Happy +1 blog birthday!
Dawg Eat Dawg World is now one year old and gaining in infamy.

Since I've started blogging, I've had:

2 girlfriends enter my life
2 girlfriends exit my life
3 plants enter my life
3 plants still in my life
1 home of parents moved out of
1 home of my own moved into
0 kitchen accidents
1 potato accident
3 raises
0 promotions
2 nyc trips
1 tahoe trip
1 vegas trip
1 rosarita trip
1 nocal trip
0 dartmouth trips
1 first time wedding
1 first time funeral
1 first time facial laceration
5 resultant stiches
1 body piercing
0 tatoos
3 broadway productions watched
0 broadway productions performed
3 attempts to quit smoking
1 cigarette smoked yesterday
2 decade long friendships nearly ended
1 decade long friendship salvaged
1 decade long friendship de facto ended(I'm sorry)

I guess a lot can happen in a year. Its been quite a ride...

[ esca | 8:42 AM | ]

 

According to George, intelligence is attractive in a guy. Apparently, it is a quality that a lot of girls go for. Wow I really hope that is true.

Conversely, is intelligence attractive in a girl? Do guys like smart girls?

Let's take Jenta, ivy league graduate, for instance, as she's one of the smartest overall individuals I know. Yet, she's not intellectual in the sense that she has absolutely no geek factor at all about her. In fact, ditzy is probably used more often to describe her than brainy. If you've seen the way she acts, you'll know what I mean. Still, I'm willing to wager that she's got more raw brain power than the whole Cabinet squeezed together. Then again, that might not be saying much. Nancy is another example of cunning intellect trapped behind that giggly expression of hers.

In fact the large majority of girls that I know who are very intelligent, usually conceal it, especially in large social gatherings. Why is this? Actually, I've noticed a correlation between intelligence and an innocent child-like exterior. The most outwardly naive girl has an uncanny ability to actually be the criminal mastermind. Does anyone else see this?

Do intelligent girls scare off guys? Do guys feel threatened when a girl knows more than he does?

[ esca | 3:16 PM | ]

 

I just got a raise today. I should be happy but I'm not, or rather I am for largely superficial reasons. money Its not a gratifying happiness, as its not a satisfying emotional feeling. I don't feel like I'm a better person, although I wonder if that's how one ought to feel. Its as if I were completed disassociated from the event, and my mind vaguely registers that some abstract person I might know had something happen to them. I feel like I want to share this experience, yet I feel I can't. That's probably why I'm not happy, and if anything, I'm surprisingly flat.

There might be couple people I would feel comfortable telling directly outside of my family, in that it wouldn't come off the wrong way. Sure my intentions are good, but the end result may come out differently. In a way, I'm already violating the spirit of what I'm referring to, but you blog about things you might not necessarily say in person.

Honestly, I suppose I do want some attention, some pat on the back from people who would care, to add symbolic meaning after the fact. Maybe I'm just the kid who wants to bring home the report card to his parents and watch them smile at him. A tough love environment where you need to "accomplish" something in order to deserve all that attention. The end result is you catch yourself sometimes as an ongoing circus act, responding almost instinctively to a series of whistles, pats, and clicks. Your life becomes a patterned collection of the mundane inane, fragmentary and nonsensical.

Maybe this all boils down to I don't really like my job. Maybe it boils down even lower to I don't really like the personal decisions I've made in my life. That maybe I ought to really stop and think about why I do so many things, and for whom if not myself?

I'm going to buy a gun and start a war
as soon as you tell me something worth fighting for

[ esca | 5:09 PM | ]

 

Newborn story morning glory

Wow...3 days of seat gripping teeth pulling excitement. We got suspense, we got drama, we got dicey gossip, we got drunken forays, we got road trips and wife beaters, we got cows and garlic and lion kings, we got beach volleyball without the beach. We even got a name, Warner, eighth group to be photographed with the newly wedded couple. Warner, the desert spring resort where a lot of us first came together, young kids trying to be adults almost a decade ago. Now as young adults trying to be kids we return to our past, which has become our future. Yeah, life's a trip.

I have so many things I want to say, and have wanted to say for the last couple days, that I feel almost too rushed to the write. If a feeling or experience isn't recorded and isn't shared, when it passes from your memory does it disappear forever? So many things...

Recap:

Thursday:

Left work a little early to pick up Jon and Mike and to hopefully skimp a little of the heaviest traffic. Mike is an aspiring director, whose claim to fame includes taco nights at UCLA and is currently in the works for a Winterfresh Strips commercial competition, using a little bit of innuendo. The same Mike who probably blew out my knee, but I can remember vividly in my mind, while lying in shock on that wet grass, seeing a black Volvo curiously drive itself onto the field to pick me up. It was good to see him, if even for a short time. Traffic was predictably bad, although we ended up at all the crucial spots at all the crucial times.

I continued on my journey sans Mike and Jon, to head over to Tu Tram's new apartment. When I opened the door, the first thing I noticed was this giant painted mural on the floor. Actually, it was on some poster paper that was on the floor. I remember wondering if the paint was fresh, and if I should step on it, spanning roughly 20 x 35 ft. I haven't seen the trammer in about half a year, roughly the same time that the ties that bound us ended. Specially when her relationship with my friend ended, so did ours. I remember her asking me once, a long time ago, if we'd ever talk again if she and Vu broke up. I told her yes, but I knew the reality was no, but I'm glad that some things are still possible. Vu's got beauty pageant eyes, and she's seeing her new beau, and they look normal together, as in no bitterness or anger. I took her out to dinner at a nice cozy place near the ocean on an avenue aptly named Ocean Avenue Seafood. A very nice dining experience despite the small portions. She promised to eventually wrap my birthday present she got for me in Vietnam, someday. She's so sweet.

Later that night, we all went clubbing over in Long beach, at probably one of the most ghetto clubs I've been to. I think it was called the Pier. I remember walking in the door, and getting pushed out of the way as two bouncers dragged some guy out. Nothing that extraordinary except that while the bouncers were dragging the fool out, this one ho-ish looking chick was screaming and cursing and repeatedly kicking him. Pretty amazing if I say so myself, as she must have got in at least eight kicks. The girl didn't get thrown out. We rode in with a group of about 20, but only half of us got in. Wackness.

After the club, we head back to UCLA to catch the tail end of the other Victor's birthday. We ended up lost, with Tu Tram as the navigator, as she's convinced that "south of Wilshire," is somehow north. Ten minute trip casually turns itself into forty. We miss the party, but Jon blogged about it, so read it there. Minus all girls, but now plus Jon and Vic, we head back to Vic's apartment. Sleeeeep, long day ahead.

Friday:

Fabulous start. Why you ask? Because the day started at two o'clock. Usually on my off days and weekends, I still wake up at around seven. Yes, I've become conditioned, ring that bell and watch me salivate. But all bets are off while in foreign environments. As we awaited the arrival of the rest of our crew, we picked up sandwiches, Diddy Reese cookies, the epitome of perkiness in Tien, and watched Victor get his hair cut in the most chichi salon I've been in. Jon and I were standing outside in the valet parking lot, noting porsche, porsche, benz, jaguar, honda. Nope the honda wasn't ours, we were parked across the street. What sort of salon has valet parking? The setting inside was very nice, with one of those gorgeous cascading stairways right when you enter. We were taking pictures and goofing around when the receptionist very politely informed us, "that we could go ahead and have a seat over there." Yeah, in that corner where no one can see you. Minus twenty seven bucks plus tip and a half of head's worth of hair, we head back to Vic's apt to nap. Never fall asleep on the edge of a bed with your feet hanging over the side. You get so achy.

James, Nancy, Jimmy, Des, and Amy finally show up, and we're off. Estimated time of departure, 7:00. Target destination, San Jose CA, George's house. ETA, 1:00am. Now that's a road trip. Goodbye warm southern california, hello smelly cow infested northern california. To make matters worse, Vic's front window doesn't close all the way up. We attempted rectify the situation, by using one of Jon's wife beaters to plug up the window. Yeah, very stylish. Topics of road conversation:

How many past relationships/flings/sexual partners can you have before you get the damaged good's label? Is there a more strict and unfair standard applied to girls vs guys? What's the real difference between a pimp and a slut? I think the people in the car said double digits was a good time to be concerned. Is that moral or hypocritical?

Is Josh really a virgin? Are there really such things as virgin weddings today? Is that a good thing, or just a senseless foolish thing?

Also, are some people bad at first instincts? Am I always a bad gut feeling guy? I noticed that following my gut feeling, although I tend to stay away from it, does lead me into trouble. Maybe I'm just a second-instinct type of person.

Finally arrive in San Jose in the wee hours of the morning. George's place is a surprising blend of cookie cutter conformity, as evidenced by the rows and rows of stacked townhouses, and novel architectural features. Its also right next to a winery, which I mistook at first for a chemical processing plant. Those giant tube-like vents can be misleading. Speaking of which, she has more alcohol than some bars, although a lot of it belongs to her roommate. Nancy promised to take me Costco shopping to stock my own bar. Grace was already there, bringing our count to ten. I remember thinking about Josh and wondering at this point if he were freaking out. Started to freak out myself, as some sort of imagined vicarious freaking out. Yeah I'm mental like that. We stake out floor space and plop down to sleep for tomorrow.

Saturday:

I enter consciousness at about 10:30, and some of the girls are freaking out. Two showers and ten individuals to pipeline with less than two total hours to work with. Stress is the name of this game. It turns out that I left my white dress shirt at home. Backup plan, wear black clubbing shirt, and liberally spray on the cologne. Didn't want to wear black to a wedding, but ended up as charcoal - black - gold. Very mafiaesque. Everyone looked very sharp, I hope Jon posts pictures somewhere. We actually arrived early to the church. Early translated into front row seats, or rather the seats right after the family members, which was a positive as I got to see everything close and in detail.

-----
What I felt next is something I've never experienced before, and perhaps won't again. It was the feeling of being innocent and new for the first time in years. Sitting in that church listening to the background hymns gave me pause to reflect about my own state of being. This was a very religious and christian wedding, and if these are values that you either respect or believe in, then this was epitome of decorum. On a spiritual, physical, emotional level. A virgin wedding.

Whether or not its hypocritical to say, I think you can at least respect the enormity and symbolic meaning behind their choices. Was there a time in any of our lives, that saving oneself for the true love of your life was a goal, if not to strive for, then to at least wish for? I think about myself and then Josh, and wonder how far apart we really are in our approach to life, when so long ago we were similar. Do hearts change over time, or are the bad apples simply rotten all along? I'm glad for Josh's decision, and despite the any moral righteousness he may actually place upon others, he should have every right to. Its something so pristine and so pure that doesn't come along very often, and like an endangered species, we much watch over and cherish them. However, not as to undervalue our own choices, but simply for the belief in the possibility that the high ground can exist, and to remain a model for those that come after us, and for those that have yet to arrive at the choices we made so long ago. I believe there is an absolute truth, although the manifestation of that truth may come in different forms. Its the root of all these forms which we share in common.

What Josh has been blessed with, I with never know or will be able to imagine, yet will not allow myself to regret, if only for the reasons that any regret I can have will only stem from hypocrisy. Yet that day, sitting in that church, I knew for the first time in my life, what paramount happiness and joy is. Absolute joy that knows no fear nor conditions. I saw that happiness while sitting in that church, watching Josh as he waited for his love to appear veiled in white on that walkway. I have never seen a face and expression which was so overwhelmingly and uncompromisingly happy. He looked so happy that I could not even bear to look at his face. As if he was on fire, and the luminous glare of the light was too much. I could only shy away my eyes and blink back the tears. Ecstasy, non-chemical, emotional and spiritual. If there is a god, then he presented himself on that countenance, and if there are angels, then they spoke with their mellifluous voices through the haunting music. I may never see anything quite so beautiful again in my life. My heart was breaking, and the tears were flowing. I needed to share this moment so desperately, to fill these rapidly spreading cracks in my being with anything, even lies. A sinking ship that desires to stay a float, to fruitlessly bail in direct spite of its futility. To spite yet succumb to the futility. I saw happiness, and I saw why this happiness would never be mine.

Some small voice in my head tells me that happiness is merely a construct of the mind. That things we see as joyful and proud, are merely a reflection of our own ideals. Perhaps Josh felt anguish and discomfort, and I only construct the happiness because I see it there. I cannot believe that though...

Perhaps I do believe in storybook love with storybook endings, and perhaps I should let that go. Why do I believe in storybook love, when I simultaneously believe that I am not deserving of it? It can only be a sadistic construct of my mind or any mind, to believe and desire in something, yet disbelieve the actualization. To contend against even the possibility of happiness. Why am I such a moody and disgruntled person? Because in my heart of hearts, I do not believe I deserve what I desire and need most. That it is somehow above me, that I am fallen, that I am unworthy. Am I inextricably chained by my own dementia?
-----

As the ceremony ended, cameras clicked and people mingled. Saw a lot of familiar faces, and like a play we read off the same script, the same polite chatty questions asking different sets of pleasantries. We had a couple of hours to kill before the reception, so we headed back to George's crib after tacking on Evan + Roberta, Boeing and E. Ming. I had two contending desires, the first to get plastered, the second not to look shit-faced for the reception. Can't have your cake and eat it too.

After a couple of shots and mixed drinks all around, we piled into our cars, running about an hour late. The reception was at a place called Hayes Mansion, a large victorian looking hotel. The Warner crew is assigned to table 23, his airness, and we sit and eat, watching the whole procession interspersed with toasts, slideshows and bride/groom games. As expected, the bar was dry, and as Grace so graciously pointed out, we were probably the table of deviants. The table of moral depravity. The black hole of darkness in this feast of the righteous. I think she was sad, she looked sad, or jaded. She said she used to be the drug and alcohol abuse counselor at UCSD. We needed to get out.

When we said goodbye to Josh and well wished him on his soon to be three week honeymoon, we felt it was opportune to hit up the town, figuring it would be a while before we would all see each other again. As we walked out, I had surreal flashback, all of us dressed up in our formal evening wear and suits, to what we used to look like in our sandals and t-shirts, laughing, happy, innocent. I felt simultaneously old and young, felt both reminiscent and prescient. Are we somehow stuck between our youth and our elder selves to be?

We went home to change, and then hit up a small club/bar called Back Beat. I guess you could say it was a pretty event filled night. Mostly fun, careless, carefree activities filled with a lot of drinking. Then the drama started. Certain people dogging certain people for being unfaithful. Certain people getting angry in response. People getting sick, including myself, as I basically drank into oblivion. I remember during the car ride back, we had pulled over to let people take care of business. I remember leaning against some nameless wall on some nameless street, trying to empty the contents of my stomach, while someone, probably James as he is definitely a verbal drunk, telling us not to stop here because we were in a "bad" place. I remember looking up once and noticing someone puke out of the side of the moving car. I remember thinking both how dangerous that was, and also how i'm glad she's not puking on me. We made it safely home eventually, but the drama didn't stop there. I get the feeling that maybe some of the things said fell under the "been meaning to say this for a while but need a drunken pretense" guise. I don't really buy that. Who knows, and then again maybe its better that way, for things to reslate themselves the next day. Maybe I'll blog about this later. I learned a lot about Nancy that night though, as she is a remarkably nurturing yet firm persona.

Sunday:

Very tired day. Very tired. Not much to say about this day, besides some pleasantries as we got together for a last lunch as one, on the surface happy and content, maybe inside as well. Packed up our things and headed south, south to the land of palm trees and warm beaches. South to the land which is neither the past nor the future, but the present. Long weekend.

[ esca | 3:38 PM | ]

 

Pre-Wedding thoughts.

Ok I'm leaving in about a couple hours to go to San Jose for the Wedding of Josh Chien and Jenny Lan. It'll be the first wedding I've ever attended and I'm starting to feel that wedding fever. I'll be going in as a single and slightly disgruntled guy, and maybe I'll come back engaged to some radiant bridesmaid. After all, Vegas is just a hop, skip, and a jump away.

Seriously though, thinking about the wedding has made me introspective, more than usual if that's possible. Josh is the guy we used to play football with and mafia and other relatively childish things. Fun, yet childish. There's absolutely nothing childish about getting married. Its strange sounding to myself when I hear people talk about wanting to get married and then not wanting to raise kids for a while because they want to have fun. Hello? Why not just have "fun" before getting married. As to paraphrase from a famous book, to become a man, you must put away childish things.

Perhaps the role of marriage as the universally sacrilegious institution has passed forever. I mean statistically speaking, today you're abnormal if your marriage lasts forever, and the numbers are dropping everyday. Perhaps there's no more hope, and there's no more faith. I can't believe that though.

Cheers Josh, to being the first of many our/my friends.

[ esca | 2:15 PM | ]

 

So yesterday I ended up in hillcrest at a place called Kemo Sabe. Some sort of trendy chic asian food with a little touch of tribal decor. Does anyone actually like this type of food? It is definately more style than it is pure culinary enjoyment. I have to say I'm old school here, the best chinese food has gots to be cheap 'n dirrrty. It was Jackie's bday get together, and as usual, there's a huge group of people who don't really know each other, but together making polite conversation. It was one of our common traits, the desire to surround ourselves with people we know, yet unfortunately mix and match like a patchwork quilt. Actually, I sat next to a few people that I knew, and few friendly people that I didn't. So it was all good. By the way, I don't recommend going to Kemo Sabe, as a couple people ended up getting sick from the food as well.

Anyways, I'm normally pretty friendly with Jackie whenever I do see her, in that we have a suprisingly good post break up relationship. Casual fun harmless flirting, stuff like that. Maybe we didn't go out long enough to inflict long term psychological trauma on each other, yeah probably. So I'm sitting next to her shooting the shit, when I ask, "Where's Danny? He's not here?" Apparently, they had just broken up. I felt like such an ass. Open mouth and insert foot. Then reevaluated my behaviour along with commentary made by her friends all night in context of this new information.

Conclusion: Ummmmmmm, yeah...

Its like all of the sudden having the floor crumble beneath your feet, and you fall screaming through the air, only to hit a trampoline. You're still screaming, but then you realize, oh wait, I'm flying upwards? Yet there's still that ceiling you're rapidly being catapulted towards, the wicked irony of being smashed to death by some ceiling instead of the ground.

I've never felt more "sleazy" in my life, in that to have not seen her in months, apparently show up on the cusp of her break up, albeit her birthday, act as if I were trying to take advantage of her newly vulnerable state, then completely clam up like a shell. Perhaps I am the eternal narcissist in that I am concerned with what their perception of me is, as opposed to what their perception of her is.

Because I actually did like her friends. I think that saddened me a lot, when I came to the realization, that this new circle of great people I had met was going to go away, because Jackie and I were breaking up. Like being voted off survivor or being declared the weakest link. The reserved look in the eyes and calculated words. Its not personal, its just the ties that bind us.

After dinner and polite recourse, I fled the scene, flying fast and far away on the 163, although somewhat slower than how I flew down while running about an hour late.

Tangent: On the Victor is a narcissist theme, I was really pleased by how well received my outfit was. I stole the idea from my far more stylish brother. Black squared tipped shoes, unpolished yet sheeny, a firmly pressed and pleated charcoal grey slacks, a rigid rectangular buckle and black leather belt, along with a black collared dress shirt underneath a matching ribbed sweater. Steel on my wrist, gold in my ear, Chrome on my neck, and the most dastardly wicked smile you can imagine. ~_^ And Jenta and Jess say I'm unattentive to details, ha. That's get a booming HA. *Pop* sssssssh...letting the air out of my ego.

I can't stand it if people think less of me, especially with people who's opinion I value. Hubris, as one who's mannerisms I fondly borrow would say, like Daedalus.

[ esca | 11:15 AM | ]

 

Valentine's weekend, so much love and misery in the air, like a bittersweet pill.

I wonder if some people are simply happier when they are sad and distraught. If certain people actually on some level want their lover to leave them because that's when they feel the most love, this love tinged with bitterness and abandonment. I think about my close friends and I think about how they approach relationships, and I see them constantly in the same pathways, same problems, same sadness. Subconscious or unconscious, they subject themselves to blatantly unhappy situations, perhaps just to get a glimpse of that paramount feeling, love.

A girl that needs to cheat the person she loves, a guy who needs to be betrayed and left behind for another, a guy who needs to get the girl over another, a guy who needs to care for the girl that takes him for granted, a girl that needs to obssess over the love who didn't want her.

Myself? Well, I think I need to care for a girl that doesn't want me...
I need to feel unwanted.

When I think back to the bitterness in my life, I felt so unhappy, yet so empassioned and felt so much more life than I do right now. Do we understand ourselves better and more truly during the depths of our anger? Are we truly ourselves when we feel depressed and distraught? Are we, when we are raw and quivering from our emotions, the person inside that is hidden beneath our cold prison-like masks?

[ esca | 2:02 PM | ]

 

Impossibility. A state of mind, or a state of cost?

I think I've always been of the opinion, that there are few true impossibilities in this world. Except for begging the question and designing an inherently contradictory state, impossibility is a mere mind set. Its just that for the most part, things are impossible practically. Eating fifty hot-dogs in one sitting is not impossible, just not pratical. Wearing drag to a business meeting...you get the picture. Anything, if you want to pay the price and the cost, is possible. Think about it.

Why do I bring this up? I find a lot of times I struggle with the boundaries of possibility because my realm of what can be done is so broad and so inclusive. Making decisions is difficult because it means giving up on so much possibility. Doing one thing, means not doing 99 other things, or so I feel. Its like trying to predict a winner out of 65 for the NCAA tourney. The top ranked team almost never wins. Not that they don't have the best "statistical" chance of winning, its just with a field so big, the chances of any one team beating out all the others are slim.

What makes things even more difficult, is I don't always feel particularly strongly about a lot of choices I make with the other choices continuing to plague me after the fact. Second-guessing and wistfully agonizing. I notice that more people tend to discount the possibility of any choice they didn't make. Nope, couldn't have done that, that's impossible. I think a lot of people are more close-minded than me, but maybe that makes people happier in the long run.

Possibility, potential, dreams. You know that saying, a bird in hand is better than two in the bush? I'd go with the bush, except in my mind with my confused open-minded state, there's a whole flock of them in there.

[ esca | 10:23 AM | ]

 

From first impressions, Joe is just about as Midwest white as you can get, until you hear him say thing like, "Yo you get your shizzat?" Hahaha. Race ain't nothing but a state of mind, yo, a state of mind.

^__^

[ esca | 4:09 PM | ]

 

I have a fear of becoming. Becoming? Yep, as opposed to being. Of these two phrases, "Victor, you're being an ass," vs "Victor, you're becoming an ass," I'd take the current present ass-like state anyday. I guess its because I consider present situations to always be volatile, and am more interested in how I'm changing then where I start off at. Take my derivative and find out how my slope is changing.

I had dinner with Jenta last night, or rather she watched me eat, and she pretty much confirmed what I felt. I'm so much more interested in the process of something, than the actual end result. Like Bill Parcels, who actually likes building a Super Bowl Champion then actually being the Super Bowl Champion. Its liking the chase over what actually gets caught. Her take on everything, is that I simply need to feel happy with something static, and that perhaps my ever present need for change is simply a subconscious dislike for what is. That one day I'll be someplace and everything in my life will make sense and I'll be content. Wishful thinking huh?

I think though, I'll only be happy with that carrot stick dangling off my head.

[ esca | 9:35 AM | ]

 

One thing that I've always wondered about when it comes to christian ideology, is the moral role of woman in relation to man. Specifically, the Bible says woman is responsible for the downfall of man, just about as directly as possible. In the modern world life and approach of christians, this detail seems somewhat overlooked.

Personally, I believe there is a lot to be said about that statement, and also a lot of truth. Or rather, the relationship between woman and man will lead to his downfall, inevitably. The desires and thoughts, to consciously control and subsume another person, to adapt another's will to one's own, these feelings that a man can have for a woman if you stop to think about it, can be pretty bad from a moral perspective. I don't think anyone needs to argue just how much crudity can be involved.

Its not even just crudity at stake here, in that the right woman at the right time, can make even the most resolute of men change all his principles and everything he believes in. The right woman can make him throw all his plans up in the air to chase something he may not be ready for or really have the chance to succeed at. The right woman can also turn out to be the wrong one all along. Helen of Troy, Jocasta, Lady MacBeth, Guinivere...Guinivere, how noble a pair she made fall, just from existing, just from being. Man's true weakness is woman, and you can be sure that the truly clever women already know and exploit this.

Maybe its the guy's fault all along in that he can't handle and control the feelings that occur, but the truth usually lies somewhere in the middle, where both parties influence outcomes. I've seen friendships between guys end or falter off because of girls, physical fights break out because of girls, careers, study habits, plans all go down the drain. At Dartmouth, I'd say that 90% of all the socially important issues that came up and were discussed somehow revolved around girls(from the guys perspective) and everything thereafter. What's the best way to become friends with another guy? Hook him up with a girl. What's the best way to become enemies? Get in between him and a girl.

I think a person's life can be split up into two phases, or at least before marriage, the phase before girls, and the phase during. In the first phase, everything is blissfully innocent. All that matters in this stage of life are crayons, legos and video games. Girls have cooties and have really strange and foreign ideas of fun. Talking to girls maybe somewhat difficult, but you don't want to anyways. Everyone is happy. The second stage occurs when you realize that as a guy, you're supposed to be with a girl, and the next couple decades of your life are going to be spent obsessing about this. Girls still have really strange and foreign ideas of fun, but its now something you have to cope with if you want to be on their good side.

Is it better this way, are we all really happier? Perhaps it was God's greatest challenge to endeavor to bring such different beings together. I feel that when you're with someone, you gain the chance for something greater than you can accomplish by yourself, but risk falling into a bottomless pit that harbors suffering from depths previously unfathomable. I guess its like switching from the $5 black jack tables to the high society. You could look at it as having a lot to lose, or a lot to gain. I get this nagging feeling though, that the house always wins.

[ esca | 3:11 PM | ]

 

I look at my hands now and I think to myself how baby soft they are. Like George Costanza, when he becomes a hand model, as a middle-aged man whose hands had never seen an honest day's work. I have a slight scar from a childhood accident and a few tennis callouses, but otherwise smooth and unmarred. The only part of me.

I wonder if people can become calloused and worn as hands, hardened and embittered by the wearies of life. Age like a fine wine, or shrivel like a raisin. Sometimes when I meet cynical and bitter people, I can't help imagining what must have happened in their life to make them the way they are. What inner unhappiness, what sadness lies beneath the root of their being. I look at myself as well and wonder about my cynicism. Why am I like this, what am I hiding from myself?

I think about how her hands felt, so rough and worn, yet gentle. As almost to be gentle in direct rebellion against the rough. I miss those hands.

[ esca | 10:21 AM | ]

 

Big brother is here
I'll be watching...

Muhahahaha!
*sinsister cackle*


In other news, I have a new roomate, his name is Joe. He's really tall, or at least relatively tall compared to me. Come visit, we'll bake you cookies. Not really, but if you bring some I'll eat them.

[ esca | 3:13 PM | ]

 

So *Sarah* calls me late monday night, and says that's its been over five months since we last talked and wanted to open up lines of communication again. I didn't really want to talk to her. I get the feeling sometimes that she doesn't really have a clue what she's asking or saying.

Never overtly trust someone with an emotionally frayed background. Not that its a character issue so much is it an issue of direction. Or like Kai says, never be with someone who has a sexually abused past. Why? Invariably, a girl with a sexually abused background feels as if that past entitles her to a lot in her present life. A free pass almost on all related moral questions. Does something morally wrong, albeit significant in magnitude, justify even the slightest return of wrong to others? Unfortunately, there's the answer that lives in the ideal world, and there's what actually happens in ours. Wrong begets wrong, it always does.

The more I've thought about Sarah over the years, the more I realize that her moral fiber is very flawed. I understand her past, and I know some of the things she's been through, and with her child like innocence and approach to life, you almost want to root for her. To believe she's like some sort of mystical fairy that can walk down those dark empty pathways and sprout flowers and shit all over. It doesn't work that way, and for some dumb fuck reason I followed her along and now I have no way of getting back. There's so many things in my life now that I have or do, that I deep down inside don't care for or want. Yet the hollowness surrounds me and mires me, all a vain attempt to create a life for her that she would want. Vanity.

Sadly enough, I'd still follow her now, to the ends of the earth and whatever is beyond. I'd be the same doofy kid who would sing praises unending and cower over the edge of the dining table for any scraps to fall my way. Pathetic to the end.

*name obscurred

[ esca | 11:43 AM | ]

 

Most of the people I know, and for that matter, consider to be my peer group, are not very spiritual. Religion is placed in the chump basket along with magic tricks, and pyramid schemes, or even tele-marketing promotions, to be sifted through by the less savy. Or its for those less busy, or for those less disgruntled by life.

Personally, I think everyone wants to believe in something, but don't know how to, or really what it means to believe. To believe in right and wrong, to believe that there is something greater than what our eyes can see.

If a blind man can't see the color of the apple he is holding, is it still red? If belief in religion is belief in matters that we can not immediately perceive and are spiritual, then with all the questions and all the emptiness of our world, why don't more people believe? Why don't more people seek? Where has the desire gone?

In every religion in this world, our personal choices matter. In every religion, there is a concept of right and wrong. Imagine the chance to make right with every choice we have. Not the right of your parents(although it could be), not the right of some abstract authority figure, not the right that you feel obligation over conviction for, but a highly personal right that you know and feel to be true. That righteous feeling of being correct when everyone else is wrong, that secure feeling that comes with expecting a favorable outcome, that inexplainable feeling when you know the hero is going to beat the villian. A spiritually gifted feeling.

Like lit candles in a dark cave, we illuminate our immediate surroundings, but we can not see what is beyond. It must be something different than this.

[ esca | 5:09 PM | ]