early morning blogging. i need to kill 10 minutes. i don't think i will be successful. it isn't enough time to actually spell anything out, but it is too much time to leave things short and flippant.

i went to the circus last night. that is really the only way to describe it. craziest dinner i have ever eaten. also, the longest dinner i have ever eaten. the performers were all very impressed with themselves. it didn't really make much sense until they were above your head on a trapeze, or the fake bus boy started juggling 7 hats, leaving a different one on his head every time he threw one into the air. then their smugness was forgiven. there was an even an opera singer on rollerskates. basically, it was mayhem.

meh, it better be friday. i am not looking forward to today. i want to go back to my dream. oddly enough, i dreamt i was in bed reading a book. i think i need more free time.

frivved up by Ben at 6:41 AM

yes, i am here. i am laying low. the holidays are a convenient excuse, so lets stick with that.

i have been letting my thought processes simmer and condense into something a little more sumptuous. there is no real need to sit through the whining and the circular reasoning to get to what i really want to say.

the way i live my life is based on my own pursuit of happiness, and i am happiest when i am with christi. i was a content person to begin with, and lately i have been a legitimately happy person. but it is different when she is there with me. my favorite thing in the world is when she smiles back at me. that is what makes me a happy person.

frivved up by Ben at 6:57 PM

holy crap everyone is coming back for christmas, aren't they. i seem to have heard from everyone today, in one way or another. redmond is going to be crawling. i thought i was out...

frivved up by Ben at 12:12 AM

sometimes i wish i could live in my dreams. i had probably the best dream i have ever had last night. it was realistic, i didn't wake up, and i remembered every part of it when i woke up in the morning. the main thing is, i didn't wake up in the middle, like i usually do. the dream went on and kept getting better. it put me in a great mood for today.

now i am torn. i want to tell the person in my dream everything that happened. but it felt real, and i have always been keen on the idea of having my dreams manifest themselves in real life. it wasn't really a long, involved, outlandish dream. it was just simple and good, and completely in the realm of possibility. so, no matter how much i want to share, a large part of me wants to sit on it, and see if it actually happens in real life.

i am not entirely sure either will happen. actually, i probably won't tell anyone, and it probably won't happen. it seems a little anticlimactic, but that is ok too. i don't know exactly what was different, or why i can remember it all in such vivid detail. i found myself remembering little parts of it as my day went along. it set a great tone. with the way my day went yesterday, i really couldn't have asked for much more out of last night. somehow despite it all, i went to bed happy, woke up content, and managed to carry a disconnected attitude through the day. work wasn't terrible. not much of note really happened until the end, and at that point the whirlwind just couldn't touch me.

today is what i needed. well, last night and today combined is what i needed. a day and night that didn't require my attention. tonight could be going better. i got home expecting to register for this class i am hoping to take next quarter at nscc. i was accepted, and they sent me this whole email with my student i and everything. i talked to work about it, to make sure i could get out early on wednesdays. now, i can't register. it says my student id is invalid. of course, i work during the day, so i can't exactly go talk to the administration doobs get these things fixed. my class is filling up. there are only 3 spots left. i don't know if i have a few days to wait for things to work out. i waited too long to figure out what i wanted to do, and get the ball rolling.

meh. i'll figure something out. or wait. i don't know what to do now besides wait. yeah, that pretty much sums up my life right now, i don't know what to do besides wait and see how everything shakes out.

frivved up by Ben at 7:39 PM

it all comes back to me. tonight i can sleep as a rock and roll legend, nailing solos left and right. this is why i put up with it all. i spent a good hour and a half or so playing guitar hero while i baked two potatoes, which i covered in butter, ranch dressing and bacon. now i am sitting at my computer wrapped in a blanket. i have a joint in one hand, a glass of scotch in the other, and i'm sitting back listening to pharcyde. i am content, almost happy :) my headache is gone, and i still have an hour or two before i simply pass out. my most pressing concern is what album to listen too next. i have about 45 minutes to decide. i like my odds.

frivved up by Ben at 10:11 PM

the shower didn't even work! i just sat in there and cooked. i tried to use the mindnumbing effects of the internet to no avail. at least i am going from angry to resigned. i need to stop thinking before i start transferring the anger to myself again. i am not mad at myself. if i really tried, i know i could find things to gnaw at, but that would just make things worse.

so now what do i do with myself... i am going to focus this smoldering rage on my poor tiny plastic guitar controller. i need escape. i need something that isn't real or important. i need just enough distraction to allow me to sleep tonight.

frivved up by Ben at 8:20 PM

fuck this afternoon in its god damn motherfucking cock strangling ass. you know, things can't even get any worse. i have had so many fucked up days in a row at work, i don't even remember what a normal day is like. and that sucks, because it means insane and shitty is now the new normal. i have stopped thinking things are going to get better again. i am just so angry. i am fired up over the same stupid bullshit that drives me crazy on a daily basis. i hate it, because really i have no cause for complaints. as bad as my day was, i am sure my girlfriend's was worse, because she has to work late every day, all week. but fuck me, i hate my job. today started off fine, then just descended into the abyss. i wanted to kill my drivers. i hate people so much right now. i don't want to see anyone else for the rest of the night. i don't want to talk to anyone, i just want to be alone curled up in my chair at home where things aren't totally insane and i don't feel inclined to spend the majority of my time thinking about choking people to death with my bare hands. speaking of homicidal tendencies...

i am taking a shower. sleep is the only thing i will forgo a shower for, but it is too early for sleep. so a shower will bring me back from the world of darkness i am wallowing in. it always works.

frivved up by Ben at 7:13 PM

i am possibly just losing my mind. it is possible...

sometimes thoughts aren't ready for public consumption. that is what I have learned tonight. i spent 90 minutes writing, and this is what you get. this is what remains, minus a great many poorly constructed thoughts that will be important in some way i will eventually realize. but for now the conclusions i came too were irrelevant, at least in relation to the way i arrived at them. they were leading elsewhere, is what really happened, and bed is more important. until tomorrow, after this thought process will inevitably have slipped away... stupid midnight stupid work stupid grumble grumble.

damn you blog, i don't like feeling stupid. you win. blogger beat me tonight. why is it so important to always be smart, anyways. i am far far removed from my scholarly days, so really why?

frivved up by Ben at 10:31 PM

i am sorry, i just can't stop thinking about the mariners. i can't believe what they have done this offseason. it has just been terrible. it is bad. they traded two of my favorite players for two crappy players.

lets see what they did:

trade 1- Rafael Soriano to Braves for Horacio Ramirez.

we needed starters yes. at the end of last season, i talked to matt all the time about turning Soriano back into a starter. they gave him a week off and one point, and i was sure that was what they were doing. this offseason, Soriano talked about wanting to be a starter again. the mariners said we couldn't, because we needed that depth in the bullpen. so what do we do? trade Soriano for a terrible starter no one else wants. we made both the bullpen and the rotation worse. it is just mind boggling. Soriano could have been a great starter, and if he stumbled, we could have put him right back into the pen where he excels.

trade 2- Chris Snelling and Emiliano Fruto to the Nationals for Jose Vidro.

Let me tell you about Chris Snelling. Lou Pinella hated playing young players. He just wouldn't do it, unless they were great. Chris Snelling was one of those players. Lou gave him playing time when he was 20, because he had an amazing batting eye to go along with a balls out nasty mentality on the field and at the plate. this kid exudes hustle and intensity. Our third base coach promptly blew out his knee with a late stop sign, and he has been through 4 seasons and 8 surgeries since then. Last year, he is finally healthy. He gets promoted to the bigs and absolutely rakes the ball. he starts off hitting .500 or so until our idiot manager starts platooning him. he still had a great call up, proving he was the most patient guy on the team, and that he could get on base more than any of our other idiots despite being 25. i was drooling over the propsect of seeing him in the outfield, or even better, at DH next season, where he could give his knees another year to heal up completely. he would have been our everyday centerfielder now if he hadn't hurt himself, so even with sore knees his is above average defensively at the corners, and has a great arm.

but no. we decided to trade him for a 32 year old declining second baseman with shredded hamstrings and absolutely no defense. His stats have been diving for the past three years, and his power is gone. So we sign this below average second baseman to be our everyday designated hitter. for this privledge, we will pay $11 million more over the next 2 years than we would have payed Snelling, who is still only 25 and still improving. to sweeten the pot, we gave up another of our young live-armed bullpen pitchers, who probably would have made the team and played a decent role now that we pissed away Soriano

i mean shit, what else am i supposed to think. these moves are just dumb. they both are backwards steps. i am actually rooting against the mariners this year. i hope we are historically bad so everyone in the organization gets fired, and we can actually start doing something right. they have been telling us for years now that we aren't going to go through a rebuilding process so we can win now. well, now we still suck, and we just wasted 3 season in last place and have nothing to show for it, despite the fact that we spent $270 million or so on salaries. now, it looks like we'll get a fourth year of crap, and if we are bad enough, we might finally get the rebuilding process this team apparently so desperately needs. i would be fine with rebuilding, at least it would be something. there would be a reason to be bad besides flat out incompetence.

frivved up by Ben at 7:33 PM

it is all coming back to me!

autocad is back in the mix. i have 30 days before i have to reinstall again. i am not sure how that is going to work. i have all of these 2006 trails, but i didn't have to enter any numbers or anything, so i bet once my 30 days are up i won't be able to reinstall. i am guessing i am going to have to bomb its entry out of my registry to reinstall again, but who knows. maybe it actually knows seperate disks from eachother somehow. i have one 2005 trial i can save for later if the seperate reinstalls of 2006 don't work.

but woo, it is kind of fun. i measured out my kitchen and my living room, and drafted it all out. it didn't even really take very long. i am feeling strong and good, so instead of measuring out the rest of the house, i am going to save that practice time for later. i only really have 3 sittings worth of crap to draft in this apartment anyways. i am thinking of putting a football field outside of the back door after i am done with the house, to keep in the spirit of the whole thing.

also, i found a class at north seattle community college at 6pm on wednesdays. i sent in my application to the school online, just in case. i still need to talk to my dad's partner and then my current work, but i'll need to be a student before all of that happens. i have like two weeks to figure everything out. that doesn't seem like nearly long enough. it could happen though. i mean, for all i know my dad's partner could put me on in january after i give my notice to champion, and i could be taking the class at night while already drafting in the day. he could say fuck the class entirely. i'm going to have to talk to him though. the class is a part of a certificate program that takes a year. which is wierd, since my mom took this class for 6 weeks and got a certificate. so, he might want me to do that, but he told my dad he really isn't worried about me being able to do the work.

we'll see how the next two weeks go down. it is possible i won't even be able to register for this quarter, and will have to wait 3 months anyways to take the class, then wait until after the class to start work. it might even be better that way. of course, it is always a possibility that he will just start me up with no classes and no nothing, like he did with my mom. i would like to take the class though, just for my own sake. i would feel bad going in there without making any attempt to learn how to do my job.

he could say that they are not hiring entirely. but it is worth a shot. i have no idea what the pay is going to be like, but it is almost guaranteed to be as much or more as i am making now, with a significant chance of going up fast. the new job will be stressful, but my job right now is kind of the epitomy of stress. i am watching the best case scenario in my head, but for it to even be possible a lot of things are going to have to fall into place next week. most likely case, i'll be at champion for three more months while i take this class. that seems like the most relaxed and reasonable outcome. but the sooner i can switch, the better. any way i shake it, i have two weeks to get enrolled at north seattle and into this class. that is what i need to do first, because i only have two weeks. the rest of the timing has a little leeway, but if i miss this registration, the whole process gets pushed back a few months.

frivved up by Ben at 3:50 PM

don't even get me started on the mariners. i had a preseason post with my dream lineups and the kinds of deals i wanted us to make, but i didn't publish it. i didn't think it was possible for the mariners to be good this season, because i knew they were going to make horrible shitty moves instead, and i knew it would cause me emotional distress. so i said 'screw you mariners!' and deleted it. and now, they are making horrible shitty moves. it is going to be another long year of turning down free expensive baseball tickets from work due to terrible baseball. the emotional distress is still here though, because we have made some extraorinarily bad moves. i don't know how to put my bar any lower.

frivved up by Ben at 9:28 PM

lookie lookie, a preview of 4 books from now! it doesn't seem fair sometimes, considering how slowly my first book is going :) i have too much to write, and too little time. that is a little section i have been playing with in my mind for a while. like the other tidbits on the front page, it is more like a guideline at this point. when i actually get to that part, it will be better. i just wanted to get into ash's and krista's heads for a while and drive around in his car. i wanted to see the smartalloy roads soaring above downtown, and i wanted to hack into the roads themselves, the roads ash and i built.

mostly, i wanted to write about Krista's discomfort slowly slide away. it has always been one of my favorite moments of this book, when Krista is all freaked out at the beginning of this chase, and then laughs as she realizes they are in little danger. i wanted to be there. i miss this book. i have spent the most time on this book, and it is the most fully realized in my head, despite the fact that Baylen's Chain has a full outline and this one doesn't. I have already lived the events of this book, which goes under the working title Angel Draft at this point, in my head, start to finish. i know everything that is going to happen. it is going to be an easy book to write, but it isn't time yet.

first i need to build where ash comes from, and where he is going. his arc is going to be solid all of the way through. he is going to be real by the time i am done with him, i don't want to leave anything behind. reading through that little tidbit, my writing is still not at a point to do the story justice. that was the main impetus behind writing in the order i am. One book to find my voice and create the world Ash's story ends in. Three books to find constant forward propulsion and conclusion, as well as create the framework for ash himself, then this series to let my mind play.

the fact that i could write at all like that was wonderful. my mind is coming back under my control. i am regaining a level of personal composure i almost let slip away. my stories have been out of my grasp. sometimes the prose just doesn't come. so i have had to come back here to try and pull my thoughts together, and to have an outlet. it has reinspired me. i hope i can find a balance. because i can't disappear from here or it will inevitably happen again. i have realized how important this is to me and my mental well being in the last month, and how important my mental well being is to my writing, or to anything i need to use my my mind for.

but i need to be able to write. i need that creation. it makes me feel alive.

frivved up by Ben at 7:14 PM

bwaaah

look at me! i can't believe how much i just slept. i slept so much, i completely missed out on the other fun and more important things i meant to do last night, or this morning, or this afternoon. now i am feeling a tad sheepish because i have no idea how long it will be until i have the chance to do them. they were so on my list of things to do, i promise!

i am retarded. i am well rested, but retarded. and horny. my mind and my body are shaking their heads at me in disapproval.

frivved up by Ben at 4:39 PM

no. fuck that. fuck all of that. no pity. no excuses. no melodrama. fuck all of that bullshit. i can't help the fact that the seahawks lost. i can't help the fact anymore that i drank too much and didn't eat anything beforehand. i tried to fix it. i did what i could. my last post makes it seem like i am some sort of victim in this whole thing. notice how i sereptitiously inserted little tidbits about walking, when that was my choice. fuck that. i am just a dumb drunk guy. it is not the end of the world. it is probably not the worst thing i will do before the year is over. so fuck it. it just wasn't right, so fuck me too.

i shouldn't be writing after drinking in the first place. it will just make things worse. i have had my requisite shower, and now i am going to bed. that is the only real upside to a shitty day. most of the time you get to sleep through the end of it

frivved up by Ben at 12:54 AM

before i even start let me say blah, enough with the melodrama already.

i will be as brief as possible

tonight was a night that ended so poorly, it begins the next day on a fucked up note. tonight i saw something in my girlfriend's face that i never wanted to see. tonight i made her feel something i am sure she never wanted to feel again. moments of sheer panic. moments completely out of control, and beyond reconcile. that is what i brought to the party tonight. and since i know this will be technically finished tomorrow, this is how i am starting both of our mornings. i am not quite sure how to say it any clearer. it was terrible. it ended a terrible day for both of us and on a worse note, it managed to potentially screw up a friday in the process, something that should not be possible.

i am not sure how i managed to propel my shitty night down the course i did. i feel bad that it turned into our shitty night. i know i earned my penance. i deserved to be followed by hookers and stopped by the cops with a loaded pipe on the way home. that was trivial. the wierd thing is, someone will actually be pleased to hear i am home in one piece. they will also probably be pleased to hear that i deserved this walk home, which is more along the lines of how i feel. my walks to work from the transit station in bellevue started as a penance. i walked because of what i felt i had done to my car. at that point, when i started taking the bus, part of me believed my car would never wake up again. it was what i had earned for destroying my poor car. since then, i have begun to enjoy my walks, but tonight was different. i earned my walk tonight, and i knew it. tonight was not something i enjoyed. tonight, i felt worse because i knew it was because of me. it was all because of me, again. things could have just been middling to crappy, before i had to put my own distinct disaterous stamp on the day. and i couldn't do anything else. i am my flawed self.

tomorrow will be friday. it will be work, it will be the 15th and by definition crappy for me, but could be ok for us if i manage to leave work behind. if i make it through i might earn the chance to see my girlfriend again. if i don't manage to fuck up friday any more than i have already, tomorrow could still turn out well. we are home, we are safe, and we are not stuck in bellevue. that is where i am at. i just hope she is already asleep at this point.

frivved up by Ben at 12:04 AM

i will sleep tonight. i specifically avoided anything relevant, so now i have this perfect lack of anything to do beside go to bed. all i have to do now is wake up again. i know it is rough, to set the bar so high.

frivved up by Ben at 10:15 PM

i like christmas. there are parts of it i hate, but if it was just me and my family and my friends, and the rest of the world didn't exist, i would love christmas more than any other time of the year. i like giving people presents. i like finding things i think they will like, and spending my own money on them, with no expectation of equal reciprocation. i don't try to spend a set amount on someone, or try to keep things fair. i do get more for my mom, partly because it is so fun to see her get presents, and partly because her birthday is in december too so i get her twice as much stuff. christmas is one of the only times of the year i allow myself to spend my money without worrying. i spend all year pinching and saving, but christmas time rolls around and i forget all about that. i never spend beyond my means, but i use what i have available

i am a very frugal person, which is kind of ironic considering how much pleasure i get out of spending money. i have this irrational fear of money that has given me this will power to stop myself from spending. i push grocery shopping as far as possible, sometimes going weeks eating scraps from the cabinets after all the real food is gone, just to save a few extra dollars. i haven't bought clothes in years, i avoid going out to movies or spending money on entertainment, and generally i don't buy things for myself unless i absolutely need them. i even can adjust my smoking habits down to nothing if i need too with no problem, if money even comes close to being an issue. it is strange, because i always have a surplus of money. i keep myself above a certain amount in my savings and my checking, money that is not for spending. if i even come close to it, i shut down everything. i think going forward my system of handling my finances is going to be one of the most important things i have taught myself.

what i really love about it, is it allows me the freedom to spend on big ticket items that are way out of my payscale. i never spend on spec, i always spend when i have the money to do things. my credit card is really just for the convenience of having plastic, and for the 30 day grace period that lets me straddle paychecks if i need too. but i will spend. i will spend hundreds and thousands of dollars at a time when there is something i want, be it computer upgrades, vintage leather couches, new cars, whatever. i feel i can maintain a general quality of life i shouldn't be able too.

but yeah, anyways, my christmas shopping is pretty much done, if i want it to be. i think i am going to get a few more smaller things for people, but the big stuff is all done. i spent more than i was expecting too a few months ago, but it is worth it. i also have two new people i was buying for, which makes me happy. i struggled a little with what to get jordan, but as long as he doesn't already have what i got him, it will be great. i think made out alright, and i think everyone will like their presents, which is really why i do it. i want to get people things they will enjoy. alright, i need to stop talking about this now, before 'presents' goes from vague to specific. i am really bad at keeping secrets when i get excited. i will say i had the most fun shopping for christi :) it required a different thought process, one that i enjoyed. i hope i did alright. dammit, now i am all nervous!

now, i am going to enjoy my christmas gift to myself. on sunday, i fully meant to zone myself out, but i got sidetracked. yesterday, i fully meant to zone myself out, but by the time 11:00 rolled around, i realized i hadn't even taken a shower yet, let alone smoke, so it just didn't happen. my shower was so late, apparently i even missed a call from my girlfriend, which kind of sucked. despite trying to work it into my plans it just didn't happen. i have been avoiding my new christmas greenery for days and days and days, and i don't know why. it hasn't really been a conscious thing, but it probably explains why i have been a little more cracked out than usual. but tonight i got home early, matt is already gone, i've already eaten dinner, and now i have no excuses. i have the last beer in the house, a brand new glass piece iced down with fresh water, and a playlist full of music. i am going to get so much sleep tonight, i am almost drooling at the thought. simple pleasures :)

frivved up by Ben at 7:38 PM

not that anyone really cares. that was still dumb. i should have stopped talking about this crap a long time ago, like when i tried to have the conversation in the first place. it wasn't even interesting then, haha

frivved up by Ben at 10:19 PM

i just spent 40 minutes writing about my mp3 collection and deleted it, because it was just stupid. it was inane. it was borderline masterbatory. the main point was, i have too much music to even begin to classify my tastes. the majority of it is electronic music, but that is like 60% of 750 albums, so i am not exactly hurting for other kinds of music. i work off a playlist of my favorite 200 albums or so, the stuff i always want to listen too. i accidentally delete this list about once a month or once every two months, and then have to start over. that is always fun, because my list changes, but during that time, i don't really need to add anything else. my collection has changed so much as my tastes have changed and my disk space has stayed the same, that i am missing a lot of things that were at one point important. i missing a lot of punk, grunge, rap, hip hop, metal, indie, classical, and jazz music that i used to have because i basically ended up deleting whole genres at a time when i hit a new phase in my tastes. hell, you can add house, drum and bass, hardcore, and techno to that list as i weeded my electronic music down to trance. most of it i never listened to anyways, but there are still a lot of things that i am missing. but when i have so much stuff, it is hardly worth the time to go and track it down. i can't keep track of the stuff i have, let alone the hidden gems i deleted wholesale to make space for things i listen too more.

beyond that, my playlist get cycled through. my favorite stuff ends up hovering closer to the bottom, since it is what i listen too the most. everything on that list gets its shot though, eventually. i tend to just pick things that randomly pop out at me when i am scrolling through. in my mind, my tastes consist of the last two albums i listened too. the rest is just a convoluted mass of music i have trouble wrapping my brain around. it is just easier not to think about it :)

frivved up by Ben at 9:57 PM

i feel a little short-circuited. i feel like i need to knock my brain out for a few hours, to break it out of its state of constant use, or overuse as the case may be. so many things are changing so fast, that i think it is wearing down. i have thrown myself into a sequence of events that could lead to a lot of changes, not just my personal life, but my job, my living situation, the goals i want to achieve, and how i want to achieve them. i don't know why everything is happening right now. It is just life's way of challenging me. like it is saying, 'you can have all these things if you survive them, and find a way to juggle them all.' my brain has responded. it launched itself into motion. it has been revving higher lately on a more consistant basis than i remember in a long time. it has been active, and it has been efficient and productive, and generally just happy to be of use. in the last two weeks or so, it has started to feel the strain of near constant use. at work, i haven't even been able to finish my crossword puzzles. even more, i can feel it. i can feel the fuzzy feeling in my temples that blocks me from focusing on things too hard. i feel the little tingling strip on the back of my head running up from my spine that makes my movements lethargic. i feel the knots in my neck that run down my shoulders, and up along the ridge between my ears that leave me tense and erode my attention span.

i don't know why everything is happening now. i see the person it could potentially be shaping into, and what facets are caused by which changes. i don't know how everything is going to fall into place though. i can see five main things that are suddenly thrust into the forefront. my job, my love life, my home, my family and friends, and my book. the next thing i need to focus on is my work situation. this is the largest potential change, in my opinion. i see work as something you do because it makes everything else possible. without work, nothing else here would be possible. work is the thing my future hinges on. instead of being a single dispatcher in bellevue living in greenwood with one roomate, with little interaction beyond said roomate, writing a book in what little free time i have after spending 12 hours a day getting to work and back, i could be doing autocad work downtown, living close to downtown, and spending my substantially increased amount of free time with my girlfriend, my friends and family, and my book.

this depends on a lot of ifs, but it doesn't take a whole lot of extrapolation to get there. i don't know how much my current situation can support. i know the quality of the work i have been doing on my book has suffered already, because i don't have the mental resources to dedicate too it. a new job with better pay not in bellevue would be a huge step towards being able to have all of these things. it deserves more focus, because right now it is just a potential opportunity.

it is just going to take some work to keep everything moving. there is more i have had to worry about lately. my mind has responded, my heart has responded, but my actions are lagging behind. my little conscious core is a little overwhelmed. it can't fall back on stoned as the constant and default emotion anymore. instead of strolling through life, i have started huddling like a lamb, waiting to be herded. my pace has just been off. i need to adjust my mindset, so i can get back to my regular life, hopefully with all of these new things added. i need to get back to the little things that kept the pace of my day managable, and my mind at ease. like this morning, i couldn't sleep. so i got up, and did my stretching and exercise to calm myself down. it was wonderful. it was almost meditative going through these familiar motions, and feeling my muscles respond like they should. my tension completely eased away. my mind dimmed itself to a dull roar, and i went back to sleep. things would pop into my thoughts every now and then while i was laying there, but i pretty much just dropped right off. my muscles were relaxed, my mind was relaxed, and i was able to just lay there peacefully and fall asleep. it brought me back to who i am, and what my philosophy toward life is. life at my pace. life at a pace that keeps both my mind and my body at ease. a pace that i feel comfortable with.

if i spend my time constantly out of my comfort zone, no matter how flexible i am and how quickly i adapt, i will eventually burn out, and my mind and my body will rebel against me. if i don't have anything i do consistantly for myself, and for my own stability, i am just going to be thrown around. and that is what has happened. i have been focusing on everything that is new because, well, it is new and interesting. all my little personal quirks and habits have been sidelined because i have been trying to wrestle all these other things into submission. i can't do it all at once. i can't focus on everything at the same time. i have completely left one of my main tenets behind, allowing things to work at their own pace, and flowing around them. so it is time to regroup a little. to let things assimilate instead of having them take over. things are changing, and things have been crazy, and will get crazier, but so far i have survived. so far the first part of the life's latest challenge is being met. i followed a certain path to this point. the fact that i've made it somewhere is no reason to switch directions entirely. it just doesn't make sense. no sense i tell you! alright, i am yelling in character inside my head, that usually signals the end of any useful train of thought.

frivved up by Ben at 5:58 PM

i can't believe i just spent that much on a video game during christmas season.

this game rocks

frivved up by Ben at 6:04 PM

thursday night was awesome. it was awesome, because i think i may have impressed ryan while playing a video game. for a little context, ryan is the one person who can consistantly beat me at every video game i have ever played. it is not that he is head and shoulders better than me, he is just naturally gifted. he is one of of those people who is slightly better at everything than anyone else when he has a controller in his hands, just enough to make the difference the majority of the time. he is a good sport though, i just try to provide him with some competition while slowly getting better so i can surprise him. eventually i break him down, and sometimes i can even run off a few wins in a row, but he always adapts to what i am doing faster than i can readapt.

anyways, this time around we weren't even competing, so that paragraph is half moot. but we were playing guitar hero 2, and he has the guitar controller. i played guitar hero 1, just not to the point of exhaustion. i played amplitude, and exhausted frequency, which is still one of my favorite games ever. of course, i did this all using the regular controller to keep the beat, instead of the guitar controller. let me tell you, this guitar controller is the beginning of a musical gaming revolution. it is a whole new game, and it turns these guitar hero games into some of the best games ever made. but, it was my first time using it. i was expecting to pretty much suck, all night. i played one song on easy, and screwed it up pretty hard, but by the end i was kind of getting the hang of it. then, knowing i was probably going to look like a fool in front of my best friend, for my next song i chose the hardest song on normal, which is the difficulty ryan is still working under. he thought i was crazy. the song was freebird, and it is the full version, 8 some minutes long, including the entire solo. he said i would never make it to the solo, so that became my goal. first try, i made it to the solo before being booed off the stage. ryan was pretty amazed. second try, i made it about a quarter of the way through the solo, and he was even more amazed.

my main motivation was to simply get to the point where i could play normal, because it is pretty annoying when there are only two people playing, and you have to switch difficulty levels between every song. with more than two, it doesn't really matter, but when there are only two, you really feel the time it takes to switch back and forth. it has become sort of a mantra these days. when i have to learn something, throw me into the fire. i told him that, to let me at it, and see what happens. after those first attempts at the hardest song, i beat all but one level i played on normal, and did pretty well. i still suck, and i still can't play every part of the songs, but i did well enough to keep ryan entertained. there were times when i had to use my glowing star power to keep from getting booed, but i didn't lose. ryan threw some crazy hard songs at me too, but i got through them. i think i surprised him, and that was awesome. i want to play again. every time i went into a level, i saw his high scores, and knew i will probably never beat them.

i think if anyone has a shot, it is me. one thing he knows from watching me play video games over the years, is that more than probably any other person i have flashes of complete brilliance and intense focus, where i can completely own a single level from start to finish almost flawlessly, without really paying attention. when it happens, i don't really know how i am doing it, all i try to do is keep the momentum going. it is definitely not a repeatable skill, which makes it even cooler in my mind. the general competence for gaming is always there, which makes me decent at everything, along with a competitive fire that keeps me winning at most games. and above it all, there is something more that is beyond rational explaination. i am one of the few people who can show him things in games that he has never seen before, which is probably why he still loves playing with me, even if he does beat me most of the time. maybe with a little more practice, i will actually light one of these guitar controllers on fire using just my fingers and my overwhelming powers rock and roll badassness

racquetball and guitar hero at ryan's house, two more reasons to fire work.

frivved up by Ben at 1:23 PM

it is beautiful. one simple note from her just made my night. she called me her ben and my heart melted. i am happy, and i can fall asleep with a smile on my face. i think she went to bed before she could read my replies. i just hope she went to bed happy too.

frivved up by Ben at 10:36 PM

frustrating. today left me frustrated. i am still frustrated tonight. i am mostly frustrated because the thing i want the most is the thing i can't have right now. all i really want is to be alone with my girlfriend, but the world isn't having any of it. work is fired. i need to take a vacation to my apartment so i can lay in bed all day with her, like i want to be doing.

i only got to see her for 10 minutes today because of work and the bus. i got to talk to her for a few minutes on the phone, but we were both in a bad mood because of work and the bus. it was a conversation between two people tired enough to make terrible conversationalists, and it was still one of the better parts of my day. my happyness quota for the day has not been filled, and there is nothing i can do about it. she is going to bed, and i just wish i could be there with her. i wish we didn't have our stupid weekday lives to live tomorrow.

i am going crazy. i don't know what to do about it. i feel like today was completely out of my hands. i feel like today was stolen from me, that it completely slipped out of my grasp. that is scary because as brief as it was, she was still a part of my day. i don't want to let our time together or our conversations slip away from me again, it was very frustrating in hindsight. i am mostly frustrated because we don't get to spend as much time together as i would like, and i am not quite certain how to fix it.

complain complain. here i am complaining on my blog instead of trying to find solutions with her. my work week is really cramping my style right now. today left before seven am, and got back after eight pm. this is a problem. i devoted thirteen hours to work to get paid for eight. using some morbid math, it amounts to a $4.50 per hour pay cut, and worse it leaves me too with little time. i am just full of problems i don't know how to fix tonight.

i am going to stop this now, it isn't very constructive. maybe my mind just needed an outlet tonight, i don't know. i am frustrated with the way this whole writing thing turned out tonight.

frivved up by Ben at 9:49 PM

i was fine with the end of work when it was actually happening. it ended up being as easy as it could be. there is something oddly comforting about the fact that i can actually run our company alone. but the end of work, combined with my bus ride home have left me in a terrible mood. my 10 minutes with christi seem so far away already. i need a shower, then i can come back and write. i really need this shower to calm me down, so i stop thinking about stupid people. if you don't see me again, i just went to bed. but i want to write. my mind needs it, but my body might rebel. the monkey inside of me might veto any plans those us up here in the brainular region have made.

frivved up by Ben at 8:59 PM

myspace still frightens me. i am looking it as a public face. i have tried to write over there a few times, but i just don't want too. if i write, i don't want to have to censor myself. what i put down will be available for every jerk to see. if someone wants to know me, they will find this place. if i want someone to know me, i will tell them about friv. the myspace blog doesn't have a role besides placating random people who might stumble upon me.

i am not sure why i was writing over there. the past few days i have been stuck. i feel most eloquent when i am writing, and even my best hasn't been up to snuff. it means i need to add another facet to my writing. i need to be able to communicate the depths of what i mean, instead of just showing the surface of the idea. it is there, i know what i seek, it just has atrophied.

i feel decidedly commonplace right now. i feel like such a normal bumbling boyfriend. there are things that i want to say that just don't come out when i want them too. i find myself saying these things to myself, the things i want to say to her. then when i am with her, my mind loses focus, and all i can see is her sitting there in front of me. and i am happy, and she says such wonderful things to me, and all i can do is smile, which portrays exactly what i am thinking. but she has to read it from my face instead of hearing it in my voice, because when she is around my mind gets so excited that all the things i wanted to say to her fade into the background. because she is sitting there, and she is so beautiful, and witty, and giving, and all the other things that make her so wonderful in my eyes, that sometimes i can't concentrate on anything but what a lucky man i am to have her. i want each moment to last as long as possible.

when we are apart, all i can think about is her. i think of all the things she deserves to hear, and i get these moments of panic, like i am worried she will think less of me if she doesn't know how i feel about her. but she knows. women always know, at least this one seems too. i know she wants to hear it all, but if it doesn't come out right she still knows. she makes me want to find a new eloquence just so i can do her justice, so i can make her feel as good as i feel.

i love her. i tell her all the time, and it still doesn't feel like enough. you have no idea how much comfort i take in the fact that she will be there for me when the words are finally ready to come out, in all of their eloquent glory. all i can say now is i love you, which is a wonderful thing to hear from someone. eloquence isn't everything :)

frivved up by Ben at 9:00 PM

oh yes. i am finally fucking home, and it is finally fucking friday. profanity is absolutely necessary.

i need to write tonight. i don't want to complain or analyze this time. this week is a bad week for that. i need to shift my momentum a little. the week is over. all that crap, all of what happened at work is done. it is gone, and it doesn't have to drag me into its little funk. i have days to enjoy meself.

i need an idea. i need something new tonight. i want tangents of my own. i want to have to leave things unsaid tonight, because i can't get to everything. this one is going to be a work in progress. i don't wind down quickly, but this is going to be my guide.

i need to find this song. it has been in the back of my mind for two days now. the problem is, i completely forget the artist and the album, and it is on one of my full album trance mp3s. now we only have a hundred or so files to go through. but i love this song. i have to have this song right now. it is time for my brain to make itself useful. i am starting with dave seaman, because he consistantly fills his sets with music that makes some sort of lasting inpact. it is a little ironic that i don't even know the names of some of my favorite songs because i don't have a single album of his that is broken up into individual tracks. the problem we find here is that most of his albums, i have listened too so much that i know every song, and this song isn't one of them. there are maybe three albums of his that i haven't completely absorbed yet. (insert pause as i go look for them). ok i found only two likely candidates. i think it is near the end of the album. if it isn't one of these two, we are back to square one.

look at me, in four mouse clicks, i found it. i clicked on disc 1, clicked to the end, not there. i clicked on disc 2, clicked on the end at 58 minutes, and apparently that is where the song is. i don't know to feel dumb for sharing, or bask in smug satisfaction. you are going to laugh when you hear i don't even have a full copy of the mp3, so the song cuts out halfway through. (insert pause as i go find another download). ok, now i have to wait again. on to something else. that was nothing even remotely creative. that was to make sure i am not suddenly completely retarded. at least i have something to listen too. if everything goes right, the download will be done before the album itself is done, so i can switch over for the last track. a final farewell to an mp3 that has served me well before being replaced by a superior version.

it is amazing what files follow me from computer to computer. i have mp3s i downloaded in 1998, and have copied who knows how many times. crap i downloaded using scour.net on aol dial-up. i probably sat and dreamed about a day when you could download an album in an hour. now you can download tv shows in an hour. i love the internet. it does every thing it can to make the real world obsolete.

what if you had an entire town connected to the internet. what if your server had a three dimensional rendering of your city it used as its operating system. i had a dream about this once, and it has become one of the key facets of frivtown, a city with digital overlays. i am not sure if they were holographic or implanted, but there was another layer that could be added over reality. there was a giant game everyone played, an assassin game. everyone could have weapons on the digital plane, and there were bounties placed on certain people. everyone had shields, so you had to do it without them noticing. but if you got them, they would be sort of electrocuted. the game goes on all the time, so it was fairly ordinary for someone to be taken down in the middle of a presentation at work. but the digital plane was so much more than just the game. the game was just one aspect of it. the entire world seemed more vibrant. there was digital art on the sides of buildings, signage and advertising could float in the air, and most if it was almost neon and transparent. there were fake walls you could walk through.

you know, for this to work, it would almost have to be some sort of implanted technology. it would make so much more sense on the macro scale. we are only a few short steps away from plugging our computers directly into our brains. first it is goggles, then projections into the eye itself, then straight jacks into the brain to simulate sight. in a town networked on this scale, it makes sense that each person would be individually networked as well. and if they are already networked, it is just a simple implant for those who want the functionality. hell, who knows, at that point we all could have our computers implanted into us already, kind of the ultimate evolution of the laptop. all you would have to do is connect to the server, provided you have the proper internal connections.

how would our brains respond to this constant extra stimulus? i am sure some people wouldn't be able handle it, and would just snap and go crazy. certain people however would adapt and thrive. certain people would lose all sense of balance, and live completely in the digital reality, while certain people would completely refuse to use it. i must say, i am not really afraid of the effects of an internal computer. i just wouldn't be able to afford it. once i could, i would be all over it. kind of like vacation trips to the moon. as soon as i can afford it...

this album is beautiful. this is why i love dave seaman. i don't know what it is, but something is different in his music for me. which makes it even more strange, because it isn't actually so much his music. the songs he finds are mind blowing. things i have never heard, but make me instantly wonder "why isn't there more music like this?" and when he does throw in something i know, it is always a song i already borderline worship. sometimes i feel like my entire experience electronic music has led me to his albums. it is what i have refined my electronic tastes too, the absolute upper echelon of my favorite trance. in fact, you might call it my favorite music period. i am oddly comfortable with that statement. it may not be the best music i have, but it is my favorite. it is what my mind craves.

my download isn't going to finish by the end of the album. i am disappointed. i am also very sidetracked at the moment. thinking about what my mind craves has taken over, and i doubt i will be able to focus long enough to keep forming coherent sentances. i will mercifully end this beautiful rambling here.

frivved up by Ben at 7:53 PM