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...

"Oh, I didn't realize it was family coming in, dude." He said. "You told me it was just peeps coming to stay at your house for a while." I shrugged. "I don't know, man. They're just peeps to me; I don't really know them all that well." He laughed. "Everyone is just peeps to you." I tend to take things for granted. Especially my relationships with people. Or people in general. It's a bad habit that I need to work on. Plenty of time for that, I hope. I like to think that other people are fairly patient. I envy the people who have convinced themselves that they know what they want to do with their lives. I can never keep my plans straight for more than a couple days and some people already have their lives charted out apparently. It's been more than a few months since I finished my EMS course and I still haven't finished it. "I've got to finish that up," I tell people. "Take that test....

I went trail running today. It was a nice feeling. Running, jumping, sliding. I might consider it as an alternative to mountain biking for a while. I don't think I can keep it up though. My ankle still hurts, which is a little concerning. I've never sprained or broken anything before this, but I'm not convinced it's supposed to take this long to feel better. Oh well. I'm not too worried about it. I went to the creek at the end of the trail and sat for a while. I watched clouds. Watched fish. Listened to the creek. It was a very meditative experience. I had a good chance to think about things. Not about the things I should've, though. I still don't know how to go about this whole 'life' thing, so I think I'll just keep on playing that one by ear. See what happens. That sounds like fun. We're all going to Lake Georgetown tomorrow. I've never been to Lake Georgetown before and the one opinion I've cultivated was that ...

I was feeling especially musical last night, so I went through all my old music. Scraps of old songs that I had arranged or written. Folders of sheet music. Pages of lyrics and chord charts. It was interesting to see how many projects I had started and abandoned. And how many I'd actually finished and then abandoned. More interesting, though, was how much it all changed over time. They started off as simple songs. A couple chord changes, end. Then more chord changes got added. More complexity. Riffs, written out. Lyrics. But it was all very formulaic. Two verses, chorus, two verses, bridge, chorus, end. Or maybe a slight variation of that. Two verses, chorus, bridge, one verse, chorus, end. Simple, constricting rhyme schemes. Forced lyrics. I could go on. But there were lapses in the record. A couple months of nothing, and suddenly something new. Something better. Matured. And so I traced it all to the present. It was a fun exercise, trying to match the stylis...

Everything went better than expected. We caught up first. It had been at least a couple of years since we had really caught up. Maybe more. He's going to Beijing for 10 months to teach English. And to find himself. I hope he does alright. I know he will, but it doesn't hurt to wish him the best. "I had to sell my mandolin for a plane ticket." He said. We smiled. These things happen in real life, too. We went upstairs and started setting up. "I don't play covers." I said. He tossed out a chord progression on the guitar. I listened for a moment and started piecing together a solo on top of it. We toyed around with the guitars for a little bit. Every once in a while something clicked. I could feel it. A spark. We paused. "Alright," he said. "Go ahead." I thought for a second. "Here we go." I started playing my progression. We messed around with it for a few minutes. Then he got on his set. "Plug in, ...

I always get anxious when I think about playing music with someone new. I basically grew up playing songs with Spencer and Kit; doing that now, almost eight years later, is second nature. It's a trust thing, I guess. You know what to expect and it's okay to branch out and try weird things. It doesn't matter if you screw up because everybody is a good friend. They don't care. With new people, you have to worry about making a good impression. About playing as well as you think they can. About living up to the idea that they have of you. About not screwing up. There's a lot of, "Are they going to dig this style?" and "What if they get bored because I suck?" and general insecurity and self-consciousness that goes along with it. And it's all a bunch of bullshit. I'm jamming with Thomas tomorrow afternoon and I am anxious. The last time we played together was in high school with Spencer, and I was playing keyboard. I couldn't eve...

It was a nasty looking bike. Most of the frame was covered in rust, which was in turn mostly covered in a layer of dust. The wheels wouldn't even revolve. I could barely move the pedals around. It was an old, disgusting BMX bike that had been sitting in his yard for some undisclosed amount of time. "I have no idea where it came from," John said. We looked at it and ate our hamburgers. "I'll take it." I said. It wasn't that I needed the bike. I'm resourceful; I can pull strings and have bikes fall into my lap. I wanted the bike. I wanted a garbage bike. An $80 bicycle from Wal-Mart. Rusted and abandoned in somebody's backyard. Messed up. It gave me an excuse to fix it. So I spent the next morning taking it apart. I cleaned it and oiled it and fixed it up and a few hours later, I was riding on a bike. I took it down the driveway. It was smooth. Everything moved wonderfully. I stood up as I got close to the end of the driveway. I...

"Music was fun ," he said. "And it still is." The spotlight came down on him with an almost awkward intensity. "That is a bright light." He added. He talked more about how grateful he was to have been able to build a career out of music. Then he explained jazz. "Improvisation isn't just noodling around. And I know people that make a career out of that. It's a language . Jazz is a language just like any other language." His speaking interludes verged on rambling, but ultimately it all clicked. It resonated. He was a musician speaking to musicians. Bill Evans was amazing. He was one of my idols as a jazz musician. He was a classical clarinet player turned jazz saxophonist and I aspired to be like him. Seeing him on stage was incredible. He just played and played. One of my friends stood up and traded solos with him. I was jealous. After the concert, as I stood talking to a group of friends, he walked right in front of me...

"Well that was fun." I never know what to say. Maybe I'll make some flash cards with phrases on them. Probably better just not say anything at all. I have a tendency to let words fall out of my mouth. I should get a handle on that. I am not particularly good at preparing for finals. They're coming up on me quick, which is terrible. I can only get work done if I'm multi-tasking. It's a weird thing I got from my dad. I can't concentrate unless I'm multi-tasking. I don't get any work done unless I'm distracted. But since I'm distracted, I don't get any work done. If I'm not multi-tasking then I lose my focus. It gets complicated. But complicated is not a bad thing. Anything worth having requires complications, I think. You have to jump through a few hoops to justify anything, really. Then, you have more at stake. And if you don't have everything on the table, then you aren't really playing the game, I guess. An...

I was walking back to my dorm late last night after seeing Star Trek again. Campus was quiet and empty. As expected for that hour, I guess. I walked slowly and thought about things. A fat cat walked out of the bushes and waddled toward me. I stopped and knelt down, reaching out with my hand. "Hey kitty," I said. "What's up?" The cat sniffed the air and stepped into the light. "Come here, buddy. I won't hurt you." It was not a cat. It was a raccoon. "Oh God!" I yelled, jumping to my feet. It hissed at me and waddled back in the direction it had come from. I continued to shoo it away. When it disappeared back into the bushes I started down the sidewalk again. Things are never really what you expect. That was the point of that experience, I guess. A minor consequence for a "leap before you look" attitude. Things never happen the way you think they will in your head, assuming you tried to think that far forward. S...

I don't forget things. I remember the details. The little things, the big things. Things that happen. Faces, people. I remember them. People don't believe me when I say that. But it's true. I have dreams. Realistic dreams. The ones where you wake up and can't decide whether or not they actually happened. Whether or not it was a dream or a memory. And I get confused. It's the little things. Conversations with people, mostly. I have a hard time deciding which one is the real one, and it blurs. It's frustrating, but that's how it goes. Sometimes people get to you. It's okay, I guess. It's just little things.

"Hey asshole!" The man yelled from his window. He squeezed himself through the frame and raised his middle finger. His friends cackled from the backseat. "UT sucks!" The man hung out the window and laughed as the car spun off down the road. And I kept walking on the sidewalk, with my hands in my pockets. I saw Star Trek and really enjoyed it. A fun movie, good friends, and a good time. But now it's time to get back to studying. Long days ahead, but just a handful of them. Back to the grind. Further down the road were two cars parked out in the street, hazard lights flashing. A man had pulled over to help a woman whose car had run out of gas. He stepped around her car and emptied a canister into her tank. "Oh, thank you so much." She said. "It's no problem, really." He said, shaking his hand at the bills in her hand. And I kept walking on the sidewalk, with my hands in my pockets. That guy was right about UT.

This is a busy week. "Are you coming home this weekend?" She asked. I paused before I opened the door. "Yeah," I said. "It's Mother's Day!" I added with as much enthusiasm as I could muster. "Uh," she said. "Okay, I guess." I got out of the car and went to class. It wasn't quite the reaction I had hoped for, but it was the reaction I expected.

"We are not them." It was alarming to hear it at first but after the worry wore off, it was wonderfully encouraging to hear. Hopeful, reassuring, and all kinds of other adjectives that more or less describe the same type of feeling. It was nice. Nice to get that kind of statement. And with such finality. I've been thinking, these last couple of days, about the kind of person I am. Or, mostly, the kind of person I don't want to become. Also, the kind of person I could be. Not too interesting of a topic, I guess. It just seems like we spend a lot of time not being ourselves. Our real selves. I don't think we even know who we really are anymore. We pretend and fool everyone else into believing that we really are who we're acting like we are. And then we fool ourselves. Or maybe I'm being bitter. Somebody stole my bike. We do know, though. We know exactly who we are. Lackadaisical, cynical, goofy, bitter, moody, social, happy. And, more importa...

This week seems to be starting off on the right foot. I saw Sonny Rollins play and it was glorious. He just waddled out on stage and started wailing. Even with his microphone difficulty, it was awesome. Makes a guy want to jam out on a saxophone. I have a feeling that this is going to be a pretty good week. My hand was too shaky to draw my comic properly.

It's been a long kind of weekend. The kind of punctuation you'd expect after one of those weeks. I am ready to start a new week now, I think. Summer is so close. I talked to my godfather a couple days ago. "Do you have my cell number?" He asked. "Yes." I said. "Okay," he said. "If you get into any kind of trouble, if you need anything--call me." "I will." I told him. I miss my dad. I haven't heard from him in almost two weeks. I miss my bike. It hasn't been my week. I ate an entire box of tic tacs today.

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.

It's been one of those days. One of those long days after a series of long days. One of those days. One of those days where you wake up in a daze and stay that way. And all the things you worried about earlier come back in full. Oh well. I feel like I'm not even awake. Everything today just sort of happened, and not in the way that I would've liked them to. I gave blood today. I've felt pretty bad since. All I want to do is pass out in a little hiding spot for a while. But there's so much work to do. So much more to worry about. I feel like my head is stuffed with cotton. Everything is so hazy. I can't even think coherently. I just want things to go well. It's so much easier to relax when I'm not sitting here over-thinking every little thing. Deep breath.

"There is appropriate," she said. "And there is in appropriate. That is inappropriate ." I bit my tongue to stop from laughing. She sat up in her bed and stared at me. I leaned against the doorway. "Okay." I said. "Do you understand why that is inappropriate?" She asked. "Yes." I said. And then I laughed. This past week has been the longest week I've had in a long time. I don't really mind, it's been a good one. Should've been a month, though. That's what it felt like. Sometimes I think I'm losing my grip on my sense of time. And my memory? Yesterday I saw a caterpillar crawling on the ground. He made his way out of the grass slowly and crossed about two sidewalk tiles. We sat and watched him from the bench. It was a nice day outside; perfect temperature, clear skies. Then a bird flew down and ate the caterpillar. It hopped into the grass under the tree and finished its meal. And all we could ...

I had almost forgotten how much I hated those little worm things that hang on their web lines off the trees. I hate those. A lot. Oh well.

I got rained on when I went to class this morning. I watched everyone run, skip, and jump their way through the rain but I walked. Getting rained on is nice. It's so refreshing. All I could think about was that song. If all the raindrops were other things besides raindrops, oh what a rain it would be! When I got to class I was completely soaked through. It was like I had jumped into the creek with all my clothes on. Then it got cold. I'm not very good at handling cold. And now, of course, it's sunny outside. That's how it goes, I guess. I'm looking forward to this weekend. Unless it's cold.

I took a walk today. I need to walk more often. There's always so much to think about. So much to balance. It was nice, though. Things look much better when you relax. Everything falls into place, right where it needs to. Someone sent me an article about how terrible our future is. It's all very doom-and-gloom. Oh well. That's how it goes, I guess. I'm not too worried. For the foreseeable future, things are the opposite of doom-and-gloom--whatever that may be. I have an urge to look at some stars. Time to get the telescope out.

It's raining right now. I guess the April showers came early. It's good though, we need the rain desperately. We always need the rain. I like to watch the rain fall. Everything looks so green afterward. I want to play in the rain like a little kid. I used to wait for the rain to stop when I was a little kid. The sidewalk in front of my house collected the rain in a puddle and I would ride my bicycle through the puddle as fast as I could, send the water spraying off to the sides behind me. Every time I did it I thought of the scene in Batman when he drives the Batmobile to the Batcave for the first time in the movie. The car sent leaves flying off to the sides, and on my black and purple bike it was the only thing I could ever think of. The last time I rode my bike through a puddle was when I was mountain biking. The puddle was actually a big hole full of mud and I slid out and got stuck. And covered in mud. But I was happy. And I'm having a good time now, too.

If I was an animal, I think I'd be a turtle. Certainly not by choice. Turtles have shells that they hide in when they get scared. They get scared pretty easily, I guess. They bring their shells with them everywhere just in case they get scared. And they move slowly. Super slowly. I guess clams and oysters bring their shells with them everywhere, too. When I was a little kid I believed that if you took a turtle out of its shell, it would then become a frog. I know better, now. I won't be a turtle anymore. I'll be a frog. Or a dog. Or a wolf.

Things work out. I'm pretty happy. Who isn't?

I lie about little things, a lot. It's not out of malice. It's not malevolent at all, actually. It's compulsive. Accidental. It's an accidental joke. I used to try to see what people would believe. So I'd say semi-believable things with confidence and a straight face to see what people would do. It became a habit. And now I lie about little things. Not really lie, I'd say. It's more like I suggest things wrongly. I try to tell people when I do that. "I'm just kidding." I say. Usually. But I try to be as honest as I can. Sometimes that gets me in trouble. Sometimes it's easier to just say, "No, I'm just an awkward person," rather than "No, I get butterflies and my tongue gets tied up." I guess that's okay. It's just to make things easier. Everything can be so difficult to deal with sometimes. I'm still so worn out from the camping trip, but I can't sleep.

Eleven hours is a long time to spend in a car. It's a long time to spend driving. It's a long time to spend staring at the road with your leg locked up on the accelerator. I hate using the cruise control. It feels like I'm not really in control of the car. Oh well. It was a nice, peaceful drive that I was mostly awake for. You tend to see weird things when you have nothing to look at. Makes for good conversation though. You only need one word to make a joke. I was certainly anxious about the trip. I think everyone was in their own ways and for their own reasons. I just wanted things to go right. For everyone to have a good time and walk away smiling wider than they were when the went in and I think it worked. And despite my misgivings, I had the best spring break I've had in a while. I was hanging out with good friends and got closer to friends I wasn't as close to before. No, we didn't do much. What we did, though, was fun. We laughed hard and g...

I saw a couple of friends today. A couple of really good friends. It's always nice catching up with old friends like that. It'd been so long since I'd seen either of them. I never get to talk to Anna any more. It was nice hanging out with her. We just drove around for a while and caught up. These last couple of years we've only been able to talk within the context of meeting with a mutual friend, so it was good to be able to just sit and talk. I talk to Matt online a lot, but that's no substitute for talking in person. We ate and saw a movie. Just an all around good time. I wish we got to hang out more often. I'm so tired, but seeing old faces is such a relief. It's refreshing. I need to make more of an effort to reach out. This summer, I guess. There's just so much to do. I'll make time, though.

People don't change. You might turn around one day and your best friend from middle school might transform into a total stranger a couple of years later. A story on a local news website. A shout-out in the obituary column. But he never really changed. He was always the same person. You just didn't know him the way you thought you did. I hate thinking about that. Everybody has a lot of faces to meet and memorize. Some are just uglier than you might have thought before. Oh well. I can pretend it doesn't bother me that much. That's okay, I guess.

A friend of mine came over this past weekend. It had been a while since I had seen him. A few months? A long time. And the last time we had hung out, we were in no shape to do any talking. I hadn't gotten a chance to talk to him about, well, anything really. So he came over to do a demonstration for his new job. "I work for Vector Marketing," he said. "And I'm selling these knives." He showed me the knife set, which was quite extensive. We cut through rope and leather with them. They were very, very nice knives. Expensive, but nice. He explained his situation to me. It wasn't cheery. It was a mean story that went to a dark place. "But," he said. "I'm doing alright." Alright. It's the best we can expect, I guess, but not the best we can hope for. He could be doing much better than he is. Bad luck? Maybe. It's depressing to see that he's not doing what he wants. He's doing what he can. I wish I...

I fell behind on my cartoon drawing, but I think that's okay since I have such a big stash of them from my earlier enthusiasm. It's not from lack of ideas, it's just laziness. But I'm not going to let that slide anymore. Everything, every day. I need to start writing again. I've put that off for a couple months. I need to put these fresh eyes back to work on my zombie story. Greg and I made a writing pact. We have to fill a page quota every month. I'll get to working on it eventually. I've still got a couple weeks left to procrastinate. I drew a guest comic for a couple of old high school friends who started a cartooning website . They've done a good job with it. I remember trying to maintain a webcomic. That was a pretty terrible time. I posted that garbage on deviantART, too. Oh well. Everybody is young and stupid and hopeful sometimes. I had a Xanga, too. And a LiveJournal. Dark chapters. Of course, now I have a blog, so who am I to ...

I had never heard of Staple! before and so I wasn't planning on going at all. "We're going as a group thing," she said. I thought about it for a while. Webcomic artists would be there. "Alright." I said. And I went. We walked in and split our different ways. I wasn't sure what I was supposed to do at all. There were so many people. So many things to do. I only knew a handful of names and no faces. I made my way down the first aisle and glanced back and forth furtively. I stopped when I saw a Spider-man comic. Paul Benjamin. I talked to him for a long time. He had a lot of things to say. I guess you would after you spent a few years as an editor for Marvel before writing for Marvel Adventures Hulk and Spider-man and his own graphic novel. "Are you a writer?" He asked me. I laughed. "I pretend to be." He grinned. "Not like, do you get paid to write. Do you write ?" "Yes." I said. "Is it a ...