I’m sitting here in the dark watching a burning candle, inhaling incense, and listening to music playing in the background. It reminds me of many of my long nights spent searching for truth and the reasons why and what for. I can’t say that I have any answers for the questions I’ve asked, past or present. I don’t know why I came to be the person that I am, or why things worked out the way that they did. All I know is that life being what it is, a surprising chain of small moments and realizations, my ignorance will have to do. I’m okay with that. I’m content to sit in the dark watching the shadows play along the walls and contemplate my life and my relationship with the world, the universe, and the existence of God. I’ve waited and waited for God to believe in me, figuring then we’d have something to talk about, but have never heard from him. And I have tried and tried to sell my soul but found that there were never any takers. And I’m pretty sure it’s on a street corner somewhere, in a small desert town, staring out at the sun

Continue readingThe muse and a slow burning candle

Okay, so the subject is a little more frightened than I was, but it still doesn’t change the fact that I had a rather unpleasant awakening today. So I woke up this morning, and could have sworn that I smelled burning wood. Yeah. Not good. I wander out in to the backyard and lo and behold, there’s smoke wafting upward and away from the side of the house. Eek. I grab the garden hose and completely douse the entire place with water. I mean, I completely drenched the house, the bushes, the ground, the patio, … everything! When I’m done and there’s a huge puddle of water standing in the previously steaming ground, I can still see smoke creaking out the sides. I’m beginning to wonder if it has turned in to an underground fire (NOT good). So I grab a rake and upturn all of the ground and mud and churn up the first five or six inches of soil as much as possible. I spray it down again and leave an even larger puddle. It’s been about half an hour since then, and no more smoke… but I’m waiting. Now to figure out how the fuck all of

Continue readingFIRE!

On some weary Tuesday morning, after having checked my e-mail and reworked an entire project implementation plan, I received a fairly innocuous message from a friend (whom I haven’t seen in three years) asking how I am. Um… hmm. Now, I don’t harbor any kind of illwill toward this person. None at all. Our friendship just drifted and disappeared over a period of time. I get that some people wouldn’t want to deal with being around for something like that. It’s awkward. But out of the blue, having returned no e-mails or only returned little single sentence replies for page long e-mails, this person asks me how I’m doing. I spent two weeks without sending a reply, simply because I wasn’t sure if I could reply and still hide the annoyance in my “tone”. After finally replying, and a few e-mails being passed back and forth, the person is gone again. I guess, for whatever reason, I simply cannot and will not hold any kind of interest for them. Or maybe they’re ADD and don’t realize that they lose focus so quickly. Who knows? I often wonder why I try to reconcile anything in my past. Isn’t it pointless? I’m

Continue readingThe past, and its ability to blast

I was just reading through the book that I’ve been writing. It’s an autobiography, and I know that that makes it sound like I’ve lived an interesting life; I really haven’t. But there was a pretty long span of time where I hitchhiked across the country, was homeless, and survived by the kindness of strangers and my own resourcefulness. As I was reading through my account of the events, I can’t help but wonder what the hell I was thinking at the time. I spent a great many nights staring at the night sky, wondering if there was a God, wondering if there was some other alien staring back at me from across the galaxy. I even came up with my own prayer on one of those nights, “Please forgive me, God, for believing you don’t exist.” I don’t think people really understand how lonely and hopeless being an athiest can be; at times, I really wish that I could have the same unquestioning faith that others do. I wish I could believe, but I know that I can’t and never will. It reminds me of Pascal’s wager. Ever read about that? It basically states that, faced with the fact

Continue readingThe hitchhiker’s guide to oneself

I received an e-mail from my grandmother this morning. She said that she awoke in the middle of the night last night and prayed fervently for me for over an hour. I feel bad. Really, I do. I appreciate her sentiment and I appreciate the extreme length at which she cares for me, but I feel like a liar and a cheat; a heretic and a blasphemer. She’s praying for a non-believer, for a man who is faithless and godless. How do I reconcile her belief with my complete lack thereof? I can’t thank her, because I feel that prayer is a waste of time. As far as I’m concerned, it’s as arbitrary as holding goat testicles and chanting the pledge of allegiance. What then, do I say? I could tell her that I love her, which is the truth, but that’s sidestepping the issue. Stepping around the issue, I feel, is as bad as lying. Sigh.

My entire weekend this last week (from Friday afternoon to Sunday) was spent in Opal Studio, which is run by Kevin Hahn. He’s an incredibly talented musician as well as audio engineer. I’m always surprised at the depth and breadth of his knowledge. Anyway, my band’s album is very near completion now. It has been over a year in the making; we’ve gone through three drummers, countless shows, hardships, and experiences, but it’s finally done. And not to put too fine a point on it, but it sounds incredible. I’m quite happy with how it sounds. This week I’ll be working on getting the artwork finalized and ready for full production, and we have to mix and master the final tracks, but we’re done otherwise. The album should be ready within a few weeks, and we’re all very excited. Other than that, there’s not much else going on. I’m sick as a dog, and I have been all weekend (which made the recording experience pretty miserable). I also spent each night out far too late at various bars watching local bands. The shows were good, but none of it helped to make me better. Sigh. Oh well. I’m working from

Continue readingRough mix, stir gently

My band (The Misery Science), is going back in to the studio this coming weekend. We just got done figuring out the timing for the songs that we’re going to record (which is harder than you’d think, 73 bpm? Who counts that crap?). I’m extremely excited to get in there and get the full album completed. We have several CD release parties lined up in the coming months, as well. Almost two years ago, the band started out with just Criss (the lead singer) and I. It’s strange to think that we’ve gone through two drummers, added a keyboard player, and gone through all manner of strangeness and difficulty. We’ve definitely earned the name, “The Misery Science”. A lot of the experience has been quite miserable. On the flip side, though, it has also been an incredible experience as well. A friend of mine and his parents came to one of our shows a few months ago. They made the comment that they’ve never seen me this happy, and I have to agree. I haven’t been this happy in quite a few years, and while it’s not all because of the band, I would say that having that outlet does

Continue readingTransfixed and waiting

My brother posted a blog post recently, and in it, he expressed his disdain for the way women tended to treat him. His emotions and feelings were pretty familiar territory for me, as I’ve been treated as “just a friend” (as I’m sure many men have) on several occasions. Here is the response that I wrote to him: It’s rather unfortunate that so many women are exactly as you describe; but take consolation in the fact that not ALL women are like that. Every guy, with the exception of the aforementioned assholes and “models”, have been jammed up in “friend mode” on several occasions. While I don’t have issues with it now, I’ve been considered “just a friend” on several occasions, and it’s quite frustrating. The best advice I can provide on avoiding the friend category, as hard as it sounds, is to make sure that the woman that you’re interested in is aware of your intentions. If you like her “that way”, you need to bluntly (and preferably, when you first meet) tell her that your intention is romantic in nature. That sets the tone initially, and she will then know that your actions are working toward that goal.

Continue readingThe dreaded ‘friend category’, or, women can be cruel

Every morning I ride the bus in to work. The ride is about 45 minutes, and I spend most of it listening to music and/or reading a book. There’s a particular corner, near Clinton Street Pub, that has a stop sign. I pass by it every day. On the stop sign is a little sticker, about average bumber sticker size, that says, “Now is all you have”. I can’t seem to keep myself from reading this same sticker every time the bus drives past it in the morning. I also can’t help myself from feeling a bit depressed after reading it. I mean, here I am, I’m riding a bus in to work, selling my “now” to the highest bidder so that I might have a comfortable living. I guess I should be happy that I do have such a good job and that I do live comfortably, but that little sticker seems to be taunting me every day.

Man oh man. I always say that I work best while under pressure. It’s entirely true, I do work best when I have a specific deadline (and even better if it’s looming over me), but I’ve quite literally felt like I’ve been under the gun for the past several months. I haven’t been to the point of “overload” just yet, but there have been a few moments in the past couple of hours (while coding an e-learning website for work), where my brain has seemingly fizzled and stopped working for a moment or two. Very strange. Sigh. Anyway. I have a presentation due tomorrow that will be shown to a large number of trainers, supervisors, and managers. In other words, it will be very bad if I fail. Back to work, I suppose.