I woke to one of the sickest articles I have ever read. This almost makes me want to fall back asleep and hope things like this don't really happen.
You take this family in Milton, Massachusetts. You have these children, a 5-year, 9-year, and 17-year old daughter, and a 23-year old son. Cops get a call about a disturbance at the household. the 23-year old is going absolutely berserk with a knife and has the 5-year old child hostage.
When the cops arrive, the door is locked and no one is opening it for them. When they finally break down the door, they see the man with the child in his arms and right there within the view of the police, he beheads her.
I am absolutely mortified, sick, and haunted by such stories and images. What brings on such killings, such hatred, and sickness? The news and media is plagued with "necessary" violence. They make it seem "okay" to harm your siblings. These things are not okay. Killing is not okay. Murder is not okay. Crime is not okay. America is not okay.
And I am not okay. America doesn't settle quite well in my stomach. The reason is this: we are the only country that revolves around such practices. Our media is empty without sex, drugs, and murder. It propels us, it stirs up our emotions, it turns us on. Maybe if we could just sandwich such incidents with at least one happy moment. Hasn't someone just turned 120? Has a baby just been born? Has some man conquered over a lifelong disease? I guess we will never find out.
I fret for my children (if I were ever to have children). What will things be like then? This country needs a reconstruction from the base up. We are decaying and falling and failing. We are restless.
Interesting enough, here I am, back on a Sunday blog.
You may ask yourself what has happened since the last post, and I wish I knew myself.
It looks like I've started on my first novel. It is in its rather weak stages right now, but I may end up being alright with its contents. It is totally fiction. Or is it?
Don't we all want to be characters in a story? But usually not the same story that was started for us or by us. That is why I decided on this project. I want to write a novel about the life that I wish I had, and I will just live through my made up protagonist. Or antagonist?
We want to give our character a shelter, a safe roof above its head. We want to give him/her great friends, a great family, and a greater neighborhood. But this is way too simple. I want to instead put him through trial and tribulation. I want him to see what hell looks like. I want him to experience pain. I want his friends to turn on him-his parents to abandon him. Through him, I want to experience everything that I haven't. Crimes, hatred, lust, every deadly sin, the whole nine yards. True grit and bone chilling reality.
It's not that I'm sick in the head. I am not twisted, and I don't necessarily live by the things I write when they are about these sick things. It's healthy to be well-rounded, to open your mind to everything and anything, even if those things make you quiver and shake.
I admire my life and everyone in it. I am such a lucky and blessed person. These are the reasons I want to witness life in another's shoes. To feel how it is living day-by-day. Waking up absolutely filthy, recklessly drunk, and reeking of a Saturday night. I can do these things through writing. I can be whomever I please. Maybe I can be you next? I can make you prettier, richer, more famous, anything you want and more.
This post is making me sound very creepy, but the bottom line is, fiction is such a release, such a way to escape from everyday life. All of the things that could be quite impossible in reality finds a new life hidden in pages and pages of beautiful transitions and intriguing stories. This could seem like just a ramble on, but I think it's a legit way of thinking.
Some had false hopes when they moved to the "sunshine" state.
Rain came in the middle of the night last night and woke me to a soaked Earth. Sundays are my only day off, and I'm never quite happy when something ruins it. So consider myself less than enthused about the situation.
I wanted to exercise my brain by writing a blog this morning, but I just realized I'm not too much in the mood. Maybe I'll finish this later.
Happy happy...Sunday.
Endings can be so bittersweet.
Another month down ushers in a new, but this one was rough. Classes were quite demanding, but I did extremely well and am equally proud of my progress. I finished up finals today and am prepared for a relaxing weekend. Today we are having a crawfish and crab boil, regardless of the terrible weather. A little reminder of home.
Sometimes I wonder the most ridiculous things. We all have seen such horrible scripted "reality" television shows at least once in our lives (and if you haven't, you are keeping secrets). Me, personally, am agitated by such schemes. But is this really that far off from true life? I think we can be quite scripted mammals, watching what we say, taking each step carefully, the only thing missing is a crew with cameras. I'm starting to be able to read people quite well, and I see drama as if I am part of a series.
Sleep was very evasive last night. I looked for it in the soothing sounds of Josh Groban, searched for it face down in a pillow, and it seemed to just not exist. I woke to the lack of hot water to shower in and thus am still waiting for that to appear as well. Just little annoyances that should not bother me, but do.
I am looking forward to a new month. There will be new classes, a new outlook, and a much needed break someone intertwined in between. Maybe this will be the month where I forget about her. Maybe this is when I can actually move on and create a new chapter in my life.
Or maybe not.
Jesus Christ.
Where is my motivation.
I enter this text box once a day, but it takes me days to actually write. I've drawn blanks, things have been blacker than black, and my inspiration has been nothing but a dry well. As you can see here, the only thing I can really actually talk about is that fact that I've lost what to actually say.
Things seem a little disoriented. I am seeing things upside down, topsy-turvy, and juxtaposed. Colors are much less than vibrant and things are very lackluster. I find myself fingering the neck of my guitar, strumming useless patterns and creating a musicians nightmare: noise. My life has become swarmed into a Picasso piece.
My fight to cut ties with home have failed. They are selfish, cloudy, and ruthless thoughts. To destroy everything that has made me, me, so I can carry on to a new stage in life is anything but selfless. Events have been cross-collateralized and you can find me doing balancing acts from telephone poll to telephone poll. The only problem is, I don't have anything to counteract the forces of gravity.
You can find me coloring in the lines with much happier shades, trying to brighten up the charcoal grays and blacks that have inhabited spaces in my daily life. I'll switch things up and change my hair, my clothes, my beard, trying to find ways to affect the inside. One outcome affecting the other. Changing the package to somehow affect the contents.
This has proved to be a losers game. Setting your bars low just so you can succeed; not questioning everything; accepting the things as they come. I find my lips quivering and my teeth chattering/grinding, and it's as though someone is always watching over me, but in a not-so-guardian-angel way.
I swallow those hard, chalky pills known as truth with a grin. I repeat the same things, go over the same problems, initiate the same solutions to keep myself in check. I write poems to keep myself interesting, to disclose every piece, every part, every deep dark secret, and let it breathe. I purposely build walls of paper, showing that I'm willing for opposition while still trying to keep you out.
You plague my thoughts. You stain my words. You have made me crippled and declined to love. You are everything I wanted, except for this tart and potent aftertaste. What I taste is acidic, and my heart burns of lust and desire. It is all because I let you in. I let you have such a huge part of me; I let you do with it as you will; I trusted you with my whole being, most importantly, the most fragile part of me. You were careless with my heart.
How strange it is to let such events control every facet, every single aspect of a life. Be it at the gas pump, a night with friends, while I attempt to create my songs, while on the road, you seem to want an explosion, a fight, a failure, a turn into the creek. You are so far yet you remain so close, too close.
I must delete you. erase you. destroy you. rip you from my thoughts.
I seem to turn back to that empty, imaginative canvas once again. The first thing I'll paint is our life. You can see smiles on two young peoples faces. You will find a house, a yard, and animals running about. You see a bright future clad with sunshine and laughter. For an element of surprise, I'll change up my style. You'll see me mixing all of the colors together to create a dark midnight black, with hints off swampy greens and placid purples. I will then throw the previous canvas off, and replace it with a clean one. All I will paint on it is one straight line. It represents the path between two imaginary points. One being the beginning,
One being the end.
I lifted my weary body, simultaneously opened tired eyes
And walked in zombie-like fashion to the fridge
I pulled out a gallon of milk and guzzled down the remains
Clad in boxer briefs I scuffled to the bathroom to stare at my reflection
What lived on the other side of the mirror I was not prepared for
Black blotches have started below my eyes
Dark red veins now reside around my pupils
I look older than my father; my skin begins to crawl
It's a pitiful sight and I stand embarrassed
I head back to the couch and I check the clock -
4 o'clock AM
Some unpromising infomercial is bellowing from my television
I pay no mind because I'm not in the market for leaner thighs
Rock-hard washboard abs or chaotically-cut muscular pectorals-
I'm too worried about my unhealthy state
Of mind and body
Long nights continue on to longer days
And it takes way too my much to gain sustenance;
I need more sun, I need more food, I need more time
Notice: everything begins as a "need"
It's a desire to obtain everything and anything
As fast and easy as possible
To gobble up the word around me and scarf it all down
Every word, every moment, every disease-ridden second
Of this decaying and apocalyptic word that we shrug off
A commercial comes on with a skin-and-bones child
Around his waist is a dirty loincloth of sorts, that is all
A man to the boy's side is trying to market his dying lifestyle
The lack of water makes his skin dryer than sandpaper and
It's evident that he has trouble finding a bath to soak in
But I have too many problems here on the home front
On this American turf, in this white-walled apartment
I'm losing motivation and I need
I need too much, but I want to need;
I want to feel there is something to strive for
I strive for pages filled with interesting documented days
I'll run out of paper and start using its edges,
The spine, the hardcover,
Sketching my day with lavish words and funnier phrases
But I know this is just false hope-
A blank canvas is a day in the life
So I'll paint until my arms get heavy
With every piece I make, every single stroke
Just one of dreamer-hopeful-beggar-needer;
Painting all that isn't real, but could be
In the eyes of the paint media staring back at me
With its blue swirling eyes, black/yellow/red skin
The more I hold such a brush, the more my life means something
Sleep will take me soon, nightmares will need my attention
Needs will wake me up in the morning.
So it seems I've been a little unsocial in the blogging world for quite some time now, almost a week actually. Things have been pretty eventful here in Orlando so I shall explain in full vividness and detail. Here goes it - Friday, March 13.
Friday we had the strangeness notion, yet not too strange at all, to go to the beach, that beach being Cocoa Beach. A few friends tagged along, those being Tony, Jen, Spencer, and Matt. Taking two separate cars we took to the road with the enthusiasm of teenagers on spring break. Hitting every toll booth with shear delight, we made up stories of crashing planes and other spectacles that could cause such traffic. Oddly enough, some actually believed them.
With my change compartment depleted, the sight of tolls kind of unnerved me. Where is this loose change possibly going? Anyway, the signs zoomed by with excessive speed and about 50 minutes later, we could see the view of Cape Canaveral through the windshield. Splitting the water was the bridge we traveled on, highway 528. Blazing past cruise ships and sandy medians, we beheld the Cocoa Beach sign, welcoming in all its glory.
Finding a place to park seemed like a battle in itself, crowds with the very same beaching-going notions. Yet, we finally did find a place, more like a campground, and made the hike to the shore. We found our own spot by a lifeguard stand and continued with the beach initiation, otherwise known as intimate lotion application. Our towels were then laid out perpendicular to the shoreline and we reclined, at least some of us did. Other members of the group headed off into the water to participate in "physical activities" known as "throwing the old pigskin", and when I followed suit, and realized the water was a bit icy, I headed back to the comforts of the towel.
Jen and I proceeded to an engaging word search experience, being that I am always up for a little brain buster while I relax. I searched for stars and foreign cities at record speed, although the harsh rays seemed to hinder my performance. Everyone else joined us at the towel word searching activity spot and we discussed our future plans, which we agreed with no other than, the barbecue.
Making the drive back was not all that bad. Remnants of lotion all over my skin, mixed with grains of sand proved to be semi-uncomfortable, but I found pleasure in knowing my stomach would soon be filled with the most savory steak. After showering and getting the proper grilling paraphernalia, we headed to the beautiful Baldwin Park grilling zone to begin our dinner.
My stomach tried to force me to believe it was bigger than it actually was, starting with Publix sushi while my steak was being prepared medium-rare. Two giant NY strips later, it was time for bed. Jumping in my car, I hit 436 to UK Cir and laid my head down on a familiar, yet uncomfortable, green couch.
It is about 8:00 a.m. and you kind find me tucked away
On Penn. Ave.
I watched the sunset from my corner table, a book with coffee
Catching up on learning the brief history of my ancestors but
Here I am now joining the others in the East Room
Split from the others by this long rich mahogany table
Nervous chatter plagues the room, and I’d rather be in bed
Or just not aware of the troubles of this place.
My red tie sits right under my chin,
A little too tightly, thanks to the wife
Almost forgetting it altogether due to oversleeping.
I am distracted by an intimate portrait of Polk when
3 bills slid from nowhere hitting my wrist
And I notice the Ferrari da Varese fountain in my hand
They’re all studying me; what are they waiting for?
I begin to scribble illegible words, my name
Supposing this may ease the awkwardness
And everyone around begins to clap and smile.
I see it fit to only follow suit, grasping, shaking hands
While I begin to stand.
I do not yet know the repercussions of such distraction.
What was I thinking.
War. War. War.
Yes. On their lips today we here about scares of a potential threat. America has begun joint ventures with South Korea in terms of a North Korean satellite. As we may all previously know, North and South Korea are not the best of friends. No, they don't really hang out or share musical tastes or fence together. The U.S.'s, and also Japan's, reason for the destruction of this satellite is because this may be just a "cover-up" of testing for a long-range missile attack. Our interference with Korean affairs for "peaceful" purposes, and I quote "will precisely mean a war." As sarcastic as I can be, this is EXACTLY what America needs: a war threat from Korea. The way that America sticks its hands in every cookie jar is too unsettling. Yes, the threat of a covered up missile attack is important to keep watch on. But if one says they will wage war if destroyed, we must hold back. Can you imagine not only not being able to afford your home, but having your home leveled because of complete selfishness and misdirection? Oh where is our shelter from these storms? Where is our beacon of hope? It seems that we will only hit rock bottom before we build anything back up.
The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe
"C.S. Lewis. Macmillan. Challenged in the Howard County, Md. school system (1990) because it depicts "graphic violence, mysticism, and gore." I'm sure the school system would rather have its children reading something which adheres to "good Christian values." I cannot recommend the works of C.S. Lewis highly enough. The Narnia books, in particular, are great for readers of all ages."
Source: Forbidden Library
This made me laugh, being that C.S. Lewis is a Christian writer. It seems everyone can find the negatives in everything.
Block out the sun with your fingerAhhh how early on a Saturday morning it is. It's just crazy to think about way back Wednesday when I had 3 classes a day for 5 days and now 1 class for 4 hours a day, 6 days a week. Truthfully, I do not know which is better. I am allowed a lot of free time to myself, however, and I use most of that time to write and blog.
I had no idea what a blog even was just a couple of years ago. I would poke fun at the word, telling myself I would never contribute to that wheel of which was blogging. Yet I began to see it as a way for release and it just so happened this release could be public. Hey, you never know when something you say may actually affect someone in some kind of way.
But here I am, a daily blogger, not quite sure who actually reads my writings, but it doesn't matter. It's that release, and a way to freshen up on my writing and to practice correct grammar (from time to time). It is also a great way to express new words.
Soon I will begin the -word of the day- in which i will recite a word, explain the word and it's origins, and then use it in a sentence. I think this could be a fun exercise. I don't know about you, but I love words and the power of them. They are about as delicious as this cup of coffee I have right here by my side. Dunkin' Donut's Original Roast. Loathe me.
Monday starts the word of the day, and hopefully by then I can come up with a better, ever catchier name for the exercise. But until then, it is time for Saturday morning class and a date with the Orlando Philharmonic Orchestra later on. Ciao.
To have hope for the future we have to be hopeful. What do we truly have at our disposal to hold on to? The country looks like sand from up high, where everything you touch crumbles and the only thing tangible is the fact that it is flawed. We are flawed. We are bathing ourselves in tears and waiting with bandaged and outstretched arms, waiting to be given things we were promised and told we deserved. Oh that man that the we gave our futures up for is waving his finger already; we have set ourselves up for not only failure, but for denial of everything we built with ruined hands to be worth anything at all. There is implosions, explosions, we are bustling, brewing, and choking and so offtrack that smoke is fogging our vision, and it seems even the way our mind works. What we have failed to notice as a country is that government is a business. No matter if we like this or not, it is the absolute truth. They have their own agenda. They have internal marketing departments, promotions, and incentives. Fueled by competition, they too strengthen their plans to gather consumers of all kind, no matter the race, social status, sex, or age. Yet one thing this "government corporation" can do is actually get away with false advertisement. These scams of theirs takes YOUR money and promises you jobs and a secure future. Can this really be promised? A vacuum dealer can promise that when you buy their product, your floor will be cleaner, guaranteed. The easy way to prove this is by using their product. So YOU tell ME that when we send our money, sealed up nice and tight in a little envelope of some sort, when are we guaranteed what we are promised? When do we see our jobs; when do we see our children's tuition lowered; when are we going to be able to afford the life we live? But if we do not "invest" in our higher power's plan, are we being unconstitutional? Are we being unnationalistic? Are we being...terrorists? By God, please say it is not so. It seems our questions are answered by more questions and we are left to only wonder, cry, and worry about the land we love, or at least, loved. The only thing we are promised is that it will take time until we can live again.
Read more...You lifted yourself up off your seat
And granted me your hand
There is no light, yet your eyes
They radiate, and you can see my face;
You close your eyes and imagine
Faintly there are violins playing
And the string section ushers in
Waves and waves of dreamy pieces
Swirling around our heads and
Your hair is swimming in this blackness
And your toes are barely skimming the floor
You are no dancer, no
But right here and now you can Viennese waltz,
Minuet, Foxtrot, Lambada,
With such ease you grace the ground
You remind me of a Ginger Rogers
And I your Fred Astaire
As I meet your moves with my own
I can't help but realize that
You could not of picked a better dress
And I find myself too hearing this music
But it's your whispering in my ear:
"Bird's alight in the start of spring
A lonely heart's motive to sing"
And to snap out of my trance
Would only end this dance
So my eyes stay closed
Interlaced with yours
We stomp and tap out fears
And enter, yes we are entering enlightenment
I'm touching your shoulder
Bare and tender, I can feel
Yes, I'm being healed
Eyes relaxed, spinning barefoot in this room
We are free, we move together
Step, steps, circling and cycling
We stop, feet planted, smile, stare
I let go and you drift off
You drift off and I smile
I'm still smiling.
