Sing Loud

Everyone should sing at the top of their lungs

every now and again.

In the shower.

On a trail.

When it's snowing.

Or in a cathedral-like room.

Regardless of who is listening.

We don't sing enough.

Music is a window

through which we can view forever.

Why not more?

By Then

In life, the only deadline that's really necessary is death.

Maybe that's why we call them deadlines.

51.10+139.23/24

Truer hearts we would sure find_______________

______If when norms remain behind___________

__________To this search we directly bind_____

_______________The want of more pure minds.

Out Into All

I do wonder, and wonder still. Existence accepts my wonder, and perhaps some day will reply. But it takes a long time for questions to bounce off the edge of the universe and return as answers. Why this surprises us, I’m not really sure.

Why Which?

Seldom only Either/Or;

Often Both or Neither.*

*Take this quote as you will, but it is intended to mean that, whereas most of us tend to think in terms of taking one side or the other on any given issue, black and white might not always paint the clearest picture. I don't think anyone is ever completely "Right." I could be wrong, though.

Life is no sin.

Run through the leaves,

Roll in the snow,

Dance in the surf,

And don't apologize.

LISTEN and SILENT

are made of the same letters.

Defeat is to decide that failure is final.

My Favorite Season

If you asked me what my favorite season is, I'd say spring. At least, I would have before. But it's not spring, now, it's (almost) Fall. And I'm tempted to say it is my favorite. So, since I cannot decide for certain, this is why my favorite season is any of them:

• Spring is my favorite because of the sights--the blooming trees and visible signs of life.
• Fall is my favorite because of the smells--the crisp, cool air that smells like something heavenly is about to happen.
• Winter is my favorite because of the feelings--the warmth of staying indoors, curled up.
• Summer is my favorite because of the tastes--the ice cream, the sea-water, the fresh water that makes my tongue smile.

But there is no season for my ears, then.
That cannot be.

• Thus, from henceforth, I declare Music a season.

And it is my favorite (too).

The difference between fear and courage

is the direction they're heading.

When do they sleep?

Quick question: Do characters in Star Wars ever get jet-lag? With all that travelling between planets and multiple suns, it seems like it would throw their sleep-patterns way-crazy off.

(P.S. The B-wing is my favorite Star Wars space ship, as pictured here.)

Was that on purpose?

A couple passed me the other day wearing two t-shirts that either went together perfectly or not at all. The guy was wearing a red shirt with the message, "Satan is a dork." The girl wore a black shirt that said, "WICKED."

I'm Not Really Superman

As I was walking the other day, I came upon a tree that had been partially destroyed by a storm the previous night. The tree had split down the middle and one side, dead on the inside from some tree disease, had fallen over in the strong wind. A stood there examining the large chunk of the tree now lying sprawled on the ground and the gaping hole left in the remaining Maple. As I looked, two guys walked by. They saw me standing beside the fallen tree, and one of them said, "Did you knock it over?"
I smiled. "I think I pushed it a little too hard," I said. Then I corrected myself, "actually, I sneezed!"
They said I should be more careful, and I went on pretending I had done it, joking with them. Then, all joking aside, I said, "No, I didn't really do that. But it would have been cool if I had!"
They agreed. I mean, seriously--being able to knock a tree down with a sneeze? How cool would that be?
As I walked away, I chuckled at the conversation. Then I realized the situation was a little more humorous than I was giving it credit for:

I was wearing a Superman t-shirt.

Collegiate Anatomical Nomenclature

Yes, my friends, it's that time of year. Actually, it's at least a week into that time of the year--the time of year when you re-enter the classroom after approximately three months of not being in the classroom. Summer fades into not-summer, and not-summer takes the shape of classes where we all try to be intellectual (when us "we-people" are all knowing that our brain-organ-things have been kinda fuzzy for 3 months...but we trie an-ee-wae). And, in the collegiate text books (which cost an arm and a leg...and a couple of toes to boot--haha, no pun intended. Okay yes it was.), you of course find authors with names that remind you of anatomical terms--names like "Kolln," "Richter," "Bressler," and "Baugh" (pronounced [b-OW]). Why is it that people with anatomical names are always the intellectuals? It's like an unwritten rule: If one is wishing to be super smart, one's name must sound like a body part. (The rule even rhymes! It must be true.)
So, to all those who have left summer at the door of the classroom--welcome back. Don't let the body-names scare you. Intellectual people are people, too--they're just intellectual as well. And they have funny names.

Parasaurolophus

Beautiful dinosaur.
I have always adored dinosaurs. Just imagining what it would be like to stand beneath a towering giant of power, strength, and wild grace has always been one of my favorite ponderations. As you can tell from my profile from my favorite movies, dinosaurs have always had a special place in my heart.
The parasaurolophus is my favorite. Though you probably have trouble with the name (as do I, but it is the case with most dinosaur names), it is a beautiful name, and the creature fits it well. From pictures, it seems a very noble dinosaur, but wild enough to be dangerous. It is a specimen of beauty, and a monster of grace. It walks softly--or as softly as a dinosaur can--but it is not to be crossed. I would love to ride on its back. If our minds could cross, I think we might become best friends.
Oh, I'm not describing it well enough. The only way I've best found to describe it is this:
If Jesus were a dinosaur, I think He would be a parasaurolophus.

Blueberry Picking

Aeleli and I had a wonderful afternoon happily plucking ripe blueberries. It was a peaceful time of choosing the bluest berries and dropping them into our plastic ice-cream buckets with a small but definitive "plunk!" As we made our way around the bushes, we began to cover the bottom of our buckets with the pleasant fruits. As we neared a close, I noticed that, while half of my bucket's bottom was concealed, hers was completely so. I asked her what her secret was, and she showed me. "There's more on the inside of the bushes," she said. And she was right. I had been going around the outer edge of the bushes and picking what blueberries I could see. But she knew what it was to delve deeper--to work a little more and reap greater results. You reap what you sow, right? Well, if you sow a little labor, you get a small harvest. But what if you sow a lot?
As hard-set as I often am against working (because it isn't "fun", boo-hoo), she taught me a truth I've failed to see too many times before: Working harder pays more splendid results than working easy. Her twice-as-full bucket showed me so. When it comes to working for the results worth working for, how often do we just scratch the surface of what we could really be and find and do?

There is no time

We all use this phrase. "There is no time." That is the dilemma we all share--there just isn't enough time to do the things we want to do--sometimes even the things we need to do. We all say, "if I had more time, then I would..." paint; write; read; spend more time with family. You name it. We all have our own quarrel with the unstopping, uncaring clock face. But I think it is because our phrasing is incomplete.
Lately, I have complained at having no time to do the things I really want to do. But I realized that if I really want to do them, why don't I?
You see, there is always time, if we so decide. Our lives must be re-phrased as such:
"There is no time--like the present."

G.I.G.O.

It is a simple but gut-wrenching question I pose today: Why do we willingly expose ourselves to things we do not agree with or support for the sake of entertainment?
We watch TV, we see movies, we read books, and we listen to music knowing that the content of some of the things we put into our minds are not of preferred quality, many of which are often of no quality whatsoever but are instead detrimental to our thoughts. Why? It seems true that, in our society, entertainment is more important than wholesome personal growth. I ask myself (and you might do the same), "Is it possible it has become such on a personal level with me, and not only in society at large? Have I made my temporal pleasure more important than who and what I am and that which I am becoming?"
Why is it this way, if such is the case?
Or are these even questions worth asking?

Resume Safe Speed

I know it has been awhile, and I hope I will receive pardon for committing the unpardonable blogger-sin of neglecting my blog(s) for...awhile (to put it lightly). But here I am again, showing up every now and again with a thought or two.
But I haven't been neglectful purposefully.
No, I take that back. I was being purposefully neglectful. I was neglecting blogging because I've found love. You see, in the duration of time that has transpired since the last time I blogged, I have asked my beautiful companion, Aeleli Raelca, to be my wife. I might tell you all about how it happened someday, but for now it will suffice to say that we scaled a mountain together, and, in the white sun of a summer day at a 360-degree-view peak, I kneeled on a Rock, opened a box with a small gift inside, and said, "I love you, . . . and I want you to be my wife. Will you marry me?"
And she said yes.
And thus I am discovering that love is as much about companionship as it is commitment. You cannot have the former without the latter. And my dear Aeleli is well worth committing to. I stand now before the world (via my blog, at least), able to proudly say that I love this woman with all of my heart.
For this reason, I cannot say that my time will be devoted to this blog as much, anymore, since I am discovering life (and love) itself beyond these meager pages. But I'm here now, resuming where I left off.
Which leads me to a thought. Have you ever thought about how funny the highway signs that say "Resume safe speed" are? It makes me laugh when I drive past those signs. It's as if people go unsafe speeds...until they reach those signs, at least.
So here I am...resuming.

Always Something Else

A few weeks ago, I was making a routine Wal-mart run when I saw something that made me stop and wonder. I was in the back, by one of the pay-phones they have outside of the restrooms. As I stood there, waiting for my companion, a little girl skipped away from her family and walked up to a pay-phone. She pretended to put money in, and proceeded to play-talk into the phone as if she were a thirty year-old woman speaking in self-assured confidence.
It made me think: why is it that when we're children, we always think about being grown-up? We play house, we play school, we play work...we dress up in our parents' clothes. I think one of the number-one things children talk about (or at least are asked) sometimes is "What am I gonna be when I grow up?" It's all about growing up.
BUT,
then the child grows. And the child finds himself or herself wanting to be a child again.
Why is that?
It seems to me we're missing something by always wanting to revert or progress, and never just to be.
Why is it that we always want what will be or what was, but never what is? Well, I suppose it would defeat the purpose to want what is--why would you want to want what you already have?

Rupert says...

Hey, it's me, Rupert, again. I know I haven't said anything lately, but that's because I went on a skiing trip in the Himalayas. The funny thing is, I don't even know how to ski. Yeah, I spent a few days in the hospital because of...well, rocks, pretty much. But so did my buddy, Pete.

You know, life is pretty interesting! I don't have to tell you that. Everybody knows it. Life is an interesting thing, the way things happen. I was watching a bee yesterday. I think I got to close, because it yelled at me. How did I know it was yelling at me? Well, that's how close I was. I got stung on the ear...ow.

But my point isn't that life is all bee stings. It isn't. I just think life is fascinating. It makes me think. The weather is cold one day and hot the next. You have a bad day and suddenly it turns good somehow, or vice-versa. It happens either way, but that's life sometimes. But life isn't only the sudden ski-stopping rocks or bee rants.

I sat on a tree-limb yesterday. It was great. The wind was blowing, so it was sorta like a rocking chair. It made me think.
But you know, I couldn't tell you what it made me think, and that's why I liked it so much! I just swayed as I sat there in the air, the clouds making shapes in the sky. I dreamed last night about flying in those clouds, airplanes and all. I had to dodge a helicopter, and I even forgot how to fly at one point. But I remembered 1,000 feet before the ground. Things come back to you like that sometimes. But it was a dream. I don't guess anyone really flies. If they do, they probably forget.

But life is still fascinating, like thoughtless tree-limb sittings...or even fingernails...

Dentistry (and other ponderations)...

I just returned from the dentist. It was quite intriguing, what with the cleaning and all. I arrived in my usual confused state, oblivious to whatever procedure awaited. They escorted me to the reclining chair, and I sat. It wasn't extremely comfortable, but it worked (aside from spontaneously moving up and down at its own whim). Soon, there was the dentist-nurse-lady (do they call them nurses?) shoving the metal-scraper-thingy into my mouth, cleaning off all that wonderful tartar residue...but I'm sure you don't want the details. Not many people like hearing about the sound the scraper makes as the small needle-like apparatus scratches across your teeth, echoing inside your head.
Okay, I'll stop.
The coolest part of the dentalistic experience was the suction straw. I love those things. She gave it to me to clean out excess liquids from my mouth whenever I needed to. Just a flip of the lever and SHHHLLLLLOOOOOPPPPP! Saliva extraction completed. It's pretty nasty, I know, but MAN, those things are a blast! It made me feel like a dentist myself, because I flipped the suction-lever. I know how to flip the suction lever. I, the dentist, am naturally dentalistic (sadly, however, I do not believe "dentalistic" is an actual word. Oh well.).
Enough about dentistry. Time for random thoughts. The other day, I was watching my sister's dog. He's like a 5-year-old kid, my sister says. I'm inclined to agree. But what I was thinking was about how cool his tail is. His hair grows down on the underside of the tail, so it's all kind of one-sided making it look like a big plume (you know, like one of those feather pens that people like George Washington wrote their letters with). As I watched his funny tail, I wondered what it'd be like to have a tail like that of my own. Probably awkward, above all else. Hmm...
Have you ever thought about what piece of furniture you would be if you were a piece of furniture? I think I'd be a park bench. They get to reside in such peaceful places, play home to the homeless, provide seats for couples, and give the pigeons a reliable location to find the pigeon lady. Park benches must have such interesting lives.
Well, enough randomness. I'll leave you with one final thought: What's the point of getting up in the morning if you can't enjoy it? (But then, who said you can't?)

What the Italian Chef Said to the Safari Man When The Purple 500 Pound Gorilla Was Having Trouble Eating Pasta and Was Thus Beginning To Get Angry

"Use your machete,
Cut the spaghetti."

Maybe Squashed

We are ants,
and I am squashed.
Well, I say squashed,
but only because the other ants
are pressing in on me.
"This harvest must succeed,"
they say,
"Do your part!"
I guess they feel squashed, too.











If I were honest, though,
I've never known a shoe:
that suffocation,
then crushing,
then one less ant.
I am not squashed.
It's just another day at the ant hill,
and the world is only bigger than ever before.
I am yet smaller, but I live,
unsquashed.

If I were a frog...

On my profile, I answered the question, "How would you live your life as a frog?" Below is the full length version of the poem I wrote in reply:

If I were a frog...
If I were a frog,
Of a humid bog,
I'd have orange toes,
And scale the boughs,
And with bright red eyes,
I'd search the skies,
As skin vibrant green,
Would shimmer its sheen,
As it shined in the light,
With the moon in the night.
I'd have friends like me,
From tree one to tree three,
Who would join in hopping,
And there'd be no stopping,
We would jump all day,
Without fight or fray,
Until night would wake,
And we'd rest by the lake,
With sleep to pursue,
As the night brought the dew.
I'd climb very high,
As the moon drew nigh,
And I'd croak with the crickets,
In the thick green thickets,
And they'd chirp their tune,
"Do you dance with the moon?"
"Quite so," I'd reply,
And I'd leap to the sky,
And the moon and I,
would be blissfully tied—
Unless I got eaten.

The Otis-Spunkmeyer Experience

It had been a rather long and tiring week, and I woke up Friday morning slowly and sleepily: "I would say 'hello', Day, but I don't really feel too inclined towards salutations at the moment." (That was me almost greeting the morning). I felt it was going to be an uneventful day.
Breakfast changed my mind.
I dropped by a food place and picked up a wild blueberry Otis-Spunkmeyer muffin. Sitting myself down, I embarked on munching the pleasant, mushy breading of the meager meal. After a few bites, I noticed something rather hard (and not entirely chewable) between my teeth. I thought perhaps it was one of those yucky nut-pieces or hard-breading that they sometimes throw into the mix (often to my chagrin...I like that word..."chagrin"...good word). Though I was trying to swallow it, I just couldn't bring myself to do it. In chewing the piece of whatever-it-was, it wasn't getting any smaller. So I spit it out. I then examined my muffin to see what they had put inside. There, in the center, was a large, brown spot from which had come that ugly texture I had tried to chew. I pulled the spot out of the heart of my muffin and looked closely at it. I picked at its surface, and it peeled apart in two layers. Where it had been joined in the middle, its ridges looked to me a great deal like those found in cardboard. "It couldn't be," I mused.
I turned it over and examined the blueberry stains on one side. Wait. Those weren't blueberry stains. I scraped off the muffin residue which clung to the surface, and there the letters "of Jun" met my eyes.
There was a piece of cardboard in my muffin.
I chuckled to myself at the incident, set the muffin aside (naturally, I was finished), and wrote this poem with a better, more humorous outlook on the day's new potential.

The Otis-Spunkmeyer Experience

The week had worn me winded, puffin';
With waking I bought a simple muffin:
Otis-Spunkmeyer wild blueberry,
While I spent the mornin' a-sluffin'.

Made of bread and fruit and dairy,
I took three bites, and quite contrarily,
There my mouth found something horrid:
A piece of cardboard hard: scary!

Though it was something I had afforded,
It left me dazed from its texture sordid.
What could steal a muffin's pride?
A nasty piece of cardboard did.

It had the words "of Jun" inscribed
Upon is tasteless, chewless side,
And my breakfast then had found its end--
Eating cardboard, I can't abide.

Magnetic Poetry #5: To Life

My blood is red,
soft rain falls blue;
Water me long
in colors from you.
Every sound:
beneath,
above,
through.
I can be more
than how, which or who.
Eye full of sun,
this would it do:
I could leave all
and life must come too.

But only if you wanted to.

Where I've been...not much of anywhere.

Courtesy of Joe Napalm, here is a map of all the places I've been...in the world. Period.No joke. That's it. And the majority of those don't really count, since I was only in Texas for a duration of 2 weeks following my birth (which I don't remember), and a lot of the other states I've merely gone through to get somewhere else. Basically, the places to which I actually remember going include Florida, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Pennsylvania, Washington D.C. and Ontario, Canada.

I need to get out more.

Lord Byron says:

This is a poem a ran across today, and I liked it so much, I decided to include it. It has a lot of the same themes this blog deals with, so I figured it'd be right at home here. The past is no more. The future is not yet.

They say that Hope is happiness

Felix qui potuit rerum cognoscere causas.*

--Virgil

They say that Hope is happiness--
But genuine Love must prize the past;
And Mem'ry wakes the thoughts that bless:
They rose the first--they set the last.

And all that mem'ry loves the most
Was once our only hope to be:
And all that hope adored and lost
Hath melted into memory.

Alas! it is delusion all--
The future cheats us from afar:
Nor can we be what we recall,
Nor dare we think on what we are.

*"Happy is he who has been able to learn the cause of things."

--Lord Byron, 1829.

61st & 20.5th!

I figured it was about time to celebrate the uncelebrated.
This just happens to be the 61st post on this blog! I am quite pleased. It is not uncommon for bloggers to post a "YIPPEE!" for their 100th blog, or even their 50th blog (the latter being a former post of mine and the former being a latter post of mine, which I have yet to make). But why not the 61st? I mean, I don't think anyone has ever celebrated the 61st blog before! And of course, why would they? What's so special about blog-post 61? What reason could there possibly be for such spontaneous frivolity? Well, I have a reason:
It's my half-birthday!!! I am 20.5 today! And you can't tell me that's not a good enough reason to celebrate. I don't think we celebrate half-birthday's enough. I mean, I've made it, not just 20 years, but twenty-point-five!!! I'm gonna go find some cake and do some 20.5th birthday-partying. I guess I'll only eat half the cake, though.

Magnetic Poetry #4: Autumn

the season is out of color
like red blood feeling as blue as frost

leaves rain softly to the earth

I could never know all there is
but if morning must taste night
you are here by me

our love has life
we see only light
and give every day to Him
who makes Good live long

winter snow
summer sun
spring or no
fall will come

but let you and I always be more

than a flower after full bloom
dying too soon

Magnetic Poetry #3: Summer

summer has come with a wild wind
she says to me I give you my love
our eyes grow heavy from the dance they do
we taste a too ripe kiss and I ask her
why was it so hard to wait and make this live
that long want for the vine
Blooming

Magnetic Poetry #2: Spring

You taste a morning rain cloud
fermented by the spring sunshine,
fuller than red wine or a soft kiss.

It is hard for me to wait here,
but I must.

I wish this cracked window
could let my eyes see you
and make happy the dream too long in coming.

But we have thick blue air between
and no street to walk as night falls.

Almost soon,
love will be.

Shards of Light and Moon Rings

I was walking along, the sun high in the sky, and I squinted at the pieces of sunshine that resided on the sidewalk in front of me. Slivers of silver and shattered red seemed to have fallen from above and landed there, piercing my eyes with blinding white light. But they weren't drops of molten sun at all. They were shards of glass--a broken Christmas bobble, perhaps. There the pieces rested, reflecting the sunlight from below, leaving dancing green and purple spots on my eyes. The brightness they held was the kind you long to contain somehow--to put into your mind and keep it there for those dark days where white light is exactly the sort of thing you need to brighten your frown or evaporate your tears...or perhaps do the same for someone else. If light could heal wounds, those shards would have been medicinally perfect--an ideal perscription for any light-less day.
But light is not kept--it is simply experienced. And light is not only for day. The other night, I walked with friends along a darkened street, the woods around us stretching upwards to form a night-time tunnel of black branches silhouetted against the moonlit sky. But the moon was not alone in the sky. Nor were the stars. Encircling the moon was a ring of shadow-light, almost as if the clouds had learned how to keep brightness in one place, geometrically unblemished.

Overhead it looms;
Ring around the moon;
Brilliant faded circle rounds the light.

Off the silent creek
Flow reflected beams.

Living comes so soon;
Intangible yet Right,
Full and Real and Bright,
Eternal soul that gleams.

(There's some attempted poetry for you, if you like. Something simple and full of meaning for whoever would see it there or put it there.)

For a scientific explanation of moon rings (halos), go to http://home.hiwaay.net/~krcool/Astro/moon/moonring/

Magnetic Poetry #1: Winter

A while ago, one of my friends gave me a set of magnetic poetry. As a self-declared writer, I am one who loves playing with words. Well, magnetic poetry allows me such pleasure. So, from now on you may see one of these "magnetic poetry" posts every once and awhile, when I slap some magnets down and form spontaneous lines of verse with provided words. You may derive your own meaning.
Here's the first:

I live in a frosty blue dream of life.
I long for the music so soft and full.
Come wind or light to a winter night
And give me the taste that grows from want.

Fargas

What do you see here?
A picture of a few of those cold, metal folding chairs taken on Dec. 14, 2003. Now, it may just be coincidence, but you know how sometimes if you use these chairs to reach high places (for lack of a stool), they inadvertently fold in on you? Or perhaps, as you're folding them, you pinch yourself. Or what about when you stack them up against each other, and they fall down when you are certain you stacked them up perfectly well? Sometimes it seems as though there is some force of mischief that is working against you. And it's not just with metal folding-chairs either, as I'm sure you know.
This picture was actually taken from the archives of IRIS (Investigative Research of Invisible Species). This organization specializes in discovering, analyzing, and documenting the effects of "optically-elusive" creatures on the visible environment, most importantly concerning their influence on humans. It just so happens that in this picture, there is photographed one of the sneakiest, most conniving creatures unknown to man. Invisible to the naked eye, the creature is easily seen when viewed through X-ray:
What you see in this picture is known as a farga. Farga's are notorious for one thing and one thing only: chaos. You stack boxes in the garage and as soon as you turn around, they fall over. You organize the papers on your desk only to have a breeze fly in and disorganize. You're running and suddenly you trip over...nothing. Or is it nothing?
What you are experiencing when these or like- circumstances occur is the fargas themselves in action. Fargas feed off of chaos. They will deliberately cause whatever meyhem they can lay their big, luggish hands on. As you can see in these renderings (based on the x-ray), they are the epitome of mischief and havoc. Knocking over things, causing objects to fall, tampering with car engines, shorting electrical devices, and throwing-off human stability in any shape, form, or fashion is their niche. It is what they do. And they absolutely love computers. They have been known to be behind over 4,989,784,865 computer problems in the past year.
Why hasn't anyone done anything about them?, you ask. Why hasn't IRIS or other organizations of the same nature routed out and undermined the little chaos-maker devils? So far, the only thing found to work against them is ignoring them. If they don't receive recognition for their chaos, it decreases the food source, causing them occasionally to look for food elsewhere. As for further efforts--well, you try circumventing a farga and see if your life gets any easier! I tried, and in the past 3 hours I've had 4 spills, 9 objects fall over, my computer has crashed twice, and I tripped over my own nose. MY NOSE! How does someone trip over their nose?
One word: Farga.
Be on the lookout. They're everywhere.