The Purple Tux
With just enough education to perform.Tuesday, November 25, 2003
Packt like sardines in a crushd tin box.
It is that time again. Inspiration is not my strong suit. The past few days, I've had a desire to keep this baby alive, but I could never think of anything worth writing. It's that feeling where I have my fingers hovering over the keyboard like flies floating around horse dung. There's something good inside, but is it really worth cutting through the crap?
So now, with the things going in my head straight up packt like sardines in a crushd tin box, here goes nothing.
This past weekend (hint- whenever I don't know what to write about, you can find me writing about something I did), I went on an adventure. Well, first off, on Saturday I didn't even wake up until 1PM. Didn't do too much around the house, but at around 5PM, Alex Sheynis invited me for dinner at the Cuarto DC. And you know I can't say no to free DC food. So I biked all the way to Cuarto. After dinner, I biked all the way to the Myrtle house and then Roy and I went to the Before The Throne event. What can I say about that? It didn't suck, so that's good.
Anyway, I chilled out there and then at Applebee's until past midnight. We returned to the Myrtle house, got Josh and Fred and several knives, and decided to go to the woods up by Lake Berryessa. We must have left Davis at like 1AM, and we got to the woods at 2AM. We worshipped God there, that night, in the cold, dark woods. It was extremely cold. Josh, being Josh, wore only sandals with no socks (and by "only," I mean ONLY... someone should have told him to put on some pants) and complained about having cold feet. The rest of us then decided to use the knives we brought to put him out of his misery, so we stabbed him and dumped the body in the lake. One of us, I think it was Fred, saw a sign that threatened prosecution for littering in the lake, so we jumped into the water to bring back the body.
We then decided to offer up the body as a sacrifice to the lord, so we carved a crude altar out of some wood and performed some anachronistic but spiritual rituals. I still haven't been able to wash the smell of burnt flesh out of my hair.
After that, it must have been around 3:30AM and we felt it was time to go home. Unfortunately, Josh drove us there in the first place, and his keys were on him when we killed him. They must have fallen out of his butt crack (remember, he didn't wear any pants) when we dumped his body into the lake. Screw going back into the freezing water to look for something so small in the middle of the night. As luck would have it, in the parking lot we found a car with the key still in the ignition, so we borrowed it and drove back to Davis. We got back around 5:45AM, or somewhere. It was quite a night.
Sunday, November 16, 2003
Service with a smirk.
I haven't posted anything on this site for a week. I wasn't even busy or anything this past week; I think part of it is just that I really like my last entry. That probably sounds pretty stupid to anyone who's read it didn't care for it. I think it's time for me to admit something about myself as a writer. I'm a selfish writer. I write things that I want to read. Sure, I'll take the audience into consideration, but in the end, what comes out of my butt is either a wet, sloppy, stain-leaving fart or a solid six inch brown log. But misfire or sureshot, I write for myself, first and foremost. If someone understands my work, then more power to them, and whenever someone compliments me on something I've written, I always consider it to be a deep honor.
I don't think I'm very creative as a writer. I try, but I'm not at that high a level yet. I go for mood and emotion and rarely innovate. It's hard. Hard to believe I'm an English major. Reading and writing are two of my biggest passions, though, so I keep going for the gusto.
Anyway, my last entry was supposed to be a collage of sorts... Part poetry, part prose, part stream of consciousness rant. Writing it was a lot like going through a magazine and cutting out words and phrases to write a letter. I like using a smorgasbord of words/phrases better poets/writers have come up with and just tossing them all onto my platter. I keep hoping that if I leech off creativity long enough, I'll eventually develop a better sense of my own creativity.
Saturday, November 08, 2003
Ready to kick the bucket.
This past week has been one of the most draining of recent memory. Lack of sleep, weariness leading to displays of emotional weakness in my most private moments- I was ready for everything to come to an end at my low point. What was it that rocked me so badly? Last weekend was the annual Fall Retreat, which was a definite high point, but of course, it also led to me putting off all my homework and studying and crap until late Sunday night, beginning the horrid cycle of weeklong tiredness. And I was so busy that I didn't have time to open up my mind.
It's also started getting cloudy, cold, and rainy. When the physical world doesn't match our inner emotions, we grumble at the cruelty of life, but when the world mirrors our darkest moods, we dismiss it as a pathetic fallacy. Except this week was different. My heart reflected the dreariness in the air. My soul was happy, my spirit was free, but my heart was in despair and my mind was ready to call it quits. Why the disparity?
We scream to avoid suffering in silence. We murmur when it suits us. We cry when it cures us. But. I. Still. Function.
Only the rain can wash this off me now. This broken shell of a man, this contrite bag of flesh, this worthless rubbish. I was so weak, I had no hope. The intellectual and the emotional waging a war against the worshipful and spiritual. Maybe it's a lost cause. Is it a lost cause? What was so important? What was worth fighting for?
Ask me your questions and tell me your secrets. That's what a scientist does?
Ask me your secrets and tell me your questions. That's what a writer does?
I wet my bed when I was three. Maybe that explains everything there is to know about me. My inner core of being- I'm still just a child. Just a small child. So scared and confused. Nothing better than a child who wets himself and wakes up, only to wonder, what's the funky smell.
Feedback hurts, but without the sorrow in my heart, I would never have realized how much I need God. There's no blame, there is only need. I need this. I need this. The unbearable lightness of being torn apart in an angel's wings embetters no one, is useless. I need this. The slapback kills the electric feedback, and I need this.
The sorrow and despair of being alone forever. Meaningless. A desire for perfect and beautiful human companionship. A chasing after the wind.
A broken heart, a feeble mind, tactile movements of an uncrushed soul set free by the Spirit. Temporary moments of vulnerability, examples of what it means sing an eternal song. The realness, the realness.
Kicking and screaming, like a Gucci little piggy, but I will not go gently into that cold night. Eyes rolled heavenward, an effort, an effort. Darkness at the edge, at the perimeter. So alone, but never alone. WHY.
And so I said to the Lord, "You are my Lord; apart from you, I have no good thing. I have no good thing."
Monday, November 03, 2003
Keep me safe, O God, for in you I take refuge.
I said to the Lord, "You are my Lord; apart from you I have no good thing." As for the saints who are in the land, they are the glorious ones in whom all is my delight. The sorrows of those will increase who run after other gods. I will not pour out their libations of blood or take up their names on my lips.
Lord, you have assigned me my portion and my cup; you have made my lot secure. The boundary lines have fallen for me in pleasant places; surely I have a delightful inheritance.
I will praise the Lord, who counsels me; even at night my heart instructs me. I have set the Lord always before me. Because he is at my right hand, I will not be shaken.
Therefore my heart is glad and my tongue rejoices; my body also will rest secure, because you will not abandon me to the grave, nor will you let your Holy One see decay. You have made known to me the path of life; you will fill me with joy in your presence, with eternal pleasures at your right hand.
-Psalm 16
