Easter Day

Yet another one of those days th/ I occupied so much th/ I've left myself w/ barely enough time or cognizance to write much of any worth on this hear BLOG. Oh well, it happens.

I went to a service @ church th/ had some interesting things sd, a homily made, & a unision prayer made abt Easter. It all focused on how the holiday represented hope for pretty much every religion out there th/ celebrated Easter. The hope inspired by Jesus (or the Son of God, himself. . .whatever you may believe) got resurrected on this day just abt 2002 yrs ago. Around this time of the year even longer than th/ Jesus, Moses had the miracles happen & parted the Red Sea & escaped to the deserts of the Mid-East away from their oppressors. Spring starts around now & organic life acts out again. The name of Easter comes from the name of some pagan goddess, the minister from my church sd. I think he further sd th/ the goddess had something to do w/ hope & life moving or something like th/ (please correct me if I err).

I liked it. After this sermon, I think I'll put Easter up there w/ New Years for one of my favorite holidays. I like new beginnings.

The sermon also has inspired me to accept a lot in my life. I want to direct my life to inspire & reinvigorate the hope people have for their authentic & sincere goals, dreams, & visions th/ would obviously not cause unbalanced, unnatural, & evolution/growth-stumping violence. I will seek out to fulfill this lot of mine, even past my death through the things I leave behind.

Good News

I have solved a big problem th/ had cropped up this week! The whole matter had really gotten me down. Bit I figured out a solution. Yay!

The problem had gone something like this: B/f today, I couldn't afford living in my apartment. I could pay the rent & buy food, but I just didn't make enough to also for the utilities. Thanks to the charity of my roommate, however, I've pulled through the last six months or so w/o any real problems. No problems EXCEPT for a mounting debt th/ I owe my roommate wh/ now amounts to a little over $600. Frost th/ debt w/ the near $10,000 I owe my parents as they payed for nearly everything up until they decided to not pay for anything anymore, I have mounted quite an ugly deficit.

Essentially I have faced the reality of all that stuff this week. Reality showed its ugly head when I decided that I wanted to move out to a very much less expensive place so as to finally get month-to-month financial self sufficiency for myself. So when I looked @ an apartment, I asked how much utilities cost, & the landlord gave me an ugly yet true answer -- abt $300/month. Now I wonder how I kept down that debt I accrued w/ my roommate. Anyway, so I got thinking & thinking & thinking & thinking, trying to find an answer to financial woes & a way to make the move to a new place while also having a lease in my old place. Until today, everything came to either null or drew a simply ugly end th/ I didn't want to touch.

& then, this morning, it came to me. For next six months or so, I'd take an afternoon off at my current FT job & give 3 shifts @ 5 hrs each to an old job th/ I had sometime in the past & to tell the truth, had hoped to never see again. But hey, it'll save me some money, allow me to move from one apt to another, pay rent for the old apt, & eventually pay off a whole lot of my minor debt. I look forward to that day. =)

But now back to work.

A Good Rule:

Contemplate despair all th/ you want, but never ever give up hope on this infinite universe.

- Me

So I Go Another Night. . .

W/o out the energy &/or motivation to write anything truly meaningful. I did have an adventerous evening, though, meeting up w/ a friend for a quick drink then having a convergence of events whence I met up w/ another friend whom we had made 1/2 plans to move a filing cabinet @ the very same bar where the other friend & I had gone for our drinks. All by crazy coincidence, too!

But I just saw this crazy British movie called something like Vacuuming Nude in Paradise. Only British writers could come up w/ this crazy "for mature audiences" modernization of Death of the Salesmen & refer to the verysame play in the movie. It gave me th/ "happy to have my life & there's more important things in this here life than romantic love." Honestly, I like th/ feeling.

& so w/ this epiphany I advance toward bed.

Another Adventure W/ Bad Mr. Tripp

It happened last night. We had orig. planned on going to a concert where a band I used to manage would play. He showed up late w/ different plans. He had picked up Street Promo Guy, who had grown up in my hometown, as well.

In exchange for passing out flyers & such in the streets & at concerts, Street Promo (SP) Guy gets free concet tickets. He had gotten tix to the WAAF Beach Party Concert @ the Tsongas Arena in Lowell. SPG didn't want to go, so he gave the tix to Bad Mr. Tripp.

I didn't have anything against going on an adventure & doing something random to get out of the city on a Friday night. After all, I had made plans to hang out w/ Bad Mr. Tripp. What else did I expect?

So dropped off SPG in Harvard Sq. then explored Cambridge-Somerville for a bit until we found I-93 then sped on over to Lowell for the concert. I won't touch much on the concert now for the sake of appropriateness. Suffice to say, the events repulsed me while @ the same time the mass energy sucked me into it & left me satisfied @ the end.

In case anyone was wondering, we talked abt & tried playing the Prisoner's Dilemma Game a bit while driving around aft the concert.

Really Starting to Talk Abt Community

Almost exactly a month ago, I had a conversation w/ someone abt communities, religion, & the UU church. He stumped me good w/ an argument/question th/ he had. The argument started w/ the fact th/ he did a satisfying job by himself ministering to his spiritual needs. He didn't see any need to put energy into joining other people in their spiritual quests. Further he made the point th/ people involved in such religious communities can easily fall victim to entering mindless ritual & not touching upon authentic spiritual experiences or states of being. So if trying to take part in a spiritual community can tax personal energies & more likely than not the spiritual community will become inauthentic by relying too much on ritual, why become a member of a spiritual community?

A caveat: I think the follow who posed the question made it a bit more complicated then what I typed above. My memory doesn't work good w/ specifics from a month ago. . .except for the odd specific th/ I just remember for no apparent reason. Nonetheless, I'll go on & try to come up w/ some semblance of an answer. I think it will help me figure out something about community.

I've taken part in my spiritual community @ the Harvard Sq. Unitarian-Universalist First Parish spiritual community for abt 2 yrs now -- one summer abt 2 yrs ago then continously from the Dec aft th/ summer until now. All in all, except for my going to Christian churches phase (I originally thought th/ modern Unitarian Universalism acted as a denomination of Christianity, even though. . .), I've lived my life born & raised as a Unitarian Universalist, most often going to services in an old Puritan church converted to UU @ some point in history.

I didn't much care for church during my early years. Actually. . .I didn't much enjoy Sunday school (I remember finding it somewhat socially uncomfortable when it came to interpersonal intimacy), but I think I liked the worship in the sanctuary w/ the sermon & everything. I remember one back in the day in wh/ the minister talked abt Jesus, but I cna't particularly remembered what the minister said. I liked the singing, too, & tried singing w/ everyone else even though I knew I couldn't keep a note. . .a little like now. . .even though I can sing on key every once in awhile. I just don't know the technical side of singing in key. But I guess put simply, I liked the ritual, the ambient energy of the crowd, & most especially the sermons. The minister always sd such interesting things, even if I didn't understand what they meant by it.

Back then I lived in my youth. I have two older brothers who back then didn't much enjoy much of anything abt church or Sunday school. I think they influenced me quite a bit into not liking anything to do w/ church on a superficial level. & aft awhile we bugged our parents enough to not take us to church. Then I think they got into the habit of not going, themselves, on Sunday unless they had to usher or if one of us kids wanted to go (I think only I wanted to go out of the three of us, but I could have an error there. I don't know.) If anything, I only had a primordial experience w/ a spiritual community in my youth, & I didn't like it in my youth for superficial reasons. Yet the experience had put some kind of inspiration in me that hid for awhile.

I attended a UU church sporadically when I went to college in VT. Looking back on it, I think it came as my first exposure to a cpl things. First off, as an outsider to the community at hand. Second, as the sheep returning to the fold but not really knowing the fold so feeling uncomfortable abt it feeling so radically different & less formal than what I experienced from the church @ home. I felt uncomfortable, mostly. The people in the congregation tried to follow inclusiveness, but a load of factors kept me @ bay -- the difference from the church @ home, the congregation pretty much all came from the area & had history w/ it, & not too many people @ my stage of life went to the church. Most of them could connect w/ me abt having gone to my college (just abt everyone in th/ town went to my college or @ least took a class or two there), but as for their or my own current stages, they didn't really complement each other. Oh well. . ..

During the summer of 2 yrs ago, I remembered when I had once attended First Parish in Harvard Sq. I had visited it back in my 1st yr of college when I had to get off campus, so I took a trip to Boston & visited a friend. The service th/ day revolved around the retirement of a minister. We sang a hymn th/ he had written. It struck me as cool, this guy retiring @ a church I'm attending had written a hymn in the hymnal th/ pretty much gets distributed to all the UU churches in the country, if not the world. Mr. Ripley from my old church had probably memorized th/ very same hymn (if they had published it in the older version -- by the time the new version got released, Mr. Ripley had gone blind). This minister had some history w/ this church & organization. It had filled me w/ a sense of awe. & when this retiring minister greeted me & had spoken w/ me a bit (I had pretty much just blabbered this same thing to him & maybe had said something abt my own life), he had treated me like a person & kept up a conversation. Everyone in th/ coffee hour had done very much the same thing. I had felt really welcome. It had felt good.

An Abrupt End

Um. . .to tell the truth, though: I want to cut this short & continue it ltr. I've spent a lot of time on writing the above. Time has run away on me a bit. My attention span has run a bit short. I really plan on continuing this writing, though. It has provided me w/ some good insight, & I think it will help me get deeper into this idea of community & help me work on my homework for the Future Farm.

Fin

An Update or Why I Haven't Written in the Past Cpl Days

They moved me from one desk to another at work, yet again. Now, the move didn't take a cpl days. I just haven't had a good Internet connection @ my workstation. Or rather, I have a good connection. I simply shouldn't use it. Soon as I sat down in my new chair, my associate told me not to use the Internet b/c this computer only has 1st edition Windows 98. For those who don't know (wh/ included me up until this move), the 1st edition of Windows 98 doesn't have good security features. This lack means that by browsing the Web, I may allow for the security of the server and network in this office building to get compromised.

Anyone else going "wow"? Maybe I just don't know crap abt networks & computers, but it all sounds crazy & paranoid to me. I guess I can understand how this computer could receive cookies or send information to other computers upon request in a much less discriminatory than computers w/ other OSes out there. But still, wow! What kind of information does this computer have that could potentially compromise the security of every other computer in the building, most especially the server that administrates the whole system?

Someday I want to take a class or something. Maybe I should continue the occasional studying of UNIX th/ I've done in the past. That knowledge could potentially fill me in on this kind of fascinating thing. I remember once @ college, this kid sitting next to me in the computer lab had signed into the school's server, typed in a command, thusly jamming my computer from doing anything, including moving the cursor w/ the mouse or anything so simple. I WANT TO KNOW HOW THIS STUFF HAPPENS! Not so I can do it, but so I can plainly know how the things behind the scenes happen.

Guess I just have an inquiring mind th/ likes to know stuff.

And to Continue My Thought Process from a Couple Days Ago

Since I don't have an incredible amt of time @ the moment, it might prove more beneficial to present somewhat of a preview of things to come. I have a friend who wants to start an intentional community somewhere in the Northeast w/ a central concept of sustainable farming. Aft hearing him & other people talk abt meetings they have had to discuss the plan & the ideas @ hand, my interest got piqued. I'm working on a thesis abt dystopian literature & utopian/intentional communities, aft all.

So this past Sunday I attended a meeting w/ the intention of observing & throwing out some ideas if I believe them relevant. I found it utterly fascinating & inspiring! These people have come together, plan on putting their heads together, & have the intention to building a community not just in the sense of having social bonds w/ each other but also by creating the physical space to spend a lot of time together th/ will help them make the community stronger on so many levels. W/ my limited time, I can't get into the hows & such now.

Suffice to say, I want to help this community come together & manifest itself physically. I may also want to take part in it once it essentially becomes realized. I find it really energizing, inspiring; & I want to put some of my own energies into it for its success.

@ the end of Sunday's meeting, we decided to give ourselves some homework to do for the next meeting. We assigned ourselves the task of figuring out what we, individuals envision as community & what we want from a community. W/ these individual pictures, we plan on smooshing them together into an amalgamation of a collective vision. I plan on using this here BLOG to work on this homework & figure out my own beliefs & desires abt community. It will get exciting, & I think you'll find it interesting.

For Now, Though, I Have to Get Back to Work

& So I Actually Remembered

Last night after work, I gave Dirk a call. I climbed the mountain w/ Dirk. He did the researching & in the end, found the mountain for us to climb. He told me that we had climbed Hogback Mountain on some trial. More specifically, actually, we climbed halfway up & got a nice view of surrounding area. Beautiful! Maybe when I get a scanner up & running on my computer I'll post some pictures from trip.

But anyway. . .I had the name of the mountain stuck in my head. I just wanted to make certain th/ I had the name right. & I guess I did. =)

Tomorrow I should write more abt the thought track I started yesterday.

The First Thought Abt --

In October 2001 a friend & I went for a weekend road trip through VT & NH. One aft/eve we started --

Ugh! I spent 45 min. looking for the name of a mountain peak & still didn't find it. Now I have to go back to work!

Have a Let Down

I'm figuring th/ if you read the entry from yesterday, you're expecting some great story abt my writing delinquency -- even moreso b/c I made th/ entry yesterday encouraging you to wait for today to read abt the things th/ have happened to me over the weekend.

Well. . .bugger me! I plan on writing abt the weekend, but I won't make any promises abt the thoroughness or even the completeness of the following recounting. In the past w/ my personal journal, I've tried to write down crazy adventures th/ spanned a cpl days or just a little over the weekend. It got really annoying. As I wrote, I had newer adventures to write down, & so I started having a crazy backlog wh/ I felt obligated to minimize. Aft pressuring myself for awhile to catch up w/ my journal & recounting events in my life, I found myself getting all stressed abt not getting it all down, losing detail, etc. etc.

One day while trying to get it all down in my journal, I pretty much sd screw it & stopped. Sometimes I continued old entries into a newer entry, resumed a story, & so forth. I didn't make myself feel obligated to do it, though. I pretty much just did it if I actually wanted to address the situation @ the time of the writing, not b/c of some compulsion.

So a caveat: I might not finish the story.

Stress + Busyness + Not Enough Sleep + Germs = Sick

So the above stuff abt feeling obligated to do things & getting stressed over not getting to do it creates a good segueway to talking abt my half-day nap. The short works like this: By 1 PM @ work, my tired feeling & sore throat & sinus malfunctions had reached a point th/ I just plain had to go home & take off the rest of the day. I got home @ a. 1:30 & slept till abt 9ish -- when I took a 2 hr break from sleeping -- then till abt 4:30ish when my weekend visitor arrived & laid down to sleep on the new extra mattress (wh/ I put on my two other futons) then pretty much finally got up @ 7ish on Fri.

On the way home, I did some reprogramming. I knew th/ I didn't get enough sleep. I had also already realized th/ I focused too much on getting things done all the while picking up new things to do. I wouldn't let myself have nothing to do & simply rest. On th/ half-hour walk, I made the resolution for at least until the next morning, I would do nothing & not think abt having to do stuff. I further then decided th/ I would 3 more things: set aside a good amount of time during the week to simply rest, work on getting more sleep @ night, & also to manage my tasks in a bttr fashion so as not to overburden myself. I'll have to see what happens when I make these kind of changes in my life. But I guess this kind of thing acts as just another balance th/ needs to get struck for a fulfilling life.

& a related health fact th/ I read in a free holistic/spiritual magazine th/ gets distributed around the Cambridge/Boston area: not getting enough sleep @ night contributes to the onset of Type II or adult-onset diabetes. Th/ fact alone struck enough fear in me last night th/ I stopped myself from working on another task of mine & worked on getting to bed @ a good time so as to get 7 or 8 hrs of sleep.

The End -- For Now. . .

It all started w/ a 14 - 15 hr nap th/ started Thursday aft/noon @ 1:30 PM. . .

I'll just say stay tuned to hear the rest of the story. =)

I Better Wise Up, I Gotta Rise up

So I brooded a bit of the day. Th/ bit of terror stuck w/ me. I still probably have a bit of it clinging to me.

But hey, terror happens. @ at least this transpersonal psychologist says so in her book call Death & Dying. I think she does, at least. Terror strikes a person, then they must learn to accept the terror & the situation th/ comes w/ it. I don't plan on dying anytime soon, but last night existential terror struck me.

& as I sd earlier, I brooded over this existential terror for a good part of the day. Actually work occupied me & my co-workers got me laughing & having a good time most of the afternoon (delaying the work they hired me to do in the meantime).

Getting out of the office/mansion, though, I still had some thoughts mingling on th/ terror. Realizing I still gripped onto it, I realized th/ I had accept it. Not try to distract myself from feeling it or try to forget but honestly accept it. Besides I always learn something by pensively brooding over these moments of terror, wh/ eventually leads me to some epiphany.

I feel generally bttr, but I haven't gotten th/ epiphany yet. I went home, watched a bit of TV, updated my bank account records, ate some food, then did the dishes. I did something a bit different than usual, though. I noticed the silence around me moreso than I usually do, & I didn't want it. I knew I wanted music, but I didn't want to listen to my usual selection, wh/ either has some overcomplicated sound to it, feels angry, & feels somewhat life draining. So I pretty much said th/ I want to listen to something wh/ has a fullness of life to it.

I put on some Eastern music, the soundtrack to the movie Akira, to be more exact. It instantly put me into a calmer state of mind. It had a good amount of energy to it. Still, I felt a balance, a surge of relaxation @ the thought about the mixing of opposites, the yin & the yang, & the dance of life & death. Actually, maybe I didn't think so much abt them compared to how much I thought abt just plain acceptance of life, the things th/ happen, & just plain existence. I have yet to reach th/ epiphany (I now have some ska -- Bim Skala Bim -- playing on my headphones), but I've come to just accept th/ I have the now & my consciousness of it. Maybe I'll have consciousness of some other now at some other now but now, I've got this now. I really can't do much abt it, so I might as well enjoy it.

And even though I feel a bit annoyed abt the late time & not having really done anything, I've got now. & you know, th/'s really pretty cool. At least if you ask me.

Um. . .huh. I feel a bit odd.

More to the point, I have a "What's real?" feeling. The kind of feeling wh/ pushes me to question reality, sanity, & such.

A TV show helped induce this feeling. Buffy, the Vampire Slayer to be more exact. Tonight's episode questioned whether the whole series has really happened or whether Buffy has made the whole story and multiverse up as a schizophrenic illusion for the last six years (wh/ would somewhat put a crimper on Angel).

I haven't fallen to far into the feeling. I rather find it more of a curiosity, something th/ I keep in the back of my mind & soul. Something th/ transcends the mind & body. In a sense, it doesn't warrant extremely tons of attention b/c I don't know where to start for answers. And frankly, it gets somewhat scary if I think too hard about it.

One day, though, I may just use this type of plot device in a novel or movie or something. I don't find it terribly original. I remember coming across the plot device in I am Cheese or something like th/ by some guy w/ the last name Cormier. I toyed w/ the idea when I started seriously writing the novel on wh/ I've worked for years on by now. I also remember seeing it used in Jacob's Ladder & Vanilla Sky. All in all, nothing amazingly original.

But literary-directed stuff works pretty cool when it comes to the point of lacking originality. I have some BS babble here, but whatever: I remember walking around Boston one day w/ this guy in a suit who mentioned th/ he remembered someone saying th/ only 12 literary plots actually exist. Not sure if I agree w/ th/ point or not, but it makes a grounding point on wh/ to start working. I'll leap to the end b/c I don't have much concentration @ the moment (late @ night & soon time for bed).

Essentially it all comes down to how well the execution of the non-original element comes off. Tonight, Joss Whedon & the other writers & producers & directors of Buffy pulled off the whole shizo-hallucination "what's reality?" plot device quite well. Then again, they had backed it up w/ five seasons of a series th/ has tons of emotional depth & character development then backed it up w/ a season of characters reaching the bottoms of dark, wet holes, wh/ pushes them to ask, "Do I want this to be real?" So in the long run, it got executed well b/c of how these characters & themes get built up then get toppled down into crazy randomness th/ pretty much negates everything else happening around the characters.

And the end. . .To keep it short: I feel good yet annoyed @ not having the question of "What is real?" in the Buffyverse answered. Not just so the series can continue to get broadcasted, but so I don't feel cheated. I don't want either world negated & made pointless. For Buffy to just fight her way out of a schizophrenic hallucination w/out any repercussions feels cheap, especially since she had such bonds w/ filled out characters in the hallucinations. @ the same time, having the other more "real world" not exist feels as if it happened just for the sake of an episode -- wh/ I guess I could accept, but I rather like the complications & new choices introduced by having in the mind th/ this world we watch on the series might not really happen, but just be a hallucination w/ much more to it than what gets introduced in the crazy day-to-day demon fighting episodes. It makes the show feel that much more richer & somewhat hopeful in the sense th/ maybe, just maybe magic might just exist in the "real" world. . .or something to th/ effect. Or maybe it sounds bttr to say th/ reality might just prove more complicated than the things that we see & feel around & in us.

Wow. I babbled, & it makes me feel a bit odd th/ I babbled abt all of the stuff above.

I think I'll take this cue to say two things: happy to see th/ this show can go to such lengths to seriously not take itself seriously.

And goodnight.

Late night. Meant to do so much more but got distracted by TV shows, so in addition to not coming up w/ some great topic for tonight's entry, I also didn't do the dishes or write an e-mail to people I know abt my life over the last year. Oh well. . .I've succumbed to temptation. I do th/ sometimes. Oh well.

Beautiful Day

A friend & I enjoyed the weather so much that we decided to take an adventure to Hyannis, down in the Cape. Nothing too exciting, really. About an 1-1/2 hr drive from the Boston area to Hyannis. There we checked out the sun setting into some clouds over the ocean, a store dedicated to cat paraphenilia (they even had three extremely cute cats wandering around the store & planting their butts on such cute places such as in baskets & on a rocking chair near the front door), then tried to eat @ the Olive Garden but decided not to wait the 1-1/2 wait for table, so we had a drink & ate @ Pizzeria Uno's, instead.

Again, nothing too exciting except for 2 things. First, I think my friend & I had proved th/ we had mended some fences aft a disagreement & th/ we had the will & ability to bond well. Also I really enjoyed getting away from the Boston area & any connection to my normal life. It felt so relaxing to just spontaneously get in a car & head off somewhere where I haven't been for awhile or haven't ever been. I guess the trip gave me the chance to get away from everyday reality & essentially forget abt it. I could focus on enjoying life & thinking abt life, how I percieve it, things th/ trouble me, listening to someone else talk abt stuff, & I can't even think of the opportunities given to me by taking this day trip. I feel damn good abt taking it!

Still Mistakes & Annoying Things Happen

I bought my groceries for the week. I pretty much sucked away all my money except for rent & a little of other things. If I want to continue eating the way I want, live the way I want, pay back some debt, & maybe even save up some cash, I will have to get a bttr paying job. Th/ prospect sucks, too, b/c despite the repitiveness of my current job, I like the people there & don't want to fell as if I have let them down. =(

I called one of my credit card companies to hopefully request a credit line increase so I can get a plane ticket to attend my aunt's wedding. The customer service agent sd th/ they don't allow clients to request credit line increases. The company does regular reviews blah blah to see if the client can get a credit line.

Things sounded OK & well grounded. Then the annoying thing happened, wh/ I might have made a mistake of accepting. The customer service agent converted the call into a sales call. She went off abt this travelling service. I listened for awhile, but you know. . .a person reading off from a computer screen abt all the benefits th/ I get from some service gets really annoying. I stopped listening to her & decided to ask for some paperwork or whatever. Then I heard something abt a 30-day free trial period then a further 30-day period in wh/ I could cancel aft they charge me. I initially refused, but then she went on blah blahing abt it being free & such. So I just accepted it to get off the phone, so she had to go into all these asking me questions & recording it. I asked something once to make sure everything sounded good & consistent, wh/ it sounded the latter. But I don't know. . .I'll get paperwork & a 30-day free trial of some service wh/ I didn't bother hearing abt. . .I feel as if I acted like a stooge.

But I really want to see my aunt get wed, so I'll have to call my other credit card to see if I can get an increase. I remember hearing an option on their customer service menu, so maybe they'll help me good. & if they try to sell me anything. . .!

Goodnight.

OK. Late @ night. Did lots of walking around. Had a good smoothie. Played fun games w/ people @ church, most notably a game called Mafia, wh/ involves much analysis re: people's behavior & general knowledge of these people. By the end of the night, I had an empty stomach, an airy head, & the desire to get sharper abt analyzing people's behavior & such. Ack.

I feel frustrated by my current life situation. I don't spend the majority of my hours doing what I've started to realize more & more th/ I love: learning, researching, & sharing these things w/ the world through my writing.

The other night, I discussed the idea of goals & such w/ a group of people. We had this discussion @ my church's Intergenerational Men's Group. I mentioned th/ I enjoyed learning abt the world & gaining more knowledge abt it & th/ I want to learn more & more abt it (& understand more & nurture a relationship w/ the world around me). One guy looked a bit perplexed & asked how I knew I accomplished my goal. I could read all the books out there, I could become a professor @ some institution, but th/ didn't mean particularly much. I simply answered him w/ something I thought up the other night & found so amazing: I know th/ I continue to achieve this goal everyday b/c the world becomes more complicated, & I find evermore questions to ask abt the world around me.

I used to get all frustrated & depressed abt not having the answers & not having the world work w/ me. I guess I've done a bit of accepting th/ the world will continue to turn aft I leave or if I choose to not take part in the workings around me. If I want to experience more than just an everpresent frustration & unhappiness & resentment b/c things don't work out for me, then I have to accept this fact abt the world playing by its own rules & enjoy the complexity of the world around me for all of its beauty.

& I never did well @ sitting still, take in the things passively. Actually. . .maybe I did OK w/ th/ in the high school classroom, but when things get down to joy & experiencing & understanding, the sitting around doesn't suit me well. Today I realized th/ I don't so much need the knowledge so much. Rather, I love the hunt for understanding. Living my nonviolent life, I don't care so much for chasing down animals & shooting them down. There's just something abt the search for the ever elusive Truth through all of these facets around me. I guess I see the hunt as the back & forth interaction w/ people & the world, in general, to reach th/ joyous spontaneous, novel consensual interaction th/ I want & the struggle to attain th/ state embodies the state.

So I get frustrated when I sit in an office, doing the same repetitive thing most of the day long w/ the occasional break to crack a joke, set up a shipment, make a phone call, have a bite to eat, or whatever. It does give me some time to think, though, wh/ does me some good. Sometimes, though, I simply want a lot of time to put those thoughts down in writing & do more research to further complicate things & inspire even more thought in my little ol' head. & I have nothing wrong w/ getting paid for doing what I enjoy.

I feel frustrated in my current situation b/c I want to put myself in another situation (th/ I had somewhat found frustrating b/f). But hey, it sure beats getting frustrated abt things in the past th/ contributed to making my current rut. Don't you think?

I feel tired. Good thing, too, b/c I don't feel as if I've felt tired enough lately. Too much running abt & feeling all too wired (too much caffeine, I suspect). I feel good abt not wanting to stick around aft a discussion group th/ I attended at church this evening. I plain didn't want to spend time around people. I wanted to get home & accomplish some chores. I haven't really felt anything comparable b/f. I feel good abt having asocial feelings & desires @ moments.

I Have an Odd Feeling

Actually, @ around the same time as now (more exactly 9ish or 10ish in the evening) for last while of weekday evenings, I've felt something weird. Last night I described it to a friend as "unfulfilled." I didn't have anything specific in mind, but I had a sense of excitement waiting, almost like some stored up energy wanting release. Yet I didn't want to run out & do anything, & I knew th/ I had accomplished something, I wrote more for my thesis in addition to doing dishes, making dinner & the next day's lunch, etc. Nor did I have the mental energy to go do something to release the energy.

I had similar feelings back when I went to high school. Then, however, I had spent my time socializing w/ friends & planning out ways to attain medium-term ambitions while discovering long-term goals w/ them. The energy had given me a confidence th/ would disappear when I opened my eyes the next morning or maybe when I encountered real, physical people. Th/ energy of my hadn't looked to do much than attain social desires th/ I had fostered during the combined days b/f-hand.

Things have changed a bit, especially as I've grown older, have had more experiences, & have experienced a bit. These days I try not to save my confidence for late nights when I find myself alone w/ my imagination. I may not always prove successful, but I try challenging myself throughout the day to accomplish tasks, to figure out the things around me, and to take a hold of the social opportunities & ambitions offered to me.

I see it this way these days: I have a limited time to live on this Earth. At least, as far as I know; so rather, I don't have any certainty th/ I will have more than a limited time on this Earth or more than a limited to have this consciousness of mine. As such, I had bttr live it to its fullest, learn the most th/ I can so as to make connections abt the things happening around me so th/ I can find joy in the complexity of the beauty around me & of the beauty th/ I experience.

My Goal to Live as Holistically & Nonviolently as Possible

Some weeks ago, I met w/ a friend & personally coached him. We didn't come very close to finishing, but we had a great time just talking abt him, coming up w/ goals & visions, & really get down to the heart of why he does something th/ he does. I wouldn't take a cliche or run of the mill answer from him. I wanted something original, something th/ came from his heart. After all, we may consist of much the same elements as anyone else, but we all inhabit a unique & novel location in space & time. Our experience may have archetypical elements to them. Nonetheless they differ in some way b/c of each & every one of our individual histories & experiences.

I think th/ I might enjoy doing personal & maybe even professional/business coaching as a career. Having this idea, I thought it a good practice to coach myself. How could I practice a method w/ someone else when I hadn't done & tested it myself? To answer this question, I started something of a personal routine planning for the things th/ I want to accomplish in my life.

The other day, I worked on my goal of living as holistically & nonviolently as possible in my life. I started planning this "routine" by coming up w/ a vision for it. It took me a bit of time, but I came up w/ the following: "Experience joyous interrelating w/ everything through spontaneous consensual disclosure." This vision rings true to me b/c I find th/ I find some of the most joy in doing this w/ other people, friendly animals, & knowledge. I can see myself finding the same joy, if possible, w/ the atomic level of inanimate objects or even pure energy, if th/ makes sense.

It may or may not. Tell the totally truth, I don't know if I completely understand or believe it myself. I do have faith of the possibility, however. W/o this kind of faith, how did a baby learn how to walk & coexist among its fellow human beings; how do domestic animals do the same w/ human beings; or how have sentient beings come to use the objects around them as tools & technology?

Faith, openness, love, patience, experience, & probably some other virtues. I see those as guiding principles to further my own personal growth & the evolution of existence around me. I will see, I will see. & in the end, what do I have to lose? Nothing th/ I know abt.

So Let's Let in Life!

Get to Know Me

This morning I filled out one of those silly fun forward e-mails th/ asks a bunch of silly questions then tells you to send it to your friends. Find my answers as follows:

1. What time is it? Now

2. Name as it appears on birth certificate: *bleep*

3. Nicknames: Junior

4. Parents' names: *bleep*

5. Number of candles that appeared on your last birthday cake? I can't remember the last time I had cake.

6. Date you regularly blow them out? I have no idea what this means. . .but aft thinking abt it a bit, I figured it out. Let's just say not too soon, not too far.

7. Height: 5'10 1/2"

8. Eye Color: Blue

9. Hair color: Dirty blond w/ red highlights when wet

10. Piercing (s): Numerous, random cuts

11. Tattoos: I once wanted one or two

12. How much do you love your job on a scale of 1-10: 7 -- for some reason, I look forward to going everyday.

13. Birthplace: Emerson Hospital, Concord, MA

14. Hometown: Somewhere in Middlesex County, MA

16. Been in love before? Sometimes I wish I could forget those times.

17. Been to Africa? No

18. Been to Vegas? No

19. Had your house toilet papered? No. My dad ran down those young whipper snappers before they could do it.

20. Loved somebody so much it made you cry? I used to think you could only love th/ way, then I realized the unhealthiness of not communicating correctly.

21. Been in a car accident? I've caused too many of them -- started 10 years b/f I even got my license.

22. Croutons or Bacon Bits? Croutons, but only if they use non-hydrogenated margarine.

23. Mayonnaise or Miracle Whip? Nayonaise (they make even salad dressing out of soy these days!)

24. Coke or Pepsi? Neither -- both eat teeth w/ carbonation.

25. Car - 2 or 4 door? 4

26. Sprite or 7up? If I had to choose, Sprite. But normally the carbonation scares me.

27. What is your occupation? Slacking temp/student.

28. What do you sleep in? Is that any of your business?

29. Favorite Movie? Gattaca, simply for the phrase, "I win b/c I don't think about the journey back."

30. Favorite Holiday? New Years

31. Favorite day of the week? Haven't ever thought about it -- these things change depending on the TV season.

32. Favorite word or phrase? Ebullient

33. Favorite tooth paste? Peelu w/o mint

34. Favorite Restaurant? Don't have one @ the moment

35. Favorite flower? Vanilla

36. Favorite drink? water

37. Favorite sport to watch? Figure skating. Curling comes in second.

38. Preferred type of ice cream? Mint chocolate chip soy dessert

39. Favorite Sesame Street Character? Grover

40. Disney/Warner Bros? Warner Bros

41. Favorite fast food restaurant? This Pizza Place in Amherst, MA. They have vegan pizza, they work like fast clockwork behind the counter, & they get you your food faster than any burger joint.

42. What color is your bedroom carpet? No carpet.

43. How many times did you fail your permit or drivers license test? Twice for the driving test.

44. Who is the last person you got email from? Bad Mr. Tripp

45. Have you ever been convicted of a crime? Almost

46. Which single store would you choose to max out your credit card? Either Computer City or some used bookstore

47. What do you do most often when you are bored? I don't let myself get bored these days.

48. Friend who lives the farthest away? Depends on what you mean by friend. West Virginia/Virginia comes to mind at the moment.

49. Most annoying thing? Pieces of styrofoam scraping against each other.

50. Bedtime? Somewhere b/w 10 to 1 on weekday nights. It possibly extends to dawn on weekends.

51. Who will respond to this the fastest? I don't know

52. Who is the person least likely to respond? I don't know

53. What time is it? Now, a little later after the first time I got asked.

& Just a Couple Topics to Consider. . .

- The beauty of soup in the bulk aisle. $4.00 for a lb of something you pour on water then it turns into scrumptious joy th/ serves me at least 3 bowls. Compare th/ to $2.00 for a can of watered down soup th/ will only give me one bowl. I'll still get the watered down stuff but only b/c I need to give my taste buds some variety.

- Dread at percieving the cycle of life-&-death. Last night I finished a story by Harlan Ellison. It had a lot of senseless killing th/ made sense considering the surroundings & the characters. Family killing decent family just to get away & live an exciting life. Then a guy kills a girl th/ he risked his life, pretty much, to try killing then ended up bringing away from her boring home to end up killing her for his dog (wh/ kind of makes sense in an all twisted, senseless way wh/ I can accept in some postmodern morass way).

But all the senseless killing just got me to thinking abt the beauty of life & how it can wink out in a second. All alone in my bed, I felt dread as I thought abt these prospects & w/ a bit abt not knowing what happens aft death, even if we have the consciousness th/ we have now or does it become more enhanced consciousness or does it disappear or does it enter eternal torment or does it become a completely other consciousness. Maybe I didn't have a realization of what happens upon death, but I saw the fragility of lofe. I felt dread.

& Th/'s when I realized th/ I couldn't do anything but accept th/ it will happen. I can't stop it, no matter how much I try. Then I had an odd yet calm day where everything went slow when @ some other time, I would have wanted it to go fast. Today, though, it made me happy th/ it went slow & I got more done in th/ slow time than I would have gotten done in the fast time. & I haven't found a reason for any of it at all, but I've found that I like those moments of joy th/ come every once in awhile.

But My Bed Calls Me & Sings a Lullaby

Something Wh/ I Should Have Realized & Accepted

I worried a bit abt not having anything to write tonight, then something popped into my head. I'd write abt something th/ happened & how fascinating it strikes me th/ the other person involved in this story could very well see my writing & commenting abt it. See, this girl comes from England & has the name of Angelea.

Angelea came over to study @ my college for a semester. We had become something th/ touches upon friendship. I can't really come up w/ any way to describe how we interacted w/ each other. The main reason I can't think of a label of our interactions comes from what happened during our last ever interaction. It got a bit ugly in a silly, nationalistic way.

It happened during the last cpl days @ school. She would go back to England & graduate. I had another semester @ th/ school, but I would enter as a 3rd semester senior, or in more friendly terms, a "Super Senior." I still haven't graduated, but I have determination. The bits abt me don't matter too much to this story. It just makes a good backstory.

Anyway she did something stupid @ the end of the semester th/ I won't dislose here for the sake th/ no one really needs to know abt it. Suffice to say the rest of campus found out abt the stupid incident & didn't find any reason not to take cheap shots @ the girl. Me? I felt sorry for the girl b/c her stupid incident had gotten her injured. Up until this incident, I treated her like I always had & tried doing thing for her to make her feel bttr.

Nonetheless, in one instant she decided to take out all the bitterness she had fostered against the people who decided to take cheap shots @ her. It came from a conscious decision on my part to use the phrase 'What's up?' as a greeting. Everybody else did it, especially this one guy who I saw as the life of the party most of the time. I wanted people to like me, so I did it.

So in the dining hall @ some meal, I sd 'What's up?' to her. She snapped at me something abt th/ greeting & hating th/ Americans used it as a greeting so much. I don't know how or why, but I suddenly made a connection b/w her stupid action & her arrogance @ criticizing me for my greeting. Feeling a bit pissed off, I sd, "Hey, you came to America by your free will. We act the way we want in our country. Just accept it," but I think it came out cooler than what I just wrote above.

Looking back on th/ now, I guess it sounds a bit arrogant on my end. Tell the truth, I had never acted as nationalistically b/f or aft then. I don't know really what to think abt th/ story except th/ I felt righteous telling this girl off as I did, & th/ I find it kind of funny th/ I had any kind of altercation w/ someone from England & th/ she could read what I have just written anytime she wanted if she knew abt my having written it.

The Internet has the capabilities to do such amazing things. . ..

A Late Night

Ack! I've finally gotten into my parent's house where I'll sleep for the night. I've stayed up for abt 20 hrs so far, from 6:30 or 7 Fri morn till whenever I get to sleep. Still I feel a bit more alert & cognizant than I have during the past cpl nights.

A Digression into My Mood & Attitude

Tell the truth, I feel th/ I've let myself get a bit too open to everyone abt myself. Thinking back to the things I've written, I kinda sounded like a loser. But th/'s all: I had written stuff th/ sounded loser-like. I'm not a loser. Nothing like a little positive thinking, trying not to over generalize, & using active sentence structures when talking and thinking abt stuff.

So yes, I feel more aware than I have over the past cpl nights. Maybe a wee bit wired, too. I had gotten excited abt my adventures for the weekend. I think the bits of chocolate th/ I had throughout the day may have helped a bit. I also had Frank hang out, too. & I've reached a point in my life (not sure if I've mentioned this in some earlier entry) where I want to both accept the things around me but also act proactive to get some things th/ I want. I think this desire & some other decisions & thoughts may start another new stage in my life, the kind of break from one moment to the next when I can say "Up till now" & really mean it.

. . .Back to My Weekend Adventure

I make it from work to home to the commuter rail station in abt an hour & a half. I had some help from a friend. Still I really feel good abt having made it to the station w/ just a second or two spare as a great accomplishment, especially since I went through the Charles/M.G.H. area for the first time & didn't know its layout.

I guess the rest of the night up until the ride home doesn't really have much excitement to it. A whole bunch of us ate out, then we went to the club where Bad Mr. Tripp spun. He spun some good techno. Some of the other DJs slammed down some good records, too. The event had only one problem: not enough people. I won't get into the issues creating the small showing. I don't know how they advertised the event. I haven't really any involvment in the scene, & I don't know too much abt what the scene wants or has. These days, I just follow along w/ Bad Mr. Tripp & try to have a good time.

Will You Just Shut Up Abt Aging!!!!

I felt young at this event. It started when my hamstrings started burning from all the dancing, & I only danced for Bad Mr. Tripp's set! I used to for at least 3 or 4 hrs b/f getting all tired & having to take a nap in the corner of the room. Then again during one rave adventure when a group of us went to a rave in the MIT tunnels then in some rollerink in Springfield, I slept through th/ whole thing even though I had the motivation to get to the MIT thing. I think I might've had some bug, though. So I guess I didn't all th/ bad w/ the dancing thing.

Nonetheless I complained to my friends re: my legs indicating my growing age, even though I pretty just said, "Oh. . .I'm getting old." They immediately thought I had referred to going to this club night & hanging out w/ these ravers, who all looked younger than 21 & wore all these baggy rave clothes. I felt a bit out of place w/ my tightish wardrobe. Then again I never did look the part of raver when I went to all the raves (except when I wore some glittery silver pants, but I think th/ counts as a high point in my raving days; and I have no idea what happened to those pants). I guess I just never really cared so much then. I guess I care a bit now but not in the since th/ I feel left out of the crowd. More to the point, I wonder if I want to take part in this crowd, & if so, how can I do it while sticking to my current fashion & attitude?

I think this kind of questioning might become part of this entering a new stage of my life.

The Interesting Part of the Night -- A Conversation in the Car on the Way Home

Bad Mr. Tripp & I go back far. It all started in my seventh or eigth (sp) grade of school -- actually, th/ part of the history doesn't matter all th/ much. We really started hanging out my sophmore year of high school. It started when he shyly sat w/ my group of friends at lunch, then moved onto hacky sacking w/ this group outside when we had finished our lunches. I also remember seeing him once at the mall. I don't think we had sd much. What did we have to say?

But I think we really bonded when this kid, George, had gotten us together to form a band. I tried to play the bass, but I knew nothing abt music or playing it except th/ I could make sound by plugging it into an amplifier then hitting these metal strings. Th/ doesn't matter so much today, though, since I don't play an instrument (I might try to learn one in the future), but I can sing a little. I also know how to throat sing a bit. I still make lots of noise w/ feedback. Hitting metal strings doesn't really give me the same satisfaction as it did back in my high school punk days, though.

Back to Bad Mr. Tripp & I, though. George tried getting us together to form a band. The band never happened even though we had gotten together once to try getting something together. I think George moving away had something to do w/ the band never getting off the ground. I don't think we had name, either. We had a couple power chord progressions, some fantasy death metal lyrics, & a punk lyric or two.

Actually. . .I think the bond w/ Bad Mr. Tripp gets more complicated than above -- another friend, Gus, & I had put together an anarchist, anti-establishment & anti-popularity 'zine for high school. I had become part of a mischevious clique th/ liked having much fun. I had a crush on some girl who hung out w/ him. Then @ the end of the school yr a cpl of us from th/ mischevious clique went wandering around some town looking for a party only to eventually find Buddha & Bad Mr. Tripp playing around on jungle gym who led us to the party.

Let's End This Ramble

Suffice to say (for the sake of ending this rambly story telling), cliques & people work in strange ways. Bad Mr. Tripp, Sandra (his g/f), & I kinda talked abt people & ourselves on the car ride home. Actually, I think I wanted to reach th/ point when I got into th/ whole story -- the point abt Bad Mr. Tripp & I having some really interesting, indepth, contemplative conversations while driving around randomly & from place to place. We've also had our bad times, but we've really had some great conversations th/ lead to some personal epiphanies. Maybe it has something to do w/ first getting a license for high school teenagers. Sometimes we could only get real good privacy to explore maturing issues while driving around in our cars, & we've gotten into the habit of having these conversations while in the car. Makes sense to me.

So anyway the three of us got to talking abt a variety of topics, from one of our friends doing some political activism (I mentioned him a cpl entries ago), this one crazy, scary adventure th/ the three of us had one night, dating & relationships, & how our clique th/ has somewhat survived since th/ fateful surprise b-day party for Bad Mr. Tripp @ the Uddha Buddha household. We had some people fall away from the clique & others join, but we've more or less stuck together.

As we've stuck together, though, things have changed. We all have grown in our own ways, have done our own travelling, moved to other places, & had our own distinct experiences. I think a lot of the talk in the cars tonight w/ Buddha (he picked me up @ the commuter rail station & drove me to the restaurant where a whole bunch of us ate b/f going to the club where Bad Mr. Tripp spun) & Bad Mr. Tripp focused somewhat on the group, its cohesion, the directions we've taken, & the growth & regression we've all taken.

I feel a lot of growth happening. (Actually at the moment, I feel tired & can feel the floodgates of openness breaking.) We've all reached our early- to mid- twenties. Some of us have reached our post-college years, some of us still have to finish college, & others have yet to start college. We all have reached different levels of social & emotional growth & connection. We all still have our learning & experimenting to do.

I don't know abt my friends, but I've reached a level of calmness & eagerness to learn more abt the world, interact w/ it, & grow. I feel choosing the above starts this next stage of mine. By choosing them, I urge myself to take on them & to challenge myself w/ new things to take on new habits th/ go contrary to ones th/ I no longer want. For instance, tonight I approached a cpl of pretty girls. I haven't done such thing in more than a year. Nothing more than some pleasantries came from it, but it gives me a start on this new direction in wh/ I want to go. I look forward to it.

I hope my friends do, also.