"Yes I have risked. I hope I am always able to risk everything for the right and just cause."

I'm out of practice. It's been so long since I really cared about something enough to put myself on the line. At first I was afraid I was too selfish to ever do that again, and then I wondered if maybe I was too selfish to have ever really done that before. But there's something about a beautiful, genuine woman who saves her brightest smiles for you, her biggest laughs for you...her warmest touch. Something about that makes the knees of cynics quake and the brows of pessimists sweat. Something about that inspires, "Be that man." Well, maybe you are.

Go for broke and don't look back.

absorbing: "Lost Realist" by Trapt

I like going to the mall. I have a Gap credit card and three pairs of "low-rise boot cut" jeans. I get Starbucks and designer brand underwear. I sit in my new model year car and plug in my mp3 player and talk on my RAZR. My lap top and my mp3 player are the same brand. All my shoes, my belts, and my watches are the same brand. All my solid color dress shirts are the same brand. I have a Bally's membership, a Netflix membership, and a Napster membership. I am one hell of a fantastic consumer, thank you very much.

absorbing: "Dilute" by Honorary Title

I'm glad your mascara didn't come out of the pillow case and that t-shirt I was wearing. I'm glad you left a few things behind in my dresser drawer. I'm glad you saved that sketch you drew on my computer.

Thank you for those constant reminders that you'll be back, for those tiny pieces that make the big picture clear.

absorbing: "Tiger Lily" by Matchbook Romance

Or, the lack thereof. My semester started this week and it is clear that schooling has been downgraded to just about the dead last thing on my mind. My schedule is not challenging this time around, and it doesn't look like it will be too engaging either. I was already a pretty lackluster student as it was, so there's no telling what depths I will have troweled come May when my second year of graduate study will have come to an end.

So what is occupying my mind? Well, mostly trivia meaningless to anyone but me. Also, being financially strapped tends to create a mental atmosphere where everything revolves around money, and with the upcoming purchase of a car, my mind is filled not with due assignments and dissertation work but with makes, models, MSRP's, and mileage.


Oh, and just so you know, I love with my mind.

feeling: unworthy
absorbing: "The Impact of Reason" by UnderOath

In my short time being a self-aware adult I've come to hear accounts of so many lives. It's my field that I'm awkwardly plunging into head first; you can't be naive. You have to know that there are people that have nothing and you have to account for them in your view on the world. Then you have to make sure you account for the people that have everything. You have to account for the sick and the healthy, the famous and the ignored, the black and the white, the beautiful and the ugly, you and then me...everything. How do you do that?

To take it all in is to leave your mind ravaged by conflict and disparity. To take it all in is to render your views as thrashed as the world itself until in your head nothing really makes a whole lot of sense and nothing is certain...you know a lot but no matter what anyone asks you, you have to say "I don't fuckin know." Then you vanish like everyone else.

absorbing: "King Without a Crown" by Matisyahu

I had a good time seeing the family and a couple of old friends this past holiday week, and now I'm back. The six hour Greyhound sucked mostly because it was heading in the direction of the one place I'd rather not be. How did I end up with everything I want to be near being so far away? How did I end up caring so little about what is right here in front of me?

My little trips are always a wake-up call. Spending time with real friends reminds me how annoying the people here are. Experiencing someone else's life reminds me how lackluster my own is. Seeing "different" makes me want change. I'd forgotten what it was like to feel comfortable.

I need a fuckin job.

absorbing: "Unsingable Name" by Mike Doughty

I come to rely on some things, foolishly, that are supposed to help me feel better. Go out for a good meal with friends, run my ass off at the gym, take a nap, be productive, be lazy, have a couple drinks, stay up late, sleep in, get up early, talk on the phone, talk on the computer, eat something sweet, buy something cool, take a hot shower, ace a final. They're all about as reliable as I am. I have to learn to not look to anything to give me peace of mind. Goddamn I'm bored.

---

I looked her in the eye, and though I knew she couldn't hear me, I said loud and clear, "I don't deserve you." I knew what she'd say, so she didn't have to. "Who decides what you deserve?" I sighed like I do too often in a day, "I do." I felt like a mistake waiting to be made.

feeling: bored
absorbing: "Blinded" by Third Eye Blind

I am so sick and tired of spending time with some people. Procrastination and disenchantment are probably my two biggest defining characteristics. Mediocre is a good way to sum up 90% of things, myself included. I don't deserve the friends I have. I don't deserve the things I wish I had. I can't stand someone because they stole their sense of humor from mid-90s sitcom television. I can't get over being unattractive. All of my problems are in my head and in my grasp. These are empty words. I have no idea why I post shit like this. I have no idea what to get anyone for Christmas. I've been spending way too much money eating out lately. I hate my ghetto blastin' hoodlum neighbors. I haven't accomplished a day's worth of work in the last week. Blah blah blah, blah blah.

feeling: who cares
absorbing: something obscure to prove what an aficianado I am

I hate turning on the light in the bathroom. Every morning is a disappointment. Big red aching bumps. Dried flakes of dead skin. Small white sores.

Acne vulgaris, taxonomically speaking.

What really gets me, is that people don't even have to get to know me. One look to see I'm horribly flawed, like all my major shortcomings bubble up around my nose and my chin. Ugly, for as long as I can remember.

absorbing: benzoyl peroxide; salicylic acid

I admire the true stoics. In fact, stoicism is my most highly admired trait, and it is something I yearn for. It is somewhat odd, though, because the trait requires, by definition, suffering. Who would yearn for this? Something masochistic in me actually yearns for real suffering, a chance to prove my mettle. Go ahead and let me down, take from me...see if I care.

I've known those who have suffered and witnessed suffering. I respect surviving to the utmost, but there is something about true stoicism that is artful, elegant, and genuinely beautiful. It does require suffering, but suffering is all around us, and the opportunity for stoicism is nearly constant. Regardless, it is indeed rare.

I don't know what it feels like. I identify with stoicism like children identify with super-heroes. I am stolid, mimicking the stoics of my imagination. I've overcome nothing and I have no great story.

feeling: apathetic
absorbing: "Take It All" by TRUSTcompany