As the world turns colder.

My room is pretty cold right now. Not even October yet. Sitting here in sweatpants, slippers, hoodie, and beanie. A friend of mine told me I was cold blooded and that's why I so easily got cold. I told him that didn't make sense because actually, cold blooded animals can stand colder temperatures better than warm blooded ones. He thought I was on a soapbox. I just told him it was the truth.

I'm listening to this band A Perfect Kiss a lot the past two days. They were big in the Maryland/DC area when I was in high school. Friends of friends. They are really really good musicians. The songs have just the right balance frenzy and calm. On a whim, I checked their website, and it looks like they are putting together a reunion show sometime soon. I'll be there.

It is weird and humbling to think that my own actions don't just affect me. I think it has always been a rough and tumble process to realize that I am not the main character in this story. I know it is selfish to think this way. I think most people do it, myself included. But truth is, I am not the only one who exists.

This struck me like a ton of bricks yesterday at first during my anthropology class. My professor and a student were getting into a discussion about whether "nature" is an actual realization of natural processes or simply a cultural construct of how each person views the outside world based on what man has built nature to be. (Good luck arguing either of those effectively.) The debate got too philosophical for me at the time, so my mind wandered.

As I was listening to my professor describe how he lives, on the eastern shore with his wife, commutes to the university on select days throughout the week, and does not have a television set in his house (only a radio), I felt small thinking how different he is from myself. And yet, here we were in this class, crossing paths for this one instance, this blip of a semester in our lives and what it means when people convene like that just to fall apart.

I am a character in his story as he is in mine. And that is disconcerting (but necessary) to understand. There is no one way to get through life. Moreover, I am trying to get in the mindset that life is not just something to "get through." That is difficult for me when everything feels like it is moving day to day, slow motion while in the process, but 100mph given enough perspective.

Am I living it right?
Do I acknowledge the other stories going on around me, in the lives of people close to me?

We all have the power to hurt or to heal the people near us. I hope we choose to heal.

We all need constant conversation.

Who is the luckiest in this whole orchestra? The reed.

Its mouth touches Your lips to learn music.

All reeds, sugarcane especially, think only

of this chance. They sway in the canebreaks,

free in the many ways they dance.

Without You the instruments would die.

One sits close beside You. Another takes a long kiss.

The tambourine begs, Touch my skin so I can be myself.

Let me feel You enter each limb bone by bone,

so that what died last night can be whole today.

Why live some soberer way and feel You ebbing out?

I won’t do it.

Either give me enough wine or leave me alone,

now that I know how it is

to be with You in constant conversation.

Rumi

Busted Knees

So this music blog hasn't had much music on it recently. This post will change all of that. Summertime always puts me in the mood for a lot of pop-punk and punk music. Something about the fast-paced guitar riffs, catchy hooks and rhythms, and "don't care" lyrics are perfect for a hot day. They remind me of when that music was all I listened to and how it defined my summers. Bands like Blink-182, Green Day, New Found Glory, and Sum 41 were at the top of the charts. Skateboarding was all the rage. And we could waste our days waiting for the ice cream truck. So crank up these distorted tunes and have some fun :)

Songs for Busted Knees, Bugs, and the Bright Summer Sun
^^^LINK^^^

1.) I Believe - Agent 51
2.) Movies - Alien Ant Farm
3.) Trouble Breathing - Alkaline Trio
4.) I'll Get There - All
5.) Flavor of the Week - American Hi-Fi
6.) Awesome Forces - The Aquabats
7.) San Dimas High School Football Rules - The Ataris
8.) She Won't Ever Figure It Out - Big D and the Kids Table
9.) Don't Leave Me - Blink-182
10.) The Rock Show - Blink-182
11.) Kate is Great - Bouncing Souls
12.) I Got Punched In The Nose For Sticking My Face In Other People's Business - Boys Night Out
13.) Can't Wait One Minute More - CIV
14.) Sunshine Highway - Dropkick Murphys
15.) Festival Song - Good Charlotte
16.) My Girlfriend - Guttermouth
17.) No Worries - Hepcat
18.) Bandages - Hot Hot Heat
19.) Status Pools - Lagwagon
20.) Last Hour of the Last Day of Work - Less Than Jake
21.) Prisoner of Society - The Living End
22.) Bright Lights, Big City - Madcap
23.) You Gotta Go! - The Mighty Mighty Bosstones
24.) Capital H - Motion City Soundtrack
25.) Walking On Glass - The Movielife
26.) Tune Me Out - Mu330
27.) Not Enough - Mustard Plug
28.) Punk Rawk Show - Mxpx
29.) My Life Story - Mxpx
30.) Rock & Roll Girl - Mxpx
31.) Sincerely Me - New Found Glory
32.) Hit Or Miss - New Found Glory
33.) Olympia, WA - NOFX
34.) Ocean - The Pietasters
35.) As Wicked - Rancid
36.) Somebody's Gonna Get Their Head Kicked In Tonight - The Rezillos
37.) Don't Hate Me - Rufio
38.) She Wants To Be Alone - The Slackers
39.) Friday Nite - Slick Shoes
40.) Enemy - The Smooths
41.) Lay It Down - Squad Five-O
42.) Right Now - SR-71
43.) Daddy's Little Defect - Sugarcult
44.) Someone - Suicide Machines
45.) Makes No Difference - Sum 41
46.) So Awake - Tuesday
47.) Jaks - U.S. Bombs
48.) My Girlfriend's Dead - The Vandals
49.) Meltdown - War Called Peace
50.) Underdog - Yellowcard

In the garden

In the garden alive and bright
Something wasn't sitting right
Perfection in creation true
I wish to tarnish its wholesome hue

With cunning diction and elegant words
To humanity shown a mirror absurd
"You are unlike the god you serve
I call this ignorance undeserved."

Both took the fruit, from my sly voice
Innocent I am, it was their choice
What false freedom and feigned free will
To woman and man did You instill

I only showed what they ought to see
I only suggested, "Come coil with me"
And from this singular request
I ruined the world in one just jest

I am the snake, I do misguide
The weak, the fake, the indignant pride
My head is crushed, I strike your heel
Such a rush sweetens the deal.

Luke 19:40

We are a well run dry
We are a water tower emptied
We are an ocean evaporated

The living water flows ferociously.
The living water is alive.
The beads crawl to us, knowing our thirst.

What does it mean?

If I shut my mouth,
a shout of stones
a party of pebbles
a clamor of quartz
a bellow of boulders
a roar of rocks

What does it mean?

If we don't know what tomorrow brings
we still know that it is good.

When I'm with You
I feel so grown and like such a child
Radically adult and infinitely immature

When I'm with You
I run with you but I am standing still
Constant motion and peaceful repose

When I'm with You
We talk incessantly yet no one speaks
Constant dialogue and abundant silence

When I'm with You
I don't need anything because I have everything
Purposefully poor and excessively rich

When I'm with You
I am so ashamed and so uplifted
Inherently guilty and forever forgiven

Understanding, knowing
Doing, being
Living, hoping
Wanting, breathing

Allowing myself to get carried away

These warm, sunny spring days get me thinking a lot. Everything about the human experience in spring is terribly nostalgic for me. I cannot pinpoint why. Many intense memories are from the spring, and they replay in lush colors. Old friends long gone, neighborhood games growing up, goofing around with my sisters when we were little, many hours spent laying in my high school parking lot waiting for graduation, practicing and playing shows with the band, catching a nap on the mall, seeing a special someone smile at me, mix cds, warm nights under a blanket of stars.

Life is a very, very strange thing. We are always seeking meaning or reason, when everything about people, decisions, what happens to you, what doesn't happen, things both in and out of your control, appear so haphazard and chock full of entropy and dissolution. Sometimes a Pollack smattering of absurd colors, blending in each other, connected but randomized. Sometimes a da Vinci, founded on order, math, science, and beauty, not cold but not entirely warm. Sometimes a Seurat mosaic, small dots each playing a part in a grand scheme masterpiece. Being a dot is humbling but important, I suppose. I'm ok being a small, unassuming dot.

There's something awfully concrete about words, what they mean, how they are strung together to convey concepts, notions, opinions, and attitudes. Sometimes, I feel like writing a song and organizing it into a cohesive, structured piece is limiting. I think the idea without structure has more liberty to blossom and grow.
But then again, where would we be without people committed to fleshing out their thoughts to release into the world? There would be no artwork to dazzle our minds, no literature to confound and teach us, no government founded on upright principles and justice. We would all be walking around with a lot of thoughts rushing through our heads but no one saying a word.
Still though, an idea that isn't confined by specific statements about itself can transform and change, be a quiet whisper while falling off to sleep, or a bold trumpet beginning a revolution. But, one thing is for certain: ideas are never one thing. Hard to grasp and harder to put into practice. Impossible to put into words.