“This Night Has Opened My Eyes”
(morrissey)

In a river the colour of lead
Immerse the baby's head.
Wrap her up in the News of the World
Dump her on a doorstep, girl.

This night has opened my eyes
And I will never sleep again.

You kicked and cried like a bullied child
A grown man of twenty-five.
Oh, he said he'd cure your ills
But he didn't and he never will.

Oh, save your life
Because you've only got ONE

The dream has gone
But the baby is real.
Oh, you did a Good thing
She could have been a poet or she could have been a fool.
Oh, you did a Bad thing
And i'm not happy and i'm not sad

A shoeless child on a swing
Reminds you of your own again.
She took away your troubles
Oh, but then again, she left pain.

So, please save your life
Because you've only got ONE

The dream has gone
But the baby is real.
Oh, you did a Good thing
She could have been a poet or she could have been a fool.
Oh, you did a Bad thing
And i'm not happy and i'm not sad
And i'm not happy and i'm not sad
And i'm not happy and i'm not sad

peace #2 - j. sias

Set The Controls For The Heart of the Sun
(Roger Waters)

Little by little the night turns around
Counting the leaves which tremble at dawn
Novices lean on each other in yearning
Under the leaves the swallow is resting
Set the controls for the heart of the sun
Over the mountain watching the watcher
Breaking the darkness waking the grapevine
One inch of love is one inch of shadow
Love is the shadow that ripens the wine
Set the controls for the heart of the sun
Witness the man who raves at the wall
Making the shape of his question to heaven
Whether the sun will fall in the evening
Will he remember the lesson of giving
Set the controls for the heart of the sun

(click each photo to make it larger)








UNTITLED

What happened to all the years...
I feel like I was 18 six months ago
I remember the exact day
It's not some shrouded memory

Why do we charge into the future so quickly
But when we look back,
It seems to stretch out over eons
Multiple discrete lifetimes

It's not your body's age that matters
It's what you've been through in your mind
That is the conventional wisdom anyways
Still I would rather be 25

Than be forced to tell people an age I don't
Know how I ever reached
I must have skipped a decade, honestly
I'm no better now than at 18

Just older on paper
But I'm still the same, I still like music
That kicks ass, I'll still kick your ass
If you bother me

What DID happen to all the years?
Vanished in jars of clay
Put away for archaeologists maybe
Robbed when I was napping one day.

Big Iron.
(Johnny Cash)

To the town of Agua Fria rode a stranger one fine day
Hardly spoke to folks around him didn't have too much to say
No one dared to ask his business no one dared to make a slip
For the stranger there amongst them had a big iron on his hip
Big iron on his hip.

It was early in the morning when he rode into the town
He came riding from the south side slowly lookin' all around
He's an outlaw loose and running came the whisper from each lip
And he's here to do some business with the big iron on his hip
Big iron on his hip.

In this town there lived an outlaw by the name of Texas Red
Many men had tried to take him and that many men were dead
He was vicious and a killer though a youth of twenty four
And the notches on his pistol numbered one and nineteen more
One and nineteen more.

Now the stranger started talking made it plain to folks around
Was an Arizona ranger wouldn't be too long in town
He came here to take an outlaw back alive or maybe dead
And he said it didn't matter he was after Texas Red
After Texas Red.

Wasn't long before the story was relayed to Texas Red
But the outlaw didn't worry men that tried before were dead
Twenty men had tried to take twenty men had made a slip
Twenty one would be the ranger with the big iron on his hip
Big iron on his hip.

The morning passed so quickly it was time for them to meet
It was twenty past eleven when they walked out in the street
Folks were watching from their windows everybody held their breath
They knew this handsome ranger was about to meet his death
About to meet his death.

There was forty feet between them when they stopped to make their play
And the swiftness of the ranger is still talked about today
Texas Red had not cleared leather when a bullet fairly ripped
And the ranger's aim was deadly with the big iron on his hip
Big iron on his hip.

It was over in a moment and the folks had gathered round
There before them lay the body of the outlaw on the ground
Oh he might have gone on living but he made one fatal slip
When he tried to match the ranger with the big iron on his hip
Big iron on his hip.

Bring Her Home.
Adapted from "Bring Him Home" from Les Miserables
Original lyrics by Herbert Kretzmeyer
Adapted lyrics by Justin Sias

God on high
Hear my prayer
In my need
You have always been there.

She is young
She's afraid
Let her rest
Heaven blessed.

Bring her home
Bring her home
Bring her home.

She's been the daughter I have loved
Since God has given me but one.
The summers die,
One by one
How soon they fly!
On and on...

And I am old,
And will be gone.

Bring her peace
Bring her joy
She is young
She is mere spark of joy.

You can take
You can give
Let her be
Let her live
If I die, let me die
Let her live...

Bring her home
Bring her home
Bring her home.

Just a dream.

I wish someone would flood my email box with opinions, links, reviews, poems, jokes, and everything in between. Links are especially easy, just cut & paste while surfing. I love getting emails and I've this dream I will wake up and see 16 new emails in my inbox, only 3 of which are Viagra ads. I suppose it will never happen.

Pumpkin

I care for her,
This pumpkin still on her vine
With time
Only comes strength

She deserves the chance
To emerge
Fully formed and beautiful
As only pumpkins can be

And if she still cares for me
In the end, well, then
I am blessed
And honoured to accept.

(dream tree - j. sias)



















My Evening Star.

I am so happy,
To have lived through today
Not to have lay in bed and missed it all,
Not to have stared all day at these walls.

Not to have missed the words
That made me feel so tall.

I am so happy
And it is because you are happier too
Every little day, it ebbs and flow
But the horizons are colored by roses.

And I will give you the very last one
If our bond ever joyfully closes.

Maybe I've been late to bloom
This world sometimes,
It makes no room
And everybody is out to get you.
But don't let them upset you,
For I am here still and true
And will protect you from everything,
I promise you.

So yes! I am happy,
For I will always have your words to cherish
I swear to the air I will heed this call
And never swerve - never fall.

And if you want me to,
I will be your all.

Then maybe life will see fit to leave us alone,
In each other's arms finally fulfilled
In friendship never spoiled or sullied,
In dreams that are never killed.

And maybe, just maybe
We will beat the odds
And stay together out of love and will,
Never obligation.

You deserve more than I can give you,
My princess who appeared like a star
In my sky those nights ago,
But I will try
I will try...
I will not let you go.

And we deserve the best that
Life has to offer, undiluted,
And unanticipated, too. And TRUE love,
My love, is never overrated!

So thank you for everything you are.
I am yours unreservedly,
My loving friend,
My evening star.

GOD.
(John Lennon)

God is a concept
By which we measure
Our pain.

I'll say it again.

God is a concept
By which we measure
Our pain.

I don't believe in magic
I don't believe in I-Ching
I don't believe in Bible
I don't believe in tarot
I don't believe in Hitler
I don't believe in Jesus
I don't believe in Kennedy
I don't believe in Buddha
I don't believe in mantra
I don't believe in Gita
I don't believe in yoga
I don't believe in kings
I don't believe in Elvis
I don't believe in Zimmerman
I don't believe in Beatles...

I just believe in me.
Yoko and me.
And that's reality.

The dream is over
What can I say?
The dream is over
Yesterday.

I was the dreamweaver
But now, I'm reborn.
I was the Walrus
But now, I'm John.

And so, dear friends
You just have to carry on.
The dream is over.

Dying to meet me

When the hurts have been mended,
The stresses brought to within tolerance
According to the book of human design
21st Century edition,
The curses have been lifted,
When the black cloud that sits fat on the horizon
Following me around has bored of its games
And decided to seek more fertile ground,
The sound of mortar shells ended,
The excellence of the human spirit taken off
Life support because it has recovered and
Not expired, when I am not so tired,
When leaves have been swept into neat piles
And the trees wink and send no more for awhile,
When all of the trains run on time
And the cars emit no fluorocarbons
And the bars serve only intelligent people
Who need to self-medicate because of
Existential terror, and cut off the bikers who
Land at that neon-lit spot in error,
Thinking drinking is just party behavior
And not the last savior
Between medication and the abyss
When we can learn from books all of this and then
Forget all we ever knew and use only our senses,
When we can defend our walls
Without attacking the other castle right back
And yet standing firm and not yielding,
When I have the conviction to go on believing
What people tell me is such a silly dream
And yet I am perfectly awake and not dreaming,
When I can order my day so that the house
Which needs cleaning gets cleaned,
And the cats are feeding without looking around
Wondering what the hell this new food is doing
In their dishes, and my dishes are washed and put away,
When I can call it a day and relax with a book or a
Documentary about diseases, or the story of
Cryptography or Mayan ruins or Sphinxes,
And I'm happy because the couch is soft and the
Blanket is warm, and because the storm that was
My older life has blown over, when the love
I have for living things on this planet shows
Itself in potted herbs, volunteer work,
Some kind of degree in medicine or teaching,
And I can make people in my wake a bit happier than
They were before I awoke them, and when I spoke
To them, I could smile and look them in the eyes,
Revealing a light that can only come when one has
Seen the shores of Aman, the gates of Heaven, or
The golden braid of the Universal Being,
And that awareness spreads, dread ends
And we bend our bodies to the wind determined to
Push on no matter what the cost, when we are lost
And yet keep believing, when everything we owned
Is gone and yet we keep conceiving
Of life as the greatest gift disorder could bestow
Upon this corner of the endless black sea
Crushed with stars whose blinding eyes
Blast light in all directions, slowly dying
So that some of us can live and evolve
To the point of asking why they make that sacrifice
And we understand they are resurrected in new stars
Which are so much richer in chemistry
And more beautiful in variety,
More lush in their possibilities,
And that same life then stares into its own eyes
In a mirror and sees not a ghost or fear
But an angel of the first star of morning
Who never fell, never let that selfish Godhead
Push him over the cliff of servitude into hell
When I fully understand what it means to be well free
Even of God, of expectation of meaning
And yet can feel an overwhelming gratitude
For being this human being, this person in the mirror
I can see who is looking back smiling at me,
That is when I will be dying to meet me.

“Will Never Marry.”

I'm writing this to say
In a gentle way
Thank You, but NO;

I will live my life as I
Will undoubtedly die:
ALONE .

For whether you stay
Or you stray,
An inbuilt Guilt
Catches up with you.

And as it comes around
To your place at 5:00AM,
Wakes you up
And it laughs in your face....

~morrissey~

MORE ALBUMS - Hah! Beat this you duffers.

A-Ha - Hunting High and Low
A-Ha - Scoundrel Days
Air - Moon Safari
Bauhaus - Burning From The Inside
Bauhaus - In The Flat Field
Bauhaus - The Sky's Gone Out
Belle and Sebastian - Fold Your Hands Child, You Walk Like A Peasant
Big Audio Dynamite - Megatop Phoenix
Big Audio Dynamite - This Is Big Audio Dynamite
Björk - Gling-Gló
Björk - Homogenic
Björk - Post
Björk - Vespertine
Black Uhuru - Guess Who's Coming to Dinner
Black Uhuru - Mystical Truth
Black Uhuru - Sensimilla
Bob Marley - Babylon By Bus
Bob Marley - Exodus
Bob Marley - Kaya
Bob Marley - Survival
Bob Marley - Uprising
Cat Power - Moon Pix
Cat Power - The Cover Record
Cat Power - What Would The Community Think?
Chicago 16
Chicago 17
Cocteau Twins - (Can't keep track of their albums anyway)
Dan Fogelberg - Captured Angel
Dan Fogelberg - High Country Snows
Dan Fogelberg - Netherlands
Dan Fogelberg - Phoenix
Dan Fogelberg - Souvenirs
Dan Fogelberg - The Innocent Age
Dan Fogelberg - Windows and Walls
David Bowie - Aladdin Sane
David Bowie - Heathen
David Bowie - Let's Dance
David Bowie - Never Let Me Down
David Bowie - Space Oddity
David Bowie - The Man Who Sold The World
Dead Can Dance - Aion
Dead Can Dance - Dead Can Dance
Dead Can Dance - Spiritchaser
Dead Can Dance - The Serpent's Egg
Depeche Mode - Black Celebration
Depeche Mode - Violator
Dr. Dre - The Chronic
Don Carlos - Just a Passing Glance
Echo & The Bunnymen - Crocodile
Echo & The Bunnymen - Songs to Learn and Sing
Emiliana Torrini - Fisherman's Wife
Enigma - MCMXC A.D.
Frente - Marvin the Album
Garbage - Garbage
George Michael - Faith
George Michael - Listen Without Prejudice Vol. 1
Jane's Addiction - Nothing's Shocking
Jeff Buckley - Grace
Jimmy Cliff - The Harder They Come
Joe Strummer - Earthquake Weather
Joe Strummer and the Mescaleros - Rock Art and the X-Ray Style
John Lennon - Imagine
John Lennon - Plastic Ono Album
Joy Division - Unknown Pleasures
Junior Reid & The Bloods
Junior Reid - Big Timer
Junior Reid - Listen to the Voices
Junior Reid - One Blood
Junior Reid - Visa
Leonard Cohen - I'm Your Man
Leonard Cohen - Songs of Love and Hate
Leonard Cohen - The Future
Leonard Cohen - The Songs of Leonard Cohen
Love Spit Love - Love Spit Love
Love and Rockets - Earth, Sun, Moon
Love and Rockets - Seventh Dream of Teenage Heaven
Martin L. Gore - Counterfeit
Marvin Gaye - What's Going On
Mazzy Star - So That I Tonight Might See
Michael Rose - Be Yourself
Michael Rose - Ganja Bonanza
Michael Rose - Michael Rose
Michael Rose - Proud
Michael Rose - X Uhuru (with Sly & Robbie)
Modest Mouse - Good News For People Who Love Bad News
Modest Mouse - The Moon and Antarctica
Moloko - Do You Like My Tight Sweater?
Moloko - Statues
Moloko - Things To Make and Do
Morrissey - Kill Uncle
Morrissey - Vauxhall And I
New Order - Movement
New Order - Power, Corruption and Lies
New Order - Technique
Nick Cave - Henry's Dream
Nick Cave - Murder Ballads
Nick Cave - No More Shall We Part
Nick Cave - Tender Prey
Nick Cave - The Boatman's Call
Nick Cave - The Good Son
Nick Cave - Your Funeral, My Trial
Nick Drake - Time of No Reply
Nirvana - In Utero
Oasis - (What's The Story) Morning Glory
Patti Smith - Horses
Pearl Jam - Ten
Peter Gabriel - III
Peter Tosh - Legalise It
Pink Floyd - A Momentary Lapse of Reason
Pink Floyd - Atom Heart Mother
Pink Floyd - Meddle
Pink Floyd - Obscured By Clouds
Pink Floyd - The Division Bell
Pink Floyd - The Final Cut
Pink Floyd - The Piper at the Gates of Dawn
Placebo - Placebo
Placebo - Sleeping With Ghosts
Portishead - Dummy
Portishead - Portishead
REM - Document
REM - Green
REM - Fables of the Reconstruction
REM - Monster
REM - Murmur
Radiohead - Amnesia
Radiohead - Kid A
Radiohead - The Bends
Roisin Murphy - Ruby Blue
Sade - Love Deluxe
Sade - Lovers Rock
Sade - Paradise
Sade - Stronger Than Pride
Scarface - The Diary
Sigur Rós - Ágætis Byrjun
Sigur Rós - Takk
Siouxsie and the Banshees - Peepshow
Siouxsie and the Banshees - Juju
Siouxsie and the Banshees - Through the Looking Glass
Stina Nordenstam - Dynamite
Stina Nordenstam - People Are Strange
Stina Nordenstam - The World Is Saved
Stina Nordenstam - This is Stina Nordenstam
Stone Temple Pilots - Core
Stone Temple Pilots - Tiny Music... Songs From the Vatican Gift Shop
SWANS - Love of Life
SWANS - Soundtracks For the Blind
SWANS - The Great Annihilator
SWANS - White Life From the Mouth of Infinity
Syd Barrett - Barrett
Syd Barrett - Opel
Syd Barrett - The Madcap Laughs
Tears For Fears - Songs From the Big Chair
Tears For Fears - The Hurting
The Beatles - Let It Be
The Beatles - Magical Mystery Tour
The Beatles - Revolver
The Beatles - Rubber Soul
The Beatles - Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band
The Chameleons - Why Call It Anything?
The Clash - Combat Rock
The Clash - Give 'Em Enough Rope
The Clash - Sandinista
The Clash - The Clash
The Cranberries - Everyone Else Is Doing It, So Why Can't We?
The Cranberries - No Need To Argue
The Cranberries - To The Faithful Departed
The Cure - Bloodflowers
The Cure - Disintegration
The Cure - Faith
The Cure - Pornography
The Cure - Seventeen Seconds
The Cure - Wish
The Doors - The Doors
The Eagles - Desperado
The Eagles - Hotel California
The Eagles - One of These Nights
The Eagles - The Long Road
The Jimi Hendrix Experience - Are You Experienced?
The Sex Pistols - Nevermind the Bollocks
The Smiths - Louder Than Bombs
The Smiths - The Queen Is Dead
The Smiths - The Smiths
The Stone Roses - The Stone Roses
The Sugarcubes - Life's Too Good
The Sugarcubes - Stick Around For Joy
The Sundays - Blind
The Sundays - Reading, Writing, & Arithmetic
The Sundays - Static & Silence
The The - Dusk
The The - Mind Bomb
They Might Be Giants - Flood
They Might Be Giants - Lincoln
Tim Buckley - Happy/Sad
Toto - IV
2Pac - All Eyez On Me
2Pac - Makaveli - Killuminati (The 7-Day Theory)
2Pac - Me Against The World
2Pac - Strictly For My N.I.G.G.A.Z
2Pac - 2Pacalypse Now
U2 - Achtung Baby
U2 - Boy
U2 - How To Dismantle An Atomic Bomb
U2 - The Joshua Tree
U2 - War
Victor de Lorenzo - Peter Corey Sent Me
Violent Femmes - Hallowed Ground
Violent Femmes - The Blind Leading the Naked
Violent Femmes - Violent Femmes

UNTITLED

I knew a man
Amiable, sensitive
Always had a beer in his hand
Loved the Oakland Raiders.
Friends with the band
And though I was much younger,
Didn't give a damn
He never dismissed me
Or looked past me,
He was a good guy.
He had migraines he couldn't
Ever get rid of, though
I didn't know it
I suppose he had a tough time
Trying not to show it
Popped Excedrin like candy
Trying to cope.
He died of cancer in his thirties
I dunno, maybe early forties
What should have been the prime of his life,
We watched him shrink and die.
I never had a real chance to say goodbye.

I knew of a woman
The grandmother of a friend
We were in one of those places
They don't care about you.
She was part of one of those families
They seem to forget about you.
Put her in a home,
So she could be taken care of
She was so scared, but they
Told her they would be there
Then they were gone.
That kind of home is not a home
She died alone,
Complications with her diabetes.
The staff on hand so seldom checked in
They could have saved her,
She must have been so scared.
I just hope she blacked out.
I just hope she wasn't scared.

Believers say,
"It's all part of God's plan."
"The Lord has a place for us all."
What a joke.

Ever wanted to zoom in and out (make text on a web page bigger or smaller) easily? At least on Windows, if you have a wheel mouse, hold down the [CTRL] key and move the mouse wheel. Wheee! I do this all the time, and maybe everyone knows about it. Just thought maybe there were those who didn't. Especially on a laptop with a small screen, or if you have bad or strained eyesight, it can be nice to zoom in a couple of clicks to make everything a tad easier to read.

MY BLOOD

I am the Native American who surveyed this ancient valley,
I am the Spanish Conquistador who brought about his fall.

I am the Irish freedom fighter sick of King and Empire,
I am the English patriot who'd show that mick his station.

I am the German Aryan promised glory for the righteous,
I am the Slav his tank ran over reaching for my gun.

Camping.

The Best 25 albums ever (until you ask me again tomorrow).

1. The Smiths - Strangeways, Here We Come
2. The Beatles - Abbey Road
3. Pink Floyd - The Dark Side of the Moon
4. Radiohead - OK Computer
5. Nick Drake - Pink Moon
6. Fleetwood Mac - Rumours
7. REM - Automatic For the People
8. Pink Floyd - Wish You Were Here
9. Joy Division - Closer
10. Morrissey - Viva Hate
11. Pink Floyd - The Wall
12. The Beatles - The White Album
13. The Clash - London Calling
14. Dead Can Dance - Within the Realm of a Dying Sun
15. Violent Femmes - 3
16. Nirvana - Nevermind
17. Michael Jackson - Thriller
18. Dead Can Dance - Into The Labyrinth
19. Smashing Pumpkins - Siamese Dream
20. Psychedelic Furs - Book of Days
21. The Chameleons - The Script of the Bridge
22. Bowie - Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders From Mars
23. The Smiths - Meat is Murder
24. Pink Floyd - Animals
25. Nick Drake - Five Leaves Left

Bah, this is impossible. I just thought of 5-10 other albums that should be on this list. No Cure? No Leonard Cohen? No Queen Is Dead? Bob Marley? Gregory Isaacs? Doors? Hmm. Maybe I'll do another top 25 albums list tomorrow and every single one will be different.

Meantime, you could post some of your favorite albums (not in list form or anything). Greatest hits and live albums don't count, or there would be Eagles, Paul Simon, and a whole lot more here. But if you feel like it, list a few of your favorite all-time albums! It'll be fun to see what we all come up with.

VIDEOS

Bjork - Bachelorette
Bjork - I've Seen It All
Bjork - Play Dead

Cat Power - The Greatest
Cat Power - Cross Bones Style
Cat Power - Metal Heart

Flood of emotions.

I feel like some modern-day Noah steering his ride around on an endless sea of emotions, unable to find land. All the parking spots on Mt. Ararat are full up from previous floods. I just have myself and one animal on this ark, a few meager possessions, and maybe some baggage, but I don't mind if that needs to be thrown overboard - I'm just tired of the constant swaying and drenching I'm getting.

I miss my daughter most importantly of all. Miss her so much, it's nearly impossible to bear. I was with her nearly every day of her life for over ten years and then one day, poof, gone. Saw her sporadically and now I cannot see her at all. Talking to her on cell phone, IM, or email is very rare, and it's been weeks now since the last time. It's agony for a parent to lose a child, to constantly wonder whether she is ok, not being taken advantage of, not an emotional mess in need of a big hug, not in need of a shoulder to cry on or an ear to hear her vent. I was all these things and to not be able to be them now is killing me. Sue, if you're reading this, I MISS YOU SO MUCH. I don't know what I can do until you're 18 and/or contact me and want to see me, but I assume we're on good terms and you still think of me? Still love me? I love you more than anything. I just want to see you for a few minutes or at least hear your voice. You mean everything to me and the worst part of this breakup going on three years ago is all the time I've missed getting to be your father. It's not fair and I hate it! I still wake up several mornings a week thinking I'm in the old house, with my wife to my side, and you asleep in your room or more likely already up feeding the cats or checking the computer. It takes me a minute to orient myself and realize that, instead, I'm alone in an apartment, and my "wife" is my cat Jackson, and you are gone. I cry on those mornings, wondering what the hell happened that we all couldn't get things together and make it as a family, or at least that you and I have been precluded from having a regular relationship. This is hell not being able to get hold of you for weeks or even months at a time. I am reading a book about grieving the loss of a loved one, just so I can recognize the emotions and deal with them. Sometimes it feels like that, like the death of a loved one. Don't you still want me to be a part of your life?

Next is the whirlwind that is my female friend from Calgary. She's blown into my life again, and I am glad, in fact I am ecstatic, but it brings lots of confusion and tumult as well. She's fiery and opinionated like me, and we talk, and argue, and agree, and even at times feel very close, but she is there and I am here. And I've been up there before and it didn't work out. And her current male friend is treating her coldly yet she bends over backwards to make him happy. He pisses me off. It's frustrating to see her sad, see her angry, know that she is probably crying. Sometimes I want to shake her or knock some sense into her, but it's her life to live, and besides, what sense do I have to give anyone else? I'm just as much a fool for her as she can be for others; how can I fault her for that? She knows how I feel about her - if only we could have met that time. I know she would have seen it in my eyes, would have felt something. If she is the rare kind of sentient soul I think she is, she would've known it right away in me, too. She found my writing, after all, way back in the beginning, and saw something in it. I know she cares about me and we talk nearly every day, but the distance keeps us apart and in the meantime she has her schooling to worry about and friends, and anxiety, and parties, and the future, and math, and boys, and... me? Does she think of me the way I do of her, at least some of the time? I know there was a time when she did, she told me. And she still says sweet things and is the kind of sensitive soul that drew me to her in the first place. But it's this stuck, unlikely-to-change-soon situation we're both in that prevents anything more from happening, as much as we may belong together or at least deserve that chance of finding out. If you're reading this, Nic, know what I say is true, however idealistic it may sound. Just because most people in this world are crude and corrupting, doesn't mean there aren't people with good hearts and exciting minds out there who are worth waiting for.

I want to be a doctor, a psychiatrist or a neurologist, someone who can fight the ugly side of life that is mental illness. Whether that is by having a practice and prescribing medication, or by doing research to benefit even more people but in a less direct way, I want to use my talents, such as they are, to help people who have grown up like me sensitive to the pain of life and living in the dark. The understanding science has of the brain is so rudimentary at the moment, it is begging for talented thinkers to come into the field and push the boundaries, even spark a golden age of mind-brain understanding, a bringing together of allopathic medicine with its reductive, mechanistic models, and emergent information-theory born stratagems for understanding how sentience (and emotional suffering) arise from the actual chemistry. I don't dismiss Buddhism or Taoism because I believe in Western, material science. I don't dismiss Western, material science because I innately feel the correctness of Buddhism or Taoism or some sort of hybrid, true, Eastern holism. The two are different parts of the same elephant, I know they are. But I have doubts about schooling, about money, about debt, about stability, about discipline, about going into practice. I am as I have always been. Confident in my ability to understand, to perform when asked to, under the heaviest pressure shining even more, like a diamond forged of pencil graphite, but... scared of responsibility, of being alone and having to successfully navigate the banal, logistical side of life, any life, even while succeeding gloriously in the "hard" stuff. Life is experienced backwards for me than how it is for many; I know I will ace the test. I know I can beat people at basketball, or whatever you name. I have trouble in the things people do automatically and take for granted, like cooking, cleaning, doing laundry, showing up on time, keeping my car running and my bills paid. I somehow missed taking that class. Life 1A. I'm an armchair autodidact with little practical knowledge of the real world, a sort of Mycroft Holmes. I'm an alien who has become an expert on the human condition by watching a thousand documentaries.

I have two friends in England whom I have in a short time grown enormously fond of, and who have done more than they could have ever been expected to in supporting me through a rough time, in reading and participating eagerly on this blog, and being just generally good, down-to-earth people, the kind you want as your friends if you have any brain at all. And yet I don't participate on their blogs nearly as much as I should and though I intend to rectify this, what does it say about me that thus far I have taken much more than given? Am I that selfish? I would hate to think so. I do care for them both a lot; I'd so love to visit them! I conjure one or the other or both often throughout the day as things come up, thinking I know so-and-so would find this hilarious or roll the eyes or be saddened. Sara, Dunc, if you are reading this I owe you more than I am currently giving. I am lazy and I don't do for my friends what I cherish when it is done for me. I need to place more emphasis on my relationships with ALL the people in my life, and not drop everything for a romantic interest or a fire that needs to be put out, or lay in bed because an all-consuming anger over one person has seeped into me through my death-star exhaust ports. No one is perfect, though... Goddammit, why not??

I want to be perfect in every way; instead, I seem to have made a mess of everything.

Airbag
(Thom Yorke)

In the next world war
Jackknifed juggernaut, I am born again.
In the neon sign, scrolling up and down
I am born again.

An interstellar burst.... I'm back to save the universe.

In a deep deep sleep, of the innocent
I am born again.
In a fast German car, I'm amazed that I survived
An airbag saved my life.

An interstellar burst.... I'm back to save the universe.
An interstellar burst.... I'm back to save the universe.
An interstellar burst.... I'm back to save the universe.

Ubiety.

When I close my eyes I think of you
When I'm in my car making
A right hand turn, I think of you
When I wake up in the morning and a tiny
Shaft of pink light first hits my eyes I
Think of you and your beautiful face
Hovering above mine and
Your sweet lips that form
That generous smile, wide as the earth
And when I'm staring into the trees
While the wind pushes their leaves to and fro
Later in the day under the purest blue,
I think of you.

The question is,
Do I ever not think of you?
Let me ponder that one
And I'll get back to you.
Hold on a second, it's impossible
I can't contemplate a mental state without you
Without picturing you there for removal
So there's your answer!
Besides...

I like to.

Table Tennis, aka Ping-Pong.

Is anyone out there really good at table tennis, or regular tennis for that matter? Come on over to eastern Santa Rosa in the Sunshine State and I'll give you a beating that might make you give up the sport for good. The end.

(photo by Monasette)

For a friend.

Girl with a golden heart
In my heart, a drying painting
Trying to stay smart, I was
Lost until I found you,
But I will wait for you.

There's one cruel thing about life
After another, but great things too:
Like chatting with you,
Like joking and smiling.
You are always welcome to sail in my sea.

And if you see a castle on a hill
Please don't come running;
There'd be nobody there to meet you. No,
I'd be on the edge of the dock with my waders on,
Present in person to greet you.

(Dan Fogelberg)

Phoenix

I have cried too...I have cried too long
I have cried too...I have cried too long
No more sorrow...got to carry on.

Found deep water before I'd even learned to swim
Found deep water before I'd even learned to swim
Never thought I'd see the sun again.

Once I was a...once I was a man alone
Once I was a...once I was a man alone
Now I've found a heart to call my home.

Like a Phoenix I have risen from the flames
Like a Phoenix I have risen from the flames
No more living someone else's dreams.

I have cried too...I have cried too long
I have cried too...I have cried too long
No more sorrow...got to carry on.

You almost had me, old lady
You almost tied me down good
You played the lady in waiting
And I waited as long as I could

Too long the songs have been silent
Too long the strings have been still
I never knew what you wanted
And I guess that I never will

Like a Phoenix I have risen from the flames
Like a Phoenix I have risen from the flames
No more living someone else's dreams.

I have cried too...I have cried too long
I have cried too...I have cried too long
No more sorrow...got to carry on.



Beggar's Game

I saw her first in a beggar's game
Her eyes were wild but her laugh was tame
Those people knew her by another name
I knew that she'd be mine,
I knew that she'd be mine.

She took me in on a winter's night
The air was brittle and the moon was bright
My heart was heavy but her touch was light
Deep in the dance we wandered,
Deep in my heart she fell.

The candles glistened and the water gleamed
She drew a bath and the windows steamed
She looked like every woman ever dreamed
In the heart of a lonely man,
In the heart of a lonely man.

She took my blindness and she led me through
As night retreated and the daylight grew
And with the first rays of the sun I knew
Love had another captive,
Love had another fool.

FAKE PLASTIC TREES
(Thom Yorke)

Her green plastic watering can
For her fake Chinese rubber plant
In the fake plastic earth

That she bought from a rubber man
In a town full of rubber plans
To get rid of itself

It wears her out, it wears her out.


She lives with a broken man
A cracked polystyrene man
Who just crumbles and burns

He used to do surgery
For girls in the eighties
But gravity always wins

&
It wears him out, it wears him out.
It wears him out, it wears him out.


She looks like the real thing
She tastes like the real thing
My fake plastic love

But I can't help the feeling
I could blow through the ceiling
If I just turn and run

&
It wears me out, it wears me out.
It wears me out, it wears me out.

“NOW MY HEART IS FULL”
(morrissey)

There's gonna be some trouble
A whole house will need rebuilding
And everyone I love in the house
Will recline on an analyst's couch quite soon.

Your father cracks a joke
And in the usual way, empties the room.

Tell all of my friends (I don't have too many)
Just some rain-coated lovers' puny brothers.

Dallow, Spicer, Pinkie, Cubitt -
Rush to danger,
Wind up nowhere.
Patric Doonan - raised to wait...

I'm tired again
I've tried again
&

Now my heart is full.
Now my heart is full.
And I just can't explain,
So I won't even
Try to.

Dallow, Spicer, Pinkie, Cubitt.
Every jammy Stressford poet.
Loafing oafs in all-night chemists
Loafing oafs in all-night chemists
Underact - express depression
Ah, but Bunnie I loved you.

I was tired again
I tried again
&

Now my heart is full.
Now my heart is full.
And I just can't explain,
So I won't even
Try to.

(I wish)

I need to lose weight. What convinced me of this is that my doctor finally said he was "concerned" because my weight has been going steadily up. When I first saw him about ten years ago I weighed 171 lbs, then it was 185 for the longest time. Then crept up into the 190s when I was forced from my home and began to eat less than an optimal diet. Now I'm suddenly 217 lbs... 98 kilos... 15 and a half stone. For someone who's fairly tall, it spreads itself around a bit and I don't think people look at me and the first thing they think is "he's fat." But it does have me sucking in my stomach a bit when attractive members of the opposite gender are about. And then there's the doctor... He got me good and depressed by telling me that yes, I was still young, but now is a tipping point where I either eat better and get more exercise, get back down to fighting weight and all that, and live happily ever after in the magic kingdom, or else I'll continue to slide into fat-land, join the ranks of obese Americans with health problems related to their weight either directly, or by the chain-reaction effect of carrying around more adipose tissue than we were designed to bear.

So that does it. I'm going to get under 200 (even if it's just 199) by the end of the year, and by changing my habits, not through some starvation diet or other gimmick. Then next year I want to go from 200 to 180. I think 180 is a perfectly acceptable weight for me if it's mostly muscle and very little fat. I plan to walk, swim, jog, hike, bike, and do lots of other aerobic exercising that doesn't involve being trapped in a gym, and to eat more green stuff and less meat (darn). I don't have a problem with sweets, thank God. I also want to build more muscle, not to be a body builder, but in proportion with my body, and to aid with fat loss, feel stronger and lighter on my feet, be faster at sports (which I want to start playing again...), and basically just be a stud to the ladies. Lol, seriously though, if I could weigh about 175 or 180 and have it be mostly lean muscle mass, I would be ecstatic. I guess anyone would. My appearance is sure to improve, and more importantly my cardiovascular fitness will improve. Then who knows, maybe I'll live forever. Someone has to, right?

I never even thought about my weight until recent years because I was always one of those reedy kids who was tall and really thin and couldn't eat enough to gain any weight. But my metabolism has slowed down considerably, and all those good eating habits I never learned are coming back to haunt me.

So then, to arms! (And legs, and abs...)