Maybe

It’s strange how we can come back to a familiar place after so long and still feel lost. There’s so much to catch up, so many new experiences and opportunities waiting, and so many new faces, that’s its hard not to get excited. And I am excited, except then why do I already feel the days growing longer? Why do I find myself yearning for something or someone new?

Maybe its the back-to-school blues. Those few days before a routine kicks in and you are left floating without wind and without a compass. Maybe in the next week or two, all the pieces will settle into position and I’ll start to feel like I’m fitting into the right place.

I don’t mean to imply that I’m unhappy or disappointed, I think I just need some special concoction: three parts structure and rigidity, one part old friendships and one part new friendships. Now, those ratios may not be exact, but the essence is the same. I need a structure to keep me moving forward, otherwise I drift off to the side and wind up stranding myself in hours of mindless Internet surfing and nights of self-rumination. I need the old friendships for points of reference, something on which I can lean backwards onto to remember more favorable winds. And I need new friends and relationships to stimulate my interest and keep my engines running. Despite my numerous sailing metaphors, I think this is what has me weighted down right now.

I’m not depressed and I’m not quesioning where I want to be, I think I’ve just stalled out at the starting line of this semester, even one day in. Maybe I’m lonely, maybe I’m lost, maybe I’m realizing that I’m not as social as I’d like to be, or think I should be, or maybe I’m just waiting for a routine. I have such an amazing semester ahead of me, I don’t want to be the one thing that brings me down.

Maybe I don’t even feel this way. Maybe its that I write better when I brood. Maybe I want people to see someone other than the guy I present in-the-flesh. Or maybe its just the night time, bringing out everything dark that lingers in the corners of our hearts and minds. Maybe.

Stranger than Strangers

Hello Stranger,

I do not know you and you do not know me. But to be truthful, to both eachother and ourselves, that is a lie. We know of eachother. As we walk past eachother, we recognize eachother’s faces. We hear eachother’s names drifting off the lips of others, that name sparking something within us, our ears perk up.

Why? We don’t know eachother. We are rumors to one another. Then why do our eyes follow one another as we pass, as if we both know the truth of our silence: that we are known to one another. As if we know that there is something so much more we could find out about eachother if we just stopped and said hello.

We could be something so much more than a face to one another. Behind that face, there is a voice, a mind, a thought, a belief, a passion. All of those things are lying just behind our faces. But we do not stop, we do not wave or nod. We simply walk on, our eyes drifting after one another, fleeting in their hope that our bodies will do the same.

But I am an honest man, I know that that we will never stop, and so I continue on my path that does include you. Your face will remain in my mind for only a moment before it disappears only to return for yet another split second tomorrow.

But who are we kidding? I know you and you know me. So why don’t we just stop and say hello? We are not strangers in this world, we are something more: both knowing eachother but refusing to accept that recognition. No, we are something more than strangers and something more than familiar faces. We are something stranger than strangers for we deny our attentive ears the voice that waits behind the face.

Optimisim

Strange, isn’t it? That in six days I’ll be across the country, with a different set of people in a different sort of environment. Yes, it’s school-time kids, and it’s bearing down on us like a freight train that we can’t even see or hear yet, but believe it or not, it’s almost about to hit us.

Strange how that works though. How the summer feels like it started so long ago but its end still feels distant. I don’t think it’s the time that really creates that feeling either, I think it’s the events in between. Between today and the morning of my flight, so much has occur. From packing to shipping my car to those ten trips to CVS everytime you forget something.

As for the summer leading up to today, it really has been a long time since May 12th. But once again, I feel as if the summer’s speed is more defined by events than time. I had a screenwriting class, I worked at three different farmer’s markets, I’ve wasted hours of my life playing video games, and I’ve lost myself in the emotional throes of Olympic spirit.

In retrospect, my summer has been relatively uneventful, to be honest, which has made the gaps between each event drag and damn near depressing. But I’m here in good spirits and I’m feeling optimistic. Optimisitic about my coming semester, the classes I’ve chosen, the internship I’ve landed and the friendships I hope to strengthen and expand. And as lame as it sounds, I’ve set (loose) goals for myself this semester that I really think will help me enjoy this semester more than my prior two.

Summers are long, but they’re good for brooding, thinking and reflection. And although I often feel like I’m doing more brooding than anything else, its been a good experience being to think about my last year; the type of person I was, the decisions I made (and didn’t make) and my general attitude.

Optimistic. That’s what I like to think I am.

Olympic Spirit

The Olympics is the only sporting event that I really, honestly care about. I’m not really a big sports fan in general, but something about the excitement, the grandeur and the spirit of the Olympics really grabs me. It’s the only time when the world actually recognizes itself as a single-unit, not a collection of individuals.

I know I sound overly optimistic and tend to gloss over the major political significance of the Olympics, especially this year. Its hard to ignore the issues that face our world when we see North and South Korea walk separately or when we are reminded of China’s record on human rights. These are not issues that can be brushed aside or ignored, but something inside of me is very upset at the politicizing of these Olympics. These next two weeks are an international white flag, a call for peace and harmony across the globe. I fear that this spirit of unity has been lost this summer.

I truly love the Olympics and everything that they are meant to symbolize. And, as ignorant as it sounds, I believe in the new image that China is trying to portray through these games: One World, One Dream.  And though they  have so much to work on, I have the feeling that these games have galvanized the government and the people of China to actively pursue a more cooperative, responsible and open society. And I only hope that the rest of the world picks up on these queues.

I hope that these Olympic Games create a spirit of love, compassion and cooperation for each other, regardless of our nation or our beliefs.

August 4th (Please, Please, Please)

August 4th is a day that makes me ashamed. Over 300 views of my page, good news right? Horribly, HORRIBLY wrong. 273 of said views came from the search term “sex,” the rest coming from search items containing the word sex, totalling 310 views of my post “Sex and Violence,” with a few casual views to my other posts.

Honestly, this is just getting embarassing now. Depressing even. I started to write here so that people could read what I have to say, maybe even start a dialogue with some of them. But now, I think the only people reading this are a few of my friends (which I always appreciate, so thank you) and hundreds of incredibly horny 14 year old boys who don’t know where you find porn. I ‘ll give you a hint kids, DON’T LOOK FOR PORN ON A BLOGGING SITE. Really getting desparate, I’ll even point you in the right direction. Here’s a quick little list that will keep you entertained for hours. Hours.

www.xvideos.com; www.youporn.com; www.redtube.com; www.bangbros.com

There you go. Happy? I realize that this is partly my own fault for titling  and tagging my post so suggestively, but still, what do people really expect? But, for the sake of educating the youth and hopefully, God willing, make some of these horny kids away.

Not that they are leaving lewd comments or anything of that nature, its just really upsetting when you see your blog got hundreds of views in a single day, oh wait, they’re all from horny ass little kids and sad, single, middle-aged men.

So please, please, please, please, read this for its content and not its title. I’m not here to write about my (lack thereof) sexual experiments or “sex positions with real people,” I am here to feel self-important and write about whatever is on my mind in an attempt to get non-important issues that I have dwelled too much on off of my chest. Once again, I appreciate all of my friends and any other people who have actually taken the time to read what I have to say, but please don’t come knocking for pictures of two girls and a donkey in a Mexican circus. Please, please, please.