My finite timeline

I just realized that it is almost mid-April, which means it's almost mid-year, which means it's almost halfway through 2007. The paper days seem to be falling off the calendar like one of those cartoon montage sequences used to transition between years. It's scary the way it happens and I'm having mixed feelings about it.

This whole concept of time makes me feel really small. Like I'm just the tiniest cell coursing through the veins of this huge moving body of humanity. I feel insignificantly out of control and because I'm flying so quickly, I feel the definite end approaching. I hate the resounding cliche of "life is short" but it really, truly is.

It's short, and it's fast.

Life, in all it's myriad events is shorter than we'll ever know. I just hope that at the end of it, I can say truthfully that I have few regrets.

List of wants

I want to have a realization. ANY realization about anything. I'll take one brief moment of clarity, just a quick peek at daylight through the heavy-curtained clouds.

I want to know someone, and I want to be known. I suppose I want to know myself.

A dry spell

I'm not sure if it's the dreariness of the weather or my current season of life, but I find myself detrimentally introspective today. Compound this with the total of 3 hours of tooth-sore sleep and understandably, I'm in a weird mood. I'm starting to hate the uncertainty of my age bracket. I feel like I'm seeing everything through a tinted telescope, where the image through the lens is so much sadder and further away than it appears.

I feel like my ship is running aground, crashing into the harbor still sea-bound and water-tight, not yet ready to be docked. An uncomfortable place for any ship.

I hate admitting weakness; I'm noticing that I only admit the faults that I'm either: A. Comfortable with or, B. Pretending to have in vain attempts at humility. I know I come across as a pretentious ass some of the time and for that I'm truly sorry and very embarrassed. Truth is: I'm an empty vessel. The face of uncertainty blanketed in a cold and condescending stare. I don't mean to stare, honest.

Right now I hear the faint Beethoven symphony of the ice cream carrying van orbiting the neighborhood outside my office. The wind blows every few minutes and reminds my warm skin that lethargy has no place in the work place. No place at all. My tooth hurts and my lack of dental insurance provides no small obstacle in the way of rapid repair, so the realization that only time or money (or both) is going to make my tooth feel better is also a little depressing. I am shirking my test-taking responsibilities for blogging, which is probably not on my list of "things that make you feel better". I feel like writing is more of a responsibility than the healing catharsis I wish it were. I fancy myself talented, but the reality is that I'm painfully mediocre.

Seriously I'm over it. I don't know who's right in this situation? I can't help but feel suffocated, and I'm sick of feeling selfish for making decisions contrary to what she wants. I'm so so so sorry. I'm sorry that I took a chance and took control.

I'm taking myself out of the game, it's proven too difficult.

The way God sees the world

I want to see the world the way God sees the world. The way the yearning mountains stretch and extend, pointing back into their creator. The swirling and stirring strength of the oceans that survive all of us. I want to feel the depth of glory, to dive headfirst in to the deep. We are but small unrefined beings tethered by gravity to this beautifully imperfect planet. A beautiful world filled with equal parts evil and good, dancing and dodging like seasoned boxers. I want to see the world the way God sees the world. We see beauty in all of God's whispers, and sometimes, in the tiniest voice, we find beauty in the dirt, we find glory in the barren.

I want to feel the cool spring-water spray of redemption.

The contents of which have been immortalized.

One of my best friends recently gave me what is probably the best present I've ever received. I can't really thank you enough Mike.

I hope that I am half as good of a friend to you as you are to me.

A bigger purpose

"There's more to living than being alive"

I've heard these words in similar contexts and phrasings before, but the new Anberlin song kind of put a better tune to it (literally). I think people, maybe Americans in general have this habit and tendency to obtain things. By this I mean it seems like the goal of almost everyone I know (including myself at times) is to acquire things. The problem I'm finding with this practice is that things, by nature, are reinvented, usurped and surpassed regularly which leaves an empty and hungry void within the acquirer. Following this system, more things are purchased and outdated and the cycle repeats itself until we die, dissatisfied and emptied.

There's more to living than being alive. Maintaining homeostasis seems to be the goal of so many people. Just skating by and just surviving seem to be the basest of man's desires, but I just have to feel like we are meant for more. Call it a calling, call it a purpose call it whatever you want, but there's a feeling inside me that tells me that there is so much more out there for us than just making it through the day.

I just want to live for a bigger reason.

just watch it happen

Warm in a thick sweet blanket of fury we watch the stage wondering out loud: "do you think he's really happy?" I'm content in a fast-food fast action playground, as other lucid numbers walk past me in blurry-eyed succession. We greet each other politely, as temporary distractions, forgetting names as quickly as faces. Routinize the matter-of-fact as we patch the same holes we dig deeper.

I want to feel whole again, but was I ever really whole? Probably not but thats neither here nor there. A God shaped vacuum plagues my heart and given a shot, I'd like to make it bigger. To cut from my flesh the metaphysical state of transmission. Passing through a barrier to insult the next is like peeling flesh open to expose the root and upon finding it spitting to soak the wound.

I always knew I'd find this place. I kind of never knew when, but hitting the solid stone at the end of the well is the only place the water stops. I'll drown in the slow dripping eventually, as the even drops eventually steal my stillness.

whatever, goodnight.

I'm not sure what it is about me, about her, but something just doesn't feel right. Like sometimes i feel like i'm completely settling for security when what i want is the extraordinary. I don't want to believe that my best days are behind me. I'd love to look forward to something.

Anything?

I want a story to tell. I feel like every time i sit down and write (to noone, mind you) all i'm doing is writing pathetic prose, skipping lines and adding italics for dramatic effect. I really don't have a story or method to my daily life. I have complaints and half-assed self realizations. I pretend that i'm a good writer, when I as far as i know, I can barely spell anymore.

Do i want to be a Lawyer? Do i want to be a teacher?

Am i smart enough for either, or am i just lazy enough to call it a "couldabeen"

whatever, goodnight.

wondering outloud the things i should be considering.?

I just drank two beers and i'm feeling talkative, but have noone to talk to. Lately i've been thinking about going to law school. I'm still determining my reasons for wanting to go, and I have no idea where to start. I dont know if it's just the desire to want to make more money (the more i find out about lawyerdom, the more i realize it's definitely NOT guaranteed prosperity), i dont know if its the desire to want to stay in school in complete avoidance of "real" life. I dont know if its the vain and shallow conceit that drives me to want to impress people with my occupation (but really, how often does one ask "what do you do?"). It's rare, and even if the question arised often, who the fuck cares? I'm not going to devote 3 more years of my education just for bragging rights?

I'd much sooner say to the question: "I'm a teacher, I'm a mechanic, i'm a nurse or a janitor for that matter, what does it matter? What i do to make money does not make me, me). It seems like too many people equate employment occupation with self justification. A person is not determined by the amount of money they earn, or by the seeming "importance" of their job.
A person is justified by the way they treat their friends, the way they treat their family, the way they treat their God. A person is only a person to other people.

That probably doesn't make sense, refer to line 2 of this blog for an explanation.

noone reads this, but that's ok. I love you.

a standstill

Somtimes, well, most of the time, I feel like my life isn't developing at the normal rate. I grew up with my parents, uncles and older acquaintances getting married at about the age I am now. They were buying houses, going to family dinners, and washing their cars on Saturdays. They were working during the week and shopping on the weekends, taking boating trips and vacations.

Where am I in relation to this?

Not close.

I'm going to school (barely passing), working a marginal job which pays me occasionally. I do live on my own, which is a boon to my own existence, but begrudgingly. I have a world of credit card and school loan debt which piles up faster than it is paid off. I want a ring on my finger, a silver-colored promise of security. A small, shining announcement of my station in life. I want to e responsible for my family, and have the means to do so successfully. I want to take my nephews out on the weekends (have none).

Life in comparison.. Is disappointing.

the warm red hate dripped from my lip as she pulled away.

"i cant do this anymore" she said, "i mean, i wont"

It's crazy to think that we've made it this far alone, i mean just us, i mean just me, what do i mean?

"you're going crazy, sean"

Is she talking anymore? I though only of the dripping, and the kinds of shoes she was wearing. She never wore those shoes anymore, but i think they compliment her pants well.

"Jesus, look at me"
At this point i was completely out of the conversation, sitcoms i barely watched were registering more this.

home is nowhere now.

I'm growing to understand that home is not a physical place, but a place with outstretched arms and smiling eyes that close when you kiss. Home is where you want to be warm.

It's hard when you don't really feel like home exists anymore. The place I grew up has grown up without me, leaving me to float awkwardly like a ping pong ball in a blow-test tube.

Home exists, but I can't find it.

We (I) live in an awkward period of time, where it seems like we are always transitivity. This job to that job, this future to that future, this person to the next, years of constant movement. These years of instabilty are causing us to distrust the stable, grounded lives available to us. We are so used to constant fluidity, that we can't really appreciate the steadfast. We get bored with people, bored with jobs, bored with daydreamed futures. It's crazy and I hope it ends soon.

I just want to be content.

a new day for an old me

A new day for an old me. First day at a new job brings back years of compound insecurities. Hopeful
hopeful
hopefully waiting for something to be made to happen.
I have to make things happen this time. 23 is far too old to depend on others. I want to type the most dramatic sentence available to me. But

its gone it looks like its all gone.

i still think about her. Is it hindsight or mindsight thats doing it this time. Am i making things better than they were? Or am i worse than i was?

Rhetorical \\one sidedconversation

that looks cool.


i love you God

Dramatics and embellishment

Clandestine indigo viewing
A shade misunderstood
She walks a brown planet with dirty dust writing fingertips
On dirty cars
And our dirty plan is now made known
New eyes newly dripping with salty sadness
As the warm hate drips from the corner
Of my mouth

To pretend is pretense
A sad charade filled with even sadder players
Whose eyes drip this salty sadness
Though their smiles smile syncopated
And regulated, though their masks mask madness
To appearances: lovely
Painting black skies blue
Feeling failure in forever, regards
The reality.
The reality of supposition is their weakness
A marriage of true minds finds
The fear of falling, failing finding
The fewer friends now to feel the forms of love
And bitter babies cry constantly for
As the selfish ones fall
With, then within, then withal
Then without.
The cycle continues and years creep by
The spider’s fingers crawl into
Old men’s eyes,
And the salty sadness dries

Always so plugged in.
Always so digital. My ears consumed by songs i've heard a hundred times before, words sung by rich entertainers bounce between my ears. The phone I talk on, the computer i type into, the car I drive.

How is it possible to be so disconnected while being more connected than ever?
The great irony of it all is that our instruments of communication are now existing to disinvolve those without the proper media. The greatest irony is that we are so much further apart now than we were.
The beginning of the end?
Don't be so apocalypctic, the digital age is upon us. The time is now. We are socially, intellectually and emotionally developing at twice the speed of time. Things are good, they tell me. They tell us, things are good.
Soon they will clone our pesky, problematic parts and we will be like new humans. With old souls, and old hearts and stale, sore faces that haven't reason to smile. Replacements of replacements.

The american way is becoming the way to be. The becoming way to be.

Pittsburgh and awkward syntax.

The smokestacks contrast the green and rise like enormous grey fingers stretching into the sky. Into the clouds they point, into the skies of employment. A blue collared horizon welcomes every one of us. Beckons our contributions. Some come for the human wilderness, some come for the opportunity.

I came just for the view.

I came to smell the sweaty skin of America. To shake the grease stained hands that tear and toil and to remember them who built this iron machine. Spinning gears and twisting chains break and bend the backs of labor. Faceless parts to an autonomous machine.. The very stability we so often overlook and demote. We owe our lives to these parts, these instruments. Human oversights.

mothers talk, talk about anything but thier children.
anything to detract from life. life at home.
a blurry-eyed, empty insistance staring through each conversation, each pained word wishing it was somewhere else.
I wish i was somewhere else too.

Mothers talk about houses, about cars about vacations.
never talking about the husbands or children inside them.
the mother's smile ends as quickly as it came
lips from down to up, from frown to fading.

mothers spend money, the ultimate excuse.
The ultimate conversation piece.
Mothers
empty vessel or just empty.

With a flicker of indifference and a small spark of genius, I framed the world with my fingers and called it mine. I called it hers, and we began ours. A traveling bunch we became, through stairs and stairs of buildings and buildings. We were looking for a dream which traveled faster than we could. Faster than I wanted to go. Rushing, rolling, pushing, pulling. The formless fingers of consequence pulled the strings of conscience tighter as we went. I wanted this broken reality, I brought us here. Where?
To where we are.

It started making more sense as we moved. The February air misted our faces and our cold stiff hands joined, a basket of white knuckles. A short-term promise of each other’s salvation. Through stores and stories, and endless visual conversation converging and reminding me that she was infinite. Dozens of figures passed on either side, dodging us, hands still holding, hoping and wanting at length to escape the cold.
A comfortable silence.

to buy or sell

The business of business.
Buy, sell, buy, buy. A leased life paid for in credit, owed to and owned by banks and plastics. People in charge of charging, redundance and repetition.
copies of copies; each less original, each less thier own. Monthly payments due and loans to cover loans. A metaphysical example of one's own choice. A trait virus running through the veins of cultures, an identity of deformity.

It's all ok because we dont know any better.