"Bowl of Oranges"

"Our still lives posed, like a Bowl of Oranges."

You're right Sojo, it's a great song.

But I've had other songs on my mind lastely. Right now,whats playing is "Down in the River to Pray" ala Allison Krauss. Good stuff, really.

I'm about to pack up, finish cleaning up my room, and leave for Montgomery to attend a Pilates class and then go visit my ?-girlfriend at her new job. It sounds like she's having fun, and I'm glad for that. A summer is a long time to spend saying goodbye, but I guess I'm glad of all the time.

In other news, I'm answering my e-mail, so hopefully if you know me personally in addition to reading this you're reading or have read an e-mail from me. If not, there should be one winging your way shortly. I've only got a couple left to write.

If you don't get one today though, don't expect one till Tuesday. I'm going to be AWOL for the next three days.

In the meantime. . . I've got work to do.

Ta.

Friday, May 28, 2004

Cynicism is for the Birds.

Today I will not be Cynical.

[And my brain says: "HA! Fat chance!"]

In any case. It's actually been a good couple of days. My room is slowly getting sorted. I bought new shoes and stuff for the jeep yesterday. If all goes well I'll have a radio working in the Jeep again by next week (sweet!) and I'm going to a Pilates class tomorrow. Plus today I'm being dragged along to go to the lake and 'waterski' (read: make a complete fool of myself). But it should be fun. It's with friends of moms and students of hers that I know and think are cool people, so it should be allright.

In other news, I'm house-sitting for my sister again this weekend. I'm looking forward to it. It'll give me a chance to do the job search I need, and it will give me the 'away time' that I would have been served so well by last week, if not for the fact that I was needed, and it was good that I wasn't away.

I was sorting through my room yesterday, and found a bunch of interesting stuff you might enjoy. For your entertainment, I'll post one of my earlier pieces of Poetry, circa Spring break, 1999. It's bad, but it's funny because it's bad.

At the time, I was on a Delta Flight to London, and was somewhere over the Altantic Ocean, musing about the physics of flight.

I realize that the cadence is completely f*cked. Just read the poem. :P

Lift

Thirty Thousand Feet, I'm hanging in the Atmosphere,
Wondering what exactly manages to hold us here.
Thinking that a hunk of metal such as this,
should never leave the ground, let alone rise above the mist

I find it most disconcerting
and perhaps a trifle odd
that a piece of metal weighing sixteen tons
can roam so close to the face of god.

One would of course,
naturally assume
that anyone in a chunk of steel at 30,000 feet
would surely meet their doom?

Yet something keeps us chilling here
so far above the earth
It makes me nervous, I quake in fear
to think that gravity has limited girth

[stanza ommited due to unprecedented suckage.]

Anyway, I do suppose
I shall end this paranoid prose
lest the other passengers get upset
and bag me in a cargo net.

Thursday, May 27, 2004

"Where There is Hope."

"Where there is hope, there is a dream
To rise above, to remit, and to redeem.
To go back. To go where there's no hurt or anger there.
To find the song that you once could sing.
Where there is hope, there is a dream."

Ashton, Becker, Dante - Song of Reconciliation

Someday.

In the meantime. . .I think most of my friends are pushovers.

It's like I've accrued so much solidarity of character with them that when my actions should challenge their notions of what they think I am, they ignore them and move on, unburdened by the simple truth that the person they act as if I am is not who I am choosing to be.

Do I like the person I'm choosing to be? Not particularly. But the fact that he is ignored in favour of the person whose reputation I gave myself over the last four years is an astonishing thing.

Wednesday, May 26, 2004

Never Say Never?

Every moment in life is another opportunity for change.

Some changes are bigger than others.

Changes accepted. New course plotted. Need for discussion of the events? Zero. They are now filed away as a part of a past life that I will look back on by August with incredulous nostalgia.

Amazing.

Monday, May 24, 2004

commencement is coming.

Mother's Day.

I'm waiting for laundry to finish, then it's off to put them in the dryer. Then some more packing to do, and off to the Crowne Plaza for Sunday brunch with three generations of family.

And then?

Commencement.

Funny how the word they use for the end means beginning.

I called yesterday the beginning of the end, If so, than this afternoon will serve as the end of the beginning.

I talked with [the one who was] my girl (ex-girl?) this morning. Guarded but healthy conversation seems to be the order of the day. This summer is going to be different for me from anything I've experienced previously.

I find it an amazing and complete irony that even with all the relationships and opportunities for relationships that have happened over the last year, I expect that even with the best case scenario I will be single and mostly alone by fall. [Hindsight Fairy: This turned out to be completely true.]

Funny how that works.

and Kid is back from Florida early. Which means she might be at Graduation and/or around Macon this evening.

How does one say Goodbye twice?

I think I might go visit my sisters tonight. They're out in West Macon, and as many times as we've already said goodbye. . . it wouldn't hurt to say it again.

Sunday, May 09, 2004

embracing the end of my charmed life

I'm back from Florida.

Life is different now.

"I have the sense to recognize, that I don't know how to let you go."

Two days from today. Less than 48 hours from this moment, it all comes to an abrupt but fitting end. The beleagured anti-hero gets the reward he doesn't deserve and fades quietly into the crowd. No magical ride off into the sunset. No beautiful girl by his side. No grand plan or huge ambition. Just the quiet shame of mediocrity and the knowledge that I abandoned the one thing that made me different from everyone else.

And the lights will fade.

And I'll be normal. Perhaps for the first time ever.

I'm not comfortable living in normality. It will make me squirm.

But the lights will stay dim. The discomfort will fade. I will slowly accept my fate and swallow the pride I no longer deserve.

I will not keep my head up. Why should I?

say goodnight, Patrick.

and now, if you'll excuse me, I have some e-mails to return.

Friday, May 07, 2004