Lonesome Whipperwill

Ok. I know yesterday's post was a bit of a cop out. And I didn't post on Thursday. NaBloPoMo may be kicking my ass a little bit.

Today I don't really have anything particular in mind that I would like to talk about, but I promise not to just post a comic. Even if it's a really funny comic. But what, then, shall I write about? Life? The Universe? Everything? It would be pretty hard to write about Everything... it's a rather big topic. What about some other abstraction? Love? Hate? Happiness? Loneliness?

In my poetry writing class (the one I don't like much) we just read a book called Don't Let Me Be Lonely by Claudia Rankine. In this particular piece of literature the loneliness (because Lonely was in the title, so loneliness must come into it somewhere) stemmed from a sort of detatchment from life. The speaker of the poems was often unable to really connect, to fully experience the life she was living. Whether it was from media overload or life-hazing anti-depressant medications.

I've heard from a few friends (ironically all the one's who've told me this were male) that they are tired of being lonely. These guys have been single for a while. They have plenty of friends, but they want a romantic relationship with someone. They will be lonely until that happens.

Is it a social construct, or is it a biological imperative, that we need to be with someone in a committed, romantic, relationship sort of way? When does our quality of life start to be defined by our being (or not) in a relationship?

I think it's silly. I like being single. Plus, I think it's important to be happy with yourself, by yourself before you try being with someone else.

Those are just my rambling thoughts of the day.

Silliness

Ever wondered why your mom always told not to run with scissors?

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Criminal Trespass

This is pretty much why I often get frustrated with my dear home state of Utah. The church politics are so often completely absurd. The hypocrisy an intolerance that comes out of my state's dominant religion is incredible. It's so ridiculous that you just have to laugh about it.

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
Nailed 'Em - Mormon Church Trespassing
www.colbertnation.com
Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor U.S. Speedskating

I am in no way saying that all mormons are hypocritical idiots. Most of them, actually, are absolutely not. It's just "The Church" - the masses of people who run this state with a strong bias toward their personal faith. Individually I'm sure most of these people are fine. I bet most of them are actually able to think logically occasionally too. But the shenanigans that The Curch gets up to in this town are nuts!

And then people here complain about Utah Mormons have a bad reputation for being back-woods, idiot, ultra-conservative, morons. There is a reason for that.

T-Mobile Fail

I logged on to twitter today for the first time in at least a month. Why? To see all the complaints people were tweeting about T-Mobile, and to add my two cents. It was the same two cents everyone else was adding; T-Mobile sucks.

If you haven't heard already T-Mobile users are suffering from a global outage today. People aren't able to get phone calls and/or use text messaging. Most of the day today I have been able to call people, but apparently no one was able to call me. Text messaging hasn't worked for me at all.

I can get phone calls now, but that's just been in the last 30 min or so.

T-Mobile's official statement is this:

T-Mobile customers may be experiencing service disruptions impacting voice and data. Our rapid response teams have been mobilized to restore service as quickly as possible. We will provide updates as more information is available

Nice and ambiguous. Thanks, T-Mobile. I feel like you're really on the ball.

I have been kind of frustrated with T-Mobile lately anyway. I don't think they have very good customer service and their website is the opposite of user-friendly. I think it's time to get someone else. I still have another year left on my contract. I'll have to look into how much it will cost me to get out of it early. Right now I'm thinking that whatever the cost, it might be worth it.

Oh wait! I just got a text message. Good. I still am done with T-mobile.

What To Read

If you were going to be exiled to a deserted island and you were allowed to bring 10 books with you, what would they be?

I say deserted and not desert because I like you and I want you to live. But the scenario I'm presenting necessitates solitariness. What books would you want to keep you company? What books could you stand reading over and over again? you're going to be stuck on this island for a while.

For the sake of making it a little harder, I'm going to say that "Complete Works of..." don't count. That's cheating. Ditto anthologies and multi-book volumes (i.e. The Ultimate Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, which is actually several books). If you want a whole series that might be available as one volume, you may count each book separately. Short story or play collections are ok... but still no "complete works" of any playwright.

This is my list (in no particular order):

Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett

Sailing Alone Around the Room by Billy Collins (my favorite volume of poetry ever)

War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy (I haven't actually read it, but if I were stranded, I'd certainly find the time. Plus someone once told me it was good beach reading)

Divisadero by Michael Ondaatje

Collected Shorter Plays of Samuel Beckett (this is ok under my parameters because it's a collection of short, one-act (for the most part) plays; it's like a collection of short stories)

95 Poems by e e cummings

Existentialism and Human Emotions by Jean-Paul Sartre (I'm apparently trying to have an existential crisis on my island. But it's so interesting)

Kafka on the Shore by Haruki Murakami

The Book Thief by Markus Zusak (This is my "light reading" choice... it's a WWII story narrated by Death. I may have issues)

The Tao Te Ching by Lao Tsu

Well, now that I've made that list I'm a little surprised by how not uplifting it is. I'm not going to change any of my choices though. They may be kind of bleak and ponderous, but there are very good reasons I chose each of those books. The writing in each and every one of them is stunningly beautiful. Most of them also really present something worth thinking about. Plus, they're not all entirely humorless. Collins and cummings both can be quite funny, and Beckett's plays are full of (albeit dark) humor.

Now it's your turn, dear readers. What would your 10 desert island books be? Post them in the comments, or on your own blog thingy.

wo bo slo mo no do sho so wo o*

Well, kids, it's officially November. Halloween, or as I like to call it Super-Awesome-Best-Freeking-Holiday-Ever, is over and we're falling headlong into Christmas season. What happened to Thanksgiving? you ask. I'm afraid I can't say. You'll have to ask the retail universe- they've had Christmas stuff out for weeks already.

I think it's rather absurd myself, but there's not much I can do about it.

Besides the whole holiday thing, something else very special happens in November. This month, people sitting at computers everywhere feed excessive amounts of nonsense to the interwebs. That's right, November is a time for bloggers everywhere to blog. Not just regular, boring, popping into the blogger ballroom for a quick reel once every week or so, oh no, now is the time to post every single day! The internet will be overflowing with useless information and inanities (it's not already? Shhh, don't tell. November is special, dammit!). Since I don't really care to be part of the solution, I am going to be part of the problem!

That's right, as I mentioned a few posts ago, I'm going to try to do NaBloPoMo (NAtional BLOg POsting MOnth) again. So I am going to post every day in November. Aren't you excited? The strange and mundane things in my life are going to make their way into my computer and then out again, through your eyeballs, and into your head. Tune in daily for exciting new installments!

I will say right now that Dad and I are planning on our annual camping trip Thanksgiving weekend, so I wont post those days. It's hard to do internets when you're in the middle of the desert with no electricity/cell reception/wifi. Besides those 2-3 days though I intend to blog every single day. It's going to be challenging, especially since I've really gotten out of the habit of blogging.

* Translation according to Tim: These rhinos are all well and good but I want me some metal dogs.

All The Single Ladies

This brings me much joy:

Click on the picture. It takes you to a special place.

Conditional Poetics

I know I have sometimes said that people who post their poems on the internet really bother me. Usually that poetry is not very good and the poet posts it explicitly to gather praise from the internets. What I'm about to do pains me ever so slightly, and may be laden with hypocrisy. I am going to share with you, dear readers, one of my poems.

It's still pretty rough, this is about the third draft. I will not claim that it is any good (I like it a lot, but I'm far from impartial, and it's really fresh, so I'm even less impartial than I might be about another poem). The reason I'm posting it now is because I think it really needs a good title, and I can't think of one.

My dad suggested "Bread Pudding" because the 1970's pop band Bread came out with a (really terrible) song called "If" and the poem is like a pudding, especially bread pudding, because it is melange of material. He also suggested "Blue Universe... O" or something like that.

I've considered calling it something like "Empirical Condition" or "49 Conditions" or something like that. The poem is made of a series of half conditional statements so... that's where I got those titles. I don't like them much though.

Anyway, here is the poem:

if the poetry of science can be found in the stars
if the universe is, at its core, blue
if blue is nothing more than a wave-length
if the stars vibrate with cries of O
if silence (not sound) is the foundation of (English) language
if poetry has the power to teach the erring man
if I whisper secrets into blue clay mugs
if blue becomes onomatopoeic
if the prefix “demi” means one half
if poetry can be empirically dissected
if all possible scientific questions can be answered
if poetry is an experience of imminent revelation
if the (English) language can be picked apart and stripped to essence
if the scar exactly bisects my back
if I change the details (you) to improve the story (us)
if it is possible to write blue poetry
if there are some (many) questions science can’t answer
if we don’t speak over tea
if scar tissue is blue
if scars can be empirically dissected
if I use the blue clay mugs for tea
if poetry and science are at odds with each other
if O is a scar on the (English) language
if the prefix “hemi” means one half
if rocks can resist the sky
if poetry and science cannot be separated
if blue has the power to teach the erring man
if stars are rocks that didn’t resist
if we (I) must obey the (English) language
if blue is a rock on the surface of the universe
if the (English) language once meant something else entirely
if the rock and the sky are each half
if O hangs, silent, in the air between us
if blue always points south
if I write everything down and hide it
if the prefix “semi” means one half
if the story (us) is deeply scarred
if love can be empirically dissected
if paper beats rock
if it becomes possible for the writer to have, like Picasso, a blue period
if O is set aside for later
if one is rock and the other is sky
if the stars are made of blue clay
if every scar clutches a story
if Carolina, Cobalt, Sky, Steel and Midnight are all shades of blue
if O falls off the edge of the universe
if the (English) language can be sculpted in blue clay
if science has the power to teach the erring man
if we (I) throw implication to the wind and use only “if” but never “then”

Please post any ideas you have for a title (or anything else you want to say about the poem) in the comments. Or us whatever other means you have to communicate with me.

Thanks for your help, cyberfriends!

Helter Skelter

Hi Bloggophites! Did you miss me? I sure missed you.

I don't actually have anything particularly in mind to write about today, but I am taking a break from homework to blog anyway.

I guess because I haven't written in so long, I should really have a lot to say. Shall I tell you about my classes? Ok.

I am finally back in school full time. I moved back in with my parents back in July (not the most awesome thing I've ever done, but it's not really bad) for monetary reasons. Plus, if I don't have to worry about paying rent, I have time to focus on academics. I really just want to get school over and done with at this point. So I'm trying to focus - now that the semester is half-way over I'm kind of getting into the swing of things. I'm taking 4 classes, which doesn't seem like a lot, but their all upper-level and the work load is not insignificant.

My favorite (and hardest) class is a Critical Literary Theory course. The professor is fantastic. The reading is nearly impossible to understand, but once I do get it, it's fascinating. In a few weeks we are applying all the crap we've read (and presumably understood) to such things as Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Battlestar Galactica. If that doesn't make an awesome class, I don't know what does.

I'm also taking another generic English class (Literary History blah blah blah). It's not bad. Not great.

I'm taking Communication and Gender because I thought it looked interesting and wanted to take something that was strictly English. It's an interesting class. I've discovered that Communications is sort of English Lite, so that class is fairly easy. Any of the writing we have to do I can pretty much handle with my eyes closed. The topic is really interesting though, and the discussions we have in class are quite stimulating.

Finally, I taking a Poetry Writing class. This is the great disappointment of my semester. I love writing, as those who know me or have been reading this blog for a while know. I expected this to be my favorite class of the semester. I wanted (and expected) it to be inspiring, to open new levels of creativity and intrigue in my poetry and the way I write in general. As it turns out, the class it strongly mediocre, bordering on blasé. I'm not sure the teacher (who is a grad student, not a professor) had any real sort of plan for the class. Everything seems sort of unorganized and incongruous. Plus she's kind of dippy and has a penchant for wearing mis-matched, neon fabrics plucked right out of the 70s. Tragically, the class has not only NOT inspired me to write much of anything at all, it's almost turning me against poetry. I say almost because there's probably not a force on earth that could really make me stop writing completely. Still, this class is disheartening and uninspiring.

I should really get back to my serious reading for class now. Good talk, bloggates. I'll try to visit you more often. I think I'll try NaBloPoMo again in November. I didn't much like doing it last year because I felt like the quality of my posts declined pretty drastically. This year, though, I don't think they could really be much worse. I might add in the additional goal of posting something of quality every day. If nothing else, maybe it will get me into the habit of blogging more often again. I really love this silly little project, and I hate to think I'm coming close to abandoning it.

Just Testin' Ya

It's midterm season. This is how I feel about it:



























That is all.

Out, Out Brief Candle

My father's best friend killed himself last night. It was very unexpected, but somehow not very surprising. He had pretty progressive multiple sclerosis and... he was just in really bad shape. In his note he said that he had the right to decide when he died. My dad was probably the last person to see him - he went over last night to watch the football game with him.

The thing is, I completely understand why he did it. With a such a degenerative, incurable disease, there's not much else you can do. When you can no longer control your body, what else can you control? Given a choice of slowly and painfully wasting away to nothing or dying quickly on your own terms, what would you choose? At what point does suicide become the best cure?

This dilemma is one that I have given a good deal of thought. There's a good chance with my Wegener's Granulomatosis I could end up in a similar situation. It's not nearly as bad as MS - there are pretty effective ways to control it and I responded well to the treatments. It's also possible that I will never have a relapse and I will go on living a healthy, normal life. But what if I do have a relapse? What if next time it's much worse and I don't respond to treatment? If my lungs collapse and my kidneys shut down, if WG slowly eats away at my body... at some point quality of life is so low that it's easier on everyone to simply end things.

I'm not saying that I want to kill myself, not by a long shot. But if I've become a burden to those who love me (and I'm not saying my Dad's friend was, but... he was. They were glad to bear that burden, but still), if I can no longer do anything that I like to do, if I am slowly wasting away and the only thing I can still control about my life is how it ends....

I guess my point is that I can really understand why he did it. That actually scares me a little.

My mom is making paella for his widow (oh, wow, she's a Widow... somehow that's harder to wrap my mind around than anything else I've written today). Why does our society meet tragedy with food?

Hilarible

Hilarible is a term coined by my friend, Spydr. Yes, that is her name... Well, not the one on her birth certificate, but that's what everyone calls her. Hilarible is, in case you couldn't figure it out, a combination of Hilarious and Terrible. I heard a story today that illustrates this principle perfectly:

This guy, we'll call him John (I don't even know his real name... he's a friend of a co-worker's son), asked a girl out, we'll call her Julie. John decides to take Julie to the State Fair for their first date. John and Julie both live in Provo, which is about an hour long drive from the fair grounds in Salt Lake. While John is driving to Salt Lake, his stomach starts to hurt; he's getting gassy. He holds it in because he's in the car this hot girl, and you just don't want to murder your date with noxious butt-fumes. But the pressure is building up to the point that it's painful so he decides to roll down the windows, turn up the radio (so she won't hear it) and just let her rip.

He shartted.

Not much he can do at this point. They're almost to the fair so he just keeps the windows down and hopes that she can't smell it. She can probably smell it, he can smell it, it's bad. After they park, he makes sure she's walking in front of him and just does everything he can to save face.

They go into the Fair and before long they come across a booth selling "Utah State Fair!" sweat suits.

John says, "Oh neat! I'm so excited to see this! When I was little my family used to always buy these sweats and then change into them and wear them around the fair! Let's do that!"

Julie says "Uh, no. I'm not going to wear those."

John buys a set anyway and goes into a port-a-potty to change. He takes off his shirt and puts on the sweat shirt. Then he takes off his pants... they're really bad. He thinks to himself "I don't want to carry these around, that will not work." So he drops his pants and his underwear into the tank. Then he opens the package of sweat-pants.

It's another shirt.

Rather than swallowing his pride and asking Julie to please exchange the shirt for pants, John puts on the sweatshirt like pants. One leg through each arm hole. He pokes his head out and looks around for Julie. She's not nearby so he bolts. He runs through the fair, out to the parking lot and drives away.

That is hilarible. It's so terrible that it's hilarious. Certainly not to John, who suffered pretty major humiliation and should probably fear for his life if he ever runs into Julie again. Or to Julie, who was left stranded in Salt Lake. To an outside party, it's really funny though; it's Hilarible

Whirlwind

Oh Man! The last two weeks were crazy! It was all pretty fun, but the part of me that likes to sleep at night is still hiding in the corner pouting.

It all started with a trip to Las Vegas with 12 of my friends for Johnny and Arrakis' bachelor/bachelorette party. Typical Vegas shenanigans ensued. If you saw The Hangover it was... entirely not like that. We did drink a lot. But there were no tigers and we knew where everyone else was most of the time.

For the hen party we went to Thunder from Down Under and it was wicked fun! Super-muscles-blonde-dude pulled Arrakis on stage and put her hand down his pants. The whole things was hilarious and sexy and awesome. After the show we went to LAX - we were on the VIP list so we got to go straight in. There were about 200 people waiting (and giving us dirty looks when we got in before them). It made us all feel important. Besides those two highlights, the weekend was spent drinking and playing penny slots, sleeping through the heat of the day (it was about 110 degrees!) and trying to get 13 people on the same page for doing things.

A few days after Vegas was the wedding. Arrakis and Johnny did almost everything themselves. Everyone in the bridal party was asked to help with setup etc. so we kept pretty busy. The wedding itself was lovely. The post-reception party was really fun.

The day after the wedding I slept off all the wine and champagne I drank. That evening I drove through the night to Denver. Why did I go to Denver? I wen for Lindy on the Rocks! It's an awesome event. Three days of workshops and dancing in a city that is NOT here. Unfortunately I was exhausted Friday and Saturday so I didn't really dance a lot. Sunday I was feeling pretty good, so I did get some good dancing in. Unfortunately, we had to leave at 9:30 Sunday night (before the evening/night dance and the after-dance dance-party) because one of the guys I went with had to be at work. So I drove through the night again.

Now my sleep schedule is completely thrown off. Good news is I don't really have anything super crazy going on for a while. School starts next week, but life is kind of slowing down (I hope) so I will hopefully make a full recovery.

Foolish Mouth Noises

What is the point of talking to someone if you don't actually have something to say? Small talk is fine to fill in spaces if you're actually with a live person (zombies make terrible conversationalists) and you're really uncomfortable with silence. There's also all sorts of filler/greetings that is polite and expected when you start a live conversation (in person or talking on the phone). That's fine. I'm totally comfortable with small talk in certain contexts. But if you go out of your way to start a conversation, purposfully call me or send a text message for a little chat, for the love of egg salad, have a point!

The text message is an interesting medium for this subject. I know I haven't always been a fan of text messaging (my skin still crawls at every occurrence of the word "texting," though I have to concede that it is unaviodably made its way into the vernacular and cannot really be avoided). I do use it a lot. I like it for quick, informative and usefull messages (meet here at such-and-such a time, party at this place, etc.) or just to share something I found amusing with a bunch of friends all at the same time. When I send random nonsense to a bunch of people though, I don't expect them to respond. And I don't respond when I get the same sort of thing. In fact, that sort of thing is probably best reserved for Twitter. Ah, Twitter... that's a rant for another day.

Text messaging is not the proper medium for and actual, in depth, conversation. It is especially not the medium for small talk. It's condensed and restricted language. Its purpose is for us to get quickly to the point without having to go through all the awkward greeting, polite small talk, and build up, that comes in a normal context. It's quick and easy. It's abreviated. You cut to the chase and make your point concisely. It is not a format for superflous chatter - it was constructed to filter that out. To steamline our communication. Don't spam me with drivel - I won't respond. Have something to say and then say it!

The same thing goes for phone conversations, to an extent. Some small talk is to be expected, but don't call me with no further plan than polite greeting exchange ("hello, how are you? I'm lovely.") Even if you just have a super weak excuse to call, like telling me about the amazing fries you had for lunch; that's better than calling for no reason. I will spend hours talking to a person, but when they first call, I assume they actually have something to say so I generally won't digress until I've given them a chance to conduct their business. If you don't have anything to add after the initial hellos, chances are you will be listening to me wait politely for you to say whatever it was you called to say. After that, conversation can flow freely. Hopefully the description of your fries will lead to further conversations about any number of things. But a good phone call needs to have a starting point besides just filler. If you don't have anything to say, don't say it!

By the way, I like Mark Twain:
"It is better to keep your mouth closed and let people think you are a fool than to open it and remove all doubt."

Like Sands Through the Hour Glass

What is this July you speak of? I suppose there has been some time between June and now... in fact there's a lot that has happened. I just didn't manage to blog anything. I promise I'll try to be better. But August is going to be just as busy, if not more so. Part of the problem last month was that I didn't have internet access at my apartment (long, boring story). I was still online occasionally, but usually it was just for a few minutes and at a time when I was uninspired to write anything here.

So... What happened in July that kept me running about and away from the blogosphere?

I went to a BBQ on the 4th of July. The hosts of said BBQ live close to a park that shoots off fireworks, so we just watched the show from their front yard. When the pyrotechnics started, I found myself on a mattress (brought out for viewing comfort) with this kid I will call Finn (because I asked the internet to give him a pirate name, the name it gave him was Cap'n Finn Cannonballs). We cuddled all through the fireworks and made out a little bit afterward. It was a good time. He got my number when I left.

After that BBQ I went to another friend's house and ended up crashing there on a love sac in the back yard. Also sleeping on the love sac was the friend and his roommate. I was the happy middle of an attractive man sandwich. Sadly neither attractive man has much romantic potential for me.

Shortly after the 4th of July, I went to Lagoon with friends. I also found out that Finn was not going to call me within the standard "3 day rule" time limit thing because his Grandmother just died and he was dealing with funeral and family stuff.

Life went on, I was busy with normal stuff - work, dancing... I took a tango class in July. I now know how to dance Argentine Tango. I am multi-talented! I also came down with a really terrible cold which knocked me out for a full week. I'm still coughing a little, but it's getting better.

Finn never did call. A few weeks went by and I got tired of waiting. After discussing it briefly with our mutual friends, I decided that I didn't like the Finn story and wanted to improve the narrative. So I got his number from those friends and called him.

I moved out of my apartment and back into my parent's house. I'm not thrilled to be back here, but have a long list of good reasons to be, if not happy with the situation, at least content. Moving is a tedious, annoying, energy sapping activity.

Last week I met Finn for coffee on Monday. It went well. Friday we were going to go out, but both of us were kind of exhausted from not sleeping the night before and then working all day. We stayed in and watched a movie. It was very nice and relaxing. I'm kind of getting mixed signals from him actually. I won't go into detail here though. My love life is something that deserves its own post - that is if I want to put it on the internets at all.

Those are the highlights of July. The next few weeks I'm going to be insanely busy. I'm going to Vegas next week for a few days. My friend is getting married the week after that. The day after the wedding I'm going to Colorado for Lindy On the Rocks. After all that things should slow down for a week and then school starts.

So that pretty much gets you up to speed on me. I'm sorry I ignored my blog for more than a month. I'll do better in the future, I promise.

To Be or Not To Be

I was hanging out with a couple friends a few weeks ago when one of them observed “If I didn’t believe in God, I would probably kill myself.” He went on to ponder how death is the ultimate solution to life’s hardest problems. Without fear of eternal damnation, why not “take arms against a sea of troubles and, by opposing, end them.” It is the most efficient way to completely avoid problems. You certainly don’t have to deal with them if you are dead. Without an after life who cares what messes you leave behind. They ultimately become someone else's problem.

You also miss out on everything that is amazing in life. There are so many wonderful things that happen on a daily basis. Have you ever noticed how incredible life really is? There are so many moments of pure beauty and joy; surely they outweigh the “slings and arrows of life’s outrageous fortune.”

I can’t seem to help but quote Hamlet. I must admit that I have spent a good deal of time considering the famous soliloquy, and I mostly disagree with the Danish Prince. It is not fear of what lies on the other side of death that keeps me from dying. It is a strong attachment to the beauty of life. A few days ago I lay on the floor with a friend of mine laughing until we cried. If I had died the day before, I would have missed this moments of pure, unadulterated, joy.

Every day there is something amazing to experience. There are so many completely exalting experiences to be had. All it takes is a little attention to notice them. Tiny, barely significant things (raindrops caught in rose-petals, warm sand between your toes, a smile from a stranger, the way the wind plays with a skirt) are absolutely worth living for because they happen a million times a day and they add up to create pure beauty.

I then pointed out to my friend that committing suicide is absolutely the most selfish thing you could possibly do. I was considering the effect that something like that has on the people who go on living. I know a girl who’s boyfriend killed himself right after they graduated high school. The emotional trauma he put her through was phenomenal. She pretty much had a complete nervous breakdown. No matter who you are, there will always be someone who loves you enough that their entire universe will collapse if you kill yourself.

My friend, however, turned my statement back to God. Without fear of divine retribution, why not be selfish? Besides, once you're gone, you don't have to worry about the people you left behind. They are no longer your problem. I didn’t have much to say at the time, but this part of the conversation has really stuck with me. I don’t know if he intended it that way, but he kind of implied that without faith it is impossible to be a good person. The same point was brought up in the class I’m taking this summer. In More’s Utopia there is a very poignant paragraph about how Godless people cannot possibly be useful to society or have any motivation to do good things.

This view makes me extremely uncomfortable. Not only because I only believe in God sometimes, and the God I believe in is indifferent to us mortals. I like to think that I am a strong example of how a person can be a good person without believing in God. The way I see it, there is no reason to treat other people in a manner in which I would not like to be treated. What is the point in making other people suffer? Plus, when you treat others with kindness, you’re more likely to get kindness in return.

It actually terrifies me that the only thing standing between some people and selfish malignancy is fear of God. What happens if those people lose their faith? Isn’t it stronger and more meaningful if someone is good person simply for the sake of being a good person? Kindness becomes superficial when it stems solely from a fear of damnation.

I am probably simplifying the matter too much. Religion is something I really have very little experience with and probably don’t really understand. Still, I cannot believe that without God people would lose all sense of decency. I am rather glad that I have never really developed a strong belief in any deity. I like the fact that any goodness I do stems from me. I can be selfless for completely selfless reasons. Neither Heaven nor Hell come into it.

Storytelling

On my birthday I went to dinner and a movie with my parents. We saw Brothers Bloom, which was really good. It's a con-men caper reminiscient of classic movies. Of the two brothers, Stephen is kind of the mastermind - he plans cons like he's writing a story. The ending is very touching and one of the last lines is this (paraphrased probably. I'm going with memory which is not perfect):

...............What we do now is we live like we're telling the greatest story ever told.

It's a wonderful idea, and a lovely way to end the movie. But how possible is it to really live a great stroy from start to finish? Very few people have the rescources or drive to have a really fascinating plot summary. Those who do seem to die young. Take Errol Flynn, for example. He was born in Australia, got kicked out of several schools, owned a plantation, sailed around god knows where, and was a hollywood star by the time he was 30. He inspired the phrase "in like Flynn," married three actresses (not all at once), developed an addiction to morphine. Adventures ensued on and off screen until he died at 50. And that's just the bare bones of his life. Just the blurb on his book inspires excitement!

My personal plot summary will likely be pretty typical: School, Work, Marriage, Retirement. The only stand out moments will be when I was sick and if something amazing happens (like publishing a book or winning a Tony for my play). In the overall scheme of things, those are pretty small blips in an otherwise ordinary life.

I prefer to live like I'm telling a series of vingettes. The over-arching storyline is not so important. I think it's better that way; to live life like you're telling a series of short stories; a volume of poignant moments that are held together by the overall progression of life. The little moments that fall inbetween the story are the ones worth reading.

June is Bustin' Out!

People of Earth, Welcome to June!

On this momentous start of this momentous month, I have officially been alive for a full quarter of a century! See, I have a pie chart to prove it:


Also, since I have a tradition of posting dancing dudes on my birthday:



Ok, so I've used this dude before. But I like him. It's my birthday! I can blog what I want to!

Popping In to Say Hello

Oh, wow. Did I really only post once this month? I've been terribly neglectful of my blogging duties. Sorry about that internet people. I've had a lot going on.

I always have a lot going on. Somehow I've managed to blog though it anyway.

The craziness that has been going on involves some good and a lot of bad. My iPod died, my computer was nearly-fatally injured and barely came back from the edge of death, I rear ended someone so my car is all messed up, I'm running out of money because there was a long run when there were hardly any shifts available at work, I barely got through my classes, I'm going to have to move back in with Mom and Dad when my lease is up. I wasn't at all happy about that last one at first, but I think it will ultimately be quite good. That way I can actually save money and focus on school. When I finally graduate I may have enough fundage to actually get the hell out of Dodge... erm Utah.

I've also been busy dancing and riding my bike. Not quite as much as I need to be. I'm riding Seattle to Portland in July and I'm no where near in as good of shape as I need to be. I'm taking a class this fall, and work is starting to pick up so I'm getting better hours. Summer is here and life is taking me outdoors.

I promise I will start updating more often. Funny thing is, I've kept a list of topics I want to blog about. I just haven't gotten around to actually getting online and doing it.

Monday I turn 25. Woot.

Special

Today is special because of the way the sun is shining. It's making every Japanese Maple I passed on my way to work the most extraordinary red color.