this song is about passion, plain and simple. the chorus suggests that the perfection of heaven wouldn’t be enough for the singer to replace the passionate relationship that he has with his lover. i never thought i’d be able to replicate a feeling like that, but the past few weeks have revealed a lot about me to myself.

(chorus)
i think of saving myself
because with nothing to complain about in heaven
what will i do?
i think of saving myself
but i really wanna work this out 
down here in hell with you.

i cut ties (we’ll see how long for) with someone recently with whom i shared such a tempestuous connnection…the thing was always up or down, bipolar beyond a reasonable doubt but also beyond repair. who i am will be forever shaped (or marred, more likely) by this thing, and how long it went on. but i can say this: it was never boring. there was no certainty, the fighting was pretty constant and usually ridiculous, the viciousness could be particularly biting and the emotions were always sharper than any blade could ever hope to be. but i never could predict what the next day would bring, and though there’s a sick irony to this, i’ll always yearn for that feeling.

i don’t know if we were perfect for each other because we’re such a failure together, or if it was just the most cataclysmic series of unfortunate events. i don’t even know if on any level we like each other, certainly probably not anymore. i do know that there isn’t a feeling in the world that can be replicated as impossibly as that sensation, that willingness to give it all up for this thing that feels like it’s killing you, and that hurts and break you at every turn…but that makes you feel so alive that you want to die.

(that’s probably the most emo and tragic wording i could have possibly put to this, but it gets the point across.)

when i look at the way things are right now, today, monday night…i wonder if the possibility exists that i’ve once again involved myself with someone who is like me in the worst ways, and dislike me in the worst ways. see, that’s a mistake i’ve already made. the idea of repeating it is pretty distressing…but i like who i’m with, even when it makes me feel things that i don’t like to feel.

there’s a lot of potential for that, because i generally hate how i feel when i’m in a relationship with anyone. i hate that my emotions are subject to whether or not a person calls or text messages me that day. i hate that i have to share this person that i’m crazy about with the rest of the world….but i tell myself it’s ok. because that’s how being in like, and consequently, how being in love, works.

i keep thinking about saving myself by never being in a relationship again, and how no one should have to deal with my shitty emotional trust issues, and how the most kind thing for everyone involved would be to avoid hurting myself by getting into these emotion-ships. but it would appear that i’ve already screwed that up. because i’m into this one. i like this one a lot.

i’m actually rewatching it from the first season, and so i just recently watched the episode where all of the pseudo-punk kids of Agrestic are gathered in an abandoned house, drinking shitty beer and smoking cigarettes and not getting blow-jobs from the deaf girl on Dewey Street. i realized, in watching that scene, that i have never lived that life.

i was one of those kids who was forced to stay home a lot in high school. i was a (relatively) good kid, got (relatively) good grades in school…and this was probably secured by the fact that my mother didn’t really let me go anywhere until i was 18, at which point i was a sophomore in college.

but now, as i’m about to turn 23, i look back on it all, and wonder if maybe it wasn’t all for the best. most of my peer group that did spend a lot of time being retarded during adolescence are still, even now, lost amongst the fray. the crop of millennials who graduated high school between 2002 and 2007 are futilely searching for steady jobs and/or careers in a shit-and-biscuits economy, a stabilizing and consistent culture to embrace, a niche in a discombobulated nation.

oddly enough, despite the black hole of a personal life that i’m living through, i’m pretty personally satisfied. my degree program gets more interesting as each week or so goes by, i keep meeting intelligent and driven people who challenge me to work hard(er), and i live in a place that’s great for cycling.

i feel less untethered than my fellows. i have passion, drive, and a desire to do something, to have a purpose. that’s pretty pretty good, for twenty-two.

(only the first three are in order, the rest just came to me)

1. being burned alive by the Ku Klux Klan
2. having sex with a man
3. being raped by a man
4. becoming a paraplegic
5. being roommates with Taylor Swift
6. getting sucked into a space vacuum
7. being Catholic
8. having an appendage chopped off with a butcher’s cleaver
9. drowning
10. going to prison

-i have yet to go to the rock gym.

-i didn’t buy that hookah.

-ikea.com charges out the ass for shipping, and you can’t buy lamps and housewares online. balls.

-i did do most of that painting, and it is pretty sweet.

-i in fact have made tacos and mac-n-cheese in the same night. it’s over-hyped.

-i do watch a lot of sports. 70% of my tv-watching.

-you would, i suppose, have to pay to audit a course. and i’m cheap.

-i chucked the moveable feast idea a while ago, it takes a lot more time than i could commit.

-the education thing keeps happening, so i suppose that’s something.

i like being in grad school more than i like anything else i’ve done in my life…but there are days when i miss being in public allies so much it hurts.

(i always miss the friends i made there, but that’s why God invented Facebook.)

UPDATE: further inspiration.

“dying is easy. living is hard.”

“words are permanent.”

i’ll add more as they come to me. but these, i like in particular.

UPDATE: “you don’t get to choose your friends.”

man, especially those speakers.

ceramic_speakers_macbook.jpg

sorapot_front.jpg

but i guess i just wanted to express how excited i am that several research opportunities have presented themselves for the upcoming mid-year break. those, along with my personal dedication to do some internal housekeeping (e.g. FINALLY organize, categorize and properly tag all my photos, clean up my music library, practice the guitar, do a little triathlon training, learn to cook some new things…basically be a better me™, will go a long way towards keeping me busy and out of trouble.

since i won’t see much (if any) of my beloved Miami this summer, it’s kind of just as well that i get things done, and in a big way.

ok, i guess i’ll go to work now…

i’ve got two jobs lined up this year so far, and this is before the cards even get here. I even had to turn down a job last week, because i wasn’t going to be able to make the time.

things are happening. this is exciting.

after spending some long-overdue time visiting with a friend of mine (who is also moving to gainesville in august), i came home only to be met with that most stressful of beast, Money Issues™. sallie mae, that bane of everyone’s existence, gave me a prerecorded call to gently remind to get my shit together. i’ve been really avoiding them and hoping that they would just go away and let me be since may, but i knew i had to deal with them eventually. part of why i’d been making the poor decision to close my eyes and run from the room is because, as the date looms closer and closer, i’ve begun to note how expensive it can be to move, even if it’s only 300 miles from my house.

in any event, i got on the horn with them, and then just paid them. immediately after i hung up, i began to panic, not knowing how and when i would be able to make up that money. i had created a very strict budget so that every thing would work out in spades, and to be totally honest, i really did not factor in sallie mae. so, soon after my anxiety attack set in, my mom asked me what i was going to do with my car (that doesn’t really move from our front drive). after thanking her for the idea, i called a number, and a guy in a pickup truck showed up an hour later and handed me cash for my car, enough to cancel out the sallie mae transaction.

i sat down to readjust my budget, again, when i on a lark decided to go to my web hosting website, hostmonster. that was another part of my budget. i expected the bill to be a couple of hundred dollars, but realized that i could renew for a shorter time, and could spend much less money until i had more cash-on-hand. finally, after all that, i called my apartment complex in gainesville to check and see what my rent was supposed to be, since i have no kind of memory whatsoever…only to discover that my rent is actually $250 less than i thought it would be for the first month, because of a dumb argument that i let my mother win about two months ago (that’s a much longer story than anyone has time for).

all of this adds up, not to coincidence or serendipity, nor to karmic vibrations moving about in my favor, nor to the arbitrary dialectics of my horoscope for the day. as far as i am concerned, none of that means anything at all. i have someone who looks out for me, and who exists above the realm of human understanding. the random grace that comes our way has a source, and that source is why we’re here. today is a good day, because i have a greater appreciation for God than i have in some time.

i also read the following, which made me stop and think about the four tattoos that i have:

Identification always carries a double meaning: it tends to invest the individual concerned with the properties and strength of the creature or thing to which that person is assimilated and, at the same time, to immunize the latter against its potential power to cause harm…identification also carries the sense of surrender or even of consecration to whatever the tattoo symbolically depicts. It then become a badge of fealty.

given that sentiment, i have surrendered to the continent of Africa, the common humanity that binds us all, to the confusion that comes with death (as well as the nature of infinite possibility), & to love. there isn’t a greater value to taking stock in what you have chosen to make sacred in your own mind, but knowing that you have is important.