everything is fine

Sometimes I open up chat windows with people and don't type anything. I think about what I want to say. What I'd like to say to them. I try to figure it out before I start so that it will sound eloquent. Sophisticated. Charming. Classy. I don't like fumbling for words. It's graceless. And some people just know exactly how to tie up your tongue. With a nervous kind of energy. I sit and I think and then they sign off. Or I start talking and forget everything. It's silly. That is how things go, sometimes.

I'm tired of going to school. I kind of just want to sit around and write my zombie story for a while. And play some music. Maybe draw some comics. I guess we're planning on seeing Transformers eventually. It was just a sort of vague suggestion that got agreed on. It'll get figured out. I struggle with turning off my brain during movies. It'll be good for me. My inner snob really comes out when it comes to movies. I have a hard time just sitting and enjoying hours of mindless explosions and weak plots. And I have a hard time getting over my dislike of terrible fad actors and talentless directors. And I can't get over the fact that you have to pay a lot of money to have your brain rotted out of your skull. And I can't stand the mindless obligation that people exhibit when a new film gets excreted into theaters. But I really like Starscream.

I love taking trips with friends. The more friends, the better. We used to take big trips when we were all still in high school band. To Corpus Christi every other year. And we got to pull pranks. One year our friend fell asleep on the couch with his hand nestled on top of his crotch. We were young and juvenile men then. Not much has changed. So, naturally we messed with him. We put toothpaste and shaving cream on him. When he woke up and found out what we'd done, he got angry. We all pretended to have been asleep. I told him that the front door had been left unlocked. We all speculated that someone had come inside while we were all asleep and perpetrated the prank. He believed it. We were in a hotel with doors that locked themselves. He believed us for years until we finally told him the truth. He was speechless. I'm excited for Schlitterbahn.

My friend came back from India with Indian candy. So, we sat down and ate some. We struggle to scrape the thin layer of aluminum foil off of the candy as it had apparently been glued to the candy pieces. Only afterward did we find that the candy was supposed to be constantly refrigerated and thrown away after two days. And things take an inconvenient turn for our plucky hero.

I've noticed that the worst drivers on the road (speeding, tailgating, swerving, general poor driving, overly aggressive, most road rage prone, etc.) tend to have church bumper stickers on their vehicles. I'm not sure why it is that way. But I don't like it.

Balancing logic and faith seems like a very hard thing to do. Some people seem to manage it, though.

"Geology pre-med?" They say. "That's a strange combination." I cock my head and grin. "I know." "And what do you want to do with that?" They ask. "Maybe be a doctor. Maybe stick with geology." "What do you want to do?" They ask. "Music." "Oh." I've noticed that I like to be different. I try to be. Try to stand out. Be eccentric. Try to do things people don't expect. Try to do everything. Like learning new and arbitrary instruments. Like being a pre-med geologist. It's a thrill, doing something out of the norm. Being a jack-of-all-trades. People try to focus their lives too much. They limit themselves and miss out on everything. I'm not a rebel, I'm not a non-conformist, and I'm not trying to grab a spotlight. I'm just having a good time.

We're going to play some music this week. Maybe we'll sit down and crank out our recordings. I hope so. I can think of a few songs we could run through and record in a sitting. We need a bunch of random instruments to add as fluff. Clarinet? Saxophone? Keyboard? Violin? Trumpet? Congas? Our toy box is deep. It's all very exciting.

When the waiter stopped referring to me as "kid" and "boy," I started to talk to them. I told them about my classes and how that was going. I told them about my computer troubles and how that was going. I told them about my summer so far. "Oh." They said. I told them about my story. My music. "Are you planning any trips for the summer?" He asked. I thought for a second. "Well, we were talking about going to Schlitterbahn, but that's not really a trip. I wanted to take some day trips around to places like Enchanted Rock or McKinney Falls or Pedernales." They smiled and nodded. I took a breath. "And I wanted to get a team of adventurers together and canoe all the way out to the Gulf." I said. They perked up. "So you'll pass through La Grange?" "Briefly." I said. "Only to get food and such. But we'll probably be on the river for a few days, pushing all the way out to Matagord...

I totally had it coming. I knew it before I even thought about starting. Bad karma. I had it coming for a long time. Some people like to say, "If you play with fire, you'll get burned." It's more like, "If you do stupid things, stupid things will happen to you." And you will deserve it. Because you did something stupid. It's like a self-inflicted wound. Well, it is a self-inflicted wound. I almost lost my zombie story. It's hard to explain to people what that feels like. Sometimes bad things happen to you and you lose something you worked hard on. Maybe it's the song you spent a week writing and recording. Maybe it's the drawing you spent six hours on. Maybe it's the painted you spent a couple of weeks on. It's all frustrating. But I've been working on that story for almost a year and a half, now. Not constantly, just off and on. But I started it a long time ago. I made people , not characters. I made a giant san...

On this strange evening, I find myself pondering the cosmic events that lead me to the situation I am in now: studying biology in a bed that isn't mine while standing guard over a house that isn't mine full of dogs that aren't mine while potential burglars prowl the streets outside the house that isn't mine. Curious indeed.

Someone close once passed a quote on to me from someone famous that was something about sunshine and shadows and standing. I forget the details, but the idea behind it made a lasting impression. At an early point in my life I came to realize that I was a generally happy person. Outwardly, not so much. But I was always easily amused by various childhood imaginings and simple things and dogs. Later in life, I came to realize that I am--for whatever reason--generally uncomfortable with being a generally happy person. The logic behind it escapes me. It's some kind of conflict between heart and mind where the mind is generally pessimistic and cynical and bitter in order to cope with and rationalize all of the happenings of the world around it. And, so, outwardly, I became generally pessimistic and cynical and bitter which, occasionally, gets absorbed into the other part. The inside part, I guess. It's a cyclical thing that I haven't quite gotten the grasp of. Yet.

I'm just in another panic mode. Just more anxieties and concerns and insecurities coming out of the woodwork and, since I have so much free time during the days, I just sit at the computer and contemplate it all until I'm a quivering mess of anxiety. It's not healthy, no, but that's how it goes. It's everything, too. It's the comparisons, the lack of contact, the disparages between things. I need more distractions in my day. I need to fill the void space with other things so that it won't get a chance to bother me so much. Maybe it was the movie that set me off. I don't know. Maybe I'm just too insecure. It's frustrating. So distant. And yet I had nothing to say. It's hard to talk about important things. I worry too much.

He read us the text message from his mother. "There's a tornado effect, be careful. The wind will stop right before the storm hits." We all had a good laugh and played a long game of ultimate frisbee. Then, when it was all over, we looked up and saw that the sky was turning black. "Ah, shit." I pulled out to the intersection and looked up at the trees. They weren't moving. I turned off the music and laughed. And then the rain started. It was a terrible drive. The road was impossible to see in the dark and the rain. Each flash of lightning revealed the literal curtains of water that swept their way across the road. And then the hail started. I came home to find that the power was out. How inconvenient. That's how it goes, I guess. Makes things fun.

I remember when I thought writing an eight page story was hard. I couldn't think of enough things to have happen to my characters. That was back when I fleshed out every detail of my story before I started writing it. Before I figured how to start doing it correctly. Most of the stories ended up being three or four pages. All of it, just crammed in. Painful to read. I don't write like that anymore. It's been a long sort of week. Sunday feels like it was a month ago. Friday seems so far away. I need stimulation. It's a strange feeling when you run around all day and realize you never saw a familiar face.

I had a dream last night that I was in a car wreck. The doctor amputated my hand afterward because it had gotten mangled up in the car. After the whole procedure was done he leaned down over me and told me that no hand meant no more music. I do not like sleeping. I ate lunch at the turtle pond today. It was nice. I watched a turtle try to climb his way up the rocks while I reviewed my notes from class. His turtle shell made it hard for him to deal with the edge of the rock. His little turtle nails clawed across the rock with turtle speed. What I can only assume was a freshman walked up to the pond with his friend. They pointed at the turtle and approached it. The turtle stopped moving. "You scared him." The friend said, sneering. The boy bent over and picked up the turtle roughly. "Let's help him up." He said, mockingly. "Put the turtle down," I said. They looked across the pond at me. I lowered my notebook. " Now. " The boy...

"I talked to my dad about joining last night." He said. "Oh yeah?" I replied. "Yeah," he said. "I'm thinking about joining next year, probably." I almost spat out my drink. "Are you talking about enlisting?" His friend asked. "Yeah," he said. "I mean, why not?" His friend shook his head and returned his attention to the television. "I rationalized it as having two lives," he continued. "I'll be a surgeon and then, when they tell me go to kill some people I'll be like, 'Okay!'" For a second, I felt tethered. Like I was obligated to keep an eye on him if he did it. Like a shepherd. Or a warden. It was worrisome. But, I guess that's how it goes.

Sometimes I wonder what my life would be like if I had a better sense of self-control. Every time I do, I come to the conclusion that, in theory, I would never regret doing anything. Nothing stupid, nothing silly. No big mistakes. And that just sounds so boring.

I had always thought about doing it. It had always been there in the back of my mind. From when I had a glorified vision of it to when I rebelled against the idea and, finally, to when I understood and accepted what it actually was. It's been a lurking urge somewhere inside of me--for better or worse--somehow related to an obsessive search for purpose and balance and maybe even some kind of naive patriotism. Enlisting . "Yeah, honestly: I've always wanted to do it." He said. "The discipline and the structure and the hierarchy; I like following orders. I could be a surgeon and also be in the Army. It's like having two lives: saving lives in one and saving the country in the other. I don't want to sit around after college for months and not do anything. I'll never be able to do anything with my life after that. I want to do something, you know?" Then, when the others were around, he continued. "And I really want to kill somebody....

Sometimes--a lot of times--I wish I could get inside of peoples' heads so that I could see what they were thinking. That probably stems from some sort of insecurity. Or that I say dumb things sometimes. I try not to worry about it. Probably not the best idea. I had something to say, but suddenly I don't feel like talking anymore.

I am always tired for some reason. I wake up tired. It doesn't seem to matter how much sleep I get the night before, I wake up tired. I've been studying it for some time. I can sleep for two hours, twelve hours, six hours, or eight hours and wake up feeling exactly the same. Tired. So, recently, I've narrowed it down to a few major "life motives" which--I acknowledge that I named rather uncreatively but--I fail to fulfill routinely. Primarily: sleeping and eating. As an early conclusion of my ongoing self-study, I have decided to ignore the sleep variable and blame my constant fatigue on the fact that I don't eat enough. As such, I've decided to make an "almost mid-year resolution" where I eat a whole lot. Like, a lot of food. Then I'll collect more data. It's also probably an effect of cuddle-starvation, which is tragic. I'm trying to draw higher quality comics, but I don't know if I can keep that up. Classes started to...

It always amazes me how complicated things can get when people get involved. The simplest tasks turn into huge ordeals that waste so much time. Like checking out at a grocery store. I was in line behind a woman with her handful of items for what felt like fifteen minutes while she somehow managed to drag out the whole process by digging in her pockets for coupons and payment and all kinds of other nonsense. It is, theoretically, a fast transaction. Scan, swipe, receive receipt, collect groceries, leave. Yet for her this was some kind of new and foreign concept. It was like watching her ride a bike for the first time in decades which, in theory, is a lot like dancing. Finally, she collected her garbage and began trudging toward the sliding doors. The cashier began ringing my groceries up. "Good, you?" I said to him. "Plastic's fine." I said to the bagger. I swiped, got my receipt, grabbed my bags, and walked out the door. As I stepped into the sunligh...