doubts of selflessness

My motivation has always been bred by the doubt of others. If I am told I cannot do something, naturally I find a way to do it.
But at times I question whether this M.O. will help me reach the most ambitious goals I see for my future.
Will constantly swimming upstream prove my worth? Will I earn accolades if I always defy what is expected of me, though I only want what's best? Will earning what I believe is best set me apart and away from the people I long to have near me?

Why can I not have everything I want? Why must I sacrifice one joy for opportunity, pleasure for responsibility, myself for others? Why do I feel I ought to? Why do I feel this way?

And does this make me a good person? an ignorant man? selfrighteous?
Does or will what I do matter... ever?

ripe with i thought so

i am the rustlove harmonica
in the temporary river
of misfortunate circumstance
tributarized by melon-balling spritzers
of haircut microphones
singing alleyway triggers
of ass-i-kiss-tic ballads
for the best, never committed

now that's the truth
you heard me

Perfect from Far Away

I just spent eight days with two of the coolest nieces this side of the moon. It's been the most fun I've had all summer. It's a shame I'll have to go home tomorrow.

Also. I just fell in love with this Sam character in Garden State.


I'm afraid to make a big change because... what if I fuck it up again.
(don't tell me there's no reason to be afraid because I am.

I am.)

Accidental Hero Vs. Accidental Villian

Today I did some yard work at my friend's house. (When you are poor and struggling for work, friends hire you to help out a bit... and this helps you out a bit.) So I did quite a bit of magifying some bushes and grasses.

Among the taller-than-me bushes I found grapevines abundant. They were covering - no, blanketing the brush, which was fighting just to earn some light. Oh, but the grapes were young and not quite ripe. This posed a dilemma. I did not have trouble deciding... the baby grapes and choking vines must go. So I cut them away - most of them - and tore them from their deadly grasp on the branches. I saved the bushes, but..!!

While I was recklessly and aggressively tearing away vines, I failed to recognize a bird's nest in the tall branches... until I had gone and knocked two infant barely-feathered sparrows from the nest. I noticed them lying on the ground after they began chirping. They could not fly. Their eyes barely opened. They could only but thrust their legs about and cry for help.

I was afraid to touch them, but had to return to them to their nest or they would die. I went to the garage. I gloved my hands up, and found a small nest-sized garden shovel. The birds were lying in some pile of dead leaves. Hopefully this broke their fall and not their fragility. I delicately scooped each up sliding one then the other into their crib overhead.I hope my non-skin interference in the rescue didn't taint their motherbird away from them.

I think I saved these birdlings today, though I also almost killed them. I hope I did not. This could make me a bad person... a little bit.... or at least careless.

Why Measure Age in Years? ...and who's counting?

It seems that the harder I try to forget my birthday - and how young I am each year - the more people remember it, and try to remember it, and make it a bigger deal than it needs to be. I feel like my birthday's become about the number.

I have a strange fascination in claiming to be 23 years old (or young.) After all, it was a great age to be. While it's all in good fun, some I know are put off by this as if I were playing a game reserved for older women,,, or somehow, staying young.

I do retain immature features -- a "baby face," clumsiness, a youthful sense of humor... and for those who know me well, often enough a sense of behavior close to half my actual age. Yet I can be a growed up when I so chose. Hell, I can often volunteer to play the selfless leader. (shameless plug of pride) See. Maturity at work, right?

I want all of you to know: while I am a man with fears - some of which I can admit and others I hide - I am not afraid to age. In fact, I relish in earning wrinkles, gaining wisdom, and counting days until something else happens. I cannot wait to turn 50. I cannot wait to tell grandchildren stories. I enjoy living, growing, aging...

To be quite honest, I think it's the waiting that seems to bother me. When life is moving slow, when there is little going on - eventlessness - I tend to notice that I'm getting older.. and without doing something, or being productive, or earning the life I've been offered.
Because, after all, time is not money, it's priceless.
And I feel I need to make the most of it all.
I ought to earn my hours and my breaths. Oughtn't I?

Who's counting years anyway? I'd rather my age be counted in good deeds,, in which case, I'm relatively old.
Maybe in the thousands of deeds... perhaps a million deeds old.

This Is Where I Go

Thank God Nothing Bad Happened Today

Apparently today was Friday the 13th and I missed it. If anything bad had happened I wouldn't have been able to blame it on the unfortunate coincidence that today is both a Friday and the 13th day of July.
Aren't I lucky?

Basketball Vs. Fear

I leave my shoes - my basketball shoes that get damp with sweat - outside after I come home from an afternoon on the court. Sometimes I forget they are out there. Other times I just don't want to bring them in. My family appreciates this, though they've never had to realize how much so.

Today I went to get them. They were lying outside the garage door, and had been so since Saturday. In the shade, one sat on its sole with my ankle brace peaking out of it. The other rested on its side in the grass near some small bushes and the brick wall. As I leaned over to pick them up, I noticed a spider web... but no spider.

Where was this spider?, I wondered.
Could it have climbed in my shoe?
What kind of spider is it? Could it be poisonous? Aren't there poisonous spiders around here? Of course, there are, especially in summer. Remembering one of those stories - the ones your parents tell you when you're young to scare you into behaving or being safe - about how spiders, mostly Black Widows, like to hide in cool damp places in the summer, I was careful to pick up my shoes by their soles.

Stretching my arms out as far as I could push the shoes away from my body, I circled the house to the back patio, and threw them at the concrete. I picked one up by the toe and shook the brace out of it. No spider yet. I picked the other up. Still pushing the shoes away, I tried smacking them together.
I clicked their heels.
I banged the soles.
I turned each upside down smacking it against the concrete, but still no spider.

Determined to get it out of my shoe - or both shoes?! - I found a stick. The stick jabbed around for a minute in one shoe, then the other, and back to the other shoe for a moment. Still it came up with nothing.

The shoes are black on the outside with a white stripe, and black on the inside. They are very dark. I cannot see into the toe part of them.

I put the shoes inside the house at the front door. I think I'll wait an hour, or more, before I try sticking my feet in there.
But I'm ready to play basketball now.

...

Beetle and Bee

I rescued a Junebug from my pool today,
but I did not rescue the bee because I was afraid it might sting me.

I'm not sure just how guilty I feel about this.
Maybe I should feel a bit cowardly too.

Dream 6.30.07

I thought I could use this forum to write about my dreams, considering I rarely remember them beyond breakfast, but not today.

It's not that I don't remember last night's dream; I definitely do. In fact, it's one I think I will remember for a while. Because it was something I had been thinking abou-
See. There I go saying too much.

Our dreams are representative of what is going on in our minds. They are imaginative fictions of our desires, our fears, our struggles.

Dreams can be symbolic, like my last one.
I have no idea what a road trip, Gatorade, underwear, and Jim Cogswell have to do with anything right now. (And I would have easily forgotten that dream if I hadn't told you about it.)

Or dreams can be literal, like the dream I had last night.
I can tell you it involved going on a trip again. I have been looking for work and opportunities abroad lately.
But, for now, the rest of the dream I will hold on to for myself. Because sometimes these literal dreams can garner real life consequences. Ones that I am not prepared to face... at least not yet.