"For love and not for lies."

You drive me crazy. C R A Z Y.

C.S. Lewis class and a book a week. So far it's been The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe, The Last Battle, and I am nearly through with Surprised by Joy (in my opinion the best so far). Next is The Screwtape Letters, and The Great Divorce for an extra project. My head may explode due to word overload...it rhymed.

Tonight is my first In the Face of War show of the WHOLE school year. I'm pretty excited, and can't really believe I have not been to one since I have been back. I sat and ate with Janie and Eric on Friday. Eric said his favorite city in California was "Alien Workshop", it was great.

I should start reading now.

I went throught my music library and tried to piece together London Calling from the Vanilla Tapes. I think I got most of it, except a few songs are missing. I might listen to it tomorrow as I run, but I am not sure yet. Tonight is the debut of the Cobrasnake tshirt I bought. So far I have gotten a good response from those who have seen it.

Eating sounds good right now. So does painting. I think, though, that the pieces I am working on need to stew a bit. Stew they may.

Ps. 132:4-5 NASB

"I will not give sleep to my eyes
Or slumber to my eyelids,
Until I find a place for the Lord.
A dwelling place for the Mighty One of Jacob."

I'm tired of being stubborn and bullheaded with everything. There is such simplicity in life when you realize you can't control it. Not that you are becoming someone who is lazy. But the moment you let things happen, you remember why you love life so much. What good can come of it.

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10

K.O.

You're not crazy.

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10

K.O.

There are some things in this world I will never understand.

Chick, you could write a book.

Peter (Solitary):

"Watch your tongue." urged Peter as he passed through the narrow isles of the shop. Rose had obviously been muttering to herself the sweet nothings that hand blade saws love to hear. They were nothing particularly vulgar, but Peter, the shops owner tried to curb the habit of inanimate tool lust.

To Rose, however, this was no non moving non living object. This saw was a living breathing part of her life. Peter could tell by the way she looked at the shiny metal chrome handle. Didn't that saw once have a blade? The fact is, it did. Peter knew Rose had it. He let it slide.

"You know, if you really like the saw all that much, you can have it." Peter announced. He did this in a non-boastful way. He could cover the cost. Rose was unbelievably lovable. And Peter was wise to this. He didn't see exactly what James saw, but he could tell she could win her prize in a beauty contest. It wasn't so much her looks, Peter thought. It was her.

It was her.

Rose was stunned. Peter, the solitary man of the hardware shop suggested she should maybe just take it. In this situation, she would always purchase something small in order to draw attention from her stealing. Everyone noticed though. If it was mercy she wanted, it was mercy she got. And mercy she will continue to get.

Tack nails, gum, shoe polish were the accomplishes to her crimes. But no one who knew she did it thought it was a crime. It was her working her way out, with her God.

Peter, (Solitary) walked her up to the register in the corner of the room. He then placed the saw handle between too sheets of heavy packing paper. With red wrapping twine he tied the folded edges of the package. Solitary man was pretty old world in this sense. He treated every purchase like it was worth it's weight. He sent them off like first day of school children. With a mug of chicken broth.

With the package wrapped up, Rose remembered the blade in her inside coat pocket. She kept a light cloth in the pocket to prevent wear into the coat's lining. It was a nice coat. James noticed why she liked it. He kept it to himself. James liked to keep his thoughts hanging in his head like medallions. Like the collection Rose had. In that, he knew they were very similar.

With Solitary smiling brightly at Rose and the bound in red twine package, Rose swung out the door. She got something for free this time. The saw was given to her.

I saw Munich tonight with my friend Sam. I always say movies like that will change my life.

Worst Scrabble word to get while playing with mom: A-N-A-L. Like "anal cavity". I think it was something like 8 points though. I won a game and she won a game. I didn't want to play best out of 5, so I stopped after 2 games.

Rose:

Rose liked to steal things. She never really considered it stealing because she thought once she got a collection of things, someone would but them in a museum. Eventually, those people would thank her. She never stole big things. She never took things which were large in monetary value. She never walked off with a television, or a computer or car.

Little by little Rose collected the small things. Some would say it's the little, it's the small things that matter most. She used to smoke, but she quit. She used to be a pretty girl and she used to have fun. She doesn't know she's still a pretty girl.

Rose looks for things to steal. She doesn't happen upon them, she seeks them out. But it's her desire to be passionate. Inside her exists a large burden to the world. One day, she will make her mark on someone or a group. They will be forever entranced by her collection of objects. Playing cards, lawn ornaments, Catholic icons, shoe laces, silver dollars, lengths of rope, keys to locks, and the locks themselves. They would all combine into a divine installation one day. She knows people are endeared by her now, but she's always working for something.

This is what makes this kind of stealing ok.

On a 14' by 14' square of robust white painted peg board she hangs her objects. She has genuine deep down love for all of them, and sometimes she takes them down. One by one she whispers why. If the one neon red shoe lace could actually know how she felt. It would be the most special shoe lace in the world. If only she could express herself in the way the virgin mary candle would understand. If God knew it to, she surely would be shown mercy.

If mercy is what she wants, than God will give it to her.

She was in a shop one day when she saw James. She seemed to instantly recognize James' love for his tools that he delivered. She noticed the care he put into his job and he saw the shine of the tools. The tattered red cloth hanging from his waste was used to wipe off the grime of his tools, and to make them presentable.

"Morning."

She looked up and he noticed her. He noticed her. She wasn't seeking approval from him. He wasn't God. He noticed her, without her clamoring for attention which people maybe thought she did. But James, the big lug, the unassuming clod, saw something. God knew what exactly James saw, but no one else did.

Not even Rose.

The door clanged shut. She walked over to where James had been. She stepped in his spots. She examined the counter where the tools sat. "Where are those tools?" she thought. Slinking up and down the 7' tall isles she saw the extension cords, she saw the extra fuses, and she saw the extra blades for the boxcutters. Anything in this humble shop could be used to her advantage.

When she reached the wall where James' deliveries hung, she examined them. She saw the hammer, the saw, the crowbar and the nails. Reaching towards the saw, she unattached the blade. This was a good one. Two things in one. A blade and a saw handle. They could hang as two separate pieces.

The worst thing about the end of the year is the contiual revival of news stories that don't matter. Now don't lable me as some kind of stone hearted ogre, but there is a limit to how many times I can hear the story about the Brad and Jen break up without becoming legally insane. I am not talking stories about hurricanes and tsunamis, but the media just seems to have a knack of shoving this useless information down our throats. Being back on break helps me realize how NOT having a TV in my room or house is a blessing. I feel like I read it enough on internet news pages let alone from the magazines, TV shows, and newspapers.

Ok, I am going to eat lunch.

James:

James, black wash denim. Carries on down the street his crate of tools. One hammer, one saw, a crowbar and nails. He scuffs his shoes, he doesn't walk right, he continues on down the street. Taking his cargo on the left side of the road, James and his conscience think together. He can only be good or bad.

Maybe James can be a little of both.

People pass him, they stare. Sometimes they throw things. Sometimes they are insults, one time it was a can. He took it to the metal works and got 10 cents for it. James throws insults at himself too. Those, like the can are recycled. The same inadequacies fit each time.

Lack of smarts, James thinks. He thinks he lacks in a lot of areas. He thinks not like normal people do. Texture has a lot to do with it. Each situation is related to him by texture. If it is wrong, it rubs him the wrong way.

Nothing can prevent James from feeling what he feels, and he likes this most of the time. And he likes his hammer, his saw and the crowbar and nails.

The door swings wide.

He stops it with his right foot, which has an untied loosely hanging patent leather shoe on it. "Morning.", he greets. He remembers: Beth, John, Steve, Tom, Joyce, Al...Blond hair? He does not remember this one. Seemingly, with burning-iron red glowing eyes of imminent doom she turns to him.

Swing do his arms, he drops the crate of tools.

He takes care of his hands, and his feet. James' father, Job (Joe-b) told him to remember to do this. He can kinda remember a lot of what his dad did or said:

"Take care of your hands, so they can mend. Your feet, keep them dry. Keep clean socks beside the radiator during the winter, James."

James also remembers other things. Some of them are: Job's fondness for gumball machine gum, fishing caps, and pin ups. Those ladies now are 80. James' memories of his father are pinned up in his memory, but are now fading like the beautiful buxom ladies which then hung against the wall of the garage.

The tool box is empty. The tools are stocked on the hardware store's wall. They are the same tools, in a new environment. Usually they fly off the shelf. Now, however, they remain hung and left to shine. Maybe to display there value and their luster. Or maybe to hang.

James leaves the store, but first ties his shoe. He takes his crummy old crate and heads back up the road from where he came. He admits he would do it as many times as it takes.

"I sleep light...on these drugs tonight."

Ok so now everything makes me want to get physically ill. I watched Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, like I may have said (previous update?) and when I was done, I felt as if I was on drugs. And when the room started spinning that same night I assumed I was. I also slept light that night, just like the song lyric. I just feel sick when I think how I it wasn't really a trip. If it were fake it would be over by now.

So I can only perceive this as an actual event.




You cannot change the past. Is CHANGE the only thing that can quell the burning in our hearts of our shortcomings?


Difference. Similarity = Mediocre. Similarity as an excuse, similarity is not perfection. Perfection is a haunting dream humans have. We can never achieve it. We will never have "perfection". Or what our tiny brains preconceive as "perfection". We can work until our bones literally bleed and our brains decompose and still never be happy. With friends, you take good, bad and (thank you Sergio Leone) the ugly.

Difference is what makes us long for Similarity, but once we think we have it, it turns out to be Difference again. Our idea of difference is an uncomfortable one. It (the idea of difference) EATS good qualities, feelings, passion, love, and forgiveness. It destroys true meaning.

The "Difference Monster" is man's real problem. We base Similarity on Difference, as if one was more important than the other. So when something isn't the same, it is bad. Difference does not equal bad, it equals evolution. A chance for our mind set to change for the better and to adapt with new knowledge.

We (should) celebrate our new knowledge.

The ONLY similar thing that exists is DIFFERENCE. If we cannot except difference we will never grow. We will never live outside ourselves. We will be concentrating on what makes things "similar" and comfortable to us. Difference is true comfort. Knowing nothing will be the same the next time said, spoken, or breathed. Knowledge in this should excite us, and invigorate us. Not seperate us.

"...I'm standing there and she's not talking to me. I couldn't stand it, so I just stepped up and said, "Patti" I put my hand out, doing our old thing, which was the boy handshake. She goes, "Wow Penny, man, wow man, you look exactly the same, man, you look the same." I said, "Yeah so do you." But I didn't feel any connection. I felt there was a Plexiglas screen up. And she goes, "Man, I gotta get a cigarette, I'll be right back." So she goes back to talking to Tom Verlaine, and she doesn't come back. She's not coming back. I'm standing there thinking, What the fuck am I doing here? I don't wanna be here. As soon as I heard it in my head, I went over to Pattu and said "Patti, I'm sorry, I'm gonna split. I really don't want to be here, I just came down to see you."

She said, "Wait a minute, where are you going man? Where are you going?" I said, "Well I'm gonna split." So patti goes "Well where are you living man? Are you living in Spain? Or are you living in Maine? Where are you living man?"

I said, "I'm living in Maine." and she goes "Aw Penn, Penny, man I don't feel so good, I don't feel so good, my stomach hurts." I put my hand on her stomach, and I said, "What's the matter, Patti?" She was going, "Man you know..."

I looked at her and I suddenly realized who Patti had been--like who she'd been to her friends--she was now using that in this public way. So she couldn't be that to me anymore, because now it was for everyone. And I realized that Patti had sixteen people around her telling her that she was the best thing since sliced bread, and for her to see someone like me, who knew her, she just couldn't see me. And I felt really bad for her. But I didn't want to be there."

?

"I lived with Johnny in New York but it didn't work out. Johnny and I were going to get married. We were going to have a baby, too. I did get pregnant, but I had an abortion. Johnny tried to destroy my personality. He wanted to sit there and be quiet and tell him I loved him twenty-four hours a day. I liked to run around and have a good time, but I did change for him. I mean I was becoming the type of person he wanted me to be-just stay home everyday. After I was with him, I just wasn't Sable Starr anymore. He really destroyed the Sable Starr thing. He made me throw away all my diaries and all my phone numbers down the incinerator and he ripped up my scrapbook. It was a good one, too. It had everything in it. After that I was kind of destroyed. That's why I felt so bad, to have been such a hot shit and to be let down to such a low level."

Did I do this?

Do I have a prayer?