three years later I am looking over what I've written and its nice to see the genesis of what I've become... though the anger has faded, the quick wit and skepticism remain.

no fucking messiah
no fucking messiah...
there is no fucking messiah...
you've got to save yourself

I've taken to drinking a, near daily, regimen of white russians... they just seem to soothe the soul. Sometimes is whiskey, jack and the like, others its vodka, but always it's something once again...

the importance of drinking alcohol cannot be overstated, or undermatched. I've seen so many great men sober up by stepping down and always, almost always, the just don't seem to have it any more. Is the alcohol the stem of our greatness? Not nearly, it is but rather a symptom of the search for excellence. Yes that excellence, the one that kerouac had...

I honestly believe that if we are to view the world from every angle then we must bend the lens and distort our vision so that maybe we can see it again, for a second time, and find the true meaning behind the movements...

Five years later the greatest tragedy is that the war is ongoing: chaos has been installed, fear marketed, and all the while we conveniently forget that people are still dieing every single fucking day over there...
I have a hard time thinking that god views local Iraqui corpses with any less sorrow the the american soldiers who pass away each day... thing is, I see loses on both sides and neither number is going to come down in the next 5 year.

Where will we be 10 years in? I hope I am not explaining to my son or daughter just what happened to the notion of freedom in the midst of a never-ending war.

Possession is the problem. We are a society rooted in notions of possession. I don't care if you smoke, cause its your idea, your decision. I don't want you to stop me from drinking cause its mine: it's my body. Or is it?
Does God have possession of my body? If there is no God, then am I simply renting my body from the dirt? And where will I ever be going anyway?
Possession and individuality. The two hand in hand. How do you hinder one without ruining the other? How can you have one without the other?
Individuality isn't the problem, or is it?

if I just typed along with a song in my head I'd wander and weave in wonder to softly sing sweet songs again and again as I have on the highway a million zillion times... time in and time out, on the way home wishing you were here to understand and yet it sounds o much better when I am alone... it always makes me think of a couple girls, one who I kissed to this song and another I loved - loved when I hadn't even heard this song... funny how things become linked... I'd love to be linked to something, something musical... the solo knows no bounds, no limits, just my head and shoulders, arms, abs and mind...

I don't know why I don't write anymore. I have my space, if you know my name you'll find it...

I go through these prolonged periods of sadness every so often. I don't know how to make it stop, I don't know if I even care too; my cleansing always comes in sorrow and that sad realization that birth itself is indeed the saddest thing that will ever happen to me.
I forget, at times, for long periods of time, to be unhappy. During these times I am genuinely spiritual and efficient... but it always fades, for a little while, and I find my self in the cool black silt of the water Tool lyics echoeing in my head.
The fact of the matter is life as we know it is a sham; its all just a made up, arbitrary, created by a small sentient being to make itself feel a little larger...
I wish we'd all let our guards down, but everytime I do the whole world comes crashing down.
I can think of two times in my life, in the work place, where I let my guard down, though the other was honest, and opened up. One was at South Quad five years ago when I was used in some psuedopower-play in a management fued, hired to be fired and prove the position wasn't for people like me... the other was this semester when every time I even hint that teaching is just a job and things are bigger all the other teachers go crazy... and yet they can't even relfect their own lie with their own lives.
Its just a job folks. Is that so bad? Why can't we just say that we educate students, that it is indeed our passion, but that our everyday trivial bullshit is more important. It is. It is and noone wants to admit it.
I am the fool here.
I am the lazy one leaning on the truth of the matter.

and I haven't felt this way in years.

I am a fat disgusting pig; truly, I will say it again, I am a fat disgusting pig.
I am arrogant.
I am lazy.
I am so many things I disagree with...
and this big belly is where it all starts.

speaking of failure and success...
It amazes me just how little I actually accomplish sometimes. Example: Have you ever had a day at work where you have this one thing to do, and it only takes five minutes to do. Somehow the whole day passes and you just don't do it. What did you do? I don't know, but don't tell me you've never experienced this...
'what would you say you do here'
could you imagine going around work and asking people to defend their salaries? We as a society may work our hardest to pretend to be busy little bees but we might as well lay around in the shade and accomplish the same thing...

Were life to be defined as either success or failure I believe that you would have to call mine a colossal failure. And yet I don't feel that bad....

Maybe I don't know any better? Or maybe I'm just confused, but I just can't help but find my self steadily moving forward amidst a turbulent current. Never quite being sent out to sea, often, and just barely, avoiding crashing into the rocks I've somehow managed to stay afloat through it all. In fact it would be tough to say that I'm all that much worse for wear.

Life, it seems to me now, is nothing more than a matter of mere perseverance in pursuing that which interest me most. School is a passing fancy; work a means to butter my bread, nothing more in either case. So why should I be so sorrowful when I am assessed far from the best at an endeavor I so grudgingly undertake? I don't know if I do. I say I do, but do I really care, for these failures touch me not.

What does touch me then? My friends, my woman, my games of chance. In all of these I excel... why then can I not call a spade a spade and the day be done? Why of course there is life to be lived, and life in these American United States is bureaucracy...

However, here and now I can call a spade a spade and say I'd rather win a world series of poker than graduate a thousand kids. I just want to enjoy my life. My friends, my woman, my family, and my games of chance are my life. Everything else is just fodder.
My music is my life
My conversations are my sustenence...
nothing more nothing less
My teaching will be my life, but this mediocre reflection is not: my classes are my duldrums...

got my time machine, got my electronic dream...
Who songs should only be played by pearl jam.

I know what you are thinking and yes I do often wonder what the fuck I am talking about...

I'll say it again: "that which you fear the most could meet you half way" - pj

I remember somewhere, maybe a chuck palinuk (sp?) book, I read that in the end its never what you worry about that ultimately gets you but rather the unexpected does us in... all our worrying, all our staring straight ahead, all undone by the blindside.

I try to keep the blinders off, try to see the light, see the darkness. I try to see everything but eventually that itself even becomes one single concern and everything else is lost... I guess the question here is what to focus on, or rather how to focus on. I'll start by saying it doesn't really matter so carry on with caution; everything we do is undone...

I've kept calenders, post it notes, journals, emailed my self important dates... it's all seemed to work out alright so far... and yet I've missed more deadlines staring at empty pages than anyone else I know... and yet I keep moving forward, you see its just as hard to backslide as it is to get ahead: the social glue of conformity being strong as it is... and yet I keep moving forward, adjusting my focus, and in a month I will graduate. It's a mini-fucking-miracle. In actuallity its a major fucking miracle, but the deeper I look the clearer I see one body being pushed forward, forced through doors, on into offices, papers written, schedules made, schedules stumbled through, and degrees added up whether i liked it or not... maybe success will kill me in the end: the steady upward mobility...

of course, again, it doesn't really matter because our foot in the door might as well be another arm in a cubicle and even that will be undone by death, taxes, and time...

only art stands the test of time - and only art eludes...

"The dog's kennel is not the place to keep a sausage."
Danish Proverb

found that on the internet today... there's really not much you can follow that up with is there.

Peter Gibbons: So I was sitting in my cubicle today, and I realized, ever since I started working, every single day of my life has been worse than the day before it. So that means that every single day that you see me, that's on the worst day of my life.
Dr. Swanson: What about today? Is today the worst day of your life?
Peter Gibbons: Yeah.
Dr. Swanson: Wow, that's messed up

it's seven am and I'm off... one more road to cross...
I am dreading my third hour... and I hate this shit.

those are my words of wisdom on a friday morning, real impressive eh?

And what you fear the most could meet you halfway...
and what you fear the most, could meet you halfway...

sometimes we just have to man up and blame ourselves. The fortunate part of this assessment is that if we are the problem, then we are the solution. No need to fuck around with everyone else's role...

to save my self I must change my self
to change my self I must arrange my self
to arrange my self I must serve my self
to serve my self I must control my self
to control my self I control my emotions
my emotions, my wants, my desires,
my actions, my outcomes...
to save my self I must control my self

I am going to have to get right on down to the crux, as the hard questions. I am going to have to evaluate, assess, and then order my actions to my true wants.

I want to pass student teaching: I've got a lot to do.

Cleaning out one of my many school notebooks I found this:

A couple of Truths:
1.) In administration it is often as important to have the secretary on your side.
2.) Often it is one person's allegiance that means the most.
3.) Opportunity is everywhere, in every moment.
4.) Taking pleasure in another's pain is a sin.
5.) students need a good friend every bit as much as instruction; a good friend asks about grades and helps in school.
- talk about life, never condone alcohol consumption, always softly point out the negatives.


I must of been in a positive mood that day...

In the midst of the darkest tunnel the match shines brightest... lately I've found my self feeling so locked in, so fucked, and yet with nothing left to light my way the simplest little sparks keep me moving from day to day...
little over a month left. i'm done april 13th, holy thursday, but really everything is due march 15th and from then on I'll be coasting... but lord am I grinding right now... so much friction, so much poverty, such a mess at home... I swear to god if i didn't have shannon right now I would of probably given up by now...

lock all the doors and kill the lights...

I'm listening to tool again... we ask no quarter... I hold no quarter... maybe it is the time to begin fighting the battle in earnest. It'll involve me dropping a few of my nuances; I'll have to get my shit together if I think I'm going to change the world...
but maybe that is just what I'll do.

'did you see the memo?'

my silence disturbs me, though it is tough to write again. I really feel, right now, that is nothing that can be done to change my situation: I must bear the consequences, run the course, and eventuality (that motherfucker) will take its course...
I do know what I can do: I slept in today, called off work, and just rested until I wasn't tired anymore, such a strange feeling these days. I made breakfast, an omlette of onions, potatoes, and cheese, drank some orange juice and somehow along the way became enraged over the comments of a few old men:
The first was dinner with the devil (you may remember the man who told me to abort my child? yeah...). The second was a man Shannon dropped off at the airport today. Apparently I asked her to come to miami with her, offered her dinner, offered her anywhere in the world. Which, I guess, happens so I'll let it slide. What offended me was shannon's defense of him as a nice old man.
Nice old man? the motherfucker is a creep. He, in his fifties, offered her, at 21, what amounts to little more than payment for sex. Don't tell me he was looking for love, don't tell me he was just being nice. let's call a spade a spade and a creep a creep. That man is a creep. That man was abusing his power, and money (let us never forget money), in an attempt to score some pussy. Pussy from my fiance, but what about the million other sisters, daughters, and friends this man has propositioned. I am hesitant to say this was his first.... Very fucking hesitant.
It got me thinking about another issue: sex slaves, young girls, sometimes runaways, who are drugged, put into cages, and used as slaves. The idea sounds so ludicrous its hard to believe it exist and yet here is a man who is two steps away from rationalizing himself into giving it a try. That is of course if he's ever heard of it, he probably hasn't... he's got money.
We are surrounded by creeps and we say not a word. Why? convention? pragmatics? are we really so sure it won't make a difference?
This other man, this devil, is a friend of Shannon's family, a good friend. So I'll have to see him time and time again. I'll have to here him tell us not to get married, like he did last night, and have to stomach it again and again. Heaven forbid we ever get divorced, this man will feel so smug.
And yet I shut my mouth, swallow my pride, and avoid a comfrontation. I can do this, I can silence my self, but what I can't do is listen to him, some ten minutes later, talk about puting mescaline in jello shots at his frat so that the women would get naked.
I couldn't keep quiet so I made a snide remark about the days before 'date rape'. He laughed, the mother fucker thought I was making a joke. I should of beat him, I should smashed his fucking face, I should of made him feel sorry for ever taking advantage of any woman in his life... and yet I swallowed my silence in discomfort one last time... one last time and now I'm the one who is sinning...
What is going to happen one day when I flip on this guy? He's not even going to see it coming, he's going to have a hard time understanding, where I am coming from.... he'll never even understand, and I'll just make it worse for everyone involved...
It makes me so sick...
I feel like a failure for not fighting woman's rights, hell people's rights, right there in the pizza parlor... and I am right I am to blame... and yet my silence offers me comfort. I keep telling my self what I would change, and I keep coming up with nothing.

These events, my friends, are far more disconcerting, my silence destroying me, than any other that have befallen me: I know better and yet I choose to ignore.
I know better and yet I choose to forgive, or place some patience in the future.
I know better and I don't do a damn thing.
Goddammit I know better

I guess the fact of the matter is I will never be comfortable comforming to anyone else's definition of my self, and yet I've never taken any steps to become fully autonomous... the reality being that I my self am to blame. Sadly this neither comes as a surprise nor inspires some inner drive to escape my chains.
Maybe I am the first person to blame themselves while recognizing that nothing else can be done... not very fucking likely; it sounds a lot more like the same story once again.

repetition is my name
I am jack's floundering tired tirade

honestly, what percentage of us are actually alive? I am asking you, demanding of you, to tell me if you really think anyone is alive any more... or if, rather, we have become slaves to our own visions of freedom...

I never was comfortable in the stoner crowd, I am equally uncomfortably with the 'doers'. I keep searching for some medium and yet I can't get accepted anywhere without electing a general, pledging allegance, and signing my name on the dotted line...

I hope the bitterness fades as fast as it arose.

Slaves, I am surrounded by slaves... little corporate beings not even worth being labeled whores... I am talking the lowest of the low; I am speaking on the fool who thinks he, or she as in this case, is free. They think they'll derive some sort of power by 'using the system' and yet they are nothing more than a minor player on a minor stage.
I can't take it. I can't stand it. I won't allow it. And yet I meddle in all their meetings, pass through their halls... hell sometimes I play their bitch. All in some search of purity. My god how my disdain has grown.

On Seattle I can only say that the refs screwing us wouldn't matter so much if Jeremy Stevens could hold on to the ball, Darrell Jackson had any sort of awareness, or the team wasn't just so plain... well stupid. They are really stupid.

On Pittsburgh, fuck'em. I've never seen someone walk into such luck. As a matter of fact if Palmer doesn't get hurt this isn't even a post. The colts are soft, Denver has plummer, and seattle is well seattle. So spare me your 'amazing' story, thank god you won, and enjoy it while it last because you aren't even winning the division next year... Cinncinnatti is...

nostalgia and shitty poetry...
I watched Gus Van Sants Last days this weekend. Nick did as well. We didn't plan this, its funny how life works. Nick watched it four times, I barely made it through the first viewing. Maybe I wasn't in the mood for meditating, or maybe I just don't care about kurdt anymore...

I wake up every morning, stumble to the kitchen, and make a pot of coffee. As it is brewing I put the dogs out, fill their bowls, and try to remember what is going on today... I crawl into the shower a few minutes later, hot coffee in hand. Usually I just stand there, wash a little, stand there. Eventually I am awake.
School starts at 8, I'm there around 15 minutes early...
we get out at 2:45.
I usually get home around 3:30 or 4.
I've been taking naps (two or so hours) in time to wake up for 'Raymond' from 7-8. Shannon likes the show, so do I... it's always on...
I try to do homework and such around 8, I usually don't; it takes much more time on the clock, around 10 or 11 before I actually begin to write... only to go to bed serene and counting on my five or so ( 3 and a half tongiht) to get me through to my nap the next day.

I am Jack's schedule

here's an entry to be filed under bad to worse:

my cooperating teacher (the spanish one) and I are nowhere near each other in our expectations... I don't even know what the fuck she wants. I feel like I am just punching a clock and she's expecting me to take over, but I don't know how the fuck to take over. I write lesson plans, she rejects them. No suggestion of alternatives, just rejection... and theoretically we... you know what, fuck it.
Its tough, I'm trying to keep calm, and remain quiet, but I know I'm getting fucked here... but it does me no good to raise hell, cause it ain't like shit is going to change. I don't know what to do.

"One day he’ll get to you,
Teach you how to be a holy cow..."

my bank account reads 25 bucks. I'll probably get a bill on my next check. derrick owes me 60 (he'll never pay). If the seahawks win I'll get a buck 95, but then I owe a hundred so really its like win the game I win 95, lose and I owe 130. I have fifty with the bookie... and that's about it.

I've paid this months bills, barely. I'll owe 300 febuary 1st... thank god my girlfriend is paying my car payments until may... I'll owe at least 400 in credit card bills. I don't know where I'll get this money.
student teaching is living hell.

I've got a wedding to pay for, well really just the bar for me. I'll get 500 from my mother and maybe half of that from my father... I'll probably have to come up with another grand or two. Lord knows where that will come from.

I owe just under five grand on my car, with the aforementioned 500 I'll be around 4500... I probably owe another 10K easy on my credit cards... reminds me I do have world baseball classic tickets to sell... wanted to go, doubt we'll see that day...
I owe my mother somwhere around 15 grand... my grandmother too.
student loans are right around 45K
thats ninety grand right there. Where in the fuck am I going to come up with ninety grand? not even counting a wedding or god help me I get into an accident (still don't have insurance)... And she wants to have a kid next year...

Its all rather sobering and the worst part is at least normally I could knock out some debt working 60 hours a week, but right now that isn't even an option... what is an option?
It's all so sobering...
I don't even have the scratch to make a run at the casino... although there is a grand I could pull on one of the cards, but I'd just lose with everything on the line.

Shit, I'd break the law but that isn't even an option right now... never will be again, with a wife and all...
Its all so sobering

She'll want a house before its all said and done (long before it should be an option)...
I'll have to work 60 hours a week so long that it changes me, or I'll have to quit working 60 hours a week before it changes me: either way I'll fail.

I don't even write anymore.
I don't play cards.
I can't play guitar.
what's a boy supposed to do?

nostalgia and shitty poetry...
remember that one nick?
Sometimes I think its all I ever record... but its a new year an another new opportunity to begin writing again.
here we go:

I haven't written, haven't written since it all went to shit:
on the miscarraige I don't have much to say except that it was probably the saddest thing thats ever happened to me and its shockwaves will be felt on into eternity.
I remember when I was little my mother had a miscarraige. For some reason she showed it to me, I remember thinking it was good for her. Who wanted to have a kid with Don anyway? I wish I'd never been that ignorant.

saw things so much clearer, once you were in my review mirror...

I just smoked the best cigarrette of my life, I'm listening to Pearl Jam, and everything makes sense...

I know that I was born and I know I'll die, the inbetween is mine...

I always liked that line. cause what more do we know outside of those perameters? all I know is that we control our lives and we are the authors of our tales...
I can't wait to be a father.
I can't wait to be a teacher.
I can't wait.
this is my year. our year.
jdon

I met the devil last night. Disguised as an elderly gentleman who had it all he hung around my ear for about four hours while his wife whittled away on my fiance in another room.
Started simply enough: having a child is difficult, you've got your whole life to live. It gradually crescendos to him offering me the opportunity to come see his house on the hill, play with his toys, touch his mercedes. Its done I say, we're having the kid. And the wedding? he slyly asked. 'we want catholic', not in this day and age he says. I'm going to hell, he says... and my fist is balling up, but I'm in her parents house talking to her parent's friends.
And everything came clear, here was the devil offering me an alternate future all for the low cost of my morality now. It was disgusting, I've never been so angry. Still I can't say a word surounded by the sound of his kids playing on the other side of the room, shannon's mother holding a pot roast. Look its family! but don't have one yourself.
and you a teacher. Can't raise a child on a teacher's salary.
I've never felt so insulted.
and yet, I swallowed it all, smiled and made my way to the door...

There is no way in fucking hell that I am hollowing out my girls uterus so that I can have a nicer car!

that I be judas to our souls...

no way, no how.

'As soon as you're born they make you feel small...'

being 27 I don't feel one bit removed from Lennon's death than any of the rest of you do. My father on the other hand... he was there, he actually felt it: In essence we are removed, having known the end of the story while we were learning...
For us it was Kurdt Cobain, but he shot himself and was such a hollow comparision to Lennon (musically, spiritually... basically in every manner) that I laugh now looking back upon my sorrow april whatever 1994.
I think we're all so shocked when people are killed over political reasons, or crazy reasons, or whatever reason that guy had in common. I just heard Lennon compared to bobby kennedy, MLK, JFK and the difference here is that lennon just wrote records... its hard to imagine a world where people aren't killed for being great and yet insanely ludicrous to imagine one within which they are.

For my part I've almost a tear in my eye for the fact that the man who said give peace a chance was shot for no reason... and I know it sounds so trite, or already said, and yet so profound as to be repeated in the back of my mind for the better part of an hour.

I love my girlfriend. This morning, after posting, I went and laid in bed with her to try and sort out what I had to say... we fought a little, argued I guess, but it had nothing to do with anything serious; I think she just wanted to go back to sleep... which is fair.
Anyway, this afternoon as I've been studying I realized that i do believe in at least one thing and that is the value of loyalty and the value of love (I think they are one in the same, hence one thing, not two... anyway). We share these values and the belief in love everlasting, the fairy tale she calls it and in this I do believe there is hope. I do believe we can achieve what I've always thought to be impossible.
Its not even so much that I believe in her, or that I believe in me, being humans as we are, its that I believe in us. I believe that we together can conquer time and ultimately evil... I say time because that motherfucker overtakes everything, but can't love live outside of timing and if so can't our love exist long after we do? I think so. I say evil because my doubts, my lack of self-effication (spelling?), is routed in our own universal fear of success. I think that in being with shannon I confront my own fears of being a quality man: in essence I am given the opportunity to prove my selfdoubt wrong...
I am the weak but I am also the strong... its as universal as everything... and yet so important to remember. Too often I think I am showing out how strong to protect my weaknesses and all too often I am pretending to be weak, afraid to make a move, when I am strong.
There is something to this in that I think that we must make them think we are weak when we are strong and strong when we are weak, but we must also act in a manner so as to capitalize in all situations...

I doubt I will have any nightmares tonight.

a bad dream has a way of working into our daily psychosis... especially when the dream deals not in death or irrational fears but rather in deception, lies, and people close to you. don't we all believe somewhere that everything around us could crack in a couple of moments? Or maybe its just me and I don't have enough faith to totally block out the memory of one bad dream coupled with another...
I've always thought dreams were random images running through our mind that we may somehow distort into an actual, meaningful, psuedoreflection of our lives. Or rather not so much our lives but our mental developement... I also believe in lucid dreaming and our ability to play out dramas in our heads as we sleep...
last night was not lucid dreaming it was just a succession of terrible dreams wherein I had no control and everyone was either out to get me or nothing like i wanted them to be... open holes, time spent away, fear, doubt, lack of faith is what I am talking about really; I don't know if I really do believe in anything concretly, most often I see percentages of truth... and I wish I wasn't so good at guessing sometimes, or so imaginative others.

Ultimately I don't know what faith I have or what I believe in... maybe its nothing? that might be the saddest truth.
jdon

oh yeah, I just spent 400$ on a puppy for my girlfriend, great idea, great... I mean phenominal... 400$ and she won't clean up after it... wonderful... I am the smartest man alive...
jdon

bad beat of the millenium?

I just lost 1411.75 to eastern michigan. I thought my A-K could stand up and I would walk through another year. They laid down Aces in the hole... fourteen fucking hundred dollars. I now have 50 in the bank account and some 360 or so owed to me... plus another 260... I guess it ain't all that bad, but not I've got to collect and I hate collecting... oh yeah, I have 28.25 in my pocket and some change in a piggy bank back home... I owe 800$ in rent alone... looks like a great time to quit my job, oh wait I already did that...

its almost so unbelievable that its funny...
back to the drawing board.
lets hope seattle covers this weekend,
jdon

I embrace yall with napalm...

you know what I love about my girl ? She'll believe in my indiscretions: poker player she's already became. I love it.

I want to be the bonnie and clyde of hold'em

My 145$ hand...

so I am about an hour and a half in at the greektown casino tonight and two spots to the right of the blind. the bet is 15$ to me, I have one forty five in front of me (up 45 so far), I have king ten suited, I call. To the left of me folds, little blind raises to thirty, big matches, others fold to me. I call.
flop comes 10-7-4 and nothing. they check I hesitate, I think, I contemplate going all in, I know I have to bet, but how much? I bet fifty knowing that if they match I must fold, first guy raises fifty, big blind folds... I raise my final fifteen (15) dollars. He sets down A-10.
fuck. I just couldn't save the other 65.
Oh I had my reasons, but I knew the odds were against me. I should have thought of it as 45 up to 35 down but all I could see was my eighty in the middle and the other buck fifty around it.

I won't be playing at home anymore though, thats for sure. The one hundred dollar buy in 1-2 has money written all over it... If, I can learn to show some discipline.

does the rise in national IQ, or at least information consumed, also increase the amount of stupidity? Or rather, as some of us are getting smarter (us elitist) are we judgeing the ignorant a little too harshly?
I've always said the uninterested are the unliving... but maybe they are just being man...

music saves. Isn't that what we used to say? I can't remember the last time I thought of a song as the end all be all... or am I lieing again? Everytime I drive down the road I get into this song or another. Everytime.
The kids in my class, they call it punk. They speak of Minor threat, the buzzcocks, the germs, nirvana, ah nirvana. I remember when kurdt was all that mattered.... don't you?

the kids said I sold out, I tried to explain that I just grew up but I only bolstered their argument... so punk rock I almost got a tear in my eye.

you read it all, you get to the bottom line, and still it doesn't make sense... throwing things makes a lot more sense if you take reason out of the equation... while you're taking reason out you might as well remove probability. what is probability anyway? nothing more than a chance if you ask me... nothing more than a chance if you ask me... punctuation matters... I haven't listened to another person recite poetry in well over a couple years... far to long, far to abstract... I read my poetry to people all the time, they just think I am kidding or don't know what to say... but when i talk, when I lead, its amazing they listen... I am a leader... I'd like to say I never asked to be, but I always have... I'm high on sleeptime medicine. I don't care. I wish I were high on drugs, but really I don't. I am in love... first time in a long time.... its not like any other time. The first time is the best time, because you don't know any better... for some reason you think your love is special, no one has ever felt your feelings.. then you get older, she cheats on you, and you movc on... then love is timely: a little bit of her, a little bit of this, some sweet sex, nothign more... then someone comes out of nowhere and you really are in love, you want to say again, but this isn't again, this isn't anew, this is a whole nother complete emotion in and of itself... this is the love of ages, the love that actually has a chance... I want to buy rings and name children... someday... I want to give it my all. I do give it my all... I'm jealous, sad, insecure, at times... I don't mind in the long run, you've got to overcome to grow... you've got to grow... when was the last time I listened to someone read their poetry? stand in front of the room and tell me what you really think, bear your heart to me... please... I'm happy, steadfast, and secure most times... I just feel so content... contention the word itself can set you free while the chains are shackled on... shackles shackles shackles just who doesn't own me these days? bought and sold daily by the news I choose to read, the albums I listen to, the material I teach, the car I drive DAMN THE COMMERCIAL REVOLUTION! but it will never go away, this is it, this is mass media... I need sleep and a little less flu....
I need sleep and a little more you...
I love you guys even as my head hits pillow...
pen used to hit paper now I tick tack type... kerouac

I'll take the firmest path...
oh, and I must refuse your test
A-push me and I will resist...
this behavior's not unique
I don't want to hear from those who know...
They can buy, but can't put on my clothes...
I don't want to limp for them to walk...
Never would have known of me before...
I don't want to be held in your debt...
And I'll pay it off in blood, let I be wed...
I'm already cut up and half dead...
I'll end up alone like I began...


I should post more lyrics here; often others words are in my head in place of my own.

I say I'm back and I really want to post, but what the fuck do I really have to say? my life sucks, I work 6 days a week (doubles on friday, and tuesday this week), I am failing my only two classes, and and and blah blah blah... I could go on and on crying, but what is the point? my life is where it is. You know what would be different if I quit my banquets job just to focus on teaching and school. Really, total it all up, make a list of pros and cons, and you know what would be different? nothing, absofuckinglutely nothing at all...
I say I'm working towards repaying my debt but all I do is incure new debts.
I say I need the money to survive, but I really don't...
imagine sleeping in on saturdays, watchign michigan with my friends, relaxing saturday night only to sleep in again on sunday. Why the fuck wouldn't I want to do that?
I hate my self for not quitting work. I hate my self for being a slave to the machine and yet here I sit knowing full well where I should be, tired, waiting for my girlfriend to get back from the bar, at least she knows how to enjoy life... I am a depressing old man sometimes. It disgust me. So there I typed, I told the truth, but who didn't know that already?

it can't make much sense to be in love after a mere three months... but then again love has always been nonsensical, that is what we all love/hate about it.




I guess I'll be back posting again, soon... I've been through some good times and some sad times the last month or so; I still work too much, I still sleep too little, and I STILL such at doing homework, I just don't have the dedication. However, I am growing and learning and all that bullshit. And everytime I don't quit everything I guess I succeed at something else: some intangible dedication to success in some form... or whatever...

so long since I've written; so long since I've cared.
I'll be moving again this week. All I do is move. I'm kind of cheating because in college you have to move out for two weeks every year, but I have not spent 12 straight months in the same place for almost 10 years. Can you imagine? moving every year, most times multiple moves. No wonder I have no sense of home/homestead...
I haven't been home this month anyway, I stay at my girlfriends every night. I like it there, I should move there, but we'll take this step by step; you can't exactly start living with someone after a meer two months. OR can you?
I think I could, hell I think I should, but I won't... and its the right decision.
Cages my friends, cages. You can move from one to another but you'll never be free. not me at least... hell, by todays definition we're all rats. I've always like man is born free and everywhere he is in chains. We just choose the chains, but we've known this for so long... trappings, chains, whatever...
I'd like to write more but I don't know what to say.
I do know that I was giving a student shit today for missing four days last week. Giving her shit until she broke down and told me about her abortion last week... ok, well you can have four days off for an abortion. Poor girl, and me the asshole...
jdon

Lock all the doors and kill the lights.
No one's coming home tonight.
Sun beats down and don't you know?
All our lives are growing cold, oh...

They bring news that must get through.
To build a dream for me and you, oh.

Locked in a place where no one goes.

It's getting colder
It's getting colder
It's getting colder
It's getting colder
It's getting colder
It's getting colder
It's getting colder



Locked in a place where no one goes.



Lock the door, kill the light
No one's coming home tonight
They bring news that must get through.
Dying peace in me and you

Locked in a place where no one goes.

We have no quarter
We have no quarter
We ask no quarter

- Tool's version of No quarter
and what I rocked on last night, driving to dans, dark out, me and the music, the drums, the bass, the guitar, the fucking lead, pulsing through my soul... its getting colder... I felt lost and reborn in the midst of a ten-minute song. And that is why they are the best band ever. No doubt.

What do you say to the girl with cuts on her arms? I mean, I want to walk over and open a conversation, see if she is alright, but I really don't know what to say. And its not like I am intimidated or unwilling to talk about but rather that I really don't know what to say...

All to often we forget how much damage can be derived from simple advice: how easy it is for a child to feel chastised, ostracized, and to pull further away... So much harm can be done by assuming that we know what to say. At least I know that, but I really wish I was trained better... so for now i'll just keep my mouth shut and wait for her to open hers.