hello, een.

happy ghost day.
i went as my roomate, and then we got bored.
and i got a video game.
i like it because it’s like playing a story.
i should be writing one instead, but my brain’s lazy.
and besides, according to Pascal i just want to be distracted
from my own wretchedness.
i guess there’s truth there.
there’s also hope there.
wikipedia is so very bluegrass.
i want to be bluegrass, too.

bits and pieces

i always get little phrases and lines going through my head on my walks, and they could be songs at some point.

these bones lie here in the ground
how they shiver and quake
with a secret they can’t tell,
no one’s listening anyway
this resolution born
of our sickness and our hate
how it stains the virgin ground
with a sadness we can’t shake

etc. etc. etc.
we’re almost done with Aristotle,
i’m fairly glad. people get too full of themselves talking about him,
probably i do, too.
life is hard, i’ve been reconciling myself to that.
but there’s hope, too.
much more than a day’s worth
and it gets too heavy.
sleep sounds good.
here’s to the salvation of daylight.

fall family festival (f^3)

i “worked” at camp this weekend.
i actually did work pretty hard,
it just didn’t seem like it because it was so awesome
to be around people with whom you’ve invested
(hate economic metaphors, btw)
so much, in a place that’s home to all of you
in so many ways.
it was cold, and clear, and beautiful.
(try coming up with a good adjective that means the same thing as beautiful but doesn’t sound corny/girly/frenchified, i.e. “lovely, gorgeous, pretty, etc.)
i played guitar by fires,
put unwanted pumpkins
out of their misery,
drank coffee/hot chocolate,
swam and shivered,
and hugged mark pichot.
a good weekend.

things taken out of context

“To have no time for philosophy is to be a true philosopher.”

Amen, Pascal. Amen.
Guess I’m doing better than I thought.

pedantry

things i learned in great texts:

reasoning looks like a steeple
presidents should read Aristotle
we don’t know anything we know
planets are better than politics
(and Greeks loved their politics)
you don’t be happy, you do happy
thinking about God is better than anything
(yes, even  proto-indoeuropean roots, dr smith)
you need practical wisdom to free yourself up
for theoretical wisdom

…sigh. the surf shop on an island somewhere is sounding better and better. who needs enlightenment anyway?

meh. poetry>me.

light breaking tearing shifting
back and forth in the wind
pressure to pressure
the laws of vacuums
what makes a man
what makes a storm
tiny patterns
divide define destroy
the electric chaos beauty
the identity equation
raw untamed science
look! across the prairie
the storm, the man
riding the wind

walks

nights are beautiful,
cold is beautiful.
brennan manning
is awesome.
God loves me,
it’s scary, and crazy.
it’d be nice to have someone to walk with.
though making up songs is fun, too.

weekends

played senselessly violent video games,
and a lot of music. i have a band, finally.
i’m psyched to see how we actually sound.
the other guys know waaay more about music than do i.
but they ain’t got my wickkid axxe skillzz, etc.
working on another story, feels good.

retrospect

funny how old stories don’t age well.
least i’m making progress, eh?

on being a loner

i like being alone a little too much, i think.
other people are swing dancing, and playing with fire,
and i’m walking around making up songs in my head.
for some reason, tonight was an epic melodic ballad night.
maybe if you’re lucky, or i’m bored, you’ll get to see the results.
by “you” i mean the theoretical entity that reads this thing,
which is probably just me one of these days when i’m once again bored.
blog writing is the intellectual/creative equivalent of masturbation, i’ve decided.
cold(ish) weather is beautiful.