The American Dream... A matter of sleeping

It's been a while since I contemplated life in a blog format. I am settled in my new apartment downtown now and the main reason (Or excuse) I have been remiss in typing would be my looking for and starting a new job.

The job has great pay and benefits, but also requires me to work 7 days a week/10 hours a day. I'm not sure how in love I am with it, but the prospect of having a company truck in 3 weeks beside my pay keeps me showing up every morning.

In all honesty I'm glad to lose all my free time. Lately I haven't been using it in the best ways. From breaking a finger punching a guy, to messing with taken girls... there's a lot of messed up in my life lately and most of it probably doesn't need explaining.

The sum of the bad is me sitting in an amazing apartment wondering what's next. And I guess all things considered that's sitting pretty compared to some people.

The thing I was most recently wondering about though was what defines success and what unspoken obligations are held to those around us.

Maybe I had a friend who I knew liked me (Maybe is usually an admission of guilt for me.) and maybe I told her we shouldn't hang out because I didn't want to end up hurting her. Weeks later she is over and we end up together for the night.

The next day I make lunch and we spend some time together. Shower, candles, music... and I tell her we should just remain friends. It actually is probably worse than it sounds.

When it comes down to it though, being alone can suck and sometimes you need someone there. And I did warn her in the past that it would happen... So we are obligated to make the right decisions for others when they don't make them for themselves, and when we make bad decisions... How would you say we should handle guilt?

Well the thing is I've hurt a few ladies since I have been in Denver and have decided that with this busy job I'm not going to have time for anyone I'm attracted to. Hopefully after getting debts paid off I will be able to offer a better man to the world. Or at worst be able to afford a therapist. *Grins*

I feel as though I am getting closer to realizing "The Dream" but as I get closer, with performing shows and "hooking up," having more money and access to the world... I'm not sure what the point is. I'm not saying that I have fleshed out what it is to be successful, I'm instead saying that the things that make "Success" don't make me feel any less alone, and I've also been realizing that feeling alone has nothing to do with who is around you.

Did they teach a class on inter-peace in public school that I missed out on? As always I would love any feedback on these thoughts, and even suggestions.

Fallen

How the mighty have fallen...

In walking to work today I made a few mistakes. The first was listening to Thom Yorke (The lead singer from radiohead.) It's dark, trippy music and it stirs thoughts that are better left lying in the back of my mind.

In considering these "dark" thoughts, I came to realize that I am less of the man I would like to be. I don't want a relationship because I haven't met anyone who I feel understands my thoughts, and at the same time being alone gets tiring.

I've never been the kind of guy who could be with someone without some emotional attachment and if God shows me mercy I never will be, but why do we have to find ourselves alone so often in searching for life's mysteries? This may be a little of that Emo spirit that Alex says comes with every blog, but it's my thoughts for the moment and it is a low for me.

It just feels as though it would be so nice to hold someone just to reattach with that facet of my humanity. To not feel outside of life, but there's no one around that I would be able to hold in stillness. I guess it goes back to some of my earlier thoughts that we are all together in moving through life. No one has all of the answers or a book that tells you the right way to live, so why are we so separate? And why do we pair off into groups of two putting the rest of humanity on the outside of shared life experience?

Why can't we just all belong to each other? I think I may have been born in the wrong era.

I'm not talking about free love here, or commune living, I'm just saying people should be able to love together and live together. People should be free and interdependent. Where do you find that?

Living the Dream prt 3.5

... I mixed the schedule for work today and woke up half an hour before I was supposed to be there. Thank goodness The taxi got me there on time and for just under what I earned in wages today!

Work is great and I love the people, but when I got off work at 2pm I learned a valuable lesson.

Having sat at the bus stop for half an hour I decided it would be prudent to call and see when the next bus was coming. The first lesson of the story is this: The Fucking Buses don't run in Aurora on Sunday!!!!

That left the light rail as my ride home, and thank goodness it's only a 3 hour walk from my work!

I have a relatively clear schedule outside of work so a walk didn't sound to bad. The wind that kicked up twenty minutes in wasn't even able to dissuade me and the rain that started an hour in only reinforced the idea that I should walk faster.

Second lesson from today: When living in a mountain city it is wise to own a coat.

A sincere good note: as I passed La Quinta (the hotel) on the walk I saw a couch and two cushioned chairs hidden behind a dumpster.

I went for three hours and walked over seven miles! My legs still don't love me,

Lesson 3: people in Aurora don't pick up hitch hikers.

After the 45 minute train ride to Colorado Blvd. Colin (my current and future roommate) suggested via phone that I wait at the station for a mutual friend with a truck to pick me up so we could go and get the furniture. It didn't sound like a bad idea and at around 7 pm (Remember I got off work at two?) We went back to Spanish themed land marker from my death walk and grabbed the slightly damp living room set for our new apartment. At 7:45 I finally got home and got lesson 4: Get a car.

The apartment is downtown and on the tenth floor facing the city!!! we're stoked

Living the Dream prt 3

I was riding on the Light Rail yesterday... (I was riding on it today as well, but that's a much more relevant story so we'll save it till the end.) And as I rode over Denver I looked down and I must have been wearing a huge grin.

I was grinning because as I saw the cars and pedestrians below me I realized that I knew something most of them didn't; I am in possession of a secret that few stumble upon in life.

They were presumably going to work so they could pay for an apartment that they could live in while they work. (This is how I see most of America.) And I knew that instead of working, paying bills and watching tv I could live a full life of working, paying bills and living!

Even without money there is so much available in life! From playing cards with roommates to music lessons downtown. All of the social gatherings and free events. I was just happy because I knew that even when money is tight the value of life stays the same, the ability to experience life is always just outside you doorstep. It's as corny and motivational as the rest of my writing lately, but it just felt true and meaningful at the time, so I thought I would put it down here.

As for the more relevant ride today...

Love of uncertainty... In search of the American Dream pt 2

I am in love. I haven't met anyone new, there's no old relationship that resurfaced... I am merely alive and in tasting life's sweet colorings I find myself adrift in poverty, desperation, and love.

I know that all of the adults I looked up to when I was a kid had the same elements in their stories. "I didn't know what I wanted to do," "I was confused," "I hit the bottom." "Life just works out."

If I believe in any type of romance, or any romanticized ideas, the afore mentioned make up the list.

It's the idea that in every person's life there are times when the prospect of how you will survive is up in the air. The idea that the future is completely blank and while we aren't sure what horrors lie in the dark, we don't know what helping hand will be waiting for us either.

I'm at a stage in my life where I can't love any one person, but I love LOVE love the idea that fate has a love affair with my life and she is so much more interesting than any of the predictable girls I've been around of late. I haven't found the mystery that would hold my interest in a relationship yet, but I have found it in life and that makes living such an adventure.

This basically proves that I am an artist, because:

1. My brain is clearly not normal

and B. I love hard times so much!

It's as though when you get to bad times the grace to fake being successful is robbed by life and you are real and only what you are.

Well I don't know how much of that makes sense, but the thing to take away is this:

When you talk to some stupid 20 year old punk 20 years from now and look back to give seasoned advice, you'll look back on this. You will look back on the times when you had no idea where to go or what to say. And when you look back on it, my penny says you'll miss the uncertainty. maybe be jealous of the insecurity the youth you advice is feeling.

If you are uncertain of anything at this moment or worried about anything... try and enjoy it. Try to experience the craziness of being under 35 and not knowing what's next. Feel the love of fate and how awkward she is before you have your life resolved, Embrace her and enjoy each scare, because this love looks like it evens out in the future, and the only time to enjoy it is now.

The Longing Lasts (Another old poem)

The only thing that's harder

Than the desire of a prize

Is your desires laid out naked

before your very eyes

Nude before you stretched out

Or sprawled out on the bed

Wearing nothing but her tan

To her ankles from her head

The only thing more lonely

Then missing her alone

Is missing her while beside me

As we're sleeping in our home

Whats worse than dreaming of her

While separate we must be?

Watching as she's sleeping

Hoping she dreams of me

And thinking of the hopes and pains

Nurtured while we were apart

In person now one distance remains

The distance of the heart

Pop Can (A slam Poem I wrote long ago

Pop Can

I am round and I am whole

Trash and art to look the part

In a 4x at a kmart park

n lot-s of things make up this scene

It's poor and it's grit, but it ain't no dream,

It's the life stealing high feeling pay for what we're not revealing love story turned tragedy

Trailer trash

Welcome to my world said the man as you came into his dad's pop can

This is where the magic happens ( the paint is pealed, the plasters cracking

The weathered chairs have lost there backing.)

This is where we eat our sup' (And somethings up You see but God do you not touch, a residential garage sale, it looks as much like that or this and smells like piss it's everything we must forget and even in our pity's sake we can't forgive it, how could a family live it, how could someone live in this?)

And my daughter and sons (Well we've all made fun, we've seen them in the schoolyards sun, and if they didn't fit in there should we go to hell that this seems their place in life, should we run away since this is the place that made what we have never wanted to understand? Were we supposed to comprehend? I don't, I think I never did, If I could unsee how it is they live. Those one's who don't fit in, in life, it's there's to bare and if I stopped to share that weight then I would go nowhere We're here, and they're there, and that's just life, I never said it was fair, All I'll say is struggles don't compare from high to low living in a beat-up pop-can.