Noteworthy

I've written many times that I never feel like I have a home. Especially living in Seattle, and how bad I wanted to get out of it. Numerous times, I've said I felt like I've never belonged in Seattle, and I still believe that.

But when I try to write a story, it all comes back to the city. Characters live there, know the ins and outs, the backstreets and the bars, the underbelly and the underground tunnel, neon lights and bus numbers, pioneer square and people.

The past few weeks have been rough for me. A rollercoaster of emotions, not because a lot has been going on, but because I've been feeling every ounce of it. Each moment passes and I've been enveloped in the moment.

In the writing center, I've helped many students on the same assignment: Write about the transition from high school to college. So the writing hasn't been all that great, not bad, but not great. But a few have brought me to tears because here are these people who are forced to come into the writing center and have some stranger read their paper. And here they are. Shamelessly reading aloud some of the most personal experiences they've had. One student wrote "My parents and I never said 'I love you,' but we never had to. It was always implied. We knew it in the way we hugged when we said goodbye." And yes, this is a writing assignment, and yes they are required to go in there, but think about this: How comfortable would you feel, having a conversation with a complete stranger and saying something that personal?

Incomplete Post

I had the dream again. The one where I'm floating in water on a lifesaver, and just before the horizon is a dot. Other than ocean in all directions, it's the only thing that exists and therefore, my only hope. I swim to it, and as I get closer it starts to flail. It's a person, a man, and he sees me.
"Help!" he shouts in a vaguely familiar voice. Arms raised, spread, agony in each extended finger. Then he goes limp, and I see him floating. Rising and falling at the mercy of open-sea waves.
I swim towards him.

Each time I have this dream, the clouds I painted on my ceiling torment me in the dark.
When I first moved into the apartment, I asked my landlord if I could paint a light blue sky with huge cumulus clouds on the bedroom ceiling. He reluctantly agreed. They were supposed to make me feel like a child, and sometimes they do. After the dream, I lay flat on my back and stare up at the ceiling, turned gray and black in the dark of the night. I pretend not to cry, though my bed seems to sway back and forth with an ocean underneath it.
I rub my eyes, and reach over to his warm body. The rise and fall of his breath dries the ocean. I rest my hand on his chest until I am asleep again.

As I struggle towards him, features begin to stand out. Long black hair sticks to his face. His skin is pale and softened from the water. Soon I am able to distinguish a well-groomed beard that conceals his mouth, and thick bushy eyebrows. Eyes as blue as the ocean scream from beneath the brows.
"I'm coming!" I yell.

"Bob...I'm...coming...Bob..." I only call him Bob after the dreams, while the subconscious ocean is still rocking the bed pendulously. Normally I call him Robert, even Robbie when I'm feeling playful.

Muddleded.

Two or three weeks into the quarter, and I'm still not adjusted. My brain is murky. Muddled. I'm nostalgic; not for childhood days when I put HotWheels in the street with a trail of hairspray that I'd light on fire and pretend the car was going really fast. No, instead I yearn simply for a day when the head-fog fades and I can see clearly. Maybe nostalgia isn't the correct word, because I'm not sure I can remember a day when I knew exactly what I wanted.

Nonsense

I find myself between the train tracks where they run straight. The night envelops me, devours me in its cold bronzed air, pulling the hairs on my neck straight up. Taking off my shirt, I succumb to the chill, because you shouldn't fight it. No matter how hard you fight, the world will have its way. So as much as I can fight the tears back, I can't battle the breeze or the weathering of my skin, the wrinkles under my eyes, or the pull of gravity on my body. Much like I can fight the weight of my eyelids, but eventually they will close for at least an hour or so.

There is no such thing as "not enough time," but instead "I don't want to."

!

someone is purtifying this site for me

I believe that you never really know how much you care about someone until you can't help them.

Absence

I'm excusing my recent absence because of my studying for the GRE, which I took today and profoundly bombed. Guess I'm kinda dumb.

There may be more absences coming, since I'll be homeless in Oregon for a little bit.

Anyways, I thought I've finally been able to be friends with females without becoming intimate with them. Then I woke up next to her.

Life Raft

Sometimes when I'm laying in bed I feel like I'm floating in the middle of the ocean on a bunch of thing logs tied together with torn sheets. There's an endless ocean surrounding me, and I'm clinging to the bed for life and hoping to spot land soon. Meanwhile, I'm not sleeping on this bed.

Recurring Dream

When I was little, I used to have a certain dream over and over starting when I was 4 or 5.

It must be said that, like every little boy, I was in love with dinosaurs. I still am. Anyways, I was an intelligent kid and was enthusiastic about learning. However, I was also incredibly hyper and pretty uncontrollable. My family called me Taz. Once I learned to read, my parents would buy me dinosaur books to keep me quiet: the bigger the book, the longer I was quiet. Dinosaurs arrested me.

In this dream, I'm walking along a serene beach. The beach was a circular bay with no features - just sand and water. Water until the horizon on one side, sand on the other, and a bland blue sky. The only feature was a long wooden pier that stood a foot or two above the still seas. I walked out onto the pier and noticed a bunch of Apatosauruses. The exact number of them varied each time I had the dream, but they were always almost perfectly still. Their big backs protruded from the water and they cuddled each other with their long necks. Obviously, I'm awestruck. It's like I've discovered a secret land and its all mine. Suddenly, and I'm not sure how it happens, but I'm in the water trying to swim back to shore. The current is too strong. I'm pulled out towards the dinosaurs. They see me; they stop necking and look right at me. By the time I reach them, I've grown weak and I can't fight the current. But they just watch apathetically with their big cow-eyes as I float past them. I wake up just before I fall off the edge of the horizon.

I had this dream again last night, the first time in maybe ten years.

Imagine my surprise when, after countless years, and without explanation, Anthony asked me to drive with him to Fishers, Indiana. Even when we had been on speaking terms, we were definitely not friends, and maliciously joked that the only thing our fathers had in common was leaving our mother. This tormented her, and she wished until her last breath that he and I would somehow become friends.

she said

"You're just a talented person. You could probably succeed at everything you do."

If I could, I'd have blushed. I wonder if I believe it.

Is apathy worth writing or reading about?

Last Night

The words woke something inside. Tangled in chocolate-colored pillows and blankets, I stared at the darkness behind my eyelids, waiting for peace to settle in. But the words burrowed deep, content to eat away at my insides and dig dig dig. When the sun forced its way through my windows and forced my eyes open, I wondered where Al Jolsen is buried.

French Assignment.

Oui oui, je sais le grammaire est tres mauvais.
Si j’étais le dictateur d’une petite île, je m'amuserais bien. Je vivrais dans un géant château, sur une grande montagne. De mon château, je pourrais voir toute l’île. L’île s’appellerait , et je la gèrerais avec un poing de fer. Si je ne gérais pas avec un poing de fer, je ne serais pas un dictateur, non ? Mais, j’essaierais d’être gentil, donc mes sujets m’aimeraient.
Il y aurait beaucoup d’animaux sur mon île, et ils courraient librement. Peut-être j’expérimenterais les animaux et les gens, comme dans L’île de Dr. Moreau. Je créerais une créature qui était la moitié tigre et moitié d’homme. Je pourrais jouer Dieu ! Il serait un plaisir si je créais des dauphin-hommes, et je pouvais promener avec eux dans l’océan.
Je passerais tout mon temps à la plage ou dans mon château. Je boirais souvent et serais souvent ivre. Mais personne ne ferait rien parce que je pourrais les pénaliser.

1 word.

Liquid.

day 2

I've been temporarily living in my parents house for the past 2 months, and am getting ready leave in the next week or so. While it's weird sleeping in my former bedroom - which has been converted into a guest bedroom and consequently resembles nothing of the living space I created for myself when this was my home - that's not the strangest part. The most uncomfortable aspect of living at home is the countless pictures lining the rooms and walls of the house. At the top of the stairs, across from the entrance to my bedroom, is a poster of pictures my parents made for my high school graduation party, covered in photos of me at various ages. It's sort of haunting, frightening even, to look at those pictures. If I could, I'd go back and tell that kid to smile more, and try harder. But life is about finding these things out right?

I hope to not write about myself very much, but like I said the photos are haunting. They follow me around, and everytime I come home, the photos are always there waiting for me.

The goal here is to write every day. I don't care what, it may be a story, a page, a paragraph, a sentence, or even a single word. So long as I can get myself to type, to write, to think, and to write write write. There may be pictures, but mostly I want words. This is my beginning, because I'm tired of saying "I'll start tomorrow." Tomorrow turns into the next day, then the day after, then the day after. Yes, I know, that's the same old story. I'm OK with that. I'm not saying the writing is going to be any good, it's just going to get done. I hope.

Cheers.