revisit

my hands smell like celery, garlic, and onions. i love when my hands smell like vegetables.

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haven't done any dream journaling yet. unfortunate. now that the playoffs are all coming to a close i can wean myself from my sports dependency and spend time on more important things. sports are my opiate. perhaps, in the future, i should set some limits for myself, or just stop paying so much attention to sports. anyway, music is going mediocre. more time shall be spent on it from now on, i wrote half a song today roughly; i feel like this one is nearly done its birthing stage. i haven't spent any time producing my own work in a long time, i'd like to get back to doing that (someone complimented me on my production the other day, which is random and weird because i don't know anything about it, but cool!)

i've been taking great care of my body on the other hand. well, at least compared to the past three years or so. yoga and the gym have allowed me to get a pretty good handle on my body: how it feels, where it needs to lengthen, what is tight, and how those tight spots are affecting other areas. the way one muscle affects another is very interesting; every time i pay attention to something i get so interested. my curiosity is a boon and i feel like i could do anything. that is to say, i could be in any field, studying anything. i would just need to get into it first, hence the curiosity is so great. anything and everything can grab my interest depending on the day, well, almost anything.

this weekend was great; i got to see dave and ben, spent some time with jess, hung with my brother for most of sunday, and had some decent family chills with mom and pop. mission accomplished on the keeping in touch front. chatting with people i care about on the regular, hangin out with people whenever i get the chance, meeting people who have been recommended to me through close friends. cliffdogg, seems a cool guy, we'll go kerbstomping soon. inside jokes are so necessary when you don't know that person will ever read this; the pointlessness is hilarious.

mind needs to be a little more active, but goddamit there's only so many hours in the day. fuck. better start reading more.

finally, gotta do some re-evaluation at work, set some better goals. ask mel for some more direction on how to achieve said goals. shoot for the stars young jedi.

feeling strong, confident, self-assured, and as though my rudder is set toward a positive destination.

comfort

a front porch, a wooden rocking chair, django reinhardt or thelonius monk wheezily scratched out by the needle to my right, everything perspirating rain, fat gobs of it pelting wood just beyond my bare toes, itchy wool wrapped, psychedelic long johns, cat watching through glass, citrus skunk wafting from me, red ice tea melting a glass, you

putrilescant, rancidity, fucking dirt, and the majesty of resourcefulness

whilst (yes, whilst.. shut up) at the primrose operations centre today, i undertook the task of cleaning out some absolutely stank broken green bins i found.. no, wait. the green bins deserve their own small paragraph. the county takes back broken bins, great. people don't clean the bins though, and their incompetence or generally inconsiderate nature results in old food waste sitting in these bins in the sweltering heat for months. today, we opened the bins and got to experience the beauty of anaerobic (for the most part) decomposition. boy, does it smell wonderful. hardened cottage cheese like substances with clearly identifiable garlic cloves, grapes, and other strange innocuous items, that you would think would be part of the same goop, all stuck in the bottom. when we sprayed the bins with the hose to clean them out mist flew out of the bins and into the air; all i could think about was lung cancer and swift death.

anyway, on to the thing i alluded to. some of the green bins are industrial sized for facilities like old folks homes and so forth. these are kept separately. one bin had a fist sized hole (save your jokes) at the back of the lid. i lifted it up and moved it to the back of the trailer where it was out of sight because we were cleaning things up for tomorrow. when i set it down i heard a rattle inside. i did a double take, assumed i just had a small seizure or brain hemorrhage, and turned away. then it rattled some more. this time, i assumed it was a racoon; i kicked the lid open and stood back waiting for something to fly out and try to kill me. nothing happened, so i walked up and looked inside. in the bottom of the bin were a ton of twigs and straw and hair.. and four baby birds. upon seeing me, the birds collectively flipped their shit even more than before and tried to awkwardly flap out of the bin. they couldn't fly yet and i was left rather amused. i moved the bin back to its original spot, because i figured the mom would be pissed that her house and kids were gone. then we staged a half an hour stakeout; the mother came back with food, but kept swooping over the area scoping it out. sadly, because we were actually working at this time, we had to leave eventually and i never got to see what happened. but i'll be back tomorrow! in the same spot! watching for the mom! she gon' be pissed.

culture

whether it's a function of modern technology or of this hodgepodge nation, we are drifters. culture is no longer embedded, grown, sewn into us. in some places i'm certain that it is still infused through traditional familial pathways and everyday habits; the french have their own eating habits, the swedes are cold and detached. but, in canada it's really a grab bag. food? 80% percent of everyone lives off fuckin kd and boxed pizza. clothes? whatever your favourite actress or singer wears. hobbies? no limits. the internet has basically kicked over a giant toy box that we're free to grab whatever we want from. whether this is good or bad is irrelevant and impossible to judge anyway. more fascinating are the possibilities this sort of vagabond cultural appropriation entails. fly your freak flag; learn how to make kombucha, practice japanese calligraphy, teach yourself how to play djembe. conversely; learn how to make bombs, adapt racist values. the negatives are irrelevant, idiots will conduct themselves as such. when they make a mess we just have to shake our heads and clean it up.

i'm off to learn how to make my own clothes on one of those indian spinning wheels gandhi used.

ramble on

hopefully the pastoral imagery conjured up by ramble on and other examples of zeppelin's swirling folk music came to mind with the title. if not, get in that mindset. i'm gonna abandon the premise that i'm writing this for someone now.

this place is so small, why must you all drive? the status associated with cars here is ridiculous. everyone has a corvette or an escalade or a shitty golf that they put spoilers on and attempt to cruise around in like some sort of deranged hillbilly pimp. that was unnecessary. the point is this town is small. small enough to only own a bike in. i understand that sometimes its an inconvenience, like when it rains, but why not bike on the sunny days? its not even that bad when it rains. just be prepared, i deal with it. people don't like binary change; just bike on sunny days. i like this idea on non-binary change though.

weekday vegetarianism, what a concept! so simple too. oh the small thoughts that generate great amounts of change. what kind of asshole couldn't get behind an idea like "hey, how about 4 out of 7 days of the week you don't eat meat?" its not a hard rule, it can be bent, but its a great goal and it would make such a huge difference. all credit goes to whoever the dude that did the ted talk about this was.

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what a difference some self contemplation and goal setting will make. set swag to stun.

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weird ass sleep patterns. honestly, i'm trying to get some quality rest here brain. do me a favour and calm your shit down with the messed up dreaming. could the elephants upstairs also please stop yelling at 7 am.

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i'm tired of singing alone, tired of sounding solo. collaboration.

identity crisis

i seem to have lost sense of myself. that doesn't seem to make very much sense as i read the sentence back to myself. it seems as though it should be very straightforward, but the ideals i once espoused aren't represented in my actions. and as they say action defines us. i don't think i even have the thought contingent covered anyway; i can't make heads or tails of my life right now.

i don't know what i want from people, what i want for myself, what i should do with my time. i need some direction, perhaps, or goals... i'm not particularly sure.

people.

in retrospect i have always derived a certain amount of my own personality and habits from people i am close with. my most productive and self assured years were, in part, a result of spending a lot of time with my partner who shared a lot of the ideals i did (/do?). she was a character, very unique and completely unaffected by the opinions of others. at least thats how it appeared to me. that attitude helped me to feel confident in my own personality, which when i actually let loose is bizarre and untraditional in some respects.

this process has been repeated to a lesser extent with other individuals over the years. but, i feel like while this is a nice product of a relationship, its rather useless at the moment. i've tried to seek out people that i feel are crystallized, solid in themselves, comfortable in their skin, but it just hasn't worked out. add to that the fact that i should be able to feel confident in my own actions, thoughts etc. without relying on someone to kick start it for me. Besides, i need a handle on this before i would consider myself fully open to someone again.

places.

home is a fuzzy concept. coop has left me skittering from roof to roof, never really leaving enough time to develop a sense of place. my own home is monumentally different. the balance has shifted since i've left, people get along a little differently, and its just not as intimately familiar as it once was. i feel like a guest who has overstayed his welcome sometimes. my location has certainly affected my actions and intentions though. the fall was an interesting balance of developing strong personal relationships and some isolation. school was wild this past semester; i'm really amazed at all the connections i fostered, and at some of the ones that flamed out. all of those experiences were positive, i've grown from them. now though, i find myself (currently) feeling alone. i don't know anyone with similar interests, i don't feel confident enough to meet them and am furthermore unsure of where i would want to meet them. bar friends seem a poor idea.

i need to create or stimulate the growth of a different frame of mind. i need to cultivate a sense of place within myself, because there is no opportunity to do so in a physical location at this point. perhaps some goals are the best way to accomplish that? more importantly some action, and while goal setting doesn't really equate to firing a shot at my target it may at least constitute filling the chamber.