a bad night for no external reason

I am addicted to unavailable women.

If any of my readers need to find a girl who won't be around much, just ask me, I can pick them out of millions. Uncanny.

in regards to the post of a friend

I'm making this post mostly for the Fry man. He recently posted on being in love, and the hesitations and concerns that go with having this feeling.

I wanted to expound a little more than haloscan will let me on his blog, because I realized something yesterday . . . . probably re-realized. Falling in love is but a story that we're told. Falling in love is not real, unless we act out the story. I do not understand why we believe that being in love is a mystical thing, something that graces the luckiest of us, and laments those who do not have it. Being in love has expectations, and expectations of permanance. Well F THAT!

That kind of thought gets me in a fury! I believe, and experience proves, that loving is one of the most basic functions of being human! How did we ever alienate ourselves from our most basic abilities. Children do it effortlessly . . . without wondering if they should be in love, or what it means, the just love.

As from one of Massive Attack's wonderful songs, "love, love is verb. Love is doing word." Goddamn RIGHT! Love is not something that comes to us, or graces us, or that we fall into. Love is something we do, a function of being human, just as much as shedding dead skin cells or taking a shit. Love is base, crude, mundane, and absolutely wonderful.

I don't believe in being in love, it's just a fantasy, and has nothing to do with being human or living in reality. However, loving . . . loving is such a basic thing . . . it almost defines us as human. We focus on what separates us from other animals ----> intellect, rationality, analysis. These are useful tools but do not depend on them to define yourself or you'll build a world that looks much like the one we currently live in.

Love is daily, love is boring, love is not exceptional, love helps us survive. Look for it for what it is, and do not make it something else. Our capacity to love ourselves is directly related to our capacity to love another. Love cannot be aquired, or gained, or received or given. Love can, however, wash through us like the ocean to a fish. We bathe ourselves in it, we do not keep it, it flows through us and is never exhausted.

Love is a stream, not a stagnant pond. It is renewed, constantly, and never dries up. Center yourself in love and you'll never be old. Your death will ripple through the world, so that you may give even when letting this body go.

Do you see, my friend, that you love without boundaries, without rules, and that your love is only limited to how much you let go? That it will always be with you, in your cells, vibrating in your actions, and that it has no object, not goal, nothing to give? When you love, do it only to be who you truly are. Often those that we love are not capable of feeling it. This is not your loss. Swim in the river, and listen . . . .

Love is defined as what sets the heart free.

My best wishes are with you.

wow, that brought tears to my eyes.

MJ, I'll miss you

I'm writing . . . actually I'm writing because of what this blog is about. I wonder if I do that every time?

As of last night, I've smoked my last J for some time. Smoking alltogether seems to have gotten banned from my life. I've tried this 2 times before, I think, and I think I had much the same reaction that I am, and am going to have.

Firstly, let me establish that I don't particularly want to quit, but do want to quit, and am highly motivated to do so, because of the adverse effects that smoking has. Cigarettes, well, hasn't there been extensive study on why it's bad for you . . . so I need not go into that. But the MJ?

Suffice it to say that I'm tired of that being all that I do. I'm not quitting because I don't like it, I'm quitting because I don't seem to have the freedom not to smoke. For some reason I don't see much point in doing anything if you don't have the freedom to or not to do it. I must say that it's not so much that I'm just quitting smoking, but cleaning my life in general. I have grand plans of becoming a member of the local rowing club (something that has proved to be EXTREMELY difficult over the past few weeks), attending Aikido classes regularly once again, and hopefully getting some sort of access to the composition lab at the University of Toledo.
It all looks nice on paper, but is much nicer when realized.

I've done countless hours of thinking about how MJ influences and effects my life. I think that i've been using it so regularly that I now have no perspective on what life is like w/out it. If you ask me, I grimmace or frown and say, "sober life sucks." I'm out to prove this wrong . . . and a part of me wants to prove it right. Sober life does suck, if you have nothing to do.
Sooo, doing things . . . that's what I plan to do, stuff. Anything to fill the time, cause I realize that I seem to have too much of it. Funny thing about me, I have all this time, and I'm bored.

Ultimately I am quitting so that MJ might be a more moderate part of my life. It's something that I hope to enjoy for many years, but I won't be able to do that at my current consumption rate. I sure don't want to be a spaced-out headshop owner. I know a couple of those people . . . not pretty.

I'm afraid of feeling the way my body has felt for many months, but I have ignored and replaced with drug (no exercise gives you such a yucky feeling). I am actually afraid that I am not capable of having a good time, or feeling ok w/out smoking. It must seem so silly to someone who's never had a relationship with such a substance. It's not silly though. People drug out on anything . . . . caffeine, sugar, video-games, sex, x-treme sports, adrenaline. I guess the substance is not so consequential as the attitude behind it. What do we do without these things, what is left of us without our beloved?

I hope that things are only going to get easier as time goes on, and I cough up the inevitable. It is a hard time for me, and I feel lost without MJ, who has been my friend for almost 3 years. I never thought I would talk this way about something like MJ. I think, though, that I will be more able to help people w/ real and perceived (the worse of the two) addictions, after confronting my own.

After a while, you get tired of being out of shape, and decide that the sludge in your veins needs to turn back to blood.
After a while you ask yourself: how fat do I need to get before I'll exercise? How much do I need to cough until I stop buying the next pack? How many days must I watch my life slip by me before I gather the courage to leave the high? I love getting high . . . and listening to music, and enjoying the feeling of being there. But if you smoke too often, then the colors fade, the sounds annoying, the body unable to hold it's own weight.

I am afraid that I cannot quit, and over the past few years, I've enjoyed proving myself right. What I always enjoyed about MJ, though, was the freedom. The way the mind works . . . the way it's interested, the way it plays. Play is something that I am trying to get back, and there isn't much help from my fellow adults. Not much help, which sucks, cause who really likes playing alone all the time?

I am looking forward to having more energy. No more bags under my eyes. Lungs that don't struggle. Hips that get more flexible, as opposed to more locked. A new perspective on myself, and hopefully freedom from MJ, so that I might enjoy it again.

I think most of my readers will not understand where I am coming from. I'm sure that you have ideas, we all do. It's so much different to walk the path, to experience it, and feel the draws and the fears and notice what stress you add to your own walk.

Smoking was often spiritual for me. Quitting most certainly will be.

Why is it so hard to remember that everything is new.

to update

I heard what I had be waiting to hear:

So, it appears that only at the Consulate General of Japan in Detroit do you get to hear whether or not they recommended you for a position (now, you don't get to find out if you're on the job list or the alternates, just if you were recommended for either or none).

I did get recommended. I find out the real story in early to mid April. Until then, I gather that I have much over half chance of getting a position.

Just letting everyone know.

On another note, I got to see Kodo (Japanese Taiko drumming group) this past saturday in Akron w/ Ed. I can't really comment on the show, as it would do it not near enough justice to even put the effort into doing, see. It was an experience that I hope to repeat. Fackin' art.

I mean fucking. <----- funny sentence

H2 ooooooooooooooooooooo

Still no word from the JET. And . . . I think I'm started to not care.


I moved into a new office/cubicle today. Now I have a window, all to myself. Wicked glare on the screen, so I'm gonna have to buy one of those anti-glare shield thingies. Unfortunate, cause if images were food, I'd vomit the anti-glare all over my lap. Another reason to be thankful that food is food and computer screens turn off.

My job is tolerable. It doesn't pay much, but I majored in music, so I guess it pays infinitely more than I'd be making in a career in music. Big fat goose egg.


I float in a general malaise of apathy. Some people get medicated.
I self-medicate.

Bought "The Very Best of Arlo Guthrie" Sunday, in an attempt to make myself feel better, with plans of enjoying the sunshine, which I did at the same park that had, the previous day, claimed my dry pants and operational cell phone. Took myself for a walk with "City of New Orleans" in my head.

I guess if you want a new Cricket phone, and have their insurance, you have to file an insurance claim. Needless to say the insurance company's systems were down so they could not issue me a claim number. Hopefully thursday will give me a new, working cell phone.

I'm very frusterated. So very frusterated with myself. I am a blind man trying to describe his surroundings, thinking that his dead eyes will see if he just pushes hard enough.

I hope I can start rowing soon. mmmmm, water.