Flight School

Me last night just before I left for a Halloween party at Teddy Roosevelts old hunting lodge.

I thank my father for passing on the ability to grow an amazing moustache.


Thanks dad.

Little White World

Welcome to my happy little white world.

Here I can spend money like its water on things like…bottled water.

Americano please. 12oz. to freedom. 2 shots. No, I don’t need room for cream.

Confession: I am paid too go to school. $1,400 dollars to be exact (that’s above and beyond my tuition which was another $1,000). That’s per quarter. 4 quarters a year. You do the math.

I have a choice of whether or not I want to “make it” in this society. The fact that I can choose to live within a certain income bracket is more privilege than I know what to do with. I can choose riches, for now I’ve chosen “poverty”. The key word here is choice and I have the luxury of exercising it.

Don’t read this wrong, I’m more than grateful for the class I was born into. But its not like I did anything to get here. What I have was chosen for me as soon as I was born white, American and middle class.

Forgive me for my lack of contextualization. For the time being, I don’t have the gusto to frame this rant for you. These thoughts are the left over residue from the propaganda I am deluged with on a daily basis. Not to say that these thoughts are completely wrong, buts they’re definitely not completely right either (there I go, trying to see everything as “right” and “wrong”, life’s just not that simple).

Where do you live and what’s your privilege?

Tired Thoughts

It’s late, for me. 10:26 p.m. to be exact. I sit down with a hint of scotch rising from my breath and begin to bang out whatever comes to mind. I don’t normally drink scotch and actually tonight was the first time. Skye was given a bottle for her birthday. The bottle was expensive, 50 dollars, and from a little island off of the coast of Scotland called Skye. No, she said her name doesn’t come from there, its just happens to be spelled the same.

I still live in the Abbey, although some days I wish I didn’t. Days when I’m tired and don’t feel like dealing with people when I get home from school. Days when I feel stressed to the point of breaking, days when I need some space, some silence. Days like today. It is because of this lack of mental and physical space that I have not been able to process nor articulate thoughts. Most days my mind draws a blank.

Soon though, I’ll have the space. This season of community will be a short one. I have come to the realization that I have never lived on my own and that I may fear that being alone so much that I force myself to live in communities. There are definite benefits to communal living and I would suggest to anyone who hasn’t lived communally that you should if ever presented with the opportunity.

There is a balance between communal living and living alone. If I were to summarize it Baz Luhrmann style I would say live in community but get out before it makes you hard; live by yourself but find a housemate before it turns you into a control freak.

I know this a rambling post; I don’t expect that to change for some time. I will do my level best to write down my random thoughts in a format that is somewhat digestible for those of you who exist outside of my mind.

I was looking through my pictures from the time I spent in Amsterdam and thought how nice it would be to share one with you. This picture of David was taken in the tram as we cruised through the narrow streets of this 12th century city. David and I spent two months together living in Kyrgyzstan and during that time became fairly close friends.

Unraveled

25. There is something about that number and even something more about having that number attached to your being. I broke down today as I thought about 25 and how soon it would be gone. When I say broke down I mean crying really hard for like 15 minutes. I have to admit that even on my best days I am scared as hell and very unsure and insecure about my existence in this society.

Yeah, that was a pretty honest statement, but if you know me at all you know that I am bundle of honest confessions just waiting to be unraveled.

Today I realized that there is something happening inside me, something that I can't pinpoint (I know, your saying “its called growing up”). There is either a part of me that is dying or a part of me that the world is attempting to kill, either way there is death involved. That’s what I wept for today. The feeling of something inside of me trying to be destroyed that doesn’t want to be destroyed.

If you feel the need to comment on this post please use sincerity in your responses. I have not written this post looking for answers, I just felt like it needed to be written. To all of you that have read my posts week after week and month after month, thank you.

This blog is as much for you as it is for me.

“And everything that I said do,
like make the world brand new, take the time for you.
I just got lost and slept right through the dawn,
and the world spins madly on.”
~The Weepies

Classtime

"And i remember the days when we sang,
sang the tunes of the night
with the quiet wonder
of being so near."

~Don Chaffer

Classmates behind me as i punch out letters to form words that eventually construct themselves into sentences. Four minutes and counting. Take your seats, strap your self in, and listen. Listen to tales told of a country from a time not so long ago.

Laundry Day

The sea floated to the top of my hill this morning.

I have been to busy to go down and greet her so, like every other good friend I have, she made the journey just to spend some time with me.

Salt laden particles of her body filled my nostrils, my lungs as I breathed her in.

She encircled me with the depth of her being.


My basket is full and the detergent waits for me to pour it out onto all that is dirty. I must go and wash my clothes.

Across The Canal

From 8:06 to 8:37 a.m. the bus helps me to descend from the hill on which I live to the city across the canal. Everyone on the bus is all business and much to busy to notice their surroundings. So I took it upon myself to record my feelings toward that brief space of time when we all come together, ride into the city and eventually disembark into the shadows of capitalism and free trade.

Observations and thoughts:

October 5th

He wrapped his arms around her patterned body. She dried the tears from her eyes and lit a cigarette. The act of crying has a euphoric release to it. The spell of numbness has been broken and you no longer feel so disconnected from the rest of humanity. Sometimes the city makes you feel more distant than any country town ever could. I think it has to do with being so close in proximity to someone yet still not speaking or even acknowledging their visible presence. The silence between two strangers that sit side by side is surely a distance greater than any country mile could produce.

October 11th

Quick, pull out your devices that suck you in. Words on pages bound up to hold it all together. There is something that binds us all together.

Little white buds fill our ears and we hear only what we choose. The masters of our own electronic dominion. The world outside is more than we can handle. But what we can handle is that new widget. Customized colors, sounds, text, you name it.

We tilt until the horizon can no longer hide the giver of light. Elongated shadows fill the spaces un-reached by the light. Three sides in the course of one rotation experience this absence of illumination; the fourth is left out permanently.

Another Eventful Week.

Yes, I know it has been 6 days since I last posted and yes, I am ok with that. This week has been full of school, homework, Abbey work and work work (I started a job at a restaurant called Ivars). Pretty much my life is all about work right now. Some days I'm ok with that and others I hate it. But this season, like any season, will pass and I'm learning to focus on the good and deal with the bad as it comes.

Ok enough of that. So I was reading Google news (which at one point drove me into one of the most paranoid and delusional months of my life after reading numerous articles about how humanity was going to be wiped off the face of the earth by the bird flu) and found this quote from the John Bolton (he could be related to Michael Bolton but I really don't know. Even if he was do you think he would claim it? would you?), US ambassador to the United Nations, as he was commenting on the current threat of North Korea testing a nuclear weapon, "We think that the main point is that North Korea should understand how strongly the United States and many other Council members feel that they should not test this nuclear device, and that if they do test it, it will be a very different world, the day after the test." First off, who is the We he is talking about in the beginning of the quote and what does a very different world mean?

I think his comment scares me as much or more than the threat of North Korea testing a nuclear bomb.

Is he implying that the "superpowers" of the world are going to wipe North Korea from the face of the earth?

Guess we'll just have to wait and see.

Brave New World

Welcome to my brave new world. One filled with new ideas, friends, places, dreams and fears.

While walking across the Ballard locks from a hurried visit to the north beach of Discovery Park I thought about what and how I would convey to you all that makes up the ins and outs of my new life. There is so much to tell. School owns me now. Three facilitators, 60 students and a barrage of books will be my world for the next 12 weeks while together we explore the world we live in through different perspectives, going far outside of the white, middle class, privileged bubble we have been taught within. The class is called The Matrix for a reason. Its about showing you that there is a very defined construct that you are born into and only you can choose to step out of that construct to see things from a different angle.

So that’s school. I attend Seattle Central Community College four days a week, four hours a day with about eight hours worth of homework thrown in for good measure to make up a grand total of 18 credit hours! That’s a lot you say trust me I know.

The Abbey. A total of four monks in residence now populate the grounds. Steven, a UW student, Skye who sows fireproof underwear for a living (her company makes most of the underwear female racecar drivers use) and Isaac, a thirty year old ex-Microsoft programmer who was recently hired on with an agency that helps to place people in suitable working environments. This is my new family. Recently we have worked on brewing beer (it will be ready to drink by Halloween, I'm thinking of calling it our “Boo-brew”), clearing out an area for a garden, attempting to rid the church of rats and trying to make the building more livable and enjoyable for those who come seeking peace within its walls. Also, within the last week their have been two amazing events held at the Abbey, one a music and art collaboration called “The Round” and the other a small get together of friends who wanted to share a trade they knew with others in order to be a blessing. Some fixed bikes, others cut hair while still others mixed drinks and served really good homebrewed beer, all done for free.

And starting Thursday I will be taking on a part-time position as busboy at a restaurant called Ivars. I will only be working weekends and mostly just to have enough money to buy some food and then put the rest away in savings (or attempt to).

So if my blog entries seem more sporadic you now understand why. If I can punch out two entries a week I think I’ll be doing good. It will be a struggle to try and put the meaning and thought into my entries as my brainpower will mostly be spent on reading books and writing papers.

With all of that happening I must say that I am the happiest and healthiest I’ve been in a long time. Life is amazing. Now if you’ll excuse me I must go and live it.