Setting:

Grey and still and gloriously quiet.

Well, save for the fire engine sirens that just went off. But both before and after them, the world is a lulling little child, contained in nothing save the few tiny birds and the grey clouds which I wouldn't doubt are slowly drifting by.

The view from my for-once-open windows is like an ellegy to existence. Or, it's a slow prayer that drifts upward mingled together with burned up incense, like the ancients used to do. Those ancient, silent men in our history and faith tradition that stood in places like Mount Sinai or Gethsemene or the Red Sea, looked over and across humanity, and yet still hoped for its future.

I wonder how many of them thought we'd ever last this long? Did Abraham ever have an incling that he'd foster the continuance of tavesty and bitterness? Did Moses consider, what leading the children out of Egypt, that he'd aid furthering stark religious ideals in an unidylic land? Did Paul know that his philosophies would cause bloody wars? Did Christ realize that his kingdom would have people kill each other, slay their brothers, rape their sisters - all in the name of spreading the truth?

Sometimes, it's impossibly hard to imagine that this world is being rent to pieces while we speak. Especially when it can seem so idylicly peaceable, so astoundingly calm, so amazingly tepid. Hard to imagine the unspeakable evil that goes on in the hearts of our counterparts across bright blue oceans while songbirds hum so melodiously through warm, cozy afternoons - when everything seems so at harmony with everything else. Hard to imagine that just on the other side of the wall my window looks through is always inhumane pain, always selfish hate, always lazy faith.

Then, we hear the sirens. We hear the warnings of our world falling apart. We hear the bi-planes and the helicopters, and all the sounds we categorize into "silence". And we realize that the world isn't so perfect, so temperate, so mild after all. We realize our tendency to play it all down into warm afternoons so that we can feel at peace for a while. So we can breathe easy for a while. So we can imagine our world is tamed down for a little while.

So that we can feel the breeze and allow ourselves a moment of time to feel lazy, to feel lacidaisical, to feel lethargiccly at peace. To feel that there's some hope left to the running, scurrying, scrounging about we do the other 99% of the time.

-RK

Nothing Clever

Wow, it's been some time since I posted here last, although I have been keeping up with commenting...

Anyway, I don't really have a whole lot to say; my terrible sleep habits have finally caught up with me and although I have been trying hard to avoid getting sick with vitamin C and so on, I have finally got a nasty little cold. My throat hurts so bad... *sigh*. I really hope it isn't as bad by the weekend because I plan on partyin'.

Speaking of which, I nearly had a huge disappointment when we asked our boss if we could have Sunday off so we could go to Lichelle's house for the weekend and he said no because out of all of us - Liz, me, Lichelle, and her fiancee Joe - that was the entire work crew of Kretschmar hall. I was so disappointed I cried. I really did. You have to understand we have been planning this trip since October. But - THANK GOD - he reconsidered because of the holiday. I am so glad! I was prepared to be in a serious slump.

Well, that's really boring news. Perhaps you will find this other stuff more interesting: Shadow Star. I have already pitched it to Biscuit dear (and you need to put up a character, neh?). For the rest of you possible RP'ers, it is a long-standing fantasy email-groups-based RP with a widespread base started by Jenn, my current roomie, a while back. I am afraid it doesn't have piratey goodness like my never-completed RP (although, considering it is an island, I'll bet it could; maybe we could start some!), BUT it does have priest-warriors with sapient swords, lots of quasi-human creatures to play (Angels, demons, elves, centaurs, and much, much more!), two sides (Chaos and Unity) to choose from, and lots of elemental....elements? Plus it has dragons, sea-serpents, and other fantastic creatures. Anyhow, I have just started with it and I figured, why not spread the love? I hope someone else gets interested - it'd be fun to RP together once more! Although not LARPing. I'm sure Widge prefers it that way anyway, unless you've managed to win him over, Rali.

question:

As I only got 3 or so hours of sleep today and feel marvelous, in fact better than I have in a while, I ponder whether it may actually be better to get small amounts of sleep more often, like some have postulated about eating (eat less, more often).
I place the validity of this pondering before the forum.
Oh, and subsequently realise that we have used this blog as a forum or, at least, that I have always viewed it as a forum.
But in less fancy terms, have any of you had this experience? Less sleep than normal making you feel more alive or more thoughtful?

starts as a subtext

This is indirect response to the last, folks. As if I couldn't have left a comment like this, and it wouldn't have seemed like wasted time. Okay. It probably was. Either way.

You lead a perplexly absurd and inane existence. You ought to consider that at some point.

...

Sometimes, I like hitting you. And I like to act as if we're breaking. Or I like pretending that you aren't really talking. I like pretending like I hate you.

It's next-near as fun as your far-fetched reality is at occasions when you realize that even in a sunflower-yellow button-down shirt with your ugly chest showing through, sniffing talcom powder because you don't have shit-for-brains enough to snort Coca-Cola or tea instead -- realize that there, right there, you feel like you've got something.

Congratulations. Maybe you could teach someone else instead of jumping around your room with a photographic device, pretenind like you're living a fine life.

Or, you could just stop pretending for that matter.

I think we've gone and lost the fire. But I don't want to fight anymore.
I'm tired of this town...

-RK

Photographic friends

My head is dying.
I think it might have to do with the fact that I was pretending to snort talcom powder with a ten dollar bill on a fold up card table with a gun in one hand, wearing a sunflower-yellow, shiny button down shirt. Open, at that, with my bare ugly chest exposed for all to see.
At one point I threatened a stuffed bear with powder all over it's nose.
Then we lined up and all jumped in the air and got pictures of that, meaning to represent how everyone thinks the little subcultures like goth, emo, or punk are all unhappy but they aren't really.
But it might also be hurting because all I had to eat today was pizza.

Teddy Bear

So, everyone should be tired of looking at the stereotypes. Everytime you come here, with hope that maybe someone has had a new intelligent thought -- and found only the inane considerations of stereotypical labels...

Perhaps, I'm the only one. The only one who still dreams, still reads, still hopes, still searches for something out there. Perhaps, I'm the only one who remembers.

Then, the question plagues me: where are the people? Where are the voices, where are the words? Where is the inspiration we once had?

I've lost it, too. Lost the passion to write on more than just bits of paper no one ever sees.

Fine. So, you want inspiration.
I'll give you inspiration.
-------
A tiny little brown teddy bear leans against the back wall of my desk, his little red feet poking up into the air. His velcro hands are stuck to the threads of a rainbow colored scarf. He's been like that since he arrived - three months ago. He's supposed to remind someone of "love". He's supposed to be a Valentine's bear. But sadly, he isn't doing a very good job at it.

We all still hate Valentine's Day, despite popular opinion, don't we?

In spite of our hatred of his only purpose, he's still sitting there with a pink bottle in his arms, waving it at the ceiling. He's saying something that sounds a bit like "For bins and Christ", but he can't be heard too well because he's three inches tall.

Three half-inches tall. And he's got red feet. No hearts on him, but a bottlecap sewn in silk beige thread on his forehead and a jade bird hung around his little three half-inch neck. At least, he looks happy.

I wonder, do we miss him? Maybe we should.

Either way, we're all dying - kids. Let's hold onto the little three half-inch bears with red feet poking up into the air. Maybe they can make us feel better about ourselves...

-RK