Good Evening, PDX (and other random people on the internet).

Today was fast paced. It's 5:08pm, and I'm filling up the next 28 minutes by writing in my blog.

I have a feeling the next 27 minutes will crawl unless I'm doing something.

I had something interesting to say but I lost it. But at least it's 5:16pm now so I've only got another 14 minutes. YAY!

In response to the comments of the previous post:

I'm not sure what I'm trying to gain from it. I have no idea what the insecurity is, or if it is fixable. I know that there is a problem, but I'm not even truly sure what the core issues are. Perhaps if I knew that, I'd be better equipped to fix them. I do feel like I am cheating myself, and other people. I know that everything around me is a fade, and the reason it is like that is because I am as well.

I've longed and yearned for understanding -- a way to glimpse into the eyes of another person and believe them when they say that they really honestly care. It's so foreign to me -- I am lacking in faith.

I have a few people in my life who I could almost believe when they say they'd do anything for another person. I don't understand, and I feel cheated because I want to know what that is like. They would do it out of a deep-rooted emotion. They would truly feel that way, whereas I would do it because I felt obligated and that it was my duty.

Fucked up.

But do I know why? No. I could easily say it's because I'm a bad person. But I don't commit cardinal sins, I help people when I can.

But there's something missing from it that I just don't get.

Something that I feel is pretty damned important.

Hmm, you can tell a lot about someone from their blog. For instance -- I obsess over what other people think of me, and try to control my image.

This is very true.

At some point in my life, I started giving a shit about what other people thought of me. I started desiring acceptance.I started spending money on clothes. I started obsessing over the way I look. I started crazing over the presentability of my environment, and making certain that it conformed to other people's standards of acceptability. I started trying to impress people. I became desirable, wanted, and "cool".

I've worked hard on a "status" that seems to have become my prison, and in a jihad of conforming and shaping all of my self into reflections of other people's desire, I've lost my core.

I think this makes me irritable sometimes.

And while I look at what I've gained, and seem pleased -- I can't help thinking about the parts of me that I have sacrificed in the process. I think back to the things which occupied my time in the past, and the things which occupy my time today, and I realize that I've become out of touch with who I used to be, and subscribed to the parts of society that I preach so loudly against in some half-desperate attempt to become one of the elite.

Did the desperation stem from a few broken relationships that proved to me how little I actually care about other people? Was I desperately trying to get close to people that I might feel them and understand what they feel, or was I only trying to further hone so-called chameleon-like abilities that I might fool the world, and myself, into thinking, "There goes a guy who gives a damn..."

Was I desperate? Realizing that I've watched friends fall around me, clinging to me in times of need, shouting at me and trying to elicit a feeling... Realizing that when they walked away, I had fooled them into thinking that what I said I felt I truly did feel, and that it was right (words words words) ---- knowing that at the back of their minds they knew, at the core, what I did I did for myself as much as for them. Always 50/50. Never more. Preferably less. Shit. There I go, obsessing again. I did help carry them, but it depended on the depth of their needs, and how much I felt I could truely help them.

Maybe that is how I moved into this phase, altho I don't think it can all be chopped up so easily. Well, not by me. Do I miss the man I used to be? Have things ever been any different?

Perhaps I simply obsess over my loneliness, rather than celebrate my individuality. I bring down people's walls by trying to be what they want in their lives. I could get lucky, but one can only play a game for so long before exhaustion leads to a mistake -- and I haven't felt very lucky lately.

So my co-worker today said that my blog sounded like I was full of myself... like I believed that what I said was the most important thing in the world.

I wasn't really sure how to respond to this. At first, I reacted in defense, as I'm pretty sure nobody likes hearing that they are full of themselves. I've thought about it a bit...

A blog is a personal thing. It's an individual's voice on the internet -- a voice that other people can choose to listen to, or not listen to, depending on whether or not they believe that what the blogger is saying is important, humorous, or of any worth to them whatsoever. Ultimately, it is simply an outlet in which I am allowed to bitch, whine, write, report, etc.

Yes, I do hope that other people get something out of it. I hope that someone can read some of my ramblings and be like, "Yeah! I feel the same way and so maybe I'm not so alone in the world after all!", or "God, that was a really inspiring quote/lyric", or "God, I'm glad I saw that shitty ass opinion which clarifies my own feelings on the subject", etc. Of course I want that. If even one person can take something (positive or negative) from what I create, then as an artist, as a composer, as a person, I think I have done well.

Ultimately -- is that the point of this blog? No.

As everyone who is anybody knows...

... the point of this blog is to amuse and appease Beth.

DUUUUUUHHHhhhh!

...

Work is so busy today, sheesh!

I am convinced that the status of things (operational or broken) is somehow directly related to the rotation of the earth around the sun. It always seems that everything breaks at the same time. Everyone says this! It's not like I'm the first one! Surely there must be some weight to it!

Hmm, that may have been a moronic statement. Perhaps it's just a giant alien conspiracy. Or perhaps it's just a conspiracy. Or perhaps perchance it simply happens to be mere happenstance.

And stuff.

So enough about shit breaking. I actually bought guitar picks and strings at WAL-MART. I feel so dirty. What can I say? I REALLY had to practice, the damn cats schawangled my pick off to some nebulous place, and my strings were old and crusty.

OK so I actually only went to get guitar picks; but the power of the WAL-MART gripped at my soul with it's $4.00 light bronze wound guitar strings, placed ever so seductively next to the cheap-ass-not-fit-for-a-dead-goat guitars and the 20 pack of colorful yet crappy guitar picks.

Anyway, it's official. They truly have fucking everything.

Well, I updated the look and feel of my blog, and as per Beth's request added in the "Comments" functionality. This should please her, as she will no longer have to remain silent on certain subjects. I know this irritates her greatly -- and so now she (and others) may vent with me as I blather about my trials through life.

Hurray.

SO, in respect to my life, things have been going pretty well. I've been doing terrible on my pool league, and I think that I will not be continuing into the next season. It puts me in contact with smokey bars, and eats money, and I could probably be doing other things with my time.

I'm still looking for a 2nd roommate. I got two people who may be interested around the 1st of the year. If anyone knows anyone else, let me in on the secret!

I feel a new song coming on. I've been in a creative mood, and it's about that time of year. I'm supposed to start working on a project soon so hopefully I will have some pimp recordings for everyone :)

Until then, keep your heads up and I'll try to do the same!! Hopefully I'll have some good postings in the near future. For now, I'm off to catch my sparkling transport of greatness -- my chariot of mobility -- the great and wonderful, the glorious and magnificent, the pungeant and ... sparkling... TRI-MET!!! (dun dun dun dun)