Busy weekend. Really fun though. Friday, Krishelle cooked and she taught me how to play Magic. It's a highly complicated game, but I can definitely see the appeal of it. I don't think I'll go out and buy a deck anytime soon or anything, but I'll give it a while longer before I make any final decisions on it.

Saturday, I got together with Flying Greg and P-Dogg to work on some Dick Wolf tunes. We laid down the roughs for "(She's An) Ass Kicker" and "Rock, Paper...Death!". After that, I met up with Krishelle and Jimmy James and we went and ate some BBQ. That's when I learned Walter Cronkite died. Then we went my Astrobrain where we bugged the Hell out of Steve and purchased some of his nerdy goodness. Then we stopped by K's place and James met Gumbo. He kept calling him Mister Dog. Then back to my place where we watched 2 episodes of the classic Twilight Zone (no cute vampboys in this one, kids). And we ended the night by going out to Starz! and sang out little hearts out.

Sunday, I did something I haven't done in many years...attended a church. Being that Krishelle's looking for a new church, James mentioned one he's been to a few times down on 280. So tagging along, I went with them to check it out. The church (member wise) is very small. Maybe 30 people. The pastor dude was about 30, and during the service, held up a bag of nachos and put on a rubber Hamburgeler mask. They had a "house" band that played Christian rock songs. It was a different experience than I've had with other churches in the past. I enjoy learning about different people's beliefs, but I still can't help but recognize the parallels between timeless royalty privileged propaganda and the "lessons" the Bible preaches. I'm not denouncing it, just very aware of it.

After service, K-shelle and I went to Oak Mountain for Moose's wedding celebration. Met some cool people, had some good eats, and gave a hearty hugs and congrats to Moose-Man on his flourishing future. As we were leaving, we noticed a woman had ridden her horse into a marsh, and it was stuck up to it's chest. I felt so terrible for the horse because I don't know how they were going to be able to get it out of the mud without doing damage to the creature. It was one of the only times in my life that I was madder at the human than the horse. After we got home, played another game of Magic, then we watched Joyrider and The Great Muppet Caper. For a weekend, it sure was jam packed. I had a really great time though. Hopefully next weekend will be even better!!

Live Long & Prosper

My sister called me just after midnight my time. I missed the call, but called back 30 seconds later, sure that something had happened to one of my parents. Instead I was greeted by a handful of people that my sister was asking repeatedly, "Do you know why I called my brother? Do you know why I called my brother?" So...nothing to do with the parents, but she did try to fix me up with a nice, straight guy they were hanging out with that lives down the street from me.

So thoughtful, that sister of mine.

Less than a week til I fly to Louisville and we hop in a car to visit Nathan. I'm nervous about the layover in Baltimore, but only because it means my luggage will probably get lost. We'll see though.

So...I had an entry posted for a short bit about me needing to do an emotional purge. I referred to it as a "divorce", which it ultimately would be. I could go into details and smooth over the image for anyone who might've happened across it, but the reasons are my own. Plus they make much more sense in my head without the burden of words.

In any case, it'll happen...the personal ceremony, that is. Really just so I can give myself the permission to grieve my failures in the relationship realm. Hopefully after that I'll stop being that open book that you're only allowed to read from across the room. Perhaps I'll stop focusing my attractions on "safe", unattainable people. Perhaps the arms-length rule and all of the other self-preserving defense mechanisms will melt away into exposed vulnerability and I can start to set up a whole new set of calluses. A set that'll let me interact with people more. A set that will help me stop making excuses for this occasional pseudo-emptiness I have.

But it's not for pity. I'm not lonely, and I make the choices to be as alone as I am for various reasons. The sadness isn't for not being coupled. It's for pushing so many people away for so long.

In any case...bedtime.

I can tell that LiveJournal isn't doing so good these days. Everyone else has moved on the bigger and better social networking sites (i.e. Facebook, Twitter, MySpace). I must accept a little bit of responsibility too. I don't nearly update as much as I used too. I still check LJ like 8 times a day, but hardly anyone posts anymore. Well, I'm not throwing in the towel by any means. I've been using LJ for what...6...7 years now. I've never kept up with a journal for more than a week in my life. I go back and reread it from time to time. It amazing at how clear the memories are when you read them, yet how amazing at the amount you can change in such a short amount of time. So anyways, I'm going to keep going for myself, even if there's only 10% of the community that there was 4 years ago.

Life is actually going pretty kick ass for me recently. Things with Krishelle are fabulous and I really could not be an inch happier. [Is that a term?] Last night, we went and ate at Pizza Hut then walked around that shopping center across from Best Buy. I've live din this area for half my life, and I can't think of a time I've actually looked at the stores in that place. Anyways, the weather was absolutely perfect around sunset. Not humid, cool breeze, yet still warm. Just a really great way to end a long work day.

Speaking of work, each day the past couple of weeks seems to drag on for an eternity. I have no idea why, but 8 hour days feel like 20 hours days. The end of the day never comes soon enough.

This weekend I've got Dick Wolf practice, then Moose's wedding bash, and Jimmy's off work, so I'm supposed to hangout with him. Next Saturday is my birthday,a nd I have no idea what I'm going to do. I'd like to be able to get folks together to hangout somewhere, but I have no idea where. Starz maybe.

Leon Redbone is going to be playing in Huntsville in February. I'll definitely be going that see him again.

Live Long & Prosper

So i am officially 31 today. OUCH!
FUCK IT! I got experience and know how to use it!
and i still get carded.... most of the time.

brought in my bday  - out to dinner, harry potter, cake and song....now sitting on my ass eating cake.. and getting flowers! thats a good morning....

going tomorrow to 6flags with Shadrone, Pan, and my son.... YEAH!!!

today relaxing after 3 SOLID weeks of working on this house...my hand is fucked up but taking the day off reading and being on im... while the cute floor guys finish working on my carpet...ooops i mean THE carpet.


T.

maybe house warming party soon.....

 

Apollo 11
Forty years ago today Apollo 11 lifted off, bound for the Moon.
mastertwisted has a post on NASA happenings in Huntsville:
http://mastertwisted.livejournal.com/136530.html
(I watched the 1969 landing, too ^_^ )

Saturday July 18th, 2009

Von Braun Center South Hall
Doors Open @ 11:00 am
Bouts Start @ 12:00 pm
Championship Bout Starts @ 7:00 pm

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Atlanta Rollergirls Dirty South Derby Girls (Atlanta, GA)
Tampa Bay Derby Darlins Tampa Tantrums (Tampa Bay, FL)
Northwest Arkansas Roller Girls Killbilles (Fayetteville, AR)


NOW! ALL KIDS 12 and under free!!!


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Get Your Season Pass NOW!

Somewhere between the head and the heart, there is a tall language barrier. The wants and desires are flames, fanned by words and phrases. Compromises for the present don't necessarily equate to promises of the future.

When it ends, is it ever not ugly for just a little bit? I'm going to invent Break-overs. Makeovers for your breakup.

That, and a head-to-heart dictionary. If only they'd agree to just not speak at all...it'd be so much easier for me/us.

Also, anybody have a Sari I could barrow that might fit a 12-14?

chairs and window sills. She wondered as she stood in a long hallway, watching these people from one end to the hallway, if they could hear her voice escaping from these pages with every frantic turn.

She knew she had died downstairs in her own bedroom, quite peacefully, so this was no haunting. She wouldn't need to shake chains or slam doors, but she was ready for them all to leave so she could start at the beginning and listen to the things she'd told these pages every night of her life for as long as she could remember.

She never took ink to these books, instead knowing that the only true secrets were the ones that were never given a physical appearance. Each night she would turn to a new page and press her nose into the center of the book. Her whispers were trapped between these pages as long as she turned the page before the count of ten after pulling away. Loves, losses, successes, failures...they were all there. Even the musings of a six-year-old girl and her first crush on a boy down the street who always asked her to play baseball with him and his friends.

And so she watched, listened and remembered as her own voice came back to her in pieces as the pages were turned too quickly for it all to get out. If she still had a mouth, she would've smiled at the people she loved, unaware that they were holding the last living pieces of her.

The journals were the most important thing she had. There were many of the standard, leather-bound tradition. Mixed in between a few of those were notebooks she had come across that were interesting. And just a handful were composition books that someone else thought she might like that had been presented at occasional birthdays, Christmases and major milestone in her life.

They were stuffed into the shelves of countless bookcases throughout the entire house. When she first moved in, she was still a young woman and only had two bookcases. But as the years tromped forward like boots through a swamp, she found that her thoughts and words needed more and more space. They made a map of her life when you came in the front door. Next to where she hung her coat and placed her umbrella you'd find journals decorated with kittens and flowers, the occasional piece of faded lace trim poking out from between the spines. Eventually the covers went from pink to red to black, the artwork from cartoons to portraits to unembellished; the progression from child to girl to woman clearly defined, but overlapping.

As much as they might speak of her, she never spoke of them. Neither family nor friend had been privvy to the stories and memories that graced those pages. These books were as much a part of her as her left arm or her kidneys, but no one gave those any sort of examination. It was perfectly natural to forget they were even there. One might mention in passing that they had bumped their arm or that they might have a kidney infection. In that same manner, she didn't hide the fact that she had rows and rows of personal journals, but she didn't make a presentation of it either.

When she died, many close friends gathered to make the arrangements for her viewing and burial. The rest of her family had long since died and she'd never married, so they were as next-of-kin as she had. It wasn't a full day since they gathered when someone finally mentioned the journals. They'd been focusing on the house, the car, the furniture, the money and the cats, so there was some confusion when someone even mentioned the diaries. Of course they would go with the rest of her personal effects. But wait...there were quite a few, weren't there.

Fifty-four bookcases worth, in fact. Some bookshelves were only two shelves on a wide, squat platform. Others stretched from floor to ceiling, but were only a dozed books wide. They'd counted together. The small huddle of them moving from room to room to room. And there were still books and bookcases they had forgotten to count in the attic and basement and behind the beds on the second floor.

Finally someone reached out and pulled a book from the shelf. A half-dozen other hands went out to stop it, but their own curiousities finally caught up to them.

The cover was black. Smooth, black and seemingly untouched. The pages were silver along the outer edges. A thin black string wrapped around the outside of the book, about an inch from the edge. He pulled it slowly, unwrapping the book, and let it dangle. A lone tear fell onto the fake leather, as he couldn't open it. He passed it to another. A woman this time. Someone who possibly hadn't been in love with her as much as he had been. But they all were in their own way.

Eventually the book was opened to the first page. Something so personal and invasive should be done in order. Jumping to the middle pages would have cheapened this insight. Another page. Another page. Quickly, another page. All empty. A quick flip revealed that the entire book was empty. The pages had been pulled apart at some point, that much was obvious, but there were no words written anywhere. The light was turned on and the book swirled underneath it with the hopes of catching the pressure of a pencil or pen pressed into the pages. Nothing.

Another book. Nothing. Another book. Nothing. They each began carefully pulling books from different cases in different rooms. All nothing. Soon they stopped replacing the books, instead tossing them to the floor or setting them on tables,

wheee!!!





Many thanks to our photographer, samguss!

The man of a thousand faces
Sits down at the table
Eats a small lump of sugar
And smiles at the moon like he knows her

He begins his quiet ascension
Without anyone's steady instruction
To a place of no religion
He's found a path to her likeness

His words are quiet like stains are
On a tablecloth washed in a river
Stains that are trying to cover
For each other
Or at least blend in with the pattern

Good is better than perfect
Scrub till your fingers are bleeding
And I'm crying for things
I tell others to do without crying

He used to go to his favorite bookstores
And rip out his favorite pages
And stuff 'em into his breast pockets
The moon, to him, was a stranger

And now he sits down at a table
Without anyone's steady instruction
Begins his quiet ascension
To a place of no religion

He's found a path to her likeness
He eats a small lump of sugar
Smiles at the moon like he knows her

I was going to get some stuff out, but a textual encounter already got most of it out. There's still some of it lurking beneath the skin, but I think I'll hang onto it for creative purposes.

Basically it boiled down to a phrase. A phrase I liked and will probably continue to use. It's what I want, and what I've been missing. Sweetness without ruination. People do really sweet things all the time, but it gets negated at some point. Usually immediately. Sometimes way down the road.

It's just something that hasn't happened for a while and I miss that feeling. The genuine sweetness. Not for any other purpose than to be sweet.

Anyway. The details of the conversation were lewd...er, unimportant. But that phrase popped up and...I felt like I'd hit on something. Immediately the fog started lifting. Now here I am. Scars and all, but not bleeding.

As far as stopping the reach...it's impossible. I will always reach, for far longer than should be humanly allowable. Even when I've got everyone convinced that I've stopped...I know that I'm still standing, arms outstretched and fingertips spread. Something, eventually, will land there.

Just a few words on my mind:
Urge
Emerge
Urgency
Emergency

And regret. But only for intangibles. Regret that I'll never learn when to stop reaching for things that I have no business reaching for.

Safety
Security
Fantasy
Ancestry

And a word for the desire to Forget.

what can i say but ... teeth grinding frustration!

Aight y'all. I bet y'all didn't know that the crew won the $25,000 Pyramid did ya? Check the new jam and find out for yoself. Happy Freaking Weekend, ya heard!!

Ok, no walk this morning. The beginnings of my sleepy-time were too filled with me flinging back the covers and stumbling to turn on a light to be very restful. Why was I doing that almost continuously. Well, so I could pick up the sixty-some-odd cds thay had just been flung from the top of my dresser, of course. Or to pick up the plant that's been dropped from the top of the TV for the third time. Or to take the leash off the back of the door because when the cats wrestle they like to get a running start and slam into things...the leash just makes that much more noise with the pseudo-chain still attached.

One of these nights, I'm convinced I'm going to lose an eye. Neither of them pay much attention as they claw for their life to get back on top of the bed. My fingers, elbows, shins, feet, etc have been the victim of their own self-preservation too many times to count as they take turns playing the Indian in the middle of the night. They also like to ricochet off of things. Primarily me. They got cool names like Hawk and Newt (short for Tomahawk and Oliver Newton), but I keep thinking they should be Ping 1 and Ping 2. I could make them little red bodysuits and affix two little blue wigs to the tops of their heads. Or not. In any case. On more than a handful of occasions the spot from which they activate their inner springboard is my eye. It's closed, of course, but for a period of time too small to measure, I can feel the impression left by four little claws from a back foot followed by the explosion of light as the pressure from the launch changes the shape of my eye.

Ifi had to guess, I'd wager that I'll get a claw stuck through my eyelid before I have an eyeball explode from a Tigger Bounce.

But I love when Hawk comes to visit. The danger involved in feline ownership is worth it for the noises the brothers make as they play.