hi.

heard from carter. hopefully will talk on the phone with him soon.

less than a week left on the "no coffee" thing.

so hey...i'm stuck, more like torn...in the middle here.
on one hand...i love the Orthodox Church. i have so far to go and there's so much within me that needs (and God willing will be) purged...but i'm discovering my path and for the first time in years, actually care about christianity again. i'm finding meaning finally. this is where i'm supposed to be and where i want to be.
on the other hand...i'm totally repulsed by "christians" in general. the people at my church are actually really great...we're a small church, really friendly...but christians in general are just, well, sickening. and i'm tired of the struggle. i'm just so sick of dealing with them...and can feel that most of christianity is of detriment for me to even be around. anyway...it makes me sad...and pissed...how i'm treated, how carole's treated, how others i know are treated...it's just wrong and so far away from what Christ taught and lived. anyway...my heart is really broken now...and thank God i found what i did in my church or i'd have given up by now.

joel

news:

--i'm starting to panic about carter. i'm past pissed or concerned...i'm downright worried and scared.

--life without coffee sucks. i'm sick of soda. i just want that smoothness back in me, to be alert without all sugared up. ugh.

( testing, just playing around. hope to update soon. )

blogging is so self-indulgent.

we're learning about cascading style sheets today.
big fun.
i actually already knew a little from playing around with my blogger template...
this is actually very very useful and as i play with websites more in the future, this is a big timesaver.
i love learning.

where to lunch?

it's just after 8am, i'm listening to jimi hendrix and sipping, no, gulping down the morning's coke.
i used to make fun of people who Had To drink coke or pepsi first thing in the morning.
that was before i gave up coffee for Lent.

if you're a reader of the Vagrant Cafe...
first of all, i'm sorry. hahaha. but really, i apologize. this is unacceptable.
i haven't heard from carter since 15 March. i'm both pissed and scared.
and starting to move ahead with zine stuff...someone has to.
i'm sick and tired of the message board. i have been for a long time. it's escalated the last couple months, though.
the vision we have and had for the magazine and obviously the message board...it's turned into the opposite of that.
once we have the zine going and regular and moving upward, things are gonna change. i've said it before, i know, but this time...really. those who should feel most welcome and comfortable there are made to feel unwelcome. and because i'm "Fair" and have to be stupid and liberal enough to try and have "free speech," the place is crawling with what i created this place to get away from.

one of the reasons i moved here and got this particular job is to have time and regain my focus. what sucks is...i did...and it was a bad time for carter to do so. a few months later, it's even more so. the thing is...i don't want my life to be spent just at some job, making enough to get by and pay some debts, doing nothing much else with my life. if i were just going to work some piddly job that doesn't use my talents, i should've just stayed where i was or taken a factory job that would leave me so tired that it would become my whole life. not that that's a horrible thing for some people, but that's not what i'm supposed to be, and i'm not going to settle for some mediocre little life. so...this is about more than running some little unimportant sucky zine, this is about more than feeling like some big shot because i "run an internet community" (i hate when people try and tell me i'm something because of it when they really have no appreciation for it and are just), this is not about trying to impress anyone...this is about fulfillment and my life and a step in where i'm headed needing to happen.

mmm....i like my new layout. the critics will hate how skinny it is in parts, but for some odd reason, i like it.

now playing: Blind Blake, "Chump Man Blues"

Fleetwood Mac's "Oh Well" keeps a mellow background while my right index finger scratches back and forth along the top of my plastic mouse. it's afternoon and my head is fuzzy and starting to ache a bit, begging me for caffeine. Several half-done or pending projects lie at arm's length and finally i pick one up like a mother reluctantly picks up a whining child. I lick my dry lips and saunter to the copy machine.
his mood picks up a bit as Mick Jagger swaggers through "Jumpin' Jack Flash." in fact it's a gas.
he just wants to be in the same room as she is. maybe occasionally slide his hand into her hair.

once in a while i do something right and i think i'm about to.

today's weather is pretty much perfect.
at least for me.
it's dark and "gloomy" and drizzly. my favorite.
i'm not trying to come off as some pseudo-goth or anything...
brightness really kills my eyes, though. i love the smell and feel of small rain.
the temperature is cool but not freezing. i love it.

the only real reason i posted that (true as it is) is to illustrate the point that some people will read *anything*...

i'm not sure what the deal is with the headache this morning. you know, i think i just really really need a nap. i'm feeling it.

i wish i could do something to show how much i care...
even more, i wish i could do something to make things better.

( oops. test. )

i'm excited that baseball season is here again. the cubs are 1-1...i haven't gotten to watch any game yet, but maybe tonight.

one of the things i like most about baseball is that while yes, there are incredible athletes in the game, there are guys who look to be pretty regular guys as well...even guys with beer bellies and such. i mean sure, you have your superstuds like kerry wood and richard farnsworth and sammy sosa, but you've got your jon liebers in there as well. one of my favorite players ever was john kruk from the philadelphia phillies. the guy wasn't an athlete in the least bit, at least to look at...but he was one hell of a player and i hated that he was on an opposing team.

when i was a young boy, i had this sick obsession with baseball. before i discovered girls, love, music, or anything i enjoy now, there was baseball. i didn't know anyone that played it, i never played it myself because there weren't enough kids in the neighborhood and it never worked out for my parents to let me join a league...but man, was i into it. i spent most of my time playing by myself, anyway, so the baseball thing made me even more the weird kid. i spent so much of the summer in the backyard wherever we happened to live building stadiums, wearing basepaths in the lawn, scrambling across other yards and across streets to retrieve home runs and foul balls alike, driving my parents nuts with the continual thumping required as i perfected my pitch control and sense of the strike zone. i spent my very little spending money on baseball cards like crazy (some of which may be worth a good bit of money by now) and while my g.i. joe figures did partake in usual wartime exercises, they spent literally hours living out my baseball fantasies. as in, i created leagues, teams, stars, etc. i listened to WGN constantly, soaking in pre-game, play-by-play, post-game, everything. one of the biggest days in my young life was when my father somehow obtained a large antenna big enough to tune into catch the chicago stations and watch the cubs on television. i rarely got to go to a game but i still remember that one rather chilly spring day when i was in elementary school, we saw jamie moyer pitch against rick honeycutt as the cubs played the dodgers. i read biographies and autobiographies, of course, like crazy...i was an avid reader and reading books about baseball naturally followed. i'm pretty sure my parents would have gone ballistic had they known the kind of language and terminology i was learning from reading autobiographies of people like bo jackson. i cried when Harry Caray died...he was as much a part of my life as any of my friends in person.

so i'm all grown up now, or at least i'm 25. it's been a while since i went to go see a cubs game...it just hasn't worked out the last couple years...and now i've moved 8 hours from chicago as opposed to being just 2 away. my dream of playing baseball isn't around anymore. my parents moved three years ago and i didn't have access to wgn and there was no radio reception where i worked.
but...despite the new distance...i have wgn now (though half the games are on some fox sports channel i can't get) and can listen to them on the internet radio realaudio station at work...and it's april and i'm feeling excited.

(testing)

i tried to update this a few days ago and somehow it didn't take...so this is just a test.