Life, Liberty and Loveloss

2008-10-16T20:12:00.000-07:00

A.A. Bondy - There's a Reason - - American Hearts

Write write write....anything. Where do I begin when I haven't had a specific identifiable thought in more hours than I've been awake? (that really does make some kind of backwards sense, at least if you haven't slept.) What questions do I ask oranswer; what do I bother to write?

I'm growing curious and/or anxious to find out when the whole inheritance thing will be concluded. My mother told me I was included in my grandmother's will as well, who apparently also owned some of the rich seam which is California property. I am obviously not going to stop working when it all goes through...even as it is, I have a hard time deciding if it's the lack of sleep or the boredom of being awake with nothing to do so many hours of the day which is worse. Working is at least a bit of respite from...nothing.

I did find out that according to CA law, the C.T. Pedersen estate is divided into 10 portions, which are in turn divided up among family members. My sister and I, as one offshoot of the family tree will be sharing one of those 1/10 portions, essentially...we each get 5% of the ridiculous estate, of the man we never knew or even met. I am not going to discuss how much 5% could end up being, but in my opinion, it's significantly more than I feel entitled to. The last thing I ever asked for was more money. I suppose it enables me to do a lot of things most other people could not. I am eager for my trip to Yosemite. I may not want to come back. I had this notion that i may have had someone I would eagerly want to return to. I was shot down before that even began because I am too "long term" and now I just want to prove how impulsive and unstable I could be, wanting nothing more than to leave and stay away until I'm ready to put up with all of...this...again. Will that be a month? Two? Six months or a year?

I had this crazy fantasy about asking ____ to go abroad with me...perhaps before Joe came to meet me there to climb. I realize how crazy that was, even to think, but as I was told, I felt she was someone I could have cared for "long term" as well. "I really am sorry...I think you are more 'wife' material than a 'girlfriend'..." I don't imagine that sounds half as nice as a person may think.

I am particularly confused at how the aforementioned conversation comes right after telling me I was somehow dubbed "pretty much the most attractive guy in the VA building" at one point by she and her sister. Maybe it was just the "build up -> let down." Just to be clear...I don't agree with that statement...I really love when people tell me they think I am attractive, before they say anything else. It's affirming to know that your most redeeming features are something less than meritous and much more...accidental or...incidental.

¡ spacious loquacious !

2008-10-15T03:01:00.000-07:00

Radical Face - Welcome Home, Son - - Ghost

I was just wondering why I never noticed your lips. Will the Pious P.C. call me sexist for saying as much? At the moment it's no more true than the moment before. My saying so does not and should never degrade you as a person; you are still unique, clever, bold and loquacious. The person I never knew I could have known until the time had past. Now left me to notice among other things how perfect your lips seem. Now leave me to wonder if I could have noticed sooner, and if it could have made a difference. Someday someone will tell me how similar we seem. We then compare vocabulary or punctuation, prose or narration and perhaps agree that the things I've once said resemble the things you will say someday; or that meandering through your personal dialog is a tributary which feeds into the same general woe myself and so many others have also found. All for naught when I was first caught in by something much more simple.

I've missed or forfeited more opportunities than I've managed to destroy no doubt. Sometimes that fact is thrown into sharper relief than at other times. There are always going to be the imagined moments of reminiscence where somehow I find myself so utterly delusional as to feel some sort of nostalgia for something which never even took place. Incomplete notions, nagging at my psyche like so many un-itched insect bites. "If only that had come to fruition." "If only I'd said something else." Why are there times where I do remember something, as it happened...detailed and real, though it never truly took place? If my mind can manifest any experience it chooses to, replacing the real with the reverie, let me remember your lips tonight.

Let tomorrow bear the weight of the real.

When I wake I will forget their feel; the strings of unconsciousness anchoring the apocryphal sensations firmly in the realm of sleep and dreams, slipping piece by piece from my mind as it is replaced bit by bit with waking thought. Your warmth will be replaced by the colour of the sun on my bedroom walls, your taste by the sound of the ceiling fan. When I look to the clock, the last bit of imagined feeling will be vanished before I can read the minutes of morning.

Someday I will not remember how we met, or our first conversation. I may go blind to the colour of your eyes and senile to your form, which in another time I may have been able to recognize even in mere silhouette. My own notions of what we could have been will blur with what we probably were not. Yet tonight, allow me to remember your lips.

Sincerity for Bullshitters.

2008-10-14T03:20:00.000-07:00

Badly Drawn Boy - Minor Incident - - About a Boy OST

I got my ass kicked tonight and I really don't think anyone knows the difference. I told her I'd thought about it, but I hadn't placed so much stock in it as to do so much damage. What exactly was I supposed to say?

"Yeah...well...I like you a lot. Even though we've only hung out for the past few weeks, when I think about you I get flutters in my stomach. I become shy talking on the phone with you, and over think everything I say. You are the first girl I've been nervous around in years. But, it's okay. Really."

I did hope...Too much perhaps.

I've liked her since I've known her but I've become a connoisseur of bad timing. In the few times I've hung out with her I've only been more impressed, but I've been fooling myself apparently, again.

I've now been told by more than one person that I am someone who (they) could care for, as apparently opposed to someone intended or perhaps suited only for the more non chalant. Maybe in each case I was supposed to be more accepting somehow, but in each I found myself slightly dumbfounded; essentially, if I understand correctly...I'm TOO datable? Previously, it was meant as a shut down and I think intended to spare me. (which ironically this time also had the pretense of doing.) This time, she is still attached to her ex...and understandably said when you are just out of something meaningful or caring for someone, you cannot care for someone new immediately. I'm tired...and that is far from being verbatim, but at the same time, I had to swallow that statement along with the apparent confession that she tends to play the field to the utmost whenever she and her respective are at outs, that she has ACTUALLY been dating another guy while I've just been spending unassigned time with her, and she has another date tomorrow, with someone else still and again.

all this...has been for my own good, because she understands I've been hurt, and didn't want to cause further damage. Perhaps not irreperable....but for the first time I found myself INTERESTED in someone else, memorizing the details of the way her hair falls, or the uniqueness of her eye colour...her voice, her euphamisms, slender fingers and the way her mouth will smile while her eyes scan you for something more...she's student teaching and talks about art and knows what I'm talking about when I talk about art. She calls the artist Da Vinci which I hate, but I laughed at myself for having ever cared before I knew this girl.

Perhaps not irreperable, but for the first time I saw all of these things and I went away feeling like she'd taken her cues from Sam. Everything is for my own good, but nothing is motivated by my well being. This all happened under the label of, "better you hear it now than later."

While I was packing up to leave she was talking under her breath almost as if she may have regretted what was happening; told me "if I hang out maybe she'll come around" I was cooly upset at this point and just trying to leave while I still felt I had something to leave WITH. I told her half jokingly "THAT is playing." She's not trying to play me. She's been honest, and to salvage something I will tell myself it IS because she thought I was sincere, or that she COULD have cared for me...after that is when she told me the line about being someone she may be able to care about if she could care about anyone...

and I took my leave. It was a long ride home. I really like this girl...it's the girls who I do really enjoy who tend to have me biting my lip listening to stories about other guys who are in some way better than me.

Photo Update Hallett's

2008-09-07T22:03:00.000-07:00

Photo Update Diamond

2008-09-07T21:27:00.001-07:00

Lithesome or Loathsome?

2008-09-04T21:47:00.000-07:00

We are Scientists - The Great Escape - - With Love and Squalor

I've gotten so ridiculously lazy with this; but not lazy in general. While admittedly, I have started to feel I've hardly done anything productive of late I also hardly feel like I've been doing nothing. I work, but I don't have any extra money, I haven't been drawing and I need to. I don't think I've been doing anything at all, except for climbing. There was a brief bit with a girl, but my focus has been...elsewhere: Stone and exposure. Elevated heart rate and bloodied digits and elbows. Anything else has been strained to hold my interest. I find that unfair to anyone who may be trying to hold my interest, but I've devoted far too much time to someone else and it all ended in tears...Now is the time for me, if ever there was one. I would love someone to spend time with. Someone to spend my nights with and someone to cuddle up against, but I'm not ready to have to justify myself in going out with someone else, climbing 3 or 4 days a week, wanting to be alone for a while, or just having days of waning interest which I am not required to explain. It's not fair to expect from anyone, and I don't.

I "spoke" of a training mission earlier this year, missions to get me ready to climb the East face of Long's Peak, The Diamond. Hallett's peak went off...more or less as planned. (less) but we did finish...just not the route we started on.

We were actually on the Diamond yesterday, about 12 miles all in all hiking, a lot of climbing, all. We didn't end up finishing (this time) but we did hold up better than we thought. As a testpiece I think we did exceptionally.

I'll put pictures of of both trips, as well as write a more in depth entry, but I'm still too tired to do it now. I'm off.

Secrets or....Secretions.

2008-08-02T23:24:00.000-07:00

We are Scientists - Hoppípolla (acoustic) - -

The Flobots - Rise - - Fight w/ Tools

These moments have been over two years in the making.

Two years of mistreating each other in turns, ignoring each other and at times, lying, both to ourselves and seemingly more importantly as I've found, to each other as well.

"20 years of bad decisions haven't taught me much at all."

There is something now which I am not to share...except I need to examine exactly why. Is it because I OWE it to her?

What could I possibly owe her at this point? The things which she had cause to change in me (for the better or otherwise) are slowly being undone as she hurts me again and again. If I consider what I've given her, emotionally, in terms of devotion AND in the material, in exchange for what I've received in emotional damage and disappointment; I am all but certain that I could never feel like I owe her ANYTHING ever again. I'm past even feeling that sentimental bullshit of, "well her friendship was the most valuable gift which could be given..." Obviously it wasn't. Any time she made me feel special or important...wanted or loved is tainted by what has happened, and I hardly believe in any of it anymore. I wrote of the loss of something in my last post...my belief in what we had is among that. Even worse, the most terrible bit...is that whether I want it to, or rant otherwise...she's still pretty much my favourite fucking person in the entire fucking world.

Yet, back to the original point...I will never gossip about the issue at hand. Not because I owe her a god damn thing...I've said I do not. But because I am not that kind of person. Despite some of the things which have happened, or the way I have acted at times...I will never punish someone or be spiteful to get even.

Even as such, my night last night was so very awesome *. (Last night was terrible and full of compensational liqouring) I went to coffee with Leah in the evening, the night was actually going well. I'd worked all day and was a bit exhausted but not tired. We drank coffee and talked about nothing in particular. I ate a sandwich and we giggled about the women whose skirts were less skirts and more...belts. Once we left I ran into a man named Clayton with a woman I can only guess was his ACTUAL girlfriend...I am not going to describe who Clayton is, but I will say, he is not my favourite person...10 FUCKING minutes later we walked out of the liquor store holding a bottle of 100 proof SoCo, only to run into Sam riding up, wearing the messenger bag I gave her, my headlamp, and riding the very nice mountain bike which I paid for and built her. I was wide eyed and tried to nonchalantly hide the bottle behind my leg, but it wasn't very hard to figure out what we were doing, and that my telling her I wouldn't drink no longer matters to me.

When it comes to alcohol, I am a lightweight. 23 years of sobriety from nearly everything, medication included, means I can drink a PINT of beer and be feeling pretty good. Add in the fact that I am always dehydrated from running around and don't tend to eat...I didn't stand a chance. I drank way more than I should have, which with 100 proof whiskey isn't hard. I shared a tiny bit of narcissistic honesty including a long overdue apology and went to bed around 4a and woke up without prompting at 6.30a and was in and out all morning. All day everything tastes and smells like whiskey. I haven't had a head ache, but I'm not running at 100%.

Tonight (last night) I had to work, dropping and resetting the lead wall, which turned into an ordeal. No one was actually SCHEDULED to work, I just knew that we needed to and cared...no one else really did. Andy had worked all day, but was really cool and stayed to drop. Most of you won't know what any of this means, but for those who may, when I say that two people cleaning the entire lead wall is less than ideal, you can take it at face value. We stayed until 11p which is 2 full hours after we'd normally be there, but I DID set a 5.12+ which should be entertaining to hear people complain about.

Conclude the night with a long ride home to a hot house with no internet, and leaving once more to sit on the outside patio of a closed coffee shop.

*(Sarcasm isn't conveyed well through type, so I will include the translations in blue.)

The first thing I said was...

2008-07-30T00:07:00.000-07:00

DeVotchKa - How It Ends - How It Ends

Tonight has been the worst night I have had in such a very long time...parts of it are even in contention for the most damaging experiences I've ever had; it is all just to cap of one of the worst months in contention as well.

My parents have left colorado, which was the last major tie I had here. My sister still lives in Loveland, but we have never gone out of our way to more than just tolerate each other...My grandmother, the mother of my father, also passed away. I've spent most of the past week working all day from the morning on and packing and moving all evening, into a place which is small, out of the way and lonely.

Tonight was very similar to that, moving the last of my things by myself and rushing around to drop some shoes off at the gym to give away for free, putting gas into Sam's car, wrapping her birthday gift...she's going to be 2o.

After running around so much, I was exhausted and just wanted to go home...but first, I chose to do something I shouldn't have, and something which is one of the worst things I have managed to do yet. Verily the night went down hill. I must chose not to say anything further both for love of others involved and the respect I should have shown them in the first place...and because I just can't find the words to make anything right anymore. I've lost something which I had held as staunch and encouraging and both by my own actions and the actions of others involved, turned it into something unerringly different. I don't know how I will make it through the changes coming.

Trying to get past that for now, for my own sake and others...

The first thing I said upon coming down from the Flatiron was that it was "life changing".

I've found something amazing, a feeling... something which I've lost in so many other aspects of my life. I want to climb traditionally...There are aspects of it which appeal to me, the leave no trace ethic and such...but what really does it is the control over the situation which I seem to have all too frequently relinquished control...there is a point where you make the decision to press on and climb higher, possibly beyond something you normally consider in your comfort zone.

To me, Trad is becoming the purest form of climbing. I've done some freesoloing and I feel as strongly about that, but you are taking your own life into your hands, and for me, branching off into this, I feel that responsibility with each piece of protection I place. There is no (or less at least) casually clipping into hangars someone else has hung; there is no connect the dots of bolts to follow. As the climber, you are control. If you feel comfortable in the climbing, your protection may be 15...25 feet apart...if you feel sketched and helpless you undoubtedly try to sew in as many pieces as you can... if there is no place for you to do as much, your decision to push past is yours.

If you can break through you can find yourself in a place or perhaps a moment of temporary transcendental ascension. Metaphorically as well as the literal fact of climbing...

I don't believe in god...but if I did, I could only hope that belief would feel as it does after cleanly climb something at your physical or psychological limit, and to do it in a way which will find you somewhere few people could be, and seeing something few others have.

Photo : My favourite climber...ever...Didier Berthod...in the BD camalot ad.

The choice between stoicism or...

2008-07-23T20:46:00.000-07:00

Brendan Benson - What I'm looking for - The Alternative to Love

Well where the hell to begin...Sam and I are attempting to be friends with mixed results and lackluster enthusiasm. There is just so god damn much to fix that the only thing holding it together seems like it is idealism. She could be my best friend again, if I can get over that she was pretty much the worst friend I've had in a long time while she was my best friend. Figure that brain twist out for me. I quit frisbee, officially, because no matter how good my day is up to that point, all it took was seeing her in the environment where it would be hard to tell if she can even remember my name sometimes, much less that there is any kind of deficit or void where there had been something which is no longer.

We had lunch together and I told her I want things to change, but when things are so complicated and awful for me and it is (at least) outwardly apparent that nothing of the type even effects her and she said she loses sleep over it and is stressed and...she's so sweet that I'm almost willing to give her the benefit of the doubt. Then I remember that when she broke up with Paul she was a zombie around me...Leah...in public...in private...makes me believe the loss of me ranks far far less than the loss of him and I just want to cut my fingernails too short or cut a toe off with dental floss...something dramatic and Van Gogh-esque. She cares...it's just impossible to actually see it sometimes...or believe that she is so stoic whenever she's around me, when it'd be nice to see SOME kind of emotion outside of nonchalant jackasserie.

Moving laterally:

I've never felt better physically. i know. what the fuck. This kid does nothing but complain, feel sorry for himself and whine about losing some girl who treats him less than stellar lately ANYWAY...

but I've really never been in better shape. I've lost weight, and this time in a healthy way. I feel strong. I feel good about how I look. I am climbing stronger than I ever have, with the focused reckless abandon I've needed.

I've been hanging out with Joe a lot, and I almost feel I can actually say, "my friend joe" which is odd...it's been a long time since I've used the term and meant more than just someone I know. We've been climbing a lot, trad at Cob rock, sport at Avalon, and last night we did the 1st flatiron in the dark...in approach shoes. Rad.

Training for the Diamond:
Joe and I are going to attempt an ascent of the casual route on Long's Peak. The Diamond is the east face of Longs, which is one of Colorado's Fourteeners - An official alititude of 14,259ft at the summit.

The "Casual route" goes at 7 pitches, the crux pitch and route grade goes at 10a. Did I mention you are climbing between 13 and 14,000+ feet above sea level?

We are going to do it car to car meaning no bivy, and less weight to haul in; but also a longer day, and almost 5 miles of hefty hiking before we even get to Broadway.

I've never been in better shape, and I know it's going to kick my ass.

Our first bit of Training was the 1st Flatiron in Boulder, CO.

Night Climbing...(mental preparation? not really, I've just always wanted to do it at night)

Joe come up to me a week or so ago and says, "...so...let's night climb a flatiron."

mmMOKAY!

we spent an hour or so in Boulder Canyon warming up on 5.11cs before it was dark and then I've been so impressed with my 5.10 daecent approach shoes that I decided to do the entire thing in them...so he had to man up and climb it in his LaSportiva approaches...then i forgot my chalk...then we realized we didn't REALLY know where our route started...or ended for that matter.

It was incredible time. I loved every second of it. 60-100 ft runouts didn't even phase us, the climbing was exceptional and relaxed. We kept looking for the anchor rings on the route and didn't find a single ring until the rap rings, and we were worried we wouldn't even find THOSE. Two full rope lengths with little, or actually...NO protection. (60 m rope= 196.850394ft and no protection means there is nothing catching the climber between the belayer). after what we THOUGHT we were climbing to, it was a last ditch effort to find them that I climbed up a last ledge and was never so happy to see two metal rings in my life. I was convinced we were going to become the only two idiots ever to Epic on a FLATIRON.

I rapped first off the rings and straight into open air and BLACK, and was stoked to find that there was actually GROUND, and the rope barely reached it at that.

I came away from it realizing that chalk...isn't as important as i thought, attitude and focus is, shoes...eh, to each his own. I'm not climbing 5.13 in the Daecent, but I'll happily do 1000 feet of 5.6 slab at night in them. I think Joe feels the same about his.

Joe on a ledge 600 (ish) feet off the deck. and at the rap anchors, I couldn't get that look off my face.

Next training mission is Hallett peak, which is between 11-12 thousand feet, and about as long as the Diamond, but easier climbing.

change in pace

2008-07-17T22:36:00.000-07:00

Flobots - Handlebars - Fight With Tools

Strangest thing...I had...a not bad day.

It was as follows:

I woke up at 7a to pack my rope, water and a bit of food for day 2 of climbing in Boulder Canyon. This trip was to one of my favourite areas, Avalon, with the particular intent of working on a route I'd tried and failed at over a year ago. Joe and I reach the crag in due time and warm up on a 14 bolt 10...something. A really fantastic climb which we agreed would have most definitely only been better had it not been a bolted sport route. The weather was fantastic, partly cloudy and cool, things were looking up. We decided to move straight over to the route we intended to work, Ripcord, which is rated a 5.12b. Set the rope at the base, grabbed some quickdraws and took off. Before I knew it, I was at the top of this route which had given me a lot of problems the last time I'd been on it, and I hadn't really even felt like I worked hard at all. Well...that was my project for the day...now what? Joe started working Ripcord and was getting REALLY close. Flying through my own crux section and getting stopped by a slightly off kilter move higher, which I had walked through. Joe tried and tried and eventually we decided to give him a break, and upon finding we had more time than we thought before we had to leave, he'd be back to it that day.

Meanwhile, we supposed it was my turn again. I'd know that there was a 5.12a on an arete' just down the slope, but we didn't have a guide so I ended up guessing...The first route I climbed was a bit strong on small near horizontal seams, but once I was done I shouted down while cleaning the route, "I think that was an 11..." Onsight.

I lower to the ground and decide to do the next in a series of 3 routes right away. "That COULD be an arete' right?" The second route felt harder less good feet to stand on, but I was stopping and rearranging my draws and goofing off on it the entire time...whenever I said, "yeah! NOW it's getting spicy" the next move was to a huge jug or changed directions to avoid the blank areas...it was a good climb, I enjoyed it, but again, I said, "I'm pretty sure that's an 11..." Onsight.

The third and last route held much of the same, the feet were better, but the hands were worse, and the crux sequence fell near the top, with a sequence of LONG lock-off moves...when I was done all I could say was, "well ONE of them had to be the 12!"

The routes ended up being, in order, Freefall 5.12a (my "strongest" onsight to date), Super Natural 5.11a and the area classic Strange Science 5.11c.

Now if it didn't make me feel so awesome to have onsighted 5.12, I would contest that the 11a felt harder than the 12a, but then again, I climbed them back to back without rest and no doubt was more and more fatigued...who knows, take it as you will...i'm going to.

Joe and I started planning a movie for the Gym potluck which will hopefully be hilarious, look for it to be posted here in a few months.

We also spotted a huge roof crack which we'll be working on tuesday of this week upcoming. From the looks of it, I wouldn't doubt for a second it's 5.13 or harder as a trad route, which means BALLS hard. we have no business on it, which will make it all the better.

After taking off from the canyon we stopped at a Brewery/restaurant called the Mountain Sun, had a pint, and were off home. pretty good so far.

Then it was a lot of waiting around, I started some screen printing for some climbing shirts and tried not to think of Sam. It didn't work all too well...we are falling right about at the 1 year anniversary of when I told her that I'd fallen for her...I've been trying not to dwell on not knowing what to think of the past year, but I'm human, and weak-willed at that when it comes to Sam, so I really ended up thinking about it a lot more than I'd have preferred.

After blowing some time it was off to Mugs to meet Mesa, who may ACTUALLY read my blog now and again. who knows, but just in case, Hi Mesa. For seeing her so seldom it's always surprising how easy we fall into talking about each other's lives and situations, et al...granted most of it was me talking about...me, and trying to keep the virtual ADHD at bay. She's uber cute and nice and tends to know what I mean when I spew a million thoughts out an instant, and tends to know what to say about any single thing.

After she left I came home to finish a bit of screening, briefly point out to Sam what day it was, and type out the blog. (I know I probably shouldn't have done the second one...I don't know what difference I think that type of thing will make...)

but hell...

I still average well today.

one last thing...I switched to some burt's bees soap which i found at whole foods market...my skin has Seriously never been so soft. If anyone wants a sample...feel free to rub up against me. =)

becoming Carter Fin

2008-07-13T22:33:00.000-07:00

Sufjan Stevens - They Are Night Zombies!! They Are Neighbors!! They Have Come Back From the Dead!! Ahhhhh! - Illinois

I am apathetic.

In the past few days I have had a 13 hour work day, hiked two thirteeners (a mountain whose summit exceeds 13k feet above sea level) ended things with Sam, Free soloed, and may have been close to finding myself the other guy in an infidelity.

I've lost my faith in love.

I also feel vaguely prophetic

These are pages from the introduction to a short story of mine..."...a love for him was found fleeting while his love had remained."

I have become Carter Fin.

Feature Lengthed Encore

2008-07-03T01:23:00.000-07:00

Yann Tiersen - Goodbye Lenin! - Goodbye Lenin!

Sam left for Seattle Tuesday morning. Among the things she's going to be doing there is spending 3 days and nights with her ex-boyfriend. I keep waiting for her to call like she said she would, but the curious thing is when she does, I half expect her to cut it short because she is doing, or has something to do. Her mistake tends to be in forgetting the gesture only translates if you want to do something, not simply doing something because you remember at some point that you said you would.

Today, (being Wednesday) was the day for Ultimate frisbee. Hold that thought, I will come back to it...first however let me explain how my thought processes tend to come to fruition. When I am alone, on my bike, at work...sleeping...not sleeping...actually pretty much all the god damn time, I talk to myself. Not out loud or flamboyantly like the guy who walks up and down the sidewalk and is CLEARLY batshit fucking loco...but rather in my head and repeatedly. When I talk to myself I don't come to resolution, conclusion or any kind of -ion for that matter, however when I talk I DO tend to find out how I think about things when no one is there to interject. For instance, over the past few days I've argued with myself about frisbee, a sport which Sam plays very well, and pretty much consumes her life, whether she believes as much or not. I told myself that I don't find nearly as much satisfaction in rules, time limits, blah blah blah...nor do I really get any satisfaction from throwing the disc to someone up field or preventing someone ELSE from doing so. I haven't been able to run for two years, and of the three weeks we had played I felt like shit after two of them, and sat out the other one, injured. It isn't my sport and I hardly want to prevent myself from being able to do what I actually enjoy. I'd pretty much convinced myself that I wasn't going to go today and since Sam wasn't there I wouldn't have much reason to anyhow.

I did end up going...and before we were canceled due to lightning I had fun. I had more fun then I've EVER had while Sam was playing too. I caught the disc, threw it for one point, and I'd like to think that I had a good part in another. Even when one of my throws was intercepted and fumbled by a member of my own team when I threw it to someone else, I still had fun. I ran around, jumped in front of people and things and it was good...what does it mean to enjoy something more withOUT Sam for once?

The answer to that may actually be hidden within a short conversation I had today with someone I haven't spoken to in a while. The FIRST time I was lonely without Sam but never told her I talked to Nik, who I went to high school with and had a crush on for pretty much the duration...She knows it. It's beside the point.

She (like everyone else in the world) told me that the Sam thing was just not meant to be. She said that something which is so off and on isn't meant to be. She said, most of all, that a relationship has highs and lows, not on and offs. You are always TOGETHER for it. Like everyone else she told me I'll find someone who will love me...yadda yadda. But the first part stuck. I don't know what to do with it, but it's stuck like flypaper.

I told her that the off/on thing is just normal for me. I was off and on with Nikki for 6 YEARS. The only constant is me. It makes me wonder (or perhaps SUSPECT) that I chase them away but they never give up on me...or...something. I don't know, the thing is that there is never a constant in who breaks up with whom. Actually I think Nikki made all of the decisions...But with Sam we've each had our parts in each breakup. I don't know what's going on, and I'm even less certain that it won't just all happen again.

Sam told me that I could (not that I SHOULD) see other people. Everything is for my own benefit, or at very least, SAYING as much makes her feel better. When I ask she never says she thinks things would be BETTER because of it. Regardless...or IRregardless, other girls are apparently an option. But here's the kicker, and the thing I've tried to explain to her...I feel that there will most definitely be some kind of loveloss as a result. For an example you need only look to her and Paul. Even out of than now, she admits to feeling less, or differently, about it all. We are friends for true, but I believe that part of what makes us so close hinges directly on the pin that is my love for her. (I also believe her less than entirely that we'd still be as good of friends if she saw me with someone else, like she says we would.) I don't want that loveloss, and I have the sneaking suspicion that MY newfound freedom to see someone else is a double edged sword and also gives her the freedom to do so. She may not believe that now, but it would be just my god damn fucking luck to be with someone as soon as she decides she can be with someone, and that someone will no doubt NOT be me. I couldn't be around her for a VERY long time if she were with someone else. I just imagine the last FUCKING YEAR repeating itself if she were. This has been the worst year of my life thus far, I'm not all too eager to stick around for a feature length encore.

So.

The decision to see someone else would be the integral point of destruction of our friendship. Harry and Sally aside, I don't want to take that leap, and it fucking toads the wet sprocket because it all comes back to that double edged implement found only the battlegrounds stained with the blood of those who made the mistake of falling in that word most wretched, LOVE. I almost expect this to destruct without my making the decision because Sam wants to make her own decisions, and it's relatively apparent that those exact decisions are relieving me of mine, in the worst, most fucking painful way possible.

and I'm going down kicking and screaming, biting, gnawing and punching. Clawing my way to the top most deck of a doomed and sinking ship. In the end we all drown, but I want these last minutes of salty sea air.

a paciência é benevolência

2008-06-29T03:21:00.000-07:00

I've decided to start including mood music to read along to. Hit play before reading.

Andrew Bird - Self Torture - Armchair Apocrypha

I continue to be at a loss. Sam said today that the other night she missed "Me", but it wasn't something she wanted in her life right now...it actually was said in reverse order, but the combination is just so perplexing and offensive that I choose to believe she meant something entirely different.

The word "impasse" has been used a lot lately. Arguments that she can't manage to win and I refuse to let go are dismissed as such if we've managed to get to that point more or less calmly. If we hadn't managed to do so she would tend to change the subject or say she was leaving. Even the situation as it stands has been deemed an impasse...my needs or hers; I am willing to sacrifice everything except my love itself, which is something she does not want in the slightest at the moment. After a bit, and in response to the aforementioned sequential statement I told her that I miss her all of the time and immediately i was told it wasn't healthy.

Somehow along the way, lasting through heartbreaks and pain, fear and arguments, unwanted revelations and half-truths I had missed that this has all for my health. Silly thing of me to do...I know.

Not that I could ever escape the situation I am in as easily as finding someone who offers all that Sam does while actually returning some form of sentimental, emotional and physical tie apart from the emotional DAMAGE we inflict on eachother. I saw this photo and started to daydream just a tiny bit about the girl who may be out there, but undoubtedly...not here.

(the photo is from America's Next Top Model...yes. It's a vice, kiss my ass you judgmental little shit. At least it isn't black tar heroin.)

She is slim from activity, not from superficial image tampering like living in a gym. She's smarter than me in a way which she can manage not to be condescending and creative enough to be able to be my muse when my own creativity fails. (and up to the daunting frequency that tends to happen.) She's a rock climbing, peddle-pushing healthy eater, but knows the value that only cheesecake, butter and carbs can offer. She drinks coffee and tea and reads often. She's supportive when appropriate but can read when it's best just to let me vent the steam on my own. She's someone who I am willing to devote everything I have, always, but don't need to for us to both be happy. She enjoys movies and knows which movie I always watch (and sing along to) when I am sick. She can cook or better - WE can cook. She can go out and spend time with anyone else but always be satisfied and satisfy ending up in the same place when the day is over.

I'm sure my perfect girl has limitless provisos and stipulatory criteria and I am entirely aware for anything great she may offer, there will always be compromises and disagreements, wouldn't life be boring without them? But that is such the beauty of Sam; she can break my heart, disagree and argue, accidentally neglect me at times, but at the end of the day I still feel she's kind and meritorious and life with her is immeasurably more fulfilling than without.

Perhaps "without" is where the tiles fall after all.

We were different people

2008-06-27T22:44:00.000-07:00

The title of my artist's blog is Everything is Different in the Morning. That specific line was written on a piece of paper and hidden deep in a maze of shrubs...I still have the piece of paper, wrapped around the flower petals she enclosed.

"Everything is different in the morning and as I lie here with beautiful people, I am wishing it wasn't" IQ

It wasn't written by Sam...but for her and I, words are rarely more true.

I wish there was someone who could have a great time out and doing things with other friends, but always be satisfied in ending up at the same place as me at the end of the night. Somehow when we are together everything dissolves over night. I was still heart broken when I watched her leave my house for that last time. I don't feel it'll be the last time we wake up together, but no one can say for certain when we'll find the will to be in the same place again.

Drugged sleep

2008-06-26T22:49:00.000-07:00

This has been the longest week of my life.

Ending Somewhere

2008-06-26T04:06:00.000-07:00

Depending on your opinion, it is either far to early or much to late to post anything.

My other blog is pretty much all sketches and paintings with perhaps occasional glimpses into my life, and why exactly I am too preoccupied to sketch or paint anything anyhow...

I write in a journal every once in a while, so who knows what will be left over for this blog; however, never fear, as per the example set forth by every other blog in the universe, it will be either entirely filled with complaining, whining and self pity...or ranting, judgment and general pissiness. Lovely. I don't really expect much traffic on my page so what the fuck is the point anyway right? Really, honest and for true...I couldn't say. I am going to do it anyway.

So starting in with it:

Sunday Sam and I broke up. Now, without going into the entire sequence of events of the past year...and a half...I can tell you that the two of us breaking up is something which requires talent, devotion and a lot of imagination. The additional requisites are due to the fact that she and I largely...weren't together. She binned my ass in February, but said binning went along with her saying she really did/does want to be with me, however she wasn't/isn't ready.

This Sunday we discovered that whatever her original reason, she is now too contented in making all of her decisions for herself alone. It is not bad, it isn't in an imperial or selfish way... most times. She just doesn't want to have to always consider keeping someone else satisfied. Because of it, we came to the conclusion that things will have to change, specifically my outlook on our relationship, the amount of time we spend together, and no doubt other things which I haven't yet come to terms with, or otherwise realized. It broke me, once again to hear how she would rather stay as she is and be without me than make any form of commitment or concessions from her resolute decisions.

I am not mad, and i don't love her any less because of it. She is doing what is right by her. I am just very sad...devastatingly sad at the loss we are going to see. I want her to be able to do what she chooses...In a perfect world, those things she chooses would reflect a bit more interest in me, admittedly. She said she still only has eyes for me...and I love her.

This creates a dilemma. Effectively I am in the same situation which I have been for the past 4-5 months, truth be told actually the past year, except now I've lost ground in regards to her reciprocal commitment. The situation I am in doesn't REQUIRE my commitment...but as I have said, I love the girl. So what am I waiting for? For her? I want only to be with her; yet I know that I am better than having to wait for her if she knows all she wants is to do everything on her own accord. She knows it as well, but in admitting it, she doesn't hope for me to move on. We are both stuck; she does not want me to move on yet isn't ready to be together and I don't want to move on either, but feel more than a bit led around.

She only has eyes for me.

I only have eyes for her.

It is going to be hard to live this way.