paradigm shift

IT'S HAPPENING

untitled_post

rounding the bend to the train station. feet walking on wet sand. hand grasping my ipod, the other closed in my jacket pocket. look to my left and there's a window in which i can see my reflection. cars go rushing by on the right side of me in a blur.

i make a quick left and pop in to the convenience store to obtain a beverage. familiar face crouched on the floor, stocking mints and gum. "hello my friend." "how are you?" i wait for someone to exit the aisle, for there was little room. i surveyed my choices. not smartwater, i chose that last time. poland spring will do fine. i remember that my friend told me poland spring tasted like tap water to him, but i bring it to the counter anyway. "one fifty." "out of two. thanks, have a good day."

turn my head, someone reading a paper. turn again.

a man comes up to me as i walk through the door. he was unshaven and he looked distraught, possibly homeless. "excuse me, sir? do you have a quarter for a train ticket?" i believed the man needed the quarter. his jacket was very worn. he didn't look at my face for very long, but to the upper left. i wasn't sure if there was something wrong. and my morals kicked in, and not a second later i said: "yeah, sure." i reach into my pocket, and my fingers chase the largest coin they can find. it's a quarter, and i hand it to him. "got any more money, man." i thought about it, and i got to thinking he was taking me for a ride, or maybe he just needed money for his. "i need to buy my own ticket. sorry about that." "all right. thanks."

i walk into the ticket area and think about what just happened. does the man really need to get to point B, or is he just trying to finagle me into giving him more money? his instant reaction of wanting more led me to believe he knew what he was doing. maybe not looking directly at my eyes was a tactic to force me to sympathize. i make sure i have enough money for a ticket of my own.

i insert a dollar. it wasn't accepted. "jesus fucking christ." i had a water, my jacket that i had taken off, my ipod, my opened wallet, and a bill or two in my hands. i was also very hot. i put the water in my pocket, along with my ipod. i folded my jacket across my arm. i smoothed out the invalid dollar and it was fine. then another dollar. then a quarter.

that quarter resurrected my previous pity for the man who had asked for money. i looked back at the store and saw him. i figured i'd give him another dollar - i had enough. i put the dollar in my hand and my hand in my pocket. i see the man walk across the street, but i don't see him ask anybody else for money. i think about this. if he needed money for a train ticket, he would have asked other people. and seeing as how he was walking in the opposite direction of the train station, i decided not to follow him. i think about things for a second. i stop myself from getting too into this whole situation, as i usually do.

fastforward.

on the train now and thinking about a barn house with a telescope, surrounded by an open sky littered with stars. the train stopped at a station.

come in. come out.

i look to the left of me, out the window, as the train is still stationary. i see a small set of stairs, and under that: some cans of iced tea and beer, several scattered socks, old garments, a catchpenny hat, and a thin, weak blanket. someone probably called that home. and this sight triggered my memory of the man from before. maybe he lived a life such as this. try to rest, despite the elements, at night, and look for loose change during the day. maybe he needed the money for food, but said it was for a ticket to sound more believable. if he just said he wanted a bag of chips and told me his situation, i would have helped the guy out happily. but maybe hourly screeching train wake up calls alter one's perception over time.

we will shut you out, we'll put you in doubt if you think that yr special

well right now i am brushing my teeth. it's about three quarters past noon. i went to bed last night at around 2ish while watching arrested development. oh and hey someone just called and i had to pick up with a toothbrush in my mouth. i can tell it'll be a good day.

the transition from doing nothing to going back to school wasn't seamless, but after the first couple of days, i found my equilibrium. i'll say the first couple of days were just emotionally straining, but i put [well someone else just called and it sounded like rattata's battle entrance screech] on a bandaid and i was allbetter. well almost. yeah sort of.

and now what's left to say besides: nothing is going on at the moment. i think i am getting together with my musical comrades today to get this band thing rolling again. an official name has not been proposed as of yet, but we're calling it [pseudo smile] at the moment, which is interesting. this name had to compete against "don't think", "the end is near", "stars over skies", "mary jane is hot". we voted on [pseudo smile].

and now i am listening to modest mouse.

yesterday afternoon my friends and i went biking around town. i got home from school at around four and at four twenty, i heard that we were all having une pique-nique at a beach. and biking. so i was all ON THE FENCE about it parceque je n'ai pas voulu faire du vélo ou aller à la plage. ALAS, john decided to go, and how can i not go if my brohammer is. so i got my belongings, stripped myself of catholic-school clothing, put on some shorts, got the shed key, got my bike out, got my spider helmet (of course!), attached a fire energy pokemon card to my bike's frame, and i was off. met up with john and we were off!. we went back to get jb's harmonica because he saw that i had mine, then we were off! we went separate ways to our destination and i am not sure why. my way kind of added like an extra twenty minutes though. we met at cc's house with people. then we went to IGA to bother mike who was diligently(?) working there. then we went to souvlaki. i got a chicken kabob. we met up with caroooooline and stacia there. then we went to ransom beach. jb and i played the blues on our harmonicas while nick offered trashcan drumming. henry was revving to go take a dip. cc and hayden and corinne were rolled up in a ball, very hedgehog like, on the sand. [pseudo smile] decided to hit the scene so we were off! got back to the house. got my bass and my amp. and i was off! to wait for john. then when he picked me up, we were off! to nick's house.

holy shit did it sound fan-fucking-tastic. we have like one and a half songs so far, but i'm feeling that this one song is a hit. it originated from the idea that our fictional protagonist would wake up one morning and get a sandwich and walk around town gloating. it changed direction slightly, but it's still poppin', slammin', kickin', and stompin' its way to fame and glory. and we're also quite possibly the best lyricists this world has to offer.

[life ended with a paycheck, we said we WORKED HARDER THAN THIS]

and nikki just called. toothbrush out of my mouth this time.

okay everyone. i have to create an agenda for today because so far, i has nothing. i'm thinking aqua teen hunger force later. or maybe guitar hero 2. or maybe more biking. or maybe more DROWNING IN MY MISERIES.

pizza is first on the list. gud bai.


[and i woooon't waste my time fitting in, 'cause i dooooooon't think contrast is a sin]

you look for serenity in your malaise

holy shit i honestly thought it was three in the afternoon and it's already after six. oh well. i'm not complaining because i have the rest of the week off.

easter came and easter went. jesus died so i could eat homemade fudge. nice guy, he was. what have i done with my time? oh this and that. i'm actually trying to recall my epic adventures as i write this and sadly, nothing epic comes to mind.

trimesters were certainly more fun than drowning in pig's blood, but less amusing than a day at the beach or a walk in the park or a picnic at a meadow. in retrospect, those handful of nights when i just got the fuck home and hit the books were just god awful and i don't want to replay them. and as always, there's always something better to look forward to - comps at the end of the year. in theory, if you did well all year you are supposed to be all revved up and ready to go for comps, but i always cross out any positive outcomes on the list of possible results. comps are worth fifty per cent of your overall grade and are each three hours long each. i'm done talking about these now. bai.

and after trimesters, i think i had chicken fajitas. no. actually i went to a place call chipotle with my brother and ate burritos. i then came home and played guitar hero 2 for about eight hours, working towards the title of THE ULTIMATE GUITAR HERO. apres that, i can't remember exactly. i do know that the next day, i had mike, john, and henry over. we played guitar hero, played running bases, mike pulled down my pants so he could shine some rays of hope for acceptance in his dejected life, and more.

my hand smells deliciously fruity [ dangerously cheesy ] at the moment.

and then i think i slept over mike's house friday night? with john and nick, yeah. i did. it was a big hassle trying to get mike to allow us to come over because his house is "too small" for social gatherings. that was all besides the point though, we just needed somewhere to hang out. and that we did. the four of us played a lot of wario ware. that game has more sexual innuendos than the entire series of teletubbies. jesus christ why is my hand so smelling like aesthetic fruit? i had some bananananananas at his house and we had brownies made for us that were intended to be presented in those rectangular bits, but we wound up eating them in a cake-like-fashion. it was the first time i was knee-deep in brownie. no that's a lie. but it was the first time i had BBQ fritos. and then i drank all of the milk so mr. schramm couldn't have any milk for his coffee the next morning [all according to plan] right before we ate a lot of pizza. it was good friday that day, (yeah okay, so it was friday to saturday that we slept over) but i think jesus loves me enough as it is, so i did not observe the no-meat policy because i ate buffalo chicken and was extremely content with my decision of doing so and with my witty reasoning behind it. i forget what we did after that, but it was getting late and we wound up watching infomercials because mike didn't want to find us his remote. maybe the boy is masochistic or something, but his doing nothing to help us find the said remote forced john and nick to beat on him for about - oh - fifteen minutes. he did little to remedy the situation. i learned that mike has some pretty massive fucking bear claws and with one clean swipe, he can really show off how much he likes re-watching the streetfighter movies. the remote was found i think but since we were so dumbfounded by the infomercial, we continued to watch and watch and watch. (i think the only person i know, besides me, who likes infomercials and the art behind them is cc.) i remember right before i went to bed i had some glasses of orange juice [and maybe that's! why i smell so fruity] and i woke up the next morning with this WOAH NELLY taste in the back of my throat... like... like i swallowed a coprolite or three. and then i ran MACH FIVE to the kitchen to get a glass of water, and was greeted by mike's early bird dad. he caught the worm, and i caught a soar throat. fuck. we had small bagels and i sang along to jack johnson for a little bit with mike and his cool guy phone. then we played excite truck which turned out to be pretty fucking aces. i went home after that. i declined a movie with some people because i was feeling strangely and terribly at the same time. i watched the thing instead and fell asleep on the couch. oh yeah, i brought my sleeping bag up and i looked like a caterpillar emerging from a cocoon. i finished my cat nap because i was done acting like a cat and the smells coming from the kitchen awoke my nose. i ate wagon wheels and meatballs. it was a gud meal. i forget what i did after that, but it didn't top wagon wheels, i'll tell you that fucking much.

and then easter was yesterday. old people came over. i started playing god of war. we had some pretty great potatoes for dinner. um. hrm. yeah. my mom made fudge. i played phantasy star universe with ryan and thescot and oh my god shigga spud...

oh yeah after the thing the day before easter, i watched the departed with my family. what a good movie. i liked it.

and here i am, the day after easter. i slept until two. i woke up and checked to see if anyone texted me. negative. i stumbled out of bed. turned on my computer, played my bass, ate some california rolls. went biking with john. then waited for people to get together some plans for the night because it's everyone's last not school night. people took too long because i don't like people, so i decided to chill with my brother for the night. and i'm good with that.

i also watched the descent which is a movie about these women who go spelunking into a cave and monsters happen. oh shit.

so it's late. it felt earlier. i hope it rains tonight. [it always does…]

godspeed, friends.

if we can call them friends, then we can call them on their telephones and they won't pretend that they're too busy or that they're not alone

oy. tomorrow is my last day of trimesters. friday was religion and social studies and today was french and english. so far, everything has been very doable. here's hoping tomorrow doesn't break this pleasant continuum.

i recall posting the day before my last trimester before christmas. i remember looking forward to a great vacation. tomorrow is going to feel so good. tomorrow is going to feel so good.

tomorrow is going to feel so good...

it's a good thing i'm not a black stripper

evening everyone. it's ten thirtyish in the bender household.

my brother got home from school the other day. he drove home in the snowstorm and encountered several near-death experiences. the roads were icy.

i guess having my brother back home is a mixed blessing. he's awesome and every day is more exciting (or happening?) when there's another person in the house. he brought back many games and movies that i have been waiting to check out, so the next six months will be media-friendly for me. but then again i like having the house to myself…

crackdown. a drug? no. is addictive as a drug? yes. a game. think grand theft auto and the hulk combined. you are an elite [beat] agent who works for 'the agency'. your soul mission is to clean the street by pulverizing terrorists with cars and hefty scissor kicks, jumping from roof top to roof top in search for king pin bad guys, and more! it's cel-shaded so it looks like a comic book. the art style is fantastic.

the locust valley show was going on this weekend. the friday production was canceled due to the before mentioned snow storm, leaving saturday and sunday the only two available times. i was there during tech week and it was all right? granted, i'm not usually one for most musicals because the whole idea of people conversing through song and dance kind of bothers me for some reason. dramas i like, because they can portray actual scenarios that can happen in life. i don't perform serenades or lamentations when i am in love or want to cry. so yeah, i missed the musical this time around. but i'm not entirely sure i was missed because the place was crowded anyway. since my brother was home, we had a st. patrick's day dinner on saturday. i didn't go today because i woke up at two thirty and it started at three.

speaking of sleeping until two thirty! i was up late last night finishing the matrix trilogy. i remember watching the matrix long ago when i was a wee one. i enjoyed the movie because my brother and father enjoyed the movie, and i was blind to the depth of the film. guns, shooting, karate! yay hooray! but there's so much going on beyond that. the matrix is essentially a simulated reality in which the human race "lives." in the real world, robots harvest our bio-electrical energy and plug our physical bodies into a server, the matrix. so, as the robots extract energy from the bodies, every person is entertained, or pacified, with this simulated world. (kind of like a massively multiplayer online game) it's something to think about. for me, it's certainly mind boggling. some of the scenes in the movies really made me think and i found that i would pause the movie sometimes just to think about what was going on. it's like a puzzle - you had to piece everything together. okay, so in one scene, neo is trapped in a train station that links the real world to the matrix. so he is nowhere. if he tries to run down the tracks on the left side, he appears on the right side. he can go nowhere, but then again he is nowhere. so i thought about my room. and i thought about never being able to leave. this made me think about the idea of nothing and nowhere. because if you are talking about substance, there is always something there. there can be no apples in the basket, but the basket has something.

"there are no apples in the basket" is different than "the basket has no apples" is different than "the basket has nothing" is different than "there is nothing in the basket"

the basket cannot have nothing, and there can't be nothing in the basket. so if you are nowhere, you are somewhere. because you are aware of the whereabouts, nowhere becomes somewhere and you know where nowhere is. if someone asks "what's there?", you cannot answer with nothing. "there is matter there. there is oxygen. it is some place and it is somewhere so it has to have something because it is a place." unless you mean to say "what is there that is interesting?" at that point, opinions come into play. and then that all becomes a play on words. i could just be making something out of nothing, but there can't be nothing, so it looks like i'm just finding something.

but suppose you were nowhere. and you couldn't escape. or suppose there was a place that had nothing. a small room with no doors. just a cube that you are in. you wake up in a room. the last thing you remember was going to bed. you wake up in a room with nothing.

and that's enough being deep for one post...

well, i have this week to get through. then another week with a trimester that friday and the other two on monday and tuesday of the next week. the break is coming up and that's awesome because i like breaks. i was supposed to go to florida with cc and corinne, but their departure overlaps with my examinations. next time, hopefully.

i was supposed to watch battlestar gallactica tonight, but i am tired and want to sleep.

gud bai

i've got a mind that can steer me to your house and a heart that can bring you red flowers

satan is my motor, hear my motor purr.

i'm in a very introspective mood at the moment. things are not bad and things are not so great but i know that i am where i want to be right now.

fuck if you know me 'cause i wouldn't want to if i was you. i'm not fun when i am in a bad mood and i am usually in a pissy mood for one reason or another. not because i am lonely (i grew out of that not so long ago) but because i don't know. nothing pleases me anymore save seeing the people i love unconditionally and the people who are like family to me and the people who don't hurt me and the people who wouldn't dream of hurting me and the people who i don't feel awkward around. i think i've been dying to find a place where i am liked or respected for what i can contribute to the group. i want to have some credit, or merit. oh right i've been lying to a lot of people and it bothers me. you don't always know what you have until it's taken away from you, but there are times when you know you don't want whatever you think you have. and if you didn't have it to begin with, it's no skin off my back.

but by feeling sorry for yourself, you are not proving to anyone that you can feel at all. like i said before, i don't know where i stand mentally. i'm a strange one and it seems that each and every person i know gets to know a different side of me. not even the people i live with know who i am anymore. if there's anyone i know that could pick me out of a crowd in the cold, pouring rain, it would be me. because sometimes i feel like biting my nails and sitting pretzel style on the long train ride home.

but this post isn't a lamentation about having a lonely heart. i'm not lonely. there is a screaming gap in there somewhere, but i can deal with that for now. what i yearn for is newness. a new friend that i can just sit around with and listen to music with. the simple things i miss. what's a big house when you have no one to fill it with.

i tuned my basses up a little differently the other day. my four string went from standard GDAE to Gflat Dflat Aflat Eflat. my five string stayed the same. i tuned my six string to the notes of a guitar. i liked that change. i want new furniture and i want to be able to sit on my chair with my feet up and i want to be able to read alice in wonderland. relaxed and reclining. usually when i have free time, i think i have to go out immediately and see someone. but honestly, if there is one thing i have learned it's that it is easier to spend your time by yourself. at least for me, i want to find out who i am before i go telling people about myself. it would be unfair if i stopped talking to certain people i know and i fear it's inevitable. but i didn't say i would be so against it.

some days i think about someone taking me by the hand and showing me their life and what they have done. and then i can think about the people i know and compare.

i've learned a broken heart can heal. i've learned nothing can ever go back to normal. i've learned that even my good friends have shit to trek through. i've learned i don't even know who my good friends are anymore. i've also learned that there is no one out there like myself. that's good. i may be being naive in saying i am not being naive. but i know that when i go leafing through old posts, i'll come across this one and remember how i felt. and maybe i'll feel it again.

because even if yr out of my head, yr in my lyrics instead.

nothing is good and nothing is bad and i'm just okay with it.