Life fueding with death.
A million little wars, thought
my eternity.

I like that little haiku. Chris doesn't care if he lives forever, doesn't even care if someone knows his name in one hundred years. Fair enough, I can see the beauty in that. But me, I want to be famous, I want to be known, I want to live forever. Its why I write, its why I live the way I live.

I understand the beauty of brevity, don't get me wrong. I love my own little inconspicous actions and the way that nothing will ever pass the same again. In this I share my zest with you. Where we part is when you don't need anything more, I do. I am sure this plays some part in our views on religion, though I would venture that our religious views guide our desires more than vice versa. and you being a determinist and my mind firmly entrenched in free will. Its a wonder we agree on anything at all (though when we do: I tend to lend more creedance to anything that both you and I have come to believe).

ME, I don't want nothing; I want everything. nothing more, nothing less than everything. And I believe its out there; its why I write.

I truly believe 'everything' is possible, whats more I believe I will encounter it in my life...

If you didn't care what happened to me,

and I didn't care for you,

we would zig zag our way through the boredom and pain,

occasionally glancing up through the rain.

Wondering which of the buggers to blame

and watching for pigs on the wing.

Companionship, friendship, art...

In the end the only way out is art: the art of friendship, the words we write, the things we draw, the songs we sing along with, these are things that stand outside of time.

(That is if you are willing to believe that thought is inextinguishable (is that a word?) and everything that has ever happened cannot be erased, ie. the past is set in stone... maybe immortality is all about the past, maybe I should have known this years ago...)

I was lieing in bed with a friend once and told her that our love was perfect because it had left the perimeters of time and that even if we should choose to part ways, which of course we did, we would still have that one little night of perfection, that one little piece of art that could never go away so long as we choose to remember it. Forever we can both look back on that night and find some piece of truth in our shared emotion (two becoming one). Far more satisfactory than a mere 'I think therefore I am' we had two people thinking and two people being... Descartes and his stupid cycle...

Now, I was roasted by my friends the next day when I told them this - I just remember Jared laughing his ass off and saying "jdon = bitch" - and maybe it was weak, but there is some truth to it: so long as we are watching, so long as we are keeping score, we are the masters of our own demise - if we choose never to let go, are we not immortal to everyone who matters? (our selves being our masters) And is hell even a fear for a man who controls his own mind?

anyway, whenever things are particularily bad I can look back at that night in Glencoe, and a million others, and tell my self "I am alive, I have lived".

life fueding with death.

A million little wars thought

my eternity.

Gotta stay awake, gotta try and shake of this creeping malaise
If I don’t stand my own ground, how can I find my way out of this maze?

Its hard to explain why we're sad sometimes... its nothing serious, certainly nothing to point at, and yet I just feel like going to bed so it can be tommorrow and maybe I'll be in a better mood.

What real service do I provide the world? Am I making anyones life any better? Maybe I will, maybe I am, but even that, those few memorable moments, what do they matter twenty to thirty to forty years from now? or more importantly a mere one hundred years from now? One hundred years from now I'll, we'll all, be nothing but...

I'm sure it'll go away, I'm sure I'll be fine tommorrow (I feel better already just recognizing what it is that ailes me), but every so often I just can't shake the feeling that its all for naught and if I'm only going to be dust one day I might as well be dust this day...

time is the real killer we should all beware, so soft, unavoidable, and oh so permanent.

I told this story before, but I'll tell it again:
I am young, around six or seven years old. We, my mother and I, are in our living room of the house on addison. We're reading a book. She's reading to me. My mind wanders and somehow I grasp complete nothingness - its not what I expected, no empty room, no lack of communication, not even a body floating without surroundings; death is nonexistance. We always like to think about 'spirits', souls, and memories but the dead have no memory; the dead don't exist.
Being six or seven and stumbling upon this realization was a real buzz kill. At the time I cried. A week later I spoke with the priest, but by then, only a week later, I was already ready to avoid the topic and just mustered some little story easy to be swayed by a whisper of Christ...

Years later, in college, that day would come back to haunt me - condemn my every motive.
I can remember sitting in my room at high street, four AM, everything else quiet, jar of flies on repeat, sweating profusely trembling to the beat of my own demise.

Eventually I just stopped worrying about it... I may have even come to move beyond my fear as I trust in christ and everything that book says. And yet, I know the book was only written by men: every so often I remember what death means...

sounds like a sad story? not really, somewhere, in a dream perhaps, I was told that a girl would come along and none of this would make sense any more... something about love beats the demon, the devil whispering words, and a kiss making it all go away...
I am a romantic, I know this is my only way out...

great weekend. Went to Grand Rapids, watched us win one hockey game and lose another. Ate soooooo much, drank a little too. Worked all day today, everything went well... worked on my fantasy football player rankings - I seriously spent a little over an hour today listing every possible keeper player for everyone in my league, I love fantasy football -. I also even got pumped for the spartans today, Spartan nation bitch!!!
it'll all be random notes today friends...
Wayne now has this address, thats a good thing... leblanc says he'll start commenting, I may have to actually say something first... I hate roger sometimes, especially when he is big and dumb and likes to push me when I am drunk, I almost had to slap him this weekend. MAybe I'll never really be able to hang out with him again? it would be sad, though understood. (roger is the dumbass who pushed me on my face last fall - I've forgiven, but I can't forget. And what is the value of forgiveness if you don't forget? not much...)
I've had some great ideas to blog lately, but I really haven't gotten around to it... hopefully this week takes a philosophical turn and I can get out some of the ideas bouncing around my head...
war lions winning 10 games next year
war the spartans making a wolverin happy
war bonds retiring a cheatin' bum
Out

File under one step forward, two steps back:
I've decided not to attempt to 'move up' at the banquets facility. The added duties/responsibilities just weren't worth it...
Actualy its a relief, maybe I should file it under on step backward, two steps forward...

When is a promotion not worth it? Probably more often than we would admit... in all cases more money = more responsibility (except in teaching) and we can only maintain so much responsibility.

spoon in spoon, stiring my coffee,
I thought of you and the answers were gone...

I woke up at 7:30 this morning, with nothing in particular to do. There is no work today, none for the next 10 days (spring break). I do need to finish up my unit for english class, and write a paper a spanish poet, then the semester is pretty much over...

It seems so easy in the college classroom: somehow we've got to reach the needs of all our students. The second you enter a high school it becomes impossible. You've got thirty kids an hour, five classes a day. That boils down to one kid every two minutes, minus role, minus the usual 50 minute class period, minus all the bullshit, and you just can't do it.

My brother and I were talking about this dilema last night. I think the solution is to convince the public to spend more on schools with the specific goal of doubling the number of teachers and turning the average class size to 15. It may never happen, if we don't try. The sad thing is, I don't know where to begin... on the bright side I have a while before I am tenured and in a school, all the while to prepare to go to work on the real purpose: making schools better fit our childrens needs.

Teaching is the most noble profession and, I'd argue, the model for success in all other professions: want to be a good boss? instruct your employees and meet their needs. Want to be a good politician? Gain your peoples (pupils) support and deliver them what they need. Want to be a good Doctor? treat the person not the patient... I could go on and on, but I'll save you... just know this education reform has been going on the last ten years, and there are some great teachers graduating right now. If we can somehow harness our collective power/will, then we can change the world.

be the change you wish to see in the world.

Sometimes...

Its winter here again, for some reason the snow is soothing today - maybe because we are about to begin spring and it couldn't feel farther away... why is that soothing? I don't know. Life gets so sped up some times we need a day or two when nothing is possible except sitting in the house and relaxing...

someone who reads here thinks I'll be a terrible teacher. I've been told this before, mostly by people who want to hurt me; they know how much it matters to me and in the anger of a moment they want to attack me where it hurts. It does hurt, not because I am worried about being a good teacher, it hurts because I still bicker with my friends and we still try to hurt each other. I thought we had grown beyond that point.

I'm not much better. I do stay away from attacking peoples' insecurities, but in my avoidance, in my attempt to attack their strengths, I come accross way too hard.

I guess I've been chasing enlightenment my whole life, achieving a little here, a little there, but I won't go any further until I can become confident in my self, and my views, so much so that I can argue purely on philosophical stances... much like Leblanc. I admire his ability to stick to the topic and argue only what is relevant, and when entering new material to the conversation, providing the reason and relevance...


snow is still coming down,
someday I'll be a teacher,
someday I'll be validated by a piece of paper.

Maybe then people will leave me alone.
Maybe then they'll help me instead of hinder,
maybe,
maybe,
maybe.

Probably not.

I'll probably go
through life
seeking to validate
my self
to my self.

Failing,
again and again,
to understand
the essential truth
that validation is
for the dead:
the living need no excuses.

Snows still coming down,
I miss my brother.
He'll be back next week,
then away again.

I've got his dog,
his emails,
his experiences to stack
against staying in this state,
but I'm still sad sometimes
that I can't see him right now,
even if I wanted too.

Snow keeps coming down,
just got off the phone with a classmate.
Neither of us are going to class.
Both of us are going to Opening Day.
Neither of us will see the other there,
because both of us are going seperate ways.

Friendship is so spontaneous at times,
it becomes hard to become closer when you aren't;
it becomes hard to stay the same, when you aren't.

Let the snow fall all day and all night,
let me sleep all day,
let me rest,
just once.
Just once
let me rest,
just for a little while.
Let the snow fall all night and into the morning.

On IEPs (individualized education programs) and the so-called 'trouble-kids'...
Its really easy to say that we should just throw out all the students who refuse to do anything in class, and yet the moment you know they are gone I can't help but feel like a great big emptiness... Today in school I was working with the special ed. teachers while they did IEPs. One was for a student who they were going to throw out - it was ugly: parents screaming, kid upset but trying to play cool, and half the teachers just wishing he would leave now. It was disgusting... I don't know how we, as teachers, can fail a student and not think that we've failed as well...

Mercy is laying in my bed, she's been sleeping on the couch since I got here... then the other morning I woke up and there she was, lying at the foot of my bed. I felt so happy just to wake her up with a big hug... I think I love that dog more than anything else in this world.
Really.
I was thinking about it today and if offered a Lions superbowl victory to never see Mercy again I wouldn't take it... hell, I would never talk to my brother again to see the lions win a superbowl (I got two!) but not Mercy...

'She was a sour girl the day that she met me'
A friend recently asked me what I was looking for in a girl...
The question sounds simple enough... but it took me a little while to answer, because its not so much what I want in a girl, but what I need in a girl. Who doesn't want some big-tittied, hot as hell, super smart, all she wants to do is give me head kinda girl? Unfortunately they don't fucking exist... I've asked around, they don't.

And when I've thought I wanted something, and the girls had it, they've often lacked something I needed and the relationship has failed whether we like it or not. What I need is someone who is honest, intelligent, and willing to believe in me as much as I believe in them. Thats not too much to ask. That is until they have to actually deal with me as the dumbass I can be...

'she was a happy girl the day that she left me'

Examining my past relationships, the ones I've liked and the one's I still talk to all have one thing in common: open communication and a mutual respect not only for each other as a person, but also for our daily struggles to be the people we want to be... and i guess some innate (spelling?) desire to make me a better person either through effort (see christine) or through interacion (see carly)...

anyway, I could go on and on about what I want but that is not the point. The point is I have come to the conclussion that I actually have 'needs' in a relationship. I never thought I did, at least not some laundry list, though I am sure I just never asked my self the question before.
Its amazing the things in the back of our mind that we've yet to ask...

I get so caught up and busy sometimes that I am actually suprised when I find, in the back of my notebook, these words penned some time in class... (further proof that as pessimistic as I may seem, I am in fact an eternal enthusiast)

Don’t drown, my friends,
dream…

Dream…

Dream daily.
Dream about anything,
it doesn’t matter why.

Dream, my friends, don’t drown.

Dream out loud.
Tell me your dreams,
send them over email,
tell me on the phone,
or over a bottle of beer.
Tell me everything…

Or don’t.

Dream on paper,
follow the pen,
write down every
imaginable interaction.

Dream in your mind alone,

share no secrets with anyone,

and enjoy the enlightenment instilled

in each and everyone of us.

Dream in the morning,
during your commute.
(the early morning depression
be damned!)
Dream at lunch,
in between bites of bread.
Dream at home,
late at night, alone
or intertwined.

Dream in your sleep;
its where I began.

Dream in class.
I often dream in class:

dream in class about the girl sitting next to me.

Dare to dream about love,
about life,
God, and everything ever after.
Dream on your belly in front of the TV,
I don’t care where, just dream.
Dream, dream, dream, dream about whatever you want.
-Just dream.

Don’t drown, dream.

well its been a while but I'm back...
All I do is work again, work and dream of sleep. I have class in an hour and I am about to sleep. Got out of subbing at 2:30 and for the last freaking two hours I have read just about every newspaper article, fantasy football site, and lions news piece ever written.
boredom, so tired, boredom... I'm getting sleepy...
I think i am just going to go buy some coffee and get pumped for class... or I could just buy a pint.
I wish I had something wise to say...

how bout this: what is it with dishonesty? most of the time that we are lieing (we all lie, some more than others) it has so much more to do with our own comfort level than any intention of decieving those whom we are addressing. We find some small categorical truth and then rest our laurels on it as we explain to another why we have to do this or can't make that, when in reality a simple no would do.
honesty is just too difficult sometimes, or so we percieve it to be...
one more tip, the more elaborate the excuse, or the more important they think it is, the more likely they are lieing...

It just hit me: I am going to be a special ed. teacher. Sure I'll have to start with english and spanish but later on, after grad school, I would like to switch over to strictly special ed.