i look at pictures of a girl i was in love with while simultaneously resisting the affections of another. the former i loved, the latter i do not. why? 

there are times when i hold the scepter. with the angle of my hand i discern the sheep from the goats. you will cry or you will laugh. i have probably made a few cry. 

then i beg on my knees at the mercy of another for the same affection i refuse to extend. 

i cant make you love me. you cant make me love you. 

i need to do some things. 

lunch today with susan. realized that i dont have an answer to give, starting spewing verbal diarrhea. put forth an attempt for her to acknowledge the dysfunctional nature in which i talk in relation to matters of faith, but i did not witness any understanding in her face. thus i was in this way denied, not in the conscious sense of her denying me an attempt to be understood, but denied in the sense of confidence  in my ability to accurately articulate the validity of my beliefs. felt completely disarmed. but the redemptive notion that one ususally feels during such experiences was absent, as the disarmament was only occurring in my half of the conversation, and i perpetuated the whole thing, gave away my entire identity to a stranger who i had almost no context for, all couched within my emotionally involved tendency to beat myself up over this inability to communicate that stems from an insecurity to provide an adequate answer to support the legitimacy of my socially awkward self-acknowledgement of Christian. 

i was stressed out about nothing. what was i stressed out about?

were you hipster too?

It's her lips that carry the weight; the exhausting burden of forcing all her actions to fit within the social parameters of a superfluous cultural fad while tragically never becoming aware of the fact. They want to be the best, and that's understandable. Someone has to try to. And it is, after all, me that reaps the benefits of their attempts at creating this empire of dirt. I like to find the best coffee, and i like to know how to make it too, but i'd prefer not to contribute to the cultural stigma of pretentiousness that always seems to come from the attempt to "be the best" within a capitalistic system fueled by the almost undeniable tendency of humans to compete with each other. 

They don't realize the advantages of being shitty. They have no notion of praying for affliction, or at least embracing its humility when it comes to them circumstantially. They still get disappointed when they lose. It's not an opportunity for them, it's the loss of one. And they don't yet recognize that this particular fad to which they subscribe is like a drop in the bucket, an effect of a previous cause. Soon, within several years, it will become the cause for an equally rebellious effect. Someone will say, "how tiresome it is to make sure everything you eat is organic and free trade." Yea. Damn. We're tired of this. 

But don't mention this subscription stuff to them- for they will arduously deny subscription to any set of limiters. "The first rule of Fight Club is: you do not talk about Fight Club." You'd think if it was really that great of a movement, more people would be willing to go down with the ship. 

I heard this atheist say once that he had a lot of respect for fundamentalist evangelicals. If you were really convinced that the world was ending soon, wouldn't you try to save people from eternal damnation too? The problem is the anti-savior complex inevitably becomes the anti- love complex. "So stare at the ocean while your friends all drown, we all need to learn to swim anyway." The hipster doesn't seem to wanna save anybody from anything. I think they might just stand there and watch while it happened. They might even have a rope. 

I'd prefer to be saved. 

equal parts wishful optimism and foggy remembrance

i remember quite intricately the feeling that i get upon coming home after the end of the fall semester. the first thing that happens is that you get used to staying out till 5am every night because you're over in your friend's basement playing video games all night. then eventually you go home and sleep till 3, at which point you wake up and realize that it will only be daylight for approximately 2 more hours before the december darkness, with its constant reminder of its inherent unnaturalness, creeps back over you again, at which point you start the cycle all over again. its a wonderful time; a responsibility-free rebellion against the past three months of being locked into the ever-greuling cycle of the intellectual life, and a desperate attempt to soak up each and every moment before the cycle begins once again. i remember losing track of the days, each one bled into the next, nothing to differentiate the weekend from the weekdays.

and now i think about it here, at thanksgiving, as the semester is almost over, but not quite, as if its leaving me one last oppotunity to make a significant mark upon what will be most remembered from fall 2009, and i come again to the realization of how much i want to share the carefree and completely childish experience of running around this town that is my home with someone else. it would just be you and me, and we might not get the phone call till 11 oclock at night, but when we did, we'd head on over to greg's house, and the three or four or five of us would watch a movie, and maybe id fall asleep, or maybe you would, but we'd have a hell of a time. the next night we'd do it all over again, except we'd call him or her too cause they're back and we haven't seen them since september and hey they're good people and we want them around us. i'd want you to experience how exhiliarating this life is; the magic that comes from having so many anxious youths back in their proper context. and you would jump right in and say "YEA!," and then we'd drive off into the timeless night and suddenly remember how to forget who we are.

the mechanicals are coming

a year and a half in the making. but somehow, in the back of my mind, i knew it would take this long. ive watched friends spend 6, 7, 8 years playing music before something actually happened. we're doing alright.

new stuff's sounding great, and im excited, and i think all four of us are seeing the rewards of sticking it out. for sure, it hasnt been easy, nor will it continue to be, but several things excite me, and they involve not simply just having enough material to play a 20 minute set, but having material that, to the best of my ability at objectivity, i believe is something lyrically significant and musically well done. at the risk of sounding cliche, this stuff fuggin rocks, something that i was previously hesitant about, but have become increasingly unabashedly ok with. and i think we've done a damn good job of coming together musically. i feel more and more confident as drummer, more smooth, more on, more expressive. there was times when i wasnt, but im cool with this now. soon it will be time to let it all out. and i will not be ashamed.


p.s. im through with high school coffeehouses. so awkward. so difficult to afford these people any legitmacy. i am, in some sense, waiting for people to grow up. i witness the stagnation of aimless lives; the product of irresponsibility, poor stewardship, and a lack of understanding of the liberal (freeing) arts. in a word: school. this is what happens when people stop learning. what the hell am i gonna do with myself when i graduate?

through an intimate understanding of the human condition i will fabricate a murderer. his nature will be nothing like mine.


*unfinished mental note to myself to not forget this concept. more must be said on this

two things

1st- there's a girl in every town.

2nd-most things are just fads. 

i didnt, say, choose the solitary path. maybe it was my father told me i am a thinking person, so i became. also told me i am an attractive person. have i chosen to become self aware of it? well geeeeeeezzzzzeeeeee i dunno. should i? 

i mean, for a little while, i thought i could pull it off, living in relationship, you know, that kind....you know. i can. yet according to some and one half self, it goes against my nature. and we all know how damn stressful reinventing yourself is. you can only do it so many times before people stop taking you seriously. 

or maybe they never started taking you seriously, and thats how we got in this God-awful shitty mess to begin with. 

i hear you saying, "you are also the culprit." yes, i turn people down, and i dont know how to reconcile it. beggar wants to choose. im not a beggar. but i do feel. 

when it all comes down to it, im not gonna dumb it down. we'll either speak the same language or we'll become horrendously awkward. some people cant handle that. 

where are all the dangerous people?

"if they drive God from the streets, we will find Him underground." -Fyodor Dostoevsky

He anticipated asking the question before he even went to the first class. He asked it the second class. 

"Despite the overwhelming continuity present in many of the ancient manuscripts, there still seems to be a lot of conjecture for something that is supposed to be regarded as being 'inerrant.' How can we rule out social, political, and selfish motivating factors for the canonical selection process of the ancient church fathers?"

I knew it would come up. Its why i took the class. Besides, it had come up before. I had asked it before, in a far more rigid context. I was in the back of the room, i remember. And i remember people turning round in their chairs after i asked it. 

But back to now; It came up in a class handout. It was a page with a table with seven or eight rows and about twenty columns. On the rows were listed famous early Christian figures of antiquity: Clement, Justin Martyr, Eusebius, etc, and in the columns were the included books in  their corresponding individual canonical New Testaments. Each one was different. 

I think i cared so much because this is MY tradition, MY belief, the beginnings of MY story being told to me in front of my eyes. Of course you want to be certain of its certainty. 

I have been thinking, both in the present events of today and the past occurrence at PBU several years go, whether, if I had held my peace, the question would have remained unasked, and the current Christian generation would have continued on with its often blatantly irresponsible ignorance of the historical foundations of the religion they so fervently attempt to both live out and spread to others. 

lately

been thinking about david bazan's new album, curse your branches, and its incredible insight into the imminent agnosticism of the christian skeptic's hero. 

more to come. an article, perhaps. 

for now, some uncompleted lyrics to a new song, melody known. 

wait, wait, wait for love on a trampoline

she'll walk down on a summer's night

lay, lay, lay in the skin of a human being

cause the leaves don't fall where they want to. 

speak to the earth, say where has your father gone, 

cause the children are all asking me. 

and the leaves don't fall where they want to, where they want to, where they want to...

p.s.- Inglorious Bastards= Tarentino and Pitt amazingness.

to a schoolyear anticipated

Right now, hundreds of freshman are moving onto my university's campus. It's a hell of a show, lemme tell ya. Crying parents, motivational speakers, shitty Ikea lamps, and the sinking feeling of unfamiliarity. Its academia in the fall.

Some are more excited than others.

west philly livin

if you didn't know, i just moved into a house in west philadelphia with some friends. this will be my place of residence whilst i finish my final year at Eastern University. its my first time living in the city (first time having my own place for that matter), and what better way to kick off this child of ambition than with a top ten list of some of my favorite things about this new culture of life. 

1. biking EVERYWHERE- the wonderful feeling of an active lifestyle is one of the best ways to combat narcissism. i haven't felt this healthy in a while. the benefits of physical exercise extend far beyond the realm of the physical. save money, enjoy the summer life. biking is great. 

2. the cafes- enjoying the proximity to some of the best cafes around. ultimo coffee is about a 20 minute bike ride. counter culture espressos and macchiatos. you just cant find stuff this good in the burbs. 

3. having people over- the depths of this desire extend deep into the reaches of my childhood. 

4. cooking- part of this comes from having such a bad-ass kitchen, but this is an art, one in whose familiarity i have recently discovered an enormous amount of value. juxtaposed to this is the feeling of having control over your own food-buying decisions.  

5. the house- its great. if you haven't seen it, you need to. there's no lack of color here. 

6. the neighborhood- who are these people? what are their stories? what incredible dignity they have. 

off to maine soon. hoping to write about it. perhaps a photo essay is in order? 

a stated purpose, amid purposelessness

we'll see what happens. this could well sink into the unchanneled depths of black hole cyberspace, (a place most certainly time-bending indeed), but, with hope, i will be more intentional about being intentional; putting thoughts to words...life, you know. You do know.  i think there's value in it. 

i need to ask a favor; i need permission to fool around, to develop a "writing style" as it were, and i need your permission both for experimentation and to keep my pride in check. so many of these modern writers are nihilistic bastards with self-inflated egos. i dont want to become that. will you help me? sometimes it means writing simply, or even bad. 

i appreciate it. let's go somewhere. i wanna hear about your life too.