I was in the store the other day, and I noticed the women on the covers of the magazines. I couldn’t help but laugh at the supposed beauty staring back at me from the covers. As a general rule, I can’t find them attractive. Or more accurately, I can’t find them to be the uber hot women that we are lead to believe. I’ve known (and currently know) people that could easily take the place of most of the models on those magazines. It’s only a matter of lighting, digital effects, and expensive clothes, really. I mean honestly. When I  made a pseudo living as a photographer way back in the day, I saw some of those ‘models’ when they first got up in the morning, and by God, some were pretty hideous. Without the three pounds of makeup, expensive clothes, special lighting, and digital changes, it’s really hard to see what exactly some of these people are really thinking. I just don’t get how they can be seen as beautiful. As I write this, it occurs to me that in my lifetime, I’ve never wanted to break up with a woman because she wasn’t pretty enough. This becomes important

Continue readingThe lies of skin deep

I was walking toward the bus stop this evening, coming home from work. I work downtown, so it’s not unusual to run in to people from work or from the various offices and businesses nearby that I frequent. So… do you ever have that connection with someone where you wished that you had said something to them? And I don’t mean in a romantic capacity or anything like that. I mean, in a “Now it’s going to bother the hell out of me” way. I’ll explain. As I was walking home, this girl walking toward me, probably mid-twenties, looks at me. And stares. And keeps staring. Now, she’s not looking at me in a “I want to jump your bones” kind of way. She was staring at me in a “You look like my dead brother” kind of way. I walk past, trying my hardest to look like I’m doing something important on my cell phone. I casually glance back as I’m rounding the corner on Madison street, and she’s still watching me as I go. Standing there. Seriously. If she’s someone from my past, I have no idea who she was. Her face wasn’t familiar, and I’m at the

Continue readingThose missed connections

Sooooo… I have very strange friends. That’s all I’m going to say. Here’s an e-mail that I received from one of them this morning. Allow me to warn you that him and I used to get in to trouble a LOT when we were teenagers. There were many nights that we were chased by the police through various backyards and side streets. You need to bear that in mind with his reaction to this situation. Here’s the e-mail, quoted in the relevant spot: I rear-ended a car this morning. So there we are alongside the road and slowly the driver gets out of the car… and you know how you just feel sooo stressed and suddenly life seems to get funny on you? Well, I could NOT believe it… he was a DWARF! He storms over to my car, looks up at me and says, “I AM NOT HAPPY!” So, I look down at him and say, “Well, which one are you then?” THAT’S when the fight started… So I honestly don’t know if my friend was in jail and wrote this from his iPhone or what, but I find the image of my friend (six feet tall, pushing 250lbs)

Continue readingNo officer, the little person started it

I got to thinking about sanity when I got up this morning. No particular reason, that’s just the type of person I am. I was just having one of those mornings where I wondered to myself, “Is this the day I finally go nuts?” I’d like to think I’m not the only person who feels that way at times; who knows, maybe by the act of questioning if I’m going insane is the act of a rational mind. But lets look at that for a moment. What precisely does “sane” mean in the first place? Well, based on the definition in the Merriam-Webster online dictionary: 1: proceeding from a sound mind : rational 2: mentally sound; especially : able to anticipate and appraise the effect of one’s actions 3: healthy in body “Proceeding from a sound mind” sounds like an acid trip, it doesn’t especially tell me what the definition of sanity is. The second definition, about being able to anicipate the effects of our own actions… are they serious? How many of you know someone who has said that they were going to go do something, and you knew, without hesitation, that it was a bad idea? And we

Continue readingNothing, nothing really, I just feel I need something stronger

Friday evening, I left work and went home via the bus. A pretty uneventful trip home, as a matter of fact. I got home and realized that I felt really restless. I couldn’t shake the feeling. Finally, at about 7 o’clock, I took one of the really crappy beat up mountain bikes from the garage and went for a ride down the springwater corridor here in Portland. I started at the 12 mile post, and turned around at the 20 (for those that can’t do math, that means I rode 8 miles there, and 8 miles back). Lets just say that my legs, for lack of a better term, felt like jello. Badly. I was within, oh, 5 minutes of my house when it happened. Now, for the people that know me, you’re going to wonder how something like this could happen to me again. As I’ve said time and time again, I always seem to attract crazy and outlandish situations and I don’t know why. Anyway, ahead of me was a gentleman that was walking along the trail. He was within spitting distance (literally) of the junction of the corridor and 136th ave. When I got about 50 feet

Continue readingHow to save a life…

I don’t know about the rest of you, but I don’t trust my brain. It’s sneaky, and drunk with power. Thank you, that is all.

So often, people speak of morality and idealogies as if they are a fable or a mask that we can put on and take off at will. While I’m sure that there are people with that capability, I am not one of them. I always strive to do right, even in the face of adversity and pressure from others. That being said, I have a great deal of respect for those that require of themselves, regardless of outcome or recognition, that they do the right thing. I don’t know why I started thinking about Irena Sendler today, but I did. Do you know who she is? Honestly, I doubt it. That’s okay, but she’s a woman that I greatly admire for her courage. She was the female equivalent of (and dare I say, more courageous than) Oskar Schindler. Let me give you just a bit of history. Irena was a social worker that, after obtaining fake identification to pass herself off as a nerse, used boxes, suitcases, sacks, and coffins, to smuggle jewish children out of german held Poland in 1939. In 1943, she was captured by the Nazis and tortured. She refused to tell her captors who her co-conspirators

Continue readingCourage

Last night my band had a show at a place called The Blue Pepper in Salem. It’s a little coffee/wine/beer shop in downtown Salem that we’ve played a couple of times before. Quite a few of my friends showed up (and one of my friends was the opening band for us), and I had quite a nice time talking to them. Two people in particular, Molly and Robert, were nice enough to come and support me. This is what makes them great friends. I’ve only known them a couple of years, but it amazes me how supportive and awesome they are. Really, it’s not a huge deal that a friend shows up at a concert of ours. We play a lot of the same songs and I’m sure they can get pretty tired of it. But the fact that they show up, time and time again, as many times as they can, just to support me… well, I’ve got to say that I have very few people in my life with that kind of dedication. So, Molly and Robert, if you’re reading this, thanks so much for being there for me. And not just at the concert, but just being

Continue readingFriends and fauxs

I spoke to my friend Sandra today. She’s getting married in October, and she gave me my (very lovely) invitation to said event. I would scan it, but… well… I’m lazy, and I’m sure she wouldn’t appreciate the location being displayed all over the internet. I suppose I’m a decent friend that way. Anyway. I got to thinking about love. I know, I know, I’m sure most of the people in my life are tired of my “deep thoughts” on blah blah blah, but this is really the only person I know how to be, okay? I’ve spent my life reconsidering life and reality and all the things that we hold to be true. You know why? Because I have trouble differentiating reality at times. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, then you’re not “in the know”, and I’m not about to explain it. Getting back on subject, though: love. This post is going to head out in to left field and kind of meander out there for a while, so bear with me. I received an e-mail from a friend yesterday. The purpose of his e-mail was to tell me that a good friend of mine from

Continue readingHanging around

I’ve lived for others; fast and without remorse or regret. Never thinking about the consequences, and I’m sure it is plainly known by those that survived each storm with me that this is who I am. I just keep running and running and I never look back. I only pause to see all that I’ve destroyed and all that I’ve abandoned. And still, I move on. I’ve been going through a decent amount of introspection the last couple of weeks and come to find that I’m no longer sure of who I am or where I’m going. As 1st Corinthians 13 put it, I am a “poor reflection”; I have trouble seeing beyond the illusion that is life, and the illusions that we feed ourselves. It’s a trap, though, one we fall in to when we look at our problems beneath a microscope and dust mites become dragons beneath the lense. I’m eyeing those around me with a fair amount of suspicion these days and casually wondering if they’re as happy or as miserable as they seem to portray themselves. I suspect not, but then, what do I know about human behavior? I guess I’m just rambling and not making

Continue readingThe other side