Wednesday, June 27, 2007

Tripping down memory lane...

I decided that i wanted to take a look back at where it all started. There's a lot of time between my first blog and now, and it felt really good to remind myself of some of the things i was thinking back then. This was probably one of the first things that i did when i moved to Arizona ... crazy. In a way, i miss those days - the way we miss any memory. It seems like all the bad things pale in comparison to the good memories that i'm reminded of, especially with my dear friends the 'Chelles. Take a bow, girls - I meant (and mean) every word written below.

Welcome to the past - keep your hands inside the blog at all times, please.

8.13.2003
Hello and howdy sports fans! I guess i just saw so many of my friends (namely the 'Chelles) doing this that I just couldn't resist!! Yes, yes... I am completely aware of the lemmingesque ramifications of this deed - but I assure you that if my friends jumped off a bridge, I would most certainly not follow! ... well, at least until I got bored. ... ten minutes later.

So wow... a blog... what should i write? I guess i should start by saying that i hate capitalizing my "i"s in typed conversation. It's one letter - it by no means deserves so much attention and care that i have to reach my pinky finger aaaaaaall the way over to the shift key just to satisfy some grammatical rule invented by a man with no hair. ... well maybe he had hair, but that's beyond the scope of this argument.

I think that as this blogging (verb?) is a direct result of my compadres (ettes i think) from P-Town, i should dedicate this beginning - indeed a veritable bloggining... to my beautiful, darling, extremely entertaining 'Chelles. WHO, incidentally, have some of the most depressing blogs i have ever seen! I hope you don't expect that HERE! If i were to be morosely depressed, i would most certainly not tell you about it! That would negate my ability to charge you with "being ignorant of my obviously upset feelings" and certainly my right to say "you don't even care! Just go away!" at any point in random time!

Of course i speak not of anyone i know - I simply wish to relate what incredible lessons you learn while living with someone of the opposite sex. ... That would be a girl for all you idiots. Of course, it occurs to me that if you couldn't figure that one out, you have no idea what i'm talking about, and so the jest went straight over your head, and out the window. What a shame.

SO. I guess to finish this absurdly pointless blog, i should tell you all something i have as yet not mentioned: As Darryl Whorly (sp?) said, but pluralized - "I miss my friends."

I want to take this opportunity to also say a few more things.

1) I hate my old bank, and everything that they stand for... or crawl for... on their stomaches. (that's a snake reference - biblical if you will. i AM a religious studies BS degree holder)

2) Schwarzenneger? Governor? California? Shotgun?

3) It occurs to me that though life is a series of transitions, constantly in transition, (redundancy = redundancy??) and it is highly unlikely that any of us could spend our entire lives with the same friends, in the same place, forever, (perhaps not so much the latter as the former) this past summer taught me something that will be with me for a long time. (whew! now THAT was a sentence that enjoyed running on!)

That lesson (to break up the paragraph) is this: Carpe Diem. I knew that i would have to leave just a short month or so after i called the Michelles - but i did it anyway, and they filled my life with such joy and laughter (not to mention D-Rama) that i can scarce imagine what my life was like prior to the day we all went to see Bruce Almighty. Watching AI last night (again x3) gave me some insight i had previously not had. (thus, it gave me the insight... redundant again?)

"Come away o human child to the waters of the wild, with a fairy hand in hand - For the world's more full of weeping than you can understand."

If it were not for fairies like Michelle and Sheli, life would be a lonesome, dreary, lifeless place to exist.

Thank you for your friendship - you are angels of a higher order than ever imagined by any man or child on earth.

And so, to finish this blog in a sort of nostalgic mirth and sadness, (call me a walking contradiction) Thank you to all of the people that I have gotten to know over the years... and i mean ALL of you. You have all contributed to where I'm going, and where I've been, but most importantly - you have contributed to where i am now. That, to me, is the greatest gift i could ever ask for.

I am alive; I am happy; I am writing a long, pointless blog.

Goodnight, sleep tight, and for God's sake, if the bedbugs bite, kick 'em! Kick 'em with your foot!

.Christian

posted by Christian at 8/13/2003 10:31:00 PM

Sunday, June 17, 2007

Mostly Mundane

That's what this blog is mostly going to be. See the thing is that I have to work the 3rd shift tomorrow night ... 8pm to 6am. Yech. Well the way i figure it, if i want to be able to stay up all tomorrow night, i should stay up all tonight, too - then go to sleep when i'll have to normally. (maybe a little earlier)

So here i am, the guy that rarely goes to sleep after 10:30pm in Phoenix, going to sleep around 5am here. Granted, i've been staying up late here anyways, but let's face it, i'm going to be BORED AS HELL after around midnight, and nothing to do! (it's Sunday, so no one sells alcohol AT ALL in this county, which means EVERYWHERE is closed after 9 or 10pm)

I guess i could always do what any sensible college student (in Peoria, Illinois) would do - go to Steak and Shake and kill some time at Wal-Mart. Oh man ... i can feel my stomach turning already! And that's without even factoring in Steak and Shake! ... yes, i have a thing against Wal-Mart. Why? Well, to put it plainly, everywhere tries to scrape off some cost here and there, and in the process they have to take that money from someone else. (certainly not themselves) That might be the vendor, who might pass it on to the manufacturer, who most likely will pass it on to the worker and the parts supplier, who will pass it on to ITS workers, and so on. It's like a reverse buck passing ... or the electron flow before lightning strikes the earth. (which is from the ground up to the clouds - that's the path that the static charge is following down as it superheats the air into plasma ... which is lightning)

I don't hate Wal-Mart for trying to save the end consumer money - i dislike purchasing anything from them because they really are the best at what they do: taking money away from the supplier and passing it off as savings to the customer. (who, if they work in manufacturing, might well be able to thank Wal-Mart for getting laid off recently, and thus not having much choice of where to shop but ... Wal-Mart)

Now i could probably go on and on about that kind of thing, and realistically i'll never be able to cover all the angles (good or bad) to give a fair representation of that company. That's just how i feel, i guess, and sometimes regardless of facts backing it up or going against you, you're going to feel that way anyway.

I just remembered i have to run an add on a table ... brb.

-------- TEN MINUTES LATER ---------

Did that feel like 10 minutes to you? Maybe you should come back in ten minutes ...

Seriously.


....


...


..


.

Did you just read down the page and not actually leave? ::sigh:: Fine. I see how you are.

I have had a really great string of songs come on Pandora, btw.
"Do You Know? (The Ping-Pong Song)" by Enrique Iglesias
"We Were Born the Mutants Again with Leafling" by Of Montreal
"Los Angeles I'm Yours" by The Decemberists

I just love the sound of the last two, but the sound AND the lyrics of "Do You Know?" (and the fact that the title includes "The Ping Pong Song" I suppose) worked great together!

According to AZlyrics.com, the chorus goes something like this:

"Do you know what it feels like
loving someone that's in a rush to throw you away
(Do you know how it feels)
Do you know what it feels like
to be the last one to know the lock on the door has changed"

Not something you'd expect from "The Ping Pong Song." Not stupendous, mind you, but really not that bad.

If we're talking about break up songs, though, i'd have to say that "Call it Even" by Vertical Horizon is one of my faves:

"I saw an open door
and i looked inside it,
but i had no idea
what you were hiding.

So now i'm holding a bag,
and it's heavy,
and the conversation stops -
so much for "friendly".

And if i told you i was dying of thirst,
(and the sky was falling just to make it worse)
would you just smile and push me away -
Can't be bothered with the words i say?

Why can't i see it
like it really is?
Know it
like i know my name?
And if it's all the same,
i don't like this game,
so let's pack it up
and call it even."

That was from memory, so maybe i'm off a bit, but still - great song. Really the only great one on their "Running on Ice" CD (i remember the name??) but definitely worth a buck on iTunes.

And no, i'm not on a "break up song" thing for any personal reason, just going off the "Do You Know" lyrics. Personally, i can't wait to get home and see my Lula :-D And meet Eric Michael, of course.

I really hope that everything ends up OK with Pandora and the other internet radios. (mostly Pandora)

I think the fact is simply that you have a bunch of old fuddy-duddys who have no clue about the world anymore deciding the laws. Telling people what they can and can't do with the internet after letting them develop their own habits (good or bad) is really just another prohibition. It's like outlawing anything, really, but it's especially bad in that kind of situation. It's one thing to have a small percentage of the population breaking the law, but another one entirely to have a large portion of the population disagreeing with the law.

Maybe that's not the case yet, but i have a feeling that if music and movie publishers don't wake up and smell the bit-streams, someone will come along and throw them out the window. That's pretty much what seems to have happened with internet radio. It's a superior format that allows people to personalize what they want to listen to, get track and album (and lyrical!) information instantly, as well as browse similar songs and discuss the experience with fellow interneteurs.

Now sure, i'm full of that "It's so totally awesome, dude! Out with the old, in with the new! Down with the man!" fervor that might make what i'm saying seem trite if not completely baseless, but as i've said before, that's just what i think ... take it or leave it.

BTW, Tom Petty should be considered a kind of god. "Accused of Love" is just one of those ... well ... songs you should listen to at least once ;-)

And if you've never watched the video for "O! Valencia!" by The Decemberists, you should. But listen to the song by itself first and let your imagination do the talking. I think that's what draws me most to The Decemberists - they create music that impassions your mind. You can't help but imagine the smallest details of every story they tell.

And hey, they're catchy, too :-D

I've decided i'm going to try rowing again. I had a chance to go out and scull with Wendy on the Chattahoochee, and it was "simply awesome." (as Billy Ocean ::hah hah:: might say) It made me remember how incredible the water can be, and how much i love being on it. I'd love to say that it's rowing that hits me like that - that molten, liquidy slug of recognition that tears into your gut and spreads through your body in a warm, tingly wave, pulling you muscles taut and relaxing them at the same time, leaving you staring off distractedly at everything (and nothing) all at once - trying to take it all in as if you'll be able to recall it at will later on.

I love being on the water. Even nasty, smelly water. Even rough and tumble water. I feel that it's the ultimate reminder of how incredible everything around us is. Can you imagine? Heat anything to a point and it'll either liquefy or combust, which just means part of it stays solid (for a while) while part turns to low energy gas (smoke) and the rest into high energy, liquid gas. (fire) Now OK, i'm not sure as to the definitions above, but the terminology and the exact wording isn't that important. What matters is the idea:

It's all molecules.

You want to talk about a mind trip? Think about all those Yogis and priests back in the day (a Wednesday, surely) talking about how everything is one, and how we're all part of the same. Think about how all those ideas have been around forever, and here we are in a world where we know that IT'S TRUE. Take it out of the context of religion and it's easy to see the proof in the pudding. Literally. Pudding is made of molecules. Molecules are made of atoms. Atoms are made of Electrons, Protons, and Neutrons. WE are made of Electrons, Protons, and Neutrons. ERGO, (which is the name of a very licky dog in Georgia, who is also made of Electrons, Protons, and Neutrons) everything is one: A neutrino which is either Negatively, Positively, or Neutrally charged.

Trip, huh? I once heard that fuzzy logic says that if you left a bowl on a table for eons, it would eventually fall through the table. And why not? If all everything is is EPN (Electrons, Protons, Neutrons) then all it takes is a little gravity to help encourage one molecule to swap Neutrinos (is that the name??) with another. It'd be kind of like putting one very light gas and one very heavy gas in the room together so that they together took up all the volume of a given space. Sure they would be separate, but look at the border between the two and see if you can tell me where one stops and the other starts. I guess the one thing that would shoot down that theory about the bowl and the table is that gravity would have to be acting more heavily on the bowl than the table (which is currently impossible) or there would have to be some external (non material) force acting exclusively and equally on all parts of the bowl.

Did i just go there? Yes i did. Because this is where i'm going: Water is molecules (with two one hydrogen, one oxygen, and one hydrogen atom) loosely sitting on top of each other. Your body is molecules solidly sitting on top of each other. How cool is that??

Anyway - i feel like when i'm on the water, it brings me closer to reality. It's a reminder of what the world is: Positive, Negative, and Neutral, hanging out and having a party together. So what are our minds? There are more things in the this world than matter. Energy is a good example. Matter couldn't HAVE a charge without energy. Matter and energy - i guess that aside from the fundamental existence of the universe, a brain is the biggest example of those two building blocks working together: Matter for the Brain, Energy for the Mind.

OK. If anyone is still reading, you get a prize.

At one point in an interview with Bill Moyer, Joseph Campbell describes the image of a large (giant, even!) sculpture in a dark, cavernous temple somewhere out there where i've never been. The sculpture is of two faces dividing from a central visage. Light and Dark coming from Neither. Positive and Negative coming from Neither. Good and Bad coming from Neither. Neither and All. One of the most important points of that image is the All. The fact that both sides diverged from the middle ... the All. Good is Bad, Light is Dark, Existence is Nothingness, Being is Non-Being, and we are all One.

OK. So it wasn't a prize.

I'm going to go now, and stop blathering on about life, the universe, and everything. I probably won't stop thinking about it, but i can't possibly tell you EVERYTHING that i'm thinking! (though i hear the padded rooms are quite nice come summer time)

Catch ya on the flip side, baby.

Christian

Wednesday, June 13, 2007

Uncle Christian Skips His 10-Year

A quote from Death Cab comes to mind:

"So this is my ten year ..."

ok ok ok, so those aren't the words, but the sentiment is pretty much the same. More on that in a bit, though - more importantly, i've just become (practically) an uncle. Brian and Sydni have had little Erik Michael Abrahamsen and by end-of-day February 22nd of next year, i'll officially be his uncle. (in-law)

While it's certainly nerve wracking to realize that there is now going to be a small child in our group of friends (and that like it or not, everything we do will serve as an example) it's also exciting. I think that deep down, everyone wants to be listened to, looked up to, etc. Kids do that ... (for a while anyways) they look up to you. They think of you as a "grown up".

It makes me wonder just how much growing up i've really done. It almost seems like after a certain point, i just plateaued. It's like working out - if you keep doing the same thing over and over again, eventually you're not getting any stronger, you're just maintaining. That's probably where the rituals associated with different life stages are supposed to come in. An example might be the progression from high school to adulthood.

Graduate and go to college: Your first big step in "growing up". Less influence from parents, more personal accountability. You're really expected to be planning your future.

Graduate college and get a "real" job: You're held fully accountable for your actions. This is when you start living that big future you'd been talking about. Maybe you dress nicer - go to swankier parties ... show off how grown up you are and how well you're doing at it.

Reach adulthood: Maybe somewhere after 25 you start thinking about less beer and more whiskey. Less snowboarding trip, more Caribbean Cruise. Less Mustang and more BMW.

I guess it's the progression between living for the ideals you've derived from your immediate social group (ie students and faculty) and start living your life in accordance with your perception of the grander societal norms. You go from trying to fit in with the clothes you wear and who you talk to, to fitting in with ... uh ... the clothes ... hmmm ... damn. I guess some things just don't change.

"I just found out there's no such thing as the real world, just a lie you've got to rise above."

Maybe. Maybe the truth is actually that the only deception is the concept of an "unreal" versus a "real" world. Things that mattered in your youth (social acceptance, perceived success, Jolly Ranchers) will always matter. It's not a question of a different world, just a different scope.

So here i am, a couple of nights before my 10 year reunion, and i'm wondering if i made the right choice. Should i have sucked it up and gone? Would I have gotten there and realized "Hold on - these aren't the people i remember at all! They're all responsible adults who've morphed dramatically from their former selves, and we're all going to get along now because we've matured!"

Honestly, i doubt it. Not to say that people wouldn't have changed - i'm positive they would! But maybe not on the inside. Maybe not in the places that would be necessary for that kind of happy reunion. I can't imagine anyone saying "Wow ... I'm so glad you came to this reunion so that we could get to know each other better. I didn't know you or want to get to in school, but i'm all ears now!"

True, i'm adding on a layer of contempt that may mask the truth of what i'm saying a bit, but the truth is there. I'm certainly no exception! I've communicated to a few people that i remembered, who i honestly wish i'd known better, (instead of ducking my head in shame or trying too damn hard, and never finding that happy medium) but i really couldn't even imagine striking up a conversation with anyone else. Even the folks i messaged would be hard to talk to for lack of common ground.

I know i'm generalizing, but i can't help but think i'm right.

What i long for is not a chance to revisit my memories, but a chance to re-experience them. I spent so much time (for most of my life until college) just drifting through life, a willing captive to the tides of fate, that i never took the time to look around and experience what was going on.

I "fell in love" like a fool - constantly and with little cause, thinking that life was like the movies, and i was the sacrificing and ignored protagonist. I walked the paths and roads of "the lovely valley land of Kent" as if there were a camera following me around - a crowd sympathizing with my every let down, rejoicing at my every success, and wordlessly praying for my every hope to be realized. If there's anything i want, it's a chance to go back and experience every year of my life for the first time. I wouldn't want to change anything, just to actually live it, instead of just surviving it.

And how can one reconcile the youth that dreamed of a movie script ending with the thought that maybe life is just life, and there is no ultimate meaning or grand scheme?

I've dreamt of that school. I've dreamt of acceptance, proving myself the hero, and even discovering an old flame where there had never been one. All these things tell me something now more than ever: I would only go there to find my dreams, and searching for them would neither yield any results, nor better the reality of my life.

Joseph Campbell tells a wonderful story about a samurai who sets out to avenge his murdered master. The samurai spends years hunting down the man who committed the crime and finally corners him in a garden. The battle is brief and the samurai, having disarmed his opponent, steps forward to strike him down. In a fit of rage at his defeat and seemingly inescapable death, the beaten man spits on the samurai's face. He is surprised then, as you can imagine he would be, when the samurai wipes the spit from his face, sheathes his sword, and walks away.

We may well ask why he would turn away and abandon his master's vengeance. Why not strike down the murderer where his stood, spit still hanging loosely from his chin beneath his bared teeth. The samurai would tell you a fairly simple thing, but one hard for us to relate to in this day and age: If he had killed him then, it would have been out of his own anger, and not solely out of the duty he had sworn to his master.

There are MANY lessons to be learned and points to be thought on from that one story, but i think that the one i'll focus on is this: You should never kid yourself about the reasons you do something, nor the emotions you have vested in said action(s). I've tried to teach myself that life is too short not to know why you're living. It's not some invisible hand guiding you, or a path determined by fate - it's your own thoughts and desires leading you on the way.

Judaism, Christianity, and Islam teach that man ate of the fruit of the tree of knowledge and was cast out of the garden with and by his own free will. Buddhism teaches that life is suffering, because everything including joy is impermanent. Sheryl Crow teaches that it's not having what you want, it's wanting what you've got.

Put that in your pipe and smoke it.

Catch ya on the flip side, baby.

Christian