Other worlds we don't grasp

Last night was one of those nights that I didn't understand. Every time I was awake I was too lost in thoughts to hear the world around me. Everytime I was asleep, I was too confused to understand my own dreams. Waking was probably the worst - trapped somewhere between the confusion and the thoughts that wouldn't stop pouring from my mind.

This is not shocking: I've fallen with a new cold. ...sigh.

I've alighted back from Paris. They are not as rude as people think they are; they are not as rude as the British are at Waterloo Station.

I miss my friends - it hasn't been that long, really. But our insane and mostly corky, stupid laughter is much missed. The retarded jokes and completely random things that just sort of go but you are never really sure how or why...yes. They are indeed missed.

I'm sick of thinking.

I've had a good time. Adam has been a tiresome traveling companion - but I think he's getting deeper and therefore more fun. But Hetty is still a self-contrived witch that I can't stand. But I suppose it wouldn't be much of a story without her...sigh. I wish they would all just leave me alone anyway.

Had cheese and bread. Strong European coffee and the best onion soup and fries I ever did taste in my life. Not to mention Beef! That is right - I ate French Beef...and oh, it was soooo good to taste!

I still want a hefty steak and seasoned ribs - and a Burger King that will give you more than two ketchup packets for less than 40 cents! Dear Heavens!

Sigh. It is good to be back home...but you know what? I learned one important thing:

Home really is, like they put it in Lion King, 'where your rump rests'. It's amazing how a place can be so foreign one moment and be home the next. It is strange that one day you are angry because nothing is how you know it rightly ought to be - and the next, you are yearning for it to be back that way again.

Really, it makes no sense - and yet....it's home.

...Sigh. I suppose I really am coming to love this place more than I thought I would...or could. But things become familiar and places start to feel like home after a while...

and when you are surrounded by foreign everything, you really learn what home can look like.

For now - this is home, and I'm happy to be back in it.

-RK

Examples...

This is me showing ShadyLady how to work her blog...

Bow. Bow to me!

-RK

Of this day like hell

I wish I could say this day, this week is getting better - but it isn't. It just keeps on compiling upon itself and making me all the more miserable and frustrated.

At least the week is almost out and my family is almost here.

One of the bigger problems is that the week being over really just makes me feel more and more stressed out. Sure it is almost break, but I have a novel to read and a communication journal to do and a presentation to prepare and a paper to write - so how am I supposed to feel any better about this?

Oh wait...I don't.

The only redeeming factor is that my family is coming. I can't wait to see them - and I can't wait to get away from here for at least a little while and just have some fun.

I need fun. I need something other than this...I need to get away from all of my thoughts for a while.

I think that is one of my bigger problems. No matter where I end up, I end up thinking. I end up going over everything time and time again in my mind - and I end up just wanting to get away for a while. I mean does it make any sense that I want to get away from the place I got away to? I didn't really think it did, but then again...

I think it is school. School is really making me stressed - and that on top of everything else is just, like I said above, compounding on itself and making me feel like there is a weight the size of Hong Kong on my shoulders. And all the while, the world is just laughing at me as I stumble around trying to carry it all.

Oh well, I think the time away from school might help - even though I'm not getting away from schoolwork really. But I hope that it will be enough.

...sigh...

I am so tired, so exhausted...and so done.

-RK

New conceptions, or just the old ones coming back around again?

I've been sitting here reading blogs. Now I know how useless that sounds to put it down - but really, it's just a jumping off point.

I was sitting there reading blogs, and I got to thinking... again. I know, I know - no real shocker, this "again". But hang in there, stick me out, and just see where this is going, okay?

So anyway, I got to thinking - and suddenly I realized that I was sick of thinking. I've been thinking too much lately. I mean aren't I here to not think? Or no, maybe that's not precisely it - but aren't I here to not think about "those" things anymore - but to think about other, new things?

Aren't I here with some intent to re-invent, re-create, re-innovate, and re-do all that has been done or said or thought in the past?

Then why on earth...why in heaven's dear name do I feel like I'm just rerunning the same old previews of my life over, and over, and over, and over, and over...

you get the picture.

And yet, I don't understand it. How is it so possible to be where I am and yet stuck as I was? How can I be who I am and yet stuck like ...like that?

I know, I know - I'm being vague. But what would be the point in being specific? What would be the point in more ramblings on about all of the whiney, boohoo garbage that we all end up going through in the end of the thing anyway?

...sigh. Enough.

Thursday will be one of the few good days in a while. I may have a aimless speech due on Friday that threatens to tear out my intestines and eat them for supper - but no matter, it will be a good day. I get to see my Mama, and my Aunt, and my Daddy.

And yes, I still call my Father - Daddy. Get used to it.

We are going to Paris.

And yet, somehow my own retardedness (and yes, I mean my behind-ness in this case) still somehow manages to make me quite miserable.

I was supposed to check up on those rooms. Tomorrow is Thursday. Everything is closed.

Damn.

Excuse me, that wasn't very nice - but I think you again get the picture. I feel all frustrated and all angsty - I hate that. And I hate writing so blatenly about that.

So annoying, isn't it?

I mean who wants to read someone blather on for pages and pages about mindless crap that nobody really gives a hoot about? Frankly, I find it dull and dry; not to mention cheesy and lame. Like trying to throw yourself some kind of insignificant pity party...

What's with that?

Okay, wow. Now I'm not doing anything more than rambling. Oh well. One can only take so much creativity, so much poesy, so much yammering on in elitist language and high metaphors and extended prose before one's brain simply goes:

EEEEEEEE....FOOM!

Mine keeps doing that. It's so bothersome.

And so, I'm trying to keep it from doing that yet again. However, I feel I may be losing the ever-slipping battle.

...sigh. It's been a long week that flew by. I hate those. It's like you feel exhuasted and beat down by the days, and yet you have no legitimate reason to feel thusly because then you have to confess that in fact the week hardly existed at all.

So why do I feel so dead? So lifeless? So much like a huge, nasty ZOMBIE?!

Wow. Okay. Here is a good place to stop.

I'm done now.

Maybe later I'll have something more intelligent to say.

maybe.

-RK

Oh, and by the way - it is exactly two months until I get a Los burrito. At least something to rejoice about....Rejoice with me, oh yea Los depraven hoards of fools!

Nice to Me.

I want a microwave Hottie.

Really, I do.

And I want a drumset. *wipes drool* And a Corvette to druve by. And yes, that is druve, my public. It sure is.

But that's enough of that...enough of that and my fuzzy pants...light blue fuzzy pants - velevety jean-ish fuzzy pants.

Yes, enough of those to.

On to the things that my mind is spinning around. Back to the things that my heart it dancing upon and my spirit is faltering on and my soul keeps tripping up on. Yes, let's get back to those things.

It seems that I've been doing thinking that I didn't think I'd do. And it seems that I've come to a conclusion that I didn't think would conclude the way that it is.

But let's not be so vague -

I've had an epiphany.

But you see, the problem is that it's one of those epiphanies that I don't exactly want to admit to myself that I've had - and I don't exactly want to flesh out what the epiphany means. And yet...the having of it, just the thinking of the having of it makes me feel better.

Now granted, it would be better if I were to do what I ought to do about the thing - but the thing of it is just that: I don't want to do what I ought to do about it, and I don't want to think about what I have to do because of it. Neither do I want to contemplate what the telling of it, the reasoning of it, or even the entire realizing of it means.

I'd just know that it exists and that it makes me feel better. Because then, it still makes me feel better.

It makes me realize that I don't have to do what I don't want to do, I don't have to be who I don't to be - and I don't have to live my life the way that anybody thinks I ought to live it.

And part of the epiphany is just that. I've realized that I can be what I want to be. I can live how I want to live. I can grow up how I want to grow up, do what I want to do, and I can be the person that I wanted to be before I became the person I never wanted to be.

And so, the epiphany continues on. Whether or not I have the desire to flesh out all of the details or all of the tasks or all of the meanings of this epiphany are at this point irrelevant. The fact that it makes me feel comforted makes the epiphany worthwhile, and the fact that it frees me from binds that I've previously bound myself in makes it worth the time that I have spent pondering over it.

So whether or not I figure it all out right now doesn't exactly matter. What matters is that the truth has finally occured to me, and I finally - at long last, after such a spanse in time where I was as lost as I could have been - finally know what I want. And I suppose that is the point of it; at least for now.

So until later or until I flesh out the meaning and repercussions of this still-somewhat-coming epiphany, I will leave you with the nightmares, and the sadness, and the depths of the oceans of the feelings that we're living in.

-RK

This just in...

Pieces of a memory of one of those weekends:

Verona train station, hallway to be precise. Leaning against baggage...

thinking about all the baggage I'm carrying around.

Flora. Soggy-ish bread. Red Apples that get caught in my teeth.

Being offered hashish but the guy who later shows us card tricks and plays a hand of 3-way speed.

15 Euro taxi ride instead of 50.

Freezing cold - cold on the inside...until warm needles of a shower stabbing life back into our flesh.

Rain on the tarmac. And a plane that flies, but I can't imagine why I trust my life to it.

Speaking bits of a lanugage, mostly just flailing hands around and muttering something sort of like "Grassy" in a horrible accent that tells the entire universe that we're from America.

Huddling together waiting for a taxi, even thought it'd of been quicker just to walk.

Fuzzy unicorn purse the size of a credit-card named Roni - just because it's cute... ... ...and fuzzy.

Shiny bread package at 7:20 in the morning after waking up late. Cheese and a citrus flavored croissant too.

Caffe Latte in a seedy side-shop cafe that beats all other coffee down with a rusty stick.

City streets before dawn and after dusk - each just as beautiful.

Walking from nowhere to anywhere.

Hunting down mango gelato - finding papaya instead...and beind satisfied.

Caffe Expresso in a cup not as big as my palm - with latte and a sugar.

Five to seven am hell wandering around with too many bags and not enough jackets.

Busses that only leave at 8 pm on a saturday.

Mini colloseum, Juliette's balcony, and tons of raw sleepless nerves.

Realising why they call them pigeon holes.

Quatro Formaggi, potato dumplings, tomotoes and cheese, ravioli, and springy pasta with artichoke amazingly spent over hours of endless good times... ...while everyone else tried to convince themselves they liked wine.

How I laugh at them.

Groggy, only half remembering what day it is or how we got where we were. Living zombies perusing streets that take one's breath away.

Little side-street cafes with tables out front. Open air markets surrounded by ristorantis and Pizzerias.

Wachting the city wake up and fall to asleep - all in one 8 hour day, with sleeping stuck somewhere in the middle of the day.

Humming in the dark, strolling on my own and watching the wall of the old city.

Exploring the 28 Euro a night hotel and finding room 356 with it's key still in the door and weirdo murmuring noises.

Freaking out and telling freaky stories to get even more scared.

Realizing we're safe as long as we're up against the wall...even if the door is locked and the man with the knife doesn't care if I'm carrying an ice bucket from the bar.

Laughing, joking, and deep talking until 2 or 3 in the morning - even with the hour difference.

Bus rides in the dark and in the morning light.

Flying with brand new pilots that tilt the plane to their music and bounce at least once on landings - but all the while, telling yourself, "Ahh. She'll hold. We'll be fine."

No. There is nothing like a weekend spent in Italy.

Really. Nothing.

-RK

Newer Knowledges

Well, thanks to a cut/paste episode on my xanga I have added to my plethora (if you could even dare to call it that) of HTML widsom-ish-ness the knowledge of font color.

Yeesh. I do realize this is no amazing feet for those of you who can hack and program and tell your computer to roll over - and he does! But to those of us who are struggling to achieve a much-yearned-after dream after so long...it's something, alright!

Thanks Blogger. We love You!

...erm, at least before you went all Pansy on us and added italics buttons and bold buttons with really annoyingly long html tags.

But we can forgive, since I have newly learned Font Color!

That's right, marvel at me.

Wait....Ok, yes - now.

...sigh.

At least that was fun.

-RK

Hold on, I'm creating cabinets...

An important user announcement:

At Microsoft, we care about your privacy.
But we don't give a crap if your computer blows up.

And, an important error message:

Your computer has recovered from a fatal error.
Please inform Windows of this error.
So that we can add it to our list of near successes in destroying your laptop computer. Have a nice day.

And what did I do, exactly, to incur the "fatal error" wrath of Windows?

I updated Windows.

That's right, folks. I updated Windows.

Welcome to the world of Bill. Please sign your life away at the line and proceed to pick up your incompetant machine with its inferior software. Once you have successfully bashed your head in aggrivation at least twenty times into the wall at the end of the line, you may proceed through the check-out and leave the store. Thank you and do come again.

Sincerly,
Best Buy Staff

***

There you have it - my night from hell. Again, I feel a need to thank all the computer panderers in the world with a smile, a slug, and a happy zap of electric shock.

Oh, and by the way - enjoy!

-RK

If I keep on remembering

Here you can be anything, and I think that scares you. I've been here before, but only by myself.

What giving up gives you, and where giving up takes you - I've had and I've been. Here in center frame, there's only air. And just enough space to fit.

I said it out loud over and over. I said it out loud, but what do I know? I said it out loud, but it did not help. I'll stop now, just so I can hear you I stay up as late as it takes, as long as it takes.

I promised I'd see it again. I promised I'd see this with you now.

Just watch the fireworks.

-RK

Goodbye Sky Harbor

Thinking thoughts of people I though actually had some respect for me.

They didn't.

I know that now.

I might be better for it, you know? I just might be. Despite what they wanted - despite what they thought or apparently didn't think they had done. I might still be the better for it in the end.

People have a way of doing things that show things I didn't wanted to see - but needed to. I guess that is just the way of it. Sometimes, you have to look through the window to see that the tornado is headed for your house only so you can get into the cellar before it strikes. Sometimes, you have to stay still and watch the disaster come only so it doesn't kill you when it does.

And because you saw it - you're the better for it. You might be terrified and you might be strucken with horror you cannot express or comprehend - but you really are the better for it.

And so, really - despite their attacks and attempts, I have been the better for it.

If I wasn't, if I wouldn't be - what was the point in enduring through it all just to end up...here?

No, I can't believe that's just it. There has to be more.

Sure, maybe there isn't. Maybe it's just to show me that some people aren't your friends. Maybe it just shows me that some people don't care; that some people don't think.

Maybe that's all it shows, all it says - all the better that I am for it.

Maybe. But that is something...

isn't it?

not asking of me anything...without anybody...

...maybe the light will break someday.

Just maybe.

-RK

When other things needed to be done...

...I was sitting in the library, but it wasn't silent at all. I had intended to do nothing at all really, but I ended up finding friends. Well, that isn't so bad - but I'm still doing what I meant to do.

Brooding, over silent reveries of things that I don't want to have to explore right now. So instead, turning on the music and making sure that its loud enough to block everything else out - including all of the things I should be doing, the things I don't want to think about, and the things that I don't have the energy to consider as being important at all. But it's back to the music, back into the deep darkness of the hole I've created for myself - and it's back to the stillness that I love so well when I feel the way I do tonight...

back, back, back into the guitar - back into the bass - back into the drums...back into the beat, thumping, bumping into the quiet echoes of a heart that I don't want to examine...back into the music wherein my comfort is lying still...

Salt, sweat, sugar on the asphault. Our hearts littering the topsoil. Tune in and we can take the last call...
***
If you don’t don't know, why would you say so? Would you mean this please if it happens? If you don’t know, why would you say so? Won’t you get your story straight.
If you don’t know, honey, why'd you just say so? And I need this now more than I ever did. If you don’t well, honey, then you don’t.

***

Oh, and by the way - I have a Nuclear arm. Just one. But really, I don't have it...not at all.

So it's time for me to go now. I can't think - I can't say...sigh.

I can't explain, and I don't think I would want to even if I could...

Yet comfort to those who, so like me, won't be comforted.

-RK

The Crying Day

This is just a short entry, but I just had to put something down. I don't have the time to put my heart here. I don't even have the time to put how I really feel or what I'm thinking or how it looks from here down right now...but of course that would all be assuming that I could figure it all out in the first place. So instead of putting out all of my emotions and all of the thoughts that as of yet haven't been able to make any sense at all - and even if they could, I'm not sure I could interpret them back...but instead, I'll just do what I know how to do best...

In the middle of
Night. Sleeping
wakes to new horror
from the fear crashing in my mind.

The sun's not risen.
It's still so dark -
but something stirring wakes me.

Trapped.
I must have gotten trapped.
Trapped behind the lids of my slumber.

Confusion pours
from a mixed and mangled heart.
Where do I go from here?

Silent stillness
caling on the reverie
of a dark and terrorized soul.

Tonight.
The dreamworld crashes
and all the hope feels so exstinguished.

Now, I know -
Know what it is like
to have the ashen dust collecting in my heart.

Quiet as a doormouse,
finally unable to speak -
all the noises just fade to black.

I'll just lie here a while -
and wait.
Wait until my soul comes back to life.

-RLL

Few hours into the morning after

So the dawn breaks and the birds begin to sing...but thank goodness at last I've gone to bed. Falling asleep last night, or rather this morning wasn't so difficult in the end - I was tired and the restfulness did come well.

It was unplagued by the ngihtmares and dreams that taunt you as you try to fall into the black, warm void that sleep is so often. There was no ill-feelings or even fear as I tumbled into the sweet world wherein lied my rest.

But it was when the morning came - when the sun had risen in the light gray sky and the world all around me looked a little different and felt a little less well - that I started to think about things...

And then the impact hit - and the world started to crumble again.

In the midst of it my "Oh God"s and my "God save me"s and my "I see you know, but why...why did this come to pass"s was it that I began to finally have my clentched eyelids pryed open. Once they were, I saw a face standing there with hands that I have not felt in so long, embracing me as I trembled from the inside out - the feelings, the emotions tumbling over my mind like water over the rocks of a smooth waterfall.

And with them fell the dreams from the realities. From the rocks of my conscious fell the hopes from the truths, the desires from the acceptances, the will from the way.

And as I stood in arms that I had thought for so long had forgotten me, my head now resting on the only place of solace - I found that only the shattering of my illusions, of the facades I had set up could have brought on the vision that I saw now before me.

The Lord, his strong arm wrapped around my shoulder, holding me closely as my spirit wept into the robe of his ever-pleasing will.

It is strange how one oft times believes that one is in a place of cold and lonely alientation when it is only because one cannot see the hands that are holding them up. But it is only when the shadows are told to flee, when the lies are drawn out like the venom from a wound - that the child can see how to be whole again.

I was, for far too long, living in a dream world that I knew I had created of my own imagination. And yet, from here I will go a completely different way. I will carry with me the scars of this fire, and yet I will bear with my also the knowledge of what I have learned.

And I may never have the strength to trust as I did before. I may never love like I took the chance to love before. But one thing will be true, at least I will have learned and I will hav seen the way it was before me...

and I will have taken the road that diverges a different way.

-RK

Of the ideals and dreams that didn't come...

So I'm sitting up and it's really far too late for any intelligent thoughts - but I just sort of had to get soemthing out.

It's time again for all of those things that make you think you are safe and secure and that you know the world you are living in to fall down and crash. It is again time for all of your ideals to come tumbling down around you, leaving you bewildered and wondering what on earth you are supposed to beleive in and trust anymore.

I guess now is as good a time as any, isn't it?

I mean, sure it could be saddness. It could even be confusion - but it seems, feels so much more than that at times. It feels like...like....

Like a crisis.

And so, you just have to go along with it. Scoop up the little bits of you that are left after you have broken, sweep the shards of yur life into the dust pan, and just learn to get up and sort of start over.

Start over...really?

I don't know that it is really starting over. Maybe it's just learning how to look at the world differently. Maybe it is learning that nothing is really trustworthy, and how to deal with that in the end. Maybe it is the going and the coming of things - and maybe it is the fact that still nothing seems to add up or make any sense anymore.

I don't know. I can't say.

Maybe it is starting over. Or maybe it's going back - or forward...or maybe it isn't moving at all.

It's so hard to tell, when things are so hard to see clearly. It's like you are standing still and spinning in circles all at the same time.

It's like you want to tell the truth, but you can't remember what it is. And you want to know the truth - but you can't hear anything anymore through the quiet wind that is blowing all around you.

It's like you have been standing in the same place for too long and you can't seem to remember how to move on again - or maybe you do remember, but you are too scared...

or maybe a part of you really does know that you exist somewhere else out there but you aren't ready to go there yet. Yeah, maybe that is it.

I don't know.

But I do know a few things...

My best memories started with you and my nightmares started to haunt me when you went away. My ideals blossomed up to meet the world that I was creating, and yet somehow you fit into the dreamworld that I'd made all too perfect for myself.

But you were real. You weren't a dream - and that became clear at some point in time.

And the dreamworld started to fall apart.

And now...now, what am I left with?

You are still real, out there somewhere. You still exist, and you are still somehow a part of this collapsed dreamworld - this imaginary place that I'd created where I was happy and we were together and life was perfect and beautiful and nothing ever hurt at all.

But that wasn't real. And it doesn't hold up, it can's stand up anymore.

And yet, it exists - somewhere, there still inside of me like a dormant volcano waiting to come back to life one day...

But will it really ever? Or is it dormant forever?

...sigh.

Sometimes, I wish I didn't doubt so much. I wish I could know everything and be sure of the future and not have to worry about what was going to happen or what I was going to say when it did.

Yea, soemtimes - I wish I could just be at peace, just for a little while. Just to stope still for just a moment and feel the sun on my face again and know what it was like to feel warm again...

warm.

That used to mean so much, still does. But now...

now, what?

What does any of it mean? What does any of it amount to, it not just to the dreamland that it once was. If not to the perfect world that I preteneded really existed somewhere deeper inside of me than I could find.

...Sigh. I can't figure it out anymore.

Any of these dreams, these imaginary images that come to me in the middle of the night or in the early hours of the mornign when you can hear the bird singing but you can't see the first lights yet...I just can't figure them out anymore.

...

I wrote a entry about those dreams before - a few days ago. It was more about my life than anything really. About my fears and my hopes and my dreams and what I thought I had or knew I wanted...all about those things. But it was more than that too - it was the dreams that I had and the ones I didn't have the courage to look into deep enough to see anything any more. It was that little glimpse of me that showed even myself something about me that I didn't know before...

but the computer crashed and deleted it.

I guess life works that way sometimes, doesn't it?

-RK

The Aftermaths

This, after the frustrations of a magical, but now deleted post on dreams.

Long nights under soggy tears, realizing that around about 3 am you stop thinking. Pressure pressing down from all around, as if one weight weren't enough to bear. The one you ran to becomes your enemy - because you refuse to accept it anymore. The one you thought you knew you were becoming the bigger burden on your cracking shoulder blades.

One...more...day.

Just one more day and things will start looking brighter, better. Just one more day and you'll get one more thing done - and you'll feel okay again. And it will all be in just one more day...

the day that never comes. The sun that doesn't shine. The weight that won't let up. Everybody asking something of you - expecting you to still somehow be perfect and care about everything and do it all with grace.

Nobody said you were allowed to fail, or fall, or not do well. That just isn't you...isn't it?

Sometimes, I wonder.

Sometimes, I want to do really badly at something. I mean really badly. I want to take something and jsut mess it up beyond repair - to really make big mistakes...the sorts you regret for the rest of your life; the sorts you look back and are forced to make the dismissive comment, "but that was in college" just because the horror, the embaressment, the terror of it is just too great to really brush aside.

Sometimes, I want to be just like that. Like the loads of people haunted by their pasts because of the stupid things they did, when they were still in college. But I am in college - aren't I alotted those mistakes as well?

Or do some of us have to still pretend to be the angels - the ones that care and comfort...the ones that everyone runs to but isn't allowed to run anywhere else. Do we still have to be those kinds of kids? Can't we, just for once, be the messed up ones. The ones with neon colored hair that go to parties instead of studying for a quiz. The kinds that have fun regardless of what it costs...I mean, after all - we are in college. Can't we just act like it?

...I guess you could say that writing that lit crit paper really did me in. Or maybe it was the tea or the biscuts or, heck, even the fact that my computer ate my paper file and then spewed error messages all over me, while I - in vain attempts - tried everything in my power. I mean, sure the paper probably came out 50 times better than before...but that really wasn't the point.

No, but perhaps it is my problem. So now? I have an Indian music concert to go to and Shakespeare on Film to read. But I'm ecstatic that the paper is done. I felt it was good - which probably means it was nonsensical babblish crap - but that isn't the point. At least it sounded good and it's done. That really is the most significant part of all of this - it's done.

But of course now I am left with this moorish feeling of dread and sense of the world coming crashing down all around me - or maybe just little bits of the sky falling out of place while I'm the only one to notice. Either way, there is an omen of disaster in the air, and I'd rather not confront it. It distrubs my sleep; it stirs up unwanted feelings inside of me; it causes chills that shouldn't be here.

So I'd rather just avoid it. Avoid the falling, avoid the ending of it - the coming of it - the dawning and dying of it. The crying, screaming, begging way of it. The helpless mass of it. The dead ill-stiff feeling of it. The iced cruel touch of it.

No, no. I'd rather just avoid it. As long as I can; avoid it until I can't run any further - until I have to face it.

But until then, I'll just sit here and think about better things - like candy and chocolate and European cruises over the Milwakee desert. Yes, truely - those must be better things...better things for me to think upon.

-RK

On a sidenote...

...I found the disgustingly huge demon that felt a need to take a rather impressive munch out of my thumb the other night. Although before I tell of its fate, allow me a bit of explanation.

I awoke not too many nights ago, I believe it may have been last week- with a large red bump on my right thumb. Atop the inflamed area were two small red marks - bite marks, almost like the marking of a very tiny snake bite. However, I knew no snake that small could have slithered across my arm in the middle of the night and had a short lunch upon my hand, so another conclusion was in order. I decided that the only beast that made sense to have made such a mark upon my flesh was a spider. Now, you have to understand that the spider must have been quite large to have left such visible munch-marks on my thumb. Yet, there they were. So I was forced to believe, with my disbelief and that of the company around me.

Then, the other night - I believe it was Sunday in the dead of night (when I get my works done) - I was sitting calmly at my desk pouring over Carlyle's Sartor Resartus when the mother of spiders scampered freely across my floor and under my chair. Yelping and jumping out of his apparent path, I in turn scampered not-so-freely to the other side of the room. Upon catching my breath, along with shoving my heart back into my chest after it lept into my palms, I inched toward my desk chair in order to examin the area. At first I saw nothing, then upon a closer inspection I foudnt he beast, blending quite nicely into the carpet. Gaping at the horridly large creature, I measured him from a distance. Legs extended, he was at approximately 3 inches in diameter. This caused a stark realization to occur within me. I gaped from the arachnid to my thumb and back again. It seemed clear that such a large arachnid could clearly have left the mark on my hand.

Thus, in spite of my fears, my interest was peaked. I had to see my attacker up close. But first...revenge.

Pulling up my always-far-too-long pant leg, to avoid any counter attacks, I stamped out the poor dear's life. Then, after a second well-placed shot, I reached down with some fresh toilet paper and scooped uo the carcass. After a bit of struggling around to see my apparent attacker's face, which made me squirm as he looked almost as though he was alive again and struggling to be free D0= ,I found his fangish appendages. Sure enough! Although clearly crushed by the impact with my friendly black boot, the fangs were clearly large enough to have sunk thus deeply into my poor, unsuspecting and slumpering self.

Horrified at the prospect that such a thing had clearly invited himself into my bed in the midst of my slumber and felt my thumb worthy of such a feast, yet strangely satisfied that my attacker would no more be making meal in my bed, I went to throw the evidence of my revenge and of his ill-spent life in the toilet down the hall.

And as he flushed away in the current of water, I felt the world a bit of a safer place.

Thus concludes this story: score 2=humans, score=1 arachnids. May the score continue to progress thusly. And may we all sleep a little better knowing that the world is free of yet one more vicious, careless attacker on the human race.

-RK

Avoidances and Inane Sanities

I'm sort of skipping lunch to write this entry, which you might think it a bad thing - but do bear in mind that I am forced to succumb the inane foods that the corporal head of things deems worthy enough to at least cram downt he starving mouths of small children in dire need of nurishment. Personally...I'd rather pass up the opportunity.

It's just one of those when-opportunity-knocks-pretend-like-you-can't-find-the-door sort of things. You know?

Also, I'm not working on my paper due tomorrow in order to write this entry. I have a few good ideas, but in general the paper is not coming and my writers block on any subject other than fantasy RPGing is becoming more and more readily apparent - not to mention disconcerting and disturbing. I have to write papers, and all I can think is fairies! How is that a good thing, my dear friends - How is it?!

Oh my, I fear I may be losing my marbles at the exact moment...however that could be in my benefit at the moment. Yes, claim insanity instead of inadequecy in writing literary critism papers. I mean, really, it sounds so much more graceful to lose one's mind rather than just one's ability to write a well argued, even slightly more logical than logical really ought to be paper.

So there you have it. Many things to do - most of which I either can't do or just plain won't do. And yet, I fear with much trembling and trepidatious heartbeats that my grades are at stake here.

Sigh. Oh my, this is really becoming a serious issue.

Well, it really might not be. Either way, I blame formative work for my slack attitutde toward the imminent paper. If only the cursed papers counted for something and I actually knew it, that would be better. Yes. And it would be better to actually have my formative papers returned to me so that they could serve as some form of guide as to how horribly I am really doing and as to how I must improve myself in the very near future. I mean, really - without that you might as well just account me to the black chair found last year on the good ol' 2003 UHNR Euro-trip because similarly, I will be screwed!

Sigh. Again.

Life needs to either become easier or make more sense. Either way, I could grasp my hands around some form of loop in reality and hold on tight as the rest of reality spun around me if either one of the above were true. Or if not, at least I could at least claim honestly that I'd lost my mind and some disconnected person would surely feel the need to throw my sorry behind into an asylum, where at least they don't require you to actually have intelligent thoughts that amount to anything at all.

Really, that would be best. Yes. Can someone please just call the men in white to take me away? It wouldn't really thwart my life goals much anyway. I could still be an author - just less...well, sensical.

But truly more cynical, and that's always good.

So, really - if anyone feels so obliged, I'm sure the number can be found quite quickly through either a large yellow pages publication or the wonderfully helpful lady at the end of the information life.

And please, if you will, make it before five o'clock tomorrow evening. Thank you and cheers!

-RK

Should have...

...been getting my homework done.

...eaten healthier all along.

...smiled more and hurt less.

...dreamed less and lived more.

...realized before the fact.

...known before the pain.

...learned before the end.

But I guess all of that is irrelevant, isn't it? I mean you reach a certain point in life when you finally understand - but then, its already too late to look back and fix anything. So instead, you just end up moping and feeling sorry for yourself. But really, what's the point?

...don't you ever get tired of hearing someone whine? Complain about all the how horrible's, and the how terrible's, and the oh my dear's? Don't we ever get tired of hearing ourselves complain? Don't we ever weary of being pessimistic and dark? Don't we ever get tired of it.

...Don't we laugh?

I guess Beckett really was right. I guess we just don't feel like it, do we? And I guess in the end - the endgame just plays us out and we just end up wherever we are and that's it - the end of things. Just like that, as if none of it ever mattered.

I guess that is sort of how life plays out some of the time - or at least on its own.

...Maybe I'll just remain here, like this, for the rest of my life - for the rest of time. Maybe I'll just stay like I am and look like I do and sound like I will - forever. And maybe everything in life will just be the same. And maybe some things will never really get any better or different or change.

It's always that way at the end of the day, isn't it Clov?

Isn't it?

-RK

And so...

It begins again. Spinning, spiraling, and falling - it all starts over again. Like a new page in a new chapter, but only this time its the same chapter that you keep on reading; the same story you've heard, and the same lines that you've always told them.

Faith. Have faith, or don't have faith. Lives in faith or falls in faith. Looks toward the sky...with faith.

But faith in the things that...no, wait. Faith in what exactly?

I remember when we all had faith in things. When we were young and everything still looked so beautiful outside of our windows. And I remember when we trusted everything, believing that it all somehow made sense - even when we could not understand it. I think back on the time when I was blind - but trusting. When you led me and I followed - just because I believed you. When you spoke and I believed you, just because of faith. Faith in everything - faith in anything. Anything that seemed worth to have faith in.

But not now. Not since reality showed me, since life marred the eyes with which I saw...saw so many things. Now the world looks a little colder and the breeze feels a little wronger and the hope I held looks a little weaker than it did before. Now when I sea the ocean, I see hear the wind scream, not the waves crash. And now when I look at the rain, I see the grey everything, not the droplets on the ends of rose petals. And now when I think about life, I see reality, not the fairy tell that will never come true.

For some, life hands a backet full of fresh fruit. For some, life hands a gun. For some, life hands happily ever after. And for some, life just hands the end.

It could mean anything. Everything can mean a million things. But at some point, it becomes clear what some things are - and you start to realize that you were wrong in many ways.

I wonder how long it takes for people to realize, though...how long it takes us all to see.

Life - the great deception of fun and world peace and happiness and fluffy cute kitties that sleep under moonlit nights.

But I don't buy it - I won't buy it. I can't buy it anymore. Life isn't fun, it isn't peaceful, isn't even happy - and kitties don't sleep under moonlit nights. Geet used to it.

Life is pain.

No matter how you flip it, turn and twist it, look at it with different eyes or lenses or glasses - it just doesn't change.

Life is pain, and it will remain as pain until the day that life is no more.

Because life isn't fair, and life isn't happy, and life doesn't really care about you. Life is cold and unfeeling and cruel. Life is the ultimate irony that works on the basis of your pain, your suffering, and your misery.

Life is the ultimate joke that uses you as its greatest punchline.

Life is not pleasureable. It is not easy. And it does not wield you any weapons in defense against it.

No. Life, at its best, is pain.

I guess we had better get used to that. Because unless we do - we are just going to be miserable wretches in the tragedy that is simply just that - life.

-RK

In the pouring rain

I am so tired, but I'm writing a bit of stuff anyway. Just stayed up a bit late getting some really cool techno music that I heard last night. Granted only 16 songs fit on my CDRW...but that's okay, because at least I have good musics now. They might even play on my CD player, which would be cool. But we'll have to see.

Okay, so today was a fun trip into town. First point of focus, it started raining just as we got there. It got sunny not a minute later. Then from there on the sky went anywhere from pouring to dry and cloudy - maybe even sunny. However, much of the time spent on coming back was in the pouring rain, until we got back home - then it was just mild rain; which would have been refreshing had I not already been drenched and freezing from the wet and cold wind. And yet - I had such a good time even while the rain was pouring. Honestly, I do love the rain.

And now, the second point(s) of focus [and yes, I do realize how pointless it is to nubmer this two since there may in fact be many - but it's a prgression thing and you just have to sort of go with it - and it is so late/early that my mind functions are slightly off-kilter. So there it is]. I had fun looking at Indian stores and finding pretty guns and knives at the Army Surplus store. That made me happy considering how bereft of any proper weapon I am here...sigh. Must buy the sword from Mickie. Must realize how much to pay for it. Must talk to him about it. Must own it regardless of its imperfections.

So, the trip in town. Widge, Avi, and I got matching necklace/bracelets made of interwoven leather. Both of theirs are dark brown, mine is a sort of light tan. We were hoping Ande would get in on the deal too - but it didn't work out that way. But the point is that we all went to town and got similar tokens of friendship and funness [note: These are expressively not friendship bracelet/necklace attire. We just thought it would be fun to buy something similar to remind us of this time and each other years down the road. So there it is.]

Later, we went to the Tie Rack and I found a wonderfully lush velvet two-sided scarf. It was so lovely. Avi ended up buying it - and Widge sponsered a black fuzzy scarf for me because he insisted that Yout must have it. It is so you, regardless of the fact that I didn't have the funds in order to do so. It's an early christmas present...hehe. I'll get him back. Just you watch!

And why do people keep offering me food, monies, and the like? Why does everyone offer to buy nearly everything for me - when I can't afford it? It's so strange, and yet so amusing really. Not to mention that buying things is just in Widge's bloodstream. Although, the most amusing exchanges are between he and Ande. Those are the most fun =0D

Oh yes, that also reminds me...Alright!. Ha!

Remind me to explain that in a later post when I've got more time and more finger power and such. It's not a terribly long story, but I have already had to re-tell it twice in the past day, so I'd rather let it ferment and gain age before I resurface the thing again.

One other odd note: we keep running into the same group of people in random places - just with different group members at different times. It is quite odd and amusing that these same people keep cropping up all over the countryside.

So I do believe that is it for now. I have to scuttle off to bed at some point and actually get some sleep, unlike the night before when I stayed up until the bright hour of 6.00. It was stellar, and yet - quite alarming the next morning when I tried to get up. But the map is sooooo pretty.

That makes me glad.

...sigh. At least something still does.

Oh, maybe it's jsut the weather, though I doubt that. Or maybe it is the time of year or day or month or week - but it's just one of those times, you know?

Yes. It is one of those times, and I am feeling one of those ways.

I wish I wasn't, but I am. So there you have it. I feel that old way again, and I'm trying to help it - but it's difficult...

especially when you miss food from home like McDonald's fries, regular ketchup, Los, and even the caf food (I know how scary this is, but bear with me anyway). I think jsut signs that I am finally starting to realize taht I'm not at home and I'm not going to be there for a while...

and yet, drinking 6 cups of different teas while eating vanilla popcorn and watching Princess Bride and Ivader Zim in seemingly unlikely places like the kitchen did truly make me happy. This evening was one of the best times I've had all year.

It was great, even with the shushing that we acquired from random people thinking we were much too loud for the apparent late hour at which we were inhabiting the area.

But no matter. I still had a stellar time, and I think the day will close with those thoughts so that I can go off to bed and try to get some sleep after the horridly late/early night/morning I had yesterday...or rather the day before...however you want to put that.

So, goodnight it is for now, until better things happen or worse things unleash.

-RK

2 a.m. and chips

Well, it was...50 minutes ago. But you get the point. So anyways...

Up all night working on a map of Artana. Much good stuff with RPG. I am so happy! I have initiated myself into the world of RWRTRPG. That's right!

If you haven't RWRTRPGed, you need to. Simple as that.

So the map is drawn (We love you Avi) and now to label the many towns. Oh so many towns.

Towns and techno music. There is no better way to spend a night, really. I mean life has a hard time getting better than maps, techno, and walking through the rain in Uggs and pajamas. Not to mention is was all prefaced by fish & chips at what I've lovingly termed the NEW Los - The Red Lion.

I love that place. Two meals - 6.95. Does life get any better than this.

Oh...sigh...I'm sure it could. But as my paper-journal says; the dreams are empty. And yet, they still exist. Somewhere in there, inside my mind and my heart - still existing as if they had some kind of meaning. But do they? And if they do how can that be if they feel so...so hollow. So empty. Why would they feel this way if there were more beyond the horizon. Why would life feels this way if there were more in the future? Not more of the same - but more of those dreams...those vibrant, living, breathing dreams. Not these dreams...just dreams that slowly became the nightmares that haunt me as I lay awake at night...

But it isn't so important, is it now? No. Because for now, it's a friday night and I have towns, techno, and full of good chocolate. I may feel like there is a brick in my stomach - but I had good eats today. Fish, chips, teddy grahams, tea with cream & sugar, and digestive biscuts. Really - I almost do feel content.

At least it was good.

On that same note - I reminisced about Lousy Area's caf food today. That's right - be very scared! I sure as all things green was. I mean I'm sitting there in the R.L. waiting for my much-yum fish & chips to arrive, and suddenly - as if out of thin grotesque air - the image of Lousy's fries and taco meat came to mind. My mouth actually almost watered...HEY, I said almost. Sheesh, give me a break.

But that aside...friends are good. But people really are the same the world over. Not to mention people just remind you how empty dreams can be. Oh well.

I guess such is the life that does continue.

...sigh. Sometimes, I wonder why I go on with it. Why I dream the dreams I do. Why I think the ways, the things I do. Why I want the things I want, and why I am the way I am.

But I guess that doesn't change much. No, no. People just don't change much. We may want to - but we don't. And unless someone proves me wrong, I don't think I'll ever be changing my mind. I've seen too much, known too well, and been here to long to just believe anything. I've lived too long to think people change and not long enought to know without a shadow of a doubt that I'm right. But...I won't change until I'm proved.

So if you can change. Prove it to me. I might believe you.

-RK