Insomnia

As some, or most, of you know, I can have pretty bad bouts of insomnia. Over the summer, I would go weeks without sleep, and in earlier parts of my life those periods could be even longer. And as a few people know, I've recently been taking some medication to combat it. It's been going well, real well actually, but I got just a bit worried that if I would always need it in order to get to sleep. So just as a little experiment to myself I took one night to just skip that pill. No harm done, just like I missed a dose or something.

It was a bit of a mistake.

I mean, I did actually get to sleep on my own, which was fantastic, but the process of getting there still took an ungodly amount of time. I haven't tossed and turned that much since high school. But I feel like I talk about my insomnia to some people and not everyone quite gets it. I mean, how can anyone possibly imagine what it's like to be awake for days, weeks, on end? I was thinking this, well, I was thinking a lot of other things too, as I was tossing and turning. At the same time I was also struggling to find an idea for a new post, so here it is: a quasi-blunt description of what it's like (at least for me) to have insomnia.

Now, I have a feeling this always varies from person to person. I know that I have some family members that have it as well, and I'm sure what I experience is vastly different from them. The main thing for me is that each day that passes feels like-- feels like a year goes by. Everything just slows down to a standstill almost. Clocks don't look like they move, the sun doesn't shift until suddenly it's nighttime again, TV programs never change or advance. When I get into these bouts, I have literally just laid motionless on the floor for what honestly felt like a solid three hours that turned out to be maybe -- 15 minutes. On paper that sounds great, right? Now suddenly I have all this time to be productive or something? Yeah, you'd think so. You don't have the will to even be productive. Your body just feels like it's wearing thin, as Bilbo Baggins said in Lord of the Rings it's like "butter spread over too much bread." Walking is honestly a chore at this point, all I ever felt like doing was laying down. But in spite of doing just that, sleep still didn't come. I watched the ceilings mostly, traced patterns, looked for shapes that weren't necessarily there, just in some vain attempt to lull myself asleep.

The one positive I can draw from that is that a lot of the inspiration for any writing I do usually comes out of that. I tell myself stories quite often, because let's face it, who's around at 4:30 in the morning to be social with? I also got to watch a lot of awesome old cartoons on Boomerang. Wacky Races, that's the good stuff. It's kind of weird to say, but at night it's almost-- comfortable. Sometimes I'd enjoy that sensation of just being, and I wouldn't miss sleep at all. I was able to read countless books this summer because of that in just the peace, the dark, and the silence.

It's during the day time that most of that first paragraph happens. Remember in Fight Club when Ed Norton's character describes it as a "waking dream" or something thereabouts? I can almost agree with that, except I never hallucinated people flashing in and out of existence, and I most certainly don't have a weird split personality. (Spoiler alert?) But while you're spending time in those year long prisons of days, it just doesn't feel real. I could liken it to a fever dream where you want so desperately to wake up and be out of the dream, but it just continues on and on in the most uncomfortable way imaginable. It's a funny sort of personal hell. Things are as real as they could possibly be, yet it all feels somehow intangible. That's not even mentioning the complete lack of focus that follows, or the intense irritability that I had a serious problem dealing with.

I will say this though, the first time I'm able to sleep after having a really bad bout is just about the greatest experience of my life. Until my dreams are really vivid, but that would take a novel in and of itself to get into. Yeah, dreaming of being covered in termites while your legs inexplicably stop working is kind of horrifying. Although my alien invasion dreams are always particularly awesome. There's a broad spectrum of those.

And there you have it, a brief look at what it's like (at least for me) to be an insomniac. I don't wish it on anyone, really, and I'm always the first to worry about people that don't sleep since I know how it feels, I know what it's like. Cherish your sleep as I do, you'll never know how much you miss it until it's gone.

Until next time...

What Makes You Happy?

I posted this status on Facebook today, "What is one thing you've done today to make yourself happy?" We all need those things to make it through the week, or hell, through life in general. Don't get me wrong, I still think life is good, great even. But sometimes the world can let us down a little bit. It's all circumstantial, really. Life is innately good, and we're left with the world to balance it out with complications. So we really need those little things throughout the day to make ourselves feel good about things.

And you might say, "But Ian, I had three tests today. How am I supposed to be happy with that workload?" Easy. Make time. Take your tests, and when you're done make yourself do something that will improve your mood. Simple as that. You have to do it, if you don't you'll get worn out before too long.

I really had to do this for myself the past couple of days. Don't get me wrong, things are great, they really are. My mood is on the up-and-up, my appetite is vastly improved (if only my diet would follow suit), and I've been far more social than I've ever seen myself be. But recently I just feel like maybe I'm not up to where I want to be yet. It's hard to explain, I just feel like I'm missing something. I know everything is a work in progress, but I'm the kind of person that can be frustrated when the status quo just continues for too long. It was running me down a little bit the past few days, not to the point of running ragged, but still not feeling the same heights of happiness I felt mere days before.

As I was reading through the comments that came up on that status I thought to myself, "Well, what have I done recently?" What could I do to get myself out of this "rut" I was feeling myself fall into? What makes Ian happy?

I'll tell you what I did. I read an entire book, No Country For Old Men, within one day, and while doing so I plumbed the depths of a mad killer's deterministic insanity, and wondered how everything in his philosophy made sense in the sickest of ways. After that? I pulled open my laptop and indulged myself in a few hours of Pokemon and Dishonored. Okay, you might scoff at me for playing Pokemon, I know. It's just for kids. Here's the thing. Pokemon was a big part of my childhood. My cousin and I would watch the show, play the games, trade the cards, everything like that. If you ask me, if I couldn't still hold on to that one, small part of my childhood I would be vastly disappointed in who I am today. Plus, I evolved my Rhyhorn to a Rhydon. Suck it, Pokemon League.

Old childish things aside, that's what I did. I took the weekend to make myself smile with those things. Is that such a bad thing? To take time to just be alone and make yourself smile with inane little things and just leave your problems behind? I don't think so. In fact, I wish more people would. If more people did that, I feel like we'd have a happier world to live in.

As I'm finishing this, I'm wondering how similar this is to my last post... Oh well, I guess I don't mind repeating myself as long as I do it with different words. But I'll leave this post with the same question I started with: What have you done lately to make yourself happy?

Until next time...

Step Back

I want you to do me a favor. I never ask for much on my blogs, but I want you to do this for me.

I want you to take a deep breath and take one step back.

I know it's been a long couple of weeks. You're stressed from exams, essays, mid-term insanity, whatever it may be, you're done with it. There's that one test you may not have done so well on, but there's one you think you nailed. I want you to stop thinking about the one you didn't get the grade you wanted. I want you to think about the one you nailed. Take that victory. The failure? A drop in the ocean. Do you know how many more tests you're going to take? Exactly. A lot. Don't sweat this one, there's plenty more to come.

Whoa there, don't step up again just yet. I know we just had Fall Break, but I know a lot of you are still crazy stressed. So here's what I want you to do. Close your eyes. Place yourself somewhere else, somewhere far away, somewhere quiet, somewhere relaxing. Breathe in. Breathe out. Open your eyes. I want you to take thirty minutes just for yourself. No social obligations, no school work, no distractions. Just you, the planet, and all the time in the world. While you're there, away from everything, think about your life. Think about how incredible it's been. Think about the places you're going, the places you've been to, look at the shape of your life. Even if there were downturns, wasn't it still worth it, seeing everything whole?

At some point in that thirty minutes, I want you to go outside. Hell, might as well do the entire thirty minutes outside. Sit in the grass. No, lay down in the grass. Watch the clouds move overhead, feel the grass react to your weight, think of how small you truly are and find comfort in that. We're less than a grain of sand, but when you look at how beautiful the entire beach truly is, it's worth being the tiniest part of that.

Let that be your comfort. Everything will work out. It's the weekend now. Take the next week as it comes. If it shoots hardship at you, you just shoot it right back. Life is good. It will continue to be good. Don't let the weight of the world keep you down.

Until next time...

This blog has now surpassed 1,000 views. Thank you.

I Couldn't Think of a Title So I Typed This Instead

I'll just be blunt, I didn't think this weekend was going to go well. Okay, at first I thought it was fine, I mean, it was pretty usual, we went stargazing/city watching up at Lookout Mountain and we were laughing, joking, and enjoying ourselves on the car ride up there. It was fine, I was fine. Well, at least fine-er than I had been. As I watched over Golden and Denver from the mountains, I certainly had a lot going through my head. Nothing bad, really, it was just a lot at once. So I was sorting all of those things out all while Modest Mouse lyric, "I see the tiny lights below, and oh my god they look so alone but I don't really feel anything," was coursing through my head while also bracing myself against the cold mountain winds.

Seriously. I was only wearing a thin button-down, an undershirt, and jeans. None of that was anywhere near close to being insulated enough to handle that wind. Especially as fog was rolling in. I will say though, I owe that juniper bush some water or something. It was such a good wind-blocker.

Anyway, so I was a little quieter than usual. Not because of any negative thoughts, just because there were a lot. I-- may have already said that. Point is, I was fine. Until well... until I wasn't. Out of nowhere I just crashed, and I crashed hard. I could not say or pinpoint what happened. All of a sudden my mental state just totally went up in flames. I didn't feel tired, hungry, or anything, I just felt like I existed and that was it. Only just barely existing at that. I was almost completely withdrawn, irritable, just so unpleasant to be around. We ended up walking to Safeway and I just separated myself from everything and anyone. The few comments I did make, were some comments as we passed a horrifically outdated Ron Paul campaign sign (which were far from pleasant), and I think I may have said "Oh, vomit." out loud after I read something on my phone's Facebook feed. It was awful, I felt awful, and I'm terribly, terribly sorry that I had to subject my friends to that. I'll be honest again and say I don't even remember many thoughts going on. Everything was just-- blank. I don't know how to explain it. I do remember feeling overbearingly worthless, but let's not get into that. So from there, they went to watch a movie, and I, well, I left. I went to my dorm, popped on my big headphones, cranked some Alexisonfire, and actually fell asleep with my head on my desk.

Then somehow I woke up in my bed. Yeah, I can't explain that. In fact, I can explain that even less than my roommate standing in our room Paranormal Activity style, but I digress. I woke up, and-- I just expected everything to be the same. For the better part of the morning, it was. I'm no stranger to thinking like that, but it was still rough for the morning. The day got better though, I spent most of it with Sean and Jessi. We just hung out, tossed the frisbee, and came up with some of the greatest useless super powers I've ever heard. I'll have to type those up one day.

Okay, enough digressing. But the day picked up, and I was kinda pushing everything to the back of my mind. We decided to go out to this place called Jump Street, and then just see where the night went. I do like where it went. It feels a little weird typing this out, but I made a friend. We got onto the trampolines at this place, and were just messing around. Jordan was showing off doing a bunch of backflips, and then I totally ate it trying to do a front flip. When I'm getting up, I hear this little voice yelling at me, "OH MY GOSH, YOU CANT DO A FRONT FLIP!"

It's an 8 year old girl. She went on to make fun of me for a solid three minutes, before she stuck out her hand authoritatively and introduced herself as Kinzie. At least, I think that's how it was spelled. I don't know. She's a self-proclaimed "sportsaholic" who plays "every sport she can" along with several instruments. According to her, she was also completely jacked up on sugar, and it really showed. She was jumping all over the place and laughing and jumping with my friends and I. She jumped on my back, and tried at (and was later successful at) knocking me over, she chased Jordan around the entire set of trampolines before jumping on his back and calling him a wimp, and even got Sean trying to to front-flips.

There are some gems of quotes from her too:
"Are you sweating? I don't sweat. Sweating is gross."
"I'M AMAZING" (she repeated this about twenty times before missing a jump and landing on her back)
"You're a wimp, wimp!"
"But you're so tiny! If I can do a flip then you can! Look, I'm only up to here *points at Jessi's neck* on you. You're a munchkin!" (I just about fell over laughing at that one, the look on Jessi's face was priceless)

And so on, and so forth. So what, right? A crazy, energetic third grader who attaches herself to a bunch of college kids just to play around. That's just normal kids behavior, I think. But here's the thing, she's out there jumping around, laughing, screaming, with a brace on her foot. You see, she sprained her ankle either doing gymnastics or soccer, I can't remember which. It obviously hurt her, every time she fell over she winced in pain. But when I went to help her up and asked her if I needed to help her over to her parents she gave me a look like I had just said the worst swear words imaginable and said, "NO. If I have to leave they're going to have to drag me out of here!"

You've gotta appreciate her spunk. This little girl was seriously, physically injured, and she was still keeping the same energetic attitude that (I'm assuming) she always has, and still excited to do all the things she loves. She doesn't roll over and quit. She takes on a bunch of 19 year olds as a challenge. I get it, she's 8, kids are like that, especially competitive ones. But why can't we all have that attitude? Just rolling off of obstacles and keep doing what we love to do.

Hell, in her words, "If I can, so can you."

It's worth a try, right?

So for the rest of the night, I was processing that line of thought and how I would put it into this blog. By some stroke of luck, when we stopped for ice cream there just happened to be a fireworks show going on just behind the shopping center where we were stopped. And on the ride home, 1979 by The Smashing Pumpkins came over the radio. I hung my head out the window like The Joker in the cop car in The Dark Knight, and just felt so in tune like I haven't for such a long time. When I got on this line of thought, this belief to just start rolling off the obstacles I started noticing the things I like just a little bit more.

So thank you, Kinzie... or Kenzie... or Kelsey... however your name is spelled, you accidentally saved my mind last night. I went from a blank slate that pondered shaving its head to feeling the rhythm of the wind on my face and feeling at one with the world just because you made me think about enduring. There is about a hundred percent chance you will never read what I've written here, but thank you all the same. I hope you keep that same "can-do" attitude as you grow up. It'll be a long and difficult road, but I want you to overcome all of that like your sprained ankle. One day, you'll be some soccer or gymnastic star and you most certainly will not remember the night you accidentally helped a seriously troubled teen at a Jump Street in Littleton, but who knows? Maybe you will.

In any case, you have my thanks. Good luck with the third grade.

In other News...

As far as The Lingering Storm is going, I'm getting some good ground on the second chapter. It's kind of difficult to write out the parts I'm on, since I have so many plans for where I want it to go, but I'm getting through it. It's mostly just a matter of finding time to sit down and actually write it. I do like where it's going though. I'm still really excited for it.

School is killer, I've got a 25 page paper on Liberal Internationalism due on the 3rd that I'm slowly churning out. Other than that, I met with Dr. Brunner and talked economics with him. I am feeling better about my major again, it was just kind of jarring to have it shaken up like that. I'm hoping that I can keep it that way.

Neuro drinks. I love 'em. They keep me focused and awake naturally. I'm hoping I can get a case of them at Sam's Club the next time I get a chance to get over there.

And that's... all the other news I've got for now.

Until next time...

edit: If you're a regular, you probably noticed the color change. I want to play around with the editor a little more and make my blog just a little more visually interesting. Obviously, it's a work in progress. A color change doesn't mean I'm finished. I'm working on a logo, a picture slideshow, and many, many other things. Exciting, right?

Preemptive Thanks

Okay, so I'm not to a thousand views yet, but that's okay. I also never post so many times so close together, but I figured I'd take this time to write a little aside.

Thank you.

I really never thought this blog would have close to one thousand views. In fact, I never expected it to be close to one hundred views. I started this blog mostly just to let my family back in Texas know what I was up to here in Denver, but it's grown into a lot more than that. It's grown into a way for me to express myself without having to worry about what other people think of it. I mean, that's mostly because there aren't ever any comments, but still, keeping this blog has really improved my frame of mind by a huge extent. And every time I get someone telling me they enjoyed reading it, I can't help but have a smile on my face.

I know I don't always have the most interesting posts, and some things I write are flat-out weird, but even if the people who viewed the page didn't read it, that's still someone taking the time to at least look at what I have written. Granted, some of my "referring URLs" in my statistics are a little... off-putting (A singles porn site, really?! Come on!) but hey, a view is a view right? And since the majority of the views come from Facebook, I know it's from people like you reading this right now rather than lonely people looking for a seriously scary sexual encounter.

But really, thank you guys. Knowing that I have some kind of audience is a really fantastic feeling. I always said when I started this that if just one person reads my blog and enjoys it, then it was worth it. You guys made it worth it for me. So here's to my 17th post (or is it 18th?), and to being close to a thousand views.

Until next time.

Thinking My Fears Out Loud

This is not a "pity me" blog. This isn't a post where I'm going to make a half-assed attempt at some stupid analogy to describe my life, or somehow try to emulate some author I can only dream of being as great as.

No. This post is just going to be me talking about my thoughts for the past couple of weeks that have only made themselves apparent to me in the past couple of days.

I don't know if my life is heading the direction I want it to anymore. I thought I had it all planned out, political economy major, maybe an internship in Washington DC this summer, somehow winding up in a big corporate firm and wearing a suit and tie until infinity runs out. But as I've been sitting in these upper division courses, I keep becoming more and more unsure. Econometrics, as an example, is more or less an advanced statistics class that deals with the application of economic situations given certain samples of income or otherwise. I read this book and listen in class and it all just seems Greek to me. I can do the homework, but when I think about it, and I really think about it... I don't know if I want to be doing math the rest of my life.

In high school, I hated math. Math was always the bane of my existence. The class where I had the lowest grades consistently was always a class with a mathematical slant. Yet here I sit, contemplating a math minor because having an economic based major essentially demands it. I feel like high school version of me would grab me by the shoulders and scream, "What are you doing" over and over again until the message got through. I remember being excited going off to college because I saw that I only needed 3 credit hours to graduate, and then never having to do math again. Now it seems I'd be forced to dive head first back into it. Point is, I just can't seem to make forcing myself to do something I hate a logical action. I keep feeling like if I had to pore over data sets day in and day out for the rest of my life I would hate it. That's not to mention in my International Political Economy class I feel like I'm not making these seemingly basic connections between events, treaties, and economic functions that after rigorous semesters exploring those very same connections I should be making. Every lecture I feel like I'm a step behind when I should be right on stride. I'm even ahead in the readings and still feel that way.

But what can I do? I've been going over everything in my head that I've ever liked, everything that I've ever been good at, and (risking sounding like a pity-seeker) I'm not finding much that's within reach.

I'll make that a bit more specific:
1) I love to write, but let's face it; trying to make a major, a career, is a massive risk. I don't even consider myself to be good enough to even make that happen. These posts that I do are quite literally the only things I have ever finished in writing (not counting academic essays, of course). Even if I somehow managed to make it onto some media outlet as a film critic, all of my film "reviews" that I've done have been oral, and my one that I did write down came off as sarcastic and angry. I honestly don't think I could write as a sarcastic, cynical, angry person more than once and be pleased.

2) Back when I was a kid I loved the idea of being an astronaut. But... seriously, that just means more math. A lot more. Not to mention military air force training which, despite having had family in the air force, I'm really not keen on doing. I know military service would not be for me in the very least, so to jump into that wouldn't be the smartest idea in my mind. Besides that and the math would also be the sciences that I'd have to be incredibly learned in. Geology, astronomy, biology, chemisty, physics, all of those are really, really not my speed. I've tried them with mixed results. For every biology class I've done decently in there was a chemistry or physics class that I completely bombed. I shudder to think of the mechanics and precision required in NASAs work.

3) I've already kind of mentioned film, but it deserves its own category. I love movies, I love talking about them, watching them, writing about them, just about everything about the art of film I am head over heels in love with. So wouldn't it make sense for me to want to be involved in that process? I mean, that sounds so awesome to me so why not go for it? I go to a liberal arts school. A liberal arts school that I am head over heels in love with. A school that I would never, ever even dream of leaving. If I didn't get to graduate on the quad here at Regis, I would say that my college experience wasn't ever complete. And that's the problem; Regis doesn't have an in-depth arts program, least of all for film. I can't leave here. I don't want to leave here. The mere thought of it puts me in the most bummed out of moods. In fact, that thought is the reason I came back to my dorm at 10:00 at night instead of staying down at the Residence Village watching 50/50. That line of thought made me so upset I literally had to be alone for a while.

Beyond that, I can't think of anything else. I don't see good options. I mean, that's probably because I'm kind of tired, and I've been over thinking this for the greater part of today, but... I don't know.

I don't know where I want to be ten years from now. I still have these fantasies of traveling the world, studying abroad, taking a trip to Bruges, Belgium with the girl of my dreams before I'm 30, but nothing substantial. Nothing that keeps me grounded and thinking about the path to get there.

And... I'm out of things to say. There's plenty more going on in my head, to be sure, but I don't know how to write any of it. Maybe that "smoke on the horizon" was a warning (HA, I lied, there's a stupid analogy for you!) and I should have bought a fire blanket.

Until next time...

Smoke on the Horizon

As I drove across Kansas with my dad last week there were at least two separate occasions where smoke hung heavy in the distance.Wildfires, most likely, given that there were signs explicitly stating a state-wide burn ban. Now, we didn't really see any of the fires, the highway always took us off in a different direction closer and closer to Denver. Normally, that'd be an omen, right? Smoke looming on the horizon, a sign of bad things to come ahead. Fire, destruction, loss. All things that fire brings.

But I don't think that's a sign of bad things to come for my sophomore year. Thing is, fire also renews. It makes grass re-seed, it heats some seeds into growing. It's a catalyst for something new, something great. So I'm thinking of it like this: Summer was a fire to an extent. Temperatures usually at one-hundred plus, using time spent to myself to "burn" away and build my character stronger than before, and time just spent waiting, waiting for the flames to simmer down. So when the flames settle, the smoke clears, and what's left? I'd like to think it's the seeds I planted in my freshman year, finally coming to sprout.

But I don't think it's time to reap what I've sown. They're just little sprouts at this point. I said to a professor during lunch following the TA orientation walk that, "I'm a Political Economy major, but right now I've just barely got my foot in the door." It's true, I'm still way back at the beginning of my four years here at Regis, though the halfway point is fast approaching. I've got things going; my TA position for a great bunch of freshman, my upper-division courses, and even a possible internship in Washington D.C.. It's all building, growing, shaping into something that I could never have predicted.

So that smoke on the horizon? Nah, it's nothing I'm worried about. It's just at the end of my road, getting things ready for when I finally reach it. It'll hang there for a while, but in the end I'll be reaping the benefits for years to come. Prospects are good for this year, and I'm glad to be back in the swing of it all.

And thanks to a busy schedule, I'll be up early yet again tomorrow. So for now I'm off, until next time...

Another Creative Bit

Okay, I promise I'm not going to make this blog entirely devoted to creative bits I come up with. I just haven't had a whole heck of a lot else to write about recently, and I'm growing to enjoy sharing the things I come up with with everyone that reads this. What I'm gonna post this time, though, is probably my favorite story that I just started working on. It's different this time though, I'm actually devoting a lot of effort into this, genre research, keeping notes as I come up with things, and this is actually starting to take some shape. I actually shared this with Malorie recently, and she seemed to really like where it was headed. Unfortunately; I can't really share all of it here, and it's been difficult trying to pull a good excerpt to give a clear idea of where the story is headed. If I copied the first page only, there'd seemingly be nowhere for the story to go, if I copy the whole chapter, it'd be far too long. If I took something random out of the chapter, there's not context. Don't even get me started on the second chapter, which is a massive work in progress right now.

So screw it. Here's the first chapter. Too long? Don't care, I don't have a character limit. I'm still going back periodically and changing things, which is actually kind of a first for me, so this is by no means final. Think of it as--- a proof of concept. Showing that this story can work, and that I can do it. For now, I have it titled

The Lingering Storm 

I awoke wracked with pain. The splintered concrete made my bed with my now blackened blood serving as a pillow against the cold wreckage. Craning my stiff neck, I tried to survey the aftermath of the long night. The front wall still stood, its windows blasted out, the door frame turned to dust. Pain shot through my neck and I cried out. Dust hung heavy in the air and clung to my throat whenever I took in a breath. Coughing, I pushed against the boards and remnants of wall keeping me pinned to the concrete. I failed several times, unable to move my arms in a position where I could push effectively. Hours passed as I lay motionless on the floor, often times in and out of consciousness. I called out to my family, to anyone who had lived nearby. Silence, a few times punctuated by a collapsing building, or, more frighteningly, screams of pain long in the distance. After trying to free myself once again and failing, I succumbed to sleep.

                Whether it was day or night when I next awoke, I could not tell. The dust blotted out the sky, leaving only darkness. I managed to shift myself, with much effort, to a better position. Pain screamed from my left leg. Being unable to see it, I feared it was broken, or worse. I pushed again on the wreckage. With a laughing cough, almost maniacal, I shifted the wreckage. Shifting, panting, screaming, I finally wrenched myself from my prison. Despite my best efforts, I couldn’t stand. Instead, I clawed my way forward with my jaw clenched against the pain. I scraped against concrete, wood, and did my best to avoid the jagged edges but still managed to carve a light gash in my side. Now ten feet from where I had once been trapped I cleared a space on the dusty remnants of some carpet. I laid back and sighed, worn out from the hours of crawling.

                I lay on my back and looked up. The sky was a mixture of dusty brown and the darkest black. I could see a blanket of smoke rising from our neighbor’s home, though I couldn’t recognize the burning scent. I hoped it wasn’t them. I cried out for my family once more in vain. They didn’t answer. Tears stung my eyes. I had known it, yet I didn’t want to accept it. I pushed it to the back of my mind; there would be a time for mourning, and this was far from it. I still hadn’t bothered with my leg despite the almost blinding pain. The crawling had put my mind elsewhere, and getting myself free of the rubble was more important at the time. Gritting my teeth, I pushed myself onto my elbows and surveyed the bodily harm. My t-shirt was torn near to shreds, with shallow gashes in my skin crossing my torso like the road map to hell. The once gray shirt was now stained to a dark black, and a dried river of blood ran down my neck and right shoulder, tracing it with my left hand I found it originated near my temple. My hands were coated with dust and blood, the nails coated with grime and dirt. I looked at my legs and saw a mess. The left leg had a splinter of wood stuck clear through the calf, the blood from the wound soaking the torn pants and what was left of my shoe. The right leg, thankfully, had only a long slice running thigh to mid-calf. It had bled, but was shallow and had scabbed quickly.

                The splinter needed to come out, that much was certain. If it got infected then my survival would be for nothing. We had had a cache of supplies saved for the end days, but I was doubtful they had made it through the impact. I didn’t have the energy to search today, that was at least another full day of crawling through the wreckage of the house. I was in the open air, though, dangerous. The roof was long gone, and the remaining walls weren’t stable enough to feel safe beneath. My strength gave out, and I collapsed off of my elbows to the ground. Sleep took me under the scorched sky.

                This time I did not wake through pain or of my own accord. Footsteps echoed through the silence, the sounds of hands digging through crumbled ruins. The excitement knocked the sleep from my eyes, and I began the arduous effort of trying to prop myself up. I called out desperately, calling names of family members, the names of neighbors I could remember, for help, for water, anything that came to my mind. It all came out as gibberish, garbled groans, and half-spoken names. A rock fell to the ground and an unbearable stillness fell over the wreckage. Minutes passed, and the footsteps began again, growing louder with each step. I called out, and thanked them for hearing. I fell back against the carpet, closing my eyes to rest before they arrived. The footsteps sounded in my ruined home and I turned my head to see. A man stood by the front wall staring at the broken man on the ground before him. His hair was mostly gone, with burns tracing his scalp. The few scant hairs remaining were plastered to his forehead with sweat and grime. A layer of dust coated him; the tattered remains of his clothing were bloodied and scarred. The spatter across his chest was not his own. His eyes pierced into me, as he raised his hand. Even in the dulled light, I could see the dull steel of a knife brandished before him.

                In a fit of coughing and searing pain, I frantically tried to pull myself away grabbing for anything that could be used to defend myself. I howled in pain, trying to call for help though I knew none existed. A sickening grin crossed the man’s face as he took his steps forward slowly. I could tell he was relishing the moments before he would end my life, trying to savor the pain he would soon be inflicting. My hand slipped and I was back on the floor gasping for air. I flailed, trying to get myself back crawling. In moments he was over me, placing his foot square on my chest. He knelt down, his eyes locking into mine.

                “Before you die, boy,” he said slowly, “you got any water I should know about? Be a shame to have to look for it once I’ve gone through the work of dressin’ you up nice.”

                I coughed again, my hands struggling for a grip on a board not a foot from me. The man noticed my arm and tsk-tsked my efforts.

                “Now, now, that wouldn’t be the smartest thing for you to be doing, now would it?”

                He raised his head back up and moved the knife over to my arm.

                “You won’t need it, and what’s a few fleeting moments of pain?”

                As he went to cut I heard an almost cartoonish zip as the man’s chest exploded followed by a crack as sharp as a whip. His blood fell on my face and chest as he stumbled backwards, the shots momentum keeping him away from me. He collapsed onto my legs in a cloud of dust, and I yelled in pain as he struck the splinter. The body twitched as I mustered all of my energy to pull my legs out from under him. Successful and spent, I collapsed onto my back once again weeping. My stomach began to churn as the event I witnessed sunk in, and I turned my head, releasing whatever content my stomach had in it, followed by dry heaves of pure dust. I began to lose consciousness as my body heaved as a conduit of pure pain. I heard hurried, heavy footsteps behind me as I blacked out.

                On my fourth awakening I found myself propped up against a wall. A small fire smoldered in the middle of the floor and a man, with his back to me, crouched over it. The corpse of the burned man was long gone. Dust had built up in my throat as I slept, and I began to cough yet again. He turned to look back at me. By the looks of him, he couldn’t be much older than I was, though he certainly looked in better condition. A worn baseball cap sat on his head, and he had a dusty handkerchief hung around his neck. His clothes were dusty, but didn’t seem to be as torn up as the last man’s had been, or mine for that matter. A rifle lay on the ground beside him, with a small satchel open with some of its contents placed methodically on the ground. He seemed to have erected a small spit over the fire which had a makeshift bucket hanging over it. After my last visitor, I expected more of the same. I grabbed a decent sized rock next to me and hid it behind my back.

                “Look,” I croaked out to him, “if you’re going to kill me, just do it. There’s nothing here. I’m hurt anyway, I won’t last long.”

                He smiled at me as he stood and began to walk over. I gripped the rock tight in my hand and waited. The man stopped by my legs and crouched down again. Taking his hat off, he sighed, “If I were here to kill you, I’d have done it already. Besides, I wouldn’t have gone through the trouble of saving your life just to end it again. You can drop that rock, if you don’t mind. With a leg like yours you’d have a hell of a hard time defending yourself against a healthy man with a rifle.”

                He stood again and walked back to the fire. I inhaled the best I could and asked him who he was.

                “I don’t suppose names matter much anymore. Let’s just say I’m a guy who was lucky enough to have had a paranoid father with a bomb shelter. It didn’t help as much as it should, but, well, I suppose it helped enough.”

                “How’d you find me?”

                “Find you? I did nothing of the sort. I was tracking that—barbarian hoping he’d scavenge something of use. He never came across any people, thankfully, until you. Enough people are dead; I’d rather not see more die.”

                “So what was he, an exception? I’m probably going to die of infection anyway,” I pointed down at the splinter still sticking through my leg.

                “I exempted him because you were defenseless. You? You’re mendable. Plus, aside from that leg you seem able-bodied. I could use help, easier to survive with two of us. Before you start the ‘how can you trust me’ spiel; you owe me. You go back on what I’m owed and I can ditch you and look for another. We’ll see how far you get on that leg. I said I’d rather not see more die. If I can’t see you, I suppose it’s out of my control now, isn’t it?”

“Now, first things first: I took a look around your house here to see if anything made it. Truth is, there isn’t much. I found whatever supplies your family was storing and most of it is destroyed aside from a few water bottles, assorted medical supplies, and boxes of ammunition. As for your family… I suppose you already know.”

                I nodded before leaning my head back against the wall. My arms fell limp beside me and I let my entire body relax for the first time in what already felt like ages. He paused for a brief moment, “I suppose how we handle that is your decision. We can afford to hang around an extra day at most, but beyond that I don’t know what’s going to be safe. Forget other people, we’ll still have the dust and the cold to worry about and if you haven’t already noticed this isn’t exactly suitable shelter. My plan is this: we fix up your leg the best we can and we head back to my bomb shelter. It’s not exactly in the best of ways at the moment, but it’ll be enough for us to grab a few things and for you to rest that leg. Luckily it’s only a handful of miles from here, a couple of cross streets and we’re there. From there, I figure we need to move. I don’t know where just yet, but west may be our best shot. Mountains, high ground, and it’s further away from the impact. Hopefully that means less damage, but after that shockwave who knows?”

                He grabbed the satchel and the supplies he had arrayed and walked back over to me. After setting them down he grabbed what looked like beef jerky from the bag and took a bite. Chewing, he put a canteen to my lips and poured water into my mouth. The cool waterfall felt like salvation to my cracked throat. At first my body rejected it, spitting up a fraction of what I took in, but the steady stream insisted and I took my fill. As he took the canteen from my mouth, I began to cough, fearing that I would throw up the water. I closed my eyes, and when I opened them he was trying to give me a torn piece of jerky.

                He sighed, “I don’t know if this is going to be a shock to your system, but you’re gonna need the energy.”

                As I chewed, forcing back the urge to vomit, he rummaged through his bag. He held a short wooden peg wrapped tightly in cloth. As I swallowed, he asked me to open my mouth so he could place it across my jaw. I stopped him, “Wait, wait, before we do this,” I wheezed, “please tell me your name.”

                He placed the peg in my mouth, telling me to bite down, “My name is Nathan. If you feel the urge to pass out, don’t fight it.”

                Nathan walked back over to the fire and grabbed an iron rod that shone an orange red at the tip. I could feel myself beginning to sweat, my stomach twisted in knots barely holding down the minute piece of jerky that now fought for its release. He knelt down by my legs again, “I’m sorry, but this won’t last long.”

                He tied a strand of rope around my upper calf by the knee and placed both hands on the end of the splinter. I bit down hard on the peg, the pain was blinding. Nathan apologized again, and with all of his force pulled the splinter out with a sickening sound. My whole leg tensed and cried out through the nerves with thousands of screams. My jaw clenched almost to the point where I feared it would break, stars shone in front of my eyes and soon I could only see white flashes. As vision returned I could see blood seeping out of the holes where the splinter had been. As he applied hard pressure to the wound he grasped the iron rod firmly in his hand. He removed the pressured hand, and thrust the rod into the wound on the outside for several seconds. The heat from the rod was a worse pain than the removal. I screamed past the peg and dug my hands into the ground; I could feel my fingernails begin to crack from the pressure and the warmth of blood was soon between my fingers. After a few seconds he removed the rod, and thrust it into the other side, finishing the cauterization. I screamed out again and my vision went to black.

                It didn’t last. I opened my eyes yet again to Nathan dripping water from a rag onto my forehead. The night was dead cold, yet I felt like I was sitting beside a furnace.

                “Hopefully that was the worst of it,” Nathan started as he noticed my eyes opening, “I found some antiseptic in those medical supplies of yours, so that, along with the cauterization, should keep off infection. We’ll need to check it every so often though; I’d rather not chance it.”

                I looked down at my leg to find the pant leg torn off at the knee, and the calf bound tightly in bandages. Nathan had used the iron rod, now cooled, as a sort of makeshift splint. I’d be able to walk, it seemed, which would be a much better change from the past few days. Nathan withdrew the rag and sat next to me, he was winded from the surgery too. The lingering dust tended to do that.

                “So, what now?” I asked him as I stared into the blackness beyond our small fire.

                Nathan sighed and cracked his knuckles, “The way I see it, we take tomorrow getting you on your feet, and I’ll do one last sweep of the house for any supplies. You wouldn’t happen to know the combination to that gun safe, would you?”

                I coughed, “Huh, I had forgotten about that safe. Yeah, I know the combination. Not much there aside from an old hunting shotgun.”

                “That’ll do just fine.  I know you haven’t exactly had a moment since we met, but have you thought about—“he trailed off.

                “My family?”

                “Yeah.”

                I could feel the tears stinging my eyes. To think that my entire family was gone in a flash, where I survived still felt like a horrible dream. I couldn’t bear to think of it; to look on their cold, still faces would break me. Even the thought of coming upon their twisted remains crushed beneath our own home drove my insides to madness. I had survived so far, to see them and have my worst nightmares unfold before my eyes would undo it all. For their sake, all I could do was press onwards and press them to the deep recesses of my mind.

                “Would you think less of me if I left without seeing them?”

                “I wouldn’t.”

                “Then that’s what I’ll do.”

                We both sat in silence at the end of the world. This darkness that surrounded us was the new world. Unrecognizable, changed in ways unfathomable mere days before. Everywhere that had once basked in light was now confined to infinite black. Where love once blossomed a cold emptiness took root. Life, once exuberant and ever-growing was now laid to waste in the wake of the impact. A rock in a pond is never viewed as an end, as the precursor for destruction, but as the ripples overtook our world, our ponds turned to ash, our lights extinguished. Now we were but blind men, fumbling in the dark for some lost purpose robbed of us by one simple stone.

 ................

And that's what I have of the first chapter so far. Right now, I'm going to take a short time and talk about where I want this story to head. I've wanted to write something post-apocalyptic for a while, but I had no idea where to begin or how to make a story intriguing enough worth following. So what I did is I looked at all of these apocalyptic stories based on an impact with the Earth of some sort, whether it be comet, asteroid, or what have you. What I found is that either in the movies humans succeed in saving themselves, or we catch up the human race tens to hundreds of years after the fact. So I thought to myself, what about the first few days? Something has to be going on there, they call it a "global killer" but it can't possibly kill everyone right on impact just due to statistics. Everyone had to have had some chance to survive. So I have the narrator here, and his new compatriot Nathan, having somehow defied the odds in a city miles and miles and miles away from the impact. What has to happen in these few days? What measures will they have to take to survive? Those are the questions I wanted to answer.

But, so what? I can't possibly create an interesting story based entirely off of survival. I could only create episodes of tension followed by pages and pages of nothing. By chance, watching the odd movie trailer or two, I came across the song "The Lightning Strike" by Snow Patrol. Well, the first part of it anyway. There's a line in the lyrics that says, "What if this storm ends, and I don't see you?" and somehow, that struck a (forgive the music pun) chord in my mind. What if the main character was separated long before the apocalypse from someone he held very, very dear to him? Suddenly I have a drive for this character, to reunite with a long lost love of his at the end of all things. And I'm quickly finding ways for that to cause tensions within the character, between him and Nathan, and I even have a rough idea of how I want the ending to look.

Because I mean lets face it, if the world were to end what would we do about our loved ones hundreds of miles away from us? Leave them to the cold? Or find them, whatever the cost may be? I might wind up giving some updates on this as it progresses, but it'll only be as sidebars within other posts. School is starting up again soon, and I'm sure I'll have plenty to write about once it starts. Just 9 more days until I head off for Denver! Can't wait to see all of my Regis friends again!

Until next time...

My Clock

There's a clock on my bedroom wall. It's old, I've had it for maybe thirteen years or so and it has always been displayed on one wall or another. All things considered, it's nothing special. The clock itself is made of cheap, black plastic, with "golden" numbers protruding from the black ring surrounding the central picture of a train crossing. Given batteries, it may even make noise, I don't remember that well. It can never keep time. Whenever it's actually working it loses about five minutes per day, sometimes less, and sometimes more. I haven't gotten it down to an exact science yet.

So why keep it? Why would I bother keeping something so utterly worthless when I could replace it with something more efficient?

Well, for a time spanning the end of middle school to today the clock has been frozen on 10:59:36. The second hand used to switch back and forth from 35 and 36, but like the rest of the clock it slowly came to a halt. So what, right? The clock is frozen, big deal. The time is only correct once a day (twice if you count AM, but who does that?) making it utterly useless for the other twenty three hours, one minute, and twenty four seconds of the day. Otherwise it's completely frozen.

So why? For exactly that reason. It's completely frozen.

I see that clock and suddenly time completely stops. I have a minute, I have an hour to just stop and take a deep breath. They say time is relative, but when I look up at that train frozen in its frame there is no time at all. I can float in infinite nothing for as long as I'd like because as long as I have that clock nothing has changed, no time has passed. To give myself those brief moments of reprieve is to make everything seem less monumental. When I find myself in the middle of a sleepless night, I don't look at it and count the hours of sleep I may actually end up getting. No, instead I see that I have all the time in the world, and that exhaustion is always fleeting. It takes my mountains and reverts them to molehills, and at 10:59:36 I can say to myself that everything is perfect.

And then reality snaps back. My phone goes off, prominently displaying the time, I look over my shoulder to see the (usually) accurate digital clock on my book shelf, or I get called from the other room and suddenly it's all back again. I remember that I can't sleep, I remember everything weighing on my bony shoulders. Yet, the clock is still there. Unmoved. Unchanged. Always there when I need the Earth to stop spinning for only a moment.

11:11? Don't make me laugh. 10:59:36 is where wishes come true.

Something Different

Okay, so this week I wanted to do things a little bit differently. Usually I post things according to what I'm doing, what I've done, or I make some leap at being "deep" or otherwise. I don't know if I want to do that this week, but I still want to keep up with posts for once. Instead, I want to share something I've written outside of my blogs. If you remember in my post "Why I Write" I said

"It's more than just this blog too, sometimes I'll jot down fiction ideas that I manage to scrounge up. I play those a little close to the chest, though, I feel a bit awkward when people read things that I've created from nothing... I write them for myself, really. They get my imagination going, allow me to escape for a little while."

I want to take a leap here, and put this out there. It isn't much, and I'm still learning exactly how to write things that can hook in an audience while still flowing and having just that right amount of detail. I'm not necessarily looking for feedback, but if anyone leaves some it's most certainly welcome.

However, before I post that I'm still going to do exactly what I said I didn't want to do this week. That is, posting about my life. This'll be brief, I promise.

• I got a job! It's seasonal work for Stride Rite, and I start in July. Thanks to my friend Leah for helping me get this!
• Starting on Monday, I'm going to be holding down the fort while the rest of the family travels. In the meantime, I'll be doing some odd jobs, I think, for my neighbor at their laundromat. It's not bad work, and it keeps me busy. I'm really just looking forward to marathon-ing Breaking Bad, and whatever movies I can scrounge up on Netflix. Also swimming, a lot. 

That's about as brief as I can get it. Two, strangely lengthy, bullet points.

And so, with a nervous pit in my stomach as I post this, a little fiction I was playing around with today. For now the only title it has is:

 Alard De Clercq

The street lamps slowly flickered to life in the growing darkness. Mist crept its way from the canals, twisting its way through the cobblestone streets making the stones glisten with dampness. The lamps in the mist served as beacons, guiding anyone left on the streets back to their homes or otherwise. It was a cool, quiet night, the only sound coming from a mournful violin played on the balcony of a distant home. The music invaded the night streets, joining the veins of mist in their binding of the city. The soft strings of the violin found its way into the dimly lit window of one Alard De Clercq. He sat at his desk, scribbling away at one sheet or another before closing down for the night.  A cigarette still smoldered in the ashtray by the lamp, its smoke curling in the light as though it were alive. Alard’s spectacles dangled from his nose, he could see well enough to write and failed to see the sense of completely taking them off when he’d need them for the walk home. As the music rose to his ears, he took a moment to sit back and appreciate the sorrowful strings. He sighed, taking off his spectacles to clean off some unidentified smudge. He had heard the distant man play his violin before many nights ago. Alard didn’t mind the music in the least; the man had a certain talent. Tonight, however, he didn’t have the ear for Vieuxtemps. He shut the window, keeping the night at bay.

                His work seemed to never be finished. When one case was closed, reported, and filed, it seemed ten more were always in waiting. The banal reports always seemed to take the longest. His most recent, regarding a woman searching for a lost pet, seemed to drag on. Often Alard dreamt of making the prerequisites for even taking a case more restrictive, but money was money after all and Alard couldn't afford to turn any of them down. His favorite case had been for a quite wealthy family, the Lemmens, robbed of expensive family heirlooms. At first, Alard had written it off as another search and find case, but it soon became more than that. As he had investigated, hunting down leads, tailing suspects, he came to find that the heirlooms didn’t belong to the family in the first place. They were just typical valuables, silver dinnerware that were merely pawns in an ages old family feud long since forgotten. One spiteful soul thought it was high time the families got back to feuding, and took back what had once belonged to him. Alard could remember the dumbstruck look on Madame Lemmens’ face when he informed her of what he had found, and the look of fury on her husband's. With some tact, he had managed to talk her husband down from gunning down the poor thief, and left the rest to the police. Alard smiled as he sat back in his chair, remembering the near exorbitant amount they had paid him. 

                Suddenly his thoughts were interrupted by a fit of coughing. He had been plagued recently by these fits coughing, hacking, spitting nonsense. Alard found this unpleasant at most, and didn’t see the need to bother the doctor with his troubles. During the fit, he heard a light knocking on the door. In between coughs, he called for the guest to give him one moment. Quite winded, he pulled himself up from the desk, and opened the door to an official looking Frenchman.

                “Monsieur De Clercq?”

                “Yes,” Alard answered, still winded from the coughing.

                “I have a message for you from Paris,” the Frenchman paused, grabbing for a letter inside a small travel bag at his feet, “from a---Monsieur Martens.”

                Alard was confused, “Martens? I’m not sure I know any Martens, Monsieur.”

                “That matters little to me, Monsieur De Clercq. What matters to me is that I was asked to deliver this message, and that is done,” the Frenchman replied curtly.

                “Very well, will there be anything else Monsieur—?”

                “That will be all, I hope you have a pleasant night.”

                Alard closed the door as the Frenchman turned to leave. He looked at the letter, and sure enough, it was addressed to him.

Monsieur Alard De Clercq

42 Geerolfstraat

Bruges, Belgium

                He was positive that he did not know anybody with the surname Martens, and even more certain that he had never once been to Paris. His business was only known locally, so it was unlikely that it could be any privately commissioned case or job. He noticed that there was no sign of a return address. The letter struck him as odd, and as he went to open it he was surprised to feel a knot tightening in his stomach. As he read, he could only feel his confusion growing, and the knot kept his insides in a bind.

                Alard,

                I regret to inform you, that if you are reading this I am, or soon will be, dead. I have found myself being trailed, harassed, and otherwise beleaguered by men who mean to do my harm, for reasons I cannot begin to comprehend. I write this letter to you in a panic, hoping that you may use your expertise to bring whoever may be after me to justice. It is rare that I find sleep, but perhaps knowing that this letter is in your hands will give me some measure of peace. Please, I beg of you, come to Paris. My home is on the Rue Cardinet, I am sure finding it will be of little trouble to you. I cannot risk putting my full address, lest this letter finds its way into the wrong hands. For that, I am sorry. You and I have never met, Ala, but I know that you are the only person that I would entrust with this information. I hope this letter finds you in good health, and I wish you the best of luck.

                Your brother,

                Renauld

             Brother. The word stuck out to Alard as if it had been written on the walls of his office. Brother. The word was as foreign to him as the idea of a letter from Paris. Brother. He repeated the word to himself, in some vain attempt to make sense of it. He felt the color drain from his face, the knot in his stomach was now a vice. 

As long as Alard had lived, he had never had a brother.

....

So there you have it, an excerpt of what I have so far. It's not too much, and it's definitely due for some revision.  I hope whoever stopped to read enjoyed it at the very least. I'll go ahead and be honest, trying to find streets in Bruges and Paris to use as setting points was kind of a pain, as was finding suitable Belgian names. Maybe it's time for me to start traveling after all. 


Anywho, that's all for this week. Until next time...

The Favorites

I have been wracking my brain as to what to write since I got home. I had several drafts of ideas I could have written ranging anywhere from a "review" of sorts to my first year at college to a brief, yet vague, description of how my summer is going. The way I see it, writing a "year in review" would be not only a cliche, but just straight up redundant. If you've read this blog you know I had a good year at college. Hell, if you talk to me for five minutes and even mention the word "college" I could be talking for hours about the time I had.

Not to mention, I learned so much it would be nearly impossible to talk about everything I learned or get into all of the people I've met. And like I said, if you know me enough you already know all of this.

To quote myself:

"That's when the smile started. I can say that it hasn't faded since we left that ballpark. Though, I will admit there were several moments afterwards where I had some doubt. I mean, it's always going to creep back, doubting is what makes me, well, me. Here's the thing, one thing I'm learning is that I don't need to doubt. Life is good, I just have to take part."

And that's all I have to say about that.

So what to write, what to write? I actually had a mild stroke of inspiration on the way to my car, leaving a friend's graduation cook out. I'd set the scene, but I'll spare whatever audience I have and get right to it. I want to write about some of my favorite things. I've done an about me blog, yes, and it had some vague references to things I enjoy. I think so at least, I don't feel like going back to check at the moment. Plus, one self referential quote is more than enough for one posting.

Without further ado, here is my post: The Favorites 

The Road/On the Road: Two Novels, One Meaning

It surprised me how hard it was to take pictures of two books...

For a long time, I stopped reading. I don't know why, because when I was younger I would read all the time. When my dad used to put me to bed he would always tell me "No night reading." I did it anyway, but it was a testament to how much I actually did read. Night time was my favorite time to read too, but I digress.

I picked these books because both taught me about myself while also going beyond that to teach me something about people, society, and what it means to be in general. That sounds cheesy, I know, but hear me out. In The Road you have the Man and the Boy walking slowly through the damnation that is post-apocalyptic America. An innately depressing story, but in spite of the violence, the oppressive atmosphere, and the constant threat of death, the book showed me how to "carry the fire." That, no matter how hard things got, there was always that little bit worth fighting for. I read this book during, what I consider, a rough time for myself. I won't get into it, but Cormac McCarthy in a certain sense turned that around for me. In spite of inhumanity, there will always be humanity. I find myself looking back at passages from The Road every so often. It helps me keep things in perspective.

As for On the Road, well, I mean I kind of already posted a blog post based entirely on a single quote from Kerouac, so I'm sure you already have some sense of how I feel about this book. In short, it resonates with me because of my newfound love to just experience the world around me coupled with my already deep love and want to travel. To be like Kerouac and find that it that we all search for, that to me would be the adventure of a life time.

The Witcher

Nerd moment commencing.  The Wiedzmin series out of Poland is my Harry Potter. It's high fantasy at its darkest. Racism, prostitution, the dregs of society brought to the light through the stories of Geralt of Rivia. The story of a monster hunter, friends of elves, dwarves, or otherwise set against the backdrop of political machinations and war that is epic in scope.

It started as a collection of short stories (collected in the novel The Last Wish, which I own), that soon spawned a cult phenomenon in Poland. Since then two books of the series (with a third released this coming December) have been translated into English, while back in Poland it's spawned a movie and a TV show. Both were critically panned, but that's alright because the books are so good. That's not to mention the video game series I'm an avid fan of. The game is really fun to play, and the stories are so intricately constructed, littered with so many morally grey choices that drastically alter how everything plays out. It's an incredible story to dive into, and every time I enter it, whether it be book or game, it immerses me more than Harry Potter ever could. End nerd moment.

Okay, don't end nerd moment yet. Side note: I took that screen shot. Boom.

Guitar and Sleep: Leisure

Get it? The guitar is sleeping! It's funny, righ--- Oh, forget it.

 This is gonna be the last time I include something material in this post. It keeps this list from running wayyyyyyyy too long, but also keeps me from seeming like all of my favorite things are material. Yeah, that wouldn't be too good, would it?

But hey, this "last material thing" has a lot of value to me, beyond any material value it has. You know, thinking about that, I wonder if it can really be called a material favorite. Oh well. Anyways; a few years ago my mom bought me this incredible vintage Fender Stratocaster as a Christmas gift. It was funny, I had asked for a cheaper guitar, something that would just make do, and she and my family just blew me away with this. The wood finish, the silky smooth fret board, just everything about it is incredible to me. It was also the culmination of a journey of sorts. I had been playing my acoustic guitar for a while, and I was gaining some ground in learning the instrument. I mean, I'm still mediocre at best, but at the time I was picking up speed. The guitar meant a lot to me though, just playing it as a way to unwind, to get away from any problems I had. It kept me in balance. It makes me wonder if my parents knew that when they bought the guitar, if they knew that they were extending my interest in keeping myself balanced in body and mind. If someone ever asked me to sell that guitar, I would never say yes. This one is mine for life.

Sleep, well, that's self explanatory. Shutting down for a while, blissfully unaware of anything, and then waking up so completely refreshed. There's nothing like waking up at noon with the sun blinding you through the window. Laziness at its finest. Plus, dreams are totally crazy. I recently had one where I was sneaking into some government building through service tunnels and bathrooms in only my pajama pants. Yeah, I was a Pajama Spy. It was incredible.

People

Yes, even stock photography people suck. But I love them anyway.

People, as a species, suck. We destroy our environment, we hate each other, we screw each other (and just about everything else) over, and our own self created institutions just bind us all into one, big, unhappy planet. Also we're stupid. But I love them. All of the intricacies of culture, the differences in language, the completely bizarre ways we interact, I'm just so fascinated by all of that. Heck, just look at the vast differences between traditional Western culture, and that of the Middle East. There's a list of different customs longer than the Burj Dubai, and yet we're members of the exact same species. I love that we're so similar and so different at the same time. It separates us from any other species we're currently in contact with. It's just incredible.

I can be upset with someone, I can be happy with someone. It doesn't matter. When I was in sociology in high school, I remember learning about how we create our world to suit us and how we fit ourselves into society and just being enamored with the concepts. It's why I'm pulling a minor in Sociology coupled with German and a major in Political Economy. I'll get to explore these institutions, see different cultures, and experience every little thing humanity has to offer. I couldn't ask for a better species to study.

You could lump my friends in this category also. No, no, no, I don't study my friends, I just love them, being with them, and anything else in between. I'm too sentimental for my own good. But still, my love for people extends to the ones I surround myself with. I may be-- too much sometimes, but that's all part of my continued self-improvement. I've got friends here at home, and friends spread out to the different corners of the country, and they are some of the most important people in my life.

Above: The important people

So That's That

There you have it, a collection of a few of my favorite things. It's certainly not everything, that'd be far too long and boring, but here's the ones I consider to be most important. Plus, if you talk to me at all, there's not a doubt in my mind I'll rant about something or another that I just love at that current moment. Recently it's been Game of Thrones and Mass Effect. I wonder what it'll be next week.

Until next time...

Special Note: Just want to send a congratulations to my friend Jenna for graduating in the class of 2012 at Marcus High School. Yes, I know I've said it plenty of times, Jenna, but it bears repeating!

Images of people and The Witcher emblem courtesy of Google images. No copyright intended.
Screenshot courtesy of CDProjeckt Red and Steam's Screenshot function
...end nerd moment.

Broken Bats and Wet Bleachers

I have had the song "Float On" by Modest Mouse stuck in my head all day. When I was in the car, when I was sitting in the bleachers at the Rockies game, and even walking around Safeway at the end of the night. Even as I'm sitting here while Get Him To The Greek plays in the background all I hear is the chorus.

"And we'll all float on alright
Already we'll all float on
Now don't you worry we'll all float on"

As it echoed in my mind as we drove home, as the lightning flashed in the distance, I felt so in tune. For the first time in weeks I felt at peace with myself, with my friends. The road stretched out in front of me and I just floated on its concrete path. No worries, no regrets, no second-guessing. It was just me. Things are looking up.

At First

It wasn't the easiest week. Things were getting good, that much is certain, but I had a pretty rough workload and getting through it was a slog to say the very least. In essence, I was working for Wednesday night and all that stood in my way was an exam in Environmental Science. But then, then I could finally go to the Rockies - Giants game, unwind, relax, and kick back with some baseball on a surprisingly cold April night.

Needless to say, I was excited. You know, that's probably an understatement. Anyways, it started with all of us meeting up in the ping pong lounge, laughing, trying to get organized in some semblance of order to get rides together over to the ball park.

We're too gangster for you. I'm also in the rearview mirror

 Next thing I know, I'm sitting in the back of Levi's truck rapping "Teach Me How To Dougie" while we're all sitting back cracking jokes while in traffic. I laid my head back, put my arm out the window periodically, and enjoyed the ride to the park. We got there, and everyone that had come with us was already in the baseball mindset. We were loud, we laughed, and we made our way up to the RockPile. Section 403; Rows 11 and 12.The bleachers were soaked, but luckily Dusty brought a towel, that didn't really work too well. Then he promptly decided to spin it above his head, throwing water over everyone sitting next to him. Then we just kept taking pictures, laughing, and all manner of other loud things that were massively fun.

You know, in the beginning I was still locked in my shell. I was loud... to an extent. But I kept myself in my comfort zone, clapping only when I needed to, keeping my conversation relatively quiet. This was the norm for me, going to an event to have fun with friends and then retreat into my shell when I'm thrust into the public's eye.

But Then

 It looked as though I was sitting at a divide. On my right was my usual attitude at a game. Some cheers, lots of clapping, and conversation relegated to mostly the people around me. On my left, the wildest energy, far beyond anything I thought I could even dream of keeping pace with. Remember my last post Burn, Burn, Burn? Then you'll remember me talking about how I found it difficult keeping up with my friend Sean when, compared to my friends at the baseball game, is relatively subdued. Not only was this an opportunity to pretty much self-advertise previous posts to monger more views, but it also serves as a comparison. At first I felt as though I was a snail trying to keep pace with a rabbit, granted the snail didn't try at the starting line.

I've always wanted to be that left side of myself. Just live along with everyone else. Go with the flow, take everything as it comes. I've always longed to leave behind my insecurities and go. Who cares what anyone else thinks? It took me a long time, but slowly the left side took over. I actually know the exact point where it came in.

It was about halfway through the fifth when a wall of water fell across the park. It was actually hilarious, watching the water fall perfectly in line to our seats from across the field. Everyone scrambled for their umbrellas. We had two. We fit about ten people under them. It was insane, all crowded under the umbrellas, crushing each other and laughing our collective heads off. I don't know, something right there just clicked and my shell ceased to be.

This is proof. You just can't see the overlap from the second umbrella.

So from there on out I was loud, I was laughing with the rest of them. At one point there were some people rooting for the Giants loudly. So I made my friend Dillon laugh by starting a good chant of "We can't hear you" as loud as I could. Granted, I wasn't original as some people had already done that. But hey, I get points for going outside my comfort zone on that one. The night continued on like that, I could be funny without making terrible jokes, I could make people smile just by being a part of something.

That's when the smile started. I can say that it hasn't faded since we left that ballpark. Though, I will admit there were several moments afterwards where I had some doubt. I mean, it's always going to creep back, doubting is what makes me, well, me. Here's the thing, one thing I'm learning is that I don't need to doubt. Life is good, I just have to take part.

And what a life it will be.

And So

We're back to where I started. Floating on with a smile on my face. It's working, too. I've been talkative to a better extent. I've been making less terrible jokes, my head feels clearer. At the risk of sounding like a complete cheese-ball, the skies look a little bluer even when the clouds are rolling in. I feel like the more I keep what I learned at the ballpark, the more things are going to look up for me. For now, I'm going to wrap this up, maybe head to bed or just hang out in the lounge for a little while longer. I still have a goofy smile plastered to my face.

Bring on the TA Interview. Until next time...

Special thanks to Mark Nutting for getting us the tickets to the game, and thanks to Jess Erjavec and Olivia Kilbarger whom I shamelessly stole two pictures from.