even now

Ever get to do something that you know you used to love to do but haven't gotten to do in quite a while? And as you're doing it memories flood back and remind you just how it was once your favorite thing on the earth to do. And you don't want that moment to ever end. But it does. But it leaves you with a smile on your face and in a mood that strangely resembles contentment, save for that little spot of sadness lodged somewhere in your consciousness...

And then a few minutes later you just can't take it anymore and a few tears force their way to the surface and roll unimpeded down your face.

And you try to go on with your day, your life. But for some reason the rest just doesn't seem to matter as much anymore.


music: "Even Now" -- Dashboard Confessional




a.w.

stars, Actual stars

So I spent a few days working up in Grand Junction this week. The place we were working was actually closer to Collbran...go ahead, look on a map, it's out in the middle of nowhere. The first day that we were there it ended up being a little after 6 by the time we were quitting. No, it's not that late, but when you are working outside, in the mountains, the week after daylight savings time starts...you tend to loose light rather early. So, needless to say, by the time we were leaving it was kinda dark out. And I looked up. There were stars. LOTS and LOTS of stars. It was pretty amazing. I would have loved to have just sat there for a while and just stared, but a shower and dinner sounded like a decent idea at the time too and that won over sitting out in the cold staring up at the sky.

But thinking back now just a few days later, it is amazing the difference that being in a city makes. I haven't seen that many stars in years. And to think that centuries ago that the stars were often what people had to get around by at night. Sometimes it is sad to think of all the beauty our modern life has killed, or at least obstructed, from our everyday lives. A lot of "city" people make fun of the small towns and wonder what there is to do when one lives in such a small place. Sometimes I wonder if those small town people don't have the right idea...

In other news...I get to go back up to the middle of nowhere on Monday. I like working up there, but I wouldn't mind if this job were done already. The drive up there and back gets a little cramped in the little work truck. Although there is some rather impressive scenery to look at while staring out the windows. Also, I picked up Juno and The Pursuit of Happieness today for real cheap. Watched them both. After watching them, well...lets just say it makes me think over some stuff.

Only 19 days till Thanksgiving!


music: "Blue Eyes Crying In The Rain" -- Willie Nelson

long walk home

Tonight, on my way home from work, I was a Mustang Saleen. Yeah, I know. Nice car, but nothing to come out from semi-blog-retirement to write about. Right? Wrong. The real noteable thing about the car was not the fact that it was a Saleen. It was the fact that it was a PURPLE Saleen. With black racing stripes and matching purple wheels. If I had had my camera with me I would have stopped and blocked traffic to get a picture of that thing!

music: Bruce Springsteen

sometimes life feels just like rain

Been an interesting week.

I woke up today and thought it was still a weekday. Think it took me a good five minutes to figure out that it was Saturday and that's why I had my alarm set as late as it was to get up and go to work at the mall. I think all this would have been made much simpler if I didn't have to go to work at the mall and therefore wouldn't've had an alarm set at all. I could have just woken up at ten to seven, as I did, roll over and promptly go back to sleep for a few more hours. THAT would have made for a good Saturday.

Had softball on Thursday night. Hit fairly well. Fielded the ball like poo. But was able, via a reminder from one of the other guys on the team, to remember that it is just a game and to just have fun out there. Also decided to slide while attempting to catch a foul ball and drew the first blood of the year. Always nice to get that first one out of the way. Makes it that much easier to just slide after that and not worry about how much it's gonna hurt.

I finished reading The Road by Cormac McCarthy last Sunday. Good book. Guess "they" are making a movie of it. Don't really know how that's going to go...but it should be interesting. Could be a pretty powerful picture if it's done well. The book is by the same guy who wrote No Country for Old Men. Haven't read/seen that yet, but it seems like that turned out pretty well...

Just heard today that our landlord is lowering our rent! Which is pretty much totally freaking awesome! Who does that?! Going to be NICE to have that "extra" money!

"the clock on the wall has been stuck at three for days and days"

Wish it wasn't already bed time...sure could use a walk right about now.

Happy Mother's Day. Sure am thankful for my mom. Going to make sure to get an extra hug tomorrow...(she'll think I'm just trying to be nice cause it's Mother's Day, but I just really need an extra hug or two. shhhh!)


music: "Rain On A Tin Roof" -- Julie Roberts

when i went home

I think Animaniacs is perhaps one of the greatest shows of all time. Definitely amongst the realm of cartoons composed mostly of singing and just utter nonsense...it reigns supreme.

Also, Baseball Tonight is love. It should be on year-round. There are NFL shows on in the middle of summer, why not MLB shows on in the middle of winter? Only seems logical in this age of "fairness". Wouldn't want to hurt baseball's feelings or anything. Might feel insignificant and unimportant. Surprised Obama hasn't mandated anything giving baseball equal airtime to football. Although...if you do count all the airtime the games get....baseball is waaayyyyyy ahead of any other sport. Still, a little more baseball coverage in the winter wouldn't be a bad thing. And really all this started out as was me wanting to say I enjoy watching Baseball Tonight. So maybe I should just leave it there.

So maybe I will.

Perhaps having an entire evening and a little bit of the afternoon to just crash on the couch and try to catch up on relaxing is more than I can handle at this point. Kind of like a starving person not being able to eat too much right at first cause their stomach has shrunk so much.

Or something like that.


music: "Holy Water" -- Big & Rich

what would you change if you could

Again, another instance of iTunes playing right along with life. Granted, you have to put the right songs into it, but it sure seems to know when to play them...

Had dinner with some friends tonight and ended up talking about just that. Huh.

But anyway, about dinner. We went to Ted's Montana Grill. Pretty good stuff. I had a bison burger that was topped with grilled onions, mushrooms, grilled ham, a fried egg, and bacon. Not too shabby.

And now it's time to watch some Animaniacs before bed. I am so an adult.

Or something.


music: "Dragonfly" -- Ziggy Marley

your answer

Bashed my toes this morning on the huge block of wood that is sitting on my bedroom floor. Hurt a little.

It snowed again today. Kinda crazy. It's almost May.

That's about all I have for now.


music: Ari Hest from the Acoustic Lounge podcast

this place seems familiar to him

And yet, I have no idea how to navigate through any of this. Other than to just keep going one day at a time and hope that the sun comes out again and shines someday.

I realize that the entire month of March went by without me getting on here at all. Sorry. This was partly due to the fact that I spent most of two weeks at my parents house and had very limited time on the computer. And I was also going to bed at an hour more acceptable to most "normal" people, as I was having to wake up in the very early hours of the morning. Also, most of anything that got me out of bed at night to write, and there were several occurances of this, is writing that I did the old fashioned way (pen and paper, not quill and ink. i'm not THAT old. yet) and it will most likely not be read or shared with anyone other than perhaps a select few.

Besides me not spending much time at home this past month I really have nothing exciting to report. I have pretty much just been busy with the jobs. Oh, I did make it down to New Mexico last weekend to play some golf. There were 7 of us that went for the weekend and played three rounds of golf in two days and drove for about 14 hours to do so. It was a fun trip, even though I am NOT a good golfer at all. I had been given some longer clubs this last fall and got to use them for the first time. I think they did help my abysmal game to some degree, but I think only endless hours of practice are going to help further. But it was a good weekend to get away from Denver and the thought of working at all.

I also picked up some new music last week. Pretty good stuff.. Nothing too epic to report from it yet, but I'm sure at some point some of you will be receiving parts of it from me when I do find the gems.

And now it's snowing again. Been doing a lot of that here the last week and a half or so. This is some good looking snow too. Nice big flakes. :) Guess sometimes there are perks to having your blinds open. Like there really is a whole world just outside. And a pretty beautiful one at that.

Softball practice starts next Monday! Always a good time of year.

And...I'm hungry. So I'm going to go have some food. Have a splendid night.


music: "Remembering Sunday" -- All Time Low

after hours

Danced in the kitchen today.

Granted, I was alone. But regaurdless, it's been a while. Felt good.

Here's a song I came across earlier this week. It's short but, well, sweet. Called "Sweet Dream" by Greg Laswell.

"If I could write out my own dream
For the next time that I sleep
You'd be the first one that I see
And I the last one that you keep
And dream would go on and on
While we sway against all things thrown our way
And the morning would be so cruel
When it came with sunshine and warmth to blame
For announcing the end of my sweet dream
For announcing the end of my sweet dream."

Really, it's probably in the top 20 favs of all time already. Just a beautiful little song.


music: Jose Gonzalez on The Acoustic Lounge podcast on iTunes

every hello...

I want to drink a gallon of milk.

That's all.




a.w.

comabt

Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears;
I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him.
The evil that men do lives after them,
The good is oft interred with their bones;
So let it be with Caesar. The noble Brutus
Hath told you Caesar was ambitious.
If it were so, it was a grievous fault,
And grievously hath Caesar answered it.
Here, under leave of Brutus and the rest
(For Brutus is an honorable man,
So are they all, all honorable men),
Come I to speak in Caesar's funeral.
He was my friend, faithful and just to me;
But Brutus says he was ambitious,
And Brutus is an honorable man.
He hath brought many captives home to Rome,
Whose ransoms did the general coffers fill;
Did this in Caesar seem ambitious?
When that the poor have cried, Caesar hath wept;
Ambition should be made of sterner stuff.
Yet Brutus says he was ambitious;
And Brutus is an honorable man.
You all did see that on the Lupercal
I thrice presented him a kingly crown,
Which he did thrice refuse. Was this ambition?
Yet Brutus says he was ambitious;
And sure he is an honorable man.
I speak not to disprove what what Brutus spoke,
But here I am to speak what I do know.
You all did love him once, not without cause;
What cause withholds you then to mourn for him?
O judgment, thou art fled to brutish beasts,
And men have lost their reason! Bear with me;
My heart is in the coffin there with Caesar,
And I must pause till it come back to me.

Antony's Speech at Caesar's Funeral from Act 3, scene 2 of Shakespeare's Julius Caesar


Just some more memory work, from high school this time, that has left an imprint on me. Perhaps not as large a one as I would like, but that is what time is for, right? Like a slight dip in a flat surface of rock that with the passage of time and the beating of the wind and rain eventually becomes a lake... I haven't met a whole lot of high school kids that just read Shakespeare for the fun of it, maybe I just don't know the right people, but I was one of those. Not to say I've read all of his plays even yet at this point in my life. But I do distinctly remember a time, while I was lying on the floor of a 15 passanger van, that I picked up my sleeping friend's copy of Othello and began to read and wishing that the drive would not end until I was finished with the book. Anyway....

I think I am quickly remembering why I used to like having a part-time job so much. At least one at which I worked most nights of the week. Now that I am pretty much only working there one weeknight and a little on the weekends, I have (what seems like to me) SO much time on my hands every night. It's kinda crazy. This is just the start of the fourth week of me working this schedule, and I am already getting rather bored out of my mind most nights. And add in the fact that my regular job usually isn't too physically or mentally demanding, and a few other factors in my life right now...and you may be able to see why it seems as though I haven't been sleeping so well lately. Too much boredom, just not tired, and too much stuff on my head. I have been making some feeble attempts (more so today than some days) to get my activity level up at home (doing push-ups and such) but it seems there is only so much one can do at home and the weather has just been wayyyy too cold to go out for runs. Even for me, Mr.-Lover-of-the-Snow-and-Cold, himself.

So anyway. Back the ambiguousness from a week or so ago... I think I am going to look into it a little more, and perhaps even persue it a little. I'll try to keep ya'll updated with the latest.

And I think I'm going to attempt to start a spaghetti/movie Monday, every Monday. So if any of ya'll want to come over next week, come on over. :)

And that's a wrap for tonight. Gonna maybe try to get to sleep early. Or maybe try to start catching up on some of the books I want to re-read...


music: "Cannonball" -- Vienna Teng (Damien Rice cover)




a.w.

the sound of white

So I actually had the bulk of a Saturday free. Done with work today at 1pm and wasn't able to make any plans that actually stuck. So, after ambleing aimlessly thru the tv channels a few times and not finding anything to hold my interest, I ended up polishing off the last 2/3rds of the book I was reading. It was actually not a bad way to spend the day actually. Pretty enjoyable for the most part. The book was excellent. Just had a few parts in it that sorta pulled at areas of my heart that I'd rather have left alone right now.

But really, I guess it's probably better to have those areas poked and prodded a little from time to time right now. Or really, more tilled and dug in than poked and prodded right now. Just a big learning curve on what I'm trying to wrap my head around right now.

But it is definitely for the best. And I am figureing out what it is I need to figure out.

Sort of.

Slowly.

But would you really expect anything different from me?

But the book. It was good. Very good. By Geoffrey Wood. The second book of his I've read. The second book he's written for that matter. Called The God Cookie. Go pick up a copy. When it's available for the public to buy... Sometimes it's nice having a friend that works for a publishing company :)

Not much else to report here for the weekend. Volleyball started yesterday. It was alright. Definitely could have been better. Lost all three games. But hopefully that got all the rust out of the system and next week will be better! The weather here was pretty awesome this week. Temps in the 60s a couple of days. And then Friday it was COLD and tried to snow again. And today was apparently cold too. Should be another boring week of work coming up next. At least there is the First Anual Super Bowl Bowl to look forward to on Saturday! And volleyball the night before that too! And that really is all I have for now I think. And it seems like I may be able to fall asleep fairly soon if I go now, so that is what I am going to do. Since it is almost 12:30 now...

Night.


music: "Hear You Me" -- Jimmy Eat World




a.w.

vernie

Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.

My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.

He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound's the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.

The woods are lovely, dark and deep.
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.

Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening -- Robert Frost


Came across a bunch of poems that I found in my stuff that I had saved from when I was in school. Like elementary school. I was an odd little kid. But I'm sure most of you could've already guessed that if you didn't know for sure. ;) Anyway, there's some good stuff in there. And seen as how I did memorize it all at some point...I figure a good way to start remembering it is to type it out. At least, that seems to have worked with other things in the past. Whatever. It's a decent little poem. And with all the snow that we got this morning, it seems rather fitting. Kinda wish I had a snowy wood to stop by tonight. But more with a faithful old dog sitting next to me in my truck instead of me sitting on a horse...

And, once again, iTunes random selection proves to be somewhat freakishly in tune with life...

Also, my mother apparently is more observant than I generally give her credit for. That's twice in the last few months that she's surprised me with that. Maybe it's time to change my expectations. She is my mother after all. Guess I should expect that my abilities came from somewhere...

Really, iTunes just needs to stop.

Or maybe I just need to shut it down for the night. But I just can't turn the music off. Life needs a soundtrack, no matter if it is a painful one. So many smiles...

Life really is amazing.

There's still just so much...that I want to do. That I want to say. That I want to live.

With.

Not alone.

I don't want to run anymore. But I don't know if the direction I'm being pulled is the right way. Will it really help anything? Is it even practical? Is life really about being practical? Am I just trying too hard? Trying to see something that really isn't there... But it has to be there, if it has been there this long. Right?

There I go with the vaugeness again. Oops. Maybe I just need to sleep. For a week.

That would be nice.

"it will take more than a heavy rain to silence us..."

If you need me in the next few weeks, you just might find me wanderin the streets. There's a strange calm sometimes in the midst of a crowd. And the winter air tickles the mind as only certain things can.


music: "Twenty Years" -- Augustana

walkin in a winter wonderland

Snowed yesterday :)

For any of you who may not know...for the last couple of months my "full-time" job had been rather on the slow side of things. As in the entire month of December I worked a grand total of 8 hours for them. Yeesh. However, I was blessed to have a roommate who works for FedEx Ground in the early a.m. and was able to help me sorta skip to the front of the line of applications and get in there rather quickly. It was only part-time hours, but I generally was getting somewhere between 20 and 25 hours a week. Also, it was obviously peak season at my part-time job at the mall, and seen as how they underhired for the holiday season, ( and my schedule was rather open) I was able to pick up quite a few hours there. So in all, I still was putting in a couple weeks that were approaching 70 hours...

However, Friday was my last morning at FedEx! I start a new full-time position on Monday, and will still be at the store part-time. I am thinking I am going to cut back my hours there for the next couple of weeks to sort of get settled in at the new job and to just have a bit of a break from there without actually taking a break from there...(sometimes the mall can just become a place that is not fun to go to anymore, I know that that may be a difficult concept for any women out there to understand) But a little mini-break from there is all I should really need.

My new full-time job is once again doing low voltage wiring and such, but as opposed to my last job that involved mostly entertainment aspects of this (TVs, internet, phone, surround sound, theatres) and dealing with individual families, this new job focuses more on commercial jobs and non-entertainment applications (things like security, access control, and fire detection/monitoring). So basically, I have tons to learn again. But that should be a good thing, as this place sounds like they will actually teach me things that I need to know and want me to learn more and more as opposed to the last place that just sort of said they would teach me and then never really did.

So right now, I am kind of in the excited/nervous stage of things. I am excited to be starting something new and something that seems like it is growing and is a much better situation than what I am coming from. But I am nervous that I can actually learn all that I need to. Of course I always think that I should be able to learn everything that there is to learn within the first week, so maybe I should just not be too hard on myself yet and see how long it actually takes to learn everything.

And I think that that is about all I have to write about for now. There are still a lot of other things that are on my mind and keeping/waking me up at nights sometimes. Whenever I get to actually sleep at night now. Which is going to be on a regular basis agian now, so it could be interesting. Might not have helped this night that just ended, that I was reading The Book of Lost Things right as I was falling asleep and I'm pretty sure that it contributed to my very very very strange dream that I had that woke me up for the first time at about 3:30 in the a.m. Thankfully, I was able to get back to sleep this time. Unlike last Sunday morning when I just woke up, randomly and for no reason at all, at about 3:45 a.m. and could never fall back asleep.

Anyway, it's time for breakfast. Hope all of you had a wonderful Christmas, and a wonderful 2008! 2009 should be an interesting year. Keep in touch. We all need our friends. They are one of the greatest joys of life. I'll try to get on this thing more often and let ya'll know how I'm doing, but really, I want to know how all of YOU are doing. So let me know. I'm always here and my phone is always on. :)


music: "Believe" -- Yellowcard