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.

The Plague

Dehydrated? Fever? upset stomach, can't sleep, nausea, chills, cough, headaches, low sodium count? If all of these symptoms apply to you there's a good chance you have the plague. I would have said swine flue, but the tests came back negative and I don't think they test for the plague in hospital visits so I'm probably safer saying it is the cause of my suffering.

During the dark times of illness I have grown to love my roommates even more though. They have picked up various medicines and foods for me as I have not been able to get around. It makes me glad that I'm here and I think that I could end up staying at this house for a lot longer than I was originally planning. I'll mention my 4 roommates in a later post, but suffice to say for now, they're great folks.

I think that I am beginning to get better and I have an interview on Friday so hopefully we'll see some luck there.

A man in search of a dream pt.1

It's good to be back in Denver! The friends, the culture I missed it all. One thing I am coming to know about Denver, as with all cities in America, Is that there are no jobs. So in the spirit of humorous misery I decided to share my search for work, love, and a place to live. Mainly work right now as the other subjects follow.

It is a learning experience being unemployed for over three months. The first attack at the job market sees you come in with head held high and resume's and cover letters in hand. After a week of that you realize that this tier of society has no jobs so you move to a place where only a resume is required. After a week here you realize that you have been vain and prideful and there is nothing wrong with stepping down to a level where you hand in a resume and they ask you to fill an application as well.

I was alright with that place, but the world wasn't and so I steeped into a restaurant and upon handing my resume I was told that only the application was needed. At this point it becomes clear that you are not a person, you are a laboring cow for a machine that doesn't wish to know that you can write or convey who you are in a professional manner. And then there comes week 4 where you force yourself through a door and find when talking to the manager that they don't carry applications, all hiring is done on-line.

In time I'm sure I will look back on all of this and laugh at the absurdity and desperation of job hunting, hell, I'm laughing at it now. no... that's actually a cough from the cold I got walking five miles last night... my bad.

Beautifully uncommitted?

As I look into another human face with love and longing, I try and understand this chemical feeling we named love. I sit trapped in my thoughts. I stare at her and strive to comprehend the nebulous cloud of emotions filling my mind.

We speak and say things that are meaningful and edifying. We speak of each others importance, and why what we have is special. And on the whole of that, above it all, we speak in the center of human existence that no words have yet as touched.

Above it all, I don't love you because you're you – I love you because you love. I don't care for you based on your gifts and merits, I care for you because you care. Those emotions/abilities that we share that make us human.

A woman is not beautiful because she loves me, she is beautiful because she can love. I think that we all probably have the ability, and we search for the opportunity to let it rise; that opportunity is everywhere and every time.

In a moment of pure unadulterated honesty I say that I can't promise the future. I don't know that everything will work; I see reasons it would and wouldn't. This isn't the romantic melody that should come out of our societies perfect love story, but that's why it's so much better than some stupid story.

You see, in real life people don't climb a tower or fight off an army or conquer death itself every time they fall for another person; and yet there is an obligation to live as so. No, in real life there are circumstances that turn love to reality or lost opportunity, and those circumstances and how they are mediated determines our outcomes.

You shouldn't loose yourself so completely in every pair of pouted lips that come to yours. Not every pair was meant for you, and that's okay. Instead, loose yourself in the fact that this pair of lips has tasted love before and knows it's kiss. Find the great connection not in the idea of two lost souls desperately needing to be united to face the trials and fears of a heartless world, but in the realization that there are two lost souls. In the same place, at the same time. Searching.

Where did they come from? Where are they going? Will there be peace for either in the end? Will either of them find that perfect mate or stay alone? I think that in not trying to own that other soul, but merely wishing to be a part of it's journey, letting down the confines of societal obligations, we are free. And with that freedom comes real love.

So instead of looking and hoping that this is the one, I look and hope that this one is free. I hope that this one is on a journey not to find a place to end, but to see where the journey leads.

I look at her as we sit on the floor listening to Explosions In The Sky, and then I follow her gaze to the ceiling, and then there is silence. Another soul, just like mine, confused and searching, hopeful and vulnerable. The idea of trapping some thing so pure is a travesty. Our instilled need to own everything around us would have us steal the freedom from innocent wings, but how much more beautiful is the experience of watching this bird fly? Of being a part of something to great for one man to hold onto. We fear being alone so strongly that we grab onto anything and we daren't let go. So desperate to have a flower to hold onto that we loose sight that we are in a field. We are each one of us comprised of petals and worth.

Let go and let God, see where fate takes you. Believe in humanity and in yourself, and the things you search for will find you out.

I'm not saying I want to be with other people, or that I don't want to be with this one. I'm saying how divinely blessed am I that with all of the chaos that makes nature I have a chance to experience this amazing creation. And the chance that this soul may not be where I end is part of what makes it so beautiful. It will love, with or without me. It will hurt, and it will soar.

That I have a chance to journey with something so beautiful for a time is life's great salve. The abatement for our troubles is found in these moments of understanding. In these breaks where I can experience companionship as more than similar goals, a need to fill longings, the desires of my flesh, I feel the truest love.

I love this woman. I am glad she lays beside me now and I hope that she will be there in the morning. I want her to trust me in her times of need, and support my in my insecurities. I want her to know my weakness and I hers. I want to love her in as many ways as I know how, and if the time comes that she should go, I want to kiss her goodbye having been bettered for what we had.

I see no reason at that point for her to be lost to me. She was not mine in the first, instead I hope she soars in a way that brings her peace, and if she is in need, I hope she knows that she needn't be alone.

What if instead of owning someone else we experienced someone else. What if instead of trying to label who belongs to who we just let go and tried to experience life together? I love her. Isn't that so much more than owning her? We are together now, isn't that so much more precious than, “we will never part?”