New Home

I appreciate everyone who has followed this blog, and have enjoyed writing for it.

I am going to continue to blog, but not here. My new address is as follows:

http://skinandstones.tumblr.com/

Tumblr, combines the beauty of blogging alongside the following aspect of Twitter. I especially enjoy the way it allows me to post links/photos/videos with simple forms and that have the appearance I want from a blog.

I'm not asking you to switch, just showing you an alternative. I will still be following all of your blogs.

Cheers

Here's to half a semester gone. Here's to the fall before that. Here's to entirely too much group work and procrastinating papers. Here's to grades you expected to be higher and grades that are far greater than the amount of effort you put into them.

Here's to finding love for a new hobby. Here's to rediscovering old hobbies. Here's to self improvement, and getting healthy. Here's to keeping yourself sane for just another day.

Here's to finding love. Here's to coming to terms with losing love. Here's to best friends, family, and the one. Here's to everyday, better than the last.

Here's to far overdue. Here's to Friday nights. Here's to feeling young and being stupid. Here's to a city of lights and nights to be forgotten.

Here's to living.

Cheers.

Bite my tongue

I'm not immune to frustrations and anxiety. I recognize that in myself.

What I can't stand is the way it can affect my relationships. There are days when things seem to pile up from every direction and all I can do is slowly lose my mind. Certainly all these things are more manageable than I have made them out to be. Not to mention how if I didn't procrastinate, I wouldn't have this problem.

Certainly why it is happening is irrelevant, and I even accept that it is happening. Yet I despise how it emanates from me. I do not want lunches to be a chore due my ranting about "all the shit I have to do today". I do not want texts to friends to have a "Why are you asking me stupid questions every ten seconds," when they are perfectly reasonable questions, that any other day I would happily answer.

I'm still trying to figure this out. "This" being how to have emotions or anxiety or frustration, and not allow it to have an impact on faultless people. It is difficult. I want to be grumpy and not have to work at maintaining a civil conversation. I'd like to sulk and ignore the planet. In the long run, it will get easier. I won't need to battle my inner dialogue continuously.

To those who tolerate me on days like today: Thank you, and I'm sorry.

Well sometimes the sun shines on
Other people's houses and not mine.
Some days the clouds paint the sky all gray
And it takes away my summertime.
Somehow the sun keeps shining upon you,
While I struggle to get mine.
A little light never hurt nobody,
Send out your ray of sunshine.

Oh, if this little light of mine
Combined with yours today,
How many watts could we luminate?
How many villages could we save?
And my umbrella's tired of the weather,
Wearing me down.
Well, look at me now.

You should look as good as your outlook,
Would you mind if I took some time,
to soak up your light, your beautiful light?
You've got a paradise inside.
I get hungry for love and thirsty for life,
And much too full on the pain,
When I look to the sky to help me
And sometimes it looks like rain.

As the sun shines on other people's houses
And not mine,
And the sky paints those clouds in a way
That it takes away the summertime,
Somehow the sun keeps shining upon you,
while I kindly stand by.
If theres a light in everybody,
Send out your ray of sunshine 


Thanks Jason. That helped.

When did we get here?

When did all of this happen?

Why do we ask "what are we going to do tomorrow?" and not "what are we going to do today?"

When did we start making choices for their repercussions on the future? We're in a mindset that today is only as important as the impact it has on tomorrow. Yet there isn't any guarantee on tomorrow, just the moment we exist in now.

Why do we spend so much time working at things we don't care about? Why is there a constant effort to meet a goal that we never set in the first place? Why don't we drop everything and pursue the one thing that we all care about most?

Why am I so worried about what other people think? Why don't I dance when I feel the urge? Why don't I scream song lyrics out, regardless of the twenty people around me on the bike path? Why do people who are more stupid than I am, make me so frustrated?

Does this ever stop? Is there ever a day when I don't care what happens tomorrow, or what responsibilities are coming, and I can just enjoy the moment? Is there a day when we can just love, and not do a single thing besides that?

Does that day exist?

If it does, where the fuck is it?

Jumper

I wish you would step back from that ledge my friend,

you could cut ties with all the lies

that you've been living in

I feel great.

Part of it is physical. Working out, sleeping better, have a great appetite, more energy. These things are contributing to a happier me.

A lot of it is mental though. I don't care to be negative right now. Things are good. Sure life is busy, but the people I love are still around (albeit not as often as I may like.) There aren't always enough hours in the day, but there is the promise of tomorrow.

While I'm positive, not everyone is right now. A lot of my friends and loved ones are struggling with things that are pretty heavy. I wish I could take it away. 

It might be difficult to wake up each day and face the dawn. But let me shield your eyes until you can stand the light.

Can you put the past away?

Turn it Off

Break sucks.

Don't get me wrong sleeping till noon and laying around all day while I catch up on reading and TV shows is awesome.

But I'm not doing anything.

Not doing anything is probably the worst thing I can do with my time. It assures me countless hours of unadulterated thinking. I'll ponder things that simply do not matter, or are not even worth worrying about.

I freak out about my future. My relationships. My body and my mind. In reality all of these things are great. I'm in a place in my life where everything is very rewarding and the people in it are a constant blessing. But I still analyze it all because I don't have a paper to worry about or shift changes to approve.

Backbone

I got a text message today, from someone who was a friend at one time. She had been approached by someone who asked her the fastest way to get rid of a hickey. She asked me if she should be offended. You may see why our friendship is considered past tense.

The fact that she was asked is sort of irrelevant. The fact that SHE asked ME how SHE should feel, is what bothered me most.

This isn't a new development. I wish this was the first occurrence of people asking me how they should feel about something. I realize this question is more to get my opinion on the matter and not specifically a request for exact feelings. But there is a deeper lying problem within a lot of people that this presents.

Nobody owns anything.

What I mean to say is, that people in current American society do not own anything. There is the literal representation: home mortgages and car payments that say the bank really owns your possessions. What I'm driving at is that so few people own their desires and wants.

Take for instance the current situation. This girl needs to ask me how she should feel. Why isn't her feeling of being slightly offended acceptable enough? Why does she need to check with someone to see if being offended is OK? Should I ask her if to tell me if her question is stupid? Not at all, I think it is and therefor it is stupid. I don't need her validation for my own thoughts.

Just like we don't own our feelings, we don't own the causes of them. We get upset about a bad grade in class. So we blame the professor and the material, but rarely ourselves. You know, the person who slept through half the semester and didn't bother to study for the final.

It frustrates me to no end that no one belongs to themselves anymore. It is always about acceptance.

Scenes from a blackout

On 11-19-09, an exploded transformer caused NAU campus to go dark. The following are observations while campus sat in darkness.

--

The black found me playing ping pong with Katie. The first words out of her mouth are not "uh-oh" or "what happened." No, instead the lights go dark and Katie says "My point". I love this woman.

Overheard: A young man on his cell phone saying that he was second in line at Cobrizo's. This may be the second worst tragedy caused by the blackout. Only beaten by the poor sap who was actually ordering. Any deaths are irrelevant.

I realize that residents think RAs have secret access to university information. Hell, sometimes I purposely portray that very thing. Regardless of this fact the question "What happened" is still stupid. Of course I was asked it multiple times.

Friendly reminder that college does not require actual intelligence: I had to put signs on the elevators saying they were not working.

Naturally I want to know what's going on. A wave of concern flows over me that our society is way too dependent on digital information. I can't get on my computer. Certainly it runs on battery, but the internet routers do not. I cannot call my front desk because it's a cordless phone. APS doesn't have a twitter account, and even if it did I can't find it because my phone doesn't have a browser. Luckily this flush of panic quickly passes. Radio in the truck still works.

Flagstaff is too small. All our radio stations are ported from PHX, or serve Prescott, Sedona and Flag. No one cares about Not A University's problem.

Evidently 90% of the population in McConnell decided the blackout was a right and proper time to light up the buddah. Is anyone surprised?

if you're reading this

you're alive

If that's not something to smile about,

then I don't know what is

Untitled

Attention is regulated into projects. At any given time there are several but you work on that project, obsess about it, thrive on it, desire to know everything about it. A new novel by your favorite author. The latest album from a band you've only just started listening to. Exercise. Whatever.

Some come and go. The projects that stick become hobbies. If it doesn't stick at least for a brief moment you were dedicated to something new, and now it's filed away into your shallow knowledge of everything. The hobbies that you do constantly for months those become your passions.

Passions are nice. They're comfortable things you always can go back to. You unwind with a former hobby that you can do without thinking, and instead ponder your day.

But for me, it isn't about the passions or even the hobbies, though I love the ones I have. It's the projects. The things I spend hours combing the internet for. Books for "dummies" that never quite reach that "reference for the rest of us" level.

I pick up new projects all the time. The moments when I'm not speaking, I'm thinking about my next project. The new bike I want. Swimming on a regular basis. Fantasy basketball, and learning a new sport that I have little knowledge about.

So I'll keep my passions and hobbies. But I'm always searching for my next project.

All You Need

www.boston.com/bigpicture/2009/09/a_collection_of_kisses.html

Wind

It's nice to exert some effort. After a few months of sitting and waiting it's nice to have that turmoil of work again. The goal is in sight and I'm pushing towards it.

That point off in the horizon has a taste of sweetness. It's not about standing on the hill and realizing you're above so many others. It's about looking down the mountain and seeing everyone else struggling upward. The slope didn't conquer you, and when those others achieve you'll have a great hug and smile to share.

The ride north isn't easy. There is the cliche that nothing that is worth it is easy. Sure that's true but making the move towards it is always easy. North is where you want to be. Home is there. Love is there. Things that matter, are there.

I like the ride north. Especially on my bike Kaze. Reflecting on the burn in my legs and sting in my throat reminds me that I am not the destination, I am just the journey.

Progress

Another dry spell without a post.

Life keeps spinning. Peaks and valleys. The progression has an annoying habit of being calm long enough for me to get calm myself, and then ramps up at a fevered pace so I can't sit still. It stresses, it soothes.

Whatever though, it's all good. I wouldn't change a thing.

I love how the summer was mildly unproductive in the moment, but beneficial for the future. I'm happy I have a full plate that doesn't give me a break. I'm glad that I've spent six months learning what it means to love a woman.

I like living. Even if what I'm doing isn't what I thought I would be doing, I'm still doing something.

And the stories are good.

Juice

Here we are again. A report is out today that claims Manny and Big Papi tested positive for PED's in 03.

Sports are about being better. Better than the guy who is sitting on the bench waiting to take your spot. Better than the athletes who came before you. Better than what is expected of you to keep your role on a team.

Each athlete struggles. Especially in baseball which has more than 6 levels of play before the major league level, an athlete struggles to get better. Hit the ball harder. Hit it more often. Catch the ball and make the plays. Move up a level in the minors and start your process all over again. The percentage of players who make it to the majors from the minors is extremely small. It's a nearly impossible struggle to get to the majors.

Can you blame a player for taking a PED? You tell them there is a pill or injection they can take, and be better than the other guy and expect them not to want it? A drug that makes their workouts more beneficial. Or returns them to the sport faster after injury. Why wouldn't they want it?

Babe Ruth was swinging a tree at the plate. In the era when so many records were set, the players would go back to the clubhouse and have a drink and cigar in between innings. The sport has progressed, become more diverse and more competitive. Instead of just being better then white men in America, now you have to be better than up and comers from Japan, the Dominican Republic, and a variety of other places. As the sport progresses, the means to be better progress as well.

I don't know what's right. I don't know if it's cheating because it makes you better, faster. I can't blame any one of these men though, in a sport and country that is so competitive. You have to be better, or you aren't anyone.