giving

[] [] [] [] []

Stop talking about love.
Every asshole in the world says he loves somebody.
It means nothing. It still doesn't mean anything.
What you feel only matters to you.
It's what you do to the people you say you love,
that's what matters.
It's the only thing that counts.

[] [] [] [] []

thank You, Lord, Hallelujah,
You've been so good to me.
thank You, Lord, Hallelujah,
I'm grateful for my blessings.
I'm grateful for my struggles,
trials and tribulations i've been through.
I realize no one can love like You do.

[] [] [] [] []

so what do we do?

[] [] [] [] []

[Andrew] There's a handful of normal kid things I kind of missed.

[Sam] There's a handful of normal kid things I kind of wish I'd missed.

[] [] [] [] []

[Andrew] You know that point in your life
when you realize the house you grew up in...
isn't really your home anymore?
All of a sudden,
even though you have some place where you put your shit...
that idea of home is gone.

[Sam] I still feel at home in my house.

[Andrew] You'll see one day when you move out.
Just sorta happens one day, and it's gone.
You feel like you can never get it back.

It's like you feel homesick for a place that doesn't even exist.
Maybe it's like this rite of passage, you know?
You won't ever have that feeling again
until you create a new idea of home for yourself.

You know, for...For your kids.
For the family you start.

It's like a cycle or something.

I don't know. But I miss the idea of it, you know?

Maybe that's all family really is.
A group of people that miss the same imaginary place.

[Sam] Maybe.

[] [] [] [] []

good luck exploring the infinite abyss.

[garden.state]

to do

we are what we repeatedly do.
Excellence, therefore, is not an act
but a habit.

[aristotle]

[] [] [] [] []

And try one, and try two
Guess it always comes down to
All right, it's okay, guess it's better to turn this way
But I won, so you lose
Guess it always comes down to
All right, it's okay, guess it's better to turn this way

[the decemberists]

[] [] [] [] []

i may not be there yet
but i am closer than i was yesterday

[anon]

desperation

[] [] [] [] []

there's danger in frustration.

residence on earth

The Dawn's Debility

The day of the luckless, the pale day peers out
with a chill and piercing smell, with its forces gray,
without rattles, the dawn oozing everywhere:
it is a shipwreck in a void, surrounded by tears.

Because the moist, silent shadow departed from so many places,
from so many vain cavilings, so many earthly places
where it must have occupied even the design of the roots,
from so many sharp and self-defending shapes.

I weep amid invasion, among confusion,
among the swelling taste, lending an ear
to the pure circulation, to the increase,
making pathless way for what arrives,
what comes forth dressed in chains and carnations,
I dream, enduring my mortal remains.

There is nothing precipitous, or gay, or proud in form,
everything appears, taking shape with obvious poverty,
the light of the earth comes from its eyelids
not like the stroke of a bell but rather like tears:
the texture of the day, its feeble canvas,
serves as a bandage for the patients, serves to make signs
in a farewell, behind the absence:
it is the color that wants only to replace,
to cover, swallow, conquer, make distances.

I am alone among rickety substances,
the rain falls upon me and it seems like me,
like me with its madness, alone in the dead world,
rejected as it falls, and without persistent shape.

[pablo.neruda]

excerpts

[] please remember me, happily []

at this moment, i feel happy and it is an amazing thing. i'm smiling at the thought of waking up tomorrow. it's so nice. also, i work with some incredible men.

[] please remember me, fondly []

sometimes, i feel really foolish and young. it's like i do something and realize right after how dumb it was. that instantaneous feeling of regret is a horrible, horrible pit in my stomach.

[] please remember me, at halloween []

a lot of time has been spent on the fact that i will only ever be able to look out of this body, think with this mind, and react with this perspective. i mean, i will never meet myself. i will never be able to view myself outside of myself. i will never be able to look down and see different hands attached to different arms connected to a head with different memories.

[] please remember me, mistakenly []

she was genuinely surprised that i don't smoke pot. i was not surprised at how little she knows about me. what little they do know is hardly their business. told to one, told to all.

[] please remember me, as in the dream []

sometimes i lay awake at night for hours. thinking. realizing great Truths and discovering new things about myself and the world. I get so into it, i space out. it takes me a moment to recognize that it's the middle of the night and i'm exhausted.

[] please remember me, my misery []

i know my fear. it comforts me. and keeps progress at a standstill. i don't change. i don't adapt. i crawl further into the fear. into my thoughts. into my self. blocking out the world. dark. quiet. alone. still. for ever. if i could, i would stay in one place and let the world go on around me. and just watch.

[] please remember me, seldomly []

some moments i am incredibly overwhelmed by how utterly alone i am. i am stuck in it.

[] please remember me, finally []

i can't remember when i've been this content. with me. myself unto myself. i'm growing and learning and living. it's warm. i feel easy here. home. i have made a new home and have not looked back. work is good. got a raise. feel hopeful.

[] [] [] [] []

please, remember me
finally
and all my uphill clawing
my dear
but if i make
the pearly gates
do my best to make a drawing
of God and Lucifer
a boy and girl
an angel kissing on a sinner
a monkey and a man
a marching band
all around the frightened trapeze swinger.

ReSpek: Far

your stitches are all out
but your scars are healing wrong
and the helium balloon inside your room has
come undone
and it's pushing up at the ceiling
and the flickering lights
it cannot get beyond

oh, everyone takes turns
now it's yours to play the part
and they're sitting all around you
holding copies of your chart
and the misery inside their eyes is
synchronized and reflecting it to yours

Hold on
One more time with feeling
Try it again
Breathing's just a rhythm
Say it in your mind until you know that the words
are right
This is why we fight

you thought by now you'd be
so much better than you are
you thought by now they'd see
that you have come so far

and the pride inside their eyes
would synchronize into a love you've never known
so much more than you've been shown

Hold on
One more time with feeling
Try it again
Breathing's just a rhythm
Say it in your mind until you know that the words
are right
This is why we fight

[] [] [] [] []

hey this fire, it's burning, burning us up

the weight of words

_you get the weight of everything wrong. you have to guess all the time whether things are heavy or light, especially the things inside you, and you get it wrong, and it puts people off. i'm tired of it.

[] [] [page.one.nine.six] [] []

_i may not know the weight of many things, but i could feel the weight of that one, so i kept it to myself. you know that things aren't going well for you when you can't even tell people the simplest fact about your life, just because they'll presume you're asking them to feel sorry for you. i suppose it's why you feel so far away from everyone, in the end; anything you can think of to tell them just ends up making them feel terrible.

[] [] [page.one.nine.nine] [] []

the art of contempt

all artists are prepared to suffer for their work, but why are so few prepared to learn to draw?

[] [] [] [] []

TeeFury is a site that puts up a new tee every day for sale. the comments below each daily display come from a wide variety people from all over the world...it is always interesting to read the critiques and compliments on the daily art and there have been several instances where they have uncovered that the 'artist' has ripped off their designs. this discovery can happen within minutes of it's midnight release and it's always cause for excitement and diatribes.

[] [] [] [] []

The Latest Incident occurred this past Saturday and began a heated 24 hour long debate on ethics. [the legitimacy of Shepard Fairey and Andy Warhol as artists is called into question starting around hour 12]. What I appreciate the most is how clear it is to see who among the people commenting are artists. They recognize what is at risk. Plus, the attempts the accused makes at recovering is always laughable and/or grossly pathetic. Well worth the read.

In the past, these cases have been fixed by the administrators pulling the offensive tee and coinciding comments and replacing it with a Dead Bird tee [depicts the teefury bird dead to signify the mistake]. Due to the holiday weekend, however, no one was around the necessary equipment thereby securing this tee and the valuable moral lesson a place in the annals of TeeFury via the Archive link.

[] [] [] [] []

It's always easier to get forgiveness than permission


[the exclusion: acts of plagiarism]

2/15/2004 [altered]

I have accepted the result
of my tears and frustrations

I am here
sitting, waiting
for them to tell me,
to let me in on this secret

i no longer want,
no longer need,
no longer feel until

I can without the tears,
without the frustrations

that day is far off
i can't see it
but it will come

I will know myself again
I will care for something,
believe in something,
find strength in something

i will but until that day

I am.


[] [] [] [] []


who can say if I've been changed for the better?
because I knew you, I have been changed for good.

spring awakening

[MORITZ]
Awful sweet to be a little butterfly
just winging over things
and nothing deep inside.
Nothing going going wild in you,
you know,
you're slowing by the riverside
or floating high and blue.
Or maybe cool
to be a little summer wind
like once through everything
and then away again.
With the taste of dust
in your mouth all day
but no need to know
like sadness
you just sail away.

Cause you know,
I don't do sadness
not even a little bit.
Just don't need it in my life
don't want any part of it.
I don't do sadness,
hey I've done my time
looking back on it all
man, it blows my mind,
I don't do sadness
so been there.
Don't do sadness
just don't care.

[] [] [] [] []

[ILSE]
What are you looking for?

[MORITZ]
If only I knew.

[ILSE]
Then what's the use of looking?

[] [] [] [] []

[ILSE]
Spring and summer ev’ry other day
Blue wind gets so sad
Blowin’ through the thick corn,
Through the bales of hay,
Through the open books on the grass
Spring and summer.

Sure, when it’s autumn
Wind always wants to
Creep up and haunt you
Whistlin’ it’s got you
With its heartache, with its sorrow
Winter wind sings and it cries.

Spring and summer ev’ry other day
Blue wind gets so pained
Blowin’ through the thick corn,
Through the bales of hay,
Through the sudden drift of the rain
Spring and summer.

] [] [] [] []

[MORITZ]
So maybe
I should be some kind of laundry line.
Hang their things on me
And I will swing 'em dry.
You're just wavin' the sun
Through the afternoon
And then see
They come to set you free
Beneath the rising moon.

[] [] [] [] []

Cause you know,
I don't do sadness
Not even a little bit.
Just don't need it in my life
Don't want any part of it.
I don't do sadness,
Hey I've done my time
Looking back on it all
Man, it blows my mind.
I don't do sadness
So been there,
Don't do sadness
Just don't care.

Spring and summer ev’ry other day
Blue wind gets so lost
Blowin’ through the thick corn,
Through the bales of hay

Spring and summer ev’ry other day
Blue wind gets so lost
Blowin’ through the thick corn,
Through the bales of hay,
Through the wandering clouds of the dust
Spring and summer

pursue love

[] [] [] [] []

for we were so utterly burdened beyond our strength that we despaired of life itself. indeed, we felt that we had received the sentence of death. but that was to make us rely not on ourselves but on God who raises the dead. He who delivered us from such a deadly peril, and He will deliver us. on Him we have set our hope that he will deliver us again. [][II Cor. 1:8b-10][]

[] [] [] [] []

I was scrubbing the toilet when the voices began. I'd listened to them so often before, but on this day they were shouting. They were telling me that I was as disgusting as the urine on the wall around the toilet.

And then the sentiment occurred. I am certain it was the voice of God because it was accompanied by such a strong epiphany like a movement in a symphony or something. The sentiment was simple: Love your neighbor as yourself.

And I thought about that for a second and wondered why God would put that phrase so strongly in my mind. I thought about our neighbor Mark, who is tall and skinny and gay, and I wondered whether God was telling me I was gay, which was odd because I had never felt gay, but then it hit me that God was not telling me I was gay. He was saying I would never talk to my neighbor the way I talked to myself, and that somehow I had come to believe it was wrong to kick other people around but it was okay to do it to myself...I would not let myself receive love from myself, from others, or from God. And I wouldn't receive love because it felt so wrong. It didn't feel humble, and I knew I was supposed to be humble. But that was all crap, and it didn't make any sense. If it is wrong for me to receive love, then it is also wrong for me to give it because by giving it I am causing somebody else to receive it, which I had presupposed was the wrong thing to do. So I stopped. And I mean that. I stopped hating myself. It no longer felt right. It wasn't manly or healthy, and I cut it out...I don't sit around and talk bad about myself anymore. [][blue like jazz][]

[] [] [] [] []

aanleiding

[] [] [] [] []

the time of getting fame for your name on its own is over. artwork that is only about wanting to be famous will never make you famous. any fame is a by-product of making something that means something. you don't go to a restaurant and order a meal because you want to have a shit.

[] [] [] [] []

who are you to decide what is Art or Not?

[] [] [] [] []

page ninety three

4. WAKING UP

Time passes. Even when it seems impossible. Even
when each tick of the second hand aches like the pulse of
blood behind a bruise. It passes unevenly, in strange
lurches and dragging lulls, but pass it does. Even for me.

[] [] [] [] []

there is a true and sincere friendship between you both [in bed].

turns out that trick doesn't work all the time.

[] [] [] [] []





i am on my way

[] [] [] [] []