everything is fine

It's been a day. It wasn't really a good day or a bad day. It was just a day. A long day. I saw the doctor this morning. She told me I had a sprained ankle and that I couldn't participate in any physical activity for one or two weeks. No biking, no climbing, no Judo. I have a Judo final next Thursday. We'll see what happens, I guess. I felt tired and disconnected all day. In a haze. But I was anxious. Stomach churning anxious. John and I went bike shopping today after class. It was a lot of fun. I rode a lot of different mountain bikes and road bikes and BMX bikes. We spent a few hours doing that, and it was time well spent. Except it was really hot outside and we were wearing khakis, of course. It was a sweaty time. And while we were doing this, my bike got stolen. My heart is broken. I called the campus biking organization immediately and filed a stolen bike report with the UTPD. They sent an officer over to talk to me. We met up and walked over t...

When I was younger, I talked to my dad about my plan to make a movie. "I'll have to get in contact with the people in charge there to make sure we can film there." I remembered what had happened the last time we filmed without checking. Escorted out of the building by the bank security guards. Twice. My dad turned to me slowly. "In my infinite wisdom," he said. "I've learned a very important life lesson." I sat down on the couch next to him. "Don't ask for permission," he said. "Only ask for forgiveness." "Okay." I said. And I went back to my room. I've tried to apply that mantra to my normal life ever since, although I think that it is a generally bad idea. I do not need to justify being more impulsive or reckless than I already tend to be. How do you balance that? I need to figure it out. One of the things about being reckless is that you can go through life at full speed. You don't have to...

My favorite kind of juice is pineapple juice. I was thinking about that today. Kind of funny how that worked out. I went to the store and bought a gallon of pineapple-orange juice the other day. I've been taking sips from it all day. When I was in Mexico they had fresh pineapple juice. "Una piña." You'd say. Then they would bring you a glass of pineapple juice. It was good. I tried to eat a whole pineapple one time, but my tongue started to hurt and I couldn't taste anything for a few days. It was a bad idea. I took a walk today. I saw a grackle eating a gecko. It made me sad. I also saw a group of women huddled around a forgotten wallet as a bus stop. They were too scared to open the wallet to see who it belonged to, so they poked at it with a pen and wondered what they ought to do. I can't remember what else I saw.

I make bad decisions sometimes and I don't think I worry enough about it. Moderation, impulsiveness, and self-control: I have problems with them. Or lack them. But, I figure, if things work out in the end then it's alright. So it's okay, I guess. Or close to it. I am not all that worried about it. I feel like I have something important to say, but I can't think of what it is. It's just this feeling over having something on the tip your tongue. No words, no ideas, just a feeling. It's frustrating. I should make something up. There's a rope swing outside my dorm. I swung around on it. I pretended I was Indiana Jones. But my arms were too tired from rock climbing to keep holding me up. I also had Dippin' Dots today for the first time in my life. I was not impressed.

Chang and I went rock climbing today at the gym. It's been a long time since I've been. I used to really love climbing at the rock gym. $25 for a day with harnesses and ropes. "On belay!" You tell your friend. "Belay, on!" They reply. And then you climb up. Unless you go bouldering, which is also fun. I love the feeling of stretching to grab the next ledge. The feeling after you push yourself up the wall, desperately reaching up in a frantic, panicked sort of way. The feeling of spreading your legs apart farther than they probably should and contorting your body in ways it probably shouldn't. The feeling of losing your grasp on the wall. And falling. It's great. It's challenging. Sometimes it's impossible, but it's fun. I just don't get to do it all that often. But I want to. I just wish the shoes were more comfortable. I hope I'm sore in the morning. That might be the best part. Waking up and feeling sore in ...

I played some music today. It was alright. I got to use my rocking guitar. It was just the two of us; he played the drums. We sat down and wrote out a song and talked about being a band and stuff. It was just alright. It didn't really go anywhere. Or, it did, but it wasn't quite where I wanted it to go. I might have been expecting too much when I went in, but there was no click. We weren't in sync. It was alright, but it wasn't like it used to be. Like I'm used to. That's how it goes, I guess. I've been thinking lately about the things that make me afraid. It's a long list, indeed. I don't know why I'm scared of most of them. That seems kind of silly. To be afraid of something without having any good reason to be afraid. So I won't be afraid of them anymore. I won't be afraid of the things on my list. Except for things like spiders and other buggy bugs. I found a soccer shirt of mine from second grade. I recognized the...

My friend wrote some music. Lyrics for songs he wanted to play with his band. He seemed pretty excited when he showed them to me. I got excited. I remember the first real song I wrote. Spencer sent me the chords over instant messenger. Dm, Dm7, G, Gm. I can't forget that progression. I played them on my guitar. I remember it clearly. My desk was in the corner near the door. I strummed on my old guitar. It felt so awkward. I tried to think of words. Nothing came to mind. I got frustrated and stopped. A few hours later I sat down and just wrote. Write what you know , they always say. So I tried. I was excited to have a song. We recorded ourselves playing various tracks and plastered it all together in a mashed up song. A mashed up, finished song. I still get embarrassed when I hear it in my head. It was my first song. A shot in the dark. It was cliche, but it was mine. My accomplishment. I was proud, for a while. And so was he. I liked what he had written....

I accomplished almost nothing today. I had a list of things that I wanted to do. Needed to do, really. Draw a comic. Plan my schedule. Get my advising bar cleared. Study for my lab quiz. Write a poem. Instead, I had lunch at Zilker park. Now I'm sunburned. But it was a nice day. And, despite the fact that I've let too much gather on my plate, I'm feeling pretty good. I can feel some panic rising in there, which is good. A little panic is healthy. I'll get my stuff done. Just have to make sure I'm going about it the right way. This has been a nice week. Not the smoothest, but it's been good so far. Nice weather. I am out of allergy medicine.

It was such a nice day that I couldn't help but ride my bike around. I put Beck on and cruised around campus with my sunglasses. It's starting to feel like summer. Sunny days, smiling faces, flip-flops, and pale skin. It's okay. A few hours in the sun will solve that. I want to go on an adventure somewhere. Dogs and bicycles and friends and music. Not too much longer. John told me about joining the cycling club on campus. I was immediately excited. Ever since I found out about the Texas 4000 team riding to Alaska I've been wanting to get more into biking. Maybe even get a road bike? That's a big leap, though. A bicycle is another instrument. It's a big obligation. Got to ride it around. I don't know if I'm ready for that kind of commitment. I'll stick with my mountain bike for now. I'm going to go riding this weekend. I'm too excited. I want to have at least one solid crash. Or ride off into the creek. That's probab...

My dad called. I talked to him for half an hour. It was the first time I'd gotten to talk to him since he left. I was glad I was at home when he called. It was a very short thirty minutes. It's been a good weekend, I think. The song worked out. I need to take my contacts out. I left them in last night. I need to take a nap. It's been a long weekend. In a good way. I guess it's not quite over.

Music is a hard habit to break. It's hard to turn your back on it. And it's impossible to run away from it. I don't get enough music in my life. I can feel it inside. I need to break out my instruments and play some. Need to play some music. My friend just sent me the score to a song, arranged for a jazz band. I tried to transcribe it, once. And now I have it. And now I'm not in jazz band. It's okay. I just jammed out with a friend for the first time in a long time. I'd never really played with him before, but it was going good places. We wrote a song. It's a goofy little song about... relationships. Or, a relationship. A certain type. Not a real relationship. And the frustration associated with said non-relationship. It's light and energetic. It's fun. I also wrote another song. More or less a stream-of-consciousness experiment. It turned out well, I think. I rhymed it as much as I could. I think I'm being so clever. Oh w...

I read through some old journals the other day. The ones I had forgotten about. The ones I had missed when I cleared them all out. I'd stumbled across the collection before and tried to read through them. They didn't last long. Page by page into the shredder. All those thoughts and memories and ideas just broken pieces in a bin. But I missed some. She found one and she read it. There wasn't any reason to be ashamed, but I was. I didn't want those memories anymore. I had already moved on. But they were there. And later, I found the rest of them. I felt guilty. Guilty that I had tried to hold on to them and that I had tried to get rid of them. I read through some of my more recent journals. Too many voices. I keep things. I keep junk and papers. I keep broken things. I keep secrets. I can't help it. I hold on to them. I always panic when I wonder what would happen if I didn't. Maybe I ought to try, anyway.

I think I'm a good listener. Or, at least, I'd like to think that I'm a good listener. Every once in a while, though, I am not always a good listener. I'm easily distracted, I guess. I tend to zone out in the middle of conversations--usually right around the part where something important gets said. Then, there is a slight pause in the talking and I realize that I have no idea what the other person just said. "It's okay," I say. Then, later in the conversation, I try to figure out what they said through context clues. Or I don't and have no idea what they said. Sometimes I get caught, though. "What?" They say. "It's...okay?" I reply. "What's okay?" Then I take a shot in the dark or answer as vaguely as I can. " That...that's okay." They either accept it and move on or say, "You have no idea what I just said, do you?" "Nope."

My body can't decide if it's tired or not. I keep drifting across the dividing line between "fully awake" and "on the verge of exhaustion." It's a nice feeling, except I haven't done anything to justify feeling that way. That's okay. Video games are a pretty good reason, I guess. My mind is so scattered. Can't concentrate. We went shopping today. It was pretty fun. I didn't buy anything impulsively, so that was good. Just play it cool. Everything is good. Be cool.

Questions don't bother me. People worry about questions making you feel awkward or uncomfortable, but it's not like that. For me, it's not like that. I like being asked questions. The awkward, uncomfortable questions especially. Those make things fun. It's only when I can't think of a good answer that things start to fall apart. I feel like I always need to have a solid answer for anything. Or at least a witty comment. Or a snide comment. Or a bad joke. Or anything, really. That's alright. I did my research and now I'm writing my answer. Probably not the best way to go about doing it, but that's how it goes sometimes. I like to be thorough. Or I'm just bad at answering questions. It's been a good week so far. I'm excited for the weekend, though. Maybe.

When I was younger I had a recurring dream where I would die in a car wreck. I never figured out what I hit. I was driving one second and the next I was mangled up in the car. In the dream it was nighttime and I was twenty-two. I don't know why such a specific age, but it was an important fact in the dream. That dream made me a very aware driver. I haven't had it in over a year, now. So that's good. I guess that's more of a nightmare. She sent me a quote from FML earlier. A guy asked his date how she thought she would die and she said something crazy like, "By being made into a wallet." I've been thinking about it ever since. I have no idea how I'm going to die. That's such a far off thing. You have to get married and buy a house and have kids before you can do that. Dying is something for grown ups. It's hard to think about it. It's hard to accept that possibility. I used to have a fascination with death. I guess everyone ...

I get nervous sometimes. In all kinds of situations. With all kinds of people. I get nervous when I'm on the spot or if I have to talk about something I don't usually talk about. I lock up and shut down. I suddenly have nothing to say. No stories, no jokes, no insight. Just squeaky, jumbled explanations. That's okay. It's good to be uncomfortable every once in a while. It keeps you on your toes. I drank a lot of tea and honey today. I talked to the woman who runs Project Victory. I drew a comic. I plugged in my fridge. I saw someone I like to see. I ate an English muffin. I didn't take too much allergy medication or ibuprofen. I rode my bike. I hung out with some peeps. It's been a good day. I have a feeling it'll be a good week.

I haven't written in my real journal in a while. A few months, really. Basically when I started writing in this. And I update this a lot more often than I did the journal. Oh well. That's how it goes, I guess. I just haven't had a lot of thoughts I've felt like keeping to myself. Well, until recently. That's okay. I haven't drawn a comic in almost two weeks? One week? It's been a while, but I'm not really all that worried about it. Well, maybe a little. I'm a little worried about it considering that it's my job. I'll probably draw one this week. In color. Got to get back on track with that stuff. My allergies are killing me slowly, but I've been drinking a lot of tea and honey. It's a good combination, and an even better excuse to eat honey. My throat hurts. It's a good fight. "Don't you ever give up?" She asked. If I was that kind of person, I thought, we probably wouldn't be here right now. ...

I am tired. It was a long trip last night. Long, but fun. I'd forgotten how tired you get down there. I think my elbow pad made me bruise around my needle mark. Oh well. The shower and food afterward were both excellent. As tired as I was, I had trouble sleeping. Easily distracted, I guess. But I had fun. Now there's a lot to clean up. There's a big pile of dusty clothes in the back of my truck that needs to get washed. I'm finding it difficult to motivate myself to do that, though.

There is a lot of stuff looming on the horizon. Tests and deadlines and large choices and a candle that is quickly burning down. Lots to study for. Lots to draw. Lots to write. Lots to do. That's okay, I guess. We're going caving on Friday. It's going to be awesome, I know it. And I'm going to sleep like a rock afterward. I was walking out of class today when a guy in a bike shirt stopped me. "Hey," he said. "Do you like riding bikes?" "Yes," I said. "Good," he said. "Want to ride a bike to Alaska?" "Sure." He gave me a slip of paper and a brief rundown. In a couple of years I'm going to ride a bicycle to Alaska. That's that.