Paint me a picture of man What makes up a man? Is it skin, bones, and gew or is it heart, soul and mind? I'd like to believe in a combination of the two, but even this leads me to a lack of logic. I am brought to this thought that man is neither matter nor idea but rather man or woman, is made up of time. It is only his or her past that defines him today. If no time were to pass, no man would exist. Truely exist, and be something beyond a lump of matter.
Take a man whom you know exists. He acts a certain way, thinks a certain way and looks a certain way. All three actions can not be described in terms of matter, all three cannot be described in terms of ideas, but all three can be known in terms of time. "I act this way because my mama beat me during childhood"..."I think this way because I read alot of science fiction in my spare time"...."I look this way because I used to live in Florida"....So if time is what a man is made up of, then why can't we change people just as easily as they change over time? Why can't we control men like we control the fads of the ages? It is always said "Don't try to change someone" but we all do it anyways. We hope that our ideas will somehow influence the ignorant. We pray our religion with seep through our actions and change the lost. We even dress a certain way in order to change how others veiw us. When we will learn...
I'd like to think that time isn't made of permanent ink. That upon branding us with scars and wounds, or blissful memories and soft spots, that we can write over those brandings at any time. Say if we don't want to be afraid of commitment we could rewrite a time of infidelity by persuing a successful marriage. But, unfortunately, time works much more like a pen than a pencil; not so easily erased.
So now I ask you; is it possible to change a man?To change what time has written in permanent ink on the minds and bones of those we love? Or are we fighting a loosing battle? More importantly, can we ever hope to live beyond our past? I know forgiveness, I understand movement, but I can just not answer straightly to time.....



Favorite bumper stickers of the day:

"(next to a peace sign) Back by popular request"

"(on a small compact car) Your truck may get the ladies, but I got mother nature's favor"  ¶ 10:17 PM 7 Comments

  Those Yogas Knowas Its the little things...........

• the feeling of hot water saturating your hair and then feeling it slowly trickle down your back on its final descent to the floor far below
• the sound of water meeting water deep inside your stomach as you down an entire glass in one sip
• the touch of the cold ground on your bare skin
• the movement of your back, up and down, as you slowly breath and feel yourself drift deeper into the floor
• the sight of sweet smoke billowing in the air; more silent than life, more graceful than art
• the smell of rich inscents burning ancient oils and charcoled wood
• more over, the sensation of complete nothingness as you tame your mind into an empty space in time yet to be occupied by anything.....

  ¶ 8:58 PM 0 Comments

  Find the peace Challenge of the day: Actually listen to the lyrics of the songs you here. They are very insightful. Some I enjoy include:

"As life gets longer, awful feels softer
and it feels pretty soft to me.
And if it takes shit to make this bliss
Then I feel pretty blissfully..."
~Modest Mouse

"Larger than life is your fiction
In a universe made up of one
You have been drifting for so long
I know you don't want to come down
Somewhere below you, there's people who love you
And they're ready for you to come home
Please come home"
~Sarah McClachlan

"I am thinking its a sign
that the freckles in our eyes are mirror images
and when we kiss they're perfectly alligned.
And I, have to speculate,
that God himself did make
us into corresponding shapes
like puzzle pieces from the clay.
And true, it may seem like a stretch,
But its thoughts like this
that catch my troubled head
when you're away when I am missing you to death...."
~Iron and Wine

"I like the way your sparkling earrings lay,
Against your skin, it's so brown
And i wanna sleep with you
In the desert tonight
With a billion stars all around
'cause i gotta peaceful easy feeling
And i know you won't let me down'
cause i'm already standing on the Ground
And i found out a long time ago
What a woman can do to your soul
Ah, but she can't take you anyway
You don't already know how to go
And i gotta peaceful, easy feeling"
~Eagles  ¶ 10:36 PM 1 Comments

  It Gave Me Fever I think I had a nightmare last night. The worst part about it is I am not sure if I did or not. I woke up three different times in the evening, each time covered in sweat and restless. The last time I woke I felt kind of dizzy and disoriented, almost like you feel when you wake up in a hotel room and forget that you fell asleep there in the first place. Unable to fall back alseep and needing to remove some layers of clothing, I sat and tried to figure out what had woken me in the first place. But I couldn't exactly think clear. First off, no matter how much i looked at the clock the time wouldn't register in my mind; all I saw were jumbled letters and numbers. AT one point I could have sworn it was 8:30, but i knew that was impossible since it was dark out and I knew i went to bed around midnight. In complete puzzlement I tried to lay back and relax but everywhere on my bed felt hot, like my blankets were the kind you can plug in and they become heated. I tore off all my covers, threw down all my pillows and opened my window but the heat and sweat continued. Now off the time, the only thing I could think about was how hot I was, and this earie photograph in my mind. It was a black and white picture of a roadside car wreck. Nobody was around, everything was still but a cell phone was ringing from inside the car. It was a small silver camry pushed into the ditch and laying on its side. In my mind I could see all this crystal clear; so clear it made me think I had seen it in a movie or the news earlier. But it held no relevance still. All the image did was keep me awake and invoke a sense of agitation. I think, something, somewhere, was telling me that there was a car somewhere on the highway that needed help but the people inside couldn't reach their cell phones. I know it all sounds really superstitious or maybe even a little telekonetic, but I continued to sweat, twist, and see this silver camry until I could see the sun peaking through my blinds.

I am sleepy now. I think I am going to go take a nap in the sunshine of my porch.  ¶ 2:08 PM 1 Comments

  Another day here on mars Often I try to avoid a summary of my day in this little internet space I claim but at the current time I am both thankful for the wonderful time i had yesterday and totally frustrated in the passing moments. Therefore, I present to you, yesterday.


Yesterday is what I will call nothing special. For some it might seem to be more jam packed than what you could ever imagine, but to me, it was a complete rest. See, the day started off like normal. A quiet sound of the alarm, 8 snoozes, a long soothing shower, bran flakes and bananas for breakfast, and then off to breakfast club. After enjoying a morning with God, I made me trek to school, alone in my car. Normally in the morning i tune into some good ol' Bob Marley because his slow, sincapated beats doubled with his low soothing voice tends to calm me down and set me in a good mood for school. But not this morning. I had just recieved the complete 4 disk set of Simon and Garfunkels greatest hits. See, I have always had a strong liking for S & G but this new aray of music just flung me into the passion zone. It is amazing what a new CD can do to your day.
School was normal. Nothing special. Each period passed with no homework assigned (what a miracle). After some slave labor as Mrs. Schuberts art aide, I made my way to drama to read for the first time my lines in an upcoming student led play. May I say i am uber excited about this play now. Everyone in it I love to death, the theme of the play isn't corny, and there is no nagging director but rather my brother(sort of) playing the part of what we enderingly termed 'Ole Massa".
After school I rushed home to fetch my dog. Now for those of you who are not familiar with Sammy, you love her. You dont even need to meet my dog, just take it from me that you love her. Nobody coundn't. Although she may be old and a little shaky and have what I think is a type of arthritis, she is still beautiful, obedient, and has a great character. So Sammy and I boarded Joey (my car) and made our way to the park. There i met up with my best friend and her dog and we walked, and laughed and walked. And then laughed. The weather outside was absolutely gourgeous. Chilly, cold, still air rushed against my face under the crisp blue sky as the sun warmed my cheeks. Absolutely...beautiful.
Anyways, the day continued, I visited Sabrina at work, talked about like, enjoyed an iced latte, I played piano for an hour, relaxed in my bed and read, disected all the interesting articals out of US News Magazine, and then danced my heart out. To wind down I made myself some Chai tea, cuddle with my tired dog, strechted out in front of my fireplace, and discussed dreams with my self.
It was simply a wonderful day..  ¶ 8:56 PM 3 Comments

  My tunnel of College men awaiting the Future In a long, bussling and busy subway tunnel, where strange occurances are regualr and confusing sights make for interesting spectacles, sits a lonely bench. Newly constructed around November 2004, the bench is spotless and shiny. The bench is labled corresponsively with train F, a new train that can only seat one lucky passanger but that has yet to leave dock and won't until its debut in 2005. The time is coming near for passangers to line up for the big arrival of train F, but until this weekend, the bench has remained bare.

February 13, 2005: A tall, thin, elegant black man with almond shaped eyes and an artsy scarf wrapped around his neck walks slowly down the tunnel after his long trip from NYC. His destination is exact and he has vowed to himself to never sit on a bench whose train will not board him. In this tunnel which is at times, less than sanitary, the man feels slightly out of ease but chooses to preceed. Mr. J finally spots the shinny new bench labled "F" and approaches. He is caustious, he is straight, and without sitting down, he sets his breif case on the bench and waits patiently to decide whether or not to sit.
February 14, 2005: The tunnel is quiet busy around lunch time with over firendly characters with fast paced steps on their way to train D for decision. Most of them have names like Celery and Tomato with the occasional Salad, but one man sticks out. Tan skin, leather sandals, short blonde hair and sunglasses, the Californian man gets a chill from the cold tunnel. Unaware of the black mans prescense, he checks out the bench for train F and sits down abruptly. Attempting to make conversation with the first man, awkward silence fills the space between them as they realise that they, the two opposite ends of the spectrum, are incompatible.
February 14, 2005: The tunnel has slowed down and still the two men sit on the bench. Unaware of the trains arrival, both have fallen asleep in upright positions. As informal as they come, a third man from Michigan, dressed in a snow jacket and carrying a bag labled "WWJD" rushes in on his cell phone while talking in a loud, boistrus tone. Completely oblivious of his surroundings, he sits down on bench F in the disterted tunnel.


All three wait on the bench. There is room for more. Who will board train F? Most likely the one who can pay the largest fair.....  ¶ 8:09 AM 2 Comments

  Save the World with money Over the span of two days, my life has changed. Not so much my life even, but my eyes. A completely new set of thoughts, emotions, questions, words have entered the vocabulary of my mental lobe through which the visual information I receive each day is analyzed.

It is amazing that all this can occur over two days, two instances more like it.
Instance number one: Hotel Rwanda. Movies normally impact me on a level that interacts with which lotion to use on my hands or how many times I make my bed this week. Unable to alter me in significant ways, I go expected nothing more than a quick laugh, a breif cry perhaps, and a good moral. But upon embarking on the experience that was Hotel Rwanda, I never expected to leave the theatre unable to comprehend the world. Slowly over the past months I have been loosing my sense of the country in which I live. Do i trust it? Do I hate it? Do I obey it? Do I love it? To better understnad where I stand I have undertaken the stance of becoming educated from a world point of veiw on the US. What I have found has left me speechless. I can no longer make affirmative statements about my loyalty to my native land. I don't even know if i have loyalty, or agree with loyalty. I just dont know anymore. Back to Rwanda, the film brought me to a point that is painful but needed. I now am like a blank slate where nothing i know is for sure, and even the very country where I live is like a figure of speech; unclear in purpose, untrue in value, but never the less carries meaning.
"It's kind of like a state of mind..."


In response I turn to my refuge of reading. I write and i read and I write and I read. In this process I advertantly think and ponder and pray and ponder. What I found was a US News filled with death, a bible verse announcing the worth of dedication to true value, and a homemade list of things I can do with my new knowledge (or rather lack of). Tonight I plan on taking another Mecca into the realm of writting and reading because each time I come out, I am different from when I went it. Odd thing is, the last few times i have taken this journey, I come back more unsure than anything else....



To add to this sunny note, I am, for the first time since this whole college crap has begun, excited about the road ahead. If I can learn and unlearn and relearn this much while staying in Hillsboro, imagine what the world outside holds. Wish me luck!
  ¶ 9:57 PM 1 Comments

  He told me a lying truth.... There comes a point when you just have to say life is like a ball of contradictions, you never can get a straight answer. If one belief exists out there, another counter-belief does too. No matter how hard you think you need something, someone else out there could prove that you don't. Some live religiously following a diet that they swear their life on while their neighbor is surviving off everything the other has cut. It seems that there is no way then to assert something as certain. Everything has a counter action, another side, a different cantage point, a unique veiw, a contradiction.

Somewhat relatedto this, we have my life. My most current thoughts have been focused on the future and the ways which it can be lived out. I am contradicted in not only what exists externally but what resides internally. Externally we have the possibility of college that my family cannot afford but i somehow must attend. We also have the scholarhips i need but will never meet the costs. We also have the school to which i want to get into but am afraid to attend. Not to mention the choice between opposite worlds of education and artistry which coexist only in my mind and never on paper. Internally, I have a spirituallity i love and live by grown in a church (plural) i don't completely trust. Also I have a home and package of relationships i never want to leave but a future i am eager to start away from here. And yet what is more, I have the choice between happiness and complacency that will effect more than me. It seems too hard doesn't it?


So i have decided to no longer look more than a week ahead. That way, only one contradiction can hit me at a time because if I am figuring everything right, life decisions usually space themselves out at least 5 days apart from eachother right? So, if ever you decide to ask me about my future and I say "I am not sure" its not me being rude, it's not me even lying, it is me refusing to deal with something that will only make sense in time. God give me patience in these contradictory times.

Bed time...I have a huge week ahead of me and pretty much a future deciding weekend...whats new?
  ¶ 10:06 PM 1 Comments