This was surprisingly fun to write

Doesn't really mean much. But it says what I was thinking.

Beyond a fetish for hedonism and smile that bedevils the unwise

There's nothing behind your winsome looks, no glint behind the eyes

Your association with the subculture that makes you feel punk rock

Is nothing more than a need to feel the touch you've kept on lock

And though your body craves the spotlight even more so than your mind

The fire that led you to your present has burned out all there was inside

You love the way they look at you, how eyes rove about your skin

You clamor for the center stage, despite your glamor wearing thin

And when all the clutching hands finally close upon your waist and legs

There will be nothing left for you to revel in, you opened for their begs

The permanence of colors and the drugs that make you feel

Will ruin what comes afterwards, when you're forced to live the real

Your disdain for your future has not spurred you to be great

Because you realize how you're drifting towards that which you longed to hate

And I rhyme for you in couplets, because that's how your mind has always worked

With feeble grasps at beauty, moments fated to forever lurk

Within the mind just at the edge, but after too short a moment passes

Your center stage was nothing, just an exhibit for the masses

The inner beauty that made you gorgeous, discarded for highs on pyrite

Has been eaten by the angry mob that thinks your dignity is their right

When you're burned out and tired, when you have nothing left to give

Do you think you'll be afforded any honors? No, just memories to relive

The affluent promise of sensuality that flows beneath your skin

Means nothing when it's tossed away, much to your chagrin

You saw a picture when you were younger, and decided it was your aim

And sacrificed everything to reach it, even heart and mind and name

If you find the value of your gains to be worth the price of entry,

Then I pity your remainders, when you find life to be but empty

But with a body built for enduring and a wanton lust for glory

You slithered your way into the arena, fame as your petty quarry

The harsh red of an exit sign falls tragically on your back

Stepping further to the center, those who knew you taken aback

You're the perfect spitting image of that picture that you saw

Your images use the airbrush too, it hides so many flaws

I could find a hundred dozen of you towards the rear of any magazine

You lost the beauty in your heart, you donated it to the scene

Addendum.

It's not about getting angry, or scared. It's not about getting mad. It's about fixing it. It's about knowing that it's going to only get better. And it's especially about making sure that you're not wrong about that. Making sure is too weak of a phrase. It's knowing. With ironclad certainty. It's willing it into truth. It's redefining the world as you see it. Because you will not take no for an answer. It's about setting the world on fire.

Do you remember?

Rebrith. I know, how original. But in a way, it is.

Isn't it lovely? Almost a full year since last time, so much has changed, and way too much has stayed exactly the same. But I don't want this to be something I do to release dark and tortured thoughts, and the depressing side of me. I do that enough. So what I want to focus in on here is that currently, a really bad decision has more or less kept me awake all through the night, and while it still really bothers me in my irrational paranoia, I know it'll be alright. I know I have nothing to worry about, and I know that I'm just being ridiculous. I need to reread the Dune line about fear.

In a complete segue, I think that finally posting here again is an active effort on my part to move forward. Not move on, because last year is a part of me for good or ill, but to move forward. I love that about myself, so allow me to indulge in a rare moment of self-satisfaction. No matter what happens, no matter how, I will be okay. I know that, and to quote one of my favorite books, I know it blood-deep, bone-deep. As long as I keep on going, and keep on striving to make it better, and work for myself, I'll be alright.

Way down, New York town.

Thinking about the way, she loves me.

There's a hole in my pocket, that's about her size.

And I know everything's gonna be alright.

(Apologies to Joshua Radin)

And yes, this is mostly for my benefit, but to make another reference, a (rather long) Roger Ebert quote, "Watching even the more creative recent movies, one becomes aware of a subtle censorship being imposed, in which the characters cannot talk about anything the audience might not be familiar with. This generates characters driven by plot and emotion rather than by ideas; they use catch-phrases rather than witticisms." Well, I refuse to be motivated by such catch-phrases. If I want to be driven by intellect and cool indie-isms and amazing books and video games that blow your mind and love and hope and optimism and Star Wars and Democracy and religion and politics and obscure references and being a heap of useless information, goddammit, I will be. And have an amazing time with it too.

Something to say

I honestly feel that a lot of the time, I have nothing to do. It's not that there's an actual lack of activities at hand, just none that conveniently fall into my lap and require zero effort on my part. It's almost frightening how little motivation I have. To be honest, my lack of motivation is what started/continues this whole redundantly vicious cycle. You'd think that after 9 years of having this issue, I'd have come up with something resembling gumption, or something along those lines. But for all the issues I've talked about for so long with so many people who were there to help, the only thing I've come up with is that in my mind, the ability to do something is equal to having already done it. Which makes sense, but leaves me nowhere. It's not that I'm not grateful for the opportunities I've had, or the people who have tried their best to help me, I'm more grateful to them than I really know how to express, it's just that I'm miserably close to, if not still in the exact same position I was in when this whole thing began. I guess we have to forge our own paths at some point, I just wish I had gotten to a higher plateau, if you will, before having to start out on my own.

Can't you find a clue?

When your eyes are all painted Sinatra blue?

New semester, new beginnings. (Yeah, right)

Well, after endless lies and evasions on my part, (all of which I knew were dishonest at the time) I find myself back at Indiana for at least this semester, now the hard part comes when I have to put forth the effort to stay here. And it's not as if I can't do it. I think. I've proven to myself that when push comes to shove, I can do what I have to, get to class and do the work and go to bed early and not be stupid and all the other things mom and dad have said for years, I just don't like doing it. Not for any concrete reason, I just don't like to. However, now that my back's up against the wall, I suppose I have no choice. To quote Woody Harrleson, it's time to nut up, or shut up.

So as a part of my Culture of College class, I have to set up this blog, and I'm not sure why, or how it relates to the class at all, but I think it's a good idea for me at the very least. Just a place where I can put things, not venting per se, but organizing the jumble that has been in my head for years doesn't seem like an awful idea. So let's get down to the good stuff, shall we?

I'm in college, somewhere that I always knew I'd get to, even if the actual journey here was harrowing and a long drawn-out ordeal that seemed to never end. First there was me totally giving up on high school after Katelyn and I broke up, which turned my senior year into a laughable excuse for an education. Which was a pity, because I really love all my friends from Dice, and the teachers were fantastic (some more so than others, obviously). English was especially great, and I think it says something about how much I liked that class that I remember it so well even after all that's happened since then. I still look through my yearbook sporadically, even though it seems everyone from there has moved on, sadly. And intellectually, I know they haven't, and I'm sure I'm giving off the very same impression, what with my introverted-ness and lack of friends and not talking to anyone and the like, but I still can't get over the fact that it feels like it.

So after barely scraping by my senior year, it turned out that I hadn't actually scraped by, and had to go to summer school in order to actually graduate. This meant that I couldn't really have a job, or really do much of anything I wanted to that summer. So I didn't actually get my diploma at graduation, I left very quickly with my twin brother holding his diploma, and rapidly told everyone that I hadn't gotten it out of the baskets or buckets or whatever plastic containers that they were in. In fact, the first time I actually laid eyes on my diploma was after 5 months in Israel, when I came back home for the month of February 09.

After what can only be described as a transcendent experience in Israel (more on that later, much more and much later) I landed back home and had the greatest summer of my life. I got to spend the most time with the people who mattered most to me, and to be fair, I was still coming down from the high that my ten months away had been. After a very solemn goodbye to home, I set off to Indiana, and started my life as a college student. Which in retrospect didn't turn out all that great. I'll go into further detail on last semester later (later, always later) but for now, I'm sure you numberless anonymous internet readers can gather that it was pretty bad. But with that under my belt, and a winter vacation that could not have come soon enough, I'm ready to start, to make an actual, definitive start to my life. I guess the best way to put it would be:

It's time to nut up, or shut up.