I've been a bit worried as of late, worried for myself, maybe something that has never existed
Driving boxes of Midwestern roads I talk, sometimes in consolation, other times in desperation, wanting anything to turn out some solidarity. As the days persist I float through them, already tired, already somewhat dead, as if ghostly I pass from one day to the next, barely leaving a footprint, not seeing my reflection in people that I call friends. Because the ones that used to reflect have now been spat upon and grow dilapidated in time, and in a way I do not any longer exist, but instead just keep returning to places and feelings that remind me of them, as if to see myself better, to construct some abstract creation of self that I'm not even certain I like, but it's an easy cop out to not following through with growing and creating something new. On those same box roads I see out-of-state plates coming home on holiday and vacation, where I can just imagine their thoughts as they pull into the drive and take that deep breath before they unclench the steering wheel and unlock the heavily latched door to their old life, and step in. And no matter their new lives, no matter their accomplishments and new relationships, no matter what new philosophies they have on life or volumes of information they've stuffed into their brains, they will always see an old reflection when home, "in all their looks and words"…though slightly stranger and more alien, with more creases in their face and a certain emptiness in the eyes. It is those feelings and those looks that I see in my dreams, that I wake up thirty, forty, or fifty years old, excited to leave on holiday and forget my new life that I wanted so badly, to come home only to see those old reflections of myself that I loathe and love, that I had tried to forget and despised to see, with my new life huddled like an elephant in the room and the old like a ghost at the dinner table. I'm terrified of this.

I had this bizarre dream last night. It's funny because I don't normally remember my dreams, but this one stuck.

It started with me leaning against the bar in this dining area/ballroom, everyone decked out in tuxedos and gowns, chandeliers and everything else. I was looking around and drinking my whiskey or whatever thinking how spectacular the place looked, but I wasn't in the greatest of moods. I didn't want to be there. At this point I looked over to this figure moving his way through the round tables toward one of the doors. He looked over at me and I was surprised to see that it was my dad. Not my step father, but the AWOL Bryan Sr. We looked straight at one other…and we knew exactly who the other was…but he just kind of nodded, turned his head away, and kept walking. I thought about it a second and then I was almost instantly wrought with madness. How could he have done that? I finished my drink and I headed for the door. Following him out I see that he's quite a ways ahead of me…and he's climbing into this vehicle…almost like a dump truck or something…but far larger. I don't even know how he got up there, it was just that large. He was eating lunch when I approached him; evidently the ballroom food wasn't to his liking. When he saw me he didn't even really say anything…just started sharing his lunch with me. He handed me this huge slab of fish…bigger than my arm…and I started to eat it. I don't eat seafood.

And when I woke I felt alone.

save me from this retchedness!

lend me your couch!
lend me your reference!

If there is someone on your friends list you would like to take, strip naked, tie them to a bed post, lick them until they scream, then screw them until both of you are senseless and unable to screw anymore, then wait about five minutes and do it all over again, then post this exact sentence in YOUR journal.

I had a dream that I was driving in someone else's car, and that person was with me telling me bunk directions. But the brakes were really bad and when I tried to slow down to take turns or stop for obstructions the car wouldn't stop…only slightly slow down when i put all of my weight into the brake; I'd just keep sliding…brakes screeching…and the steering wheel would slacken. I was completely helpless. I wonder if this is some kind of metaphor for my life.

I'm in North Carolina currently. My brother is being deployed to Iraq for the second time, this time on an 11 month stint. I'm here visiting and helping him move out of his apartment…it's kind of scary. hasn't really set in yet. I miss him already. I wish I could go in his place. I swear, if anything happens to him over there, the cowboy president has me to worry about, believe it.

i'm officially 24, thus officially old. actually my birthday was yesterday but i worked that day.
Hunter S. Thomson died on my birthday. I think it would have been funnier if he did it on presidents day instead of my birthday.

Today is a beautiful day. I love it when I rise with the sun, fully rested and in high spirits. I've been taking a lot from my religious readings lately, especially Rumi…he makes me think these positive thoughts, feel these feelings that everything is in it's right place. My posture is improving and the tension in my shoulders and brow are lessened by the day. I think soon that I will have the willpower to quit smoking and then I'll be filled with energy in time for spring!

I haven't always been the best of people, I know this, for I often wore it on my sleeve as pessimism. I have been trying to be more selfless. Yesterday I was walking to my car, 5 blocks away from class, and while passing the parked cars along the way I saw the little parking ticket police vehicle cruising along, trying to snag someone. I was about 2-3 car lengths ahead of her, and when I saw cars without minutes on the meter, I pumped in a coin for them. I think she saw me and was actually mad! Can you believe that! I laughed at her and I laughed at myself.

I feel like I'm a robot.  Not in the trendy way, either.
Routine. Zeep. Zip. Beep. Boink.
And coaxing myself and others into thinking that I'm strong isn't going to hold up much longer, I feel.  The ruse is going to break.  I'd just like someone else to be strong for me for a couple of days.  Maybe so I can just build my strength back up.  Like how a diver needs to come up for air, or to refill his tank, or whatever.  At risk of being pushed outside the realm of men I'll quite frankly state that I need someone to hold me in my bed without the relationship stresses or sex or whatever.  Someone that just makes me feel like I'm alive, that things are ok, and that there are people who care about me.  As a reminder.  Because I know these things are true, I just sometimes need to be reminded.  Lately I haven't been reminded very often.

This winter has been damned dreary.  It started out with a kick/hoorah, then it just kind of fizzled.  The other day it was -30 with windchill.  That's ok.  Whatever.  I live in Michigan, I can deal with it.  Then the snow.  And the clouds that block out the life-giving sun.  Then my dog Eddie Dies.  The saddest little thing ever.  But it's alright, he was sick, and it was his time. 

Then one of my Profs dropped my final grade from a 3.5 to a 3.0, not because I wasn't a good student, but because I missed some days of class.  I outperformed virtually everyone in class and that bastard wants to play god??  If you're reading this Dr, fuck you. I didn't go to class because you didn't teach me anything.  The grades I get are from what I already know or from what I teach myself.  Sad day when people pay all this money for a paper that says, "Hey, I know how to show up!"  Whatever. I'm a hypocrite, si.

And now Erica leaves for Hawaii in a week or so.  The one person I've connected with in over 2 years is now gone.  Who knows, maybe I'll follow her there.

Yes, there's an Idea.

The last few days its been inhumanely cold. 0 degrees, 3 degrees, -4 degree windchill, etc.
today when i walked out the front door i bundled, but no gust blew me over.
It feels like it's thirty degrees and it almost feels like fucking spring after the REAL cold.

Today and yesterday were my days off, and I haven't had a pair of days off since august. At first I almost felt dirty that I really didn't have anything that I should be doing. I paced around. Went to a matinee with shaun (Closer, only because The Life Aqauatic isn't here yet, damnit). Drank myself to oblivion. I really shouldnt have done that because my head is now aching to the sound of the keyboard clicks. clicks. clicks.

Hear that? That's the sound of history repeating itself.

Benny burned me William Shatner's newish CD, which is played rather regularly now. Surprisingly good. Scary.
And for some reason I've been listening to old Brand New. Oxymoron. I'm losing it. Anyway, it fits right in with winter. Deja Entendu is a great album.

Ah, my island universe.

Happy Holidays

I've moved so much, and moving around is degenerative to my goal. But the idea of a Hindi sannyasi has really been intriguing me lately. I know I don't have the balls to just up and leave right now, but maybe if I was forced into a position where I had little to no material possessions, then I'd really have no choice. I want to be more self-explorative. Being soft with all of its distractions (e.g having a car, house, music, job, school) has a way of making you forgot about what it really means to be alive. I always think about that one greasy spoon scene in Pulp Fiction when John Trevolta and Samual L are fighting over the fact that Trevolta wants to become a traveling holy man or whatever. Samual proclaims that he'd be a bum if he did that.

Would I be a bum?
I don't think so. I don't think bums try to better themselves spiritually in any way. Maybe some do, but I'm thinking the vast majority are just people who couldn't get a grasp on their alcoholism, lost their jobs/homes, etc. I bet if you handed them a million dollars, they wouldn't be on the streets anymore.
When the H.S. guidance counselor asks "what kind of job would you do if you had a million dollars?" no one ever says "I want to be a sannyasi." That's because the sannyasi needs nothing. He especially does not need money.

I also noticed something today. All the young people in the midwest are so uncertain. The only thing they ARE certain about is that they're leaving. But it's always someday. tomorrow. mañana. a lovely word, and one that probably means 'heaven'. a heaven that will always be one day away.

But yes, I'd like to leave. Maybe just a vacation. If I could save up enough money to eat for the summer, maybe i could go. I dunno.

i wanna jump, jump, jump!
back like stargazing
a rhythmic thump. thump.
with a plastic-soled shoe
you're plastic-souled, too.
shush the books you read
go on pontificating, dude

OKAY.
HI.

Can anyone empathize with this: when things are going really well you just feel like fucking everything up on purpose so it won't be so goddamned ordinary anymore? That's how I feel.

goodnight.

people, please answer:

1. who is your cell phone provider?

2. are you satisfied with your service? pros/cons?

i was recently with sprint for about a year and a half and for the most part i was satisfied. hardly ever was i left without digital service, even during my drive from michigan to california. i may be needing a phone again soon so i'm checking into my options.

"I have an existential map.  It has 'you are here' written all over it."

-Stephen Wright

I used to have a friend that would tell me 'ignorance is bliss'.  He would then go on to describe his ideal circumstance in being blissfully ignorant, painting a picture of himself nearly comatose in a wheelchair on the front lawn of his home, watching the sprinkler go back and forth with unending interest as he lay drooling on himself.  At the time  we both thought that we were pretty smart people.  Quoting books and reciting dry comedy, trying to one-up eachother with the newest record we had found, making sure to learn all the lyrics before showing it off.  We were like sponges.  Little asshole know-it-all sponges.  The funny part about being a know-it-all is that you don't realize how naive you really are.  You don't realize how much more there is to experience.  You just go on thinking the way you do, in your own little world.  With this I don't mean that we weren't open to experience.  But what happens is that you start to get so engrained in patterns of thinking that you tend to not look beyond those views.  Content with what you know.  Comfortable.  Confident.  For example, we used to be so angry at organized religion.  Not so much the religion itself but the people and their dogmas.  Especially people who claimed and preached a particular religion. They who looked down their noses at people who were not like themselves, and then had the audacity to not follow their own convictions.  The comedy of it all is that we were just as hypocritical as they.  And we secretly looked down our noses at them.  On a side note, this reminds me of something my friend Ashley once said to me:

"We all jerk off about how smart we are sometimes without there ever really being anything sexy about the idea."

Anyway, what I'm getting at is that we were and still are very ignorant.  The difference between the me of yesterday and myself of today is that I realize it.   I could never begin to imagine the scope, but that doesn't mean I don't know it's there.  I don't think there is such a thing as pure ignorance, so it must not be the key to bliss.  Even my dog has memory.  And I'm assuming that even at the level of retardation described above, one must be as egocentric as an infant, but also must know the displeasure of yearning for the unattainable. Even if those feelings can't be formulated into a way we can understand. (Why does the sprinkler go back and forth all day long?)

What about love?  Plato said that Love is nothing but the longing, and once you've attained it, it is no longer love.  I dunno.  Zen?  Meditation?  Enlightenment?  It's hard to maintain your composure when an SUV cuts off your compact on the highway.  And unless I want to cut all ties to everything and everyone I know and hide away in the jungle (where I don't have to pay property taxes), I can't find these things very functional.  Wait, forget everything I just said.  I just found bliss.  It involved a drive-thru, sit-com reruns and Tetris.  And a nap.

Goodnight.

"He found that he was often angry…that they were satisfied with their lives which had none of the vibrance his own was taking on. And he was angry at himself, that he could not change that for them."
– Lois Lowry's The Giver

had a pretty damn good weekend at the new place. can't wait to move down for sure. started painting my room, with two colors…one green, the other….is getting painted over. paint is expensive and i can't afford follies like this.

my roomates are awesome, so far. i think it will work out just fine but i guess i'll see how things go in the long run. met two new people, one beautiful, and the other has real personality. too bad that machine from the movie The Fly isn't around…they could jump in together and come out as one…

bad news though: i live pretty much next door to a pub, aka…i'm probably going to be drunk a lot.

today i went to ABC warehouse and asked them how much it would be to install a car stereo. they said 40 bucks, plus 30 bucks for parts, plus tax, etc. 80 dollars? bullshit. these guys are scam artists.

instead, i bought a cd player wiring harness for ten bucks, did some fiddlin' and viola! 20 minutes later i have my cd player in my protege, which i've been driving for almost a month now with only NPR [and on good nights, MSU college radio]. i drove around for two hours just listening to some of the cd's i've aquired in the last three weeks. man it feels good. should have seen the moon and the clouds! beautiful night. 66 degrees. perfect.

so yeah, a 96 protege. a slight upgrade from the last hooptie. leon the neon is officially dead and gone. but part of him will live on [the transmission!] in someone else's ride. yay. i'll miss you good buddy!

"I like too many things and get all confused and hung up running from one falling star to another til I drop. This is the night, what it does to you. I had nothing to offer anybody except my own confusion." – Jack Kerouac.

yep, i'm jack reincarnate.