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.