Aiiiiiiiie!!!

Okay...I feel much better now.

I should perhaps try virtual shouting more often.

So...I didn't say this earlier...

ZOMG EXPLOSIONS OF AWESOME!!!

THE FIVE IRON FRENZY DVD IS FINALLY COMING!!!!

IT'S FIVE YEARS OVERDUE BUT ZXOMGAWESOMESAUCE IT'S COMING!!!


http://www.fifdvd.com/


Ahem.

I'm sure it's going to be delayed for another 3-15 months...but that is fine.

I'm just happy Reese Roper hasn't given up on his rather lunatic prone fans.

I suspect that if there is announcement about Brave Saint Saturn touring the Anti Christ will in fact rise the day the tour was supposed to reach wherever I am living at the time.

Ohhh...goodness.

I can't believe it's coming out...I freaking missed seeing them because of being 17 and not allowed to drive three hours to see them on their final tour...but dangit...I don't care if I have to sell plasma, offer my cat to a pawn shop or find a job taking part in medical trials...I will have this DVD and will weep tears of joy at finally seeing a full live performance of Every New Day.

I remember going to my rather crappy senior prom and leaving after an hour or so and going across the street from the Winfry Hotel and going to some music store...and actually SEEING Five Iron Frenzy's last album that had came out that week...'The End Is Here'...a double album contain their last studio record and their final concert.

If I didn't belong to an online community of fellow dorks I would feel so strange saying these rather unknown bands changed my life...but they did.

And since this is my blog...if you want to be considered my friend still you have to listen to these and like at least half of them.

Sorry that's the rules.

A Few Blaise Pascal Quotes

"We sail within a vast sphere, ever drifting in uncertainty, driven from end to end. When we think to attach ourselves to any point and to fasten to it, it wavers and leaves us; and if we follow it, it eludes our grasp, slips past us, and vanishes for ever. Nothing stays for us. This is our natural condition and yet most contrary to our inclination; we burn with desire to find solid ground and an ultimate sure foundation whereon to build a tower reaching to the Infinite. But our whole groundwork cracks, and the earth opens to abysses."

"For, in fact, what is man in nature? A Nothing in comparison with the Infinite, an All in comparison with the Nothing, a mean between nothing and everything. Since he is infinitely removed from comprehending the extremes, the end of things and their beginning are hopelessly hidden from him in an impenetrable secret; he is equally incapable of seeing the Nothing from which he was made, and the Infinite in which he is swallowed up."

"We desire truth, and find within ourselves only uncertainty. We seek happiness, and find only misery and death. We cannot but desire truth and happiness, and are incapable of certainty or happiness. This desire is left to us, partly to punish us, partly to make us perceive where from we are fallen."

"The knowledge of God without that of man's misery causes pride. The knowledge of man's misery without that of God causes despair. The knowledge of Jesus Christ constitutes the middle course, because in Him we find both God and our misery."

"Not only do we know God by Jesus Christ alone, but we know ourselves only by Jesus Christ. We know life and death only through Jesus Christ. Apart from Jesus Christ, we do not know what is our life, nor our death, nor God, nor ourselves."

Psalm 40:1-3

I waited patiently for the LORD;
he turned to me and heard my cry.

He lifted me out of the slimy pit,
out of the mud and mire;
he set my feet on a rock
and gave me a firm place to stand.

He put a new song in my mouth,
a hymn of praise to our God.
Many will see and fear the LORD
and put their trust in him.

Hmm...irony.

"Verge of a Miracle" - Rich Mullins

Clung to a ball
That was hung in the sky
Hurled into orbit
There You are
Whether you fall down
Or whether you fly
Seems you can never get too far
Someone's waiting to put wings
Upon your flightless heart

You're on the verge of a miracle
Standing there
Oh you're on the verge of a miracle
Just waiting to be believed in
Open your eyes and see
You're on the verge of a miracle

Here in your room
Where nobody can see
Voices are loud
But seldom clear
But beneath the confusion
That's running so deep
There is a promise you must hear
The love that seems so far away
Is standing very near

You're on the verge of a miracle
Standing there
Oh you're on the verge of a miracle
Just waiting to be believed in
Open your eyes and see

When you've played out
Your last chance
And your directions
Have all been lost
When the roads that you look down
Are all dead ends
Look up
You could see if you'd just look up

You're on the verge of a miracle
Standing there
Oh you're on the verge of a miracle
Just waiting to be believed in
Open your eyes and see
You're on the verge of a miracle

There is a...quote about the past and Satan that I'm trying to recall...regardless living in the past is an addictive poison...it can pass into nothing where it belongs...

It's good to just breath.

Good Morning

A second wind is blowing through me...passing by my thoughts, my ever lacking esteem and you know...it's nice to know I'm not alone.

It may rain, it may be sun filled day...I'm not sure...but the sky is filled with light even at this dark hour...the angels are singing their peace around the throne and...I feel things that I haven't in a while...curiosity, hopeful anticipation...something mixed, something old, something new and many unexpected things flowing through my mind at so late of an hour.

As much as I would like to pinpoint a few things...a theme mayhaps...it's lacking for sure.

I'm not even sure what I am trying to say...I want to sing, I want to dance in freedom...I feel more alive in this exhausted, spent and medicated stupor then I have since I can last remember (which is about two weeks give or take) and...and...what does it mean?

A challenge...some shaping of the soul perhaps...refinement by processing and thinking deeper...analyzing and pulling from my books and trying to understand that which I have avoided...

This is not making sense to me.

I'm not sure about where I wanted to go when I finished Mobile...I mean...I was told where to go but I think I backed out because of fear...and I ended up hear sick...I don't know if it's normal for those with chronic pain...but I haven't even really thought about...being alive in the year 2010...or living to hit twenty-five or thirty or whatever....

I don't know...tell me...does that sound morbid?

I'm ready to start trying to live again...I feel some sort of energy, some sort of...ability to smile even though it hurts to smile...

But it's still good...is this making sense yet?

I don't think it is...but that is okay.

I'm sort of used to being so...scattered...and it's not that I have someone special other than You...I'm trying to impress...I just...wish I could give better meaning, better words, somehow give You what You have deserved for all these years.

I love You.

You knew this before matter was matter, before I had oxygen to breath and before I cried my first time...You knew the scars that I would carry and my odd way of walking...did you plan for me to look so goofy with my hair not being cut? I mean...You love me...don't You?

I feel...intoxicated...with how...vivid You feel...
Who...or what even...I'm speechless.
I cannot begin to give meaning to my words...You know what I've been trying to say while I go on and on...maybe I'll shush before I just loose the meaning all together.




"It won't break my heart to say goodbye..."

Duck and Cover

Mechanics of Derivatives

In these hands I hold this weight,
the burden of your ever lost soul
reluctant I have held through the night
as I watch the growing holes.

Melodrama, now and for sure
reluctant in this blessed allure
but I held the tools
as they stole my heart
turning man into machine.
Flesh bearing out this fool
believing as I am man made art
and making myself forget what has been.

It is blood that shaped my bearing
and blood that hearkened this forgiving
as I look north and stare into the mind
of the one who would steal my heart
perpetuating this horror show maligning
and eating those who respond in kind
but it is You who divide and cleave.
You that spoke this all into being
and the Author of my final reprive.

I'm ready to face the being I am
and bearing this beam
carry wood and stone
and pass through fire and dreams
and feel the endless wind as it is blown
casting me towards this future,
one of hope and rapture.

I'm more awake now...than I may have ever been...so many thoughts about everything...and about nothing...about dreams...living...hope...so much more...

Morning...or so it is called...

A few memories of a dream...

Somewhere/Beyond the rain and autumn plains, the snow/That litters the countryside/I find a piece of you
And somewhere/Beyond the frozen fields, I clearly see/The end of our misery/A part of the place we knew
And slowly down through the fire, burning/Into this darkness I fall/

Your presence right here beside me, yearning/Through it all

dokoka/ame to aki matsu no mukou/inaka no yuki ni/anata mitsukeru
(Somewhere/Beyond the rain and autumn plains, the snow/
That litters the countryside/I find a piece of you)
dokoka/kotta hara no mukou, atashi/mijimesa musabi/shiteta dokoro ni
(And somewhere/Beyond the frozen fields, I clearly see/The end of our misery/A part of the place we knew)

And as the shadow dawns upon us/All I seem to think about is/Where our hope has faded away/Into

kage wo miedashitara/kangaeru dake wa/shioreta nozomi
doko ni...
(And as the shadow dawns upon us/All I seem to think about is/
Where our hope has faded away/Into)

And somewhere/Beyond the hills below the horizon sun/A life that has just begun/A life we’re meant to know
dokoka/ame to aki matsu no mukou/inaka no yuki ni/anata mitsukeru
(Somewhere/Beyond the rain and autumn plains, the snow/That litters the countryside/I find a piece of you)

Moon Light

Sometimes knowing is but half
other times it is
complete within its own self.

On Grace, Maybe...

I am...it feels surreal.

I hope these dreams go away soon...

I found some relics from my dad earlier today...one of the two drumsticks he once got from a Styx concert, a couple of photos, a video of when I was three and we were a 'family', a couple of photos...I've got to find a shoebox for this stuff...

I also found a couple of cards from my grandmother.

It is strange how certain images can trigger chemical reactions...memories I tried to forget...

I need to get to writing...I just am afraid of looking down that black hole.

Is that normal?

It's silly fear the past or finding out things I don't want to know...but I guess there is something in every kid that wants to think their daddy is someone...respectable, someone worth looking up to...that you can believe in and love...yet...I have One who is...but God I just wish i could have a hug...I can remember the last time I had a hug for him and felt the bristles on his unshaven face press against my cheek.

The smell even.

I just wish I knew if he knew Jesus or not...that is one reason I wish I could say that the whole personal commitment thing is okay...but I know being good isn't enough...if Heaven and more important being with God was based on merit badges my dad would be screwed anyway.

I mean...the idea of God loving everyone enough to hold us accountable for our lives...and how desperately broken and lost we are and in need of that love and grace...it takes on a whole new meaning when you HAVE to trust Jesus knows what He is doing.

I wonder what he would think about me call to ministry...or this whole California idea...or trying to get an internship with xxxchurch...clearly some family look at me confused when I mention it...sometimes I wonder if he would get it...or would care...I mean in ways it *doesn't* matter...but in deep ways it would to me.

I'm...who I am...what I'm doing now...I'm spinning my tires and staying put on this spot. I think I've been using my illness, my fear...just as a reason to stay here. I hate, hate, hate being here...it's like being back in high school with what few enjoyable things stripped...

I want to walk on and leave the past behind where it should be...

I'm going to be carrying bits and pieces of this...most days it is manageable but on occasion...the love I feel can seem more like a poisonous wound that almost feels festering.

Things are not as dramatic as I make them out a lot of the time...but...but...words, words, words...

Maybe one day I'll borrow a page from Orson Scott Card's Ender series and maybe...try my hand at being a speaker for the dead.

For those unfamiliar with his sci-fi work...a speaker for the dead is a person that travels from planet to planet and at the request of people they research a deceased person and then speak about them. It's not simply a eulogy because they speak about their entire lives...all of it. The good, the bad and most importantly the ugly...it's a deceleration of the human experince...our condition and need to lie to ourselves that everything is okay when it's not.

I can't say the name David Alan Pike without cringing and wanting to hide my face...I need to...how did John Lennon put it? Cut a vein and let it all pour out on a page? I have a lot of half formed thoughts about that man...my dad...and part of me, the weak part, wants to hide from that...but I know I need to see me for me...and just open things up...air these ghosts and let things flutter and fly out.

I...so beginning was here in Jemison and I was returned here for a reason.

I don't know why...I may not know this side of eternity...but I'm ready to walk forward and see where this is all going.

It's...purpose...it is there...I thought I knew it but...You are there and are holding me up. Thank You...thank You so much...for just caring about me, for letting me having silly conversations, for feeling music, for taking this breath, for whatever challenges I'll see tomorrow...for giving me enough life that I can feel this pain...and the hope that this...that all of this will be okay...will work out and winning my love...thank You.

Help me...step forward.

Offers for help to go everywhere but I feel I should...I suppose the question is how committed am I?

Cleaning...cleaning...cleaning...but no book yet.

How is it possible for me to accumulate so much useless junk in one room?


I'm forgetting something and I cannot remember what it is...higher dosage of medication means less ability to remember and...maybe other stuff too.

Conversations...thinking...how many of the conversations I'm having are real or fake? This is getting crazy...the doctor said vivid dreams but this is a bit...crazy.

Hrmmm...

I need to find my copy of Stephen King's 'On Writing'!

It has been missing for a couple of years...anyone seen it?

Hmm...surprises come in all shapes and sizes it seems.

Don't worry...I'm treasuring both the happy moments and the ever lasting joy...the moment if fleeting but the beauty lasts a life time.

Godspeed you rest beyond rest.

Nausea medication which makes one more nauseated...what madness is this?!?

"Satellite of Love" - Lou Reed

Something of this and something of that.

I'm not busy enough so I may just hide in here.


Sometimes even just saying hey to...familiar...fam...ones is hard.

I'm reluctant in speech and biting down on words by the dozen.

I feel something cold that I don't understand.

If I ever got a new dog it would be awesome to get one of these:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raccoon_dog

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Tanuki01_960.jpg


What is it with me and having a heart for the animals where God got bored and threw several species in a blender and let it whirl?

A pity I can't get a domestic platypus...

I've been working on a short story...I think I'm almost finished with it.