Never

I am obsessed

with a place I've never been

a woman who never loved me

conversations that have never happened

a life I'll never live

Bergamot Blues

My plans for Norway fell through. I won't qualify for the position until this time next year.

shit.

I cleaned the living/dining room this evening. I can see the floor, and I have space to appreciate now.

I was saving a bottle of Bergamot Blue in case I ever fell in love again. I gave up and am about half way through it. I am drinking my hope, it would seem that is all there is left to do with it.

happy thoughts next time.

Norway?

I started filling out paperwork for emigrating. My sights are on Norway.

I don't think I'm running from anything. I think I'm after something. I've always been after something, but I don't know what it is, or if it exists.

I don't know 1 godsdamn word of Norwegian.
I think I'm bored.

February 24, 2011

I'm finally meeting people in major, and in the biomedical sciences. I met someone who, like me, lights up when someone mentions "astrophysics." That's a nice change. It's Getting down to the end of the quarter, to which I am looking forward to. 2 exams monday, and then 2 more 2 weeks from then, a paper on global post industrial revolution environmental history, and then I'm done for 11 days. only to keep pushing on in Organic Chemistry and Latin for the rest of the year.


good quote from today: "Don't take advice from people who hate themselves. Take a note of what they say, and then write 'OPPOSITE' ."

You have to lose your fear of the big words

I think I may be wanting to use blogger, or a blog in general to cope with not allowing myself access to facebook. Maybe if I talk about it more I can get past it. I feel as though I have a clear conscience without it. While I've abandoned many of the superficial morals I was instilled with as a youth, I think as an adult I still appreciate not being a victim or progenitor of gossip. I have from the start always seen Facebook as a means of promoting the drive for and the satisfactions accrued from gossiping. Although not all people use it that way, it is only human to pervert a means of staying connected, into a way to check on those we use to know, and feel superior or inferior, disgusted or elated with, depending on your mood. or maybe it's only me.

Sometimes, more times now than ever, I begin to wonder if I should study astronomy with a focus on astro-chemistry and planetary observation. You have to lose your fear of the big words, to be Oh K with not understanding immediately the complicated words and ideas that fall out of someone's head. The field of astrophysics is quite fascinating, humbling in its scope, and terrifyingly technical at times. But it deals with things that are far from the ability of humans to fuck up, far from being exploited for perverse means. Studying the universe, like mathematics, is one of pure observational joy. Knowing that it goes on without us, has been going on without us, and depending who's school of thought you subscribe to, will continue on for all time ( whatever time may actually be) without us humans.

Realistically, astronomy for me will remain recreational. Molecular biological systems are tangible, equally as complex as astrophysics, and full of questions and hypothesis and wonderful theories that are constantly rebuilding the way we understand the organic world we live in, our history as living beings and the potential of our future. And it pays, handsomely. One of the more important finds in Cell Biology to show up recently

Sometimes I wonder if I've replaced one religion for another. Replaced fundamentalist-bat-shit-crazy-Christianity with science and the scientific method. I'm sure many people I knew wonder that about me, or they're more concerned that I just wrote the word "bat-shit". Observing my habits, with the studying and the reading and the programs I watch, ya, that might be a safe bet. I'm more devoted to the sciences than I ever was to God (who ever he/she/it/they may be). But that's oh k with me. I don't feel guilt in what I do. I don't fear mindless retribution and blessing for things I may or may not have done, have or will not do.

I see the same beautiful world as the most devout religious person, I see the same world as when I was a mindless follower, but I see it with a fuller understanding now. I see the principles of physics and mathematics behind it. I stopped attributing my lack of understanding of the physical universe to the "awesome hand of God" and learned about what was going on when I saw a sunset, in the growth of flower, in breath drawn from a breeze, the spin of an electron around an atom and it's probability of location versus momentum in space. I stopped blaming God for my ignorance. I didn't find God when I studied the natural world, I found beauty, complexity, extreme order on the macroscale and a very surreal and unlikely subatomic world.

I'll probably devote too much time and space in the coming months trying to relate my experiences as a devoutly religious youth who turned agnostic, but that is my journey thus far in a nutshell. Maybe I should find new ways to identify myself.

maybe that's why I want to be an astronomer. I think you'll find more deists in that field than in the world of medicine and biology.

I've got the shakes!!!

It's been 24 hours since deactivating my facebook account. That's 24 hours of not knowing what the latest gossip is on people I haven't spoken to in over 5 years. It's 24 hours of not having a platform to burn bridges with. 24 hours of constant reminder that real friendships, both physically and metaphysically have to be engaged in by both parties. It's pretty sad that we consider it acceptable to let a digital poster represent ourselves and our relationship to others. it was nice at first to have a way to "reconnect" with people we used to know, but beyond those first few moments, of "hey, we used to know each other." it becomes unbearably superficial.

At least that was my experience for the most part.

Today's weather, cold with a side a wind driven cold. The kind of cold where your engine has a difficult time turning over. Cold to where you can't remember if the sun was out or not, because it didn't make a difference either way. The cold that reminds me just how warm the sands of Venice Beach were under California skies. The warm rush of air whipping through a ford mustang as it whipped around the turns of sunset blvd.

I'm dropping my third calculus class this week. I really enjoy mathematics, really, but I can't juggle it and 3 other courses that are required for my major this quarter. Combine that with a lecturer that has a terrible chinese accent smothering an inability to teach, it can get pretty miserable pretty quick. With Calculus out of the way, I can focus on O chem, latin and global environmental history, and hopefully come out with a 3.5 at the end of the quarter.

I found out that the astrophysics department meets every morning to discuss current research and debate the conclusions. I went this morning. For the first time I felt like I was sitting in a room where it was really oh k to be excited by all the little beautiful things about science and our universe. to be excited without someone calling "nerd" "geek" "dork" "nerd-alert".

sometimes I wish I was studying astrophysics, but I don't know what I'd do with it or where I'd go. It seems such a shame that we'll learn so much about the universe, but never be allowed by the public to devote the resources to exploring it.

Fire up the engine.

I quit facebook. yet posting a blog about it seems counterproductive. But i've wanted to do this for a while. I've wanted to quit facebook and maintain a short blog about my day to day as a secret artist struggling through my course work in Molecular Genetics.

maybe like a satellite beacon, someone will pick up a signal.

Any justifiable end(s)

it's been almost a month, and if I could print a receipt of my life I might be better suited to tell you all that has happened, but truth be told i haven't written much this year. And having not written has provided too many gaps where my faulty memories is true to fail. This year is the unlikely step child that no one anticipates any great success from. I feed on the negative, but after watching so many plans fall to the floor, i'd have to say I'm a little justified. Certainly there is anticipation on the onset of any new direction in life, any new adventure, but I have yet to categorize my current course in life as something lofty or adventurous.

I inadvertently researched "male depression" a few nights ago, and found it all to easy to believe everything I read. I wanted to call up a doctor to give me a few pills and make all my insufficiences disappear. But really it's a mindset, and something i have to work through. the following paragraph is what I wrote before I finished this current one, and a good example of why I seem to frustrate the hell out of myself...

I find myself performing a daily ritual where I combat the negative thoughts, where I shun the part of me that longs to be where the rock stars are, that curses myself for the practice habits that ruined my tendons, that wants to curse the world for cutting me short on something so fantastic. I think I knew from the start this would be my outcome, that I would get close enough to smell success like a perfume from a stranger on the street, but never really possess it. and now I'm dealing with the reality while I walk from my car to where I work at a fast food restaurant in the mid west.
.....................

I mean seriously? It's no wonder I hate what I haven't become, and in the process I just want to give up. But I know this isn't the end of the world, or the end of the line.

I guess I'm long overdue for high and lofty goals, impossible dreams, because those are what motivate me the most, not something I know I can accomplish. I know I can go to OSU, get a science degree, get a masters, go plunge an oil well in kansas the rest of my life and make enough money in investments to retire in 25 years, but where's the risk? where's the recklessness in that? what are the chances that it won't work out?

I can't work with that kind of stability.

Perhaps I'm at the crossroads where early adulthood collides with responsible adulthood. like saying goodbye to your toys when your 12 because your imagination suddenly changes gears.

A year ago I could not have imagined the circumstances that have brought me to where I am today. Where instability had no solution, I am forced into the solutions, but wondering if the means bring about any justifyable end. perhaps I am looking for only 1 end, and not seeing that "many possibilities" is, after all, a spectacular gift.

I still want to rock out, I play for 2 hours almost every day now and I know I'm so much more than what I'm doing right now, it's not just some lazy day dream. So i keep plugging away at it, hoping to maybe return to the music world, and that having a degree or the pursuit of it, won't sedate my passions.

It's about mindset, I can spot it a mile away with others, but to personally change my own is nearly impossible, just like trying to change someone else. perspective giving new shape and all true colors to any situation, i wish i had a dash more of the "positive" side of things.


An old friend once told me the best seasons in life are the least likely ones.

I'm working at chick fil a again, hoping to bridge the gap between school loans and living expenses this fall. I used to think of this job as degrading, but this store in Polaris doesnt treat us all like subservient half bred dogs.

less than 2 months until school starts, I'm still questioning whether i've given up on a dream, or whether the dream gave up on me.

sun is out and my coffee is hot...Here's to a good day ahead.

it seems my mouth is being clamped shut since april. Everything I want to say is a complaint, is hurt, is pain, anger, bitterness, confusion, exaggerated. so much is too sensitive and with what I've seen in the last 6 months, in myself, and in my family members, I am ashamed to even begin.

I guess I just need friends like I used to have, or maybe I need to be what I used to be, or just tired of being invisible.

toss your pedals in the pool, indie boy.

I failed my jazz experiment. most splendidly.

You see I'm a rock n roller who has a dash of bashfulness and dissuasion when it comes to large crowds, but when a modern band puts out an album worth listening to, something that motivates me whether in lyric or in musical structure and melody, my whole world lights up. Rather, it shines a new light on the book shelf of my life, my memories and demons and regrets, the few I harbor. I am moody, very moody, so when I listen to albums, I must be moved song to song, variations in the songs and genre, ideas desires, sacredness and profanity, are absolute necessities.
Which is why 2008 was such a bad year in my understanding for music. Only a few survived my list, and Shinedown and Lifehouse were on the top, mostly by themselves. One could say that music school makes you jaded, I believe you are converted and suddenly you can't stand musical defecation, pathetic indie boys, and dumb mountain men who spend albums devoting songs to friends and deer and billygoats.

To all you indie artists, I dare you, for one tour and one recording session, to leave your Line6 Delay and Reverb in your mothers basement in a nice box and see what you're really worth when you're plugged directly into an amp head and that sound is getting blasted at 100 db.
You're fans will hate you, your producer (you have a producer, right?) will hate you, you'll hate yourself and all the fast food joints you worked for that superfulous gear, but you might actually get better and learn to play your damn instrument. Leave the effects to the keyboards.

So yes, 2008 was a bad year for the album, for the guitar, for most of the industry really. Although the hit singles formula used last year was spectacular in it's success. Katy Perry's "I kissed a girl" and the like have set off a huge spree of triplet feel power pop/hip hop songs that haven't been heard since the eighties, so obviously it sells... good job finding a dry spot on the titanic.

all that pissing and moaning to say that lifehouse and shinedown put out really good works. I am most happy with lifehouse, because of the huge turn around they pulled in the face of their label. Their previous release was such pathetic ear candy I almost cried learning and singing one of their songs to an ex girlfriend who literally demanded I play the song before I left for college. Really, the song made no sense, no coherent chord formula, no coherent train of thought. and the album just got worse from there.
Not so with their newest release. Yes, pop music in it's truest sense, but well produce. And written with conviction and experience that I can actually believe and understand, or at least attempt to understand, connect with the author.

Shinedown? the sound of madness. just listen to it. Modern rock more or less is lacking in originality and soul, but this band is balls to the wall in ferocity and a sound so strong you cannot ignore it for long. A great way have they travelled from the days of "Us and Them."

I have already listened to another band releasing an album in June, I wont name them here, or even after their release, but it's been a long time since a new release has inspired me to play guitar, this album puts the fire under the tires.

I have high hopes for Wilco, and must check with some others on releases this year.


On to happy news. I have started playing guitar again, and should be up to an hour long routine in about 7 weeks. I have high hopes of returning to a 3 or 4 hour practice routine, daily. I don't know that I will be able to return to my marathon sessions, but a boy can dream, right?
My grip strenght has improved by over 140% in the last 2 weeks, I can perform my daily tasks without much inhibition or limitation. I can even use my playstion 2 now, which is a great relief and favorite pastime when I'm not reading, playing, annoying sara, getting drug all over cleveland by sara, or sleeping.

Oh, and I can type longer now as well. yay.

make love, make art, make friends, not nukes.

balue like jalazz

or other attempts to fill in the gaps of experiencing life by writing it in a softback book...

for those following my healing progress, I am almost done with my splint treatment. I have been under the supervision of a musculoskeletal surgeon named Dr. Balis who has been of great help and careful warning. I am in Occupational Therapy and will be through my treatment within a month or so. This is good news, and I am thankful that I will not be facing surgery and a year of long and tedious recovery.

My hopes of going professional as a musician have been laid to rest. At least for now. My body, in the current condition that it is in, cannot sustain the rigorous exercise of continual playing. I will be rebuilding my muscle mass in an attempt to gain better stamina in playing, and perhaps beat the odds that I am not biologically made to do what I really enjoy.

So in preparation of starting a regular guitar practice session, I have wiped my itunes clean, and am rebuilding my library with strictly jazz material. The only exception is the Beatles, and that's because they earned it and I cannot live without that music.

Jazz? what jazz? who jazz? why jazz? does anyone play jazz anymore?
I guess I can sum it up in this: I went to a contemporary music school in Hollywood only to discover that all you ever really need to learn to play is contained in the many styles of jazz. The chord changes, the melodies, the scales, the grooves are all encompassing of any other style I should want to play.

In some ways I'm turning into an Elitist of artist taste, as some would say. Really, I'm just tired of all the "Industry Bullshit" as the disenfranchised like myself go on and on about. So to Hell with all the pop fluff, I don't really care anymore because chances are that I will not be able to fulfill the regular duties of a performing professional musician. I'm going to surround myself with the sounds of as much jazz as I can stand, which sometimes isn't much. I have a hard time sitting through Chic Corea, and I really think he ruined "Marathon Man" by doing the soundtrack.

So watch out public libraries, I'm raiding your jazz collections in the name of personal vanity.

Passive Observation

I am not even sure which end to start from. It's 5:57 a.m. eastern, and I have already been up for over an hour. This must be what it is like to be a morning person, coming wide awake at ungodly hours of the morning, without the pain and the grogginess.

I pull off my ice packs and sigh deeply, which is code for " I hope I can type today, I hope my tendons don't give out before I even have time to form a thought and explain it."

You see, I've come to understand that if I speak, it must be with purpose, because the fool shouting in the dark does it very alone. But upon this new requirement of getting up on my soapbox, I begin to see I have a million question, about 400,000 suggestions, and only a handful of people that I could ever bounce these ideas off of.

What the blogging world doesn't need is another expose on the confused state of a twenty something who found his reality very upside down in this world. So maybe I'll just start by interpreting the life that I see.

I think I've been beat into submission from my tendinitis issues, like having the dross removed from the top, except the dross is very much needed, the element called passion. This tendinitis has robbed me of almost everything I truly loved, which isn't much, but two of those things are playing music and writing. When I mean play music, I mean practice my instrument for 6 to 8 hours a day, and when I mean writing, I mean consistently writing for almost two hours long hand on yellow legal pads.

I just began the art of making a pot of coffee.

I don't sleep heavily anymore, so I am familiar with waking up around 4 or 5, but I usually fall back asleep. I don't do mornings well. Often the noise of the birds in the stillness of the pre-dawn gray is astounding, the wall of sounds of nature and survival and evolution.
The morning choir was rather silent this morning, either the early spring is making for a lite attendance, or maybe it's Sunday and even the birds like to sleep in on the weekends.

The coffee is done dripping. I must go and partake of my eight 'o'clock brew.

oh k, back to where I was, bragging about my ability to isolate myself from people and practice art forms nobody cares to think about.

The long life of my 22 years, soon to be 23, I have been fortunate to find a few things that bring me serenity, full satisfaction. I don't believe most people find it, certainly many come close, but the vicious circle of our culture prevents many from fully grasping such an overall fulfillment.
At the precipice I was pulled back, in one swift morning I felt my left arm completely change, from agile and taught, to inflamed and fatigued, and then my right arm followed suit.

It was difficult, has been, difficult, rather. From being active in my life, I am left in splints, in a corner in a southern suburb of Cleveland simply observing the world go to hell on cnn, on the drudgereport, on the sidelines of bbc world report. It's is no less than maddening not being able to work, to drive, to open a jar, to use a pen, to play my guitar.

I live in a world of bored observation and I will be happy to go back to work and to school and go about my life and world without disability.

I'll go with saying this in my weeks of passive observation. If the news bothers you, it's time for a history lesson, a vison beyond your self conceived vision of nationality culture and time, a deep breath and the ability to let go. Everything that is happening has happened before, has turned out worse and humanity will go on, live your life and love the ones you hold dear and stand upon your true morals when man and government infringe upon your right to exist and so exist in a realm of reality. Turn on, tune in, drop out.

times have changed me

well, I moved back again. I am once again living under my parents roof. I must be brief in the coming month. My tendinitis forced me to quit MI this last quarter, and I moved back to Cleveland. Unfortunately my sister has suffered a severe injury, which at my mothers behest, has altered my course in life to stay at home for the immediate future to help look after my 2 oldest nephews.

this is how my life has changed. I don't have to manage bills anymore. I have my own room. And i dont have to walk to the grocery store every few days.

On the downside, the sun only shines 2 out of 7 days here, a complete change from shining all but 2 days in 7 months while i lived in hollywood.

I don't set my own schedule. And again, my privacy is severely restricted due to having so many people around.
My hands are not stabilizing, the inflammation is ceaseless.

But for the first time in my life I am living almost entirely for the use of others, not myself. What my family asks, I acquiesce, and certainly this is becoming difficult. But Already I am learning much from "my boys." I only hope the time I have with them sets them on the right path.

And of course, my Sara is back west, and everyday I hope she makes it here soon before I burst.

oh k, my hands are hurting. I'll try to post random life things, and to be more positive, as certainly my cynicism has gotten me nowhere in my life.

I think

I think I've lost my voice. I think this city is burning. I think I hear them voices calling.

I think the tourists like it hot. They messed this one up, I think, I'm going back.

I think I need cereal and Saturday morning cartoons again. I think It's more than the

easel in my mind can hold. I think ambiguity is all you need to know.

warehouses

In a few hours, I'll be headed out to the first real socializing event I have been to outside of school since arriving in March 08.

That's kind of sad. No, that is just sad.

I don't know where I learned to be so introverted, and perhaps it stems from many extenuating circumstances and events in the last 3 years. I'm not sure what to expect tonight though, as I am not really into the party scene, never have been, and don't really plan on it. I don't know how to act, if there is a way to act, or which way to turn, if this shirt looks like I stole it from kohls or a Gotham street vendor. If I disappear then maybe this is my confession.

I can't dance, I can't talk.
Only thing about me is the way I walk.
I can't dance, I can't sing
I'm just standing here selling everything.
-genesis (no, the band, genius)

On a lighter note, I'm getting ready to head into week 2, and my wrists are healing. I've been able to play about 7 hours in the last two days. That is significant improvement from the last 2 months. I still use an ice pack in the morning and at night, and combined with the NSAID that I'm on, It seems to be getting the job well done. I really did not want to move back to Ohio so soon, although I know I'll be heading back at the end of the year when MI is over.

Formality and Fantastical Scenarios

this year will be the fourth consecutive year of major life changes for me. The third year of which these choices were foreseen with plenty of time to conjure up the layout of the scenario. Funny how I can never act out the parts right in my head. If I could narrate how the future events unfold, I would perhaps be more satisfied temporarily, and probably forever frustrated.

I am on pins and needles as this new year starts. In a month I could be packing up the residence I just settled into, and moving back east side as a result of my gimp wrists. Or in a month, I could be blissfully buried in school work and able to play without pain, continuing on through MI as scheduled. I wonder if I somehow failed myself through all of this. Or rather, I don't want to feel like I failed myself through this injury. Perhaps what I am doing isn't the most wise decision, probably wasn't from the start up, but I made it without any doubt and I want to hold to it until the end.

While I don't know what will happen past September 25 of 2009, I really would like to have as few speedbumps as possible, as I'm sure we all hope for. But if last year was any indication of the future, '09 will be another series of metamorphic episodes.

It seems that everything I am working on, with, against, toward is dearly fragile, and ready to break apart without a moments notice, without eternities regard. Maybe just the nervous ramblings of an amateur, but so much seems all to uncertain at this point.

2008 was a hell of a year. I have lived on both coasts through the course, started a new school, got halfway throught the program. I've met a few people I can call friends while living in a Hollywood, but I can look anyone in the eye and tell them the East Coast was the first coast, and still is the best coast. I'll be glad when I'm living somewhere where I'm not getting nickel and dime'd for every little thing I have to do. These big cities are absolutely absurd, and in my defiance, I declare that I am too good this one called Los Angeles.

This year I learned that as usual, it is very difficult to figure out what it is I am after, what I am willing to do to get it. But I have learned that it is absolutely essential to discover what it is that I don't want, and am not willing to put up with and suffer through in the course of my life. Here are a few
a) roommates
b) rent that costs more than a mortgage
c) excessive pollution
d) lack of community
e) poverty
f) LAPD
g) dependant on public transportation
h) weak tendons
i) Sarah Palin
j) employers asking me about my sexual orientation upon inquiry for a job.
k) air mattresses
l) staring at the wall

some of these are more serious than others, but most of them entale a whole other collection of works explaining all the inner workings that create the circumstances that make the image of this list of things I'd rather do without.

I certainly, early on, didn't forsee who it is that I'm dating now, even though I've had so many people allude to its possibility. Admittedly, it was a leap of faith, into a realm left undiscovered in so very long. I guess sometimes we just need a shot in the arm, and a serious talking-to everyonce in a great while to make somethings precipitate into a happier ending.
A sidenote to my Cedarville girls in regard to regards to relationships: burn the rules, the cultural presuppositions that the guy is to be the only source of pursuit.
a) unrealistic
b) get off yourself
If sara hadn't given it another shot, and come right out and say what she wanted and needed, I would never have found room to reciprocate. Don't overcomplicate the simple things with needless formality and fantastical scenarios.


my arms hurt, so I'm signing off. I hope 2009 has a good ending, and perhaps an ending much different than I have loosely played out in my head.

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.