Flying home like color photos aging.

The plane jolts, and I am jarred back into the dimension of life called reality. I realize my eyes have been fixated on the snow covered plains.Cruising altitutde of 11000 meters, skirting the tails of a major snow storm about to sweep my home tomorrow evening. The ground looks like the old pictures from the photo albums my mother keeps. The color photos aging to where there is white, grey, the red is more black, like dried blood, blue and green fade and become the same color.

Home, that is where I am going.

At times it crosses my mind what the sensation of engine failure would be. That sudden deceleration, the falling pit in my stomach as the earth pulls back what belongs to it. What would my last thoughts be? would it be a series of regrets, wondering all the things that I have left undone? Who will take care of my possessions, fewer in number but spread out? Would my thoughts turn to my family, my parents, my childhood? Would they turn to sara, would I be in the car kissing her goodbye one last time? Would I go past, or future? Perhaps I would go nowhere, and face the present moment.

I am passing over the mississippi river as I type. I have never realized how large the flood basin is for that river, with the snow on the ground, the contours are much easier to see. There are wind mills as well, sporadically spread over the hillsides. They are whiter than the snow, seemingly frozen in place from so far away.

Geologists warn that a major earthquake is due in this area sometime soon. They issue it in earnest, as if it would cause some salvation to those who heed it. It's almost impossible to believe that such a thing would happen during our lifetime, or our passing through.

Death is the easiest thing to prepare for, simply because once it happens, there is no affecting its outcome, what is done is done. Or maybe it is that my view of life after death is skewed, maybe its much like this life all over again.To fall out of the sky would be simple, it would happen and nothing could stop it. But landing, and going on with life, going home, seeing family and friends, going back west, making future plans, no, without simplicity those things are carried out. they are interrupted at once by a trivial event. And again a plan must be made before death comes to call us from the waiting room.

The sun sets as we race to meet it coming the other way. I sleep intermittently trying to make up from the last two nights of broken slumber

Everybody look down.

It started with a low light. Next thing I knew they ripped me from my bed, And then they took my blood type. It left a strange impression in my head. You know that I was hoping That I could leave this star crossed world behind, But when they cut me open. I guess I changed my mind

And you know I might Have just flown too far from the floor this time, Cause they're calling me by my name, And the zipping white light beams Disregarding the bombs and satellites

That was the turning point
That was one lonely night

The star maker says it ain’t so bad
The dream maker’s gonna make you mad
The spaceman says everybody look down
It’s all in your mind

Now I’m back at home and I’m looking forward to this life I live. You know it’s going to harm me
So hesitation to this life I give

You think you might cross over. You’re caught between the devil and the deep blue sea
You better look it over Before you make that leap

And you know I’m fine, but I hear those voices at night. Sometimes, they justify my claim
And the public don’t dwell on my transmission
It wasn’t televised

But it was the turning point
Over the lonely night

The star maker says it ain’t so bad
The dream maker’s gonna make you mad
The spaceman says everybody look down
It’s all in your mind

The star maker says it ain’t so bad
The dream makers’s gonna make you mad
The spaceman says everybody look down
It’s all in your mind

My global position systems are vocally addressed
They said the Nile used to run from east to west
They said the Nile used to run
From east to west

And you know I’m fine,
but I hear those voices at night
Sometimes

The star maker says it ain’t so bad
The dream maker’s gonna make you mad
The spaceman says everybody look down
It’s all in your mind

The star maker says it ain’t so bad
The dream maker’s gonna make you mad
The spaceman says everybody look down

It’s all in your mind

It’s all in my mind
It’s all in my mind

"Spaceman" by the Killers

For such a great song, this latest album from the Killers was a real let down. I wish this was the only song I heard from their 2008 release. I do not know which feeling consumes me more; if, as a fan, I am pissed at this mediocre shot in the dark. Or if, as an artist, I sympathize with hitting a wall when having to meet deadlines.

So, for those who don't have a lot of time, or money (supposing you still buy c.d.'s), just get this single if you can, the rest can sadly be forgotten about.

On to other things.

I think, aside from spinal tap, I got the most painful shot available yesterday. After suffering from tendinitis for the last five weeks, I decided to go down to my doctor and get a cortizone steriod injection. I've had one before, but for other reasons. After waiting an hour and a half I finally get to sit down with doctor Jaffe, a kind, middle aged general practitioner. We talked for about twenty minutes on the causes of my injury, future prevention, and current solutions. I took curtain number 2, the injection.

The last time I had a cortizone injection, it was about 3 cc, maybe a little more, and the shot went into my hip, relatively painless. But for tendinitis, no, it goes directly into those delicate tendons that keep your bones and muscles connected.

The doctor tells me the cortisone shot for tendinitis is injected into the sheath to allow a more acute and quicker healing. I didn't mind so much the thought of the procedure, thinking it might be a little painful, but it couldn't be that bad. 10 minutes later he comes back in with a syringe that's half filled with the steroid, a white, thick looking substance. My eyes bulged, my throat dropped into my stomach, and I about walked out of the office without saying a thing. But I stayed, thinking the healing would be worth any pain I was imagining. I'm not sure if I was right by that judgment. Jaffe injection 2cc's in one spot, and 1 cc about 3/4 inch toward my elbow. Within 5 minutes, my arm was numb, my face was pale, my breathing labored, my blood pressure dropping rapidly. in 10 minutes, my hand had turned a purplish blue, and my stomach wanted to empty all of its contents from the last three days. It's not the shot that hurts, it's no worse than changing string on a guitar and poking your fingers with a thin string's end. No, its the liquid being injected, and how much room it has to disperse, the rate it is ejected.
I think I sat in the office waiting room for 25 minutes before I could leave. lovely.

Today, my wrist is bruised and sore from the excessive fluid floating through my body. Hopefully in 8 days the pain will be completely gone, I can continue healing, and get back to one of the few things that has given me a true sense of motivation and purpose in this life.

In ten and a half days I'll be freezing my butt off next to a gas fireplace that isn't on, somewhere in north central Ohio. Not that such an event is to be loathed, I am quite anxious to hurry home. It took me 2500 miles of separation and countless lost friendships to understand what it is that family means.

Things with Sara are going very well. It was very difficult for me to move past the last relationship. I had convinced myself a long time past that I was over it, that things were long gone over and that possibly it never existed in the first place. Little did I know or see how that not only had the fallout not disappeared, but had trickled down with subtle but destructive force over time in into all too many aspects of my life. Amazing how little it all matters now.

solidity, solidarity, peace, comfort, understanding, affirmation, compromise, prayer, encouragement, sarcasm, patience, all new adjectives to an elusive idea known as "love."

One last hope
To rise and break away
Above the fading line
Way beyond the ties that bind
This I know
The risk is worth the gain
It's worth the sacrifice
Way beyond the ties that bind
--alter bridge

Being with her has shined a much needed light on old phantoms, on things of the heart not dealt with. At first it scared me, but then I realized I was seeing the end of all the things that should not be. I've heard it said that it takes one relationship to get over the wreckage of the last, and in many ways I know it's true. With her hand in mine, the past matters little, only the lessons learned.

I'll never long for what might have been
Regret won't waste my life again
I won't look back
I'll fight to remain:

On this day I see clearly everything has come to life
A bitter place and a broken dream
And we'll leave it all behind
On this day its so real to me
Everything has come to life
Another chance to chase a dream
Another chance to feel
Chance to feel alive
--alter bridge

Morning

Friday morning:

jonny gets up at 6:30, my earplug falls out and I hear him leave at 7

8:45 and my alarm goes off, i pull myself from celestial dreams to hit the off button and roll back over, missing the crescent moon and her shadow.

10:53 I wake up and check my email.

11:15 the stock market has fallen, OJ simpson is behind bars for 15 years for bad acting and petty theft. The Treasury throws 125 Billion dollars at AIG without any clue as to how it's spent, and yet is reluctant to give the automakers a penny.


11:45 sara leaves for work, and left wondering what to do with my day. Wondering if i can practice 30 minutes, or 3 hours, or more.

12:03 I decide if I do go into politics, I refuse to work for any state, senate or administration.

12:15 Should I take a shower?

12:17 I really Hope the school has processed my overpayment check so I can get food and do my laundry on Sunday and Monday.

12:21 I am listening to Death Cab, and decide I'm going to learn "I was a Kaleidoscope"
...remember "I" before "E" except after "C" or words such a "neighbor" and "weigh"...but what about "Kaleidoscope"? vital information withheld.

12:30 a twin engine plane flies overhead reminding me where I am at

12:34 I'll chase any open door, as long as I dont return to who I was before.

Smile like you mean it.

The words do not flow freely anymore. Unless I'm almost getting hit by cars in Hollywood, in which case there is no shortage of obscenities and gestures being exchanged across the asphalt intersections.

The last series of posts were rather depressing, and rightly so. I've been suffering from tendinitis for almost 6 weeks now, so acutely that I had to stop playing in the middle of the quarter at MI. So because of such hindrance to my practice, I've had all too much time to sit around and think. I'm predisposed to be critical, and its not an excuse, but it is true. The nice thing about regular colleges and universities, you dont have to perform all the time, your concentration is book learning. You read and you write, you talk to people all day. You're in an environment where the greatest of thoughts and theories can be lofted before they drop dead in the real world. Your food is already paid for and cooked. Your security is a non issue. Such luxuries I really miss. I would go on about my sob story, but basically, the opposite is found here. While finances are taken care of, I constantly ache for community, and cannot find it.

Maybe I'm just waiting for sitcom circumstances to occure, or hoping I can run into it. I want Jerry and Kramer and Elaine and all the stupid insignificant arguements and laughter and awkward situations. I've never found a more lonely place than this town, even with its crowded issue, over 2400 people per square mile in LA county.

I went home for thanksgiving. Was swamped with people, and with extreme fatigue because of flying overnight to Cleveland. I think that is the last time I attempt to fly red eye for a short weekend trip. I was almost delusional at one point. But the state of mind when deprived of sleep is absolutely fascinating. Not that there is some clarity to see through, but everything is so confusing that a whole new world of ideas and thought become available, like new colors and shades being formed by paint thrown against a canvas in an artists fury.

Things with Sara are going really well. I'm so glad I did not just write her off, but gave things a chance, to allow the walls and presuppositions to fall crumbling to the ground. We've always been an odd pairing, from the first days we started talking almost 2 years ago. But we've been good friends for a long time now, making this early stage easier to work through.
I don't like delving into it in such online forums as this, more for her sake, and frankly, if you're not around or don't call, much of what I write is not that relevant anyways (unless you're one of those I told I would call back, and haven't, sorry). This is the one part of my life I don't like delving out, even for all the joy that she brings me. I don't even know who pays attention anymore.

One last series of disconnected thoughts. SoCal's attempt at Christmas is genuinely laughable. If it's 85 degrees in november and december, dont make cute winter wonder land backdrops and all the things that the northern states get to enjoy and suffer through this time of year. I'm happy to have warm days all the time, and wearing shorts in December. The snow and cold is nice for about 7 seconds, and then it really sucks. So why attempt to make it out that it's not? The sun sits higher than 60 degrees in the afternoon. But maybe it's the thought that counts.

One last last thought. A church group parked a truck outside the school, with a band situated on the bed, playing contemporary church music for all in hollywood to hear. I was walking with Val past all of this, wondering what in the world was going through their heads that made them think what they are doing is a good idea. It was funny, because Val and I were just talking, among many things, about our issues with the modern church and the culture of ignorance and insensitivity that has gripped it. Admittedly, I am disenfranchised, dissasociated with it all. Ironic because we both know how that the church provides, in its pure context and execution, a community unavailable most anywhere else, but how utterly some things have come to offend us.
But for some reason, passing this caravan of well meaning people, blaring with unabashed fervor a series of medocre songs, I felt well, frankly embarrased. I dont think these, or many, people understand Hollywood, or the world. They pulled up in front of the premier contemporary music school in LA, singing out of time and out of key, blasting full volume into our cafeteria. Immediately, they've proven that everything they stand for is only half ass, no matter how wide the smile, how real the joy may feel. The demograph, if any, that they were trying to witness to, has no homogenous link. People come to hollywood because they're star struck, they're looking for some semblance of the celebrity that will, for a few seconds of they're lives, let them know what it's like to be apart of the cult of cool. These tourists are in a hurry, out of their homeland, and out of touch, with eyes set on some of the most tempest and temporary things this world has to offer.

what I'm trying to get at, is if your going to try and the meet the world head on with your faith, you better have something to show for it, and not just the morals and principles your parents handed down to you along with all the meaningless praise for all the mediocre things done in the name of Christ.

Harsh? maybe, but there is a world dying out there; and it's not at the corner of Hollywood and Highland.