embrace me, erase me...

Do I deserve everything that has happened to me? The more I try to change my life and make things better, the worse off I get. Unemployed for 3 and a half weeks now. Can't find a job. Burned all my bridges that would've allowed me to have a new job by now. No one will want to hire me and take a chance. Why is my personality so conflicting with everyone else I know? Why is it that I can't get along with people? Working on my last paper. Midway through. The end is in sight, yet I still feel some giant hurdles in front of me. My friendships are shabby and unstable. It's all one-sided from them, as I struggle to keep my part of that deal. Lost so many friends and loved ones. Emily is gone, as is Elisha. Laura dumped me as did Jessica. I got rid of Katie, Elisha and Nathalie. Now, all I can think about is what if I made the wrong choices? I'm so alone right now. I have two great girls who care about me a lot. They tell me i'm never by myself. I'm afraid i'll push them away; or worse, they'll see how little I care about myself and realize that i'll never be able to give them the love back that they have given for me. They give so much of themselves. So does Chris, Charlie and Brandon. I've neglected that. I won't realize what I had until it's gone. It's not far off. I can see the end now. It's not like the fairytale dreams and fantasies you hear about when you're a kid or read about in some book. The end is some poor misbegotten soul who got lost on his trip to the grocery store. It's an everyman, Joe Somebody who doesn't understand that redemption is a telephone call away. Ask for help. I don't know how to ask. I had some dime store priest offer me Jesus as my savior in the parking lot of Kroger's today, with his little girl asking me to pray with her. Even at my nadir, I couldn't muster enough courage or strength to save my own soul...i'm an everyman who has failed...and miserably at that. Rock bottom is approaching.

ripples

I don't deal with death well. Normally, I recede into some closed off spot from the world and console myself (maybe for years at a time). Recently, I had to deal with another death. However, the circumstances were a bit precarious. A guy I used to work with died suddenly just hours after I saw him at work. He left behind three children and a lot of loving friends. For some reason this impacted me because I have been dealing with some thoughts that maybe he was going through just moments before he died. He must've had thought the world didn't care about him enough to keep on living. It deeply saddens me to think about that. My housemate told me I shouldn't think about the "what if's", but what if I would've just let him into the bar after close to say goodbye to everyone? What if that would've been enough for him not to hurt himself and take his own life? What if I would've just talked to him more? He always said hi to me. If anything, what can his death me to me and others? I guess it means I shouldn't take life for granted. What if there wasn't a tomorrow? What if this was it? Would I live like I always have been? Would I sleep in and continue my slovenly lifestyle or get up and grasp the world in my palms? R.I.P. N.A.B. I'm sorry if I or nobody was there for you in your darkest hour. God grant you the peace you need in your next life. I can't write anymore about this...

I am colorblind
Coffee black and egg white
Pull me out from inside
I am ready (repeat 3 times)
I am taffy stuck and tongue tied
Stutter shook and uptight
Pull me out from inside
I am ready (repeat 3 times)
I am fine
I am covered in skin
No one gets to come in
Pull me out from inside
I am folded and unfolded and unfolding
I am colorblind
Coffee black and egg white
Pull me out from inside
I am ready (repeat 3 times)
I am fine (repeat 3 times)

Counting Crows "Colorblind"

I am no one significant. I've lived a pretty typical existence. In one sense i've accomplished enough in this lifetime to rival others' lives. But, there is a giant gap to living a fulfilling life in which i'm stuck. I am in Socrates' cave...alone and unable to see the light. For the past ten years i've been taking one step forward and two steps back. I climb to the ledge of a tall hole and someone keeps knocking me back to the bottom. I lack in love. I lack the breadth to understand love and her intracacies. I see other people happy and feel even more desolate. Tomorrow is a new day, but noon is my crack. The joke is in the writing. Am I the butt of it?

an ending without a beginning (a poem)

hear the heartbeat of the forest
its magic grace a dalliance of time
a wanderer forgets his place
a serpent finds its foe

no more a stranger to pride and lust
a mortal man seeks solace in the follies of life
whence he came he knoweth not
yet bounds into the endless dreds of hope

he repents his sins yet yearneth for more
eden closes her doors to this mark-ed solider of fortune
telleth the moon to her moor
'ye cannot enter heaven on the wings of a dove'

be not still ye child of Jove
fate loves a wicked game of chance
but a better man will come still
and he will know the tribulations once more

how shalt ye feel when thy time come
ye must choose faith over fortune
love over fame; a tyrannt ye cannot be
for the worthy only enter heaven

close thine eyes and move your soul
create a rift between hand and heart
a woman's embrace is soon to come
there is yet hope.

sleep is among thee. It is too soon.
run fleck-ed observer to the forest.
be it now the sun chooses to shut her eyes
to thine misery and misdeeds.

S.W.
6/11/07

starting over...

i haven't written in awhile so I thought I would catch up those who read this with a little update. I've moved into a new house. I moved out of my parents house about a week and a half ago. Things are going alright but i've already pissed off my new housemate so much that she already threatened to kick me out of the house. That's just like me...to screw up a good situation. Anyways, I hope everyone's doing alright. I don't have a lot of time to write now so i'll catch up very soon.

One Can wonder...

I'm at Maxwell's (a block from UT) at 11:59 EDT April 3, 2007. The shop closes in half an hour. When I got here I immediately noticed the counter girl, Allison. Every time I come here I look forward to talking to her and her ringing me up. I would come up here bfast, lunch and dinner if she was here for every meal. haha, that's a bit overdramatic but I think she's a really pretty girl and we have decent conversations in the minute and a half we actually get to talk. Here's my problem (this is a reoccuring problem, unfortunately): I don't know how to get to know girls (to KNOW them) beyond casual conversation. I am terrible at knowing the signal. I know i've gotten the signal from many different girls before because I have been told by different girls that they gave me the signal. So, i'm just wondering how many girls have actually been interested in me...enough to want to get to know me just outside of friendship or casual conversation (hence the title of this post). What should my next move be? I want to seem casual to her and any girl I like because I don't want to be too clingy or obvious but how do I do that? I think I invited her to the bar I work at (the Distillery) a few times but I have yet to see her there. I can tell she's busy and works here a lot. Most of the time when i'm here, she's here at night...so, that would be hard for her to be here (Maxwell's) and then go to the Distillery.
I felt bad when I first got here today because I totally forgot her name. She remembered my name. Does this mean something? I haven't talked to her or seen her for a month. I've probably talked to her maybe three or four times. She wouldn't think i'm cute, would she? I probably won't take this or any other meetings to the next step. Maybe this is why I'm single and have had only a few relationships longer than a month. I back away from intimacy at all its levels often because i'm a little too frightened of getting rejected. Maybe i'm just a little bitch, to be perfectly honest. What else can I say?
Well, I tend to go for the ones that are out of my league; Or, even worse, I like the ones who have boyfriends. What's gotten to be a trend lately is that I settle for the very first girl who even shows a slight bit of interest in me. I use that girl as my crutch while I pine for a girl that only thinks of me as a friend (if they get to know me). When I first started dating I used to be very particular and move very slowly with the girls I was dating. However, since I haven't dated someone I really, truly care about in a long time I move way too fast with a person I don't even have those kind of feelings for (I apologize if this sentence or two hurts anyone in particular who reads this). The league of girls I have dated has changed a lot too. It's actually kind of sad to think or even talk about. I used to date some pretty hot girls (if I do say so myself). However, recently, like I've said, i've been settling for someone who I only think is cute (but only in that friendship kind of way). First, there was Nathalie, who was just kind of average. But, after high school I dated Jessica twice, whom was ridiculously hot (and still is), but she dumped me twice. Then there was Cassie, very cute, whom I hurt when I cheated on her and then we broke up. Then there was Katie , also pretty cute (until recently when she lost a ton of weight and is pretty ridiculously hot) who I broke up with and then tried to get back together with. After Katie there was Bevin whom is pretty cute, but we broke up a month in. Since then, I've just dated around and not really found someone whom makes me feel special and complete. Of course there's Ashley H., but I've told her how I feel (a triumph) and I think she'll only ever think of me as a good friend.
I know there's someone out there for me...and some day i'll look back on all these notes and thoughts and think how naive I was. I'll probably be pretty happy with someone I truly care about. What will be even more impressive is that i'll probably take that chance to get to know her (that I was talking about) and she'll like me. Are you out there?

National Championship Night...Sans Moi

You'd find this to be blatantly evident, but most self-proclaimed sports nuts might actually want to watch the NCAA Men's Basketball Tourney Final tonight. However, I'm one sports nut who actually could care less. I'm the odd type of sports nut. I go on these binges where I have to watch every and all sporting event and then other times I care could less such as tonight (and throughout most of the tourney). I probably watched a combined half hour of the tourney this year. Other years...when my teams (Duke, my school [Miami]) are in the tourney longer, I probably would be glued to the TV set. This year seemed different. I've had a lot on my mind lately and that has distracted me from...well...being me. I have these last five papers to complete and become a college graduate. This comes after my victory lap in college. My two teachers from fall of senior year will finally be saying "hallelujah". Yes...I said senior year. Two of my papers are still outstanding from Fall of Senior Year. You think you have a lot on your mind? Try living with that in the back of your mind every time you want to have a good time or go out and have a beer. For those of you reading (and i'm assuming there's probably only one person at this point [Elisha]) the stream-of-consciousness will likely be a theme for the rest (however many that may be) of the posts. Anyways, i'm working on the 2nd (and tomorrow night, the 3rd) paper for the current english class i'm taking. Yes, i'm doing exactly (well, not exactly, but close) the same thing I did senior and part of junior year at miami. I give in too easily and give up on these papers so that eventually I turn them in really late. I'm not even sure how my teachers still have the patience and altruism to forgive their lateness but they have so far. I know that this type of behavior cannot continue after I graduate. This is not something I want to continue when I have a deadline at work or bills to pay. Maybe that is why i'm dedicating this last month before my victory lap finally ends to getting my procrastination and life back in order before I go into the real world. I've tried, rather unsuccessfully, the last few weeks to quit drinking altogether until I graduate. As well, i've tried to give up any and all vices diminishing the strides i've made. We'll see how this month goes...

First Posting

I have a journal at home (actually 2, but I'm only using 1 currently...and very infrequently, at that), but I thought that getting my comments online would be an interesting way for people who don't really know who I am or what I am about to get to know me better. I'm not saying that i'll even update this thing...especially with the amount of work I have left with school and that I don't have that full-time job thing that most (not all) soon-to-be college graduates want. I'm not even sure what i'll say in this blog or what I want to say. I think the title is thus very appropriate. "A Work in Progress" - this should be the title to my life. I'm a rough mold, DaVinci's ball of clay...ready to be formed by some magnificent hands. But, before I go any further I should say that I got the idea for an online journal (blog, zine, whatever it is you bloggers call it) from two people recently. The first uses this site also, so it's only a matter of time before she reads it. She uses anonymity for her names but I prefer to be totally blunt (and honest) unless she has an objection to it. Her name is Elisha. I met Elisha roughly two months ago and she is a lot like me...in many ways...some good; some bad, but all equally interesting. I'm sure I'll have plenty more to say about her in later posts, but for now i'll stick to formalities and only the essentials. The second person was my good friend Charlie. Actually, if we're being technical, it was Charlie's brother, Kevin. The funny thing about Kevin is that he doesn't even live in my area. In fact he's living in Minnesota with his wife while i'm still in Toledo, OH with my family. Charlie was showing me photos of Kevin's recent nuptials online and then he wanted to show me pictures or something else about Kevin online. We went to Kevin's online blog and I was actually entriqued by how many posts he had and what he had to say. He talked about his new home, his new wife, and the newness of his transition to Minnesota. He also talked about movies and other things of interest to me. So...after that and reading some of Elisha's posts together with her, I decided to get my own blog (whether this stays updated [or not]). I just realized that I haven't started any new paragraphs so this is like one giant stream-of-thought. For my next posting i'll try and make these more grammatically and syntactically correct. If you couldn't tell by now, btw, I am an English Major at Miami University. Or, more correctly put, I am an English Literature graduating from Miami this May currently taking 2 classes at the University of Toledo (but you wouldn't know the latter half of that statement unless you knew me personally or I hadn't lied to you).
Before I forget also, there is one other important reason why I decided to get an online blog. I realized that there's a lot going on in my life that needs to be out in the open. I used to think that writing in an online journal was kind of a paradox (and weird) because people usually write in journals because they want to write down all their personal thoughts and relieve the anxiety floating in their heads...so, why would they make all these personal thoughts (intimate details) public? However, I realize that sometimes we want to connect with other people who feel like we do. Why do we do it? Comfort? Friendship? Understanding? I'm not sure but for some odd reason I feel like if I keep writing and reveal any and all complicated or sordid details someone in fact may have gone through the same thing and sympathize with me. I forgot what else I wanted to say. Oh well. So without much further ado, I present to you, the reader, a running commentary on my life. Criticize, critique, complement (a lot more 'C's) or just read and enjoy. Cheers!