It Beats The Darkness

If You Do Just One Thing Today...

... please let it be going HERE and listening to the stupidly glorious mash up of Depeche Mode's Personal Jesus with Kanye's new song Black Skinhead called Personal Yeezus.

My face right now:

Jesus, Joseph, and doggy-style Mary.  Please play this at my funeral.

Imaginary Boyfriend Thursday... HE HAS RETURNED Edition

You guys, this sartorial motherfucker is officially back in action...

Pep has made his official debut as manager of Bayern Munich... oh the suit porn we have to look forward to this season!

I'm guessing Pep and Mario are watching precious Baby Manu doing something ridiculous in the above photo.... like chasing his own tail or getting a stomachache from eating too much Nutella.

So excited, you guys!!

Good Afternoon, Campers!

Hey, y'all!

Remember when I used to write things on here and pretend that people were reading those things?

Such a good time for everyone... right?

Well, I'm back to say something.  I don't know what that something is, but let's just see where we end up.

First of all, man oh man, has the last month and a half been intense.  To clarify, my definition of 'intense' is probably very different from most people's definition.  I think it's intense if I have to have my oil changed and buy groceries in the same day. Quel horreur!

Well it has been intense... just a lot of awesome things all thrown at me at once (and some not so awesome things but I've got my fingers crossed on those things working themselves out).

I know I've said it here before that I just really feel like in the past 6 months I am in the exact place I am meant to be... it's an intense feeling of knowing that your feet are traversing the correct path and that you are hitting every landmark and crossroads exactly when you are supposed to be.  It makes me feel kind of in love with the Universe in a very dopey, new age-y way that I have trouble expressing most of the time.

There is, however, a kind of terror that comes with this feeling though.  Because although I trust 100% that I am doing what I'm supposed to be doing and heading towards where I'm supposed to be heading I have no idea what/where that somewhere is.  It's actually crazy awesome once you get past the bed-wetting anxiety.

I imagine my face looks something like this most of the time:

So I realize I'm being super vague about what all of this "intense stuff" is, and it's really only because I have no idea what is going on... i'm just kind of along for the ride at this point and trying to enjoy it and not be too fixated on what the outcome will be. You know?

Suffice it to say that the world is a weird, wonderful place that will send you off on unexpected trajectories at  a moment's notice so you better just keep your chuck taylors laced on as tight as possible and try to keep a smile on your face because all indications point to you ending up somewhere you've always wanted to be.

And never be afraid of burning bridges.  Or being vulnerable. Or believing that you can have whatever you want.  Just never be afraid if you can manage it.

In other news I'm 10 lbs away from my goal weight (for a grand total of over 130 lbs lost over the course of 2 years).

You guys, weight loss is such a weird thing.  It takes so much time for your brain to catch up with your body (no matter how slowly you lose the weight).  I'm just now starting to see my physical self clearly... to not feel like a "fat" person.  It's a real mind fuck.  An awesome mind fuck, but still a very definite mind fuck.


In other other news, I'm going camping this weekend... like in a tent camping.  I haven't done this since I was probably 15 years old.  How will my 31 year old back fare sleeping on the hard-packed earth?  Probably terribly, but it'll still be great.

And, last of all, here's a song I'm listening to like a crazy person (in between listening to the leaked Kanye album):

Forever by Haim

For Mr. Whitman's Birthday...

From Song of the Open Road (emphasis mine)

5
From this hour I ordain myself loos’d of limits and imaginary lines,
Going where I list, my own master total and absolute,
Listening to others, considering well what they say,
Pausing, searching, receiving, contemplating,
Gently,but with undeniable will, divesting myself of the holds that would hold me.
I inhale great draughts of space,
The east and the west are mine, and the north and the south are mine.

I am larger, better than I thought,
I did not know I held so much goodness.

All seems beautiful to me,
I can repeat over to men and women You have done such good to me I would do the same to you,
I will recruit for myself and you as I go,
I will scatter myself among men and women as I go,
I will toss a new gladness and roughness among them,
Whoever denies me it shall not trouble me,
Whoever accepts me he or she shall be blessed and shall bless me.

Poetry, Motherfucker.... Do You Speak It?

I'm feelin' pretty sappy today.  Maybe because it's spring.  Maybe because it's beautiful and warm outside.  Maybe because sometimes you just feel sappy and in love even though you aren't actually in love?

Anyways... let's have some sappy poetry together and be in love with the theoretical possibility of love.

since feeling is first 
e.e. cummings

since feeling is first
who pays any attention
to the syntax of things
will never wholly kiss you;

wholly to be a fool
while Spring is in the world

my blood approves,
and kisses are better fate
than wisdom
lady i swear by all flowers. Don't cry
—the best gesture of my brain is less than
your eyelids' flutter which says

we are for each other: then
laugh, leaning back in my arms
for life's not a paragraph

And death i think is no parenthesis

Marriage

Lawrence Raab

Years later they find themselves talking
about chances, moments when their lives
might have swerved off
for the smallest reason.
                              What if
I hadn’t phoned, he says, that morning?
What if you’d been out,
as you were when I tried three times
the night before?
                              Then she tells him a secret.
She’d been there all evening, and she knew
he was the one calling, which was why
she hadn’t answered.
                              Because she felt—
because she was certain—her life would change
if she picked up the phone, said hello,
said, I was just thinking
of you.
                              I was afraid,
she tells him. And in the morning
I also knew it was you, but I just
answered the phone
                             the way anyone
answers a phone when it starts to ring,
not thinking you have a choice.

Untitled

Clementine von Radics

             I am not the first person you loved.
You are not the first person I looked at
with a mouthful of forevers. We
have both known loss like the sharp edge
of a knife. We have both lived with lips
more scar tissue than skin. Our love came
unannounced in the middle of the night.
Our love came when we’d given up
on asking love to come. I think
that has to be part
of its miracle.

            This is how we heal.
I will kiss you like forgiveness. You
will hold me like I’m hope. Our arms
will bandage and we will press promises
between us like flowers in a book.
I will write sonnets to the salt of sweat
on your skin. I will write novels to the scar
on your nose. I will write a dictionary
of all the words I have used trying
to describe the way it feels to have finally,
finally found you.

           And I will not be afraid
of your scars.

           I know sometimes
it’s still hard to let me see you
in all your cracked perfection,
but please know:
whether it’s the days you burn
more brilliant than the sun
or the nights you collapse into my lap
your body broken into a thousand questions,
you are the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.
I will love you when you are a still day.
I will love you when you are a hurricane.

Crushes: A History

Age 8 - Emilio Estevez as Billy the Kid in Young Guns 2

Age 11-13 - A kid in my grade (lets call him Kelso). One time in shop class he asked me about my book of Edgar Allen Poe’s poetry and I misinterpreted this to mean he was interested in poetry and had a poetic soul. Turns out he was just kinda dumb and really didn’t know who Edgar Allen Poe was.

Age 14-present - Jello Biafra and Graham Coxon

Age 15 - Joe. Joe was a senior and had an awesome tattoo on his calf. Sometimes he wore a kilt to school (this is the middle of nowhere in Kansas, mind you). He was really nice, and drove me home from school one day. I think he only did it because he was friends with my brother. I was silent during the entire ride.

Age 17 - Ben. I worked with Ben during the summer, and on his last day I didn’t say goodbye because I was too shy.

Age 21 - This 19 year old punk kid from Manchester on Livejournal. I have no idea what his name was, but he was definitely failing his college courses. He had a mohawk and the most kissable lips I’ve ever seen. I stalked his journal for 6 months, but never actually followed it because I was too shy.

Age now - No one. Well maybe this dude I saw at the Y a few weeks ago. He has red hair and a great beard. I call him Ginger Y, but I haven’t seen him but that once.