the prophet

i know my blog gets overly sappy sometimes, deal with it.

last thursday, on my last visit to long wharf on a lunch break, i was doing what i always do; sitting, watching the planes coming and going, boats, people, ducks, baby jellyfish and so on. this guy and his woman (no idea if they were married and he probably would have referred to her as his woman, so im going with his supposed wording here) lean on the rail next to me and start talking. i try to not pay too much attention to anyone but this guy was kind of funny. to set the scene a little better, this guy probably owned a couple harley's in his lifetime, probably listens to 70's rock, had definitely been arrested a few times, long hair in a ponytail. he is saying to his woman how clean the water looks now, as opposed to 20 years ago when it was just black and you couldnt see more than a foot deep. that caught my attention. i spaced out again. then i hear him say:

"unless this guy is a cop."

granted i had the ray-bans on, but im not a cop. i politely laugh and say no, no, im not a cop. then i realized why he needed to ask. he is packin his bowl right there on long wharf. hey man, do your thing. so he takes a few hits off the the bowl. his woman wanders off so we start talking. i just ask him about the water and what he said about it being clean. we chat just for a few minutes and then she comes back. he asks her if she found what she was looking for (i assume some type o' drug) and she says no, she didnt. he puts his arm around her and says "well lets see if we can go find it."

as he turns to leave he looks and casually says "hey buddy, have a nice life." and then he walks and is gone. i was sitting there completely dumbfounded.

im sure we've all heard that used in a negative connotation before, have a nice life. he meant it in a nice way though. he knows he'll never see me again. have a nice life. it was so profound.

get ready for sappy sentimental crap.

he walks off, i look back out the water, saying to myself over and over again, have a nice life. it was so finite. i dont know why it hit me so hard, but it highlighted that you, i, we, all have this one shot to do something great. as im delving into this train of thought, a plane flies low overhead departing logan. i watched it peel off to the east, all the noise in my head stopped, and smiled to myself and said, "yeah. i think i will."

i got up, opted to listen to the city on more time instead of radiohead or hendrix, whatever the ipod had in store. the ropes on the masts of the boats in the harbor clanked, a jet roared overhead, a truck was backing up somewhere, people talking, sirens blaring, two ducks flew low overhead quacking. i turned a corner, past a restaurant and heard "love dont play, any games on me anymore"...they were playing ryan adams. it was perfect.

"hey buddy, have a nice life."

sure thing.

1.3

top 5 most memorable things that happened while i was living in boston:

note: these are in no supposed to be good happy things. just the things that i wont soon forget.

1) 9.11.01

chaos. no one knowing what was going on. would the pru be hit? they flew out of boston? they are patrolling the city with F-15's. our generations pearl harbor. how many times have you been asked where you were when it happened? ill never forget it.

2) dads accident.

sarah had just gotten back from spring break. my sister called while i was in the shower. my own personal terror

3) grampy passes

found out while on the T home from work while going through packards corner. it was a monday.

4) sox win

of course i was in nyc at the time, but who cares. holy f bomb, that actually happened.

5) graduation from NU

it was the first time i saw my dad stand on his own since the accident. standing on the floor of the fleet center, seeing that, he was superman.


yes, i realize the brevity of the post but ive been up since 7am packing, moving, unpacking, setting up, not resting at all. im just about done and im pretty pleased with the new digs. i can go outside like i said i was looking forward to, the dog is around, baby rabbits in the backyard, airplanes low overhead. i dig it.

goddamn. pink floyd is awesome.

the new years eve prayer

packing up stuff to move i found my long lost jeff buckley live at sin-e' dvd. in it, he reads a poem entitled new years eve prayer. youll notice my favorite saying ever right in there. so, without further delay:

you my love, are allowed to forget about the christmas you just spent stressed out in your parents house.
you my love, are allowed to shed the weight of all the years before, like bad disco clothes. save them for a night of dancing stoned with your lover.
you my love, are allowed to let yourself drown every night in bottomless, wild, and naked symbolic dreams.
you my love, in sleep can unlock your youth and your most terrifying magic, and dreaming is for the courageous
you my love are allowed to grab my guitar and sing me idiot love songs if youve lost your ability to speak. keep it down to two minutes.
you my love, are allowed to rot and to die and to live again, more alive and incandescent than before.
you my love, are allowed to beat the shit out of your television, choke its thoughts and corrupt its mind, kill, kill, kill, kill the motherfucker before the song of zombified pain and panic and malaise and its narrow right wing vision and its cheap commercial gang rape becomes the white noise of the world. turnabout is fair play
you my love, are allowed to forgive, and love your television
you my love, are allowed to speak in kisses to those around you and those up in heaven
you my love, are allowed to show your babies how to dance full bodied, starry eyed, audacious, supernatural and glorified
you my love, are allowed to suck in every single endeavor
you my love, are allowed to be soaked like a lovers blanket in the new york summertime with the wonder of your own special gift.
you my love, are allowed to receive praise
you my love, are allowed to have time
you my love, are allowed to understand
you my love, are allowed to love
woman, disobey
little men believe
you my love, are a rebellion


-fin-

1.2

top 5 music moments while living in boston.

these of course are moments that i was apart of, not just a witness to.

1) House Of Blues, sold out show with LGB.
Do i really need to elaborate on this? we sold out the house of blues. front to back, full of people. we played great, sounded great, had the best time ever. if every night was as good as that...

2) Bill's Bar with the LGB - 1
It was the playoffs. it is right next to fenway park. it was spectacular. the place was PACKED. we were so tight that night. i wore my sox jersey. it was one of those nights where you play so hard that your fingers bleed. while this may sound gross to some, it was great. its kind of a sign that you didnt hold anything back. we sure as hell didnt.

3) new york in the rain
this actually took place in new york but i was living in boston at the time so it counts. the first time we played in nyc, i had to walk across the city at one point to meet up with the rest of the band. that one point just happened to be at 4am. it was raining. so there i am, walking through the city that gave birth to jeff buckley, ryan adams, jimi hendrix, bob dylan, basically EVERYONE, with a guitar on my back and i felt like i belonged. i walked past the chelsea hotel where ryan adams wrote Love is Hell, walked down MacDougal street where dylan and hendrix and clapton hung out in the 60's and i felt just like they did...only not on any drugs. it wasnt a feeling of confidence, it was more of a feeling of assimilation, there was very little difference between me and them at that point. i was taking the right steps, figuratively and literally.

4) Alive on the quad
back at NU i had to perform with a music ensemble for a few quarters to get the appropriate credit so i could graduate blah blah blah. they had a rock ensemble. i kid you not. so once a quarter we would hold a rock ensemble recital where this huge, 12 piece rock band (usually 3 guitars, 2 bass guitars, 2 drummers, a horn section, 4 singers or something along those lines) would play zeppelin or whatever was on the plate that quarter. this one quarter, we played Alive, by pearl jam. i was elected to play the cool solo at the end. i love that solo, its a favorite of mine, yeah its kinda cheesy and riffy and white, but i dig it. the recital was outside on the quad in the spring. we got a decent amount of people to check it out. so we play alive, and i play the solo, note for note. afterwards i had swarms of people, including music profs coming up to me telling me how great i was and how talented i am. whatever, i played a damn cover song. but it was a nice pat on the back from some nice people, so ill take it.

5) stetson hall gets hippy
before the laura glyda band, joe, dave and i played in jesters dead. it was your typical jam band, but we were cool. since i was an RA i was able to convince the school to give us a ton of money to stage a show in the lobby of one of the freshman halls. andy cass, being the lighting nympho that he is, brought in a ridiculous rig. we had to run power cables everywhere, into dorm rooms, into the cafeteria downstairs, and we still blew every fuse we could. the show was great though. all the residents were there, people were dancing, probably getting drunk, having a good time. if for no other reason, i got the best photos of us playing that night. also, it was kind of the start. i felt like a bit of a rockstar that night. there was promise everywhere you turned and we were still naive enough to believe in alot of the music world bullshit.

1.1

I started this blog inspired by High Fidelity, putting together top 5 lists of various things.  Tonight I return to form with a series of top 5’s to commemorate my time spent in boston.  The first entry will be top 5 college moments:

1)       Skeeter Skeeter, Parking Meter


The names of those involved in the following story have been changed to protect them.  In fact, the whole thing may or may not have happened, just to protect some people. 

One night, during sophomore year, “Guillermo” fell asleep fairly early.  “Jesus” and “Moses” were out drinking.  At around 3am the door to the apartment flies open.  Jesus walks in carrying a stick yelling “DUDE, wake up!  You gotta see this!”  Guillermo turns over and sees Jesus with said stick, proceeded by Moses, carrying the opposite end of the stick.  They stand the thing up and only then does Guillermo realize that it isn’t a stick.  It is a fully functional, dual parking meter, full of cash.  Imagine laughing so hard that the air just gets sucked out of your chest.  They acquired a parking meter.  We laughed until at least 6am.  Hands down the funniest moment of Guillermo’s entire college career.  The meter actually stayed in the apt, in the corner, until the end of the year.  It now may or may not reside in someone’s (Guillermo’s) backyard, in a different state. 

2)       The Night They Brought Ol’ Nick Down

Joe, Mike, Pete, Craig, Nick, and myself were hanging out.  I drank myself stupid with Parrot Bay (I think I mixed it with Sunny Delight, go me).  Everyone else was on vodka and beer and whatever else we could find.  Nick needed pot though.  Someone made some calls and tracked some down at a party going on up the road.  We took a quick little walk to the party so nick could get his.  He took ONE hit off a gravity bong.  ONE.  we get back to our place.  Everyone is seated on beds or in chairs.  Nick lies down next to my desk.  Maybe 30 minutes goes by and he isn’t moving.  We are having fun putting newspapers in his mouth, opening his eyes, he is still able to smile a little bit and give the most perfect stoner laugh ever heard.  And then he turned green.  Not a shade of green, not a tint.  He was fucking army ass green.  He makes it to the bathroom and starts yukin (still my favorite term for throwing up).  We realize that he isn’t doing so well.  The conversation immediately turns to “what do we do?”  it is about 1am at this point.  Nick needs help.  He is passed out in the bathroom, only waking up to yuke.  We have one car, mike’s maxima, which is a stick shift.  Mike is so drunk there is no way he can drive.  We figure he needs to get to a hospital within the next 20 minutes.  They determine that I am the most sober so ill have to dry nick to the hospital.  I don’t drive stick.  Its decided that I will drive in first gear all the way to the hospital.  Well….when I get there do I bring him in?  if I bring him in, ive probably had too much to drink to be driving too so then ill be screwed too.  “okay, well drive in first gear to the hospital, open the door and kick him out and drive away.  They’ll find him.”  Ok.  Well wait, lets think about this.  Mike goes into the bathroom to check on nick.  We are all out in the other room remarking about how remarkably messed up he is.  Mike comes back out and tears us a new one:  “GODDAMNIT!  This poor kid is in here just about DYING and he doesn’t need you out here talking about how fucked up he is.  It ISNT make him feel any better.  JESUS!”  he recedes back to the bathroom.  We are all quiet, mike is right, we should talk about something else.  Mike comes out two minutes later, shuts the door… “man ive been drinking since I was 12 and I aint NEVER seen someone that fucked up.”  Wait wait, what time is it?  We were supposed to get him to a hospital in 20 minutes.  That was at 1am.  What time is it now?  4?  Whoops.  Nick lived. 

3)       Joe Almost Gets arrested

Joe and jack thought it would be a good idea to go for a swim in the Christian Science Center reflecting pool.  Yeah so what they have guards that patrol the thing on golf carts, we’ll just run.  Everyone knows you cant go swimming with all your clothes on.  So right there on Comm ave at 2am joe and jack strip down to their undies and jump in.  not two seconds later the guards are hauling ass over there to arrest them.  They both hop out of the pool and start running down comm. Ave.  at 2am.  Soaking wet.  In their underwear.  We grab their clothes and head back to our place.  We get back there and joe isn’t there.  He finally shows up.  He turned the corner to get back onto our street, and promptly ran into 4 cop cars, pulling people out of a bar.  They see joe.  Its 2am.  He is soaking wet.  Wearing nothing but tighty whities.  Now at this point, you should consider what happens to white cotton when it becomes wet.  We have all see wet-t shirt contests or at least know what the point of them is.  Apply that to joe.  The cops yell for him to put his hands up on the wall.  Joe puts one hand on the wall and is covering himself with the other.  “I said both hands!” yells mr. cop.  So there, at 2am. Soaking wet. In front of a couple hundred drunk college kids, joe is standing there getting his ear chewed off while standing exposed for all to see.  Way to go, way to go. 

4)       oh I still love you though new york

-“what do you feel like doing?

-“I dunno, what time is it?”

-“midnight”

-“what do you have to do tomorrow?”

-“I have to be at work at 10am”

-“so we have 10 hours with which to do something.”

-“I wonder how far we could go and get back in time.”

And so that is how we ended up driving to new york city at midnight.  Driving through times square at 4am, seeing the world trade center right before they came down, and driving back to boston WITHOUT once even getting out of the car.  And I was at work on time the next day. 

5)       The Hunt for Red Lobster

Jeff riley is going to be president.  His resume includes being homecoming king, overall bachelor, and reigning champion of organizing scavenger hunts.  The great scavenger hunt of 2003 included such items as:

-          a picture of one of your teammates pinching a black mans bare ass.

-          Picture of yourself with a member of the clergy

-          Flintstones vitamins 

-          Picture of a team member in a window display on newbury st. 

-          The pager from the cheesecake factory. 

-          Picture of a supermarket worker in a shopping cart.

After all the dust settled, there were three teams that were tied for first, including mine.  For a tiebreaker, king riley says “the first team to bring me back a live lobster…”  before he even finished we were off and running.  Glyda and I are running through the city, SPRINTING to get to the Mark to get a lobster.  The other two teams get there at the same time we do, running through the store, yelling at the guy in the store to give us a lobster.  One team takes a cab back, the other two high tail it on foot.  We came in second by less than a minute. 

i'll miss, i wont, i look forward to

Being able to walk anywhere, living on my own, feeling like I am doing something even if its nothing, having friends less than a block away, charlie’s calzones, walking through the commons, seeing the sky lit up from the lights at Fenway, easy access starbucks, riding past the paradise and seeing who is playing that night, spending an hour out on long wharf, ducks, al’s, boston in the fall, sarah arnold’s third floor deck, going to a bar and knowing everyone that works there, people watching, my bedroom, the trees on my block,

Working at a bank, spending too much too easily, parking, driving, street cleaning, the T, stupid college kids, stupid drunk college kids, a lack of sunlight, over exuberant red sox fans, boston winter’s, tourists, not having a dog around, being confined, not having a place to go outside and not be in public, crazy people, inferiority, coin-op, noisy heating pipes, garbage trucks outside my window on a saturday at 7am, sirens, squeeling trains, shootings,

Flying

the end of tradition, the introduction of prescence.

tonight was my last weekend night in boston spent as a resident. it escapes the regular boundaries of surreal and has created its own realm of bizarre. it is sad with a dash of hope and promise. just like any fine dish its going to be a few minutes before the "hope and promise" side rears its head, for now i am mourning. boston has been my home for 7 years now. it has brought me love that i could not imagine and delivered heartbreak beyond reason. tonight i sit here saying goodbye to the city that fostered my growth more than anyone or anything could prior to this moment. the city lights are blinking and glimmering just like they did yesterday and just like they will tomorrow, only they wont greet me anymore, theyll only serve as a reminder of the life i flirted with, that i almost became.
by this time next week i shall be a resident of rhode island. ill be pursuing something that ive been pursuing since i was a little kid. it is a regression back to something i never wanted to become. does it lessen who i am, or does it speak volumes about who i want to be? i want to be the best, i want to give people dreams while living out my own. yet, i dont want to feel inferior to the masses. i am moving back to rhode island! for those of you not in the know, returning to my hometown is often considered the final nail in the coffin. youll never leave once youre surrendered. but it is the dream that keeps this bearable. if it were anything else, i couldnt do it. ill spend my days immersed in the world that i should have been born into, and hopefully ill love every second of it. as i mentioned previously, there is nothing like the taste of being up there and having the freedom to go anywhere and do anything.
it will satisfy every nerve, every desire, every wish, almost. there will be some that remain unanswered and thirsty, but those can only be quenched with time, sorry to say of course. however, the hope is still there. no promise, just hope. any question i have regarding the nature of true trust and faith and hope and desire, they are going to satisfied. that is not to say that the ends of these queries will be to the sort that i wish, but they will meet their ends at some point. im only hoping that rationality perseveres and my wants are met head on with the same brute force that i think is hiding somewhere. of course i could be naive enough to believe in such a thing, but again, hope, it is a powerful thing.
here we go. life starts now. who is going to be around for it?

the ID or the superego?

 For the first time in as long as I can remember, I can remember my dream from last night in great detail.  It involves my late grandfather who passed away a little more than a year ago.  To the best of my knowledge he was never incarcerated as in the dream.  If anyone would like to suggest interpretations on this one, be my guest. 

He had just gotten out of prison.  He was in there for quite some time as it seems.  We walked slowly around a courtyard that very closely resembled an area of Harvard or MIT in the fall.  He walked heavily, his feet not rising more than an inch or so off the ground, it was more of a shuffle than anything.  He kept coffee beans in his pants pocket, he would chew on them all day long.  We walked through the grounds kicking fallen leaves away from our feet, not really talking, not really having to.  We went down to the waterfront.  There was no beach, only cliffs as steep and as jagged as anywhere could possibly be.  He wanted some fish.  We cast our lines out and watched as shadows of fish danced around the lure, teasing us as we lied to them.  We finally caught two, one apiece.  As we reeled in our meals, the sea demanded payment, so we took $20 from our pockets and paid the ocean for its bounty.  The fish were long and gray, natures perfect camouflage.  We placed the fish in between slices of white bread and feasted.  Venturing back through the courtyard we saw a man selling fish.  A single solitary fish, with a spear stuck through its side.  The man wore a loincloth and his skin was like leather from baking in the sun.  He wasn’t aboriginal, but it was close.  I examined the tip of the spear.  The wood had been sharpened to a dull point with a knife, the marks still evident in the soft wood.  The fish stuck straight out, as stiff as a board, and missing its head.  Whatever blood had been on the spear had been carefully washed away.  The fisherman was asking $10 for the fish.  We paid him and feasted more.    

He was tired and lonely.  The years in prison hadn’t been so kind to him.  We were at my house now, standing at the foot of the driveway.  He had to go home but it was just too far to walk.  He hopped on a gurney and I started to wheel him down the street.  He looked frightened.  We came to an intersection with stop signs going every which way.  I needed to turn right but as I did grampy slid off the bed to the left almost willingly.  He hit the ground with a thud and was nervous and wimpering.  His eyes were wide open and glassy, taking it all in but seeing a thing.  I asked him why he fell.

“you didn’t stop.  There is a stop sign there.”

I helped him back onto the gurney and pushed him a little further up into a driveway on the left.  There was a platform on the driveway, a patio raised maybe 6 feet off the ground.  I brought him up there where he hopped off, and proceeded to crumple onto the ground, spreading himself out as much as possible.  he had the same look on his face.  Concerned I kneeled down and asked him what was wrong. He said he might be sick.  I turned so as not to get any puke on me, but nothing came.  I turned and looked at him, he had become completely vulnerable, on the verge of tears.  I asked him what was wrong still. 

“I’m afraid of heights.”

Buuuzzzzzzzz. 7am. wake up.

dont want to grow up

my grandmother bought a box of bisquick the other day. she brought it back to the store because half of the instructions were in spanish. wow. my gram is awesome.

and now for my final trick...

wow. just wow. i reached the pinnacle of stupidity. i did something so amazingly dumb that its funny in a tragic kind of way. basically, i sent a text message to the wrong person. while the message was innocent enough, in the wrong hands, its deadly.
i found something out that wasnt upsetting, just amazingly hugely surprising. the wow kind of surprise where the only thing you can do is sit there and say over and over "youre kidding?!?!" or "holy shit", things to that affect. so i am having a complete Rob from high fidelity moment (quite literally standing in my kitchen with my arms over my head yelling IM FINE NOW!!!!...watch the movie again..its in there) when i decide that my friend will find this very interesting. not only that, but she will find it interesting in relation to how the rest of my week went. so i sent her a text message. and you know i even recall thinking about how i phrased it, figuring that she would understand what i meant by it. little did i know....
as soon as i hit the send button...i realized that no....no....i didnt send it to who i thought i sent it to. i fell forward (not making this up) as if i were trying to catch the digital signal before it got too far away. i missed. instead i just ended up on the floor of the previously mentioned kitchen yelling "NOOOOOOOOOO." anyone looking in would have been laughing their asses off. actually, i think i was laughing my ass off because the stupidity of the moment was already beating me over the head with a club...with rusted nails sticking out of it...and a couple dull spoons too, hey why not.
i called mark. mark knows this area of life and finds humor in all my tragedy. so i tell him the first part, the amazingly huge surprising news.

"wow. welcome to the club" his response.

then i tell him about the high fidelity moment and the text message and the realization of the wrong recipient and the falling forward and the floor and the NOOOOOOOOOOOO.

"WOW. chris porter, you are amazing. you know, usually youre doing something to kind of keep up with me and my errors, but every once in a while you go ahead and do something that just totally raises the bar. you are fucking awesome. my birthday is next week, and ill buy YOU a drink. i think you need it more than i do."

thats what friends are for. (sung ala dionne warwick)

not a rant

i fear that tonights posting will not compare to last nights. while a similar amount of "inspiration" has been imbibed throughout the course of the night, i dont have the same spark as i did last night. i wound up at Lir on boylston with some friends that i can honestly say i dont know well enough. either way, it was a fun little gathering. yet as the alcohol permeated my mind, i could feel the weight of the past few days falling in. it "informed" my night (i used to love how that term was used in music, historically informed music, what a great phrase). i sat and watched overpaid athletes score points and give dreams to thousands, maybe even millions of kids while mine filtered away etching a path towards the bottom of a glass of whiskey.
a funny thing happened to me when i started flying. i stopped caring about alot of things that go along with life. love, romance, money; it just stopped mattering. i gained a new sense of confidence because i figured that i love doing this so much, that there is no way i can fail at anything because this will carry me through. so far, i have stuck to it. the romance section has certainly given me trouble though. ive realized that ive been scarred by past experiences, just as anyone can be. but you have to deal with those scars and remember that those scars die with the person that gave them. not everyone is the same. not everyone is going to do the same thing. i think i may have forgetten that i wasnt in "that one" anymore, and this was something new. whoops. no amount of training will tell you how to recover from this one.
the only thing i have is the memory of that ride in the pitts. ive really, never even come close to feeling as alive as i did while i was up there. the freedom that is at your fingertips to go against everything that seems right is amazing. the best part is that its ok to go past those boundaries. this airplane was made for it. and you feel gravity pulling at you as you enter a loop and you fight it, you fight to keep the blood in your brain so that you stay awake, and it hurts. it certainly hurts. but then you look up, and you see the ground. in front of you is the horizon, but the ground is the frosting on the sky this time. that flight redefined the world for me. ive never really landed since then. it showed me what is possible and it taught that anything goes. risk is a beautiful thing. you may get hurt along the way, but the rewards youll find are infinite and beautiful. it didnt just paint a gloss on flying for me, it turned my world into an impressionist masterpiece, with each dot contributing to an endless work of glory and perfection and the promise of endless possibilty.

raaaaaaaaaaant

im sitting here listening to unreleased ryan adams tunes. and they are all fantastic. so it got me to thinkin, just what it is about him or buckley or sigur ros or radiohead that kills me...lays me out for dead. i feel i need to back this up with some history of my dissatisfaction with music.
at some point, somewhere along the way, music stopped making sense to me. more than that, it stopped being relevant and meaningful. it was always good for a release or a good time, but as far as writing and being an active participant it lost its luster. the notes lost their meaning to me, literally. why is there an A here? why does this guy bend up to an E at that point and run down an octave in the pentatonic scale? whats the meaning behind? whats the point? it stopped answering questions for me and just left me empty handed and wondering why.
so after having two white russians, a glass of whiskey, and three 007's i can honestly say that i still dont know. but i stopped caring. it doesnt have to MEAN anything, just have to convey something, and that is where i erred. i have always looking for meaning in everything though, whether it is music or books or any kind of art form, there was always the necessity of meaning. i extended this even to a minute scale where individual notes mattered, individual choice of words mattered, and very rarely was i getting a satisfying answer, to no fault of my own interpretation.
but tonight, i stop caring. i listen to ryan adams singing a song, and i dont know why, but it is drenched in heartbreak. he is saying everything i could ever want to say, even though i am not broken hearted at the moment...yet. (weird how eventhough i am not as of yet broken hearted, somehow realizing how i could be broken hearted and confessing the depth to which i could be seems an apt description of my feelings towards a certain...area seems like a generous compliment...weird? yup) the notes stopped mattering, the message overshadows the method, which transgresses my long standing motto of the goal is in the process. but is the process the realization of the message through the conveyance of the notes? hmmmm. something to sleep on i suppose.
for now, la cienega just smiled and walked away.

that was stupid

not last night, although yes that was too. no, just took me an hour to find a parking spot. how lame is that? ill tell ya, i wont miss that part of boston at all.

i woke up all sorts of jazzed, because its a new day and you never know whatll happen. put on some clothes, head outside and it was perfect. the sun was still low in the sky and some cirrus clouds painted the horizon orange. all the trees were sparkling from the rain last night, it was perfect. but after driving around for an hour looking for a damn spot to park, this day can kiss my ass.

okay that was a little harsh. i did see a dog being a bad dog, and his owner getting angry which was hysterical. and i saw a cat chasing a squirrel which was humorous. oh well, you win some, you lose some. other times the pitcher throws a wild pitch and you catch in the face.

original title was "irony"...now its not. now its "im an ass"

i had a conversation with dalia today at work. what i said to her, i have to really concentrate on because ive never needed this lesson in my own life like i do right now. i just freaked out over nothing and now i feel like a total schlep. anyway, this is basically how the conversation went with dalia:

dalia: i just dont know. im not sure relationships are worth it.
me: no they are, they really are.
dalia: but its all really hard sometimes
me: well yeah, there are high times and there are low times
dalia: and the low times suck!
me: right, but you cant have one without the other. and heres the thing, its the low times that are the most interesting because its when you are going to learn the most. you get put into situations and you react to them and you learn how you react. you find out who you really are. and maybe you dont like the way you react and you want to be better than that, so you work on yourself to change, and youre a better person for it.
dalia: i guess i see your point
me: its the whole point of being in a relationship really. you help each other be the people that you want to be.
dalia: right but its such a tough thing to go through, i dont know if its worth it.
me: always remember, the goal is in the process, not the end result.
dalia: but youve been hurt twice and i cant believe that youre right back it
me: well ive seen sunsets at 5000ft, seen mountain ranges and foothills, the most perfect scenes on earth, but it doesnt compare to looking at someone and being completely enthralled.
dalia: i love it when you get in these moods. tell her i said thanks
me: can you tell her for me?

there was more to it, but thats the important part that is seriously running laps through my brain as we speak.

i hate my reaction.

so what did i learn? that my fears are my worst enemy. they could kill anything good that ive had. no more fear.

quite literally, i have taped to my wall a piece of paper with this on it "overcome fear, behold wonder." its been there for at least a year. how did i forget to look at it?

im still an ass though.