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thredhead
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Name: Brian
Country: United States
State: North Carolina
Birthday: 4/2/1988
Gender: Male
Interests: Probably you.
Expertise: Less than I like for people to think.
Occupation: Student
Industry: Nonprofit
Message: message meEmail: email me
AIM:  redbda
Member Since:
10/28/2004
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| Chaotic at Best
I've been spending my life these past few days on a stop-motion reel
spinning on a top. The quick jerk of a snap-slow movement can't
speed up when I need it to or reverse to the right place.
At least I think.
The credits roll too fast for me to read, and I don't remember the
falling action. Why did that just happen? Just for once I'd
like history to be chronological. Our history and mine. The
night before the next one will be what it's already been. There's
a glare in the camera's eye, but it's too much of a narrow focus to
change the lens now. I should have set it wider, to watch the
whole thing. But it doesn't much matter because it's so bumpy
anyway. And God dammit, if I see that frame one more time, then
I'll know how to act. Unless it's different, which it will
be. I'm the main character, but I'm the only one I can't see.
And what's more is the sound. Just a hair left of noise go the
whistles of the FM tuner and the clicks that are only supposed to be
there because... wait a minute... stop motion doesn't make sound.
But that's the best of it because the only thing that's ever left is
what's there in front of your own two eyes. And that just feels
so wrong, so empty. There's more to it than that.
Isn't there?
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|  | Currently Listening
XO
By Elliott Smith
Everybody Cares, Everybody Understands
see related |
Longest Pancake Marathon
On October 24, 1999, Mike Cuzzacrea ran the 40-km (26.2-miles) Casino
Niagara Marathon in New York while flipping a pancake continuously in a
frying pan. He completed the course in 3 hrs 2 mins 27 secs. Mike has
raised thousands of dollars for charity through his pancake flipping
endeavors.
This is a man to identify with. The essay with which I hope to
get into college is riding on the mindless feat (feet! ha!
he runs marathons... ha...yeah) of this man. I think this is
absolutely amazing, but I'm not entirely sure why.
I've been thinking about college a lot lately, sort of hoping that
someone or something will direct me to exactly where I'm meant to
be. If I go to Carolina, I don't want it to be because it's
"somewhere I might like" or a "good school," though these things are
undoubtedly important. I want more than anything to be able to go
somewhere because it feels so right and I can't wait to start classes
and live on campus and eat bad food and slack off when I
shouldn't. But maybe I shouldn't look at college as a step
up. Maybe then my expectations will turn to
dissapointments. Maybe that's what happens anyway, although I
tend to think I do a lot more dissapointing than I am ever
dissapointed.
I just have this awful recurring image of me not being able to get in
anywhere. Though I do know this is sort of a ridiculous thought,
it's not all that
ridiculous. I always spell ridiculous "rediculous," and that's
wrong. Lots of people don't get into the places they want to go
to. Could I be happy at my second choice? Maybe, but I
think I'd have a nagging feeling about it. When I think about
that, though, my mind always turns to Josh Paxon. He didn't go
where he thought he wanted to, but went instead where God led him and
loved it. I wish I could do that a little bit more. I think
I'd be happier. Or maybe I'm just as I'm meant to be, and always
will be.
This has been my pondering on the future that is far too close to my horizon.
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| Isn't it funny the value we assign to words? (enter Area II
discussion...) Just because we've used certain words to always
define things, they lay in those "frames" of mind that we KNOW they belong in. And if we hear words that
don't fit into these same sorts of frames, we don't understand
them. They don't seem sensical, and often downright stupid.
This is one of the reasons for the singular divide between the
country's political ideologies. In the right frame of mind, both
sides believe they are right. Which is why it is even more
important than anything to see through the messages that have been
focus-group tested for maximum effectiveness. Realize what your
values are and why you have them before you look for someone who "has
the same views."
This sounded preachy.
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| There are certain faces that you see and know exactly who they belong
to. Some faces could belong only to the people they belong to,
without any sort of doubt or uncertain questioning period. They
go through their entire lives with a huge, glaring exclamatory signal
below their hair and above the neck just shouting that, indeed, THIS is who I really am.
There are others, too.
Some are the faces that, try as their purported owners might, they just
can't get them to stick one way. They contort and shift and
change and never seem to get around to any sort of consistency.
It's not the lack of contentment with who they are. No, that
could not possibly be the proper impetus for the change that
occurs. Because when you don't want to be something, you end up
more that way than when you wanted to be nothing at all. But
these people aren't that. They don't find the change in
themselves like a self-help guru. The change finds them, often
caught unawares and looking the wrong direction as another face is
slipped on the worn one. There may well be absolutely nothing
wrong with such an occurance, although such people tend not to realize
that any switch has occurred at all. At least not at first.
The remaining bits conglomerate without any sort of connection.
They force toward the center by spreading out. These are those
who flip through faces on whims and just because they can.
They're the people who flow through a party, like the most insidious
bit of water from a leaky roof moving through the rafters and drywall,
picking things up to bring and leave somewhere else. Busting
everything up without breaking anything down. The faces they wear
are the faces of everyone they talk to at the party. Because
everyone wants to see their own face looking back at them
sometime.
These are the people to watch out for.
You'll never know if the only difference between loving someone and
hating them is the face, the show, the illusion they put on for you at
any given moment. Not to say that all these people are
intrinsically bad or dishonest or that they can't love at all.
They say nice things and do nice things and often know just which words
will go about the business of making their momentary companion the
happiest. They're good at that. They're good at putting on
exactly the face that you want most desperately to see, which often
happens to be your own.
But watch your mirror. He does funny things sometimes, if you
forget to look.
What does my face look like?
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