missing ignorance

A friend asked me an interesting question the other day… it was your typical date question (unbeknown to me we were on a pretty bad date). A question that after a bottle and a half of wine was supposed to set him up with a perfect first date answer... (and here I revert your attention back to the words "a bottle and a half of wine" and point out that my friend obviously didn’t know what he was getting himself into). He asked me what I missed most. I didn't say anything for a little bit, actually deeply thinking about the question. He must normally date dim whits and airhead who probably answer him with something like "my stuffed bear bo-bo". So while I was thinking he took my silence as his time to fill the air with his obviously rehearsed "I miss being a boyfriend" speech… As I was pouring the last of the second bottle into my glass, I looked up at him and interrupted his lengthy dribble about how great of a guy he was. “Not knowing”, he looked at me with curiosity, "Not knowing is what I miss the most". He didn't really say much after that. I am assuming he realized I wasn't paying attention to his over thought out play to date me. But I thank him, even if it was a really bad "date", for reminding me of being young and innocent again.

What I miss most is not knowing. I miss the simplicity of naivety. I miss the creativity and imagination that comes from delving into a bright, unknown world. A world which hasn’t been muddied by the woes of reality. I miss learning new things and I miss the innocence of the lesson learned. I miss lowered expectation, of me and of others.

I received an email from one of those daily thoughts, blah, blah, blah websites that preach ideals of a perfect you (yea I'm acting like I didn’t sign myself up for it, but truth be told I read each email daily). It was entitled "Honest Wisdom, the power of not knowing". The article is really about being able to admit that you don’t know everything, but it refreshed my memory about my thoughts the other evening: There is freedom in saying "I don’t know." And we, as adults, should feel no shame in saying, "I don't know." In doing so, we open ourselves up to the unknown.
Full circle… I'm out.

rabbit hole

just moments before, my fingers were digging into the earth above me, i could feel the warm sunlight on their tips as i grasped at the solid earth outside the edge of this hole. my other hand firmly gripping what i thought was a sturdy vine. i thought i finally had the strength to to pull my body out, but my fingers trembled and the vine gave way. with a climax and a crash, my body lays upon the cold ground at the bottom of this dark rabbit hole, a place that i had been trying so desperately to get out of. in the quake of the fall, i remain still. i lay on my back and i stare up at the tiny dot of light, not even big enough to give way to hope of escape. it seems even smaller now then it did before this encounter and my body seems even weaker. bruised and broken i lay here in this cavernous pit alone, wondering if i can find my way out or if ill remain imprisoned here.

Alone - Edgar Allan Poe

From childhood's hour I have not been
As others were; I have not seen
As others saw; I could not bring
My passions from a common spring.
From the same source I have not taken
My sorrow; I could not awaken
My heart to joy at the same tone;
And all I loved, I loved alone.
Then—in my childhood, in the dawn
Of a most stormy life—was drawn
From every depth of good and ill
The mystery which binds me still:
From the torrent or the fountain,
From the red cliff or the mountain,
From the sun that round me rolled
In its autumn tint of gold,
From the lightning in the sky
As it passed my flying by,
From the thunder and the storm,
And the cloud that took the form
(When the rest of Heaven was blue)
Of a demon in my view.

LOL

I was watching season one of californcation last night... just had to post this:
Hank Moody: Just the fact that people seem to be getting dumber and dumber. You know, I mean we have all this amazing technology and yet computers have turned into basically four figure wank machines. The internet was supposed to set us free, democratize us, but all it's really given us is Howard Dean's aborted candidacy and 24 hour a day access to kiddie porn. People... they don't write anymore, they blog. Instead of talking, they text, no punctuation, no grammar: LOL this and LMFAO that. You know, it just seems to me it's just a bunch of stupid people pseudo-communicating with a bunch of other stupid people at a proto-language that resembles more what cavemen used to speak than the King's English.
Radio Show Host: Yet you're part of the problem, I mean you're out there blogging with the best of them.
Hank Moody: Hence my self-loathing.

Dream

I always was told to write you dreams down shortly after you wake up so you don't forget details... but oddly two days later and this one is still as vivid as if i just woke up from my sleep....

I am not sure where i was going but i know i was leaving the town that i was living... although i don't think i was trying to escape anything, i was just trying to go somewhere else: it was the middle of the day and i was driving down a road that wound parallel to to a body of water. As i drove, the road in front of me was suddenly engulfed by water. At first i saw others scrambling to get through it, and followed their lead. I thought to myself "i can get through this i can trudge through these pools of water". However as my car submerged into the sunken path, realized that my car couldn't make it though. I knew i need to to turn around however the road behind me was just as bad as the road before me. I had to make a new path. I forged a path over what now a new bank to the building body of water. I drove through woods, forcing my way through trees and around rocks that stood in my way.

I raced up the stairs of the three floor apartment building i apparently lived in. As i entered, my roommate (who was no one i know in life) was idly staring out the window... like she knew i was going to come home at any moment. I ran to the window across the apartment from where she stood and looked out to see my neighbor standing on her second floor balcony. She was a lady in her late 50's with gray hair and dressed in a floor length dressing gown that i haven't seen on someone since the summers i spent with my grandmother. I watched as she taped up her window and as the water below her rose to her feet.

I turned to my roommate who seemed to have read my mind and threw me tape to cover the window with. As i taped the window i knocked off the cover of a small portal that was supposed to be used circulation. Suddenly water began to pour into the opening. I struggled in attempt to stop the water from coming in as i realize its too late the water is already seeping through the windows, there was no way of stopping it. I panic and think to myself "is it ever going to stop rising... please make it stop coming". Simultaneously, my roommate and i ran to the center of the room where there is another small vent in the ceiling. We basically start to claw at the hole, kicking our way through to break onto the roof. The hole becomes bigger and the light shines through.

My roommate and i were OK, we have survived the flood that seemed to wiped our town out. The water was gone and we slowly cruised through town in an old red mustang convertible. The place was ruined, the buildings were all condemned, everything was still and quit. As we drove, we came up to the baseball field were we were relieved to find a few of our other neighbors sitting together on picnic benches. We stopped the car and jumped out to greet our friends. They all seemed so gloomy over the tragedy we just endured, however I felt giddy with relief that others had made it through. I ran up to a man (again no one in my current life) and threw my arms around his neck. I pulled away so i could look him in the face and exclaimed "Mike, I am so glad you survived this too" . His face remained deadpan and i realized he hadn't even hugged back. He then looks me straight in the eye and says "We didn't survive."

My smile is wiped from my face as i take in my surroundings. It switches to a birds eye view and pans away from our group, revealing the following: We are all dead, we are all ghosts, our town is completely underwater.....
(unedited)

come one come all...

random doodle while on the phone.... to be continued during my next call!