I've been carrying around my small black notebook for months now and I haven't touched it since I-don't-know-when. Today, after I left the library with more books than I anticipated I decided to spend my lunch hour in the next-door Starbucks. There was an empty seat next to a fireplace that I somehow hadn't noticed in the past few years, so I hunkered down and continued my book. The gentle bustle and rainy afternoon struck me as beautiful, and the woman sitting nearby started rocking a stroller I failed to notice - maybe the baby must have been asleep, but the point was I was oblivious. My description is again inadequate so you'll have to take my word - it was very beautiful.

I've been struck by many similar, brief moments of beauty over the last few months - looking around I'll be struck by the light coming through a window, or feel a twinge of nostalgia looking at a familiar part of my neighborhood. I quite enjoy those moments. They're affirming, in a way, and I've tried to recognize those moments when and as they come.

My list of things I want to do with my life continues unabated (and those things on the list remain largely unresolved). I need to swap in a new notebook into my bag, and I really need to start using it. I would hate to fall out of touch with my writing, and I notice that happening more and more each day now that I'm out of Fairfield. For some reason college was always a very conducive place for my writing, and being home largely the opposite. I'm not going back, so it's high time I begin reversing those sentiments.

There are a lot of things with which I have been slowly making changes, yet in the same token they leave a lot to be desired. My budgeting has been marginally improving, but I still desperately need to organize and consolidate my impending student loans. I've been running the boardwalk with my brother twice a week - quite a feat, for me, considering I'd long ago written off my ability to run in any capacity, but my diet has a lot of room for improvement, and I could really stand doing push-ups and sit-ups again.

Since I've gotten back from lunch today I've spent the afternoon looking at past journal entries over the several months, few that they are. Reading the entries there's this sense of fanaticism and mania that comes across - it's vaguely disturbing in a way - I'm thinking the desperation to mentally stay afloat amidst all the stress took it's toll on the tone of my entries. I'm not sure. It's also partly because of how little time has passed between those entries and my writing this one, today - looking at myself now and then feels like remembering myself as a crazy-ass puppy and feeling like a tired, old dog these days. The pace of my days has slowed quite a bit, since school, and I guess I've just followed suit.

Lately I've found satisfaction in planning, in hearty meals and cold weather - felt affirmed by rainy days and gleams of maturity in recollections. I've felt excitement for the work that remains to be done, acknowledgment of the fear and and uncertainty, and the willingness and resolve to carry on.

I neglect this journal too much. At least I'm consistent. I think often about updating but for some reason always manage to not get around to it. Maybe I should put more of an effort into sorting out thoughts.

My work for Long Beach City Hall continues - allegedly I'm supposed to fill my retired boss's old position, but politics have slowed things down considerably. Not to mention that local Election Day on the 3rd of November threatens to sweep all the employees out on the street if there is a regime change. Regardless, I'm still collecting pay, and I have an office. It's not bad.

More importantly, I'm engaged. The fear and uncertainty that I've been led to believe is obligatory to the entire process was, and is, absent. If I had doubts going into the proposal they were self-critical and fears of my own inadequacy. That's when you need to get down to brass tacks - I'm crazy about her, she's crazy about me. I can't fathom living without her, and vice versa. Not to mention the fact that nobody is completely "adequate" (if one could even come up with criteria to define what that might mean).

I knew that it was the right decision - the only decision, and resolutely decided to follow through. I thought that maybe we were too young, that I was being hasty. But then I realized that we would be tackling everything together anyway, I might as well cut to the chase and make it formal. Reflecting about the events after the fact, I have not been the least bit disappointed. As if to affirm I made the right choice, that ring looks really damn good on her finger.

If you were to tell me when I entered Fairfield as a freshman that I'd leave in a committed relationship and soon after get engaged, I'd look at you like you had two heads. Attempting to think of all the ways that I've changed since then is dizzying. So many of the changes have been subtle and insidiously slow, like going though puberty - you go to sleep one night four foot ten inches and when you wake up you smack your forehead on the ceiling fan. Back then I didn't think I was deserving of love, and all my fantasies and projections of what relationships, engagement and marriage would be like were these grand, exaggerated notions - larger than life.

I'm sitting in my desk now, my fiance down in Florida, and my world, my heart, is quiet. I don't feel "different," like I thought one would - as if something fundamental about yourself transmutes after a proposal. This isn't to say I'm disappointed, but rather that the truth is, as usual, far more poignant. I feel fulfilled. I pride myself on noticing the subtle and nuanced beauty in life. Engagement, love, is by far the most subtle, the most beautiful.

It's October and I'm not at Fairfield. Thinking about it, I know through and through that I couldn't be at Fairfield. I always fancied myself as the kind of person that could easily slide into that super-senior mentality - not ready to leave and dragging out the collegiate lifestyle as long as I could. For all my hesitance and uncertainty about the future, imagining myself back at Fairfield feels wrong. I'm mired in that miserable limbo between college and the "Real World © " and now comes the part where I have to begin that desperate push forward.

I'm realizing that I'm having the same problem addressing the future that I had with the proposal, that I'm too busy finding and mulling over the insignificant and negligable reasons why not that I'm oblivious to the giant flashing neon sign listing all the reasons why yes. One of my biggest stumbling blocks is picking a career path. The last several days I've become increasingly more resolute on teaching English. Listening to my gut hasn't steered me wrong thus far, and I have a bad habit of ignoring that feeling.

My gut is saying teach. I've known for a while that I have little to no tolerance for a job that I don't like. If there's any indication of that it's this post right here - the one that I'm writing at work. Where I am not working. Despite my best efforts my subconscious will find any and every way to procrastinate if I am not personally engaged in what I am doing. Once again, case in point - this post. The only job that I've ever been able to think about as something I'd consider worthwhile is teaching. So, on I go. Rest assured, I'm still terrified, but at least now I have some semblance of a direction.

I heard a cute story somewhere - in which a teacher gave an assignment to a first grade class to describe what they wanted to be when they grew up. Coming up to one of the students, the teacher asked what he had written. The student said "I want to be happy." The teacher frowned and said, "I don't think you understand the assignment." The student replied, "I don't think you understand life." This is my working philosophy - pursue happiness at all costs within the lens and reasonable boundaries of responsibility. I have faith that the rest of the pieces of the puzzle will fall into place - the house, the money, the bills, and so on. If you're not happy, though, there is no point.

When I had a brief stint in therapy at Fairfield, which was largely a bust, the counselor did give me one piece of advice that stuck with me. I don't recall his wording exactly, but the jist of it was that he wasn't exactly sure what my problems were (to this day, even I'm still not sure) but that I was a writer, what what writers do is write. I haven't touched one of my little black books for a long while now, and I think I'm long overdue. There's a lot of work to be done in my life, personally and literally, a lot of which I'm sure I'll find ways to brush aside for one reason or another. Writing more often, though, is a resolution that I think I can keep.

If any of you read this and are feeling down, give this F My Life website-clone a shot: GivesMeHope. It depicts the kind of world that I want to live in. I'm tired of pursuing happiness for my own sake. If I had one wish it would be that I could be happy enough to be able to spread it to others.

It's very bizzare knowing that Fairfield doesn't happen this September.

I've returned to my humble post in Long Beach City Hall as a Public Relations clerk. I like the office, I love the people - I even like the work well enough. I'm primarily here to make posters, newsletters and other publications, and to make them look pretty. I like my job. I'm good at my job. There's speculation that I might be able to move in full-time and become the new Public Relations officer. The pay increase and benefits would be nice, but the politics and grotesque social networks and rivalries in this place are nauseatingly complex and difficult to break through. We'll see.

I'm in a fugue, a haze. The real world is officially here, and once more I've got no clue what I'm doing with myself. I've become a member of a well-populated club: post-graduates who quickly move back home and live with their parents indefinitely. I don't like this club. Yet I find myself perfectly incapable of making any proactive or motivated efforts to change my situation.

I'm tired. I'm lonely. I'm quick to anger and frustration. My ability to maintain an air of indifference is dwindling. I'm bitter and old and cynical decades before I'm due. And yet...

This summer I found satisfaction in car trips: fly fishers in thigh-high waders, green valleys and mountains sprawling outside car windows. I found satisfaction in family, finding acceptance in new places and slowing down to breathe once in a while. I found satisfaction in looking ridiculous, dancing down hallways and twirling into an office, playing West Side Story on the office TV for the second-and-a-half time, in realizing that if you can't find it all a bit ridiculous, at least enough to laugh at it all for a minute, then you might be too far lost already.

looking at a photograph of a family reunion, summer 2001. notable is my grandfather, who had passed away last year. everyone looks
happy.
 

tell me what we know
is written somewhere, in stone. tell me
that we don't need to hide
from the things we've done, or
shy away from the dying
days of winter.

mondays and wednesdays I sing
with a choir, young and brash.
the music stands resolute
like Achilles, triumphant
on the shores of Troy - the way he feels
accomplishment gleaming at his sword tip,
skin-bronzed standing on Trojan sand.
I know somewhere, I can hear
the notes hang triumphantly in the air,
immortal.

tell me we're making something ancient -
that we are scraping against a moment,
carving out like gem stones the very
things that are worthwhile. those things that
make standing there -
this moment, with the sun in my hair -
make this the most important thing I do in a lifetime.

-------------------------



looking at a photograph of any Saturday, July 2007 – me and my brother standing on the beach looking at the moonlight dragged over the bay, recklessly taking candids with a digital camera. both of us smile -  
we look happy.


tell me that these
are those whispers I want to tell you,
softly on your ear and
shy like fingers of fog that tease the streetlights -

those moments when I'm alone,
and I remember man is not an island.
I relive afternoons, lazy hours after school
sharing the forbidden knowledge,
glad to die with the fruit of the Tree. I've made
my skeleton out of moments that brag
with the boldness of the sun,
all the paths of your life laid out clear
in sidewalk paths and auditorium rows, pews
and stages familiar through months and years.

these are the secrets, a sadness
I wonder if you share - living out the days
of my dwindling adolescence - I'm nothing
if I'm not alive.
if I cannot at least once a day
savour a hard-boiled egg
or savour the nonsense of being
then it's not the life that I can hear humming
from flourescant tubes down hallways,
in the concrete edifices of our street corners, or
in our hearts.

I wonder if it's written in stone -
the throbbing pulse of I'm trying to say,
that sits in my gut like too much whiskey
tell me it's carved deep enough to run
my fingers through the edges
so I can understand it,
know that my love is the right balance
of unbearable lightness,
why I'm terrified to die.
I wonder if you can look at the lines,
if they just as deadly
miserable it feels.
 
-------------------------



looking at a photograph, dated March 16, 2006. The Fairfield University choir is performing a concert in the San Lorenzo chapel in Florence, Italy on their spring break tour. the sixty students line the steps of the altar, the white and black tuxedos and dresses silhouettes against the pure white stone. they are frozen, mid-note – they
look happy.
 

tell me this is how I imagine dying –

I imagined music, a hymn that I heard
one March evening, sung by an italian choir.
the notes hung like fingers of light, caressing your face -
I was there, sitting on a wood pew and
wringing my hands in the cathedral -
something ethereal in me lifted up,
gently -

because it's whisper quiet, these days - grey
and lonely, listless. not how
I imagined this happening,
or what I want it to be.
tell me the feeling doesn't die, too
and that I can visit it sometimes, sitting
surrounded by picture frames and love letters -
memories welling up like hymns lifting
glory glory hallelujah,
lux, lux callida gravisque into the night -
because I hear it every day
the warmth and certainty of being lost
into an essence larger than yourself,
knowing that the answers dance in your mind in the twilight hours of your sleep.

tell me you hear those whispers, too -
maddeningly too soft to understand, but
the heart of it rings true,
hanging immortal, and somehow
you know.

I neglect this journal, along with many other things in my life right now. This semester has been exhausting, and it's not over.

My sanity is still stable, at least so far - that's very reassuring. At times I feel like I'm "on the outside looking in" and it's gratifying to see how I'm tackling stress this semester, as opposed to sophomore year when I snapped. This year, I don't snap - I'm not brittle. I bend. I'm stressed, astronomically so, but I'm flexible. Mutable. I will persevere.

It's difficult to place my feelings and emotions this year. I feel as if I'm hurtling toward commencement in May like an astronaut tossed from an airlock; I'm not in control anymore, I'm just a victim of my own momentum. Suffice to say I'm not fighting it. I always try to recognize and avoid futility if I can help it. Instead I'm trying to take pride and solace in my growing maturity. When in a similar transition at the end of high school, I dreaded and resented the inevitable "what are your plans? What's your major? What kind of career?" I was young. I couldn't have cared less, I just wanted escape.

Those questions have weight and relevance now, and as much as I hate leaving a life behind, a new one is about to start without me or not. I have tentative plans for graduate school - teaching colleges around the city and a vague goal to begin heading toward.

Part of me still resents it. I can't help but feel that I'm not ready for The Real World™, that I don't want to "grow up" and can't handle the weight of the responsibilities that are falling on my shoulders. There's still that part of me that wants to say "fuck off" to the world - graduate and book it to the middle of nowhere and live alone, away from everyone and everything. I'm beginning to join the cult of the almighty dollar, and as stereotypically "college" as it is, I hate the nine-to-five grind, I hate my debt and I hate that I'm beginning to revolve my life around the dollar sign.

But that's the way it goes, isn't it? I'm resigning all my impotent rage and rebellion and acting realistically, I suppose. Part of me hates that I feel like I'm throwing in the towel, but it's sink or swim time, and I've always thought drowning was an awful way to die.

On the plus side: I still believe that the world is incomprehensibly beautiful - painfully so. That is my last bastion - I do believe that I'm part of a small minority who can see the world not necessarily differently, but for what it is. If that sense of awe and euphoria ever leaves, then I will die as a human being. It's all I have left, and ultimately, all I need.

I still am tormented by questions of faith and religion. On a whim I read a book by a very angry atheist, Christopher Hitchens, called God is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything. At times the vitriol and hatred he approached the faithful with was a touch over the top, even for me - critiques and attacks bordering on the downright personal instead of analytical and fact-based, as I would prefer. Obvious bias aside, good points were made. I remain resolute in my vague agnosticism. And yet I'm plagued by the beauty of the idea, of the expression, the emotion and sometimes unbounded love I perceive - I swear it's enough to make me doubt my convictions sometimes.

The Glee Club (which I am still somehow a member) is performing an arrangement of Baba Yetu in an upcoming concert - a rendition of the Lord's Prayer sung in Swahili. I looked up a video on Youtube to see what it sounded like and to follow along in my new sheet music, and it's a great song. Very beautiful. Part way through, maybe just catharsis from stress, I just started crying - as in full-out bawling in tears. Something about the song - a pure, resonant beauty just rang clear as a bell and broke me down. It's that kind of emotion that shakes my foundations and convictions - that all the misgivings and problems with religion aside, there is a beautiful and honest purity that pulses at its core.

The Glee Club has also had The Prayer of the Children in our Chamber's repertoire - and lately, it's another song that has a powerful resonance with me, and I can't help but choke up sometimes in spite of the occasional triteness of the song. It's almost blatantly designed to tug heartstrings and garner easy empathy - written to give awareness to the slaughter of innocent civilians in the Yugoslavian Wars of the early '90s, especially (surprise!) the children. But the arrangement is stellar - the song just plain sounds beautiful, and there is some real force behind the lyrics at times:

      Angry guns preach a gospel full of hate,
      blood of the innocent on their hands.
      Crying "Jesus, help me!
      to feel the sun again, upon my face -
      For when darkness clears, I know you're near,
      bringing peace again."

It's a sad situation, no doubt, but maybe it's just the simplicity of the plea that gets to me. Maybe it's my cynicism breaking through - that they're crying out to a god that is a fabrication. Help isn't about to come, and within the context of the song, it didn't. The more beautiful and innocent facets of humanity have an awful tendency to be crushed by an overwhelming hatred and selfishness that is thick in today's society.

There are times when I just can't bear the sadness, and get sick of my capacity for empathy. I'm growing more bitter and cynical each and every day. I'm beginning to believe that my constant effort to find beautiful "nothings" that validate humanity is necessary to save my spirit. People holding doors, genuine small-talk and small kindnesses that can prove to me again and again that the human heart isn't always cold.

I'm sorry for writing a book. Apologize to your friend's page for me - this must've hurt.

35 Things You Never Needed to Know about Cameron John Osborne Martin.
Idea stolen from Marybeth

1. I have strong passions and great plans, and without fail, consistently disappoint myself.
2. I have vivid, frequent, and fierce desires to live off the grid for a lengthy stretch of time.
3. I always wish I would have stuck with piano. When I think about how I could always take up an instrument, I look at my harmonicas collecting dust, and refer back to #1.
4. Frequently, I believe I am smarter, wiser, or otherwise superior to most other people. Immediately, the lack of humility makes me feel like shit about myself. But secretly, I still think it's true.
5. I love reading, writing and experiencing literature and poetry to a frightening degree.
6. I frequently have a mental image or great idea of something I want to doodle/draw. Due to my grievous overconfidence in my artistic ability, inevitably, it turns out like utter shit. Invariably, I wish I stuck with art. Refer to #1.
7. The world is so beautiful it scares the shit out of me sometimes.
8. I am overwhelmed with emotion by some minute occurrence on at least a daily basis, i.e., a plastic bag caught on a fence, sparrows on the train platform, an overheard snippet of conversation.
9. As time goes by, I become increasingly more convinced I'm going functionally insane.
10. My complete inability to accept and seamlessly integrate into normal society is my greatest source of pride and satisfaction.
11. I am a horrible hypochondriac, to a nearly debilitating degree.
12. I am completely unable to budget.
13. If I were to hypothetically wake up and be the last remaining human on Earth, it'd certainly be a very sad circumstance but I'd be just fine with the isolation.
14. The only things to actually make me lose my temper in the past two years are instances of ignorance and futility.
15. I cannot plan more than a few days into the future. I believe this is integral in maintaining my sanity.
16. If I had three wishes - the ability to play any instrument flawlessly, the assurance of a long and healthy life, and the assurance of perfect, healthy teeth. Seriously, the teeth.
17. I foresee myself doing psychedelics of some kind every few years.
18. My daily life typically amounts to a struggle to maintain humility and find satisfaction in the powerlessness and utter ignorance I possess.
19. I am a shameless procrastinator.
20. I struggle constantly not to succumb to cynicism, and to discern whether my feelings are realistic or cynical.
21. My body is a simultaneous source of pride and insecurity for me.
22. I would get a tattoo but I cannot think of anything I'd permanently affix to my body.
23. I sometimes think I use my physical deficiencies as a crutch to avoid troubling or difficult scenarios, and am constantly trying to overcome that tendency.
24. I cannot understand why people typically would want to go back in time to avoid painful mistakes. I sometimes wish my consequences of my mistakes were more painful. Maybe I would be a better person.
25. I obsess constantly over the quality of my character, and the sincerity of my morality.
26. I am currently atheistic but obsessed with the idea of Christ and God. Sometimes I'm not sure if it's nostalgic remnants of childhood or if somewhere deep down I actually might believe it, or if I wish I did.
27. I am convinced that time is the enemy.
28. A great source of pain and regret for me is my not being able to maintain my relationships and friendships as well as those people and friends deserve.
29. I am an English major and think most stories and poetry written prior to 1940 are utter shit.
30. I frequently and fiercely believe I was born in the wrong decade.
31. I believe that I probably would benefit from counseling in some way but am too damn good at placing up facades.
32. It's a mystery how I haven't gotten fired at my current job.
33. I am beginning to think of myself as a jack-of-all-trades, yet master of nothing, except I'm not really competent in most trades.
34. I worry constantly about what legacy I will leave after I die.
35. My absolute and greatest regret is that I cannot come close to adequately expressing the cataclysmically beautiful thoughts, sounds and images that never, ever shut up inside my head. Refer to #1.

i watch the world unfold from a window.
the wrought iron fence wraps around
a neglected wood, cobwebs of moss strewn
between proud, grey bark trees

importance escaped me
while He spoke in my ear -
a constant bleating -
whispers from the wind

i watch from the window
and He is gentle,
     He is a father -
how do you explain to a child?

there is a book i read last month,
i finished it in bed, kicked the blankets off and i
understood that He is as tangible, like
weak coffee

but He still talks to me,
and His voice is gentle, because
how do you explain to a child?
i watch the world from the window.

a crow lands on the ground, at a red light,
pecks the ground near a brother, struck by car -
i remember, I read somewhere -
crows can count to sixteen,  not more, and
remember enemies for the whole of their lives.
magpies, too; both birds family
corvidae.

the crow will remember death for a long time.
i am sad, life complexity delights me.
how do you explain to a child?
what happens when you die?

i watch the world from my window.
the wind roars in my ear whispers rushing
past and He says god takes care of you
god takes care of you
tell the crow, tell his brother
god takes care of you

i watch the crow from my window,
    the wind in my ear,
                i am the wind
                i am the crow,

and i know we can't do this alone

School has a wonderful habit of getting in the way of having time to do the things I want to do, for example, keeping this journal updated. It's been a while.

Fall semester has gone by too quickly. We, the Fairfield University Glee Club, are already having our Christmas concerts this weekend. Staying with the choir has been one of my decisions in college that I'm most proud of. I definitely bitch and moan about rehearsals - at least the ones I show up to - but I can't deny that I love being a Gleetard. I love making music.

In other news: after a doozy of a financial scare, I'm able to actually start registering for next semester's classes, albeit a couple of weeks after the actual registration period. I'm beginning to piecemeal my courses together and although I can liken my schedule to Frankenstein's monster, I think I'll survive. Of course, this only means graduation is rushing toward me. The closer it gets the more and more I become resolute in my dissatisfaction with the world and with society, especially what it mandates is expected of me after I leave as an undergrad.

I know it's selfish and damn childish but I'm not ready to be an adult. I'm not ready for graduate school, to find a job. I'd love nothing more than obtaining a doctorate but I sure as hell don't want to do the work. I want everything handed to me, and that's my problem. At least I know my problem. And rest assured, I don't actually expect anything to be handed to me. That doesn't change the fact that the prospect of leaving my comfortable life at Fairfield is absolutely scaring the shit out of me. I need to start making plans, and I could punch myself in the face because my procrastination really pisses me off.

I had grand plans for this semester. Straight A's, go to the gym several days a week, save money. All of which promptly went down the shitter. Again, I'm profoundly disappointed in myself. I'm at the point in my life that I should be able to come up with at least some answers on my own - hell, thirty years ago and I'd be out the door with my own house, car and career.

My dreams aren't dead yet, and I take comfort in the fact that I can't foreseeing the glimmer of idealism inside me ever dying off. If it ever did, that would be the death of me as I know myself. My dreams, my hopes and remaining optimism makes me indomitable. I suppose the challenge now is figuring out how to put it that metaphorical furnace to good use.

Christopher McCandless still inspires me, the Appalachian Trail still calls out to me. I hear the calls, I look at myself - I'm weak, and I am frail. I don't believe I could survive those aspirations with my physical state being what it is. However I'm slowly becoming convinced that my spirit is strong enough, and that excites me. I can change my body; I can get stronger. Before I go into "the real world," pursue a calling and find a career, I know that I somehow need to test myself.

...the sea's only gifts are harsh blows and, occasionally, the chance to feel strong. Now, I don't know much about the sea, but I do know that that's the way it is here. And I also know how important it is in life not necessarily to be strong but to feel strong, to measure yourself at least once, to find yourself at least once in the most ancient of human conditions, facing blind, deaf stone alone, with nothing to help you but your own hands and your own head...
- excerpt from Bear Meat by Primo Levi

I find satisfaction in the indomitable spirit of man, our perseverance and ability to rebuild, remake and restore. I take comfort in humanity's unfathomable depth of kindness, the inevitability of it to surface when it is needed the most dearly. I take comfort in the other day, when I was gripped by a sudden sadness and despair - and turning a corner, a young buck and I crossed paths. We met eyes, he galloped away and I continued on, my faith and cheer restored.

1. name:
2. birthday:
3. place of residence:
4. what makes you happy:
5. what are you listening to now/have listened to last:
6. do you read my lj:
7. if you do, what is particularly good/bad about it:
8. an interesting fact about you:
9. are you in love/have a crush at the moment:
10. favourite place to be:
12. best time of the year:
13: Post the most recent picture of yourself:

RECOMMEND
1. a film:
2. a book:
3. a band, a song and an album:

PLUS
1. one thing you like about me:
2. two things you like about yourself:
3. put this in your lj so i can tell you what i think of you

I'm in love with living. It's been a while since I've taken time to post an update, and I think I'm beginning to fall into a comfortable routine enough to sit and think - if you could ever call my routine's comfortable.

I'm sitting in the computer lab below Donnaruma Hall, and I'm supposed to be reading The Dim Sum of All Things, by Kim Wong Keltner. I'll read it eventually. It looks interesting enough, although the first few pages I've gotten through ring pretentiously. Lately - this morning, especially - I'm not particularly thrilled with my Buddhist Spirituality professor, Dr. Davidson. I've said it a few times before - I'm certain once I'm through with the course I'll love the man. It's difficult not to, he's so damned strange and quirky that he's an instantly unforgettable character. However he is ruthlessly sucking all of the passion and joy from the religion he's supposed to be elucidating. If I do go into education, that is one pitfall I'll be sure to avoid. The last thing I want is to murder passion before it's gotten a chance to begin.

The course has set a few things straight. Mostly, that there isn't a religious structure under the sun that I could ever assign myself to. Apparently even Buddhism is unapproachable for me. I envy the faithful.  I suppose I'll continue to pick and chose the bits and pieces I like from whatever I encounter. I don't know who said it or how the saying goes, exactly, but I think I can apply it here - "Good writers borrow, great writers steal."

The Real World is approaching much, much, much too quickly. Lately I've been trying to reconcile the fact that I don't know what I'm going to do when I leave. I've made no plans or put no thought into GRE's or graduate school. I know that I will eventually, I just can't fathom why it has to occur immediately after I leave Fairfield. Ugh, I'm sick to my stomach thinking of it now. That's enough thought about it for today, I think.

The past few days I've also been thinking about myself and my own ideologies. I had made a lot of grand plans and aspirations for this year which largely have gone promptly out the window. I think my current lifestyle and approach to the days is largely satisfactory, for me, but I've recently been picking a lot of holes from it. Mostly, I'm becoming resolute in the realization that I'm not as good a person as I perceive myself to be. Not that I would call myself a murdering baby rapist, but I've got a lot of flaws that I cannot reconcile. I think they should be easy enough to address. My struggle to understand myself better has progressed enough, I think, to realize to a certain extent how I operate.

I've had a long standing plan to come up with a list of ideals and "rules," in a sense, to carry out my life and to carry with me from day to day. I know myself well enough to know that I won't follow a long list. I think that I want to come up with three or four rules - ones that can encompass a number of facets of the kind of morality, ethics and conduct that I want to follow. This morning a thought came to me to make a bracelet, or something I can wear permanently. Maybe I learn to weave a bracelet - each weave being a rule? Sounds a bit tacky, actually. Maybe not. I look into it, regardless.

I don't know who I'm writing to, anymore, or if anyone reads. I suppose I'm writing to myself for posterity. My present-self is hoping, right now, that my future-self won't think of my present-self as an insufferable asshole. That's kind of how I feel I'm sounding, these days.

Tomorrow is the day it all begins. There's no more time to avoid and be afraid. But I am. I'm afraid. Vonnegut had it right; "Life is no way to treat an animal."

But I'll succeed. I take comfort in that surety. Because there's so many beautiful things about living, about being terrified, being tested - being alive!

From time to time I'll take the subways to get to the LIRR. It's about a twenty minute walk and I'll typically endure it, if only to save money. On my lazier days, though, you take the shuttle from Grand Central to Times Square, and then any downtown 1, 2, or 3 train to Penn Station. They're quick rides - both only taken one stop - and can save me a little wear and tear on my legs at the expense of $2 and the oppressive heat of the tunnels.

Sometimes, you get the odd performer or panhandler that walks through the subway cars. The shuttle seems to be the ideal place to bump into them, it's a short and direct ride and typically guaranteed to be pretty full of passengers, making it an understandable favorite. You get your fair share of singers and musicians, a couple of charity workers, your occasional sob story, and they all usually don't garner much attention. I remember one young black kid who started his speech when the train started rolling: he was an aspiring singer, and he wanted to do a religious soul, R&B kind of album and was collecting money for studio time. He make his pitch and jumped into a song and man-oh-man was it awful. Off key, nasally voice, trite and uninspired lyrics, and trying to emulate as many popular singers and styles in all the wrong ways. I didn't give him anything, if only to spare the studio.

Yesterday was different. I had gotten paid and had a ten dollar bill in my pocket. I step on the shuttle and it starts rolling toward Times Square, when woman begins to make a plea to the passengers. She was about 35 years old or so, clean and decent looking - I scrutinized her the entire ride through my sunglasses.

She was widowed, unemployed and stuck in New York City with no relatives or friends to turn to. She had two young daughters, and she needed help. I felt around in my pocket and could only find the ten dollar bill.

I'm what most people would consider liberal with my money when it comes to homeless - I typically don't hesitate to dole out my few quarters or a dollar bill. Sometimes I like to get a hot dog from a vendor and pass it off instead of change. Believe me, I know all the angles as much as anyone else when it comes to the poor and homeless, and I'm well aware that in all likelihood my money is going towards alcohol or drugs most of the time. Once, while my brother was walking to work, he saw a businessman hand a sealed paper bag to a homeless man on the sidewalk. The man held the bag like it had a bomb in it, and he grunted "What the hell is this?" The businessman was shocked. "Its a... I got you a slice of pizza." The homeless man shoved the bag back and snuffed, "I don't want it." The businessman was disgusted - he stormed off and stuffed the bag into the trash.

Now this alleged widow is walking down the aisle and I'm still fingering the ten dollar bill, torn between polar opposites of my conscience - the one half that's calling her a liar and the other half that's worried about her kids. I give the responsibility of the coin flip to my gut - which rarely does me wrong - and my gut said to give her the money. I slip the bill into her cup, and she double takes, trying to find my eyes through the mirrored lenses of my sunglasses. Neither of us said a word, but something in her eyes said "thank you." Of course, the other half of my conscience saw that glimmer as guilt.

The shuttle arrived at Times Square and I made my way for the downtown trains. I was angry. Angry at myself for giving her the money, and simultaneously angry for being doubtful of her story. Then I was angry at her for lying, then angry that I called her a liar. Even this morning I'm angry. I can't reconcile my two halves - the cynical and the hopeful. Every day it seems like I swing wildly between loving everything and everyone on the planet and wanting to watch it all burn. I want to wipe it clean and start over.

The more I've thought about it, the more I realize I'm angry the world has to be this way. As much as I want to kill the cynical side of me, both sides of my psyche are necessary to survive. If you're too trusting and altruistic you'll get taken advantage of and bled dry. If you're too cynical and skeptical you'll be safe, but you'll die inside.

Yes, that's why I'm angry. I'm angry that we have to live this way. The more I analyze it, the more furious I get. If she's truthful, then I'm angry that my doubt could cost her children food and warmth. If she's a liar, then I'm angry that my doubt is right. Then, even if she's a liar, I'm mad somebody can be reduced to panhandling in boiling subway tunnels. While I'm walking to my next train I get tired of being angry so I say a prayer for her - that whether her story was true or not that she'll be happy and find her way out of her situation. But then I'm angry that I cannot even believe there's a god to pray to, and that my plea is going to go unheard. I get off of my second train and leave the subway. A retarded, elderly man crosses my path. Reflexively, a habit I started many years ago, I pray for the man. That he be watched over, comforted and taken care of. That he find happiness and not have to be as afraid as he looked - overwhelmed by the surging pulse of Penn Station. I remember no-one is listening to the prayer. I'm angry.

I get off of the railroad, I am driven home. I'm surrounded by shelter, by family and privilege. I'm angry that I get to have security while countless others don't. I think about casting off everything, rejecting my privilege and becoming aesthetic - hermetic. I realize I don't have the willpower and I'm deluding myself. I'm too spoiled and would never do it. I've been accustomed and have trained myself my entire life to take things for granted. I eat a wholesome dinner. I sleep in a bed, seething.

I'm still angry. Fantastically sad, and angry. I'm just one man! I'm powerless, I'm powerful; I'm alone, I'm everyone - I'm spiritual, I'm humanitarian...

God, Jesus, Buddha - Joseph and Mary, Isaac and Abraham - Grandpa, Vishna, all of the saints - pray for me, pray for me! Be real! Be real! The more I witness in the world the more convinced I become that we, as a people, cannot do this alone.

I read a great quotation this morning by Barbara Tober saying that "Traditions are group efforts to keep the unexpected from happening." I'm a man of many routines myself and for all my efforts I can be terribly predictable a majority of the time.

I realize it's been said before in the last few posts, but this summer is quickly becoming a very tired routine for me and I'm really beginning to resent it. Fortunately the end is well within sight; I've only seven more days of work (including today) before I finish my summer period here at ACLS. I took two weeks off for a few reasons - one, it will give me and excuse to be very lazy for a week prior to Fall semester, then also giving me time to settle for a week after I move back in. Second, I can catch up on some loose ends from projects, thoughts and ideas I've had over the summer.

This summer has been very productive and busy for me, which is of course a good thing. It is, however, a departure from how I typically pass my summer months (namely, doing close to nothing) and I miss having the freedom and time to devote to whatever comes to mind. My plan for the week off before the semester begins is to finish up on last minute shopping and packing, lay about like a mostly inanimate blob, and (god willing) write something. I don't even want to think how long it's been since I've wrought a finished product, and the past couple of weeks I've been feeling like I'm very, very close. Wheels are spinning, gears are turning - I'm fairly sure I'm almost there. Then again, when I think about it, summer hiatuses from writing are not unusual for me.

Something that I really want to do in my week off is write and design a personal manifesto of sorts for my next year. While I hate to use the word, I feel like I've matured a lot in the past several months, to the point where I think I'm capable of a number of significant changes in my life. Since about the sixth grade, at the end of every summer I've "resolutely" decided that "this year will be the best year ever! I'll get in shape and do great in school and all of these wonderful things!" Needless to say, this has never happened.

I'm going to try to approach things realistically. These days I have a better grasp on what I am capable of, and I'm at the point in my life where changes should be and have to be made. The amount of room and time I've got to screw up, to form good habits and outlooks is growing increasingly smaller. Inside myself, I see the potential for wonderful things, for great wisdom, lots of love and understanding, for moments and glimpses of beauty and peace that I want to share with the people that are important to me.

Every day now, it seems, I get these overwhelming washes of this unearthly goodness that overtake me. One of my greatest regrets is my inability to share it, to rationalize and explain it. Maybe that feeling is something like what one could call divinity. As days go by I find it easier to perceive it around me, and more and more I feel that I'm stealing glances and peeks at the underlying purpose and immense perfection of the universe, of our existence here. Every day I'm intensely guilty that I cannot seem to share it the way and as much as I want to. This needs to change. I need to change. The world needs to know.

Not a terrible amount to talk about. Still restless, still through with being home. More thinking without a whole lot of resolution. But things are manageable, things are good.

I think that if you cannot say to yourself at any given moment, "If I were struck by a stray cinder block walking down the sidewalk, my life wouldn't be a waste," then you're doing it wrong. More and more I find myself immune from embarrassment and fear - if I have an opportunity to go on a random excursion or expose myself to something strange or unusual then I take it - even if I need to convince myself. It's those strange memories and moments that stick - give a life fulfillment and variety, make a life worth living.

If I were to be hit by a bus today while jaywalking my way to Penn Station, I think I would be ok with it. Obviously there are loads of things and people and accomplishments I'd be sad to miss out on, but so far, I don't think I've been wasting my time. Everyday I can see myself becoming the person I want to be, a person I can love and who has a role I'm happy, no, thrilled to fulfill. The people I surround myself with are my family. I'm root-less; I can travel anywhere and find remarkable beauty. I strive everyday to shed my dependence on things and focus on ideas, on truth and hope. On love.

Today I realized that truth, freedom, love and beauty are four of the most subjective words that I know. But once you can apply a meaning that you can agree with, they become a useful lens with which to look on the world.

Chris and Cameron - fearless, intrepid weekend warriors once again. The two of us left Friday night for Medford, NJ and made excellent time and pace all the way there. After spending the night we drove to spend another day and night in Atlantic City.

The beach was nice, although the water was absolutely frigid. A few hours later and we returned to the house to regroup and make spontaneous plans for the rest of the evening. We settled on a late-night trip to a Ruby Tuesday, and had a surprisingly good experience. After dinner we drunkenly ambled to the nearest casino where Chris pumped six dollars into slots before realizing he had no clue what was going on. We left.

Sunday morning brought a decent breakfast and the shortest trip to the boardwalk ever before the heavens opened up upon us all. Torrential rain, sprinkled with a fierce hail storm gave a short preview for the rest of the day - and sure enough - Chris and I were blessed with lightning, rain and thunder for the entire five (five!) hour drive home. A quickly paced, but otherwise enjoyable, weekend.

This weekend I found satisfaction in discomfort, disarray and grit. I found happiness in beach towels and sunblock, in Cherry Pepsi and grapes. I had my philosophies validated and only found longing for the summer to end - if only because stagnation is my greatest worry. I'm growing tired.

The old username for my account and journal was bothering me. It was a relic of what seems everyday to be more and more a thing I've left behind. There isn't anything you have to do on your ends - current links and friend's pages will automatically route to the new name.

The new name is borrowed from a poem I wrote:

I understand how
people die young
and leave this world:
with the best intentions.

Today I took satisfaction in second chances, in overcrowding and self-reliance. I found adventure and fear in 11 o'clock kayak rides, bobbing exposed in a bay during a thunderstorm and ignoring the gut instinct every once and again.

The whole exercising bit is starting to wear me down, and I'm approaching that point where I simply lose motivation and energy, dropping the entire routine until the next annual attempt. I refuse to stop this time. I was using free weights yesterday afternoon and it was starting to get noticeably and significantly easier. I'm only young once - I'm tired of being scrawny. I want to get in shape.

I think it just has to get to a point where it becomes more rewarding. I need to crave the satisfaction of coming back from the kayak ride exhausted and spent, so I can be tired but know I did something worthwhile.

There's a lot of things I need to do and keep up with. I have to put together a list of short and long term goals sometime and keep track of both on a monthly basis. There is so much I want to do and so much I'm capable of. I don't want to waste this life.

I still need to write, too. It's probably been close to two months. Then again, this wouldn't be the first time I've gone on an extended hiatus. Sometimes a bit of removal is good for you. I'm just feeling so restless and eager that I want to get something down, but I'm waiting for the right moment. I'm also desperately afraid of not writing anymore, of nonchalantly giving it up. But I know I can't let that happen, that it won't. Writing is everything to me.

Yesterday I found satisfaction in the little boy in his backyard, wearing a complete Superman costume. I watched him from a distance as I paddled my kayak by - he climbed his swing set and panted triumphantly, laughing and smiling to no one in particular.

I was simultaneously sad and overjoyed - because at one point in my life, I could be Superman too. I could be Superman and believe it - if only for a little while. I wished then and there that the little boy wouldn't lose that too soon.

My weekends have been very busy the past few weeks. Birthday parties, the Fourth of July, trips to Pennsylvania, and this weekend I stayed at the guys' big beach house in Fairfield. The house itself was rather nice - pretty big, considering the typical renters. The whole weekend was really relaxing and easy-going, which is what I think I needed. Fairfield Beach was an interesting experience too. I've been at Fairfield for the past three years and have been down in the beach neighborhood all of one time. Being immersed into surroundings so completely unfamiliar in a place you've spent so much time in can be very strange.

We visited another house the first night, who was having a kegger, then did our drinking at home the next night, and lazed about the house yesterday. The heat was impressive, and a trip to the beach on Saturday was very uncomfortable, even for beach standards. The sand was baking under the sun and the head and humidity was oppressive. Most of the time around the house was spent trying to find ways to outsmart the heat without air conditioning, typically without any success.

Last night we went to see the new Batman flick in Bridgeport, which lived up to every word of hype that's been pumped into the media since it's release. Simply outstanding. Heath Ledger's performance made his death all the more poignant, too - while a role as a super-villain in a comic book movie typically doesn't bestow a lot of honor and credibility he was remarkable as the Joker.

This weekend I found satisfaction in isolation, in new-found freedom and maturity. I confronted uncertainty and the future and was tempered by it, but not overwhelmed. I found comfort everywhere I turned, closure at two in the morning, and rest in the unlikeliest of places.

I've been on another one of my random hiatuses with my writing. I just haven't had the urge to sit down and focus on it; there really isn't material I feel I have to get down on paper. Lately, though, I feel myself starting to come out of it. I'm excited! I miss writing, and I can't believe it's been more than a month since my last finished piece.

There's that, and then lately I feel like I really need to make a change. I don't know what kind of change that would necessarily entail - mostly I think I just want to make sure I don't become stagnant. Every day I realize more and more how I'll never be twenty-one years old again. I know that there's no way to do it "perfectly," so I'm not approaching life with that mindset. It's all just a matter of trying, and finding satisfaction with the results - whatever they might be.

This weekend I found myself making the sign of the cross when I passed graveyards on the trip up to Pennsylvania. When I realized it I kind of chuckled since I can't settle into any kind of faith these days. The only real faith I have in anything is myself, and even that is shaky at best! Human beings are fickle things. But regardless, I caught myself making the gesture and felt a twinge of guilt - who am I to observe Christianity? All I ever do is push it aside - it's not my place to carry out the rites.

But then the coin flipped. I added a mental bullet to a list in my head - general rules to carry out my life under. I figured that even if I cannot fully place my faith and life into a religion's credo, I can still recognize the good that (at it's purest level) it's trying to do. It was easy, then, to wave aside my harmless gesture passing the cemetery. I need to really sit down and make that mental list a little more concrete. I think it'd be good for me.

It's little changes like that I'm talking about. I'm trying very hard to exercise and get into shape (and not having the easiest time about it). I'm trying to be healthy in body and mind. Sometimes I'd love to subscribe to a religious practice if only for the structure of it. Something nice, trite and clichéd like Zen Buddhism is obviously something I have in mind. However I'd still have a lot of trouble calling myself a follower of any faith I chose, since I'd be unable to really, 100%, believe it, you know? I have a lot to think about.

This morning I found truth in recognizing my faults, of which I've many. I found satisfaction in sleep last night, the simple comfort and necessity of it. I found happiness when I pulled myself out of a short slump of depression, and realized how fragile my mind and temperament is. Sometimes every minute is a fight to stay optimistic, strong and capable - and I've grown to love that struggle. Life shouldn't be easy. I found a moment of peace when I smiled, mused and thought, "am I that hard to understand?" I laughed and answered myself, "I hope so." I'd hate to be boring.