Friday, April 23, 2004     1:11 PM

Don't let me hear you say life's taking you nowhere, angel
Come get up my baby
Run for the shadows, run for the shadows
Run for the shadows in these golden years

I'll stick with you baby for a thousand years
Nothing's gonna touch you in these golden years

- golden years, david bowie

so, i have this beautiful best friend who is immensely talented and superbly creative in the most weird and wonderful ways. last week i think, he told me he didn't believe people thought his work was good or that no one really showed appreciation/admiration for it. i wanted to mention it then but now is as good a time as any - that's madness. if i had half the ingenious, imaginative intellect that he has i would be thrilled. i wish more people that have seen his brilliance would step up and say with me, "You will take the world." really i think it's all about perseverance and believing that you're the fucking man, because it makes it that much easier for people to believe it as well. timing plays a role as well, but that's where i think being unequivocally unrelenting comes in.

which brings me to my point:

i consider all of my friends talented in different ways and if someone is my friend i will do whatever possible in supporting them in their endeavors. supportive to me doesn't just mean saying everything a person does is great, though. being critical is at times what's needed in order to really help the person, to give them what they require at that time. and sometimes it's about giving them a kick in the ass. remind that no one is going to know their greatness unless they keep at it. being honest is essential. it's not about what people want to hear, it's about what they need to hear. telling someone what they want to hear all the time just lulls them into complacency and that's no good for them or the friendship.

i really hope my friends know that's what i want from them as well. i could certainly use a good kick in the ass every so often from the people who care about me.

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we are made to bleed
and scab and heal and bleed again
and turn every scar into a joke
we are made to fight
and fuck and talk and fight again
and sit around and laugh until we choke
sit around and laugh until we choke
                   - buildings and bridges, ani difranco

i hate it when i forget the name of a song i really want to get and can't even remember a lyric because i'm so tired. these are the things that keep me up at night when i should be happily catching up on the countless hours of sleep that i've been missing since starting this job. and then of course, right at the moment when i'm about to shut all brain function off and sleep, lightning strikes. damn you david bowie, and your golden years.

regarding the job - on a sad note, sarah, my co-worker and co-conspirator, will be leaving at the end of the month. i hope we can keep in touch and i'm getting her an ani difranco ticket as a going away present. she's the coolest person i've ever had the pleasure of working with, and she's going to be missed. with that they've asked me to step into the role of project assistant, which i have said okay too as it fits more of what i want to do than the tedious administrative work. it will also mean a pay raise soon, which is great.

it will also make it easier to facilitate the vacation i am planning for myself, a week in scotland at the beginning of september. haven't had a vacation in years and i think getting away will do me worlds of good. it'll be fun to do the goth club thing there as well. for some reason all of this, the job stuff as well as personal stuff is an interesting wake up call to me. i'm not a kid with crappy self esteem and a chosen lack of independence anymore. i actually have goals and plans and dreams that i'm on my way towards achieving. it's a bit scary, but as long as i can find a good balance between taking myself and life seriously, and having fun, all should be well. (all that i control that is - the rest, health and such, that's not something to dwell on for here or anywhere at the moment as it's not productive)

so, a braindead moment from last night:

it's around 9pm and i've felt okay all day, if not a little tired. randomly as i'm walking down my steps, i realize the muscles in my legs ache a lot. i wonder why. i ponder this for a good half an hour before it actually occurs to me why they feel this way. it's sad when you can't remember something 24 hours prior because your brain is so low on the functioning meter. that's sleep deprivation at it's worst, let me tell you. but at least it's the good kind of muscle ache that you feel after having worked out, not the, oh my god i pulled 100 muscles at one time and am going to pass out from the pain kind.

it's a wonder that with all this not sleeping i'm writing more, and finding more to write about this week. not going to question that though.

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no, there's no one else that good. Achilles, without the heel.

have that quote about wanting to be a better man from As Good As It Gets going through my head. it's amazing what one good night in the midst of a hellish week can do for the soul.

one of the best friends a girl could have reminded me it's okay to hate. not just okay, but normal. that said, i'm beginning to understand that all relationships (and i use that in the broad sense of the word, to include friends, etc) have to go through tough periods, periods where you possibly could hate that other person as fiercely as you love them. after all, if getting along with people was always easy, fewer people would strive to become more evolved. while that intensity may not always be the case, my point is that i think if you're bond is strong enough, if you both know it's really worth it, then the relationship becomes stronger for it. more solidified. and if you realize it's not worth it, well, that's even tougher but ultimately a person has to do what's right for them. it's important though, i think, to make the tough decisions after the hating (or whatever) is past, because then you can think with a clear head about what is really important.

on a completely random note, someone should bottle the essence of raw passion, tenderness and contentment for me. i'd like to have it swirling around me every day.

"When we're incomplete, we're always searching for somebody to complete us. When, after a few years or a few months of a relationship, we find that we're still unfulfilled, we blame our partners and take up with somebody more promising. This can go on and on--series polygamy--until we admit that while a partner can add sweet dimensions to our lives, we, each of us, are responsible for our own fulfillment. Nobody else can provide it for us, and to believe otherwise is to delude ourselves dangerously and to program for eventual failure every relationship we enter."

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people are people, so why should it be you and i should get along so awfully?

the week isn't going by fast enough. it's also not going very well. work is, well, i could go off there but it's best left unstated for the moment. it would be nice to actually get out on time just once, though, but i don't see that happening.

lots of ideas swirling around as of late, though not really terribly interesting, i think. just random observations about myself and others.

is there a word for that space between not quite sad but definitely not happy? i'm caught there and i can't seem to get a foothold out. it's disconcerting because it is quite easy to appear content, fine, and yet inside words such as joy and bliss are floating away through the ether.

what's one to do?

press on, i suppose.

what else is there, really? it does no good to talk about being unsatisfied when one can't even figure out the root of the feeling. or refuses to.

"If you bring forth what is within you, what you bring forth will save you. If you do not bring forth what is within you, what you do not bring forth will destroy you." -Gnostic Gospel of Thomas

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it's terribly disconcerting that motivation for writing comes from a negative experience and that that's the case far far too much. it's the sad truth though.

sometimes it's very hard to feel okay being myself when it seems like i'm constantly getting punished for it. i'm all about self evuation and evolving but there has to be some point where you say, hey, this is me. this is part of my personality and either accept it or don't be around me. Maybe that sounds overly harsh, it actually is, but i'm so so tired of feeling like i should change my emotional landmap, or at least subvert it in order to prevent certain situations and/or confrontations.

Communication is not just words; communication is architecture. Because of course it is quite obvious that a house which would be built without the sense... Without that desire for communication, would not look the way your house looks today.

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There will be a first meeting for all those interested in helping to get Ralph Nader on the ballot in the state of Maryland. We need to collect 10,000 signatures -- this is an extremely achievable goal - and I'm looking forward to working with all of you!

Monday, April 12
7 p.m.

Progressive Action Center
1443 Gorsuch Avenue
Baltimore, MD

i suggest for anyone that's interested that they mapquest it, or if you email me i'll give you the contact person's phone number.

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