And if the whole world is crashing down, fall through space, out of mind with me, where the emptiness we leave behind on warm air rising blows all the shadows far away.

"Empire Ants"
Gorillaz

Thought I saw somebody drowning in the crystal waters of Lake Michigan

I threw him a life preserver, but preservation is always only temporary

See, I can offer you my hand, but I can't save you from inevitability.

"black hole"

the silent years

Or is this the dream I've been saving?

Oh, where the heart beats slower and slower

To almost nothing,

Almost nothing,

Almost nothing.

I took it for love, or at least something beautiful

Out there in the spotlight,

I turned around suddenly, turned around squinting

And saw that it was headlights.

And then the truth, the truth was unbearable.

Oh, and imminent,

Bearing down on these two shadow animals...

Moving pictures silent films

[Great Lake Swimmers]

John Mayer is wonderful.

Again, I have zero excuse for being up this late.
Actually no. This time I have an excuse. I slept from 8:30-11:30 tonight, then woke up. That's like 2/3 a night of sleep for me.
So I'm lying in bed going through my iTunes library, fixing all the artist/album names on the tracks I have from mix CD's from friends.
I found this random John Mayer track I didn't know I have (it was "CD Audio Track 8" until a few minutes ago) and I instantly fell in love.

"Comfortable"

I just remembered that time at the market
Snuck up behind me and jumped on my shopping cart
And rode down aisle 5
You looked behind you to smile back at me
Crashed into a rack full of magazines
They asked us if we could leave

Can't remember what went wrong last September
Though I'm sure that you'd remind me if you had to

Our love was
Comfortable and
So broken in

I sleep with this new girl I'm still getting used to
My friends all approve, say she's gonna be good for you
They throw me high fives
She says the bible is all that she reads
And prefers that I not use profanity
Your mouth was so dirty

Life of the party and she swears that she's artsy
But you could distinguish Miles from Coltrane

Our love was
Comfortable and
So broken in
She's perfect
so flawless
Or so they say, say

She thinks I can't see the smile that she's fakin'
And poses for pictures that aren't being taken
I loved you
Gray sweat pants
No makeup
So perfect

Our love was
Comfortable and
So broken in
She's perfect
So flawless
I'm not impressed
I want you back...

<333
----------------
Now playing: John Mayer - Comfortable

Yeah, I lied again.

I can't help it. I'm enjoying this book too much.

"I felt physically sick. It was a long time since I had received a letter from my wife. I had forced her to write it and I could feel her pain in every line. Her pain struck at my pain: we were back at the old routine of hurting each other. If only it were possible to love without injury--fidelity isn't enough: I had been faithful to Anne and yet I had injured her. The hurt is in the act of possession: we are too small in mind and body to possess another person without pride or to be possessed without humiliation. In a way I was glad that my wife had struck out at me again--I had forgotten her pain for too long, and this was the only kind of recompense I could give her. Unfortunately the innocent are always involved in any conflict. Always, everywhere, there is some voice crying from a tower...

"I thought, 'How much you pride yourself on being dégagé, the reporter, not the leader-writer, and what a mess you make behind the scenes. The other kind of war is more innocent than this. One does less damage with a mortar.'

"...There was another half-page, which I didn't read, before 'Affectionately, Helen.' I think it contained news of the weather and an old aunt of mine I loved.

"I had no cause for complaint, and I had expected this reply. There was a lot of truth in it. I only wished that she had not thought aloud at quite such length, when the thoughts hurt her as well as me."

- Thomas Fowler, The Quiet American by Graham Greene

I guess while I'm here, I might as well throw in more lyrics.

Taken in context
It's not a bad thing
But when you start to pick it apart
It gets so depressing...

You peel back the layers
And get down to the inside
But sometimes you loose sight
Of what it was you were trying to find

It's that sort of thing
That makes you think too much
It's that sort of thing
That makes you lose your objectivity

So if you made it
Just be glad that you did and stay there
If you ever feel loved or needed
Remember that you're one of the lucky ones
And if it's over
Just remember what I told you
It was bound to happen so just
Keep moving on
There are no perfect endings
No perfect endings...

- Straylight Run, "The Perfect Ending"

----------------
Now playing: Breaking Benjamin - Unknown Soldier

Last thing, I swear.

Also for my benefit, and I guess for posterity in general, haha, because I've been forgetting this lately (despite it being posted on my wall right near my desk):

"It was one of those days when it's a minute away from snowing, and there was this electricity in the air - you can almost hear it, right. And this bag was just . . . dancing with me. Like a little kid begging me to play with it. For fifteen minutes. That's the day I realized that there was this . . . entire life behind things. And this incredibly benevolent force, that wanted me to know there was no reason to be afraid. Ever. Video's a poor excuse, I know. But it helps me remember. I need to remember. Sometimes there's so much beauty in the world I feel like I can't take it, and my heart is just going to cave in..."
- Ricky Fitts, American Beauty

Damnit. There was something else I wanted to stick here too.

Oh well.

I've got a habit of looking up
At the sky, to stay rooted
‘Cause souls don't die, I don't think,
They all just get diluted
It's true and

Everyone is lookin’ around
Askin’, “What am I supposed to do
With the information? –
Just give me back my youth.”

And baby, your eyes are cold and jaded
Come with me, live unpremeditated
And even though you might lose control
Of what you meant to try to be
It's only vanity

You blame sinners and cigarettes
But you'd better just get over all that
It’s the TV – it’s been real busy
Makin’ subtlety extinct

Were we wiser, maybe if we knew
What starts the souring of a view
Then we wouldn't all drink so much
To relax away the kinks

And baby, the party makes me feel jaded
So lonely and premeditated
And even though we might lose control
Of what we meant to try to be
It's only vanity

And it’s only vanity
It's not what you mean
Or how you dream
About the life you’re meant to lead
It’s all forgotten, for the way it seems

Lookin’ out on a summer day
Is better when it's on the way
Than in retrospect, when intellect
Tells you what you've forgotten

Side effects you can't prevent
Like where April through August went
And how we ripened, and were left
There bruised and cold and rotten

And baby, slide on into bed ‘cause you've made it
Walk and sleep, and the risk is eradicated
And now you know that you won't lose control
Of what you meant to try to be
And it's only vanity
…
- Chris Ayer, "Vanity"

----------------
Now playing: Ingrid Michaelson - Overboard

"In the Starlight"

In the starlight, in the starlight
Let us wander gay and free
For there's nothing in the daylight
Half so dear to you and me

Like the fairies in the shadow
Of the woods, we'll steal along
And our sweetest lays we'll warble
For the night was made for song

When none are by to listen
Or to chide us in our glee
In the starlight, in the starlight
Let us wander gay and free

In the starlight, in the starlight
Let us wander, let us wander
In the starlight in the starlight
Let us wander gay and free

In the starlight, in the starlight
At the daylight's dewy close
When the nightingale is singing
His last love song to the rose

In the calm, clear light of summer
When the breezes softly play
From the glitter of our dwelling
We will gently steal away

Where the silvery waters murmur
By the margin of the sea
In the starlight, in the starlight
We will wander gay and free

In the starlight, in the starlight
We will wander, we will wander
In the starlight in the starlight
We will wander gay and free

- J. E. Carpenter

"I have learned that to be with those that I like is enough."

I just wanted to mention this because it was bugging me last night.

I was hanging out with a bunch of friends, and later on, it was down to just six of us. One of them was leaving, and most of the others were teasing him because he kept making awkward statements, after which all of us would be silent because no one was quite sure what to say. Then after a moment someone would think of something. Either that or just start talking again anyway.

Anyway, after the Commander of Awkward Silences left, the five of us remaining were just sitting around talking. Well, the other four were talking - I was mostly listening (something else severely underrated). At one point, we all were quiet. It was late - 1:30 a.m., maybe - and at that hour, silence is just something that happens. You can't expect everyone to be as sharp or chatty as usual. Except after about 5 seconds of the peaceful quiet, one of the people left made some smartass remark about how it was like Mr. Awkward Silences never left, or about how he was still here in spirit or something.

It just pissed me off that there are people who can't just sit with friends in silence and enjoy their company, enjoy their presence. They're often the same people who always have to be "doing" something - they can't just hang out and enjoy other people's company; they have to be doing something and be active. I mean, I like having something to do, I like being busy and going places and "doing stuff," but at the same time, I don't think it's necessary. Like Walt Whitman said, "I have learned that to be with those that I like is enough." It really is. With true friends, you don't need them to entertain you or to talk to you all the time. More people need to learn that sometimes, just being with others is enough.

On a completely separate note, I just really love this song, and I can't find a decent cover of it, and I don't want to buy Rubber Soul just so I can listen to it when I have most of the other tracks. But here are the lyrics.

There are places I remember
All my life, though some have changed,
Some forever, not for better,
Some have gone and some remain.

All these places had their moments,
With lovers and friends I still can recall,
Some are dead and some are living,
In my life I’ve loved them all.

But of all these friends and lovers,
There is no one compares with you,
And these mem’ries lose their meaning
When I think of love as something new.

Though I know I’ll never lose affection
For people and things that went before,
I know I’ll often stop and think about them
In my life I love you more.

Though I know I’ll never lose affection
For people and things that went before,
I know I’ll often stop and think about them
In my life I love you more.
In my life I love you more.

The Beatles, "In My Life"

You know, my grandfather was an egg farmer...

...I used to candle eggs at his farm. Do you know what that is? You hold an egg up to the light of a candle and you look for imperfections. The first time I did it he told me to put all the eggs that were cracked or flawed into a bucket for the bakery. And he came back an hour later, and there were 300 eggs in the bakery bucket. He asked me what the hell I was doing. I found a flaw in every single one of them – you know, thin places in the shell; fine, hairline cracks. You look closely enough, you’ll find that everything has a weak spot where it can break, sooner or later.
- Ted Crawford, Fracture

So I'm really not going where you think I'm going with this. Logically, I'd start a long bit about people's weaknesses, finding them, and what people choose to do when they find each other's weaknesses. That'd be interesting, but perhaps another day. No, I'm going into something I thought about today while driving to Island Heights to take pictures of the sunset.

My favorite days to takes pictures of the sunset in Island Heights are the days that are slightly overcast, with a few clouds but not enough to cover the sky or block the horizon. They add color to the sky as the sun sinks, and add character. I was excited because I could tell, even from home, that it was going to be lovely, and it was. The river was all frozen over and the sky was reflected on the ice.



On my way, I wondered how it is that people can watch the sun set and fail to be moved deeply by it. I am not a "religious" person, but there have been evenings when I see the sunset and mornings when I watch the sunrise, that I feel like that those moments are God. I see waves crashing and clouds parting, and brilliant streams of color and light flooding the sky, and sometimes, at a certain moment, I'll feel like I've gotten a glimpse of a higher power - of evidence of a higher power, because so much beauty cannot exist on its own. I wondered, though, how someone could see what I see, and not feel divinely inspired, or at the very least, full of warmth and life and love.

Then I thought about everything else I revel in: a good song or piece of music, a well-done film, a good book or poem, certain plays and musicals, performances of anything good, photographs and paintings and statues and pretty much anything artistic. Including style (yes, I mean clothes) and architecture (the Chrysler Building in New York is my favorite, though I have a soft spot for the old cathedrals of France). And certain feats of athleticism, too. And I wondered how people can not, at the very least, simply appreciate the beauty in them, or even see it. But then I decided that it's not true.

I realize that not everyone is going to appreciate everything that I do, because let's face it, I see beauty in a ton of things that few others would even notice, much less think about. But I decided that everyone has something - there is a way to reach everyone. Everyone has a sensitive spot, everyone has something that will move them. Even if it's as simple as getting choked up during a cliche pop song, or experiencing a change of heart after watching a soap opera, there is a way to everyone - which, to me, means that there's beauty in everything. And I'd much rather look for the beauty in people, for the sensitive spots, the places where they are vulnerable and open to feeling deeply, than look for their weaknesses.

Take my hand and lead me to salvation.
Take my love, for love is everlasting,
And remember the truth that once was spoken:
To love another person is to see the face of God.

----------------
Now playing: Les Miserables Original Broadway Cast Recording - Finale

Promises to Keep

My favorite thing about Christmas is that at Christmastime, people feel like it's okay to tell/show the people they love that, well, they love them. It's acceptable to be emotional. It's acceptable to be sentimental. It's acceptable to do generous things for others. It's acceptable to be frank and straightforwardly honest about how you feel about others, without need for eloquence or fanciness - without dressing it up. Generally, it's acceptable to be yourself and love others for being themselves. It's the whole "Christmas spirit" thing. It's really rather beautiful and moving and whatnot.

Except it's kind of lame that this is only acceptable at Christmastime. Most people only show their love, gratitude, faith, and hope around the holidays, and it's so silly. "It's Christmas" becomes an excuse to be like this only for two weeks out of the year. I know everyone else in the world laments this conditioning around Christmas every year, but no one ever does anything about it. Everyone makes resolutions at New Year's to be more patient or more loving or this or that and no one ever keeps them. It'd be nice if we actually did that for once. I don't know what I'm getting at. I'm just saying.

Christmas time on a cold December morning -
All is calm and the world is still asleep.
Christmas lights that have been caught without warning
Gently glitter on,
Stars to wish upon,
All the world is at peace.

Christmas time and the year will soon be leaving,
Cloaked in time till it's just a memory.
Christmas stays if we don't forget its meaning.
Days go quickly by,
Years they multiply,
And we go searching for thee.

And the dream is still alive
From that first December morning,
And it always will survive
As long as we can see
That the dreams we find in life
Are the dreams we tend to seek,
And Christmas has its promises to keep.

Christmas time, and the moments just beginning
From last night when we'd wished upon a star.
If our kindness this day is just pretending,
If we pretend long enough,
Never giving up,
It just might be who we are.

----------------
Now playing: Trans-Siberian Orchestra - Promises to Keep

"Back to a Reason (Part II)"

Time, standing all alone.
I bled for you.
I wanted to,
Each drop my own.

Slowly they depart,
But fall in vain
Like desert rain,
But still they fall on and on and on.

Got to get back to a reason,
Got to get back to a reason I once knew.
And this late in the seasons,
One by one, distractions fade from view.

So, drifting through the dark,
The sympathy
Of night’s mercy
Inside my heart.

Is your life the same?
Do ghosts cry tears?
Do they feel years
As time just goes on and on and on?

Got to get back to a reason,
Got to get back to a reason I once knew.
And this late in the seasons,
One by one, distractions fade from view.

I’m looking for you,
I’m looking for I don’t know what.
I can’t see there any more,
And all my time’s been taken.

Is this what it seems?
The lure of a dream?
And I’m afraid to walk back
Through that door
To find that I’ve awaken.

The night seems to care.
The dream’s in the air.
The snow’s coming down.
It beckons me, dare.

It whispers, it hopes,
It holds and confides,
And offers a bridge
Across these divides.

The parts of my life
I tried to forget,
It’s gathered each piece
And carefully kept.

Somewhere in the dark,
Beyond all the cold,
There is a child
That’s part of my soul,
That’s part of my soul.

Got to get back to a reason,
Got to get back to a reason I once knew.
And this late in the seasons,
One by one, distractions fade from view.

The only reason I have left is you.

----------------
Now playing: Trans-Siberian Orchestra - Back to a Reason (Part II)

Outta Here...

Going to college was supposed to be liberating.

Yet I keep feeling more and more trapped. More held back. More restrained.

What the eff.

Outta here,
How am I gonna get outta here?
I'm thinking outta here,
When am I gonna get outta here?
And when will I cash in my lottery ticket,
And bury my past with my burdens and strife?
I want to shake every limb in the garden of Eden
And make every love, the love of my life...

----------------
Listening to: Bruce Springsteen - Livin' In The Future

"Slow down, you crazy child, take the phone off the hook and disappear for a while..."

Everything in our world moves fast.
It forces us to move as fast, if not faster.
It's all about speed - you have to move quickly, just to keep up.
Fast is better, we learn: work fast, drive fast, learn fast, live fast.
Except that's wrong.

"I can't. I can't go on. It goes too fast. We don't have time to look at one another... Oh, earth, you're too wonderful for anybody to realize you... Do any human beings realize life while they live it?-- every, every minute?"

Thornton Wilder wrote that in Our Town 70 years ago. And the world's gotten even faster since then.

Life goes by so fast as it is. Why do we want to go even more quickly through it?
How can we enjoy it when we go through at such a velocity, we barely perceive what's happening around us?
We're moving at millions of milles a moment in, out, around our surroundings.
How can we get anything out of it if we can't even slow down enough to see it?

We move slowly when we're little. Or rather, at our own paces.
Then school starts. Pre-school, pre-K, kindergarten.
Elementary school. Middle school. High school.
Push push push push push. Get through fast and efficiently. Do as much as you can in that small period of time so you can keep going.
College. Work work work. Gotta get a job then. Or go on to post-graduate studies. Either way, there'll be a lot of people to impress on the way. After all, you still have to meet a life partner.
Get a job. Get married. Have kids. Now you have a family, and you have to move through their lives at the speed of light, too. You can sleep when you're dead.
Oh wait. At the speed you're going, you're going to be dead by the time you're 50.
But that's what you get for trying to live successfully in such a fast-paced world.
And that's just for society's definition of success. These days, success isn't analogous to greatness. And it isn't analogous to happiness, either.

"At that moment, I knew that success, not greatness, was the only god the world served."

If we could only forget the drive to be successful in our high-speed world.
We'd move through life at a natural pace - at our own natural paces.
We could appreciate the great things about life instead of constantly being weighed down by the negatives.
We could live, and not just exist.

"Slow down, you're movin' too fast -
You gotta to make the moment last.
Just kickin' down the cobblestones,
Lookin' for fun and feelin' groovy...

I got no deeds to do, no promises to keep,
I'm dappled and drowsy and ready to sleep.
Let the morningtime drop all its petals on me.
Life, I love you, all is groovy..."

Paul Simon wrote that 40 years ago. He was right too.

----------------
Listening to: Billy Joel - Vienna [Live Unreleased Version]

"I Will Show You Love"

Just some pretty lyrics.

I will show you love
Like you’ve never loved before.
I will go the distance
And back for more
If you just say the word.

You will come alive again
And call the trying times your friend.
The pain that you have suffered through
Will never get the best of you.
You will hope in something real
That won’t depend on how you feel.
When you call my name,
Then I will answer, answer.

I am on your side,
Though the wind and waves
Beat against your faith.
You were on my mind
When the world was made.
Trust in me my child,
Trust in me my child.

Walk out on the water
Where you have no control -
So scared to death of failure
You sacrifice your soul.
Please let that go.

You have climbed an uphill road;
You have worn a heavy load.
You have cried through endless nights
And nearly given up the fight,
Watched your dreams like falling stars.
The heartaches made you who you are.
Now looking back you see
That I have always been there.

Where you gonna hide?
Where you gonna hide from Me?
Where you gonna go?
Where you gonna go that I can’t see?

I have heard you cry,
And it breaks my heart
For I love you so.
I would never lie.
This is not the end.
There is still a hope.

I am on your side,
Though the wind and waves
Beat against your faith.
You were on my mind
When the world was made.
Trust in me my child,
Trust in me my child.

Kendall Payne

Creepiness vs. Human Nature

Alright, so I get really annoyed by the fact that often, when people are just being nice, they're perceived as being creepy. Except I'm a total hypocrite because there is a guy who keeps stopping by my place of employment who is, most likely, just being friendly, but he creeps the heck out of me. Though, in my defense, he is rather stalker-ish. Like, stopping by at other times and asking people when I'm going to be working. And he keeps asking about UAA meetings so I think he might have an Asian fetish. Like I said...wicked creepy. But I think I'd rather be hypocritical and suspicious than be open-minded and optimistic and get assaulted at 11:30 at night in a building empty minus one other person, who might not even hear me scream. Yeah.

It's so odd, though, how what we construe as "creepy" or "awkward" or "weird" is often not that unusual or creepy at all. I mean, when it's some stranger you don't know from Adam...well, then I can understand the misunderstanding - how are you supposed to know what he's really like, what the real intentions and personality are? But when it's someone you've met, or know through a friend...well, odds are, the person is just being friendly. Say you've just met a friend of your best friend that you've never met. Any relatively friendly person is going to try to get to know him - try to talk to the person, ask questions, and just get acquainted with him in general. How annoying is it when the unknown friend is completely unresponsive and doesn't even make an attempt to talk to you? It's not weird for you to try to talk to the person, but they act as if it is.

I was talking to someone online one night who I haven't known very long, and he was giving me "his take" on my sister and why she behaves the way she does. Out of curiosity, I jokingly asked for his "take" on me, and he asked why I wanted to know. I said I was just curious, and he informed me, he almost never tells people what he thinks of them, to them, because it's just kind of awkward. I said that I don't just randomly say to people, "Hey, this is what I think of you," but if they ask, then why shouldn't I just be honest? If they ask, they can handle whatever I'm going to say, and it's not like I'm going to point out all the horrible truths about them - besides, if they're talking to me to begin with, I probably don't have anything terrible to say. And if I do, I'm going to at least be tactful about it. Jeez.

My point is, though, even if we say we don't care what other people think of us, we care what the people we like think of us - the people who are important to us. Often times, it's hard to read them - hard to discern if they care about you. So wouldn't it be easier just to ask about it? I mean, sure, it may be awkward at the time, but it's not like thereafter it'll always be awkward. Odds are, both parties involved will forget about it almost right away. So why is it that we have such a hard time just being frank about what we think and how we feel when other people are involved? Silly.

Then there's the stuff that really kind of is creepy, but isn't meant in a creepy way. Facebook stalking is a perfect example. It's the kind of thing that everyone does, but no one talks about. Checking out someone's Facebook that you're interested in, whether as a friend or otherwise, a dozen times a day, to the point that you feel kind of weird, knowing so much about them, but really aren't very close with the person. Then when you do talk to them in person, it's like, "Um, I totally know this already...but I don't want to admit that I stalked your Facebook." You don't mean to be creepy, and you have no intention of using this information in a weird way, but if the person knew, they'd think you were crazy. Spring Awakening puts it best:

In the midst of this nothing, this mess of a life,
Still there's this wanting just to see you go by.
It's almost like lovin', sad as that is,
May not be cool, but it's so where I live.
It's like I'm your lover, or more like your ghost,
I spend the day wonderin' what you do, where you go.
I try and just kick it, but then what can I do?
We've all got our junk, and my junk is you...

----------------
Listening to: Spring Awakening - My Junk