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November 17th, 2009
12:50 am
This entry is a bit indulgent, perhaps more than usual. Read at your own risk of boredom.
( voila )
Current Music: placebo- you don't care about us
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October 22nd, 2009
11:24 pm - rambling
It's getting harder to see myself in a place like Flagstaff, and in my warped mind, Flag is about the best that the West has to offer. So, it's getting harder to envision a Western life. I may get the chance to stop by old Lumbertown if I go to Prescott for Christmas. Then I can really ponder that former world's continuing relevance to me.
More and more, it's all about a town like New York, or maybe even right here. There is something missing from both places. The mountains and what not. The space to breathe. And living for more than just an influential career and fashionable lifestyle (or the second-rate table scraps of both). But somehow those missing pieces don't matter so much. For now. What matters is the kind of comfort found in concrete and night light, an unstoppable sort of culture, and the sense of being somewhere that really is somewhere.
I've long heard rumors of city rats, and today I saw one for the first time. Improbably, it was here in the suburbs, at the clean, breezy entrance to a train station. Just a baby. Ugly and cute.
Actually, this unseasonably mild spell is bringing all manner of nature programming. My room is full of fruit flies. I found two grasshoppers in here, including one in my bathtub that I drowned, or so I thought. I discarded the remains three days later, and it was still alive. Yes, I went three days without being in my shower. I do that sort of thing. I clean my hairy armpits daily, though. Because you wanted to know.
Arizona may not have given me a home to come back to, but it is a hell of a place to be from. It is a strange and terrible, beautiful land, and there is a strange and terrible beauty in my being. It will always set me apart and make the simplest things that much richer.
So yeah, I'm not in such a bad place. So often I've longed to escape wherever I was, and worried that I was stuck there. These days I long to stay in this zone, and worry that I'm not planted firmly.
On the other hand, I somewhat dislike many of the people I know (for reasons that might be almost opposite of what you'd expect), and I live far away from most of the people I like. That is the one monkey wrench. Kind of a big one, really.
And that mountain climate. Funky town or not, to be back among those pines, those peaks, those hard dry rocks, that silence, etc., it would be a bit like rising from the dead, like waking from a long nightmare.
contradictions all over
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October 19th, 2009
05:27 am
I think I've gotten too old for nostalgia. I don't quite remember what to miss. It's all so many layers that there's no use breaking it down. At 27, I finally spend most of my time in-the-moment, if only because the-moment is so damned hectic. But it's just as well. I guess despair ends when it's simply too exhausting. Who knew?
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October 14th, 2009
08:36 pm - great American turning point
The family dog has died. She lived twelve golden years. I loved her more than I love many people.
I spent the long weekend in Chicago, where my bro and s-i-l attend school. It was my first visit to the place, and it was epic, as epic as the New World's highest skyline. A chilly air mass preceded my arrival, setting leaves aflame and moving my feet through all of these and more:
hot Szechuan dining;
slickness on the open mic;
a perch aside endless water;
a punk rock show in a faded theater, no less grand for the wear.
I slept and woke in the President's old 'hood, and imprinted the soil of his old school (professorship), said to be more Ivy League than the League itself. Ivy aplenty on the fabled grounds of a younger brother's dreams.
Here I am at Congress Theater for RiotFest feat. Alkaline Trio. Then there is Joe and the sublimity at his doorstep.
It was there in the heartland that we both learned of losing a creature of uncommon grace. She will be greatly missed.
Current Music: alkaline trio- help me
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September 26th, 2009
11:47 pm - muse coming back?
Hereafter (unfinished)
It's a story of streets without lights and cities without skylines
It's a story of those who will only talk to you when you're far away
It's a story of bad luck on the bad side of the backwater towns
It's a story of faith and I'm burning every page
It's a story of freedom without meaning and it's not gonna change
It's a story of home and it's falling through the grates
Rise up in the dark to the sharp alarm, every day
Rise up and forget all the haunting storms, dress up in gray
(listen on my music page)
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September 19th, 2009
09:38 pm - my people
I have a couple of college friends in DC. But they were really just memorable acquaintances before we coincided here and their familiarity became a major asset. In most ways, they still are just memorable acquaintances. My sole strong connection in moving was, and still is, Brian. To be fair, that's an important one; he is my brother. More than a lot of people have when they move. But at some point it gets a little ridiculous. The only place where I have more than one or two people is Phoenix. I don't want to live in Phoenix.
This is life.
If the above sounds ridiculous, it's partly because I'm defining a true connection very narrowly. Someone who is really, unequivocally a part of my life, with a long continuous history and a current rapport. By my count, this includes my immediate family; maybe some relatives*; and about ten friends, give or take a few. Not a lot of people. About half live in Phoenix, and the rest are very scattered.
Then sometimes I wonder, how close am I to anyone, really? Maybe it doesn't really matter that I'm alone, if it's somewhere I like, and I do like the east coast sometimes.
*Relatives play a weird role, much like in-laws. They are fixtures, even though you may not know them all that well.
Current Music: alkaline trio-calling all skeletons
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September 17th, 2009
06:09 am
Pushing myself out the door to work in pre-dawn rain, after rising far too early to get in some homework, and I will have to squeeze in some more quickly after work and before class. Likely more rain through all of that.
Money screws me and I'm working hard to screw it back. All of this is for a reason, so many reasons. Things are slightly crazy (average really, but I'm inefficient), precisely because I want them to be even crazier down the road. I want to live in some fucking excitement, and not spend my whole life half-asleep. So I guess, in a sense, I'm already there.
Just had to write down this gorgeous thought.
Current Music: splash turn twist
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September 10th, 2009
10:43 pm
Capitalism is no longer the religion it was just a few short years ago. If it keeps your faith, you're certainly not alone and I can't blame you for holding to a long-proud school of thought. Me, though, I've always been a bit skeptical of the free market, and I think public opinion is now swinging more my way, mostly due to disappointment with the economy.
It's stranger than that, really, because I'm love-hate with any kind of large organization, and the government certainly fits that description. A contradiction of mine, right there.
I've learned what I needed to from working downtown. It's a good job and I'll probably be there for a long while yet, but downtown seems mild and not wild. I see myself more in the edge streets, living Bohemian while somehow getting a steady check. Yeah, keep laughing.
Current Music: motorhead- god was never on your side
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September 6th, 2009
01:15 am
There's a wish to define what one is after. What is the It that drives us? I find it's not food, it's not scenery, not comfort, not money, not popularity, perhaps not even love. It remains eluded. Like that infamous sunglass-wearing lover of Africa, I still haven't found what I'm looking for. Not that I'm complaining. To be lost, and yet active, is a privilege beyond imagining.
Current Music: death cab- crooked teeth
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August 23rd, 2009
02:31 pm - quiet
After a busy couple of weeks, two days of peace and quiet. So quiet. Cooler air, open windows, soft sounds: cicadas and ceiling fan. Ah yeah...
Current Mood: relaxed
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August 20th, 2009
08:17 pm - drama
Economy drama. Health care drama. Badger drama... or am I alone in that one? The seas are rising, habitats are moving or vanishing, and everybody's getting fat. Yeah, you've heard it all, but what haven't you heard? You haven't heard the last of Mama, is what.
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August 8th, 2009
10:07 pm - how it is
I think I'll stop importing my posts to Facebook. It just causes confusion and unwanted attention, and in effect discourages me from writing on here. We'll see if I can handle the extreme quiet of LJ.
Might have witnessed the Obama-copter the other day. I was down in all the scenic stuff because I have a visitor in town. We were at that big white pole. The helicopter flew over and landed on the South Lawn. If not Prezzy-pants, then it was definitely his family or some other big shots.
Living is day-to-day, but then that's how it is for all of you, huh? I'm getting the old ducks in a row, but I still tell myself that it's not enough, and I even have others tell me subtly that I really should be doing more.
I'm pretty tough these days. Not so sure that's a good thing. Makes me too numb. I'd almost rather have more lows so that I could have highs as well. I know, be careful what you wish for, right?
The only kind of low I get is anger, and that's only sort of a feeling. Getting mad, as emotional as it may seem, is really quite logical. There's a lot to get mad about. Whereas it takes hormone-induced stupidity to get happy or sad. Where can I get some stupid?
It's the kind of green, sleepy firefly summer that a normal soul would find both happy and sad. I had a nice crab feast in the neighbors' yard tonight.
Current Music: dmb- 2 step
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July 26th, 2009
08:00 pm - for the LiveJournal crowd
New stuff: I'm 27 and I'm employed; it's the job I previously described being screened for. It's good. It's the middle of summer and the figs in our yard are ripening. (I know what you're thinking: figs? But the fresh fruits are way better and in fact totally different from those ill-conceived 'Newtons.') I'm somewhat hot and glad to start the downward slope into Fall.
It's been eighteen months out here, and I still don't entirely know why I came or whether it's worth it, but I can't envision anything else right now, and it keeps getting better, so, yeah, whatever you take from that. Craziest run-on sentence ever? Oddly enough, I've kind of forgotten what it's like not to be here. That's not necessarily a good thing; some part of me wants to be reminded.
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July 11th, 2009
12:29 am - Forgetting the Truffle
Young Dragoslav slipped over sea and memory and landed at Liberty, with stars in his eyes and shoes in his business plan. Met a grandmother on Greyhound to Milwaukee. Saw the kindness in her and they married by fall.
A castle starts with its foundation, and an American hero with a sturdy sole.
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June 19th, 2009
10:49 pm - desperate times/measures
I'm supposedly employed, but I haven't started, so it's not really helping me yet. I got interviewed for another job, and it went well enough, but the half-life on an offer is infinitely approaching no.
My school term ends next week. It's gonna be intense.
My mom's coming in later in the week. Always nice to see Mom.
I get so tired. I do all I can (who doesn't?) and where does it get me? I guess a person just laughs. Like you laugh sometimes if you trip and fall hard. Yeah, I just threw you a physical fact and metaphor, all at once. It's alright to fawn over me. I know you've never met such a wordsmith.
Interviewed some big shots for a class assignment. I can't even talk about it. Turns out that in my ambition, I missed the one requirement, that the interviewee be someone who actually manages people. So I called my uncle who is a successful entrepreneur, not to mention a fun guy. We had an interesting chat about management matters, and it should make for a good paper.
I applied to volunteer on weekends with detail/data matters at the main DC library. I know, another thing to stress on? Why? Well, there's something about getting out of the house, especially to the city, as much as possible for a purpose that's all my own. The library is cleaner than my room will ever be; it seems like a good place to catch some serenity. Not to mention the inherent upsides of volunteering.
Grading is not flattering me at the moment. Far from failing, but not nearly as far as I should be. Especially considering how many of my most ideal goals are GPA-dependent. I guess I can make a decent finish and hope for better in future classes.
Factors are just the amount of distracting matters to attend to, the sheer speed of summer classes, and the sheer workload of web classes. And weird little issues in web classes, like an exam that was supposed to be closed-book "because you won't have time to refer to the book." I followed the rules and kept the book closed, and I finished with plenty of time to spare, and I ended up feeling like a tool because I could have done much better with the book, which I certainly did have time to refer to. But would it be against the rules? How to know? How to ask?
Finally, I'm just not used to school anymore. Having to get re-acclimated.
Current Music: knight owl "I rock the gansta shit"
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June 11th, 2009
08:31 am - same but not
In Flagstaff the summers were Zen time. The students mostly went home, whether they wanted to or not. Those of us who remained had some very relaxed party time in between our nominal purposes. Plus, you know, still licking our wounds from the Pho, we were like, what good is summer anyway? At least it felt a bit like winter on those 40-50 degree starry nights.
Whereas here in Cityland, people may laugh and breathe more when summer comes, but the pace is faster if anything. You realize just how many damn people there are, when they're all outside. The warmth is welcomed with open arms, seeing as how there was never any Phoenix to come from (or escape to). And warm it is, day and night.
And you know what, it works. Took some getting used to, though. Last year was baptism by fire. This year it's just fire.
I've got the hubris to say next fall ('10), or soon after, I want to start grad school. I should be (barely) done with my current studies by then. It could be one of a couple pursuits. I figure I'll apply for both, and decide based on response.
All considered, there's one more year, at least, in this town. Time to act like I have a good long year, not like one foot's out the door.
Current Music: matt nathanson- car crash
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June 8th, 2009
10:16 am - Waking Up
I have a job waiting in downtown Washington. They're checking my background right now. I start as soon as they're done. It's fairly important (not so much what I'll do as who I'll be working for), and even kind of secretive. So I'll be all mysterious now. It's temporary, but long-term, with much promotion potential.
I had lined up an interview to be a stock broker trainee on Long Island, but I came to realize that I couldn't cut it without relocation money, and they were not into that. So, interview cancelled.
I did get excited about New York. Maybe it's in the cards one of these days. The selling point for Washington is always its economic stability. But I realized that regardless of its economy at any given time, the sheer size of New York means there are always plenty of opportunities to look into. The job boards there are so ridiculously full, that one never has to wait long for something new to pop up.
Schoolwork is keeping me reasonably busy. Today is going to be non-stop.
Clearly I'm not so bored anymore.
Current Music: analog jetpack- what say we?
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June 5th, 2009
11:21 pm - RIP LiveJournal?
Just stating the obvious, and marveling at it:
It seems like the recent drop-off on this site (and blog sites in general) is astounding and unprecedented, and I'm pretty sure it's mainly due to the inexplicable sudden mainstream adoption of Facebook. I know that's the main reason in my case. Which is weird because I've been on Facebook all along, but with all these new users it's a completely different, much more addictive phenomenon.
Perhaps the more interesting phenomenon is the overall way that the social Internet has gone mainstream. It opens up a whole new world for the new users, of course, but what people might not realize is just how much it has changed things for the long-time users.
For the longest time, this was a frontier land of rebels, freaks and geeks, and it was accepted and even encouraged for users to be as weird and shocking as possible. I mean, you knew that others were watching, but you also knew that there was generally an inverse correlation between the time they spent looking and the severity of their disapproval.
Plus, of course, you didn't entirely care. It was a different time for the early online generations. We had fewer responsibilities and didn't really have to pay mind to what people thought. Now we're growing up and we do kinda have(/want?) to care, and we're reminded of that every time we log on to Fbook and see our Grandma (okay, not just yet). Not that our elders' eyes are the reason why we watch ourselves, but rather that seeing their posts is a constant reminder that our whole world has changed, for good, bad or whatever.
/I don't even know what I'm saying. It's been an eventful couple of weeks and my brain's scattered all over your breakfast plate. Goodnight.
Current Music: Pandora
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May 17th, 2009
11:29 pm - The state of things
It's pretty much summer here.
I start web classes in a week, through the community college. I'm going to become an accountant. That means I'll be living here for a good while, as it should take at least a year, and it won't all be online.
It feels good to be doing something smart for my future. I mean, anything you do is a gamble, but this seems like a good bet.
I have a feeling my job situation might improve (exist) this week. Couple of leads.
It's getting harder to imagine going back home. I do, however, want to reconnect with people in the somewhat near future. It gets to me not seeing all of you's.
Current Music: breaking point- all messed up
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May 14th, 2009
11:27 am - true-ish
Kilts above old stones with swords out, an old cliche and archetype. Professor broke it down. Finals tomorrow so we humored him.
Mom waited in my room, packing my trinkets for home, and probably reminiscing, as they do.
Ah summer. Bittersweet sounds on my speakers
...to live and die in the heart of America, where they sell souls...
Leap year meant politics up to frenzy level as election waited, and nothing like being young to make you say hey, I'll jump right in and fight.
Government was all passion though. The dark intrigue was reserved for love and sex and everything between. Dorm life like Amsterdam except no one was old or truly employed. All soap opera all the time.
Freedom just one of many beloved F words.
To be (almost) middle-class and grow up slow. Some only dream of it, and they may be better off.
On a less arty note, check out my US experience. There's a definite trend.
visited 21 states (42%)
Create your own visited map of The United States or Best time to visit Kowloon
Current Music: billy talent- fallen leaves
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