London that Summer after undergrad, I might have exploded. But I've come out the other end of school feeling a bit like I've been in a coma, not knowing who I really am anymore or where I should be or what I'm supposed to do now. It's probably common, but that doesn't make it feel any less real.

After living at such a fast pace, I'm thinking about getting back to basics and in touch with myself, and in touch with my community. I want to sell my car and remove that payment, buy a bike and really make the effort to use it whenever I can. It leaves me with a feeling of calm the way I'm able to just drink in the neighborhoods at my own pace. I feel a part of it.

I want to know what it's like to read for pleasure again. I found a book I bought a few years ago, recommended by a friend, that I started and never finished. I want to relax enough to read it and feel like I'm not doing anything wrong by taking time for myself. I want to lay in the yard until the sun creeps behind the trees and I'm forced to go inside for light.

I will concentrate on being comfortable where I am, while making strides to save money so that my next adventure, a move, is a real possibility. Goals are good.

It feels so good to write this, like a weight being lifted off of me.

I've found my way back here because of an old friend who always has the right things to say. The funny thing is, I don't even know where to start because I've been bottling things up for so long that I feel like I could explode into a mess of flesh and Type O Positive all over the tacky wayne's coating of my parents' basement. I guess I'll start small, with humility, and without lying to myself anymore. The truth is, I haven't been happy in a really long time. I was just tired of being unhappy and looking unhappy and sounding unhappy, so I adopted a "keep on the sunny side of life" facade, always trying to find the optimist inside of me. In doing so, I neglected a lot of negative energy that should have naturally come out of me in small bits. They are instead now causing nervous breakdown. I thought that writing in this shit once again would help organize some of my thoughts, and vent out some of my frustration. Sounds so generic to say that. But I'm not going to worry about how things sound. I need to do this. Besides, anything over 2 lines in a journal entry always gets skimmed over anyways. Don't worry, I do it too. I'm a hypocrite.

I have trouble talking. It's not that I don't have anything to say, I really do. My mind races fast with thoughts, but I can't organize them to come out how they should. I linger on statements in my mind before they get filtered down to my mouth, and they never come out as I plan. I pay too close attention to what comes from my mouth, with many pauses. I envy those people who can flow at the mouth as if there were no second thought to what is being said, even if what they are saying is complete and utter garbage in my mind. I call up my friend Derek out west and he's got this brilliant head on him. I don't think he would be offended if I said that he's not what you would call "book smart", but fuck if this kid doesn't have the wit and quickness. He will drive the conversation about his life and somehow make even the most average of everday occurances completely original and awe-inspiring. I don't think I've ever told him that, but Derek, if you're reading this, I really look up to you and admire your fresh look on things. I wish I had that. I just can't think like you do.

Second is my apathy, which controls life situations as well as speech. I don't really watch TV, so I can't speak about that. I barely even watch or listen to the news anymore. It all sounds like hell and I can't even form my own opinions on what I should feel about certain situations and topics. Perhaps I'm just a coward and afraid to be wrong. I don't have a mind for names, so even if I do watch or hear something, I can never remember who was in it. I can't tell a story for shit. Music is another thing. I've stopped playing music and that really bothers me. I barely even keep up on music anymore and that really bothers me. But at the same time I just don't care to try. I only read one book all summer. Usually I read at least 6 or 7. The scary part is, if I have any down time at all, all I want to do is sit or lie on the couch. I don't like that about myself. I don't like that I can zone out of my life and be complete apathetic about the direction in which it is going, or the person I am becoming.

There are things in my life that I should feel proud of, but I don't. I'm a senior at at top university in the country and all i can do is kick myself in the ass for not getting it done sooner. I came back to finish a mistake, to finish something I started, and I'm doing well, doing really well, and all I can think about is if I'm doing the right thing. If I shouldn't have cared so much about this stupid degree. I don't feel any smarter than I was when I started back up, and by the time I'm done I'll be 25k in debt (even after the thousands of dollars in grant money). I feel sometimes that I should have followed my passions more instead of compromising myself for this thing we call "growing up". I've just been poor for so long that I wonder what it's like to have nights and weekends off and enough money to actually survive on. I see tons of people that I went to high school with that are married with children and a house and a nice car, and even though I don't want most of these things at this point in my life, I feel like I'm judged for not having them. I feel smarter and more creative than most, yet here they are "successful" by society's standards. I need some validation of my own. Sometimes I just need someone else to tell me that I'm doing the right thing. But where is the moral support these days? We're all just supposed to suck it up and expect nothing from nobody because we're adults now and we can only rely on ourselves.

I've learned a lot about myself the last few months, while dating Sarah. Come to find out, we're almost emotionally identical. So getting mad at each other was like getting mad at one's self, to find fault in the other was to find fault in one's self. I'm actually furious at her right this moment, but in being so I have to be mad at Bryan. Bryan doesn't like that. Bryan is a stubborn bastard. Bryan shouldn't refer to self in the third person. Maybe this is a topic best left for a later post, for this is ending up to be a nonsensical bunch of words on a page with no order. I don't really care anymore. At this point I'm just talking and letting the words flow as they come because I'm so sick of them staying, battering me from the inside, and giving me headaches. Sarah and I broke up, and I think it's for the better, but I've always been the nostalgic type and have never found it to be easy to let anyone go from my life. I'm sure many can attest to that. Done for now.

Los Angeles, I’m yours

But Newport is where the heart is

Yet another contributor of Bryan's DNA in a long line of Barnette and Robb dead-beats, has died.

Meet the other "grandfather" that I'd never met:

I love how they always chaulk people up to be these amazing people in their obituaries. As if setting up franchises should be held in high esteem.

———————-

John Barnette, Jr., 79, of Comstock died Friday, September 9, 2005 at Golden Age Manor in Amery. He was born July 18, 1926 in Enman, SC to John and Willie Sue (Hunt) Barnette, Sr. John served on the USS Dyson during WWII. He was married in Watertown, SD on November 18, 1977 to Mardel Catlin. John worked on the railroad in South Carolina and was a supervisor at the St. Croix Casino. He was past commander of the Charles R. Knaeble VFW Post in Crystal, MN and was a member of the Cumberland American Legion. John was the past grand Hospital Chairman and past 4th Area Commander of the Minnesota Cooties and was a member of the Disabled American Veterans. He was a very active volunteer, enjoyed making homemade crafts with Mardel and was always fixing things around the house.
He is survived by his wife, Mardel of Comstock; 3 sons, Keith Barnette of Saginaw, MI, John Barnette of Florida & Shawn Barnette of Comstock; 1 stepson, Tony Hall of Michigan; 4 daughters, Dianne (Fred) Lipton of Rosalyn, PA, Kelly (Isaac) Bennett of Michigan, Debbie Barnette of Michigan & Rebecca Barnette of Paris, France; 1 stepdaughter, Patricia Richards of Comstock; 25 grandchildren; 13 great grandchildren and 1 sister, Kitty (Ted) Music of Chesapeake, VA and also
many nieces and nephews and his beloved Yorkshire Terrier, Peanut.
He was preceded in death by his parent, his parents-in-law; 12 brothers and sisters; 1 sister-in-law and 2 brothers-in-law.
Funeral services will be held at 11:00 AM Wednesday, September 14, 2005 at Skinner Funeral Home, Turtle Lake with Rev. Brian Perry officiating. Burial will be in Northern Wisconsin Veterans Memorial Cemetery, Spooner, WI. Pallbearers are Patti Richards, Vern Catlin, Emmett Catlin, Gene Doster, Larry Verby and Mike Catlin. Military Honors will be accorded by Wisconsin Military Honors Team.
Visitation will be 4-8 PM Tuesday at the Skinner Funeral Home in Turtle Lake and one hour before the services on Wednesday.

Did you ever “french roll” their pants when you were a kid?

I just thought of that and I’m laughing hysterically.

A simple Google search for the terms "defense spending" (in quotes) returns 477,000 results.

On the other hand, a Google search for the terms "offense spending" returns a measly 161 results.

Man, they've really got those fucking terms switched around.

Do some people actually fall for these scams? Is there really that one guy out there who logs into his mailbox and says, “Holy shit!…somehow the 5 million I never knew I spent, in a venture I completely forgot I participated in, came up missing!…and despite the remarkable peculiarity of their not knowing whether I’m a sir or madam, they’re now going to pay me back this money because they went into a pact with a reputable bank! Bless their hearts!”.

Who does that?

I must say, though, that despite how impressed I am with Google’s spam filter, those Orwellian tele-programmes target advertisements “powered by gooooogle” work a little too good. Awesome to know that I can get a hotel at a decent price when I go to cash in on this deal.

I'm finally doing it. I'm attempting to write again, and not just in a rambling, psuedo-poetic sense either. This time I actually have a plan, a general storyline, and I'm in the process of creating character sketches and doing geographical research. There is still much work to be done, but once these hurdles are out of the way, the actual writing will be a snap, and fun! It may be slow going when fall begins, but this should give me something creative to focus my energy on in the downtime. I'm thinking about calling it Ink&Watercolors, but this is only tentative, as I'll never know what's really relative until it's polished. I'm really excited.

I'm red as a lobster. I went out on the lake with my dad yesterday for about 5 hours and we ran out of sunscreen. No bueno. Thank god for aloe.

Also, I have a pretty good prospect for a place to live thanks to . I will know in the weeks to come.

Between a few thousand dollars in grants and a few thou in loans, school is set and keeping me comfortable…for now; though I don't like the loan part too much. I guess all that I can hope for is a decent job when I graduate so that they won't become too big a problem.

But I'm definitely getting one of these sometime next month:

four hundred pages into crime and punishment in two days. it's been sitting in my library for about 4 years and it has just now felt right to read it. i remember the exact day i bought it, too. from one of those creepy booksellers at the flea market 4 summers ago on my way to lansing. he was absolutely mad. i offered him $100 dollars for the whole box (they were collector's books, but none were in great shape), all classics. i did some quick calculating and presented my offer to him, though he turned me down. i took 3 of them and told him that he of all people should know that he wasn't going to get that much money for them in a hundred years, especially judging by the character of his 'clientel'.

i guess that is beside the point. now i think that maybe i wasn't supposed to read them. i don't know why, but i'm a firm believer that certain people and things come into our lives at certain times, not fatefully, but instead to set out their hands for you to grasp if it is your position to do so at that place and time. our lives are nothing but a series of these events, thousands of hands lining a gauntlet where at any time you're free to grasp the ones you want to take with you. sometimes you're not in a position to do so, or you're concentrating on other things and fail to notice. other times you're presented with too many choices and can only make but a few, leaving the others forever in the past.

the loophole for me is books. they are frozen in time, but at any point can influence your life emmensely. not necessarily the world around you, but certainly your outlook can change in a matter of days. you can give them as gifts and alter other people. you can converse over them with people that have grasped the hands of those books, too, and it's as though you were both at the same place at the same time, even if you've never met said person beforehand. intimate relationships can be sparked.

as i've said, i have books that lay around that i never read until it's in my guts time for me to do so. you cannot force these things.

been a while, old friend.  clean slate?  tell that to the ghosts.  they've been knocking around in this old head of mine…conspiring through the walls where they've been captured..err…were captured.  i should probably leave that analogy dead in its tracks.  but the fact is they're here, really here, and i'm not bottling them, and hiding them in places any longer.

mystic thought would have me forgetting my ego, transcending myself so to speak; and believe me, i've tried on a daily basis for years.  when i really concentrate i can get it, and other times when i'm not paying attention–mind so numb it doesn't want to function anymore–i get it then, too.  those are the islands.  was it Huxley that said we are our own island universe?  i forget.  i don't think my transcending self has been natural.  if there was a line, say from chicago to new orleans that represented a natural progression toward enlightenment, or simply a calm, quiet, well being, then i would have to say that when my mind goes black i'm somewhere in the upper stratosphere falling toward some point along that line.  the harder i fight self, the stronger it comes back.  this has led me to believe that i've needed these few steps back in order to make it a couple steps forward, comfortably.  one foot in front of the other, firmly planted on the ground.  everything out in the open.

i've been considering lately the possibility that all of the drugs i've taken have come back to bite me in the ass, and maybe i'm permanently fucked up because of them.  i don't know how seriously to consider this for the sheer fact that i've known plenty of people who have done more drugs than your average touring funk band, and all in all, they are quite fine individuals.  i was never a junky.  i never did drugs on a regular basis, ever.  i've never done heroin or crack or meth, but given the mental state of certain family members, i would say the drugs could do nothing but compound the problem.  i have my doubts, but i won't rule it out.

the truth is things aren't bad.  things certainly aren't fantastic, but i shouldn't have anything to complain about, or be as grumpy as i am.  family is alive and well.  on a decent course in life that i feel confident about.  i'm beyond  broke and quite a bit lonely at times, but the money thing doesn't bother me so much because i'm disgusted with 'things' anyway.  i could use some love.  i hear there are worse things than being alone, and i believe that to be the truth.

i am a fear-filled person.  i may look and sound like a hard ass on the outside sometimes, but rest assured those are just well developed defense mechanisms.  i'm scared of people.  i don't like public places because i hate people.  yet i force myself into those places and situations constantly in hopes that maybe i'll develop as a person.  im an adolescent again, entering freshman year, completely the object of scrutiny; but instead of all of the hate coming from the farm kids picking on the city kid, coming from the outside in, i'm turning my insides out with self-doubt, feelings of inadequacy, and sometimes all out self hatred.  the best example i can give of what goes on in my head is in the movie Adaptation.  Kaufman's monologues are very similar to what goes on in my head on a second to second basis, 85 percent of the time.  i have done some reading up on the brain and from what i've gathered, thinking at the rate that i do uses a hell of a lot of energy.  this would explain the constant fatigue, and also might have something to do with my not gaining weight. ever.

even with my closest friends, despite their subtle and even not-so-subtle reassurances that should tell me i'm an a-okay person, i still question my worth as a person in their company.

i don't feel better than people.  not even necessarily do i  always think that i'm worse than people.  i just feel different than people.  i don't understand them.  i don't understand the constant striving for money and possessions.  i don't understand the constant diluting of a culture by the next pop sensation.  do people read anymore, or is that a lost art?  i don't understand the closed-mindedness.  i don't understand the fighting against stereotypes when they are reinforced, in my eyes, day to day.  i don't understand why everyone is so standoffish, and when somebody such as myself isn't, there's always something that comes back to kick that person in the ass three-fold.

i am an old person who doesn't want to grow up?  until recently i would have been ashamed to admit that i'm a very intelligent person who lacks a lot of so-called common sense knowledge, and/or life skills.  before this year i couldn't have cooked anything unless it came out of a box with instructions.  i set my bills to pay automatically because i'm so forgetful of things, they'd never be on time.  i've relied on people too much, such as family.  i don't have a savings account.  small talk is a big deal.  i've no wit whatsoever.  just cynicism that rubbed off on me in a friendship that no longer is, that i try to pass off as wit in those situations that call for quick comebacks.  i'm super bad with names.  i'm a super good listener if there's a chance that i can have some sort of relationship with the person, but if i don't like them, tough luck.  i can't see that side of the coin, and i don't expect them to see mine.  i'm stubborn as hell.  i change my mind all the time.  new york, LA, new zealand…fuck it, i'll end up here working at a gas station, or a bum/prophet.  meet me behind the new chain restaurant.  the food is still warm.

i don't know if i'm lucky or damned to have people who support me all the way, but i can't help but feel like someone should have thrown me into the deep end a long time ago.  here i am, all dry, with the attention span of a 5 year old dyslexic, delusions of grandeur, sexual frustration and inadequacies of a pubescent boy, "knowledge" beyond my years, and the senility of a 75 year old dementia patient.

crisp grace notes like a flowing falsehood
flavored to taste after brazen attempts to pare
film on the firmament, light broken apart and bent
aberrancy for the sake of itself, or if for some other thing, I did not see it
cross sections of old films and well-functioning defense mechanisms
healed better, not so pretty “I feel”
kissing you made me sick-frozen from fright of bite
troubled is as troubled does
scapegoats fancied like play lists played as bedtime stories
for empty people with excuses between the bed sheets
shrills to a march, whose heart is not there
to solidify a fog into all-out rain, to further menace a drear
grope my rain-soaked trousers, I’m meat
worry not: your name is safe with me
and there will be no lies handed out
because we’re fiction enough to ourselves
to tire us even in sleep

b.robb

  Finals week is always a blessing. I'm apparently the reigning champion of procrastinators.  My work load isn't all that bad, considering I quit Japanese sometime in the middle of the semester, but I did manage to save three papers for my other classes till the last minute.  I ended up writing through the night, first for American Studies and then a reflective piece in the morning on Rumi.  I ended up e-mailing it and I got a little bit of much welcomed praise.  Things like this make my day:
—– –
Thanks Bryan. I enjoyed the class a great deal–I really found your willingness to think about these ideas and be honest and open in discussion to be important to the success of the class. You are a smart and thoughtful student–best wishes in your future studies and in life in general.

I still have a couple of your papers–especially your Walt Whitman-esque poem from the first project. The Whitman poem is excellent, and the connections you made in your Gilded Age paper showed a comprehensive grasp of the themes we have been talking about. 

Good luck in the future, and keep thinking.

Jeff

—– –
 
Earlier in the semester we had the choice between a)writing a paper on the Transcendentalist movement in the midst of the westward expansion, or b) create my own original artwork in the style of my choosing that reflects the ideas of Transcendentalists.  So I wrote a quick poem before class where I tried to emulate best I could a Walt Whitman prose piece, reflecting the time frame:

O, this mighty fortress built upon eloquent words and powerful ideals spewed from soft lips,

This nation, carved from a continent and gilded with ambition and deceit-filled purpose, with your settlers never settled in their ever-changing notions of will!

Your people, scattered and numerous across the plains and the mountains, the cities and the countryside, who have grown up with a distance that has failed to set them apart from a nation, tiring and romantic all the same,

This young mindset, charismatic and naive, brilliant and baffled alike, and though through many faltered steps you have not ceased to believe strongly in yourselves,

And hardships, they have not been few,

Struggles far and large, stretching the extent of this country’s vastness, but it is through this toil that your cheeks grow rosy and body restless, feeding the spirit of this land,

From the defeated scalawag groaning under the pressures of the other-worldly north, knowing not another way to make his livelihood, who interred his progeny for the ideals that he knows true,

Blessed be the Yank that has not permitted this vessel to break in two, and has gone lengths to see that freedom and liberty are extended to all of God’s creatures; a challenge that extends beyond the battlefield,

May you rise against the difficulties that await!

To the freed men, weeping with joy at the sight of a generation born into freedom!

      and to those children, beaming with veneration for their fathers, and hope for their futures!

Yes, America, frothing at the mouth with hysteria and genius, the garden of a great people; loathsome and proud, amiable and generous; you are all of these things,

With startling ambiguity you exist, for you are the wicked and the heavy at heart; the chain that binds and the torch that lights the way,

And as I sit here in my reverie, change do you still, moving forward and backward concurrently in your narcissistic godliness, with all your juvenile follies that are sure to make you grow wise and mature in your years,

This is my hope for you, America.

—- — –

As far as I know, I'm done with Lansing Comm. College.  Funny, every single one of my professors were MSU profs too.  I saved like $20,000.  Thanks LCC!

Everybody, do me a favor and:

a)go to google
b)copy this—-> Camp Striker Iraq "Bradley Robb" <—–directly into the search bar
c)watch the chaos ensue

cleaning out/throwing away all of the boxes i left here from before i moved to florida.  funny, i saved so much.  the best part about it are the photos and all of my writing assignments that i saved over the years, from grade school on up.  the evolution of bryan was/is hideous.  i should scan some memorabilia.  everyone would have a good laugh, including myself.

i also found a record player with needle intact!  listening to the kinks with neverending zealous!

today i woke to the sound of my focus-challenged, seventeen-year-old brother, and my 43 year-old mother fighting because she didn't wake him up in time for school. my brother, who has been through four high schools, for various reasons, many of which i believe to be fiction, has once again accumulated more than nine (9) absences in the better half of his classes this semester. meanwhile, in a not-so-distant corner of the house, where i was coming out of a dream where i was supposedly some kind of motorcycle pro who has just come out of a coma and is getting back into his training regiment, hear the sound of an adolescent boy's whine reverberating off the freshly de-carpeted wooden floor of the house, down the hall, and into my dreaming head. five years ago i would have screamed back. today i just opened my eyes to the sun coming through my bare windows and listened. i felt for my smokes, which are never farther than an arm's length from me at all times. i pulled one out, lit it, and took a drag that would have knocked me down if i hadn't already been in my bed, and when i exhaled it did that thing where all the spinning smoke is automatically highlighted when it reaches the rays of the sun, contrasted to the shadow where the sun doesn't reach. i listened to a little bit more of the conversation as i finished the cigarette, yells and stomping feet…"it's all your fault, and now i'm gonna hafta take those classes overr!"…"NO, whose the one who had all of those absences to begin with?!"…"well i was gonna go the rest of the year…why didn't you wake me up??"…"you're seventeen years old, can't you set your alarm?"…yada yada. it's funny, but not so funny. i mean, i've known for a while that my brother has been fucking his life up. and as i lie there smoking, i thought to myself, "oh, eric. if you only knew how hard you're making this on yourself". and it's too late. we've done everything for him, from helping him, offering to help him, offered counseling, fought with teachers to keep him, changed schools to get a fresh start, tried medication. he spends a lot of time on his car. more than a healthy amount of time sanding, inhaling fumes, painting, ripping this out, welding that. he's pretty good at it. the trouble i had lying in bed there, listening to the fighting, was my belief systems. i'm not quite a fan of our economy, our political system, capitalism, the american dream. sure, we all dream about stuff. we all have dreamt about being a great (fill in the blank). and it has us chasing these things without heart, recklessly. not just things, but status and power, too. and on countless occasions, i don't know how many (but probably far too many), i have sat my brother down and tried to get his goals out of him, push him towards something, to use his brain. to focus. to set the bar high. but as i look back, i wonder why i should put any more effort into it. why should i have him chasing these things? if he finds happiness in simple things, like working on cars, so be it. if he achieves that, then that's more than i can say i've accomplished. why should i give advice to someone who doesn't want it? in addition, why should i, the giver of that advice, say anything at all when i could use some counseling myself? so i continued about my day in the normal fashion. smoked a lot of cigarettes, did as minimal as possible. i sat in my car an hour for the warmth and the silence, clearing my head of all the trials my head fabricates, trying to dissolve fears, narcissism, clutter. i dressed up to go no where. i looked at myself in the mirror, "i'm ugly, i'm pretty, i'm ugly, i'm pretty…","…my mother was a real woman and my father a real man, what am i?" i cannot go back to working mindless jobs. i can't stand to work with one more person who's about as bright as a fork in a microwave. then i think, "goddamn, that's such a mean thing to say. what's wrong with manual labor and finding enjoyment, maybe even enlightenment in it?" thus i teeter, back and forth in my thoughts, only becoming clear when i force meditation upon myself. can it balance? i think that i'm great, then i think i'm worthless. i wonder how much is indoctrination. how many of my dreams are prescribed by this place in which i live, how many aren't complete fabrications. what won't i accomplish by my lack of commitment to anything or anyone? what will i accomplish by wanting to do everything, be everywhere at once, and be everything to everyone? absolutely nothing. but will i die happy? i'm still working on that.

It's times like these that I'm glad that I don't keep a lot of personal possessions. I'm moved out of my apartment and it really didn't take more than two days to get everything organized, packed up, and moved. There is one thing that I'm neglecting, though, and it's painting over the walls. I shouldn't have ever done it, being that it's an apartment but I was tired of living in mind-numbing white. Hopefully I'll finish that up tonight.

I've been thinking about heading over to the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship as a spectator on one Sunday to see what they're all about. I'm not really into organized religion, and I'm sure those who know me the best would say that I've said more than my fair share against them. But I think that these people are kind of the anti-religious-establishment establishment. I was researching their stuff and at very least they sound uncommonly interesting to me. They're so open minded that I've been wanting to check them out for the sheer sense of community…and possibly so I can do some volunteer work. I don't know what I'd do, but I feel that I've got a lot to be thankful for, and there are plenty out there that have nothing, so why not do what I can instead of griping about things all the time.

Also, I'm probably a little late on this train by a couple of months, but I've been listening to Bloc Party and it may just be true that they saved music for me. I was starting to think that there were no truly sincere bands out there…that also whaled like nobody's business. These folks most certainly do, and I'm rockin' it like it's hot. Don't listen to the hype, just grab the album Silent Alarm before you're the last person on earth who hasn't heard this heroic band. Also, I'm pretty damned excited about the 6 re-releases of all the Super Furry Animals discs. Too bad I'm pretty much flat. British Sea Power also. I do have the ole iPod. Someday I'm going to need and repent for not paying these wonderful people. My logic – they're a lot richer than I am, and they're not eating kraft dinner…so when I'm old and loaded from retirement and booze, I'll go through the old collection, and any band that I feel changed me positively in some way…I'll buy two of every copy. No I won't.

Lately I've been so incredibly lazy. I think that the last year has caught up with me, working and school and partying and trying to balance it all out. I don't have much motivation to do anything this week. It's like a mini vacation. My body is catching up, and maybe I'll be recouped by this weekend. Until then, I'm just concentrating on myself. I've neglected that person.

i spent the afternoon
and much of the evening
right here

much of the morning too

the sun hid
for the better part of a season
this midwestern gray
with its skies drained
like my lungs
suffocating with a Camel’s
all deliberate speed

but today
no, yesterday
the sun decided
he was tired of suicide notes
and came out with guns blazing
forcing me to class

to those trite teachers
flagrantly approaching godliness
to themselves
and to the mindless dummies
who grasp convictions based on cynicism–
like fashion coughing up
whatever hasn’t been stated
except in the vague references
of music
and the undercurrents
of a popular-by-unpopularity-
existential-
bullying weak
who at first surprise
with vocabulary
but who still
haven’t any idea
what the fuck they’re talking about

they’ve found a taste for coffee by day
and despondence by night
bellowing obscure words
like swooning disaster
at the end of the bar
to the girl with the pink pink skin
pink pink skin

legs long as knives in loins
dress hiked to the barstool
peeking white cotton panties
when she laughs, she laughs

what was her name