from the beginning i never knew when to stop…

Worst of all i never knew when to start.



So school has started again. After a month of letting my brain shut down, it all started all over again. i’m not sure if excited is the correct way to describe it. I feel a little more weary, especially now that i have to factor in an hour commute. but a couple weeks into it and i don’t feel any worse for wear. I’m starting to get used to waking up at 545 in the morning to get on the road in time. As it is i should be asleep as i type this. but i’m not. school is school, and it’s good i’m no longer left feeling stuck in that city, that i can start to roam the earth in pursuit of new and interesting experiences, but i must admit that the convenience was nice. the solitude was nice. the peacefulness was nice. the way nothing was surprising or different was nice. the rut was nice.



but nice is just nice. it isn’t the real extremes that help to define taste. it just is. so i am glad that part is semi over, but also missing what i’ve grown accustomed to. but that place has been quickly losing the things (people) that made it all relevant in the first place.



so forge a new life similar to the ones that i’ve previously lived. does that mean i’m bound to the follies of what i’ve tread before. or do i get a redo. or am i really just kidding myself. my life is mexico city. built upon the trash heap of my ancestoral existence. new things trampling and grinding the emotional wreckage of years gone by into a fine well versed dust.



yes. yes. and yes.


and somehow no.



i get a chance to just let things be the way they are without really having to change much. too caught up in everything and too smart (or dumb) to forget anything. ghostlike. they linger in my brain and heart. and not at all apparitions. real tangible people i know and love. sometimes in conjunction with other people i know and shouldn’t love. at least love at the same time.



you can’t accuse me of being timid. I tried and tried until i was plum tired. and i still won’t stop. can’t stop. i’m deluded that i’m not being delusional. i have said more and can go on and on, but i’ll wait for face time to say what i think of you. what i think of … us? that might be the best way to phrase that. not really an us to think of. conjured us. make believe us. they’re not too far off from real us, but the differences feel monumental and the odds insurmountable, when i line them up and take tally of them all.



in a semi pathetic moment, but one that perhaps shows my strength. i want to know how you feel. every person i’ve ever been involved with. i want to know how you feel. about me. about love. about like. i want you to make my knees crumble. good or bad. i want to beg you to tell me your heart. that’s all i’ve ever wanted. and i half way believe that that’s all i’ll ever want from anyone. okay, maybe a fifth or two at least.


but i would never beg for that. (or have i in less clear headed moments that i’ve tried to forget? i just don’t remember) there’s just something too desperate. i’m not trying to be slick or to trick you into something miscued from maybe a sad look in my eyes. i’d like it unsolicited, much in the same way that i went about the whole ordeal.


I can’t help but want that. and i admit it to convey that i’m scared and just want to have my fears alleviated. to know that i’m not so entirely screwed up that good people are incapable of loving me.


selfish i know…

The world is not flat, it’s just big.

And with the quickness, I am back to this thing.


a brief recap of my life from last we met. I had to move. i had to finish up the fall quarter. thanksgiving. uncle passed away. funeral. not living where i worked. commuting. finish moving. make art. do grades. life in general.


so here i am.


what could i tell you that could make sense of the things that i’m thinking. i have more to say and more to do. i’m just exhausted by life. my heart and head are tired.


this has been the most amazing thing. writing this blog, being able to communicate to everyone out there with such candor, i feel really amazed that i’ve done this (relatively) consistently for an entire year. i feel that i’ve grown and worked a lot of things out.


i fell in love a long time ago. and the thing about that feeling is that it doesn’t seem to stop. we try to guide it to our whims and our desires, but the truth is that we are just helpless in its presence. we have no choice in the matter, it just happens and we can only do our best to make sense of everything and just try to do what we feel is the right thing to do at any given moment.



my life, more so the people in my life, are all in different places. and i’m afraid that i am stuck wherever it is that they aren’t for the moment. and while that makes it difficult to forge ahead, it is not impossible. the people i love know that i love them, even if i hold my tongue and keep it just to myself. my heart is not that good at keeping up the illusion. not that i ever wanted to, not that i ever had to. i just understand restraint. i understand scaling back, but by no means is it an easy thing to do. i want to pour it all out, give it all. my life. yours.


if i am to keep going, i don’t need anything but the feeling that what it is i’m doing is true to me. now, the here and now, hasn’t offered any more clarity then what was afforded me when i started documenting my travails. All i have now are the feelings and emotions i forged a long time ago. distance has indeed made the heart grow fonder. those old feelings are the foundation on which i build some endless construct of new thoughts and desires. it is my own tower of babel, reaching for something that i might understand is impossible, but my own hubris and yearning keeps me trying, stops me from giving up. And maybe i’m not as obvious now, maybe i’m not as forward, but i’m still here. still giving what i can.

does that offer any explanation of my situation? i’m sure i stated that even though part of something may be over, it is actually far from over. We are in a different phase, a different place and time. there is no resolution because that would mean that this has ended. and i never want this to end between us.

hold it up, you’ve lost enough.

i’m really glad that school is starting back up.


I know that it really never stopped, and that i didn’t get that much time off, but this is the start of a new academic year and there is a palpable level of excitement in the air. There seems to be more life occurring in this place. maybe it’s because i was here when no one else was here, so the difference is noticeable.


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I have a tooth ache. it’s not really in pain, it’s just acting all sensitive, and i’ve never really had that happen before so it is noticeably annoying.


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So i have had a lot of time to myself. lots of time to think and pretend and wish and hope and sober up to reality and sober up to the fact that what i think and pretend isn’t reality. I’ve been thinking a lot of my situation for the past year or two. I think that because this feels like a new start, the past becomes imbued with a feeling of fiction. Not that i don’t think that it was real, it just feels so make believe. Like it was almost a lifetime ago. suffice to say i have had little contact with anyone involved. maybe the reality is that i have had little contact with anyone that was connected to the last 2 years of my life. It’s like they all stopped existing, but it feels like there is something missing. I miss these people.


and now, now i am in a place that was only worthwhile because of the company, because of the friends i made, and mainly because i felt close to a girl. I wanted to be here to be with her, and now she’s gone and i am trying to understand this place in a way that might allow me some happiness while i am here. And to clarify it isn’t bad, it just isn’t good. So i have a desire for it to become good.


But ini, I don’t know how that ended up. I’m still waiting for the denouement. maybe it’s like people were saying, that this is the sign that i’m looking for, that this is her reaction. i don’t know. i don’t want to be delusional, but i don’t want to give up hope either. I think that at the end of it all, i want to believe that there is the potential for something that can be lasting, not at all a flash in the pan, so i keep that in the back of my head, and i refuse to concede that anything is over, it’s just always in progress.


i want to hear her voice. she speaks so softly and the words pour out of these pretty lips i can’t help but stare at them and connect the two, so as to form a memory that could last forever.




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i got a bunch of new music that i’d like to share with you


from the archives.


i went through some cds of yore and downloaded them onto my computer (which is new, but recent rumblings of a new mac coming out make me want to get a new newnewer one). The first is Leona Naess ‘Comatised’. I dug her up because i saw that she had a new album out on itunes. this disc from 1999 holds up pretty well for being 9 years old. She is a folky rock singer, heavy on the reverbed acoustic guitars, and has a wonderful voice. In the vein of feist and new buffalo, she is a great songwriter and performer. I won’t promise that it will blow your mind, but it’s a nice record and her last one was pretty good too. I think that her newest one has been getting good reviews but i have yet to pick it up. Anyway, comatised shows no signs of being too dated and fits very well in the music landscape right now.



I don’t know if i’ve talked about this one before. Orbital ‘in sides’. I used to be so into electronic music way back when, and this album was awesome, particularly ‘the box’. everything about this song builds and builds and becomes more complex resulting in this catastrophic yet very melodic wall of sound. + it makes use of being recorded in stereo. the entire album plays out this way. there is nothing too difficult about any of the songs, good beats, good breaks, catchy tunes. orbital makes serious music fun, they are much more palatable than the orb, and not as obnoxious as the crystal method or chemical brothers (but they were of different styles so…). I loved this album and would play it all the time. It goes well with a booming sound system or being played a little bit more softly and just chilling out with it.


Next on the wayback machine is Moby ‘Early Underground’. This is a collection of moby’s early house tracks way before he made play and became ultra annoying by talking and being someone people want to hear talk. This dates back to 1993 if that helps any. I remember picking this up brand new. The house and rave scene was at its peak, and these songs were the epitome of getting out there and dancing. A lot of stuff from that time is emberrassing to look at and listen to. This however was alright. It’s been years since i listened to this and it had a lot of memories attached to it, but more objectively the songs were good. try to find this and give it a listen, if you’re old like me this might make you nostalgic, if you’re young it might make you wish that moby was better than people give him credit for now-an-days.



New Stuff


Kings of Leon were on SNL last weekend and did an amazing job. their new album titled ‘Only by the Night’ was just released and they keep with the thing that makes them so amazing, foot stomping and rousing songs. This time around it seems like the songs are soaring a lot more often than previously, maybe it’s a sign of their getting older. This is a great album GO GET IT NOW! KOL needs more listeners and more people into them, i’m hoping to elevate musical tastes, and this is a good one for the cause.


And a new TV on the Radio record ‘Dear Science,’ just came out. They can be a difficult band to get into, but are well worth the listening investment. This album is more of an up tempo album than cookie mountain. a lot easier to get into this one, if you haven’t heard TVOTR start of with dear science and work your way backwards. their first album was some strange doowop prog thing that i enjoyed, but i have to sort of say it like i’m asking myself as much as i am telling you. But this one is coming together pretty nicely and i have listened to it a couple times on some long drives, it keeps me interested and excited throughout the whole album, nothing too wandering or meandering into obscure musical territory.

I have a bunch more music to review, and other stuff as well. next post. + the return of catagories!

we are getting closer to being further

you have the most beautiful eyes. they make me wish i could see the world the way you do. my tired eyes are tired of the way they see the mundane. but the one thing that makes my eyes better than yours is that i can look at you. i get to see you. i get to be amazed and awe-inspired by you.


i believe in you. i have hope in you. and seeing you gives me hope.


hope that this is all worth everything. hope that i’m the right person.


you have the most beautiful smile. sort of perfect due to its flaws (but its flaws are really few). it is the sort of smile that is uncontrollable, better yet it isn’t containable. it unabashedly arrives on your face in a way that permeates the atmosphere and melts hearts. often it is too much to take in, like staring at the sun.


when i met you so long ago, i knew within those first few moments that i was into you. you posses that unquantifiable thing that makes you better than 99.9% of the rest of the world. you have that thing that makes you stand out from everything else. And while the eyes and smile (and really, everything else about you) are all very very enjoyable, it’s this other thing, this unnameable thing that makes me want to be around you. maybe it is you in your totality, or maybe it’s just one thing added on top, whatever it is, for me you are the one that i long to be with.


i know, it sounds crazy. but at the same time it’s completely sane, written down as adroitly as possible in plain english.


by the way my name is mark (but i’ll still go by boreyou).


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i was digging through some old cds and dvds the last time i came home, so here are some things that i’ve brought back with me.


i have a fond spot in heart for Hall & Oates. i don’t really know specifically what album because i have a greatest hits plus 3 cds that i’ve picked up in discount bins at gas stations while out on long drives. But they are such a great band and write such perfect songs. they hold up really well, and i think that is due in part because they don’t really get that passing interest in 80s soft rock like other bands such as journey and chicago. there’s really no irony to listening to their music because it is really straight forward and really good. i could list a bunch of different songs, but really you can’t go wrong with any of them.


i dug up 2 old Brand New Heavies albums, “Brother Sister” and “excursions”. Both of these have NDea Davenport as their singer, and were the albums when they were at their peak. They have released a bunch of albums since then with a few other singers, and recently reunited with NDea to put out a new record. But these 2 are early 90s london funk at its best. And while Jamiroquai (with bassist Stuart Zender) might have been the more popular band associated with the genre, BNH did it right and without being gimmicky. So if you are interested in dance style tracks of the 90s that aren’t too electro or house, this is worth a listen. (but i do have to say that the videos from these albums are sort of cringe inducing, sort of in a Clueless fashion sense)


i’m not sure if i’ve talked about it before but Curb Your Enthusiasm is a fantastic show. it is perfect. and i bring it up because i recently saw that there was an ad for all of the seasons being on sale for 17 dollars each, which is so much better than when i bought them at full price (but well worth it still). anyway it was at bestbuy which i sort of despise but still go to.


and it seems that i like a lot of things that just don’t have any longevity to them like Arrested Development, NewsRadio, Veronica Mars, Cavemen (yes cavemen). And not to be excluded in that list is the always talked about “Freaks and Geeks”. I love that show so much. everything about it was so well done. And it rang so true to life, not ever glossed over or dolled up. it is one of the bests things ever on TV. I think sometimes that it is sort of better to have these shows end the way they do, that it helps maintain their quality and their mystique. i have to hide the dvds of this show because when i start watching i can’t stop. i end up watching all the episodes and disappearing for a few days, which is not good for work.

I just want to know if you’ve got room in your heart.

I just realized that i’m sort of lacking realistic concern towards the future. It feels like i am really set on being in the moment. And i feel that i have to force myself to consider the outcome of my actions and situations in life. And furthermore that having to do this is the root of my over-thinking. I think that that sounds reasonable.


i’m ready for this to happen in the worst way possible. i just want something to occur. And i feel a little tired of instigating or initiating these things in my life. I feel like being lazy and letting it come to me. But then part of me thinks that time stops if i stop trying, that i have to keep on keeping on because no one else will do it for me.

I’m used to this.





on a related but completely divergent tangent, i want to say sexy things. i want to fill your head with the sort of prose that might make you want to kiss me. maybe less the idea that the words are doing anything, and more that you might just want me to shut up for a second. i’m sort of didactic when i say things of this nature (in case any of you were curious).

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one album to talk about right now.


This one is an oldie but goodie. Goldie’s ‘Timeless’ is a great album. it is drum and bass, so that puts it in the category of electronic, but really it is so much more than that. It is gospel and r&b, along the lines of marvin’s ‘what’s going on’, but electronic (and i sort of despise the term electronic or electronica because back then we just called it all techno, and then there were sub genres.). This came out in 1995, and it makes me remeber being a crazy pent up high schooler. i had so much going on inside of me, and i felt that all i needed was the right place to let it all out. It makes me feel the sort of frustration i had back then, but also it gives me the hope i had as well. i don’t know what came over me last night, but i was struck with the feeling to find my copy of it and listen to it again. I think the last time i listened to it was around 2000, before i made the commitment to pursue education more seriously. it has so much going on, it is such a dynamic album. But back in high school i felt like i found a gem in this album. i would be a bit more selfish with my music and have a sense of ownership over records that i felt responsible for. i have this both on tape and on cd (just an aside to how much i like this album).


anyway, this album is a deep album that can get you moving, or just chill out and get into a head nodding sort of mood. Go listen to the album, it’s perfect (and don’t really bother with saturns return, his second album).

An open letter to whom my concern once garnered.

dear xxxxxxxxxx,

what happened? the last time we talked, where did we leave it? i just can’t figure out what it was that you wanted. i’ve never been angry at you before that day. well maybe i was angry at some point. but i just didn’t let it out. i didn’t get angry at you.



i am frustrated with everything that has transpired, and that is painful and makes me mad that i wasn’t able to do anything about it.



and your reluctance and apathy towards any attempt of salvaging this thing, being so unrelentingly blaze’ about the whole thing really destroyed this love i have had in my heart.

but love can be shattered, and hearts can be broken, but the shards and pieces don’t just disappear. they sit there inside that chest cavity, and sort of shift and jostle around while they lodge themselves into the soft fleshy insides.


i tried on numerous occasions to resuscitate what we have. and the only time it would even approach that, was when we were nearing dire straits and would try to reel it back in. try to catch a bit more of that magic (fleeting) feeling.


did you try too? i think you did, but maybe i didn’t see it.


we both just gave up i think.


what does it all add up to. i can’t see the forest for the trees.


so does it work, us taking this breath. i am resisting urges to recoil back to the comfort of the white noise of life.


sincerely,

xxxxxxxxxxx

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well it is not that sad. it is hard to think that this feels normal. i feel like moving on with my life.


ini. i think you still read this. i want to figure so much out. you need time and space to work on stuff. i’ve got al the time to give you.


sigh…



hahaha. i feel kind of all over the place. up and down, happy sad. i am crazy.

my life could be in shambles. but it’s not.

i’m sort of exasperated. i’m a little tired of my life right now. i’m not trying to be so down in the dumps. it feels like i can’t really look at this right now. i just don’t feel that it would have been productive for my own well being. so i felt that i had to walk away from this for a bit. a couple weeks off was not much in terms of time, but it did a great service to me just getting my head in a better place. so i apologize for the sudden disappearance.


things become unclear the more time is moving forward. while i have started to make some plans for the future in regards to employment, i still don’t know what to do after that is up. And that’s the thing about working as a lower level teacher in college, you really are just at the mercy of the people in charge. and i’ve tried to accept it, i’ve tried to prepare myself for the end of my time in the place that i am currently at. i’ve started to tell myself that it will all be good once i go back to my home. but now, new things may open up here, and that throws a wrench in my retreat. if the school offered me more time up here, i’d have to take the job. i can’t not take it. i want the job. but it feels like i’m drawing out my return. it feels like i ran away from something and i’m just doing things in order to keep running.


but that’s only one side. i knew what i was getting myself into. i have hope that this is all for something greater in the future. that i am investing in myself, my life. but this struggle of job security has me really worried. i have hope in my heart that this will work out, but it’s waning. i just want to know that it will be. and i know that i just can’t see it yet. it’ll get there.



life and love and all that stuff.



and what of love?


i don’t know.


it sucks to have a broken heart. that’s all i can say.


i try. i want love and i want to be a good person. so that’s what i’m trying to do. i am putting myself in positions that i feel correct. i am enacting actions i feel are right.


i want that feeling. i want that girl across from me to want me as much as i would want her.




i wish i had the chance for us to be close. give me the chance to hear what you have to say to me. i want to rest my hands across you.

i used to think i knew something. now i know better.

there are these long pauses in life. sort of agonizing in their duration. it feels like the moments between when ini and i are within each others’ vicinity seem to be getting larger and larger, while conversely the time we spend is dwindling. you might chalk it up to her not liking me. i might chalk it up to the same thing too. or maybe it is my inaction that is the culprit. but i want to say that i’m trying. i’m trying to do what i feel is needing to be done. and maybe she just doesn’t feel the same way i do.



but then, how exactly do i feel?



i’m fine, thanks for asking.



no really, i’m fine. but how do i feel about everything right now, i suppose is the better question.




i guess everything is the same. i really feel like we need to give this a shot, her and i. at least i feel like it deserves everything i’ve got to throw at it. but these gaps, these ever expanding chasms between us are starting to take their toll on me. not at all dissuading me to keep trying, but making me at least wonder for how long should i go on. do i need to take a hint at this? are these actions, or inactions rather, the things i need to see. or am i looking too far into something that is maybe nothing at all. and i don’t mean that this relationship between her and i, the friendship we have or the romance i want, are nothing. i meant that i’m looking too hard at every nuance that it’s starting to be more destructive then beneficial. but love does that i suppose. it amplifies everything. makes everything bigger and more meaningful, and sometimes that makes the world harder to stomach.


and i think of the future. i think of what do i do if this happens. what do i do if it doesn’t. i have no ideas. and even more so it feels like life is really going to come knocking on my door soon enough. i know that this life that i’ve had, sort of nomadic and free, yet stable enough to participate in, is winding down finally. and i don’t know what’s next. there doesn’t seem to be anything i can be sure of for the future. i have no anchor. and i suppose to continue a nautical metaphor, the wind is blowing in every direction. all i have to do is steer.


but love is a wonderful place to be. sort of scary. it makes my heart race, or rather, she makes my heart race. i’m jonesing for her in the worst way. and maybe it’s better to not see her. so that maybe the inevitable of this thing not happening is less heartbreaking. but the problem with that is that the lack of interaction is equally heartbreaking. i guess there is no winning at this game for me.


but i’m not sad or depressed by any means. i feel good about life. i feel excited by the potential. and part of that has to do with meeting ini in the first place. helping me understand what it was to have this all over again. i wouldn’t have done it without her.


my yearning is related to wanting to share this great thing with a great person.


and the other. what is happening there. nothing. we’re friends. i love her. but we’re not lovers by any means. it compounds its emotional wreckage by having to watch love alter in a way that it makes you feel like love is dying. maybe that doesn’t make sense. and maybe it does. i can’t tell the difference anymore. but i miss her. i miss the way my hand fit over hers. it’s hard to make sense of any of this. it gets more convoluted the longer time goes on, and all of this is just happening in my head. i hear voices (not really, and i’m not any more or less crazy than i am normal) and i have conversations that play out over and over again. sometimes they repeat reality and other times they are conjured out of the ether. and the line between the two is so blurry and crooked. i lack clarity. but then if i think it is it true if i think it is true?

maybe i’m having an existential crisis.


it wouldn’t be the first time.

but the complexities of all of this… it’s so hard to explain everything that is going on. i really am trying. i’m trying to be honest about this situation, but i know that every side has a different story, and i’m eager to listen to those.






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maybe something different to not think about the things we think about when we try not to think.


music. how about some music.


Kon & Amir released another great album “kon & amir present off track volume 2″. it’s available on itunes. they do an amazing job of finding some great tracks of rare soul and funk. this album has even better tracks than the first off track. it gets a little bit more consistently worldly than previous albums. in the past they have included cambodian (?) covers of songs, some dub and dance hall stuff, and other neat tidbits. in this album they dedicated a lot of time to some african inspired soul. really good grooves going on. i drove around town today, taking the scenic route just hanging out with that album.


And in a similar vein, i just got 9 or so albums of Fela Kuti. i’ve had ‘zombie’ for a while, but just recently got a whole slew of albums. Fela Kuti is often touted as africa’s James Brown. His songs have a long groove going on. the albums are lush in their orchestration, and while the jam can go abstract at times, the band is good at bringing it back with a thunder. pick up zombie as a good starting point or check out some youtube videos of him in action. also he has a pretty amazing story, sort of pales other musicians lives.


For a more contemporary sound, check out Omega Love. i have their self titled cd, and they have a new one on the way. Philly seems like the place for great music, and they definitely add to my perception of the city. they sound like… um i don’t know, a bunch of different bands all at the same time. i hear brand new heavies, the cardigans, esthero, and some other stuff as well. i’m excited about their new album because i heard a single off of it. check out their myspace.


and i just picked up Do Make Say Think’s ‘you, you’re a history in rust’. i’ve only listened to it a bit, but i’ve liked their previous albums. they make provocative (mostly) instrumental songs that range from indie pop to avant garde, a la broken social scene (one of my favorite bands ever).



and another i’ve picked up but have not listened to at all is wolf parade’s ‘feed the animals’. i loved their ‘apologies to the queen mary’ album so much, and i will write a review once i let it sink in.


And on a bad note, weezer’s new album (the red one) is verging on really really bad. i’m trying to give them a fair shake, and maybe i just don’t get it anymore or maybe it’s over my head, but this album is lacking in so many ways. the songs are overly simple and lack the complexities of songs like ‘only in dreams’ and ‘i just threw out the love of my dreams’ and ‘tired of sex’. And maybe this is a case of how pinkerton sort of disappointed at first in the shadow of the blue album but slowly became a piece of genius start to finish. The only problem with that thinking is that i’ve been saying that for the last 3 albums and it has yet to happen for any of those, and i sort of doubt it’ll happen with this one. stop doing what you’re doing and start proving me wrong, please!

okay i’ve been away a bit too long.

thanks for still checking in to see if anything has happened here, and sorry that nothing has for the last 10 days. i’m back.


so in the few days that i’ve been missing in action, a few things occurred. not anything in any gigantic sense, but things. and still i suppose that that is something.


school had come to a nice end. i felt as if i have accomplished something. and this is not a selfish proclamation. the students in my class all year long made amazing work. it feels like there is an energy, a sort of fervor, towards art making that has been a bit absent. at least during the time that i was doing my graduate studies there. There are confident kids out there that are making strong work, and i feel like i might have had something to do with that. that maybe i helped infect them with the love towards art making that i have, and that maybe they’ll remember me as they go on, the way i fondly remember the teachers that helped me get through my early stages. and more so, other faculty has taken notice to the work that i put into it, and they’ve given me kind words and encouragement to pursue teaching. i would like them to give me a more permanent job though instead… i’m kidding. no, but really if they gave me a more stable position that would be awesome. but i feel like i’ve had a positive influence on the students, and that they’ve built a good working relationship with me. and i look forward to working with them in the future.


to cap off the end of the year, the art department held an annual student show, and while the show as a whole was very good, i feel like the kids that i chose made some of the strongest work.


and i suppose that this is petty, but my teaching peer, who is also the guy that i sort of compete for jobs with, chose a student in my class to put in a piece that she had done in my class. and while they had worked together in the past, the fact was that he chose a piece that he had nothing to do with and that i had initiated. while he and i are still very professional and are somewhat friendly, there is still a sense of competitiveness between us because we are both jockeying for the same position.


but on the other end of the spectrum, a good friend was given a job at the school, and now he and i are in competition for positions. and i just found out that he was given the intermediate class while i was given the beginning class. this really bummed me out (as well as a lot of the students) because i feel really invested in helping the kids along. and i sort of see it as problematic because he is sort of notoriously very traditional and has a lot of strict rules set up that i feel could stifle or retard the students progression. but i know that it is good for them to get a range of teaching styles to expose them to new things, so i can’t be too mad. i just hope that he won’t mess them up. And furthermore, i understand that i might be a better fit for the beginning class because of this very reason, that i can start them off in ways that challenge traditional modes of making art as opposed to making them fit within those traditions, especially earlier on in their art education. in the end, i still want to work with the more advanced students and they with me.


and yet more about school. i know that i won’t be where i am forever, but i know that i’m there for a little longer, and it has been bittersweet to see two of my best students leave school for other places. they both were unhappy with what they were getting at the school (i assume myself excluded from that list) and are going to other places as of yet unknown. But they were the best i had seen, and i really hope that they got something from me. and they, as well as everyone else i teach, is always welcome to talk to me and talk about art from here on out ( not that they will read this or that you might care, but i put it out there anyway).


and after the student show ini and i (as well as a bunch of other people) hung out for a long time. this was the first time in a while, and i quickly remembered how easy it was. how fun it was to be around people you care about, people that matter. it makes it all right. it makes it alright. actually it makes it fantastic. and it made the heartache of the last 6 months sort of melt away. that at that split second in the length of a lifetime, everything felt amazing. i couldn’t ask for more. but that doesn’t stop me wanting to ask for more.

and it feels like there is yet more story to take place, more life to figure out. it feels like i can shed the fear of this all being so finite.

to whom it may concern, and really it may not concern anyone.

if i fell in love with you it was all on accident. i never set out to develop feelings, i never wanted that to happen, but it did. And now, in the thick of all of it, i don’t regret it one bit. I make no apologies for this. i couldn’t help myself from falling for you when i did. i am not the type of person that readily makes attempts at love, i’ve been wounded and wounded others enough to know that this, love, is not something anyone should brandish in a foolish manner. i try to be responsible. i try to be sincere.

I’m not sure what i want from all of this anymore. ini i am in love with you. i want you to feel the same way. But a part of me believes that if you feel that way it won’t make us be together. it will only break our hearts even more. i know you need to see what life has to offer, to find out what’s in store for you. and i want you to know, to find out by walking the road you set out to walk. But i know that if you do, then you are not going to be with me. so i am conflicted. And so, i ask myself is it enough to find out how you feel about me, which i hope is similar to how i feel, or am i hinged on being with you, on sharing life sort of more closely than friends? i don’t have an answer, but i feel myself leaning towards just knowing that i was able to make myself, however brief, someone who entered into your life and became something special enough. but it doesn’t stop me from wanting it all. or from wanting at all for that matter.

and right now, this moment that i type this, i’m yours if you want me. forget all that other stuff no need to mention it at all (but i will if you ask). i’m willing to start anew. to give this a shot like a shot should be given.





and it has not really been a distance that i have admired you from, but i want to explore closeness.




but then what if… what if you don’t feel that way, that you can’t bring yourself to have those feelings. where does that leave us? how does this change our friendship? i think i altered our dynamic the moment i let out the fact that i liked you. but i’m not sure what would happen. i am not the person that can sweep this under the proverbial rug, i mean look at all this that has been written. it was all for you, all because of you, at least at the onset. but i feel myself mature. i feel like i am well developed, that i am capable of existing without the possibility of romantic intentions while still maintaining a caring disposition to your general and specific well-being. i want to suffer from our closeness in the best ways possible (read that plurally as in there are myriad ways in which we can be close, also suffer in the way that it could mean the best thing possible.)



and here we are, nearing the denouemont of this dramatic chapter of our stories. i wonder with acute anticipation of finding out what happens next.

everyone must investigate inwards, always meandering, yielding our understanding rationally so intelligence finds yesterday’s other understanding without any / no trouble.

hello everyone


it’s been a busy few weeks for me. The time is winding down for the school year and so things have been even more hectic than previous quarters. There are lots of things taking place and so the future is not as solid as i had thought it to be. But only time will really tell how this all plays out. I am being sort of cryptic not because i don’t want to talk about it, but more that i don’t really know anything at this point. But i will say that it is about my job certainty.


i was thinking if things would allow, if ideally i could do it, i’d like to live out of the country for a year, just to see how other lives are led. And i think some of that willingness has come from how displaced i have been through my higher education and stint as an educator. And maybe i am reluctant to return to something that i am obligated to return to, but have no real understanding and comprehension of what it actually entails. So i want to run, prolong the distance because it keeps it intact only because i am not around to break it. This i will remain cryptic about, however if you have read this blog, you can surmise what i am talking about.


But on to different things. My camera is a little screwy, and i have wanted a new one for a while now, so i ordered one but it is on backorder and i have to wait 5 weeks, but that is alright with me. in the mean time my old camera will do, but i sort of don’t like the dust spots that have been appearing, and unfortunately there is nothing i can do to remedy it short of only taking pictures of the sun or the darkness. So i wait


But in the time between new camera paradise, i decided to supplement my desire of purchasing power by picking up a new laptop. I am a mac person, so i upgraded my ibook of 5 years to a new macbook. There is still some getting used to because i had the old one totally dialed in. And so now i think i might give my mom my other mac so she could have something to lug around. It’s still in great working order, i just needed the upgrade to run some different programs, so i’m not giving her a lemon. So new computer is fun and exciting.


And it has been a scorcher as of late in most of southern california, and it has sort of grinded my productivity and desire to go back home to a halt. Luckily today had been cooler and the nights are turning out to be perfect where i’m at. But it is definitely shorts weather. So i bought some new shorts, and i am pretty simple when it comes to that type of stuff, so i don’t really change it up too often. I do like different shirts however, so i am in the process of ordering a whole slew of new tshirts for my collection.




But on to something more juicy, something with a bit more gravity. I saw ini today, she was amazing. there is something about that girl that makes me start to fall apart. It was in a group setting but i could not take my eyes off of her, which was hard because i am a nice guy and people like to talk to me (i think). But i wanted to not hold back, and throw my arms around her and just tell her hello, i want to let everyone know what i think about her. how i feel. throw caution to the wind i suppose. actually i sort of want to throw everyone else around us into the wind so that we might be alone. There are people that have too much a vested interest in my life in too close a proximity, and i sort of need some space to just figure this all out. But i can’t be rude to them, i can’t blow them off, i find myself trying to appease a bunch of different people who all like hanging out with me.


oh… boo hoo. it’s not all that bad, it’s just sometimes it can be a bit demanding and too often it occupies my entire day that i can’t seem to get in sync with ini (which is what i really would like to do)


but seeing her today was the best thing so far this week, she trumps new computer and everything!

a slight respite in the middle of the night.

so i made it back to my home away from what was once my home. i made a decision to not battle the sun head on during my journey back, although i did procure an grand pair of old people eye protection that fits over my prescription antiojos. they are kind of cool, lots of funny, but serious business none the less. so under the cover of night i drove back to where i am needed. i had the windows down the whole way, and the semi warm night cut through my sweater in a way that made it the perfect climate to exist in.


i have an affinity towards the cold. it feels better. in my brain, i believe that the cold is better then the heat. let me tell you why.



granted i have never been in one of those situations where the temperature sits at a frigid below zero state for weeks at a time. people, at least initially at the dawn of homo erectus, were not supposed to survive that. Nomads would leave in search of more adequate climates. It is only recently, as people have settled into a state of stationary-ness, that we have had to endure that regularly. Although as i write this, i wonder about pre-western-history inuits, aleutians, and mongolians, did they live through that type of weather. but i do know that mongolians were more nomadic as they still are to this day. but whatever. basically mother nature is telling people to move on because it’s about to get frickin chilly. but i’ve never been in that type of cold. i think the most i’ve gotten to was a week of air in the teens, with wind at about 15-20 miles an hour, plus snow falling down at about a half foot to a foot a day. I think that is pretty adequate in terms of having some experience of some cold weather.



As for heat, i spent my formative years in the desert. summer days were in the 110s no problem, plus smog choking you out of any motivation, plus no means to get to a better place. It was a real feeling of stuck-ed-ness. Nights were no better. still in the 100s, i’d drench a towel in water and use it as a blanket. sort of like some backwards bizzaro-world thing, like reading books to get dumb. it felt sort of ludicrous when i first tried it, and still sounds crazy now, but it has been well integrated into my practice of suburban heat survival skills. so i’m pretty well rounded in that sense as well.



And as far as i’m concerned, there is no difference to a ‘dry’ heat. i detest when people say things like that. a dry heat. ‘at least it’s a dry heat’ . hmph. that was me being indignant to that sort of comment. sure humidity is pretty miserable, but really, when the day is 100 degrees, is it any better. it’s still bad. there’s no consolation in not sweating up an olympic pool. it still feels like crap. everything is sticky. the steering wheel burns your hand. your clothes cling too tightly the place where skin touches skin is like two pieces of tape meeting sticky side to sticky side. so it’s not better. it’s still bad. and as for experience. i’ve been to tropical climates for extended stays. heat over there is just as gross as heat over here.


but back to telling you why the cold is better. it’s pretty simple and a one dimensional answer, so here goes. you can always put on more clothes to get warmer, but you can’t take off more clothes to get cooler. you sort of reach a maximum level of nakedness, then you’re still hot. but you could add another layer, get more woolen items, don a down jacket, cover your head and retain 70 percent of your body heat.


i don’t know, call me crazy, but that seems pretty reasonable a reason to justify the cold over the heat.


so the cold and me are buddies. it lets me wear my collection of sweaters and jackets. the best is when you can wear shorts with a sweater. that’s confusing but makes perfect sense at the same time.


It’s sort of like some fashion contradiction that makes complete sense once you get into it.


i want really bad to take the night and share it with ini. just go out and watch the stars chase the darkness. wait until the sun comes up to make sense of all the craziness that we might be able to endure. i’m not sure that that would be romantic, i mean in my intentions, maybe more just enjoyable for the both of us. maybe something that would make the nights last longer and the days between them that much shorter. i want to have a soundtrack to those nights.





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and maybe part of that soundtrack would be Dr. Who Dat? ‘Beat Journey’. It’s sort of a smallish label release, so it’s a bit hard to come by. But it sounds like 70s spy movies even though it is found under the hip hop section. Sure there are the standard breaks, and it sounds like it’s related to some of the metal fingers stuff. but it’s something i just got and have been listening to. i just can’t stop.


and maybe for something on the opposite side of the spectrum, try out some glam inspired early new romantic (read 80’s) music. I just found Japan’s ‘adolescent sex’. besides the snappy and salacious title, the album is pretty intense. I think the single adolescent sex is such a funky dance track. sort of weird but totally enjoyable. they were inspired by bowie’s stuff, but really who isn’t and if not they should be. you can find a video on youtube somewhere and i’ll add it to my little video player on the right soon.

And if you haven’t heard, portishead is releasing a new album in just a few days. excited? i sure am. i love love love love portishead. their music was the soundtrack to my life. has been the soundtrack to my life. will continue to be the soundtrack to my life. if you get the chance to see them, i’m jealous. but if not, then we’re even. and if you haven’t already seen it they have a video of their concert at roseland ballroom from way back when out ( it came out ages ago). my vhs copy could use some updating, plus the fact i no longer have a vcr. anyway, new album titled simply ‘3′ out soon. pick it up. it sounds different from what they’ve put out before, but after 10+ years you should hope so. but there are tons of people writing about this so i’ll leave it there and just put out my support to one of my favorite bands.

And for LA people there are some great shows coming up. El-P is playing soon, i think at the el rey. Hall & Oates are playing as well. and really unknown Superdrag is playing at the Troubador. I’m excited about that. they had a minor single in the early 90s with ’sucked out’ then they sort of fizzled out commercially, but continued to release albums. I always liked them and have seen them 3 times and thought that they broke up to pursue other things 2 or 3 years ago. But i just saw them on a flyer and got all excited. They put on a great show. especially at the troubador. i’m pretty sure i’m going to go to that.




that’s that for now. see i came back with a better post than the last one. more coherent and more concise, and a whole lot cooler temperature wise.



and just to let you in on something of no real significance, i used every letter of the alphabet at least once (and not in order) to start the titles of the posts on here. ha. fun times.

Zealous chasing means two things. 1. the chaser wants something. 2. the chased does not want to be caught. Am i forever the 1. in life?

Reading over these posts, i have a hard time discerning if the dynamic i have described between myself and ini is in fact the way that i described it. It makes me wonder how much of this is fabricated in my brain. I’m sure, all of it is concocted to a degree, that i am telling or reciting the way that i believe things to be. But like Roshamon, there are so many facets to a single story. But you know what i mean. at least i hope you do.



but then there is the point. what i mean and what actually is, is so subjective. no mystery there i suppose. But then how do we understand truth. how do we comprehend complexity, boil it down into a single line. Something that we can gulp down, stomach for the time being, until further evidence, or greater enlightenment strikes at us like a scion of comprehension.


I love this life.


I love not knowing anything, but yet…


it feels like i know something. it appears that i have my head on straight, and that maybe the world and the situations that it presents to me are crooked.


I forget what it’s like to be like this, because i have no perspective on it. I’m so caught up in it all that i lose sight of the shape. I intended for these writings to help understand the form it takes, to maintain a view of the edges. This is some photographic evidence of what transpired in my mind. these are my thousand words worth. thousands upon thousands of words worth. I wish i could let you all in. let you all see this world that i live in. it’s a wonderful place. it has wonderful people. it took a long time to get here. but here i am.


and really there is no end in sight. falling in love all over again is like falling in love the first time. let’s do this forever.





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i have an affinity for soul music. When i was a young lad, i used to really love reggae and dancehall. My first tape was a dancehall tape that had a bunch of different artists on it (my first album probably predates this and is the soundtrack for Grease). I forget who all was on it, but i remember the cover being black and having pink painted feet on it. i miss that tape. But that led to an interest in hip hop. and the first tape or music i ever bought with my own money was Run DMC’s ‘raising hell’. If you have never heard this, i demand that you listen to it. In the canon of rap, this is the blueprint. To date myself, i bought it brand new. I don’t mean that it wasn’t used, that i purchased it when it was released. I remember wanting to go to the wherehouse to pick it up. i was a little kid back then and my mom thought i was crazy for listening to that crazy music.


And for a long time after that, there wasn’t much else besides hip hop that i listened to. It stayed that way for a good long while, probably up until 1992. then i got interested in electronic music, but that was part of the lifestyle back then. i remember being 14 and going to raves in old buildings or farms. But back then rap started to really go gangster, and that wasn’t that interesting. And while i had a lot of friends in gangs, the thing i was more interested in were all the old-school jams. roger & zapp, malo, tierra, tower of power, brenton wood. all great. and there was a radio show that played on the local channel that broadcasted (still does to this day) ‘Art Laboe’s killer oldies’ every sunday night. I remember listening, hoping in vain that i would get a song dedicated to me from some girl i never knew. I remember trying to work up the nerve to dedicate a song to someone i thought was special. I still get those feelings 16 years later.


but those oldies were the best. They made me think of how times might have been better way back when. But that thought turned into not thinking that it was actually better back then, but maybe it was good to look back fondly and let the songs help define and focus what you feel you remember. And listening to them, i started to notice how samples were used. I could hear an original song and trace it to a sample and vice versa. my musical catalogue was growing, and i could see how everything was drawing from everything. I knew for a long time that hip hop had used samples, that techno used samples, that drum and base used samples, but it took a long time to get to the point of connecting it to its original source.


And slowly my interest in hip hop waned. it had never fully disappeared, but i wasn’t too in to it. What i had become interested in was finding the old r&b and funk songs that were used in hip hop. I became a crate digger. not really for records, but for albums.


and now, i think that there are a lot of interesting things happening in hip hop again. but soul and r&b and funk are really what is getting me going.


For some good hip hop check out Madlib and what he does at StonesThrow records. There are some amazing things being released by them. more on that in the future. Also listen to MF Doom and the metalfingers thing. And maybe before that listen to madlib and mf dooms collaboration Madvillain “madvillainy”. it is great. great beats and strange flow make for an all around interesting album.


Another person to go check out is Ghostface Killah. His last 4 or 5 albums have been all solid. of course his ’supreme clientele’ is always talked about, but the new ones are so so so good. start with ‘the pretty tony album’ then the 2 ‘fish’ albums.


and yet another MC to listen to is El-P. ‘fantastic damage’ is great, ‘collecting the kid’ is great, ‘i
ll sleep when you’re dead’ is great, and ‘the high water lp’ is a great jazz album.


But maybe rap and hip hop is not your thing. maybe you want something a bit different. In that case listen to Kon & Amir. They have a bunch of hard to find albums out, that are all worth tracking down. “the Kings of Diggin” is (i need a better description than great and so good) great and so good. It’s a compilation of rare tracks all mixed together. it’ll cover your entire day. my only qualm is that the tracks are a little too short, but i’m talking 2 minutes instead of full tracks, so it’s really not that big a deal. But then things get way more interesting on “On Track volume 6″. they reach a fever pitch mixing everything so seamlessly. And just recently i picked up ‘Off Track volume 1′ on itunes (so that’ll be easy to get) and i have yet to stop listening to it. They find the greatest songs you’ve never heard and make everything work so well. i’m so jealous that things can be that good. Do not let this pass you by, if you like non stop soul grooves, then this is what you’ve been looking for. There is really nothing better.




And if any of you have anything that might be worth listening to or reading or watching let me know. let us know. thanks.

xanthic tendrils race down my spine. In vain efforts, I try to subdue them through bold actions and impudent decisions. By the way, xanthic means yellowish.

I am not sure what i am afraid of. I have an attitude that is a bit macho. I like to believe that nothing is really frightening to the degree that it would prevent me from doing something (especially if i can punch it). Now before you scoff in my direction, that is not to say that i am not afraid of giant cats or bears or other animals such as hippos. I have a rational respect for those things and i know that i should stay away from them because they will more than likely attack me and more than likely win. Also i know that i should feel shaky when i get close to a cliff, because i am at the mercy of gravity and such, and if i were to fall i would be hurt or killed. So i stay far enough away from dangerous cliffs. But sometimes i fight that feeling and go check out the edge. But i am not sure that i am afraid of it, just really aware of the danger involved. I can take responsibility for what may transpire if i enter into a situation that presents moments where i have the possibility to encounter a tiger or a cliff in its natural habitat.


But i am not talking about that. I am talking about something more irrational. Those things relate to a survival instinct. I saw a Desmond Morris special that showed that babies new better than to go crawl off a cliff (they set up a glass floor on top of a table and placed a baby on it. the baby crawled around on the ‘table’ but wouldn’t go past it into the ‘empty part’) The fear i mean are the things that we are scared of engaging with for no real reason other than fear. Like the fear of the dark. Sure there are reasons you could be afraid of the dark, like not wanting to stub your toe, but the deeper reason of that great expanse of the unknown. Fear of that is so amazing and strange to me. I like the idea of that great abyss. Of standing at the precipice of who-knows-what. But i understand why it is frightening. Who knows what’s out there. There is no safety in that void. You are put in a position where you have to chose wether or not you enter into it or stay in the safety of what you know.


I like the idea that i could willingly put myself in harms way. much like that cliff edge. I can let myself be vulnerable and open about these feelings i have. I can be wounded and strong all in the same instance. I see no reason to be afraid of that. I want to think that i have prepared myself for this. That i have prepared myself to take on anything, any trouble or problem that ever comes my way. That i can stand strong and headlong towards any adversity.


So i stand there.




nothing.


I’m not sure that nothing happens. Just that the things that i think i’m prepared for, the things that i prepared myself for, are not the things that are happening. In my head i play out these amazing fantasies that make me this bold amazing person. And i wait for that in real life. But the reality is much less exciting than the fantasy. And i think that that is the way that it is supposed to be. It makes me sad to think that life is a series of disappointments in the face of imagination. I don’t think that it has to be that way. Not permanently. Sure there will be times when things are not the way we might conjure up in our minds, but we can dare to be bold and brash and rambunctious. We are allowed to do the things we want.


except we must also be willing to suffer the consequence. And i think that is where we go wrong as a people, and i’m talking in broad generalizations. We are too afraid to lose what we worked for, too mortified that what we are headed towards might not be the right thing. We are scared to death of finding out that we might have been wrong.


and i am no better. i am just as, if not more so, but probably just as, a victim of my own circumstance. victim sounds good. i think that is the right word because i am the one that is suffering.



I try to tell my students to be bold, to be daring. If not now, then i doubt ever. so break that habit. I would rather see them fail spectacularly, than to have them maintain mediocrity. Life has enough of that. Let’s get the good stuff going, even if it means starting some of the bad.

But i am not afraid of doing that, of being that person. at least i hope so. or is it hope not. the one that makes me a better person is the one that i mean.





i am not afraid. (at least i think i’m not)

unless you can’t, halt yourself from trying to love the idea of love.

I wonder when it is that i will stop. I wonder when i will stop wanting what i want, wanting to feel a certain way. when will those things change? but maybe i need clarity to what it is i want.

it feels like a long time ago, but i met a girl, and we fell for each other. it was an amazing thing. i am no jilted lover, i am no unrequited piner, i am a person who acts openly and honestly and meaningfully. Would it have been better to have let it all go when she wanted to leave. instead i gave her a reason to stay, i showed her the person i truly am capable of being, and she knew that she wanted to be with me. so where did that love go after it had left and came back? when did it change after it had stopped being love and turned back into it? Where is it now, now that my life is different, now that i’m not holding on so dearly, so tightly. i was willing to let go once, after i realized i could not force someone to love me back, but that feeling never left. that fear i had of losing love was so strong, but to let that go was liberating, to be no longer a victim of the way the heart pulls at its own strings, the way that it sways your life like a tiny toy boat in the ocean, it wasn’t the boss of me. I finally felt like i was in control. but i was wrong. it still tugs and sways and turns me over. now, i’m just more willing to let go, knowing that i’ll be alive at the end, knowing that i’ll survive, and that no matter the severity of the scars that remain, i’ll come back able to use my heart, able to feel, willing to love again.

And in a moment, a split second of my life, i meet someone else, someone other than my other. Ini, her name that i gave her here, became something. someone to hope for, someone to cloud my dreams and occupy my thoughts. i knew that i was heading towards these feelings, but what could i do to stop them. it had felt that the trajectory was set, that i was going to feel the way i feel, no matter what i had done. And i was frightened. i was afraid of forcing a moment, losing a friend, overstepping my boundaries, being a cad, hurting feelings, bruising my ego, diminishing my pride, and there are many others i could list. but the one thing i wasn’t afraid of, but maybe i should have been cautious of, was falling in love. and that is what happened. i could tell you all the reasons that she was worthwhile to fall for, but that is mine, that is for me and her to know.

i fell for a girl in a moment, when on the other side of my world i was falling out with another. but none of that had solidity, had any foundations. It was all, and still is a fluid thing. this life is not static, nor is it set in stone. it has no path, it will go where it goes, i can try to steer it, try to divert it, but i am at its mercy.

and i told ini, i told her how i felt, how i was willing to risk all that i was afraid of for her. and in return she said things that were reasonable and understandable. she spoke with clarity and grace, and it made my actions feel brash and misguided. but they aren’t, they weren’t. I try to mean what i say and say what i mean, i prescribe to an economy of words (although that may not be apparent here) and try to be sincere with utmost sincerity. But the things she said, i’m not sure what it means, because in my mind, as it races and retraces the syllables hitting my ear, i dig in deep into semantics and context. The conversation we had had takes on nuances that may or may not have existed, that may or may not have been concocted in my head. And i am yearning for simplicity, and completely mortified of it. A ‘Yes’ or ‘No’ feels so decisive and permanent. Where are the grey areas? But the truth is it is those grey areas are what mess me up. It makes me make up hunches, it lets me play with the permutations, and lets me make hypotheses that probably would never occur.

So where does it end. Where did it even begin. I have such strong feelings for ini, but there are so many circumstances that could prevent reciprocation. And i think that at the top of my list i play with the idea of how she ultimately feels about me. is she as conflicted as i am, albeit not for the same reasons but conflicted nonetheless, or is this easy. I like to think that i am not so crazy as to think that she has something stirring inside of her for me. that there is some sort of mutual desire towards one another, and that i am not so me strange person who over reads a situation, who misunderstood simple friendliness as something more. i want to believe that she cares for me, that she might even like me, might even want me.

Maybe i am that misunderstanding guy, and if that were the case, i’m not sure that that would be all that bad. i am capable of hoping that i could have something grand, even if that were so unfathomable. what do we have if we have no hope.

But then where does it end. Wanting her. wanting to be with her. that might be moot. that might not ever be in the cards. when do i give up hope. hoping that this might be amazing if we ever get to the point of letting it be more amazing than it already has been. and it has been amazing. i want to amplify that to some ultimate proportions. And in my head, one of those hypotheses, is the idea that maybe it’s not right right now. maybe somewhere down the road, in some future tense, we will be amazing together.


and i wonder if that is a problem. because when does hope give up. if not now, if with the prospect of maybe later, when? do i even need hope to give up? i don’t want to think that this is some sort of feeling that i can quit. because it isn’t. she is

would it be easier to know that she won’t ever love me?



i have nothing to say about that.











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so something new to listen to, maybe not new to you, not even new to me, but new in terms of me writing it down here, and hopefully you maybe reading it.


ZZ Hill ‘that aint the way you make love’ is a great song. it was used on madvillian’s ‘fancy clown’ and Kon&Amir ‘off track 6′, which are both amazing amazing things to listen to if you haven’t heard them. But the original is a hard plea to make things better. And listening to it makes me think of Marvin Gayes’ ‘Save the Children-God is Love-Mercy Mercy Me’ trilogy off of the What’s Going On album. But Hill has a good simple voice that recalls redding and bobby womack. And since i’m on a roll, listen to Bobby Womack’s “the womack live/safety zone” album (you can get it on itunes). I found this tape in my garage, the womack live one, way back in 94, it must have been my dad’s or my uncle’s from the 70s, and it changed my world. For anyone that is into performers, this album is a tight lesson in how to work the crowd. I would have loved to have been in that new orleans hall back in 197(?). The safety zone part is ok, but the live one makes this worth buying. I still have the tape, although i’ve had to change the plastic casing twice. That’s how good it is, and i don’t even have a working tape player anymore.



I like to think that i might know what an interesting image is. I am an art teacher after all. Although in my experience, being an art teacher does not always mean a person is qualified at knowing what is good or bad. But that being said, i enjoy photography, although i am not at all skilled in it, so my efforts tend to be more haphazard. But here are some images that i have taken.