we are pushed to the very edge of meaning,
only to turn away in fear.

we deceive ourselves only.
no one else is paying attention.

finalism

compare and contrast facebook status updates with personal blog posts. are there similarities? is there any difference?

this is what i do instead of homework when lots of homework is due

back in may i wrote a blog in which i claimed to more or less be god's gift to humanity.

i can't totally remember, but i think i was joking.

however, if i were to revisit that concept here in november, i wouldn't be joking.

this

i haven't felt this in a long time. it's weird, but somehow, i miss it.

"this" too

blag

do i value people more than right and wrong?

also

the wind blew and knocked all the leaves that were headed, eventually, for the ground, off the trees last night. accomplishing weeks of progress in a single night.

a-holes

"the more men have to lose, the less willing are they to venture" - thomas paine

i've been the victim of two sad (in more ways than one) events.

first: the front wheel was stolen from my unlocked bike sitting in the front yard of my house while i was inside with the front door open. a couple kids stole my wheel... just the wheel. it took me months to get over that. "it's just a thing, just material," i told myself. "but still" i argued, "what kind of idiots..."

second: someone tried to steal my bike which was locked to itself off my front porch. they ditched it in a nearby parking lot once they destroyed the five dollar lock from walmart and seriously compromised two of the spokes and one of the ball bearings on the front hub. "it's just a thing," i reminded myself once again. "but still," i argued, "what kind of an idiot..."

my mother would say, "jacob, when will you learn your lesson? you leave your bicycles laying around unlocked, you never lock your front door and even sometimes leave it hanging wide open for a full day when you're gone the whole time, you leave your car unlocked with the keys in the ignition and the windows down! you have to lock your things up!"

but i think the only lesson i'm learning in all this crap is... i have too many valuable things. i have too much to lose. too much to protect. too much to be paranoid about. too much to mistrust humanity with.

small town

riverside knows it's small. it likes it that way.

center

i am the sum of everything i hate.
i am the sum of everything i love.
everywhere i look i see mirrors.
i contain all humanity inside of my own

there once was a little blade of grass.
when she turned three (insert unit of grass growth), someone came along and chopped off her top half.

so she grew it back.

starting up

when i was just a boy, my summer days were filled with running and jumping and scheming ways to avoid mowing the lawn. the most effective of these ideas was just to claim that there wasn’t enough strength in my whimpy arms to start the mower. i would wheel it out and half-heartedly pull on the chord, then give up and wheel it back to the shed. eventually my parents would come home from work and i would deliver my story, claiming that the mower was most likely broken and would never work again. however, much to my chagrin, one of them would walk out to the shed, pull out the mower, do a little magic tap dance on it, and start it up with only two attempts. as it turned out, my methods of avoiding only delayed what was inevitable. meaning i would then be forced to mow the lawn. i still remember that sinking feeling in my heart when i heard that old piece of junk start.

it’s been a while since i’ve used that mower, but today i could have sworn i heard that thing start up... several times.

when a lie is the truth

i want so badly to answer yes to certain questions. but i just can't do it in good conscience. it would just be a selfish lie. no is the only righteous response.

certain times all it takes is the slightest realization that could change the past. it can make the unrighteous righteous and the lies the truth.

like bunnies

you could feel his absence. like playing a guitar with no b string.

feelings

i've been feeling a lot of questions.

i don't know what that means, exactly.

how does a person feel a question?

what does a question feel like?

i don't even know.

but i feel them.

in the clearing stands a boxer, a fighter by his trade

alright hist275, let's dance

permanence

you know, when i started my career of being god's gift to humanity back in 1986, i was young and inexperienced. there was much i didn't understand. for example, i didn't even realize that just because i couldn't see something, didn't mean it wasn't there. i mean, i could have watched someone put a pen in their pocket and i would have believed that it no longer existed. boy was i silly.

now that i'm older and wiser, i'm older. and wiser. good ol' object constancy.

but seriously, does the light really go off when you shut the refrigerator door?

honda civic

i'm under a fair amount of stress. crunching stuff in the last few minutes of my days and the first few minutes of my days. then crunching irresponsibility into little pockets throughout the day.

i've forgotten.

luckily for you and me, i remembered.

we're just subtly more civilized animals

yesterday i found a bull snake. it was a big one too. it startled me a little bit at first too, having similar markings to a rattle snake. he must have been fast asleep when we found him because he was acting really docile and slow to respond.

i picked him up behind the head, posed for a picture, and put him in a bucket until we were done with our chore. then we dumped him out behind the barn in the weeds and stood around him for a little bit.

he lasted about five or ten minutes before he started getting real pissed at us. the dog started getting pissed too at that point.

then we took the dog and walked away.

lord

please help me to live

a life that is willing to give

part 5

at last i got the signal. i wound up and let it fly in the general direction of the catcher/hitter. the ball flew wildly and out of control… directly into the dirt about four feet in front of the plate and about two feet wide. my coach was livid, and i turned and jogged back to my all-too-familiar spot in center field.

the end

part 3.5

they used to make fun of how i pitched. it was kind of like watching a real pitcher pitch in slow-motion with random speed changes, occasionally hitting the pause button for split seconds. when i finally did let go of the ball, it wasn't moving all that fast either. it wasn't that i couldn't throw harder, i just liked to stay in control. i remember practicing with the other pitchers and i could put that ball wherever i wanted. right down the middle, low and inside, high and inside, outside, wherever i wanted, i could throw.

part 4

finally i found myself on the mound, in control. i looked at the ball for a moment and realized i held more than a baseball in my hand. i held the destiny of this game, perhaps even my career as a pitcher, in the palm of my hand. for the moment, i held fate in my control. the catcher gave me the signal for a fastball. "no." i thought, "boring." i shook my head. curveball. "no." i thought, "still boring." i shook my head again. the catcher dropped both of his hands in confusion and just looked at me. i stared back with determination. there was only one way this scene would work, and a fastball and a curveball were not the way. i needed to be a hero. i decided right then and there to go for the gusto. i would shake off every sign the catcher gave me until he gave me the craziest pitch i knew how to throw. it was some kind of sidearm/slider thing that i had some limited success with in practice before and one of the coaches commenting on how great of a pitch that was. however, by the time i had shaken my head four or five times i heard the coaches yelling at me from the dugout, "what are you doing?!", "just throw the ball!!"

part 3

suddenly it occurred to me out there in center field: what my team needed right then was me. i was standing out there thinking all this stuff and meanwhile, the pitcher was throwing horrible pitch after horrible pitch. i had seen enough. i began to call out to my coaches, "put me in coach! i can do it!" i saw them look out at me and i could see them talking to each other, but i couldn't make out what they were saying. nothing happened. i waited. called out again, "i know i can, coach!" finally they called me in, "go warm up graybill." so that's what i tried to do. i was too excited though. i could already picture how this scene would be shot, just like a scene from "angels in the outfield", and how it would end up. with me on the shoulders of the cheering team.

part 2

i recalled the one game they let me pitch. the glory day. we were playing against a team that was pretty good. a worthy opponent. i had just focused on pitching and let the team worry about the rest of the game, and we won. i think i might even still have that “game ball” somewhere, with the team names and the score written neatly in my mother's handwriting in black between the bright red laces. i had never pitched since then, and i never understood why. i thought i did a pretty great job. i even had a few strike-outs. and it wasn't like i was an invaluable outfielder or anything either (although i did often imagine i would be the next ken griffey junior).

part 1

i crouched out in center field. if i had been a fan of the other team, i would have been pretty excited to get to watch them win so effortlessly that day. but i wasn't a fan of the other team. not even close. i had been standing there way too long. hardly moving because batter after batter was being walked and walked. runs were being walked in one after another. their lead became more and more insurmountable with every score. it felt a little like driving in reverse down the highway and watching the distance from your destination get farther and farther and farther away. our pitcher was… having a bad day. he couldn't seem to throw a strike for anything. other than my stash of sunflower seeds in my pocket slowly disappearing, nothing was happening out there in center field any time soon, so i let my mind wander.

fear

when i think of infinite, i usually think of big. but what about infinitely small?

0.08 is pretty small.

0.00000000000000000008 is... really small.

0.00000000000000000001 is even smaller

0.0000[...insert infinity zeros here...]000001 is what i call infinitely small.

that's pretty profound. think about that for two minutes. i dare you. forever approaching zero and never, ever reaching it. a gap that can never be closed.

"infinitely small"

-

iss the bess!

i did it again

i realized last night that i'm starting the fourth week of spring quarter.

shoot.

i've been waiting for spring quarter to start, saying things like, "pretty soon it's going to be nice like this every day." or "spring quarter is going to be so fun once it gets going." and i've been missing it as it's been slipping by.

this is it! nothing happens next. today is spring quarter. right now is spring quarter.

man, i need to get over this. this habit of waiting to really engage in life until it is what i expect it to be. it is what it is. right now.

"it's funny how life is seldom what you plan... don't let the panic bring you down"

i turned myself to face me

i like to think i believe that i am not a prisoner my past. i'm not bound to be the same person i've been.

but to take my life and make a change seems difficult at first. it takes real raw effort. like a ten pound slab of red bloody meat on the kitchen counter. just drop it out there like a huge stack of books on a table in the reference room.

i come barreling into this moment directly from the last one. to hope to change the outcome of this moment while it is happening is like trying to stop a freight train at a traffic light that just turned red. it's just not going to happen.

first of all, it's going to take time to slow that baby down. second of all, i love cough drops.

i can, however, make effort in this now, that will affect the next. and then make effort in that one that will affect the next. and so on and so forth. i can make concerted effort and create a better future for myself. i don't have to make the same mistakes in the future that i'm making now. but it is a pretty hefty stack of books.

today

it's like when you're rolling backwards on your bike.

you must either pedal backwards or remove your feet from the pedals.

...

it is very quiet.

i don't mind it.

there's something mysteriously nice about this.

my brain is too tired to think.

my body is too tired to move.

my world is too tired bustle.

and i am.

music

there's a part of a piece of music written by this guy, rachmaninoff, where the orchestra fades away in a series of chords that they hold out softly in counterpoint to what's going on on the piano and then (so smoothly) it all comes to resolution and perfect harmony. there's a short breath and then the piano swells up with the softly played melody (in solo) and it's so beautiful, it's almost as if it breaks my heart. then the orchestra slowly joins the piano and they build and build and build until the full orchestra and piano are playing together and that melody returns in full strength and then, no matter what i'm doing, i have to stop. and listen. and feel.

it's amazing to me. music. there's no way i could communicate with words what is communicated in that music. it's a-whole-nother language.

i feel like i'm beginning to understand the language. but man! i would give almost anything to speak that language.

he may

there's a fly that's been buzzing in my room for the last few days.

i've never seen him stop and rest. he just keeps on buzzing.

he flies straight as an arrow for a random period of time then abrubtly changes directions in a split second and flies straight as an arrow in the new direction for a random period of time.

he does this constantly never leaving a the space at the center of my room underneath the light.

i watch him sometimes for just a few moments and i wonder if he's getting tired. or hungry. i think he must be. he never stops and there can't be much for a fly to eat in my room anyway.

but he continues to buzz around in his randomly methodical patterns.

today i saw my fly friend sitting on the door frame of my bathroom. just sitting in complete absence of motion. if the details of his legs, wings, eyes, and body weren't so intricate, i would have guessed he was fake. i watched him for a moment wondering if he was down there in his fly world panting, trying to catch his breath. then a moment later he was gone.

interview with sports illustrated

eating.

i've done a lot of that in the last few days. i never thought i'd say this but...

i'm tired of it.

i suppose i'll be singing a different tune in a couple hours though.

parmesan cheese

“sometimes i wonder if we're not all pieces of the same puzzle." benjamin wondered aloud. i knew we were, but i didn't say anything. i had ridden with benjamin and clara from astoria to hood river, where we would part ways. it's difficult to explain how we ended up sitting at a picnic table deep in thoughts that were too heavy for conversation, but i'll just say that sometimes you meet someone and it feels like you've known them your whole life. so there we just sat. together. connected. didn't they feel it? of course we were from the same puzzle. i had just met these people hours ago on a totally different path of life and we so obviously had such human-ness in common. "the humanity puzzle" i thought as a man sauntered by and gave us a half-wave of the hand/head. my thoughts sailed off with him and i wondered what his story was. where was he going? where was he coming from? how does he fit into the puzzle? i've met a lot of people in my life. every last one of them contains some bit of humanity inside: radiating out from the deepest part of their soul. it's so obvious to me. i've seen it. "the humanity puzzle."

my name is "joe." (or at least that's what i told them. partly because i don't really remember having a real name that was any different, and partly because i like the way it sounds.) "joe schmoe..." i informed them. "i think it's german." we laughed. some people call me a drifter, i think i'm a listener. see, there's this "call"... this... "power" in all of us, moving us, urging us through life. it's the notion we get that there's more. it's the urge we get to quit our meaningless, half-hearted pursuits, throw caution to the wind and just pursue life itself with everything in us. i just figure people don't hear it. either that or they don't listen. instead they just go through the motions. living the life that they think they're "supposed" to live.

suddenly clara broke the silence. she stood up to pace, the thoughts in her head too uncomfortable to sit with any longer. "i hear it" she stammered, "i just can't always listen to it." nobody said anything. "i mean, sometimes i do, but sometimes i have to be responsible...right?" she looked at benjamin for assurance. he just sat there, staring back. "i guess that's what makes me 'joe'." i thought to myself. "i can't do anything but listen. like a pebble caught in the gap of the rubber grip on your shoe. just along for the ride."

i've done some odd things in my time, but words barely disclose half of what happened next: suddenly i stood up, walked over to clara, and gave her a hug. a real hug. i couldn't explain it. i didn't speak, clara didn't speak, benjamin didn't speak. we just were. then benjamin stood up, walked over, and gave me a hug. a real hug.

there it was. radiating out from our souls. humanity. humanity in my person reaching out to the humanity in another.

an exchange took place there that is hard for me to describe. i gave them a piece of me. the real me. and they gave me a piece of them. the real them.

and our pieces fit together. like pieces from the same puzzle.

i don't even know (warning: not for the faint of heart)

so, when i made the list of things i needed for spring break (supplies, able body, spirit)... i was mistaken on one of them. indeed, i do have an able body, and somewhat of a spirit of adventure... what i didn't understand was supplies. so, here's a list of things to do (supplies and other) if you want to take a bike trekking adventure:

you definitely need:

1. saddle bags... or a carriage thingy

2. padded pants/shorts

3. more than one pair of socks

4. a real road bike

5. rain-proof... everything

6. a lot of food

i'm sure there are other things too, and yes, i tried it... without this stuff. i don't know why but i thought it would be important to bring a lot of underwear, but only one pair of socks would do the trick. i guess i just thought, this wo

uld be a lot like backpacking, only faster paced. boy was i wrong. i call this picture "bright-eyed and bushy-tailed"

my plan was to start in seaside, oregon and just ride north, with my bike and my backpack full of everything i could need, as far as i could for two days (hopefully making it to leadbetter point, washington) then turn around and come back in time to get home before my brother came to town. i think it was no more than four minutes after this picture was taken, i knew deep down that this was a bad idea. but i pushed that thought out of my head and said, "ah, this is just the famous 'first mile' i just have to make it past this initial discomfort."

it turned out it was not initial discomfort. it only got worse and worse. my lower back felt like someone had smashed it with a softball bat as hard as they could. after what felt like an eternity (but i knew it couldn't have been more than 5 or 6 miles) every push of the pedal was accompanied by a grunt of pain. I kept pressing on anyway, thinking of alternate plans as i went. "maybe i could ditch my bike here in this wooded area and lock it to a tree and hitchhike the rest of the way..."

(also, if you're going to go on a bike trek along highways, be prepared for cars to constantly fly by you at at least five times your speed reminding you that you're not making much progress... demoralizing!)

finally i saw a sign for a campground and i exited the highway in the worst mood i've been in in weeks, maybe months. i paid for a campsite and there i stayed for the next two nights.

the morning of day two, my spirit was crushed but not completely dead, so i decided i'd bike to astoria and check it out, then come back. easy peasy. astoria was cold and blustery. and cold too. i ate lunch and headed back, my spirit still a little bit under the weather. as soon as i entered the bridgething that crossed some bay and headed back to where i was camping, nature herself decided to mount an attack against me and my spirit. GALE-FORCE WINDS DIRECTLY IN MY FACE!!! i was literally in my easiest gear and still fighting for every ounce of momentum. if i had stopped pedaling, the wind would have stopped me and pushed me backward! cars were still flying by me effortlessly! seriously, you've never experienced this kind of opposition. then it started raining. i call this picture "wet and whimpery"

when i finally made it back (8.5 miles ... only?) to my tent, my soul was as beaten down as ever before. my spirit of adventure was all but dead. there i was, all by myself huddled in my tent, hiding from the rain in some campground full of tourists (my fav...) and i didn't even bring a book to read. (ok, admittedly, i'm a little dramatic at times)

then! i found my jolly rancher stash and life was good again! i bucked myself up (bolstered my spirits)(buoyed my hopes) and smiled. it was tough, but i did.

i said, "i don't care if it's raining, i'm going to the beach anyway!" and so i did.

the next day, i convinced myself that retreating to my car would not mean defeat, and there was no shame in continuing my venture in my car since there was no way i was going to make it to my goal by bicycle with all my stuff and no saddlebags, and i rode my bike the fifteen or so miles back and retrieved the old 'doob. and i had a great time the rest of the trip.

you can call me meriweather!

i made it! no camping in leadbetter though... oh well, didn't really feel like setting up my wet tent and stuff again anyways.

so, four nights was shortened to two, but man, that trip definitely gets my "worth it" stamp of approval!

p.s. it still hurts a little to sit on things... and here are some random pictures from my trip:

dreams (am i crazy?)

i literally dreamed of my grades last night because i was so excited to check my grades today.

so, here i am, checking them. they're just what i thought they'd be. it's like checking your airplane reservations again and again... kind of.

two nights ago (i'm not sure if it was a dream or not) the image of a big shiny black spider with a bright alarming red hourglass on it's belly flashed through my mind for no longer than a 1/3 of a second.

instantly my mind went wild and i didn't sleep well for the rest of the night. "what if i get bit by a black widow?", "andrew once got bit by a black widow and he was fine... sure he spent a few days in the hospital, but i could handle that.", "how would i know if i got bit by a black widow before it was too late?", "what would i do with all my stuff while i's in the hospital?", "i'll just tell one of those rv campers to take me to the hospital.", "what if they give me the anti-venom? then it'll never work again!" "there could be a black widow in my tent right now, and i'd have no idea.", "i shouldn't have left my tent flap open all day. dang it! i know better than that too.", "wait... what's this bite on my leg? mosquito? hope so.", "wait how do you know what a black widow bite looks like? what are the symptoms? nervous system break down? shoot, that's happening anyway! my muscles are all sore already too!", "wait, what will i do with all my stuff?"

on and on and on my mind went until i couldn't take it anymore and i'd grab my headlamp and go crazy checking every nook and cranny of my tent/sleeping bag. until at last i was satisfied enough to lay back down. then i'd lay there fore three seconds and my mind would begin to go bananas on me again until i couldn't take it anymore and i'd grab my headlamp...

spring break

able body.... check!

supplies... check!

spirit of adventure..... hold on a sec..... yep! check!

family

Family is the bread that holds the soup. Don’t read into that statement just let it sink into your heart, like soup sinking into the family bread bowl and you’ll know what I mean. Wednesday night is family night and Jacob and I had family dinner. Pizza with all the fixin’s (secret family recipe). Finals are over and they’ve left holes in our schedules and our hearts and we’ve tried to fill those holes with what’s important. Today I talked to every member of my immediate family but at the end of the day I walked to my basement apartment, carried my bike down the stairs and who was there to meet me? Jacob Graybill. He knows how to show the love. To illustrate how well he shows the love I’ll say that I know what his mustache and goatee feel like against my forehead. He’s family except for one thing, with family, you share either a last name or blood and we share neither. There are two remedies to this, becoming blood brothers, which we’ve both decided against mainly because it requires us to bleed, or have the same last name. So henceforth I will be know as Alex B. K. Graybill-Vercio and he will be known as Jacob S. Vercio-Graybill. Jacob welcome to the family. -Alex

family is the friends we don’t get to choose (that sounds vaguely familiar). sort of like eating. it’s the hobby we don’t get to pick. alex is like a really good apple pie. you have to eat to live, but sometimes the food you get to eat is really delicious. alex is like the family you get to choose (now that’s familiar). we often drink tea together or, like the picture here, eat food ceremoniously together… really close together. maybe we like to sit on the couch so close because it’s functional. we can both see the computer screen, or smell each other’s breath, or give a high-five with little effort, or whatever else you can easily do (feed each other?) when you find yourself sitting so close to another person that it’s impossible to determine who it was that just farted. but maybe we sit like that because we like to. we’re pretty much family. i mean, we’re roommates. but, who knows, maybe we’ll make it official. maybe we’ll “tie the knot” through the ceremony of becoming blood-brothers (a two man wolf-pack) by cutting our palms then clasping our hands, letting our blood mingle together... or maybe we’ll just hyphenate our last names. -jacob

entry #257 (just kidding (wouldn't that be cool though?) there's no way i would count them all)

i sat down to work on homework and my wrists decided they were tired of subjugating themselves to whatever the distant lord brain wanted. tired of obeying every exacting command supposedly for the good of the whole, when everyone knew it was all about what made that brain feel good. so the atoms in the cells of the tissues of my wrist divorced themselves from each other and consequently from my arms.

i watched as they scrambled off to find something. something pleasing according to the desires of the hand. each hand was determined to do what it wanted to do. perhaps to wrap themselves around. they didn't get very far before the fingernails decided they had ridden around on the tips of their fingers long enough. they pulled off and fell on the linoleum where they looked up enchantedly by the holes in the ceiling. soon, each of the bones in what used to be my wrist and hand one by one decided they had gone far enough and jumped the train until all but a four or five bones remained in each hand. and those "hands" continued their journey to wherever it was they were going.

then the cells in my skin tissue and the cells in my muscle tissue grew weary of putting up with each others differences and split up once and for all. while each individual blood cell tried to get as close to the earth as possible. spreading out like the masses of people sprawling out at woodstock.

i looked at all the components that used to make up my functional hands. each was lying strewn haphazardly along the ground in a trail no longer than three feet long. lifeless. like the stiff, uncomfortable school uniform on the floor of the bedroom of a young boy who is late for soccer practice.

"oh my word!"

i'm sitting here in the library studying. it's the most fun i've had all weekend. my mind is currently in the process of exploding because of all the fun i'm having in here.

jicydk (text language for, "just in case you didn't know")... i'm being sarcastic.

it's not really that bad though.

i just heard a phone conversation take place in the hall that i couldn't help but eavesdrop on because it sounded like it was being amplified through a speaker system directly into my face. i heard the girl answer the phone, "hello?" then i heard silence for a little bit, then a gasp... then all i heard after that was the phrase, "oh my word!" repeated again and again. over and over. with greater intensity every time. she probably said "oh my word!" seventeen times in the four minute conversation. on average, that's more than four times per minute! needless to say, she didn't say much else except "bye" at the end of the conversation.

it brings comfort to know that at least one person in the library is excited about something.

why?

every time the door opens, a wormhole connecting the front door of the gym and the north pole is brushed open and a full 6,500 gallons of fresh arctic air rushes directly into my face and arms.

it's a good thing it's a double door there, that way it can accommodate forty people come in those doors every minute while i work.

at six o'clock people start telling me, "hey man, that door's locked!" (because they lock automatically at six)

i just look at them and think, "darn!"

philosophy should be restricted to discussion...

i was leaning way back in my chair just now. it's one of the chairs at one of the cubicles in the library. i just kept leaning back more and more and more, until i had my feet up on the desk part where my elbows usually rest.

suddenly the little feet on the legs of the chair slipped straight forward. to make a short story long, i instantly realized i was falling and there was nothing i could do about it except maybe prevent my head from smashing against the wall behind me, but before i could react, i was crumpled on the floor like a dirty t-shirt in the hamper.

as soon as i collected myself and sat back down, i noticed my elbow burned. i looked an saw a perfectly circular scrape. "that's a perfectly circular scrape." i thought. "i wonder how that happened." then i realized, "that's about the same size as my buttons on my coat on the back of my chair."

check - clear

check - clear

check - there it was.

i had pinned one my buttons to the linoleum with my elbow and sure enough, some of my skin tissue remained under the fingernails of my button as evidence.

i felt a little bit like the star character on my own version of the popular show "csi: wwu"

case closed.

decisions

this morning i opened the refrigerator to retrieve some milk and my eyes were drawn to the bottom shelf. there, sitting securely close to the edge of the shelf was an open, uncovered, half-used can of coconut milk. i leaned over to grab my milk and casually peered in to check the contents of this unfortunately familiar sight. "hmm. someone must have put that in the fridge." i thought as my mind flashed back to the life-story of this little can.

i recalled just a number of days ago that very same can being opened and its contents being used to make a delicious curry.

my mind flashed forward to the following day when i was finally getting around to cleaning up after the curry and once again cautiously peering into the can as if i had no idea what i would find. i picked up the can to wipe underneath it and drew it to my face to take a whiff. "well, what is coconut milk even supposed to smell like?" i asked. placing the can back on the counter, i wasn't confident enough in its unspoiled-ness to invest the necessary effort (getting a different container out, putting it in, finding a lid, et cetera) to preserve it for later use. and at the same time i wasn't confident enough in its spoiled-ness to risk the remorse of throwing away a half a can of potentially useful food. so i finished the dishes, cleaned the counter tops, and went my way, leaving the can to determine its own fate.

as my hand grasped the milk, my mind flashed back to the present moment. the can had somehow found itself a way into the fridge to delay its fate. the contents of the can looked a little... weird. "well, what is coconut milk even supposed to look like?" i asked. suddenly i recognized the feeling i was feeling. once again i lacked the confidence to put out the effort to contain it properly, but also lacked the confidence to condemn it to the trash.

i shut the fridge door and ate my cereal and left the can to its fate, whatever that might turn out to be... for which i claim no responsibility.

i'm gonna do homework now.

there once was a tree. it was a really big tree. a virtual squirrel playground.

next to that tree, there was another tree. equally as big, and equally as awesome.

it must be nice to be a squirrel.

what does frustration sound like?

how can a person orient their lives by one or the other? emotion and logic are so opposed sometimes.

we live our lives gathering what feels good to believe in, and we cling to that. whatever we can believe in that gives us hope or some other kind of good feeling - give us that, please. what's that? no, no. don't give us logic. we don't like that. logic challenges our cherished beliefs that give us our cherished feelings. no, thank you. we'd rather believe a lie than know the truth, as long as it makes us feel good. feeling good is what matters. we don't want the truth - not if it challenges our beliefs.

sunlight causes shadows, jon

when i get sick, i tend to get negative and all i can see is the darker side of things. all I can see is the silvery oily death-potion floating on top of the rain river that’s flowing down the streets seeking the nearest access to the once untainted earth.

today i am sick. i am sick and i see the shadows.

it seems like a bummer that i am limited by time and space. i once heard a story of a woman who wept when she saw the beauty contained in the pure deep blue of a sulfur pool in yellowstone national park for the first time.

“why are you crying?”

“i’m weeping because i’m thirty-eight years old and i’ve only just now seen this.”

“well you’re here now. what’s there to cry about?”

“because i’m thirty-eight and i can only imagine all the other beautiful things i’ve missed out on and will never get to see.”

earlier today we turned on a whim... then i thought, "we probably should have just gone straight." then i said, "i guess we'll just take rose, huh?"

you know what my favorite question in the world is?

answer: "why?"

you know what my second favorite question in the world is?

answer: "why not?"

you know what my third favorite question in the world is?

answer: "what if?"

.

it feels good to be able to walk away from things sometimes.

because sometimes you just have to.

i've been standing under this waterfall my whole life. once or twice i got pushed out of it, and man, it's awesome out there. i can breath, i can see, i can... be.

you can't stop the waterfall, man. you can't stop it. don't even try.

just step out from time to time.

once upon a time, in an analogy far far away...

i woke up that saturday morning, as i often did, later than usual and hungering, as i often was, for some kind of connection with some kind of god. so i pondered, as i often did, if perhaps fasting and praying for the day would suffice (this process usually involved the following three things: considering what i ate and what time i ate dinner the night before, gauging how hungry i was at the moment (to see if i could actually make it through the day without collapsing), and what tasks i had before me for the day (i.e. sermon, sabbath school teaching, children's story, etc.)). on this particular day, i decided that abstaining from food would be a good way for me to stay focused on what i thought was important. yes. no food would venture into my mouth for the next 24 hours. i had made my decision. i no longer desired food. food was not something i was interested in.

church was great. i successfully ignored the pangs of hunger.

then, by some cruel cosmic twist of people and places and events, i accidentally stumbled upon the fellowship room where i discovered... the pena's food. enchiladas that only showed up once every month or two. rice that would make your mother weep. the smells alone were enough to take down jericho. and there was enough of them to feed jericho too! (it makes me mad just thinking about it)

"it just had to be today didn't it?! couldn't wait to bring 'em till next week, could you?! you probably put those in the oven just knowing that i was gonna be fasting! how can i pass them up now? it might be another two months before i get another chance like this! i could DIE before i ever see this food again! it looks so good!"

one hour later i could not force another bite of those stupidly delicious enchiladas down my esophagus.

i wish i was...

...homeward bound (remember that one dog?)

...debt free

...still on break

...a motorcycle

...really good at something

...more aware

...rich

...all-knowing

but i'm not and that's ok.