"Uncle Fluffy"

That's one of my favorites. Speaking of favorites, you really don't all have to go off to where ever it is that you people go when you finally grow up into adulthood (UT Austin. Just pretend I coughed in between that to make it subtle). Seriously, we've got like a nine hundred square foot apartment attached to our house. You could live in there, do a little KWC and spend the rest of the day playing cards and drinking excessive amounts of coffee talking about nothing and everything and living where we live at our utmost comfort level in the presence of those we love and those that love us. A life full of fellowship exempt from pressure. The inert practicality should sell the idea itself. But I would imagine that's why it's called an idea and not a reality. Farewells. The ones you anticipate the least and the most for the oppurtunity to throw a pep rally turn into these bizzare sleep-walking rushed out dreams. There's got to be an easier way to say you care. I'm not about to overestimate the relationships I have. So maybe the UT thing was a little out of line. I wonder what the day when I'm on the other end of the goodbye is going to feel like.

"A crisis of confidence?"

I'm listening to this brilliant orchestra music but it's familiar. The bass line of the strings sounds familiar. The staccato flute hits coupled with a tinkling xylophone sound comforting. I'm listening to "Under Pressure" by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and it's really something. Guitar and piano both have their place, but there's something about orchestral music that's really special. With a guitar and piano you get this intimacy and a personal emotion, but orchestra can lift the music. Not saying you can't get either from either, but that's the way it usually goes. There was this stupid little quote in somebody's profile that went "I want to be your favorite hello and your hardest goodbye". It's just some angsty little quote, but I like it. I like the rhythm with the floating opposites and the actual emotional truth that surfaces. And I was trying to think of a person that was those things to me or I was those things to them. The answer is never the easy thing.

"I just assumed you wanted to include me"

There really isn't any good music on the radio anymore. That doesn't really have to do with anything. I just thought I'd say that. One of the bigger mistakes we can make is that we're not living life but merely in life's waiting room, waiting for someone to call us in. I think I'm in that place right now where it seem like anything we do matters because it's of such little consequence on a larger scale. I'm really bored.

"Now, we're going back to school"

It seems that what's important and who's important is changing on a daily basis. To everybody. I wouldn't mind getting a couple anchors. I might make a few anchors away puns to correlate to all the people I like going to colleges, but I'm not that guy and you're not that stupid. I don't want to give you a shot-for-shot of the day because that's boring, but it's safe to say that it'll be a better year. I suppose it's just a matter of keeping the right things in focus. Some things that seem more important than others are far less than we think they are. In hindsight, everytime I invest in a relationship it's like going all in on the first good looking hand I get in the round. Pocket Jacks might look killer but once the flop's out there it might be the worst hand at the table. I'm not a good poker player, I don't know if that has to do with the hands I'm dealt or the way I play them. It's easy to blame it on the cards. It rained hard today. I was thinking of what it would be like to be completely in it. Drenched within and without almost drowning in the downpour of natural water. No cell phones or wallets or pagers. Just completely ceasing to be bound to the world as the world is and freedom with a complete absence of leashes. A real person in the rain. I'm not trying to write bad poetry here. I just wouldn't mind experiencing that sometime. We've all run through rain to dry ground at some point but not everyone's really taken a second to kind of embrace that messiness. It doesn't look too bad to me.

"I don't approve of that, either"

Everyone with the hook-ups this summer. Everyone with the crazy relationships and the wearing and the cuddling and the zoo and the mixing. It's been more than a little insane. Of the two most notable, one of them's like Randy Johnson pitching in the minors. Which one am I talking about, I'm not sure anymore. But they've both been tipping the richter scale of tang lately so more power to 'em. And apparently, social security's hotter to some more than others. The Hugh Poland show with special guest stars Siskel & Ebert (two thumbs up) was in full force this morning. It's become less of an experience and more of a carnival sideshow to sit back, enjoy, and occasionally pity. We're spectators, not participants. We forfeited that right when none of us ever objected to HP and the PowerWind Hooter-Tooters bustin' out the three minute instrumental solos. All that's missing is a little witty banter from La Bamba in the horn section to cap off this variety show of song and dance. Maybe they could get Lou the Jew and his daughter Sue to write them some clever one-liners. I've pretty much given up on trying to take it seriously. Sorry. But it's all in good fun. These aren't bad people, just really funny to watch. As for the relationships, knock yourselves out, all of you. Give yourself a couple of stories to be able to talk about in couple's therapy when your marriage with that person (or another one) is falling apart. Naw, ya'll are fine.

"Can we have it back?"

I'm proud that I've created some LJ converts to stir up a little drama of their own. Everyone's lives can get a little boring without some conflict. So go nutso with these things. It's what they're for. I think we're all having a problem with trying to figure out what winning looks like. This year's bound to be rocky and I'm not wild about starting it up. At some point I want there to be a moment, at least one where I can feel like this is the kind of life I'm supposed to be leading. Then, of course, is the problem of trying to figure out what exactly that life is supposed to be. It's all about trust, as they say? Yeah, that's going to be tricky too. There's just not enough evidence for anybody's case that suggests that they're gonna be worth it as all of those with the credible evidence have gone or are going back to the real world. I suppose this where one's supposed to take a bit of a chance. I'm looking forward to when I know what winning looks like.

"Eskimo Poetry"

I think the number of people that I could say I admire, the number of people I could say "I wouldn't mind if I grew to posess some of their better qualities/characteristics" has shrunk considerably in the past year to a incredibly sad degree. Honestly, excluding the family, you figure in about 45,000 people in Kingwood, there's about nine of those I'd say I liked and about half of those I'd say I really cared about. Kingwood's a pretty friendly community so no, I don't like those odds either. So yeah, I'd say that more and more we've come to expect less and less from each other and that's not how it should be but that's the way it goes. There's not really much we can do about it. Most people have trouble not having a certain amount of control over a situation which is why college is scary and post-college is scary because there's an uncertainty of what's next and how to handle it. I think Oscar Wilde said the soul of romance was uncertainty. Maybe not the soul, but a pretty big part of it. So we'll continue singing for our lives until the music changes.

"Six to five and pick 'em"

I was thinking about the mindset a person must have when they won't allow themself any kind of love to prepare themselves for a life without any. That way when the loveless reality hits them it won't hurt as much because they won't have anything else to compare it to. I probably don't know anyone with this mindset. It's mostly about risk because those who play safe never take anything away from the table at the end of the game. I'm trying to figure out the difference between what's good and what looks good

"Excuse me, I have a meeting of Godless infidels next door"

Right now I'm weighing the importance of spoken word vs. word written. Obviously, word written is going have a more literate quality. You can pretty much say anything you want with the paper and pen because in that moment that's all you're saying it to. Spoken word is different. Words, when spoken out loud, are music. They have volume and pitch and timbre. And music has the ability to find us and move us and lift us up in ways that literal meaning can't. It's visceral and it's harder and it's more impressive in some aspects but there's also far more room for error or ommision of something you wanted to say or needed to say that you'll never have when it's just the pen in paper. It's so much easier to misspeak than to miswrite. I'm just trying to figure out which is better. It seems the moments anticipate the most become the most mundane when they finally happen to you. And the ones you never expect creep in and take on a greater importance than you were ever ready for. Surprises, surprises. Sometimes it's better to be uncomfortable.

"See that's the difference between you and me. You're small time"

Here's a little something from the recesses of unprofundity (my word. Deal with it); obviously, yes obviously when you love someone, textbook definition to really complicated and cross-wired love and we're talking about basically every degree from the slightest to most serious, you're gonna want the best thing for the person on the recieving end of that. Obviously. So what happens when you're not what's best? I guess that's where the work comes in. I feel comfortable making all these observations and discussing these concepts about relationships because of my lengthy experience with them, which allows me the right to. All these people with these problems and situations. Where's the blood? It's time for a little passion. The desires of my heart? I've only got about four, and three of them are just very wrong. When you can't meet expectations, you only have one thing you can do. You have to lower them. Or you can wait. I'll be waiting for the real thing.

"Nothing but strikes"

It's really becoming a good time to move past the era of apologizing to everyone because "I suck" or this and that or making jokes about killing myself. I don't really like that anymore and I don't really know why I ever did. The fact that it's taken me this long to learn that is a little bit crazy. I hardly think anyone would like to be in this place of "Well the people I care about the most or quite possibly the only people I'm going to have capacity to care about for a while are leaving so I'll just stick around here for two years". It's all just incredibly selfish when you get down to it, just a different breed of selfishness. It's a sad day when you're talking about other people, not your own brother, when you're talking about this stuff. I feel about seven shades of idiot right now. I think everyone's starting to forget about the one brilliant thing they were gonna do with their lives and accepting the lower road. One of the recent struggles has been, in terms of the confines of a normal friendship, how much is too much and what's not enough? Every friendship should be something you can work at with at least the hint of a promise of something more than what you started out with. I can never tell when I'm reaching too far too much and when I'm being neglectful. I was talking about someone about little gestures and they told me it was all in the details. The little things you could remember from a friendship's past and prior memories, a callback you could make. Recollections. It's pretty pathetic when there really isn't too much to call back from. A relationship predicated on a geniune care for the other person but so thin that there's not much else to it. The good times? Any times, really. I have no idea why this spark wasn't there during the school year. There aren't going to be any simpler times and it's gonna get worse before it gets better. What's funny is I consider my outlook/attitude far less negative than it was ten days ago.

"He's not a little bit crazy?"

Desire denied makes the thrist run only deeper. The second chapter of "Mere Christianity" has finally tapped into what I've been trying to tap into for a long time. It's desire vs. duty. Because you something, sometiems "I want" is a good thing. I want to serve. I want to bless you. I want to love you. Duty can become such an empty gesture. But nine out of ten, desire is full and passionate and sure of what it wants. There's some people I feel I ought to love and the few that I actually want to. And the difference is all the difference.

"Political repression? This is progress"

"When you have reached your own room, be kind to those who have chosen different doors and to those who are still in the hall. If they are wrong they need your prayers all the more; and if they are your enemies, then you are under orders to pray for them. That is one of the rules common to the whole house" It's so simple but C.S. Lewis can deliever some very polished language. It's probably the best way I've ever heard it put. Now there's an era I wouldn't mind making a comeback. The intellectual Christian elitist. I could name twenty people that go to church and fifteen of them who don't know why. This man knows a little something about his faith, a concept that's gone from underrated to near extinct. I'm trying to think of one guy in our world that's even comparable. The Ivy League Christian. The man who says why he believes something out of almost pure logic. We've got too many people on the spiritual high five days, six days after a youth camp or mission trip. We need more Ivy League snobs where Christians are concerned.

"There are worse things than no longer being alive"

Tonight was good. We climbed Mt. KHS with half the effort it took 25 and co. (That's what we're calling 23 and 2 together) I want to go back there before college departures. I feel like I should do something. I feel like I haven't done enough. All these people we've been taking for granted for so long are slipping through the cracks into the real world. Life seems degenerative and each generation, while not without exceptions, seems less than the one prior. What kind of mark can the lesser generations make? I have a friend who's talented. And that talent is how they enter the world. I think we could better ourselves by finding more than one way in. Our mark should leave echoes of nobility, humility, just character in general. It's hard to make when surrounded with so much discouragment with so much encouragement out of town. It's good serve. I could name less than a handful of people who I could say "I would give all that I have to serve by your side" but I consider myself lucky when I know people who couldn't think of that many. It seems to me, the best loves are the ones that are constantly pushing the other person into something greater. It's the daily challenges that make it a worthwhile thing. It should give you something to struggle with and fight for. Desire that can actually change the way you live your life and give you something that nothing else can, that's special. It doesn't just become about hollow words or rainy kisses. It's not about going to the right places for dinner and compromising on what to do. It's doing what's hard that transforms it into something that's something to be proud of. Conviction is good. I will never envy the person that doesn't get that.

"What kind of shot do you get with that club?"

I look around and all I can see are lowered standards. Everyone's just throwing away the ideals and expectations they once had and are settling for less than they should. Everyone's just letting other people tell them to settle for something less than what God has in store. It's sad. Patience is all it takes but apparently, that well's run dry. It seems like it's about "What can I get out of this?" rather than "What can I give you?". Giving's hard. I couldn't think of four people I would give all that I had because I wanted to. Maybe two. Maybe. I'm not trying to be your Sunday school teacher but I don't think I'm doing enough. It never seems like it's enough. Talking about it may do as much good as throwing pebbles at a ship in an effort to sink it. I'm asking are people just happier with less than the best thing. I look at everyone around me and the answer rings clear a resounding yes.

"I'm naming them Beatrice and Bluto now"

Character just got really underrated. Desire got complicated, lip-service multiplied, leadership by example died, and people got harder to love. It's harder. I think in a lot of ways it's supposed to be hard. Is it supposed to be this hard? Honestly, the best part of the day is the beginning, alone. Riding east on the greenbelts with nothing but a pair of headphones and a bike. That's where I live. Most days everything that comes after is a downhill slope. Then there's the days where the realm of possibility seems infinite. The potential within one good thing can blow the doors off the cynical chokehold life never stops throwing out there. Wow, there's a decent chance I'm full of crap. I like bluntness. I like the people who won't beat around it but just cut to it without huckling around with you. Sometimes people just need to disregard what we think is important to the other person and keep it about what's best. Relationships, one of the great topics of this world we're in. And it's not even about caring about another person passionately anymore. It's like buying a car. We're not reaching far enough.

There's such a thing

Kisses are a lot more special than we ever gave them credit for. I'm not quite sure what that has to do with anything. It's hard to tell the difference between the different kinds of love when you haven't had that much to compare them to. I'm not quite sure what that has to do with anything either. Discussion is good. Debates are good. Good points on either side of an argument are great. And in an MTV, 2 second attention span, sensationalistic generation when the exciting thing is a wardrobe malfunction or the stupid celeb of the week, talking about something and saying something worth saying about it remains underrated. Nights like these don't come often enough. Just when you think you know the score it slips away from you. The one thing, that one thing that you can whole-heartedly put your faith in got lost somewhere between the good ideas and the bad ones that looked good. I've got too many questions. See, for the boys the physical attraction is the spark that starts the fire. But it takes more than one spark to keep the fire lit. Plastic surgery versus character, the slow death of leadership by example.