i love those stupid damn little fruit(usually)-filled pies. you know, the kind that try to kill you before you're 40. i'm having a lemon one right now with my afternoon coffee. 3 for a buck at Baker's, can't go wrong.

hello, angry mob.

os tjere amu correlato des guapo el gato y bano?

sorry, never intended to pretend i'm the latino seth. the first 3 words there happened when i got one finger offtrack on my keyboard and the rest is pretty much nonsense. something about cats and bathrooms.

you know, the reason i moved to omaha is to get a job that paid the bills, then spend a ton of time working on the zine and get that actually doing something, making at least a couple of us proud. funny how that just hasn't happened. by the time i got a job, we realized nothing was really going to happen until after the holidays. well, once those were over, carter went AWOL. i finally did hear from him but man, nothing's happening. he's crazy busy, doesn't have a computer yet, etc....and i understand. but it's just in me, i have to do this. so....i'm going to be learning some new stuff, hopefully doing it well. we're going to try and publish next on the first of august, though the exact date may fluctuate, michial will be here then. but that's the goal. let's see what happens.

(on the 17th, i added those little "nasty comment" things. those are for you to post your thoughts on whatever i happened to mouth off about.)

i really feel the urge, the need to write tonight. but my mind won't focus.

seth says to write about the alphabet.

the alphabet is nice.
i doubt many people remember the exact moment it all clicked and they knew the alphabet, had it memorized. yet almost all of us just know it. almost every person who speaks english and is of a certain age did have a specific time when there it was, in his mind, the alphabet.
somehow it's always in the back of my mind.
it's there through deaths, through my favorite bands breaking up, through broken or non-happening romantic relationships, through the Cubs losing, through terrorism, through moving and finding a job, through everything...those ABC's.
i want to be a writer. i do write, but have no objectivity when looking at my own work and rarely do i know if i'm even coherent, much less decent. whatever thoughts form in my head, though, they're strained through the colander that is the alphabet. abstract opinions, stories, and ideas only truly defined within my mind become packaged in neat little boxes using one of twenty-six letters, with the occasional punctuation for further expressiveness. all my heartbreak, all my dreams, my faith, every last thing that separates me from a plant, animal, or sofa must choose some amalgamation of The Twenty-Six in order to be known.
perhaps i can write. i'm told i can. perhaps i can write well. i hope to. perhaps if i pray to the Patron Saint of the Twenty-Six, somehow a thought here and there will shape them into something good.

let's start the week off with some love.

it drives me nuts when people say/do the following. usually it's men who do it.

--refer to you as "guy." not in a general "you're a guy" sense, but in a "how are things, guy?"
--upon entering a room and seeing you, say "there he is."

ok, i like this template well enough...i think i'll just leave it be for now.

i have no idea why i just did that. i like to think i know how to screw with the template a bit, but i obviously did something strangely wrong. though...other than the title being just under the ugly ad, i like this as a starting point.

so...what've i been listening to lately?

dj shadow, endtroducing...
tom petty & the heartbreakers, greatest hits
dennis wilson, bamboo
the santiago steps, A-flutter

Letter to an Old Friend

(a bit of intro: t.s. is one of my friends i grew up with...i think i've known t. longer than anyone i've known outside my relatives...walker i've known a couple years less, though t. and i haven't really kept in touch much the last few years and walker and i have. t. and i were roommates my first year of college, then that following fall he got married to a really great person, had a kid within a year, and we kept in touch a little but it eventually slid. now he works in insurance, has a couple kids anyway, recently t. called me and we've talked a couple times...and today i decided to email him. i could tell a million background stories and provide a ton of information but i don't have that kind of time or finger energy, so here's the an excerpt from the email, because it got someone ramblish and i know i post that sorta thing here.)

anyway, yeah...i'm not sure how soon i'll get to be in south bend again. i haven't really mapped out my fall too much...christmas i'm planning just to spend around here. i'm thinking maybe around thanksgiving i'm going to hit the south for a few days, visit my sister and brother-in-law and their baby that should be a few months old by then...maybe someone i know a couple hours away. that'll definitely put the budget at needing to hang out here for christmas, hehe. yeah, if there were some "reunion" this year i definitely couldn't be making it and really not next year, either. when the 10 year actually rolls around in what, 3 years...who knows. i'm actually a good bit different than high school and earlier college days, that's for sure. i guess where most people are pretty cool with going with what's going on, continuing where they've been going generally all their lives and whatever--and don't get me wrong, man...i envy that in some ways, i think it's great and that's how it's supposed to be for a lot of people...i've done a lot of seeking and searching and exploring. i can't even really relate to anything resembling how we grew up anymore, really...yet at the same time, constantly struggle with the things that were more or less implanted in us. i'm not explaining well at all, i'm sure, and here i'm supposedly the writer. oh well. anyway, i know that in h.s. and early college i was the dorky kid who never really made waves, got in a little trouble but was pretty passive, didn't outwardly question too much or get in faces, went along with the flow and stuff. but all along...starting in late elementary and jr. high, i just knew something was off. at least for me. i had questions that i dare not ask, paths i knew were out there but didn't even know how to find. it's like there was always something gnawing on me but i knew that until there was something more definite to follow, a way to question other than the usual teenage rebellion, i was just there to experience. so i just went along and cruised and didn't care about much, but experienced a lot, i guess. a year or so ago, i went through this period where i was really pissed off and felt like we all got really ripped off as kids. i still think we were but at the same time, i don't think most of it was purposeful...people were just following, themselves, not trying to lead us anywhere on their own. i guess i felt bad, too, looking at potential. i know i did pretty well in school, but it was mostly because i managed to learn on my own. i'm a visual learner, i don't learn well by listening at all...and so i just read a lot and wrote a lot of notes. other people weren't so lucky and had other styles of learning...for example, you're a very intelligent person, man...i always knew you were smart. but because we were locked into this certain mindset and style of teaching, you and others got really screwed. but i mean...why be mad about it? that's life, i guess. anyway, that's more or less indicative of things, not the issue as a whole. i'm rambling quite a bit at this point, anyway...i guess all i'm saying is that i've learned there's a ton more out there to explore that God created for us to explore, other ways to think, other ways to live. to be more specific, one example is that israel and pretty much all of the Bible took place and was written out of an Eastern and middle eastern thought, yet we in the West can't see it that way and automatically place our western culture and lock everything into that as opposed to trying to think the way they did. anyway, i know i'm being vague and i'm sorry if most of this makes no sense, it's my fault. i guess all i'm trying to say is that whenever reunion takes place and if i'm there, it'll be interesting to see how it all goes, because i've changed a ton since the days most of those people remember me from. it's weird to think about all of us "grown up" (at least agewise) now but that happens. i feel bad for the kids nowadays, it's gotta really suck to be growing up in all this crap but you know those 10 and 20 years older than us said the same things.

for whatever reason, my computer hasn't frozen up since 7:45 this morning. that means it probably will while i type this, of course.

for whatever reason, lately i am even more out of it than usual, been feeling down a lot, and have been even more paranoid than usual. hopefully this will pass soon. hopefully i'll get more and comfortable sleep soon.
i have been praying contemplatively a little more at a time, which is a good thing.

i need to write more. i feel that very much missing. tonight would be a perfect opportunity and i want to but i'm exhausted. still.
i had to do a bunch of lifting of heavy boxes full of files at work today...reminds me i need to work out more. i'm so out of shape.

ever just look at your life and wonder when you're going to actually do something? when you're going to actually be able to?

i've been realizing that when you're in your 20's, you ask the questions and you hope/think you'll start experiencing and learning the answers within the next 14-20 years. but then you get middle-aged...and the answers haven't come, but you've got more questions and realize you've spent half your life sliding further away from "it." then you get towards your sr. citizen years and one of two things happens. either you realize the answers aren't ever going to be found, you get bitter, and squirm your way to death; or you realize the answers are in the smallest things you've been overlooking that whole time and spend the rest of your life finding meaning within what God made inside you and in those little things.
that's what i think at 25, anyway. you'd think it would make me try and get to the second state of thought of the 3rd age, wouldn't you? so would i. that's where i want to be, anyway....but at this point, i'm struggling against thinking like the second stage and being depressed about the whole thing. i guess we'll see.

for some reason, my sock on my right foot keeps wanting to bunch up and strangle my pinky toe.

will i make it to cornerstone this year?

damn leaky air mattress.

go cubs.

weekend statistics:


movies watched:

Rocky

Pretty in Pink.


i liked Rocky a lot. it was really cool to see the places in philadelphia that carole loves. i just wish i hadn't been so tired when i watched it.


books purchased:

An American Childhood by Annie Dillard

Imitation of Christ by Thomas A. Kempis

i got these for a buck each at Goodwill.



other major purchases:

air conditioner. this makes our ground level feel really really nice. the basement feels good and is usually pretty cool anyway.



what's really annoying is the fact that while i loved watching Rocky, i was really quite tired and sleepy. i was pretty much ready to go to sleep around 9, actually. movie got over around 11 and i had been falling asleep for about the last hour of it, so i just went straight to bed, pretty out of it. well, then, of course...i then spent the next hour plus trying to get to sleep. it was around 12:30 by the time it all fell together, i think. oh well.



i'm feeling very drawn in a certain direction. i really am going to start doing a lot more contemplation and meditation...and doing more reading as i can.
there's a lot of negative spiritual energy around right now...laugh and joke about it if you will...i mean, i'm the first to pretend i'm yoda and say "strong is the dark side" or whatever. but anyway, i realized that i'm not really doing much to combat that with in myself. sure, i go to liturgy almost every sunday...and it really does do so much for me. it took a few times to get used to but as i'm into it longer, the more i draw from it, it seems. i crave it. but the thing is...once a week for a couple hours just isn't going to do it. i'm a selfish person. i'm an asshole, really. i'm proud. and like i said, there's so much spiritual negativity in this world, especially in our neighborhood...and how can i expect to deal with that, to overcome it, if i'm not allowing God to do positive spiritual things in me. i don't know...there's so much to do, so much i want to do, people i want to help (my life is not working a meaningless job and then watching tv all night--i'm supposed to help people, get involved with those most desperate) but it isn't going to happen without this. so anyway, yes...i'm needing to just grow some discipline and develop this lifestyle. this is very much what i'm called to and what i've been searching for for many many years.