{003} vow of silence – but first and foremost, life is fuuuuuuuucked.

i most certainly have some dreams these days that make me wake up and decide i HAVE to write them down, regardless of how much i don’t want to or how particularly annoying they are.

this is the second time this has happened in the past two months (the last being in december, when i discovered the shamanic mysteries of egypt book). this time, instead of two dreams — one about alchemy and one about egypt — it is one dream, very vivid, about magnetism and magic. i would like to make it clear that i have NEVER dreamed about magic, and i don’t think i’ve ever dreamed about magnetism, either. here is the dream below, and none of the dream interpretations of any of the symbols made a single lick of sense:

In a giant room. There are magical performances going on and the last girl is “up.” I am with Troy. The room is cluttered full of items. Her performance INSANELY, with some announcement (or maybe even psychic message or maybe literal message over loudspeaker) that says that this lady’s dance is to combat male-ness – or something along those lines, anyway. It begins with her at the center, pop-and-locking, while a bunch of dudes try and fight her. She is wearing a crop top and baggy pants, like Aaliyah with bad early ‘90s fashion. There is a slow-motion dance move she is doing, and it looks like there is an invisible sphere around her that the enemies cannot penetrate, though I think that’s just an illusion initially. Soon, though, the magic seems to become real and all these crazy objects and happenings begin to happen, and Troy and I are sitting facing it “head-on,” as though she were on a stage in front of us and we are exactly centered in the back of the room watching her… and we begin to wonder aloud how these things are happening and I begin wondering internally if it is only because of our perspective that this magic looks like magic or if it is actually magic. We also wonder if she is making the performance happen. it looks like a three-dimensional animation or rendering or something, not real life; all of the components look rather polished. At this point, many items are magnetized on the ground, and they all begin moving around in a path that she determines – a really complicated path, where every item has their own individual arc and story, like God commanding the lives of each person. At one point, I am on the far side of the room (well actually, I’ve moved diagonally, towards the “front right corner”) and I am near these balloons that she is guiding around on her “magnetic track.” The fascinating thing is that though these objects have a controlled route that they are set on – which magical lady determines – they are also free to be controlled by the other people in the room (again, like God). I find myself drawn to the white balloons, though there are many objects in the room. I hit over and over again one balloon in particular, but find that it always goes back to where it wanted to be and I find this so amusing I giggle. I also hit around a really small white pebble as I’m moving from the front right of the stage to the center middle, where the performer is. But soon, she crumples, and Taraka from Prince Rama emerges from I don’t know where, with really tender energy, and goes to see if she is alright. She is not responsive, and Taraka (or someone) is told to call the performer’s mother. And slowly, everything in the room becomes less magnetized, and it dawns on me that she WAS really controlling everything…

the book it led me to is this book (the book was seriously calling to me). published in 1801, it is a work by francis barrett, called the magus: a complete system of occult philosophy. (the left-most book cover, though i like the other ones much better. but i guess this one did its deed just fine…)

“The Magus is one of the primary sources for the study of ceremonial magic, and for a long time was one of the rarest and most sought after of the 19th century grimoires. Barretts’ magnum opus embodies deep knowledge of Alchemy, Astrology, and the Kabbalah, and has been cited by the Golden Dawn and other occult and esoteric movements as source material. Written in 1801 in the middle of the ‘Age of Reason’, sandwiched between Newton and Darwin, this was possibly the last epoch that a work like this could be composed.” (Quote from sacred-texts.com)

what is most fucked up about finding this book, though, is that i flipped seriously right up to a chapter on magnetism, and was flipped so fast that i closed the book and had to open it again and again flipped right to that page. but not only a chapter, but fuck, man, a sub-section — the eighth one, in magnetism — that started off in its introductory paragraph about dreams and magic. dude. like what???!! and it was very, very adamant that the magicianess was a magicianess — a female…

here are some sample excerpts… the text is hard to read as fuck, both in font and just in content…

CHAP. VIII.
OF THE MAGICAL POWER, &c.

“Therefore the knowledge and power magical, and that faculty in man which acteth only per nutum (and also) sleeps since the knowledge of the apple was eaten and as long as this knowledge (which is of the flesh and blood, gross and material, belonging to the external man and darkness) flourishes, the more noble magical power is lying dormant.

But because to sleep this outward or sensual knowledge is sometimes dormant, hence it is that our dreams are sometimes prophetical, and God himself is therefore nearer unto man in dreams, through that effect, viz. when the more inward magic of the soul being uninterrupted by the flesh, diffuses itself on every side into the understanding; even as when it sinks itself into the inferior powers thereof it safely leads those who walk in their sleep by moving or conducting them, whither those that were awake could not surmount or climb.

Therefore we establish this point, viz. that there is inherent in the soul a certain magical virtue given to her by God, naturally proper and belonging to her, in asmuch as we are his image and engravement; and in this respect she acts also in a peculiar manner, i.e. spiritually on an object at a distance, and that more powerfully than by any corporeal assistance; for seeing the soul is the principal part of the body, therefore all action belonging to her is spiritual, magical, and of the greatest validity…

High and sacred is the force of the microcosmical spirit, which, as is evident in pregnant women, stamps upon the young the image and properties of a thing desired, as we have before instanced in a cherry, which, without the trunk of a tree, brings forth a true cherry, that is flesh and blood, enobled with the properties and power of the more inward or real cherry, by the conception of the imagination alone; from whence are two necessary consequences.

First, that all the spirits, and as it were the essences of all things, lie hid in us, and are born and brought forth only by the working, power, and phantasy of the microcosm.

The second is, that the soul, in conceiving, generates a certain idea of the thing conceived; the which, as it before lay hid unknown, like fire in a flint, so by the stirring up of the phantasy there is produced a certain real idea, which is not a naked quality, but something like a substance, hanging in suspence between a body and a spirit, that is the soul.

That middle being is so spiritual, that it is not plainly exempted from a corporeal condition, since the actions of the soul are limited on the body, and the inferior orders of faculties depending upon it, yet so corporeal that it may be inclosed by dimensions, the which we have also related to be only proper to a feminal being. This ideal entity, therefore, when it falls out of the invisible and intellectual world of the microcosm, it puts on a body, and then it is first enclosed by the limitation of place and numbers.

The object of the understanding is in itself a naked and pure essence, not an accident, by the consent of practical, that is, mystical divines; therefore this Proteus or transferable essence, the understanding doth, as it were, put on and clothe itself, with this conceived essence.

But because every body, whether external or internal, hath its making in its own proper image, the understanding knows and discerns not, the will loves and wills not, the memory recollects not, but by images or likenesses: the understanding therefore puts on this same image of its object; and because the soul is the pure simple form of the body, which turns itself about to ever member, therefore the acting understanding cannot have two images at once, but first one and then the other. He, who is wholly the life, created all things and hath said, nothing is to be expected as dead out of his hand. Likewise nothing can come to our view wherein himself is not clearly apparent or present; for it is said, “the spirit of the Lord hath filled the whole globe of the earth:” and, again, “that he containeth or comprehendeth all things,” therefore there is nothing in being, no creature but what possesses a certain degree of divine fire and life, yet lying dormant or unexcited, til stirred up by the art, power, and operation of man.

—

CHAP. IX
OF THE EXCITING OR STIRRING UP THE MAGICAL VIRTUE.

Every magical virtue therefore stands in need of an excitement, by which a certain spiritual vapour is stirred up, by reason whereof the phantasy which profoundly sleeps is awakened, and there begins an action of the corporeal spirit, as a medium, which is that of Magnetism, and is excited by a foregoing touch.

There is a magical virtue, being as it were abstracted from the body, which is wrought by the stirring up of the power of the soul, from whence there are made most potent procreations, and most famous impressions, and strong effects, so that nature is on every side a magicianness, and acts by her own phantasy; and by how much the more spiritual her phantasy is, so much the more powerful it is, therefore the denomination of magic is truly proportional or concordant…

But the magical virtue of the exhales spiritual vapour, or subtil spirits sent from the body, which before lay in potentia, or by way of possibility only, is either excited by a more strong imagination, the magician making use of the blood as a medium, and establishing his kindled entity thereon, or by the ascending phantasy of the weapon salve, the exciteress of the property lying in the blood; else by a foregoing appointment or disposition of the blood unto corruption, viz. whereby the elements are disposed unto a separation, and the effences (which cannot putrify) and the effential phantasies, which lay hid in the properties come forth into action.

There is therefore a certain formal property separated from sympathetical and abtruse qualities; because the motive phantasy of these qualities do not directly fly unto a local motion, but only to an alterative motion of the object. Now it is sufficient that (if a man happens to receive many wounds on his body) blood be had only from one of these wounds, and from this one the rest are cured also, because that blood keeps a concordant harmony with the spirit of the whole, and draws forth from the fame the offensive quality communicated, not only to the lips of the wound, but to the whole man, for from one wound only the whole man is liable to grow feverish.

Therefore the outchased blood being received on the weapon is introduced into the magnetic unguent.

For the phantasy of the blood, being otherwise as yet drowsy and slow to action, being stirred up by the virtue of the magnetic unguent, and there finding the balfamic virtue of it, desires the quality induced into it, to be bestowed on itself throughout, and from thence by a spiritual magnetism to draw out all the strange tincture of the wound, which, seeing it cannot fitly enough effect by itself, it implores the aid of the moss, blood, fat and mummy, which are conjoined together into such a balsam, which not but by its own phantasy becomes also medicinal, magnetical, and is also a tractor of all the strange qualities out of the body, whole fresh blood, abounding with spirit, is carried unto it, whether it shall be that of a man or any other living creature. The phantasy therefore is a returner, or reducible andecstatical, from part of the blood that is fresh and newly brought unto the unguent; but the magnetic attraction began in the blood is perfected by the medicinal virtue of the unguent; not that the unguent draws the infirmity of the wound unto itself, but it alters the blood newly brought unto it, in its spirit, and makes it medicinal, and stirs up the power thereof: from thence it contracts a certain medicinal virtue, which returns upon its whole body to correct the spirit of the blood throughout the whole man. Now, to manifest a great mystery, viz. to shew that in man there is placed a great efficacy whereby he may be able only by his beck, (as we before mentioned) nod or phantasy, to act out of himself, or to imprint a virtue, a certain influence which afterwards perseveres, or constantly subsists by itself, and acts upon objects at a very great distance; by which only mystery, those things which we have spoken (relative to ideal entity conveyed in a spiritual jewel, and departing far from home to execute its offices, concerning the magnetism of all things begotten in the imagination of man, as in that which is proper to every thing, and also concerning the magical superiority of men over all other bodies,) will plainly and conspicuously appear.

—

CHAP. X.
OF THE MAGICAL VIRTUE OF THE SOUL, AND THE MEDIUM BY WHICH IT ACTS.

… man hath a power of acting, per nutum, or by his nod, or of moving any object remotely placed; it has also been sufficiently confirmed by the fame natural example, that this efficacy was also given unto men by God.

As every magical faculty lies dormant, and has need of excitement, or stirring up; which is always true, if the object whereon it is to act is not nearly disposed, if its internal phantasy doth not wholly confirm to the impression of the agent, or also if the patient be equal in stregth, or superior to the agent therein.

But on the contrary, where the object is plainly and nearly disposed, as steel is, for the receiving of magnetism, then the patient without much stirring up, the alone phantasy of the more outward man being drawn out to the work and bound up to any suitable mean, yields to the magnetism.

Therefore we repeat, the magician must always make use of a medium; for then the words or forms of sacraments do always operate, because from the work performed. But the reason why exorcisms, conjurations, charms, incantations, &c. do sometimes fail of their desired effect, is because the unexcited mind, or spirit of the exorcist, renders the words dull or ineffectual.

Therefore no man can be a happy or successful magician, but him who knows how to stir up the magical virtue of his soul, or can do it practically without science.

And there can be no nearer medium of magnetism, than human blood with human blood.

And no sympathetic remedies, magnetical or attractive, but from the idea or phantasy of the operator impressing upon it a virtue and efficacy from the excited power of his own soul.

And now to bring our Magnetic Treatise to a total conclusion, we have to say, that whoever, through ignorance or obstinacy, will say there is no validity or reason, or reality in the science of magnetism, proves himself unworthy the sacred name of philosopher, because he condemns what he knows nothing at all about.

For those who will give themselves the leisure to examine the truth of those things which we have taught, will not find their expectation deceived, therefore, will not condemn…

We therefore, who have the like humanity, contain blood and spirit of a co-like unity; and the action of the blood is merely spiritual. Therefore, in Genesis, it is not called by the etymology of blood, but is made remarkable by the name of a red spirit.

Therefore, let those who would attain knowledge in these things, and be perfect in what we have set before them, constantly meditate and desire that the First Cause and Archetype of all thing would graciously and mercifully illuminate their minds; without which, they grope in darkness and uncertainty, and are subject to the delusions of impure spirits and devils, who are only to be put to flight by putting on the whole armour of God, in whom we all live, move, breathe, and have our being.

END OF MAGNETISM.

anyway, now sitting in powell’s. what else happened today! i planned out my fucked up schedule for the upcoming months. going to be in seattle for the 5th through the 7th (going to break my vow of silence on the 5th, unfortunately), have a business meeting on the 6th (wherein a really amazing opportunity, potentially, presented itself, and we’ll see where that goes), give a speech about redefine on the 26th for research club, spend the rest of the following week in seattle, then leave for sxsw tour on the evening of march 5th. it is all going to be a whirlwind! and i plan to spend the last week and a half of march in california, so i can attend to business, and things, and such.

we will see what happens with the rest. what else happened today…………………… flaked on watching a movie — a really awesome 3d dance movie — that i had wanted to watch and ended up in powell’s instead. this madness turned out to be positive…

ran into darcy on the way. she is from the building i used to volunteer at. she was super excited to see me and was lining up at a church nearby to get a free dinner meal. she called me down and said hi, but i felt bad because i was vow of silencing and unable to talk to her. i typed her a message on my phone to tell her i was doing a vow of silence, and she was like, oh, okay, and said bye, and was smiley, but i don’t know that she understood it wholly. hopefully she was not bummed. it was nice to see her, though… i don’t usually come downtown too often, but pretty much almost every time i come downtown i see her. it’s actually quite incredible. and in different places, too.

not sure what else there is to say. nothing comes to mind. until tomorrow.

oh real quick…
number of times i’ve fucked up today: 3?
number of times i fucked up yesterday: 3?

certainly better than the previous 12.

intention, intently.

i think the first time i really knew that i liked troy, for real, was when we were at the shpongle show. i don’t know what we were discussing, but his answer to some bit of perhaps unconventional unselfish behavior was, “i don’t know, i just really care about people.” or something to that effect. it’s too cute.

i just realized just now that our 6-month anniversary just passed, and we didn’t make a deal of it! ah, well. also, unrelated: their next record is going to totally rule…

i am reminded of this because i am going through my things and i’ve found some notices… three “talk to us” signs, one that says, “i want to encourage cross-disciplinary collabz.” (from new york and the whole wall street protest), and lastly, this poem. this is from when i was volunteering at helen swindell’s. i am a bit regretful that i went on my travels and then just stopped going there altogether. i had many people who i felt bonded to, but it just became a matter of whether i wanted to sacrifice my personal time for it. it’s selfish. and i feel bad, now. maybe sometime soon i will be able to start it up again, but at the heart of it was that, while i enjoyed my time there very much, there ended up being like three volunteers at any given time, and it felt unnecessary. i will say, though, at the time, that i felt like i had more real conversation with the residents there… ah, i’m sad. there are a few people i namely miss, which are:

- darcy, a lesbian lady who got stabbed and got her stomach ripped open to the point that they were hanging out;
- chris, the guy with whom i co-wrote the poem below… dude was always happy and encouraging smiles, and was really metaphysical and cosmic and out there and wanted to be some sort of counselor;
- ____, who i often discussed matters of space with;
- j___, who had formerly lived in hawaii and japan for a long time, and would always say konichiwa to me and minor japanese phrases (he knew i wasn’t japanese but knew that i knew some…) and took the only photo of myself at helen swindell’s that there is, and he had me draw an image for him or something which he kept;
- john, who always was teasing and giving shit and looked — strange to say — typically veteran-y, and always wore a cap! man, he gave so much shit, and was always saying how i was a trouble-maker…
- ____, who i somehow forget the face of now, which is crazy…! but he was definitely one that i enjoyed speaking with most… i had referenced him before, as i had discussed many things related to psychedelia and time-space with him…

it was just so interesting… all of them were so interesting, such remnants of the ’60s… i wish i could commit more. maybe soon when the weather is warmer…

here’s the joint poem i wrote with chris:

i can’t wait for the weather to get warmer again; i should really do “talk to us” again… i hadn’t written about this, but there were definitely girls (2) at the wall st. protest who had “talk to us” signs, and i directed them to my website and told them it was something that i did. i should really update i love social experiments with my new data…

anyway, in other news. pretty much been busy planning our sxsw show. here’s my initial teaser flyer for it…

gina and i spent the afternoon today holed up at pied cow, basically just writing letters. the primary aim was to write to caroline casey, the lady who gave us the venusian love ritual that we practiced, but i ended up writing back to a lot of people. it felt good to write, and kinda maddening to realize that man, do the hands get tired easy, simply because that stuff never happens anymore

i have a lot to write about. i was mulling over today that after sxsw — since i am touring with swahili — that i think i want to spend some time traveling or staying in california… since tour is two weeks+, it would be nice to be able to sublet out my room for that month and save that money. but i don’t know yet where i would go; the only place i kinda wanna go is new mexico, but last time, that become rather uncomfortable, so who knows… and i’m trying to save up money for spain and portugal in july, and i guess burning man in august, so it seems unlikely that i’ll be able to do all of the traveling that i actually wanna do. blOorg. i suppose if some cheap ass plane tickets to go to some south american country pop up between now and april, that that might need to be what happens. if not, probably a train or bus from reno to the bay area post-sxsw, for a couple weeks of mad work action. i don’t know, i don’t know, i don’t know.

i was discussing these plans and desires yesterday with troy, and he was apologizing for being a boyfriend that doesn’t have the money to travel. i told him it was fine; i don’t realistically expect anyone to be able to keep up with me in terms of traveling money and time. it doesn’t bother me… i just –need– to nomad life it, though… it’s already been way too long (like half a year… well i suppose it was only since october, so like, 5 months)… but i’m already feeling a bit mad and need to go somewhere really bad! and i guess i have been to california a couple times in that duration, but it’s not the same. the desire to travel is incessant, it’s crazy… :L but yeah, he was surprised that it didn’t bother me that he couldn’t afford to travel and said i am repeatedly “the first” but to me it’s just… it’s fine, because it’s realistic that other people can’t??? i dunno.

anyway…

we went to tao of tea tonight and drank this pine-smoked black tea. dude, it was so amazing. but it caffeinated me to the point of insanity! i’ve boycotted coffee and i feel wayyyy better, but it makes me feel nuts to drink hugely caffeinated stuff now. interesting.

ah, so much to do. i can’t decide WHAT to do. there’s just too much.

i gotta get to recording snippets from this:

it maybe seems a bit ridiculous, but this book “came to me” through a series of dreams, and like we all know, i really trust dreams. the first dream told me that i needed to look into learning about alchemy; it wasn’t so overt, but it was just the notion that i woke up thinking. i don’t remember anything else from the dream. a few days later, i was dream-land told that i should look into egypt. again, i don’t really know anything about it. that was when sherry was in town, though, and i took her to powell’s that day. i looked in the alchemy section — there barely is one — and there was ONE book about egypt. i saw it and thought it was totally incredibly ridiculous and could barely believe that THAT was the book i would “need” to read, but seriously, there was nothing else even remotely calling to me. so i was like, well, fuck, here it is.

what this book is is a series of meditations and visualizations that basically take you to deconstructing and rebuilding yourself. i had originally given myself a loose deadline of “finishing this” project by the end of april, but it has since changed, since troy asked me last week if i wanted to go to portland evolver meeting. legitimately, the evolver meeting we went to was totally fucking whack. however… coming up:

> Wednesday, February 22nd — Linda Star Wolf Evolver talk on “Visionary Shamanism”

linda star wolf is one of the authors of the egyptian shamanism book. it is WAY too much of a coincidence that she is coming, so i’m definitely going to: 1) record all of the meditations by the end of this month, preferably by the 23rd; 2) at least start to do the meditations, and ideally finish them, by february 22nd, so that i can talk to her about them.

i dunno what it’s going to yield. we will see. when sherry was here on my birthday, she was TOTALLY engrossed in that book and spent the whole of the evening almost reading it. yet, while she seems to find those things fascinating, i think she’s scared of them; i bought carl jung’s man and his symbols for her for christmas, and, as far as i know, she hasn’t delved into it yet. i think she’s kind of scared, and i asked her if that was the case, and she said yes. i think that books like that stir up the unconscious in a scary way, but i think sherry is totally ripe for it. i am sending her my book on monday. i sincerely hope that the book plants the seed that will cause her to read jung’s man and his symbols… i dunno what the fuck kind of “work” i am doing, but whatever it is, it feel really, important.

last couple notes, again relating to literature: evolver’s kent had mentioned this book >>>

and that is exactly the kind of mapping work i want to start doing. synopsis:

From a philosopher whose magisterial history of Western thought was praised by Joseph Campbell and Huston Smith comes a brilliant new book that traces the connection between cosmic cycles and archetypal patterns of human experience. Drawing on years of research and on thinkers from Plato to Jung, Richard Tarnas explores the planetary correlations of epochal events like the French Revolution, the two world wars, and September 11. Whether read as astrology updated for the quantum age or as a contemporary classic of spirituality, Cosmos and Psyche is a work of immense sophistication, deep learning, and lasting importance.

i can’t wait i can’t wait! i can’t wait!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

blahblahblah. what else. man, there’s so much. but seriously, all i wanna do is write books.

but i just recently finally dropped the $45 to buy this fucking book that changed my life (i originally read it from shawn but the book is SUPER fragile and i can’t look at his anymore, especially since it was from his grandfather, and the binding is really fragile… and this book is fucking IMPOSSIBLE to find… it’s ridiculous):

i am definitely wanting to use it as a primer for how to solve the social problems of the world. tis going to require a shit ton of research and effort, but like i said… all i seriously want to do now is write books… sample from ends and means (that has made it into my book):

In the contemporary world there are two classes of bad plans — the plans invented and put into practice by men who do not accept our ideal postulates, and the plans invented and put into practice by the men who accept them, but imagine that the ends proposed by the prophets can be achieved by wicked or unsuitable means. Hell is paved with good intentions, and it is probable that plans made by well-meaning people of the second class may have results no less disastrous than plans made by the evil-intentioned people of the first class. Which only shows, yet once more, how right the Buddha was in classing unawareness and stupidity among the deadly sins.

i can’t wait i can’t wait i can’t wait. i woke up this morning and all i could think was:

LIFE IS GREAT. THANKS, UNIVERSE.

went tonight to holocene where there was a film scoring of blow-up, and the reservations, monarques, and rocky and the proms scored it. it started off a bit rough, to me (the music was good, but i felt a little disconnected from the film, partly because the subtitles were being blocked and i had no idea what was going on), but once all the bands got in the groove it was amazing, and strangely built up from pop soundtrack to heavy psych to dark synth gothic. and all in all, though probably not -exactly- fitting of the film, it was amazing. when monarques played their brand of what christian described as “early pink floyd” psych rock, i seriously had to sit up i was so newly enraptured by the film. it was a perfect blend between garage rock and oodly noodle noodles and man. so. fucking. good. (we are probably going to do a psych night coming up at holocene soon, and shit, if that is their new path they may just have to be booked…)

when the reservations went up last, it totally clicked for me. there is a scene in the film where a bunch of model characters are doing drugs in a massive pile. i don’t know why, but just during the course of their set alone my opinion changed a bunch; it went from me thinking, “awesome jams, dudes! oh yeah and the movie is good, too, but it’s in a different place than you guys are!” to… “whoa this is clicking on a different level than just the really obvious film score kind, and i am crippled by just how awesome this is, how very meta!!!” in short, kind of incredible. to the point where i felt like one of those drug-addled characters. difficult to explain, but there is some very green grass at the end of the film, and all i wanted to do was lay down in it.

monarques killed it for me, though. killed it dedddddddd.

earlier in the day, i had a hefty convo with david from the place i volunteered at. ah, man. lots of talk about french literature, french new wave, and italian films — coincidentally — a trio of antonioni films, which david described to be horribly depressing, but in a way that he embraced at the moment. i suppose i agree!

tonight — and all day today — was pleasant but also bittersweet; it was the first time i have been surrounded by so many people again… and i was social all day… but in both volunteering and at holocene i felt torn apart, being pulled in every which direction, trying to chat to everyone i hadn’t seen in ages but not fully over being windblown and therefore having some weird interactions, for sure. whatever, brah.

new wild beasts record is super solid…!!

bursting with ideas.

i’m listening to… bon iver’s for emma, forever ago album.

last night robby was over at our place (we had a sushi-making night), and i picked an album for him to listen to on his long-ass forty-minute freezing bike ride home. i settled on this bon iver album. he sent me a text later on, saying, “the coincidences surrounding you picking this album were enough to make me almost tear up i have to tell you about this next time. crazy, vivian seriously”

and all i could think was… wwwwwoooooooow. how powerful, sirs in bon iver and senor justin vernon. this album is pretty significant to me, as well, although not directly, but it is a mood — a transformative mood — and i know, definitely, of other people who have been strongly impacted by bon iver as well. it’s just… how satisfying must it be to make music that touches people so deeply? it must be very satisfying…

i slept over at an art gallery / shop the other night. heavy post about that to come. such a powerful evening. one of the coolest experiences i’ve had. and today, i went in there to lend them a dream book (and buy a ring for mihae by this amazing, amazing local designer, kat seale… i’m glad i was able to get it for mihae and that that was what she has been looking for, because i was really tempted to buy something but surely cannot afford such luxurious jewelries… nor do i need them…), and the owner gave me this kimono-robe thing that is AMAZING. i had wanted to buy it but then decided i can’t really afford it… but for whatever reason… (i think there are quite deeply embedded ones as it is a sentimental piece) she gave it to me… and i’m really, really excited, and it was a really sweet thing for her to do…

i volunteered today. got real chummy with a guy named steve. steve and i played gin!!! and he ultimately beat me — just barely — but we had some pretty good games of gin going on, man. realized i definitely played that with the ‘rents growing up, though i hadn’t really realized it up til now that the game i played was gin. cool shit. steve was pretty rad. lots of residents there are actually pretty cool, though quite a few are definitely bat shit crazy. but man. i need to get into social work. i just do. at one point i made some jokes about magic and my ability to do sleight of hand card tricks (attributing that to why i was winning these card games), and steve started joking in a horrible chinese accent, saying, “ancient chinese magic! can’t let white man know!” and it might have been construed as really, really horrible and racist, but i thought it was hilarious. i think part of the reason it was amusing, also, was cause apparently he used to be in the navy as a translator and, as a result, spoke some thai. he seemed like he was being for real, and knew a thing or two about language, even though he would forget english vocab words occasionally. super interesting people living up in there, man. everyone, so rich with history…

in other news…

excuse that former post. yesterday, i volunteered, as i’ve been doing, and it was really fun. of particular note…

[1]
when i first arrived, there was this dude there, who was showing heather his poetry. she was minorly interested, but i was -really- interested, considering i was kind of reading a poem at the time, as well (vladimir nabokov’s pale fire). it seemed only appropriate. his poetry was interesting, and involved a lot of positivity… a lot of giggling to himself — in real life, and on paper. he giggled like a madman!!! and kept poking me to get my attention! in any case, he told me to write a poem in his notebook — where he wrote a couple new poems every day, at least — and i agreed… so i got a pen and started thinking of a first line, and he told me not to think, but just to write. and i did. and it was… fine… it was this really abstract thing (as they always are, with me). i wish i could attain a copy of it and keep it, but essentially the message was that… from an inside point of view (my view), i don’t know what he means by constantly poking me… from someone else’s point of view (the other volunteers’ points of view), his poking me might be construed as weird and flirty… but from his point of view (the poker’s view), i don’t think the poking was on purpose or weird at all, because as soon as i asked him why he was poking and nudging me, he stopped… it seems he didn’t even know. he was just really giggly. but yeah, we also collaborated on a poem, and traded off line-for-line, and it was pretty goddamn amazing. the poem was entitled, “everything is now,” and that was a line he came up with. which i followed up with a line that was something like, “now now now now now now now now now now — now is now”. it was interesting. such a cool exercise. hope to do it again, and soon.

[2]
dude named excell… yes, in fact, his name is really excell. grew up in missouri, and was in alaska during the late ’60s — he said, like, around ’69 — and they were bulldozing the forests to create roads and such. i asked him where he was in alaska, and he said anchorage, burbank, and a bunch of other cities… he knew his stuff, for sure. african-american dude, which was surprising. he said he was more than stoked to get away from missoureh, or the midwest in general. joked that he swam in the mississippi river to get to portland, and that it connected with the williamette. really cool guy, with absolutely my sense of humor. he might have been a LITTLE — and i do mean a LITTLE — senile and crazy (he muttered a bit to himself after i stopped talking to him), but he was also pretty observant. he said he just sat there, at the giant windows of the helen swindell building, and watched people all day. and i just did that with him for a while, and he was fucking hilarious! the ‘craziest’ thing he did was call every woman who walked by “laura” or something, but asides from that, he was pretty with it… my favorite bit was when he was telling me about the northern lights, and saying that they were the biggest trip ever. and he would predict people’s actions — people who were walking by on the street — and more often than not, he was right. i mean, as far as i could tell evidence-wise, he was actually always right… it was really interesting, like he could keep really clean calculations of where people were at in his head and such. pretty remarkable. i like him so much. and his name rules. oh yeah, and i talked to him about chinatown in portland… he’d been there since the ’70s, after all, and he said that there used to actually BE a lot of chinese people there, but no longer… and pointed out a building across the street that was named after some dude, but nondescriptly. turns out “some dude” was a former mayor, i guess, but who would even know that shit unless you grew up around it? how quickly we forget.

volunteering here is -definitely- making me think critically about what i should be doing for a living. i should be doing that. i should probably be doing that. i think i should be doing that. i look and see these other people who volunteer, and i am way more personable than any of them, and not afraid to really — reallllllllllllly — talk to these people. i think that’s the #1 thing that is necessary! i woke up this morning thinking that i really, desperately, need to start sending off letters to social justice organizations and publications and try to do writing from that aspect. like george orwell, if you will (lofty goals). i just think…………………… i dunno. i’m beginning to pay careful attention to the fact the yes, indeed, writing means everything to me, and i don’t necessarily want to do music writing for someone other than myself, but i would do travel writing or social justice writing in a heartbeat… so maybe i should fucking do it. i should do it. doing it.

i should probably talk about some experiences with volunteering last time, too… remember that guy john i was talking about who asked me to watch the movie “seed”? well, i ended up watching it… super gory movie, but kinda in a funny way. there was this one scene where this “evil” dude straps a woman to a chair and then just slightly taps her on the face with a hammer, and then changes sides and does the same, and then changes sides and does the same harder, and so on, til finally he like beats her face into a pulp, and blood goes flying everywhere, and ultimately, he puts the handle of the hammer into her neck-piece (her skull is lord knows where). it was a uwe boll film — andy’s previous favorite director (and by favorite, i mean, not at all). anyway, i watched it, and told him, and he wasn’t as impressed as i thought he would be! because he was complaining that people always say they’ll do stuff and never do, and i actually did. but whatever. we did have a fun convo about it. and that was that.

last time i was there, the fire alarm went off, somehow, and so it was… everyone waited outside. that was the weird day of giving. everyone was giving stuff! it was january 27th. i don’t know what the hell the deal was, but we got there and the housing authority had given the residents a ton of their leftover food (super gourmet crap), and then after the fire alarm went off, some church people who were heading to a youth group conference thing (the one kid i talked to was -so- awkward and didn’t seem to know why they were REALLY giving stuff out there) brought by a couple bags of clothing and treats to give out. it was like a dude and a woman and like… three teenage girls and one teenage boy. they had come all the way from salem, i think, which is a good ways away (at least an hour, i’d say?). in any case, i asked the teenage boy if they were stopping by other places to give out things, too, but they apparently were only going to the helen swindell building. which made no sense, in my book, since that building is usually locked and there aren’t really people hanging out in front of it. i reckon they’re just lucky a fire alarm went off.

thus concludes a couple weeks of volunteering recap!!!

i love life.
i am blessed.
if you’re reading this, you’re probably pretty blessed, as well.

life is hilarious.

vee: sigh
mihae: loll
mihae: why sigh?
vee: oh life
vee: i dunno.
vee:
mihae: hhaha
mihae: what!
vee: nothinnng important
vee: life is just funny
mihae: hehe
mihae: yah life is
vee: like
vee: what are we all DOING
vee: bizarre
mihae: HAHAHHAHAHA
mihae: yuo know what’s weird
mihae: i think about stuff like that at the most random times
mihae: WHAT ARE WE ALL DOING
vee: haha
vee: ahahaha
mihae: WHAT THE FUCK
vee: while on the toilet?
vee: where!
mihae: IS ALL THIS STUFF
vee: seriously
vee: HAHAHAHAH
mihae: bus
vee: AHAHHAha
vee: seriously.
mihae: sometimes at work
mihae: WHAT THE FUCK
vee: ahhaahhaah
mihae: THIS SHIT IS ALL SO WEIRD
vee: hahaha
mihae: WHO ARE ALL THESE PEOPLE
vee: you’re making me lol
vee: Yahahahahahaha
mihae: WHAT THE FUCK ARE WE ALL DOING
vee: so true
vee: hahahaha
vee: seriously.
mihae: oh yeah
mihae: resonate.
mihae: fo sho.
mihae: x 123456
mihae: i think esp. on the bus
mihae: cuz i just zone out
vee: awesome
vee: i just like
vee: dont know why we take everything so godamn seriously all the time
vee: cause everything about EVERYTHING is so fucking laughable
vee: we know nothing
mihae: yeah
vee: ahahah
vee: so funny.
vee: *high five
vee: deep thoughts from vivian hua and mihae jung: WHAT THE FUCK ARE WE DOING
mihae: yet we desperately try to control everything about the little they know!
vee: WHO ARE THESE PEOPLE
vee: WHAT THE SHIT
mihae: lololololololol
mihae: so true
mihae: and esp cuz like these days i’m so busy so i often think WHAT THE FUCK AM I DOING?
mihae: WHY AM I GOING TO PLACES?
vee: ahhaha
vee: i could see that
mihae: just sorta zoning out to working mode
mihae: zombie-like feeling
vee: yeah.
vee: :[
mihae: and then booom you have a meeting w/ a supervisor
mihae: and he wishes the review did not ruin my birthday
vee: ahhahahahahah
vee: hahahahahh
mihae: like. shit.balls.
mihae: life .
mihae: that’s life.
mihae: right there.
mihae: lol
vee: yeap
vee: there is a good book in here somewhere
vee: a really funny one
mihae: goddamn it gmail!!!!!!!!!
mihae: ok what book you have
vee: oh no i mean
vee: within this conversation
vee: in the past 5 minutes
vee: there’s a really funny book iea in here somewhere
mihae: lolol[
mihae: what would the plot be you think
vee: no plot
mihae: it’s just so existential
vee: just funny anecdotes
mihae: lol
vee: or first person something
vee: i just posted a facebook update
vee: Hhah
mihae: lololol
mihae: awesome dude
mihae: life is pretty laughable
mihae: sometimes i’m stoked about it
mihae: sometimes it’s justa big fat joke!
vee: hahahaah
vee: even when you’re stoked it’s still a fucking joke!
mihae: LOL
mihae: it totally is
mihae: you’re like, almost stoked at the jokey aspect of it
vee: ahahah
vee: totally
vee: hahahaha
vee: i love this conversation.
mihae: this reminds me of a freaks and geeks episode
vee: vilpupilvoid: and then booom you have a meeting w/ a supervisor
mihae: and he wishes the review did not ruin my birthday
vee: i think it was thsee lines
vee: that made me think there was a good book in here
vee: written with that kind of attitude
mihae: ohhhhhh
mihae:
mihae: lol
vee: some people will get it
mihae: i hope they will
vee: and the other half who see that status update will think i’m crazy
vee: haahhahaha
mihae: jsut kinda we just operate on multitude level of superficiality
mihae: it’s just like ridik.x.core.
vee: definitely
mihae: and it’s so so so so so so so apparent at a corporation type environment
vee: duuude
vee: you know that place i started volunteering at
vee: it’s even super obvious tehre
vee: bums me out totally
mihae: yeah! how is that going?
vee: people have the hugest wall up even though thtey’re there to volunteer
vee: i like it a lot
vee: but like the other volunteers
vee: are afraid to engage with people!
mihae: oh weird
vee: they’ll go and engage with the ones i’m talking to
vee: after i make the initial jump
vee: super bizare
mihae: and i’ts just volunteering’
vee: yeah totally and like
mihae: imagine what happens when people have any investment in whatever relatoinships
mihae: lol
vee: why are you self conscious or fake anyway… these people like… are the most insignificant possible in your life
vee: yeah totally
vee: complete nonsesne!

funniest iamge ever, from mihae, in attempts to illustrate life’s ridiculousnesses:

AH WOW

LIFE IS A BITCH AND THEN YOU DIIIIIEIEEEEEEEEEE. <3

i was kinda pissed…

… so i went for a jog. dude, fruitful. i haven’t gone for a jog for ages… well, probably like a month and a half, but before that, ages. and that was like, “i wanna get home faster!” this is the first deliberate jog i’ve gone on in… well, as long as i can remember. felt pretty good though my leg cramped up a little. might do it more, but only at late night intervals such as this. i should go snowboarding sometime soon… i haven’t been in ages… it’s like a foreign thing at this rate. i gotta go at least once this season…

anyway, i truly hope to have a longer actual post one of these days… when i’m not feeling like a complete and utter insane person. this week has been like, 10+ hour workdays, everyday. i’m certainly making money, but it’s rough. can’t wait til tomorrow’s over so i can rest slightly easy…

just created a new category for “fuck”. haha…

(oh right, and i was pissed because there’s this huge deadline tomorrow and the ladies i’m doing for sprung it on me and gave me two days to do all this shit and were really slow about communicating changes to me, and didn’t give them to me for forever, and then finally, after i was like, “okay, i’m leaving the coffee shop to go home for dinner!” they fucking sent me a bombload of changes, many of which i could have done much easier earlier on. fucking ridiculous.)

on top of that, i’m also working on this other website project which is also ridiculous because the dude doesn’t know what he wants at all, or what he’s doing, and it’s a bit of a fucking nightmare. fuck. time to dance in my room for a song or two and then get back at working.

1:00am.

(i also have this fucked up foot problem… where my feet are really fucking itchy and swollen during the wintertime. i don’t think it’s athlete’s foot. it fucking sucks. i have the weirdest health problems, when i have health problems, always. never get regularly sick but my body is always doing weird ass fucking shit. fuck.)

—

2:26am.
addendum.
i’m listening to… el boy die’s black hawk ladies & tambourins album, which rules… dude, there’s so much good music it’s fucking stupid.

anyway, i neglected to mention that when i came back, i felt really awake (the goal of the jog), and it was awesome. now i’m kinda in the work zone, which is excellent, considering it’s so late/early in the morning! that also allowed me time to calm down and not put together a totally bratty email cause whatever.

also when i came back, i laid down on the floor for a while, listening to emil & friends, and doing some exercises and just generally zoning the hell out to the music. uhhhhhh that run pretty much made me feel like i was hallucinating. natural high, i guess, but in this weird way… like being on a hallucinogen or something… i began to notice the strokes in which the painters painted popcorn on my ceiling, and how those strokes seemed to create a spiral around the light fixture in the center of the room, and how the light radiated outwards and cast shadows upon the paint strokes in a circular, hurricane-like way… it was as if i was hyper-focused and hyper-clear for a second, and i think it’s because of all the deep breaths i took on my jog. crispy deep breaths! when i was coming back and ran out of breath (i can’t jog worth shit), i just closed my eyes, took deep breaths, and focused on the music. when i came to, i: a) could jog again without problem; b) was surprised at where i was. it was like that hallucinogenic ceiling thing again, only i was outside…

that reminds me, though… this morning i woke up and laid in bed forever because i couldn’t get up, and my head was just spinning, spinning, spinning, and i felt barely able to pull myself into consciousness… hmm, that sounds kind of bad…

oh right, and today i started my first day of volunteering. what i am doing is basically going to low-income subsidized housing and participating in giving residents coffee and making conversation with them. i had a long conversation with this guy named sasa who was from tehran and had been in the states for ten years; he used to run his own company in iran but now is in the states, battling depression, and talking daily with his case worker. he says he wants to work but he cannot because his health is not good — health meaning mental health. he was formerly a political science professor at a university in tehran, he said, and had converted to christianity since coming to the united states. he talked about how everyone in the united states has so much CHOICE, basically, and can anything they want, unlike other countries. he says he gives thanks daily…

also had a brief conversation with this dude from new orleans about making gumbo, and how he makes awesome gumbo…

also had a really long conversation with this super albino hypoglycemic kid who loves to bbq but can’t cook and can’t really eat vegetables because they make him sick because he has a protein deficiency. he was suuuuuper pale. but anyway. he said he bbq’d 24 packages of baby back ribs for his family for his birthday this past year, and that he marinated the meat for like, five days straight. hardc0re. he told me that if he eats starchy vegetables, like potatoes, he has diarrhea for a week. such hardcore food problems… dang.

there was also a filipino guy who made everyone lumpia. and he was talking with such pride about making lumpia and adobo, but no one there would really eat it because no one ate meat. his talking about it and kind of feeling like we were crazy for not making meat made me think twice about the realities of being vegetarian. and i think i decided today that i don’t really care enough to actually make the stretch. not that i’m ever going to really BUY meat and cook it, BUT… it’s such a thing of privilege — which we have, yes — to decline meat when it is such a cultural necessity in so many other places. i don’t know. in any case, it’s whatever. i’ll probably continue eating as i do, but i think… it’s whatever. i don’t care. i’ll eat it.

—

2:39am.
hey, look at that… this is damn near a real entry!

neon blonde.

3:11am
Not the MOST amazing video or anything, but dude, Neon Blonde actually made a video. Shit. (Four+ years later.) I still greatly, greatly regret the fact that I missed seeing them for free because I hadn’t heard their disc yet and didn’t know I’d like it. And they’ll like, never play a show again.

Last night, I stayed up til 5am chatting with Cole about Michael Jackson and watching Michael Jackson videos, which was mostly hilarious because earlier that day, when I went to volunteer at Real Change, I mentioned that I was a bit out of it cause I’d only gotten four hours of sleep, and Rosette jokingly asked if it was cause I was up til 4am watching Michael Jackson videos cause apparently that’s what his friends had done that night). And then yesterday, I actually did it. And it was amazing. Also kinda sad, seeing him talk about having no friends growing up and finally understanding what friends were (at like the age of 23 or something ridiculous).

I remember going to Spain last year. It was the first night we had gotten to Madrid, I want to say, and the Michael Jackson performance of Dangerous in Bucharest was on. It was just so mind-blowingly amazing… seriously. I wanted to do other things, but simply could not stop watching, and nearly saw the whole thing. This is not contrived… he really was amazing. I wasn’t really the HUGEST MJ fan, but you can’t deny his talent, really. “It’s The Falling In Love” is my new favorite MJ song, though, haha. So good, so good.

Met up with Chol and Seungbum today and had dinner with them. Been a while. Always the same, really. We’re definitely at different places in life, but it’s fine, really. I also hung out at the coffee shop with Mihae all day helping her build her website, and then had to give her super-serious friend a ride to his car in Bothell. He gave me a whole $2 for it. He’s… interesting.

I’ve discovered from trial and error that my ideal sleeping hours are from 4:00am to 10:30am. It’s fucked up. For reals.

“my ego’s like my stomach; it keeps shitting what i feed it.”

I’m listening to… “The Recluse” by Cursive. Song for the motherfucking DAY. The video kinda blows, but see below… I’ve had Cursive’s music for a long ass time and I’ve always liked bits and pieces but today is the first time a song of theirs has really resonated with me musically. ^__~

(This is NOT the official video. Seems that I cannot find a good one, and people have made a lot of their own renditions of the videos… so there ye have it.)

Volunteered at the Greenwood Senior Center this evening with Joe (who I also keep running into at the library). Turns out he’s pretty much exactly my age… one year older… or maybe the same age, actually, since he did Running Start. Speaking Spanish — while I still suck — seems much more natural now than it did before. I hope that classes will help me get back into it (whenever the fuck they start), and that they’ll be somewhat useful, at the very least. Stupid non-English-speaking Spanish adults are just so cute, though. All non-English-speaking older adults, really. They just make me smile, so much! They’re so cute. I like helping people who can’t figure out how to double-click a mouse… it’s just… fun… .. .!

After that, went to buy some meat (and came to the realization that today was only like, the second day I’ve ever bought meat that wasn’t a frozen bag of chicken) and headed over to Hojo‘s, where he was holding a hot pot shindig. I needed to go over to pick up tickets for the Helio Sequence show tomorrow anyhow, and luckily, I knew more people than I thought. But man, people our age sure aren’t very mature. HAHA.

We ended up watching, freaking, some movie with Stephen Seagal called “Executive Decision”, and there’s this Asian guy in that movie who is also on “Law And Order” right now. His name is B.D. Wong. Alina was asked by someone what the B.D. stood for, and she didn’t know, so she concluded it stood for “Big Dick Wong.” So, the rest of the night, people were making up synonyms for “Big Dick Wong,” including but not limited to, “Big Dong Wong,” “Bombastic Dill Wong,” “Balls Deep Wong,” etc. LOL. Sometimes the name was expounded upon by putting it into a phrase, such as, “Big Dong Wong Goes To Hong Kong,” as the name of a film or something. I wish I even remembered a quarter of the ridiculous references, cause there musta been like… at least 50. Towards the end, it became not just penis jokes, but anything related to the letters B.D., such as “Blanket Drape.” Haha. Not all of it was funny but some of it became very hilarious.

I left a bit before everyone else, and on the way back, I stopped by QFC to buy some milk. Stopped for like a half hour to talk to a Real Change vendor named Jonathan, who was very unhappy about the evening. I guess he had been trying to sell Real Change copies outside of the Safeway on 15th and John in Capitol Hill around 7:00pm, and the manager had come out and told him he couldn’t sell stuff there. I reckon that bothered him, cause here he was, still out selling newspapers at 11:00pm and all he wanted to do was sleep. While I was chatting, this friendly biking guy came by and was really stoked to buy this week’s issue of Real Change (which, by the way, my name is now in, sucka!) and it was kinda cute and supportive and nice he was, being really friendly and offering cigarettes and what not. Go him. After he left, Jonathan was talking about stuff like how he had gotten into a fight with his girlfriend after the Safeway manager incident, and then went to the liquor store, which made his girlfriend even more mad… and how he had to go to court next Monday because of drug possession charges. I asked him what kind of drugs, and he said, “The good stuff,” and then asked me why I wanted to know. I said because I wondered what kind of drug possession would get you only one to eight months in jail, which is what he’d quoted (probably not the right word, but whatever!). He asked me some questions about myself, and I said I was unemployed but volunteering for Real Change, yadda yadda, and that I did stuff with computers. He said he had a cousin that did stuff with computers and was a real hot shot that made 6 digits a year, but then he got laid off… and that he hasn’t talked to this cousin for four or five years even though they used to play videogames together.

This guy Jonathan’s whole thing… as he had said it… is that he has made some mistakes in life, and while someone who was, in his words, “normal,” would get a slap on the wrist for drug possession, he’d have to go back to jail and then come back out with nothing and start all over again. He said something along the lines of, “There’s only so many times a person can start all over again,” and it was really quite sad. But he looked off kinda far off in the distance and said that this couldn’t continue on, though, and that he needed to change… and that he was trying to find a job at Goodwill because they help homeless people secure housing and will let people work even if they have some problems. Didn’t quite know what to say to him other than, you can do it… and then things will be better. And hopefully they are… but who knows. He was pretty resigned to the fact that he will probably spend at least a month in jail and then start all over again. It’s tough livings… but he acknowledged that “I made my own bed, and now I have to lie in it,” as far as drug possession charges go.

I know that people who read this will be like, oh yes, another homeless person who is homeless because he’s a druggie and a deadbeat… and while I cannot possibly deny the druggie bit… how many of us do drugs and never get caught? But it’s not even about that… I feel what’s important is how good of a person you are. When he was talking about the Safeway manager not allowing him to sell Real Change outside of Safeway at 7:00pm, he was really bummed about it, and said, “It’s not like I’m asking for that much.” I tried to cheer him up by saying that it was only the opinion of one man, and he said that he didn’t want to get “into it” with the Safeway manager because he didn’t feel like it, and… here’s the part that made me kind of impressed… he didn’t want the folks over at Real Change to get into trouble or have trouble because of him. Maybe there are ulterior motives now that I write it, but it seemed genuine. I guess what I’m saying is… I don’t think we should be so quick to write a person off as worthless just because he or she might have a drug problem or can’t deal with shit or be responsible… what’s important is having one’s morals about. I think, anyhow. I mean… if you can go through the pits of the shit and still maintain the integrity of your character, then you’ve got something good going on.

///
(I haven’t felt compelled to write in a literary fashion for quite some time, but I felt compelled this evening.)

He caught my attention as I was entering the QFC. He called after me, “If you have any spare change when you’re done…” and I nodded — a slow nod implying a promise.

I kept some change out for him.

When I came back out, I handed it to him and proceeded to scope out his possessions on the ground. There wasn’t much — just a plastic bag overflowing slightly with clothing, a plastic see-through cup, and a cardboard sign that said, “OUT OF LUCK / NEED A BUCK,” in thick blue-black marker. Quickly rendered, no doubt, but with an artistic stroke of the hand.

With the change I’d given him still in his hands, he begun to talk very animatedly about his day and how the past four hours had been misery for him. In his excitement, he flung the change into the lawn and the sidewalk as he spoke.

His name was Jonathan, and he had a Michelle Pfeiffer kind of blonde, pale beauty. He could have made a beautiful woman. His loose-fitting maroon sweatshirt made obvious the drooping, aging mounds of his chest, but despite the fact that it was nearly midnight, he was vivacious and full of energy. Years of hardship had managed to weather his body, but not his face. His face remained youthful, and his piercing blue eyes, full of life, were the crux of it all.

For the most part, talking to Jonathan was completely ordinary. It was only when he would speak about himself that he became a little distant — that he would look off in the distance, focusing on nothing in particular, lost in his own convoluted thoughts. All of those thoughts were those of a man who, at that moment, felt completely downtrodden and defeated by life and wanted nothing more than to escape an endless cycle of losing. Whether it be losing to the system, to circumstances beyond his control, or to his own actions, it was all the same. It all ended up in the same place, with him possessing nothing and starting off again at square one.

\\\

His name was Jonathan. He had a Michelle Pfeiffer kind of pale blonde beauty, and he would have made a beautiful woman. Though it was nearly midnight, his blue eyes were piercing with their liveliness. His loose-fitting maroon sweatshirt made obvious the drooping mounds of his chest — a feature which is often found in aging men. But despite the fact that it was nearly midnight, he was vivacious and full of energy. His age was elusive. Years of hardship had managed to weather his body, but not his face. His face remained youthful, and his blue eyes, full of life, were the crux of it all.

my stomach hurts. too much salt and vinegar chips.

My newest love is Salt & Vinegar chips, which is really fucking bizarre because I used to abhor them. I really need to stop eating bags of chips, like seriously, asap. I feel like I’m turning into a giant fatass. :L

Anyway, this morning, I volunteered over at Real Change designing their layouts. As I was leaving, this long-bearded old dude saw me leaving. He was obviously a Real Change vendor, and Real Change is a homeless newspaper, so he was quite obviously homeless.

He said to me, “When did you start being a vendor?”

To which I responded, “I’m not a vendor!”

I don’t know if I said it offensively, but it was my instinctual reaction to deny it, not because it was so embarrassing or offensive anything, but because… well, I’m not a vendor. But I think it came off kind of offensively or something. :L So I offered, “I’m volunteering to lay out the pages.”

To which the man responded, “Right, cause you have a home to go home to.”

To which I could only reply… “Yup…”

In retrospect, had I been as witty as I sometimes like to think of myself as being, I would have said something like, “About ten years, actually.” But I’m never as witty as I think I could’ve been after I’ve thought it through, because I always answer these things without much thinking. I’m just honest. That’s why.

Another possibility is that I felt kinda awkward leaving and passing them in the first place, which is kind of a trained reaction I have with strangers, to not really look them in the face when walking by or whatever. I kinda have to force it. When passing this guy while leaving Real Change, I forced myself to look at him and kind of give him a half smile, which was really awkward and kind of forced, likely, and then when he actually said something to me, I was already in this awkward state of being and could only respond awkwardly.

Oh yes. Thinking about things that don’t matter. Oh yes.