i first read this book the summer between my senior year of high school and my freshman year at Taylor. i came into Taylor reading this book (and oddly, sometimes, i think it set the tone for my entire college career in the smallest of ways, perhaps in terms of slight rebelliousness).  i was recently reminded of it and decided to pick it up again and read it because although there are many parts i remember very well, there have also been a lot of books since then, so i figured it was time.  this is my favorite chapter in this book.  i know its early on and there are many good ones after it, but this one gives me a different reaction than the rest. 

chapter 4

The greatest ride in my life was about to come up, a truck, with a flatboard at the back, with about six or seven boys sprawled out on it, and the drivers, two young blond farmers from Minnesota, were picking up every single soul they found on that road-the most smiling, cheerful couple of handsome bumpkins you could ever wish to see, both wearing cotton shirts and overalls, nothing else; both thick-wristed and earnest, with broad howareyou smiles for anybody and anything that came across their path. I ran up, said "Is there room?" They said, "Sure, hop on, 'sroom for everybody."

I wasn't on the flatboard before the truck roared off; I lurched, a rider grabbed me, and I sat down. Somebody passed a bottle of rotgut, the bottom of it. I took a big swig in the wild, lyrical, drizzling air of Nebraska. "Whooee, here we go!" yelled a kid in a baseball cap, and they gunned up the truck to seventy and passed everybody on the road. "We been riding this sonofabitch since Des Moines. These guys never stop. Every now and then you have to yell for pisscall, otherwise you have to piss off the air, and hang on, brother, hang on."

I looked at the company. There were two young farmer boys from North Dakota in red baseball caps, which is the standard North Dakota farmer-boy hat, and they were headed for the harvests; their old men had given them leave to hit the road for a summer. There were two young city boys from Columbus, Ohio, high-school football players, chewing gum, winking, singing in the breeze, and they said they were hitchhiking around the United States for the summer. "We're going to LA! "they yelled.

"What are you going to do there?"

"Hell, we don't know. Who cares?"

Then there was a tall slim fellow who had a sneaky look. "Where you from?" I asked. I was lying next to him on the platform; you couldn't sit without bouncing off, it had no rails. And he turned slowly to me, opened his mouth, and said, "Mon-ta-na."

Finally there were Mississippi Gene and his charge. Mississippi Gene was a little dark guy who rode freight trains around the country, a thirty-year-old hobo but with a youthful look so you couldn't tell exactly what age he was. And he sat on the boards crosslegged, looking out over the fields without saying anything for hundreds of miles, and finally at one point he turned to me and said, "Where you headed?"

I said Denver.

"I got a sister there but I ain't seed her for several couple years." His language was melodious and slow. He was patient. His charge was a sixteen-year-old tall blond kid, also in hobo rags; that is to say, they wore old clothes that had been turned black by the soot of railroads and the dirt of boxcars and sleeping on the ground. The blond kid was also quiet and he seemed to be running away from something, and it figured to be the law the way he looked straight ahead and wet his lips in worried thought. Montana Slim spoke to them occasionally with a sardonic and insinuating smile. They paid no attention to him. Slim was all insinuation. I was afraid of his long goofy grin that he opened up straight in your face and held there half-moronically.

"You got any money?" he said to me.

"Hell no, maybe enough for a pint of whisky till I get to Denver. What about you?"

"I know where I can get some."

"Where?"

"Anywhere. You can always folly a man down an alley, can't you?"

"Yeah, I guess you can."

"I ain't beyond doing it when I really need some dough. Headed up to Montana to see my father. I'll have to get off this rig at Cheyenne and move up some other way. These crazy boys are going to Los Angeles."

"Straight?"

"All the way-if you want to go to LA you got a ride."

I mulled this over; the thought of zooming all night across Nebraska, Wyoming, and the Utah desert in the morning, and then most likely the Nevada desert in the afternoon, and actually arriving in Los Angeles within a foreseeable space of time almost made me change my plans. But I had to go to Denver. I'd have to get off at Cheyenne too, and hitch south ninety miles to Denver.

I was glad when the two Minnesota farmboys who owned the truck decided to stop in North Platte and eat; I wanted to have a look at them. They came out of the cab and smiled at all of us. "Pisscall!" said one. "Time to eat!" said the other. But they were the only ones in the party who had money to buy food. We all shambled after them to a restaurant run by a bunch of women, and sat around over hamburgers and coffee while they wrapped away enormous meals just as if they were back in their mother's kitchen. They were brothers; they were transporting farm machinery from Los Angeles to Minnesota and making good money at it. So on their trip to the Coast empty they picked up everybody on the road. They'd done this about five times now; they were having a hell of a time. They liked everything. They never stopped smiling. I tried to talk to them-a kind of dumb attempt on my part to befriend the captains of our ship-and the only responses I got were two sunny smiles and large white corn-fed teeth.

Everybody had joined them in the restaurant except the two hobo kids, Gene and his boy. When we all got back they were still sitting in the truck, forlorn and disconsolate. Now the darkness was falling. The drivers had a smoke; I jumped at the chance to go buy a bottle of whisky to keep warm in the rushing cold air of night. They smiled when I told them. "Go ahead, hurry up."

"You can have a couple shots!" I reassured them.

"Oh no, we never drink, go ahead."

Montana Slim and the two high-school boys wandered the streets of North Platte with me till I found a whisky store. They chipped in some, and Slim some, and I bought a fifth. Tall, sullen men watched us go by from false-front buildings; the main street was lined with square box-houses. There were immense vistas of the plains beyond every sad street. I felt something different in the air in North Platte, I didn't know what it was. In five minutes I did. We got back on the truck and roared off. It got dark quickly. We all had a shot, and suddenly I looked, and the verdant farmfields of the Platte began to disappear and in their stead, so far you couldn't see to the end, appeared long flat wastelands of sand and sagebrush. I was astounded.

"What in the hell is this?" I cried out to Slim.

"This is the beginning of the rangelands, boy. Hand me another drink."

"Whoopee!" yelled the high-school boys. "Columbus, so long! What would Sparkie and the boys say if they was here. Yow!"

The drivers had switched up front; the fresh brother was gunning the truck to the limit. The road changed too: humpy in the middle, with soft shoulders and a ditch on both sides about four feet deep, so that the truck bounced and teetered from one side of the road to the other-miraculously only when there were no cars coming the opposite way-and I thought we'd all take a somersault. But they were tremendous drivers. How that truck disposed of the Nebraska nub-the nub that sticks out over Colorado! And soon I realized I was actually at last over Colorado, though not officially in it, but looking southwest toward Denver itself a few hundred miles away. I yelled for joy. We passed the bottle. The great blazing stars came out, the far-receding sand hills got dim. I felt like an arrow that could shoot out all the way.

And suddenly Mississippi Gene turned to me from his crosslegged, patient reverie, and opened his mouth, and leaned close, and said, "These plains put me in the mind of Texas."

"Are you from Texas?"

"No sir, I'm from Green-veil Muzz-sippy." And that was the way he said it.

"Where's that kid from?"

"He got into some kind of trouble back in Mississippi, so I offered to help him out. Boy's never been out on his own. I take care of him best as I can, he's only a child." Although Gene was white there was something of the wise and tired old Negro in him, and something very much like Elmer Hassel, the New York dope addict, in him, but a railroad Hassel, a traveling epic Hassel, crossing and recrossing the country every year, south in the winter and north in the summer, and only because he had no place he could stay in without getting tired of it and because there was nowhere to go but everywhere, keep rolling under the stars, generally the Western stars.

"I been to Ogden a couple times. If you want to ride on to Ogden I got some friends there we could hole up with."

"I'm going to Denver from Cheyenne."

"Hell, go right straight thu, you don't get a ride like this every day."

This too was a tempting offer. What was in Ogden? "What's Ogden?" I said.

"It's the place where most of the boys pass thu and always meet there; you're liable to see anybody there."

In my earlier days I'd been to sea with a tall rawboned fellow from Louisiana called Big Slim Hazard, William Holmes Hazard, who was hobo by choice. As a little boy he'd seen a hobo come up to ask his mother for a piece of pie, and she had given it to him, and when the hobo went off down the road the little boy had said, "Ma, what is that fellow?" "Why. that's a ho-bo." "Ma, I want to be a ho-bo someday." "Shet your mouth, that's not for the like of the Hazards." But he never forgot that day, and when he grew up, after a shortspell playing football at LSU, he did become a hobo. Big Slim and I spent many nights telling stories and spitting tobacco juice in paper containers. There was something so indubitably reminiscent of Big Slim Hazard in Mississippi Gene's demeanor that I said, "Do you happen to have met a fellow called Big Slim Hazard somewhere?"

And he said, "You mean the tall fellow with the big laugh?"

"Well, that sounds like him. He came from Ruston, Louisiana."

"That's right. Louisiana Slim he's sometimes called. Yes-sir, I shore have met Big Slim."

"And he used to work in the East Texas oil fields?"

"East Texas is right. And now he's punching cows."

And that was exactly right; and still I couldn't believe Gene could have really known Slim, whom I'd been looking for, more or less, for years. "And he used to work in tugboats in New York?"

"Well now, I don't know about that."

"I guess you only knew him in the West."

"I reckon. I ain't never been to New York."

"Well, damn me, I'm amazed you know him. This is a big country. Yet I knew you must have known him."

"Yessir, I know Big Slim pretty well. Always generous with his money when he's got some. Mean, tough fellow, too; I seen him flatten a policeman in the yards at Cheyenne, one punch." That sounded like Big Slim; he was always practicing that one punch in the air; he looked like Jack Dempsey, but a young Jack Dempsey who drank.

"Damn!" I yelled into the wind, and I had another shot, and by now I was feeling pretty good. Every shot was wiped away by the rushing wind of the open truck, wiped away of its bad effects, and the good effect sank in my stomach. "Cheyenne, here I come!" I sang. "Denver, look out for your boy."

Montana Slim turned to me, pointed at my shoes, and commented, "You reckon if you put them things in the ground something'll grow up?"-without cracking a smile, of course, and the other boys heard him and laughed. And they were the silliest shoes in America; I brought them along specifically because I didn't want my feet to sweat in the hot road, and except for the rain in Bear Mountain they proved to be the best possible shoes for my journey. So I laughed with them. And the shoes were pretty ragged by now, the bits of colored leather sticking up like pieces of a fresh pineapple and my toes showing through. Well, we had another shot and laughed. As in a dream we zoomed through small crossroads towns smack out of the darkness, and passed long lines of lounging harvest hands and cowboys in the night. They watched us pass in one motion of the head, and we saw them slap their thighs from the continuing dark the other side of town-we were a funny-looking crew.

A lot of men were in this country at that time of the year; it was harvest time. The Dakota boys were fidgeting. "I think we'll get off at the next pisscall; seems like there's a lot of work around here."

"All you got to do is move north when it's over here," counseled Montana Slim, "and jes follow the harvest till you get to Canada." The boys nodded vaguely; they didn't take much stock in his advice.

Meanwhile the blond young fugitive sat the same way; every now and then Gene leaned out of his Buddhistic trance over the rushing dark plains and said something tenderly in the boy's ear. The boy nodded. Gene was taking care of him, of his moods and his fears. I wondered where the hell they would go and what they would do. They had no cigarettes. I squandered my pack on them, I loved them so. They were grateful and gracious. They never asked, I kept offering. Montana Slim had his own but never passed the pack. We zoomed through another crossroads town, passed another line of tall lanky men in jeans clustered in the dim light like moths on the desert, and returned to the tremendous darkness, and the stars overhead were pure and bright because of the increasingly thin air as we mounted the high hill of the western plateau, about a foot a mile, so they say, and no trees obstructing any low-leveled stars anywhere. And once I saw a moody whitefaced cow in the sage by the road as we flitted by. It was like riding a railroad train, just as steady and just as straight.

By and by we came to a town, slowed down, and Montana Slim said, "Ah, pisscall," but the Minnesotans didn't stop and went right on through. "Damn, I gotta go," said Slim.

"Go over the side," said somebody.

"Well, I will" he said, and slowly, as we all watched, he inched to the back of the platform on his haunch, holding on as best he could, till his legs dangled over. Somebody knocked on the window of the cab to bring this to the attention of the brothers. Their great smiles broke as they turned. And just as Slim was ready to proceed, precarious as it was already, they began zigzagging the truck at seventy miles an hour. He fell back a moment; we saw a whale's spout in the air; he struggled back to a sitting position. They swung the truck. Wham, over he went on his side, watering all over himself. In the roar we could hear him faintly cursing, like the whine of a man far across the hills. "Damn . . . damn . . ." He never knew we were doing this deliberately; he just struggled, as grim as Job. When he was finished, as such, he was wringing wet, and now he had to edge and shimmy his way back, and with a most woebegone look, and everybody laughing, except the sad blond boy, and the Minnesotans roaring in the cab. I handed him the bottle to make up for it.

"What the hail," he said, "was they doing that on purpose?"

"They sure were."

"Well, damn me, I didn't know that. I know I tried it back in Nebraska and didn't have half so much trouble."

We came suddenly into the town of Ogallala, and here the fellows in the cab called out, "Pisscall!" and with great good delight. Slim stood sullenly by the truck, ruing a lost opportunity. The two Dakota boys said good-by to everybody and figured they'd start harvesting here. We watched them disappear in the night toward the shacks at the end of town where lights were burning, where a watcher of the night in jeans said the employment men would be. I had to buy more cigarettes. Gene and the blond boy followed me to stretch their legs. I walked into the least likely place in the world, a kind of lonely Plains soda fountain for the local teenage girls and boys. They were dancing, a few of them, to the music on the jukebox. There was a lull when we came in. Gene and Blondey just stood there, looking at nobody; all they wanted was cigarettes. There were some pretty girls, too. And one of them made eyes at Blondey and he never saw it, and if he had he wouldn't have cared, he was so sad and gone.

I bought a pack each for them; they thanked me. The truck was ready to go. It was getting on midnight now, and cold. Gene, who'd been around the country more times than he could count on his fingers and toes, said the best thing to do now was for all of us to bundle up under the big tarpaulin or we'd freeze. In this manner, and with the rest of the bottle, we kept warm as the air grew ice-cold and pinged our ears. The stars seemed to get brighter the more we climbed the High Plains. We were in Wyoming now. Flat on my back, I stared straight up at the magnificent firmament, glorying in the time I was making, in how far I had come from sad Bear Mountain after all, and tingling with kicks at the thought of what lay ahead of me in Denver-whatever, whatever it would be. And Mississippi Gene began to sing a song. He sang it in a melodious, quiet voice, with a river accent, and it was simple, just "I got a purty little girl, she's sweet six-teen, she's the purtiest thing you ever seen," repeating it with other lines thrown in, all concerning how far he'd been and how he wished he could go back to her but he done lost her.

I said, "Gene, that's the prettiest song."

"It's the sweetest I know," he said with a smile.

"I hope you get where you're going, and be happy when you do."

"I always make out and move along one way or the other.",

Montana Slim was asleep. He woke up and said to me,' "Hey, Blackie, how about you and me investigatin' Cheyenne together tonight before you go to Denver?"

"Sure thing." I was drunk enough to go for anything.

As the truck reached the outskirts of Cheyenne, we saw the high red lights of the local radio station, and suddenly we were bucking through a great crowd of people that poured along both sidewalks. "Hell's bells, it's Wild West Week," said Slim. Big crowds of businessmen, fat businessmen in boots and ten-gallon hats, with their hefty wives in cowgirl attire, bustled and whoopeed on the wooden sidewalks of old Cheyenne; farther down were the long stringy boulevard lights of new downtown Cheyenne, but the celebration was focusing on Oldtown. Blank guns went off. The saloons were crowded to the sidewalk. I was amazed, and at the same time I felt it was ridiculous: in my first shot at the West I was seeing to what absurd devices it had fallen to keep its proud tradition. We had to jump off the truck and say good-by; the Minnesotans weren't interested in hanging around. It was sad to see them go, and I realized that I would never see any of them again, but that's the way it was. "You'll freeze your ass tonight," I warned. "Then you'll burn 'em in the desert tomorrow afternoon."

"That's all right with me long's as we get out of this cold night," said Gene. And the truck left, threading its way through the crowds, and nobody paying attention to the strangeness of the kids inside the tarpaulin, staring at the town like babes from a coverlet. I watched it disappear into the night.

recent developments

- my brother was taking a metals class this semester and basically made me the coolest ring ever. 

its silver and stamped into it is "bad ass mother fucker"

i am not kidding. 

it also happens to fit my ring finger so he meant for it to double as a "purity" ring. 

i am pleased. 

- i miss my bestie. an unbearable amount. it basically sucks because i'm going out of my mind. 

- i'm really thinking about patience lately; how for true patience to actually exist and pan out, there needs to be a certain level of trust in the situation you're in, the control you have in it and the control God has in it.  i am not a very patient person; i have a really hard time with God's timing and his grace and just trusting in the fact that he's in control, i am not and what is meant to be will be.  i want to make everything BE even if it's meant to or not because the whole "carpe diem" attitude really clouds my mind sometimes.  i want to be able to at least have the right to say i tried, i attempted to "change things" and hence, patience has always been hard because that level of trusting in something bigger and trusting in my lack of control has been difficult. in one particular aspect and situation in my life, i have been really trying out this whole patience thing: just being patient and letting things pan out naturally, without prompting the situation somehow and all in all, the things in this situation are going well. they are going slower (of course) than i wish them too, and i am so uncertain of what will come but its been a really hard fight for me to be patient. it's been really hard to just trust in the situation, no matter the outcome. it's been really hard to basically sit still and not motivate it somehow (though whenever i try to "motivate" a situation, it usually blows up in my face with someone thinking the opposite of what i ever intended). 

so i'm praying for silence so that i may listen to you more. and i'm praying for patience so that i can keep my heart in check and away from a very fine line. i'm praying for patience because regardless of how much i want you here in my life and how much i wish there was some reciprocative place for you in it (ie: visa versa), i need to just trust in the fact that if you're meant to, you will be and if you're not, (as much as i would NOT prefer this) you won't. and a part of me in praying for patience because if i stick to it, it just might make a place for you. 

ok sorry for my lacking of decent blog matter / anything worth reading but here is my current thought. it is lovely, it makes me kind of happy because it's natural and it's taken years to develop and what seems like hours of time spent in silence. and i feel like some weird progress has been made to a state of existence that is untouchable and unique. i didn't have an epiphany or anything, its more so i am just finally content with things as they are, the situation as is for the most part. 

i apologize because it takes time for me to be actually comfortable with someone, in a conversation with someone. this may sound completely opposite, but i have a hard time talking to people on a more meaningful level i think, especially if they are a person i would like to invest in. it takes time for me to not be flippant anymore or obnoxious or to say just really silly or stupid things.  or to not make a joke. according to my therapist (and this is a fact that i find valid), it is a defense mechanism. i'm learning lately to be more careful with my words, how i speak. i interrupt people a lot and that's just awful. or sometimes my brain is thinking one thing and my mouth says something totally different. and i realize that it's not that i don't think before i speak (though this is known to happen) but i think too much about many things before i verbalize them. hence the interruption problem: there's too much swimming around in there so it all just comes out at once, the important and the silly. and i want to try and hold back these floods of thoughts, narrow them down and articulate them better.

i want to be articulate. the flood comes out of my mouth because i don't really know what to say and what not to because i'm nervous. i'm nervous a lot. i want to use my words well and i want to be able to stop them when they should be stopped and open my ears and mind to listen. 

so i'm learning to be quiet and i am learning to listen. 

may i tell you something? 

i like listening to you. i could listen to you talk for hours i bet, even if you said things i may not originally understand, i'd listen to you explain them. even if i didn't agree with something you said, i would like listening to you debate and defend it. i wish i could listen to you more often, i wish you could tell me things more often, i want to listen to you and i'd like to just sit down and listen to you and know about you. i want you to tell me stories and i want to hear you laugh because i like listening and hearing those things from you. i just like it. not a "look into it" like, not a "what does THAT mean?" like, not a "oh shit you're in love with me" like.

i just like it. i like lots of things about you, all in that simple no meaning no drama uncomplicated sacred way, the way liking is supposed to be: i respect you. 

let us stop being bitter and angry 

stop and respect and take joy in the fact that regardless of your personal preference,  your views, and the outcome that never has this country and its people pulled together like this in most of our lifetimes. 

it doesn't matter who you voted for. 

it doesn't matter who won.  

what matters is the fact that for a lot of people on both sides of the aisle, they were motivated to push, to change, to be active and to actively pursue this process. 

to actively pursue democracy. 

and not just pursue it but play a part in it, have a hand in it and make things happen in it.  

why is it so hard for so many to notice this? to be inspired by it? to be PROUD of it? 

especially in my generation? 

don't be sore losers.

because yes, God still is in control. and God has had a hand in this, and if it was meant to be different it would have been. this is not the devil at work, this is not some kind of personal spiritual struggle or crisis. this is bigger than that. it is bigger than you and your reservations and your silly ignorance and greed with your own money. and while you're at it look up true socialism.

study up. 

and we need to stop being so selfish to think that this, as christians, is all about us.  

this man will do great things.  both of them i'm sure are capable of doing great things, but the closest thing we've ever seen to true democracy has occurred and we raised our voices and God still has control of the greater of the two.  

tradition and change both have their places in the world. change takes tradition where it cannot go and tradition keeps change to the ground, humbles it. 

but its all about balance and we've been pretty unbalanced for a while. 

so stop your mumbling and buzzing and bitching and moaning.  

it's not a conspiracy, it's a landslide. and your bitterness and displeasure and hate and ignorance is not going to reverse anything. it will only hinder you, especially in the times ahead when we all need to put our differences aside and work towards this common goal of stable goodness. 

remember LOVE and rejoice and praise God in the fact that you will be working towards something bigger than yourself. 

i am going to hide out for a while now i think. 

i am struggling and i am struggling to stay put, stay sane and stay balanced, keeping my thoughts and emotions in check.

time to go. 

oh jeff buckley

i wish you could make sweet sweet melodious love to me.

come on you gutless

a list of valid, true thoughts:

A: it really is a shitty thing that we base so much of what we know about people from the impressions we get, make, and give.  its shitty that so much depends on that, but would you like to know what saddens me more? the fact that, as human beings, we should know and be aware of the fact the humans, people are so much deeper, so much more complex and complicated and aware/unaware, confident/unconfident than we ever come off being.  so if we know this, why do we still base so much and judge so much off those impressions? 

who one is in front and around other people is hardly who one is in reality. this is just a fact. read it, accept it, understand it and let it sink in. the impression you give is never who you are. ever. 

it never will be either. 

and its not a matter of genuineness or honesty with oneself or self awareness, its a matter of people are guarded, people are cautious because people are assholes, people are cruel. any one person has the capability to make another feel like shit and an idiot without ever saying a word.  we are guarded and hidden because we know that people are judging us severely on that impression, so why not leave a false one? or a lesser one? a dumbed down shallow impression of yourself? because an impression is like an apparition, it doesn't really exist and is made out of air and you can't hurt air. you can't be an asshole and make something that technically doesn't exist feel like shit. 

here's the catch though: 

it hurts us when we can't be us.  it hurts us when we know that someone thinks of us as something, someone we are not and that we have never tried to be. if it doesn't, you are a liar. you are. if you don't care how others see you or how others think you are, if you don't feel you are responsible for your impressions, you are a liar or bluntly, severely fucked up. 

i've never wanted to be the fool. 

but i'm sure some certainly see me that way. 

i've never wanted to be art girl or music girl or movie girl either.

but i'm sure some certainly see me that way. 

i've never wanted to be foul-mouthed, argumentative graceless girl.

but i'm sure some certainly see me that way. 

i've never wanted to be talentless, unmotivated and ignorant either.

but i know some see me that way.

and i've never wanted to be self-deprication central or as extremely arrogant

and i know some see me that way.

but i am responsible for those impressions just as much as others are at a loss for not exploring or disproving them.

i've had a goal for the past 2 years to move past impressions, to disband them and to some extent make them fall. and its fucking hard because people don't want you to know them, people don't give a fuck if you do and they don't give a fuck about you or who you might be.  a lot of people are content with the impressions because its too much effort to break them down. and this is a huge struggle for me because there are just some people i really want to get to know who don't give a fuck or are functioning under some severe impressions that they don't give a fuck enough to change.  

to not just have impressions or ideas or perceptions but to KNOW.

it is the most frustrating thing.

i miss a very dear friend of mine because the way and means which we got to know each other was so blissfully uncomplicated and open.  there were no impressions, just interest in each others person and company - no bullshit.  if i wanted to go to a movie, we'd go to a movie. if he wanted to drive to muncie, we'd drive to muncie. it was purely enjoying each others company and the fact that spending time knowing each other was fun and worth it.  

i miss the easiness of it, the effortlessness. 

more later

but as for now

i miss MY moosh and i hate not having him here to balance out all the star struck small talk art fucks.

that is all.

EUREKA!

APPARENTLY

we are immobilized turtles

who immobilize each other!

ZZZZZZING

ie:

we're fucked?

to my dearest schmoo baby cube

you are the greatest most lovely most intelligent awesome funny witty gutsy friend i have ever had and this, among many reasons (most of which i will try to name), is why you are my best friend and i hold you in the highest esteem.

you are a sister to me

you are my family 

you understand, validate, call me out and put up with so much of my shit.

my dark days. 

the ones i have recently come upon especially. 

looking back on the past 2 years of our amazing friendship, i know that i could not have gone through those 2 years without you.

its just the truth of the matter. i could not have. i would have gone fucking crazy. 

because no one supports me like you do

i am not afraid to love myself because you love me. 

i am not afraid to speak my mind because you let me. 

i am not afraid to tell my secrets to you because you have them. 

i am not afraid to cry with you because you cry for me. 

i am not afraid to pour my heart out to you because your heart has the strength and immense space to take in mine. 

i am not afraid to bare my soul to you because thats what you want from me. 

you never want nothing less or nothing more than ME.

i don't ever want or need to be anything else but myself. 

you see me as i am, as i was and as i can and will be. you see that more than i can see that myself. 

and i don't have that with ANYONE

especially like i have that comfort with you.  

you inspire me and humble me. 

you hold me accountable and encourage me.

i can feel my brain growing, myself growing when i spend time with you because it is always time well spent, whether it be hours over coffee, a quick drive or a hysterics fest before bed. 

you are so fucking smart it amazes me that someone as intelligent and well spoken and sure of themselves as you could find so much value in me. you are so willing and gracious and your heart is so fecking huge when it comes to people - you draw people to you. 

you have so much light in you emily rhude. its one of the first things i noticed about you. your light, your soul, your history, your progress, your humbleness, your knowledge, your determination, your dreams, your opinions all shine from you. you radiate with it honey and that ain't no lie. 

i don't see that in anyone as much as i do or have always seen in you.

and i am so so blessed and glad to say and to know and to believe that we will always have this. you have let me share so much of my life with you, things i haven't ever shared with anyone and i have been so blessed to have you share yourself so thoroughly with me that no matter how far we may be from each other (which hopefully, i pray, will never be too far because thinking about it i know i probably would not survive) that we will always be bonded. 

kindred.

marked for life. 

regardless of our amazing enviable badass tats. 

if you ask me, you probably marked me with that light of yours a hell of a long time ago. 

AND

you make the best fucking birthday cards EVER. 

no shit. its above my bed. so i can see slug and your lovely hand in it every morning next to the picture of my dad and i. 

thank you for being there for me. through everything.

the good, the bad, the depressing, the pathetic.

no matter what i'm feeling

i know that the only way i get through most of it is because God has blessed me with you and your immensely understanding heart. 

thank you for making me comfortable enough to depend on you because i don't like depending on people. 

thank you for loving me as myself because myself is something not a lot of people get to see. i honestly think it's just you and the Big Man Upstairs. 

thank you for including me in your life, for sharing it with me and for letting me in it. thank you for blessing me with it.  

this is probably all the words i have for now, because there are millions more i could say (especially about how HOTT you are). i will always try my damndest to take care of you and i will make you sandwiches anytime you want, even when you are having the greatest day ever. i will wash wooley by hand, i will organize your clothes, i will write you letters, i'll go get you kambutcha, i'll keep bitches off your movies, and i'll deck anyone who tries to fuck with you into next month. 

i love you more than i could ever say or promise with words. 

i hope you had/will have a good day :)

and i feel them drown my name

i say again

GIVE ME SOUL

SHOW ME

that people have SOUL

have SOULS

that they KNOW

that they STRUGGLE to know

that they STRIVE TOWARDS KNOWING

not just THIER OWN

but those of OTHERS

and perhaps, slightly, my hope in humanity might be renewed. 

because, again, all the SOUL i seem to ever find is in the voices and words of dead men. 

is everyone so ignorant? so willingly able to be so separate from everyone? to be so disconnected with themselves? so unwilling to search themselves and MAKE something of it?

let us get something straight

to all of my christian female peers:

I
am "alone" because i CHOOSE to be alone.
do i get lonely?
sure.
do i sometimes desire a flurry of (almost) romance/respect with decent, intelligent male-like companion? (preferably who likes hip hop?)
sure.
do i sometimes wish i had even a semi-decent man for, at the very least, a booty call?
sure (and if i REALLY wanted to get into such a hot fucking mess, i probably do).

BUT
i don't need to be validated by a man.
i need to be respected by one.
challenged by one.
supported by one.
and basically, one who actually knows what a vagina is, isn't afraid to say it or of it, and bluntly, knows how to work it.
oh! and who isn't afraid to be honest with me, with himself, with how he feels and thinks.

and since all these things are RARE
(IE: something i have YET to see)
i will continue choosing to be alone.


so please.
FUCK OFF and quit hounding me on my non-apparent life mate,
and enough of that god damn wild at heart, captivating bullshit sex talk.
it bores me.

always,
gabe

i'm the boss with the hot sauce, i'm the lamp lighter to the promiseland

So I am reading my very first overtly feminist book, thanks to my bestie (as you can see under Les Livres) and I am loving the hell out of it (thank you bestie ☺). It’s not that I wasn’t somewhat informed on feminism before or that I didn’t consider myself one because I definitely do and I would say I knew the basics, its just that now I have been inspired to become more aware and henceforth informed. And it is so fascinating! This book I admit makes it easy because it’s a quick read, very informative but not intense and very funny but also I can feel myself thinking back to situations I’ve expereicned that now that I’m more aware, were overtly sexist.

The saddest and most angering thing I’ve realized while reading this is that even though we have made SOME progress, there are still a lot of men (whether it be through organizations, groups, policies, businesses, schools, media…etc) consciously and unconsciously oppressing women. Certainly consciously, and a lot of that stuff is obvious (or not so much, look into it) enough, but doing it unconsciously is the kicker because they have been programmed by generation to do so in so many ways that they don’t even realize that by saying and acting a certain way in a small part is keeping women oppressed. I could get way more into this, but it would take me ages to gather my thoughts but when I say oppressed I mean that there are still a lot of little and big ways that men and a society and world mostly run by men (not just the USA) has really done its best to keep intelligent, aware, smart, sexy, driven, compassionate, ballsy, non typical (what IS typical???) women lessened or as low as possible (and especially women of color and race!)
So this makes me think of all the guys I know, all of my close guy friends whom I love dearly and some I would be just lost without and instances where they have either A: demeaned women or B: added to the female stereotype, thus still minorly oppressing women. Instances that I thought nothing of, things that I may have even been mildly offended by at the time but that I brushed off out of love or lack of a retort. And its not that they don’t respect me or their mothers, girlfriends, grandma’s, co-workers, peers…etc. they do, and there are at least 2 of them who are the most gentlemanly guys I know (and gentlemanly OUT of respect NOT because they want something) and are just amazing guys, but they don’t know and are completely unaware that they are doing their small part because they have been programmed by a society that thinks it is ok to still do minor things that that.

Here’s the most pitiful part of all though: I know that I can’t, for the life of me, get into a decent respecting calm conversation about feminism with any guy here that I know. By merely dropping the word feminism, even in the most socially conscious and liberally minded of men, or by even referencing this book (which my bestie tells me is quite tame), I will automatically been seen as a femme-nazi, or basically a fiery feminist preacher trying to stuff the gospel of women equality down their throats. Hhmmmm, that seems reminiscent of…of some concept…or structure or beliefs…that must…already be here…I get the distinct feeling…I’ve felt that way too…funny. Even if they say nothing of it, I will initially at least be subjected to the feminist stereotype. How incredibly sad.

So far, here’s what feminism is to me:
Feminism strives to allow women of all cultures and countries, races, politically convictions, personal choices…to be the best women they possibly can. Not limited to within their means, not as much as they want to, but the way that women were supposed to be seen and honestly, I think seen in Gods eyes: as equal and a partner, an equal supporter and supportee to other women and to men and to anyone or anything else they damn well please. Hell, even to their dogs! This means allowing women to be smart, to be educated, to be aware of their bodies and their minds and their persons and their instincts and their intuitions, to be sexy not slutty, to be driven and allowed to have ambition to do what they want in whatever setting they want, to have their valid thoughts, opinions, ideas and beliefs SEEN and felt as valid in all societies and cultures, not just their own, to be believed in, supported and trusted by the rest of their cultures and societies to make their own choices about ANYTHING and allow these women to be not only accepted, but wanted, admired and respected by everyone, because this to me is what all women should be. We should be PROUD to BE women, not ashamed, not pitied, not allowing ourselves to be oppressed.


But in a way, this has only helped me confirm at least 5 more years of a somewhat single life…that is a consequence for want of progress. I want to be respected and respected as I am. I want someone who will respect my mind as well as my body; I want my mind and my body to be mine first and his second. I want my thoughts and feelings to be valid, respected and trusted and nurtured. I want to be challenged and allowed to grow and I want to help grow, I don’t want to be belittled.
And as I type, some young women is trying to pull off a cover of Whole Lotta Love at the closing Olympic ceremony. It sucks and I’m trying not to contradict to everything I just wrote…I happen to think that Led Zeppelin is ok as they are and that their all lady tribute bands are just lovely (Lez Zeppelin: Check them out!)

I would do that…be in a Zeppelin tribute band, would that be contradictory? Oh well. More later.
Remember how much I love you.
or could have.

huzzah

let me tell you about relics. 

i come from a family who believes in relics. the actual definition of the term relic is "an object surviving from an earlier time, especially one of historical or sentimental interest." (why thank you dictionary widget, god bless you)

i come from a family of relic-ers. we love relics. they are everywhere in our house. we're really big on the elvis bust that my mom got for christmas one year as a joke - he shows up a lot actually, really likes to be public. we have magnets on our cluttered fridge that have been there since i was born or not much after, like our pink triangle "silence=death" magnet, or the picture magnets alex and i made when we were way young, with a picture of us fat and red in snow suits. we have random little figurines, like gumby and pokey, chip and dale, little toys that came in happy meals, a moo cow coffee cream container from my mothers youth. we have movie post cards that my mom used to get working for the cinemas, as well as little strips of actual film from previewed movies.  we even have some pairs of cheesy baby shoes on book shelves and plenty of mardi gras beads and other knick knacks from pre-katrina jazz fest new orleans. 

so i, of course, am a relic-er. i have been collecting my own personal relics my whole life - this is helped by the fact that i happen to be one of those people that keeps the most useless shit for years before even thinking about giving it away or putting it elsewhere. for example, i have my most favorite pair of dress-up shoes as a girl and to me they are awe-inspiring. to this day, they are still gorgeous and i damn my feet still for not being as small as they once were just so i could wear them out.  they are sparkily, open-toed, heeled ruby slippers and as far as i'm concerned they are the most beautiful, sassy, durable and amazing dress up shoes ever made (we're talking hard plastic and a little rubber here dears, don't make 'em like that anymore). i have comic books, i have my own little figurines, my own beads, my own magnets. 

i mention this because for the past 2 days i have been packing a lot of them up for my house (and also, this is kind of a warning to my lovely roommates - **i am a relic-er and YES everything has a purpose!**) and that, thus far, has been a very interesting process.  here i am, packing up my own relics from home into a new home. these relics are the things that will make this new house home for me, essentially. they will make parts of this place, just small parts, mine and that is something i find interesting in general. to me, relics have always been the main things that make home HOME for me.

so now i'm going to my new home for a while. and it already feels a little bit like home because parts of my family will be there, just different parts. i am excited. 

dear ohio, 

i leave you soon and i will miss you. it's been real, it's been great. it's been really really great, but i gotta ramble. i'll see you soon.

love

gabe

and hell yes those ruby slippers are coming.

ps: i am oddly addicted to the olympics this year. can we say hell yeah swimming? amazing. 

please believe me when i say this:

you are the most beautiful person i know and it pains me to an inexplicable amount to know that you are where you are and i cannot be with you to help you with all this fuckery. it breaks my heart and makes me angry.

but please remember, you are not alone. you are MY family and i will never let you be alone with any of this. ever. you've been through all of this shit to the point where you must become as self-sufficient and self supporting as possible but i will always support you and be there whenever you can't handle all of this shit on your shoulders.  

did i mention you have the buffest shoulders of anyone i know, have ever known and probably will ever know? 

never underestimate your own resilience, because it is truly amazing. and this road you're walking will be hard, and you will be singled out, you will be the inspirer of both jealousy and denial alike in those closest to you because you are actually doing something to help yourself, and not only that but you are progressing fast in these things. you are so incredibly aware and even though it's the easier thing to do, you refuse to ignore and accept the unfairness, denial, projection, rationalization and belittling around you because you KNOW you are the bigger person.

never forget that you are the bigger person. 

so you stick to your guns and keep refusing to take shit, to take loneliness, to take all the fucked up unjustified shitty things they have done to you because they can't make excuses anymore and they fucking know that and they know that you are progressing beyond them and their fucked up bullshit. they know what they've done to you and you are using that to your benefit and you are making yourself a deeper, better and more compassionate and understanding than they will EVER BE because of it.  and because of that they will keep throwing their shit at you because they are in denial and they are jealous and maybe feeling a little screwed because you are rising above all this, even if that means someday even being without them.  

please remember that even when you are at your loneliest, you will ALWAYS have me. always. when you feel at your worst, when you feel alone, ugly, dumb, depressed, angry, crazy...whatever you're feeling, i will always be here to help you and to love you and support you and defend you and carry you and build you up. i know you will feel these things even when i do all i can to help and i know it will seem hopeless, but it isn't because you are filled with and you are doing so much good with all of this. you are helping yourself, and letting others help you and you are helping me. 

remember how much you mean to me and how incredibly lost and lessened i would be without you in my life. i thank God for you every single day and i pray for your well being and happiness and peace of mind. i am so proud that you are working towards these things, pushing for them even when you don't want to push because you know you need to for yourself, and that is the most important thing. YOU, your happiness and your health all around. and regardless of all the fuckery it is NEVER wrong to push for that and i am so glad you're pushing for that and you're not letting this run your life. i certainly would be allowing it to.

i am in awe of you, your strength.

i love you.

i miss you so much that i can't even stand it. 

i can't wait to be able to help you when you need it, the way you'll need it.

please remember that even though you might not have them, you will always have me and i won't let you ever be alone. 

love, 

-g

this restlessness will kill me. 

restlessness and mundane routine will surely be 

the bringers of my death. 

and the instant i begin to go 

to move

i will never stop for fear of these things. 

i would rather die in motion 

than to die still

than to die bored

to die typical

to die programmed. 

i would rather die running

than die caught.

this lacking stillness

will be the death of me. 

i'm waiting for that feeling to come

**note: kind of a repeat on some thoughts, but a little more thorough. finally got it all out into correct wording. read at your leisure. **

i am certain that i am becoming a skeptic about everything. about organized religion, love, prosperity, selflessness, the hope of our planet and the goodness of its people. i could go into this and get feisty, but i won't because any of you reading this i hope will pretty much know what i mean. there's not much hope really left on this planet and there hasn't been for quite some time and the things that are supposed to be providing that unconditional hope and love are ultimately just working for themselves and their own intentions, through whatever means sit well with their consciences. they are ignoring the true message and the true actions that should follow.

this is incredibly devastating to me and i feel misplaced. i tell myself, you're supposed to be a christian. but what is being a christian? is being a christian mean you function under some church, a system of standards and ideals set up by your peers and people with degrees in theology that had better be followed? is being a christian leading a life as sinless as possible and making sure that others close to you do the same, going as far to force them to function and live under YOUR ideals? is being a christian professing it publically for all the world so they don't think you're still an alcoholic who is addicted to preparations for war and chokes on pretzels? to me, it appears that all of these things encompass being a christian these days (oh, and for the cheap seats, lets throw in you must be a political conservative to be a TRUE child of OUR GOD).

QUESTION: where is the line between God's actual ideals and commands, and YOUR ideals? what you THINK you should be doing? what is encompassed in the specifics of God's words? how do you stretch them to fit your life and your conscience? 
i am obviously still trying to figure this out but i will say this. 
to me, being a christian is LOVE. is LOVING OTHERS UNCONDITIONALLY.
Love: (noun) an intense feeling of deep affection
synonyms to unconditional: wholehearted, unqualified, unlimited, unreserved, total, entire, unmitigated, full, unquestioning, absolute. 
read those. look them up if you need to, grasp their meaning and understand me: those are not corrupt words. those are not hateful, greedy, judgmental, frightened, racist, ignorant, stone throwing words.
these are not the words that christians use. at least the christians that i seem to come across quite a bit.
they sure as hell aren't the words christians use when they speak of others, when they speak of people who are supposed to be our brothers and sisters, when they speak of people we are ultimately supposed to be loving. 

listen: the older i get, the more educated i become, the more i experience things and the more knowledge i gain, THIS is becoming more certain to me: no matter what facet of this organized religion i come across, the more i realize that it has become a severe, hypocritical sub-culture that has no room for people who think for themselves and who ask questions. it has no room for people who question its system of scholared prophets and who want to push people into realizing what is happening around them outside of that system so that they can help it instead of ignore it, wish on it, make it pretty so it can go away. it is based and functional on morals and as long as those morals line up within that system, the rest of the world doesn't matter because people are so blind and willing to believe that they are doing right for all when they are actually only doing right by themselves and others like them. 
and that isn't christian to me. 
that isn't what this faith of mine is based on. 
and in all honesty, i don't want to associated as a member of a religion (NOT faith) that works so selfishly. thats not why i have this faith, thats not why i am certain of it. my certainty actually has nothing to do with anyone of the same faith who i may be surrounded by, because its mine. bluntly, i don't have this faith so that i can be part of some "christian" structure that is mostly run like a business and no less heavy on the fuckery. 

in case you couldn't tell, i have a hard time not being sick and bitter about it. i'm working on it and i'm working on that forgiveness, but i will never accept it. and i know i'm a stone thrower and i know i am also a hypocrite and i know i am not even near where i wish i was, but i know this is something that needs to be worked on. it needs to stop on such a large scale.
it needs to be humbled. 
it's funny and very sad to me that an entire religion based on the words and acts of a rebellious and radical badass man has no room for such similar spirit in its followers. because of sin, i suppose we are all born with hearts of stone. white is the good and black is the bad but our hearts aren't born black, they're grey. there's good and bad there. bad is to be expected also because though that is ultimately what makes us sinners, its also what makes us human. because of that bad we are allowed a greater capacity for good, for love. if there was no bad the good would be worth a lot less. 

so where is the goodness and selflessness that we need?

the lines are fading in my kingdom

Whose woods these are I think I know.

His house is in the village though;

He will not see me stopping here 

To watch his woods fill up with snow. 

My little horse must think it queer

To stop without a farmhouse near

Between the woods and frozen lake

The darkest evening of the year. 

He gives his harness bells a shake

To ask if there is some mistake. 

The only other sound's the sweep

Of easy wind and downy flake. 

The woods are lovely, dark and deep.

But I have promises to keep, 

And miles to go before I sleep,

And miles to go before I sleep. 

i can't wait until it is late fall and early winter. i function so much better in the cold. it just suits me. it in fact suits me so well, the freezing wind, the falling snow, the icy walks, the cold skin, the bundling up, the warming up, that i sometimes think i must be a cold person since i prefer it so much. i must be frigid. 

i will be the ice queen in the far-up north with the huskies named after wolves or the wolves at her door. 

i might even prefer wolves. 

they would keep the people away. 

Listen: lately, i have been feeling like the walking dead. not even a zombie, just a thorough apparition of my body. my mind and my soul feel so far away from me lately that i feel as if thats all i am: just a body, a machine. just meat on bones supported by simmering internal combustion and that i'm not really here. i have letters to write and to send, e-mails to answer and phone calls to make, hang outs to be planned but i feel as if i just can't bring my body to do any of those things because my mind is not in it. i can't do them because i'm not here, i'm just a machine on an assembly line doing my assigned part. and what is the point of that? especially with letters, phone calls, e-mails and hang outs with those i love?

i feel incredibly lonely but i do nothing to counter-act or change that loneliness. do i not know how? do i not want to? is it really loneliness? is this just wallowing?

i don't really know.

but a lot of this summer has just made me feel like some freak, 

some visitor from another planet.

a loner and drifter from my family. 

at times like this, i have this immense desire to leave. to just go. anywhere. the fact that it doesn't matter is for the best. i just want to go. i want to pack a bag and blow all my money on a plane ticket to a faraway state of foreign country where i will settle for 6 months at a time before i go again. 

a nomadic tendency, as i like to call them. to keep moving, keep changing. 

to just 

Go. 

...and everything with wings is restless, aimless, drunk and dour.

i'm pretty much a loner without you i've decided. completely...like a puffin.

hello

i think

that the more i see of the world (which is not much) and the more i experience of people, the more i think and the more hard knowledge i gain,

i think i'm becoming a severe skeptic. 

all i can do is question them and get answers that satisfy me.

and not many answers satisfy me. a lot of answers are bullshit. 

i feel like i'm losing faith in many things the more closely i look at them and the more i think on them. basically, the more i think on them, the more fuckery or ignorance i find and i have an incredible feeling of hopelessness because more times than not, there is nothing that i can do to change things or even bring much light to the things that are wrong. for example, there's a lot of fuckery in the christian religion because ultimately, any mass religion is very similar to a business - -based on agenda's, goals, greed and the impressions of their followers (or workers). just like a business, christian religion in today's world has goals in mind and ways to go about getting them accomplished that are most beneficial to THEM and their beliefs. a lot of it is tied into politics and what sits right on their minds politically or socially or economically without making their spiritual wellfare look indecent to themselves or their peers/community. 

and just like with anything else that is run this way (which is a lot) there's a lot of bullshit fuckery that comes with that. and a lot of that fuckery is based on a childish fear of this sinful world we live in.

do you see what i'm trying to get at? 

i don't want to be associated with something that is frankly, that fucked up and that self acting.

its like our government. and that is blatantly bad enough as it is. 

next example: 

common quote: religion is the opiate of the masses. 

in todays country, as queer as this sounds, i think love is becoming the opiate of the masses. i'm sorry, but i am beginning to think of romantic love as a farce. perhaps because i've never had it, but also, i think its something people depend on to make themselves feel normal, to feel complete. NOTE: ROMANTIC love. i didn't say brotherly/sisterly love, i am not referring to the love that God or Christ has for us or the love that i have for my best friend or any kind of actual pure genuine supporting love. that is the ideal of love and i think that is the love we all look for in some kind of significant other, but i am beginning to think it is near impossible to truly accomplish for a long period of time.  what i'm saying is everyday i feel like i'm getting more and more skeptical that that kind of love actually exists in that situation. profound respect, yes...but is it love? an extreme like? lust? desparation? i think this stems from the fact that i really don't think its for me. 

how sad is that. more on that later. 

what has happened to selflessness? what has happened to working for the benefit of all, not just ourselves? did such a novel concept actually exist in reality? has selflessness ever been taken into action? or is it just a novel dream, like prosperity, that we've all had since the beginning of time. 

here's the thing: i don't agree with this war we're in. that shouldn't be news to any of you and therefore i won't get into why, political banter...etc. etc. etc. but you see, i have a buddy over there right now. he's probably the coolest guy i know actually and he's funny as hell. he comes from a military family so even though socially, at first meeting, he doesn't seem like the military conservative type (which he totally doesn't, its kind of mind blowing), he believes in what we're doing over there, he believes in the military.  i read his  blog often because a: it gives an actual account of what kind of things are happening over there, the serious shit (like shit blowing up and killing people) but also a lot of the good they're doing too. and b: because of his blog, and those of his friends that he's suggested, i hear actual accounts of true selflessness. 

i'm serious. 

because all you have over there are your buddies, whether there or away, to get you through the day and you form bonds with people that allow you to risk you're life for them and with them. that is selflessness on a small level, but also on a big level because fucking WMD's and all that shit aside, they're there for us. they are fighting, whether we think they should or not, whether we believe in what their fighting for or not, they are fighting for us. 

sorry for the digression, but thats what first comes to mind when i think about selflessness.

back to reality. my family and myself are going to strive for the next however long to find a huge chunk of land somewhere on a gorgeous lake where we can start a commune or as we say, a compound, where we can all live in hand-built cabins, grow our own food (corn), fish, hunt and all learn how to use guns apparently so we can defend the place. our entire family will live there. since i refuse to wield a gun, i am the decorator. 

i will make myself a little boat out of cherry wood, i'll call it Beralikur - or a combination of my own siblings names. like Gabalemad. 

that sounds good. 

tender is the night lying by your side

tender is the touch of someone that you love too much

tender is my heart that's screwing up my life

oh Lord i need to find someone who can heal my mind. 

le bibliothèque

so i apologize for my unforgiving tone of my last entry. but not for what i said. that remains true and if i offended anyone, too bad.  i would just like my bestie and myself to meet an actual guy who doesn't turn out having the wrong, skewed intention and who's not an idiot. 

Readfest o8 setlist: (get pumped, i'm pumped)

1. A Man Without A Country - Kurt Vonnegut (i can't get enough of this man's articles and essays...i loved him to begin with, but so far this summer, i feel like a lot of these essays and articles have had a profound effect on me :D i absolutely love it)

2. Fates Worse Than Death - Kurt Vonnegut

3. The Portable Harlem Renaissance Reader - "That's good."

4. The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg & other Short Works - Twain

5. The Innocents Abroad/Roughing It - Twain

6. Memories of My Melancholy Whores - Gabriel Garcia-Marquez

7. The Portable Voltaire :D

8. Black Boy & Native Son - Richard Wright

i love you. goodnight. 

things i am thankful for

1. books. people underestimate the power, thought and education that comes with frequent and studied reading. i'm serious, people take it completely for granted.  i feel in a way reading has almost become obsolete because everyone these days claims to read, but when i say "reading" i mean not only taking in words on a page but actually gaining something from it. anyone can look on a page and read words, but i feel that there are very few in my generation who can actually gain thought and knowledge from a book and think for themselves.  this all basically comes down to thinking.  One can sit down and read East of Eden and understand the great and wonderful story about the Trask family easily but it is the deeper concepts of this book that are so easily looked past. i have yet to meet a person and i doubt i ever will who relates to this book the same way i do and loves it as much as i do, not only because each person is different but also i think that the profound effect that this book has had on me and the deep love i have for it is almost completely unrelatable. i am protective of it. but back to my point, reading has become frivolous.  today, more people read just to say "oh yeah i read", you sound like an idiot if you don't but i think a lot of people have forgotten the main purpose of reading: to expand your mind and to educate yourself to think independently, and to put yourself in other peoples shoes. but today, i come across too many who seem to read to just impress themselves or others and are completely wasting its purpose.  thats sounds harsh, but those are my thoughts.  

2. that i have 3 lovely amazing girls in my life who think for themselves.  i am convinced i am blessed to be called friend by the 3 most intelligent, kind, sexy, thinking, hilarious women on the planet. all 3 are such thoughtful and strong women, they think not only of others but are aware of themselves, they are strong in their personalities and confident in who they are, they do not let others push or bring them down.  they are thinkers who stick to their guns, who support one another and myself and who love, support and help so unconditionally that i question their corporeal existence. even at such a distance we are all so connected that it hurts to be far from it but i am thankful that i still have this at such a distance.  i miss them more and more everyday.  they are completely irreplaceable to me and i know no others like them.  

3. riding my bike.  nothing makes you aware of your (shitty) lung capacity like riding a bike.  but it is so wonderful. i love riding at night when all is mostly dark and i see the shadows of the trees and hear all the bugs and peepers. i listen to my music and watch all the lightening bugs light up with each beat and note and the air is nice and cool.  its a great time to be alone. 

4. that my kitchen garden is growing so beautifully. i have more sage, basil, thyme and lemon verbena than i currently know what to do with. its spectacular and it smells amazing.  i plan on making soap or lotion with all the lemon verbena i have. our house will smell so wonderful i hope :) with all that sage, we'll probably be eating quite a bit of cajun food

5. where i work. as busy as it can get, i am finally working a summer job that i actually love. i love the restaurant i work in, its locally owned and locally supported, it has amazing food and everyone i work with is just great. we all call each other sweetie, honey and doll and everyone just helps out everyone else. i just love it. its seriously like working at Cheers. its fantastic. and did i mention that the bar is just wonderful/cute as hell? 

6. my house for next year, with my amazing girls and awesome kitchen and porches and the dinner parties and movie nights and girls days and just plain wonderfulness that will be had for all. i am so excited. 

starting wednesday i am going on a 10 day vacay with my fam, where i will kayak, bike, tan, swim, read, play and record music, paint, sleep, play cards, drink good beer and go to this awesome bookstore all the livelong day. i look forward to it vair much. 

until then, have great days and wonderful nights. be excellent to each other.

-g

goodbye

i succumbed to getting this because it seems decent.

and partly so i can comment on 2 of my lovely's posts without a hassle.  it is a goal to keep this blog free of insipid bitching or complaint but instead to only write something when i a) have something decent to say b) a good point to make or c) wish to express some thought on something.

thought only. no pouring myself out. those i'll write down manually. 

so hello. my name is gabrielle. they call me gabe.