Waiting.

I’m waiting; but for what, I’m not sure. Madness. Awe. Inspiration. The world is out there and I’m in here. Maybe I’m waiting for the moment; my moment, the one where the madness takes me like it’s taken others, and causes my candle to burn brighter and illuminate the world — even if it’s just for a moment, ‘twould be a moment well spent.

Went to Disney today; saw a lot about a man who’s dream was never fully realized. W. Disney changed the world but didn’t get to see the end product, I wonder how that felt. Was he disappointed? Was he angry? Annoyed? Content? On his death bed, did he say, “Damn, I wish I had more time”? I can’t help but wonder these things at times. I can’t help but wonder what it’s all for. Flash in the pan and then smoke. We leave droppings of history in our wake and hope that someone sometime finds them interesting, but will we be back to follow the cookie crumbs?

Waiting. Waiting. Waiting.

Ever listen to Tara’s Theme from Gone with the Wind? Tragic song. Sounds like mourning to me. A lament of what should have been, or what could have gone before. 25 years have passed and the world doesn’t know my name. I think I shall seriously try to fix that this year. Finally work when I should be, write when I should be, force the stories out of my head. They’re all blocked up not wanting to come out. Stuck in the rectum of my creative center. Too many voices, not enough time. Too many voices, not enough understanding.

I’m wondering where my faith has gone. When you’re young, God is something your taught or exposed to, it’s not something shown or explained, just an entity that they claim made man. Later years illustrate that scientifically speaking that’s a load of crap. Later years show that maybe there’s something to this spiritual thing and that science isn’t all there yet, but that the “church” is going down a different road at the same pace. I believe that there is a spiritual realm; seen ghosts, spoke with them, felt their anger and their annoyance. It’s there. Does this mean I’m pleased that eventually I’ll see it? No. Does this mean that when that time comes for me, I’ll say, “Worry not dear friends, I go to a better place?” Probably not. I suppose in every life we lead we have to accept that an end will come; but I’m too damn young to have these thoughts, too damn young to get lost in the fact that eventually it all comes to an end. I feel like a child in an adult world and all I want is a hand to hold and to guide me through the crowd.  Where is the hand that was larger than my own, to take mine into it — calloused and firm, but reassuring nonetheless — to show me the way?

Today is 1/1/11. A day of beginnings to be sure. I made a New Years resolution with the wife at midnight. I am going to restart my body (in a way), I will drop 20 lbs. over the next year and get my system back to a healthy track. I will find my Oom. I will find my place of awe. I have always been an escapist, running away from the world to somewhere else in search of relief from my woes. This year, I will not run away, I will accept them and change them into something greater.

Dune, the book by Frank Herbert, has become a weird sort of guide for me. I leave this with some quotations from it that I feel will be applicable over the next year:

I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.

Religion must remain an outlet for people who say to themselves, “I am not the kind of person I want to be.” It must never sink into an assemblage of the self-satisfied.

It’s late.

Well, here we are digital world. It’s 11:35 p.m., I have STEM training in 9 hours, which means I have to be up in around 7, and I’m struck with a bout of insomnia. I used to be quite an insomniac during college, my normal crash time was between 3 and 4 a.m. and I was up for school between 8 and 9 (the weekends I slept until sometime between 4 and 5).  Not that any of that is really all the important at this point, but its a frame of reference for the current situation I suppose.

I turn 25 tomorrow (the 12th). I have to say I don’t see a whole lot of excitement surrounding this particular birthday; to be honest, I’ve never been a person to be overly excited about my birthdays. There have been parties in the past, well, parties in a sense of the word. Immediate family gathering around cake with a smattering of presents and whatnot. There have been other times that people have thrown mild shindigs for my birthday, but more often than not I have just ended up… tired. I’m not one to be doted on, not when it comes to a birthday. I’ve lived a quarter of a century at this point and the main cause of excitement for my birthday was the fact that my car insurance is going down. … I don’t know if I should be pleased that I’m having adult thoughts or depressed that the kid that was always excited for presents and cake has been buried under the mountain of responsibility that we slowly build for ourselves through 4 years of ignorance in college.

I do have to work tomorrow, in a sense, I suppose that STEM training can be counted as work. It’s from 8:30 to 3 and I have no clue whats going to be going on. So I suppose that’s as about as close to work as most people get nowadays. I’ll be in a room with a bunch of other English, Science, Technology, Math and Engineering folks discussing how we should teach children to better prepare them for the technology heavy future they face. The problem is, that I’ve never stood before a classroom, and I haven’t taught a single day in my life. I’ve shown people how to do things, and I’ve walked people through Workers Compensation settlements. But I’ve never held the future of a child in my hands and molded it into something better. I have a distinct feeling that I am not going to fit in with the people I deal with tomorrow, and to be perfectly honest, I have no clue why I was chosen. Perhaps my principal see’s some sort of creative spark or wants me to be better prepared for the upcoming year. But the choice doesn’t make any sense. No sense whatsoever.

I’m wondering if I should give up my vices. If college did one thing for me it was to teach me how to do things in excess. I drank like a fish, ate like a refugee and slept like a hibernating bear. All of these things are starting to catch up with me, and I can feel myself slowing down. I don’t remember the last time my back didn’t hurt. My wrists are starting to randomly give out. I sometimes stare at myself in the mirror and wonder who it is that is looking back at me and I am finding that I am dreaming less. When I do dream I dream of being pursued or that I am in a no-win combat situation. There has been more than once that I have dreamt that I was in a fight that even in the dream I knew I couldn’t win. But I fought anyway.

Have you ever thought to yourself, why did I come back during this time period? I feel like I’m stuck in the nether. I’ve always felt at home around things from the 40′s and 50′s. So I was probably around during that time. I’ve felt the need to have a sword and armor for years, I have a way with horses, and enjoy the woods, so perhaps I was around in more…honorable times. I have always felt adrift in my own century. The people of this time do not make any sense to me. Honor, respect, empathy: these things mean nothing to most people. I have found in my circles the people who have semblances of the old ways in their souls, but, for the majority of the world, the old ways are dead, but the new ways cannot yet begin. We are a world in need of reformation and we’re too damn stubborn to accept it.

We want change, but we aren’t willing to work for it. We want money, but we aren’t willing to save it. We want clean air and clean roads, but we aren’t willing to research it. We want to live forever, fight cancer, educate our children, but instead of researching and funding those things, we spend billions upon billions to slaughter people and to pander to the ignorant and naive. Our system is broken, but we’ve all forgot how to fix things, but we don’t want to print the instructions in Spanish so the outsourced workers can do their job.

I suppose at this point I’m rambling. This will happen occasionally Blog of Mine. I’ll come to you and ramble, because my wife is asleep and my mind won’t shut the hell up.

Run, run as fast as you can.

As of late I have found myself dreaming of being pursued and constantly attempting to escape whatever it is that is chasing me. One night I was trapped on an island with 2 other people that I didn’t recognize in my head, but knew in my dream. During that particular dream we searched the island and found a warehouse sort of facility with a cemented up door, that we broke down, which led to a dust filled, rusty looking sort of room with a bed and other sorts of trinkets. One of the people I was with asked if this had been where I stayed, I told them yes. It was at this point that I looked outside and noticed a rather menacing hurricane coming our way and realised that once again, I was going to be trapped on this island and have to live in this piss poor room that I had thought I had escaped.

Last night I dreamt that I was trapped in a room, windows on all sides with 4 or 5 other people, that again, I knew in the dream, but didn’t recognize. I looked out the windows and saw large black trucks surrounding the building. I stated that we were surrounded and that we needed to escape, just at that moment men burst through the doors and we fought them. We won, but I had to run again. I fled with a pistol to an air duct, contemplated going down the shaft but instead went through a gate on the other side and ran through the building. I happened upon an apartment in which a small girl lived asking about her grandmother. Her grandmother was there, but as a ghost. I spoke with them both and searched the apartment looking for a way out. I found a book case, on which were a bunch of books from my childhood. Mainly books about marine biology and the ocean. I asked the little girl if I could have them as I am to soon start teaching and my students would surely love these books as much as I had when I was their age. She said that I could have them, and that she was excited that I would be a teacher. After that the dream faded with me running towards a door.

Strange, Strange dreams.

In other news:
I saw the room in which I will be molding young minds today, it is rather large, but I haven’t had a chance to actually get inside and snoop around, had to peek through the window.

Hm. Not much else today I suppose, so that’s the day Blog of Mine.

Greetings and salutations.

I suppose that I should write something. Since this will be the first post to this new blog it should be something… important, something meaningful, odds are though that when I get to the point that I hit “post” that I will be at the point of simply acknowledging that I’ve written a blog and that the world has one more person blogging about their every day life.

I suppose I should say what my blog will be about or that I hope to change the world with what I write here. To be honest, I don’t know what will be posted here as I don’t know what the future holds. Perhaps I can give a preview though of things to look forward to: 1. I start my first year of teaching 6th grade Language Arts in August and I’m scared out of my wits about it. 2. Still in the first year of marriage with my beautiful wife, so I’m sure there will be some commentary regarding that. 3. Have a dog named Murphy (she’s a girl named after Murphy’s Law) who is consistantly getting herself into shenanigans, partnered in a strange way with my cat Chaucer. Wife’s cat is named Bronte, who in my opinion is the biggest trouble maker we have, but she is a lot more sneaky about it. 4. The world in general tends to be my oyster, I see things that I find amusing and I will comment on them. I have no expectation or hopes of people reading, but writing tends to be theraputic and this is going to be a year of rebirth for me. I need to lose 30 pounds to be to a respectable weight, our Wii currently cries everytime I stand on the Wii Fit Board. Literally, it groans. It’s tragic. Perhaps I’ll write about movies Jen (wife) and I have watched or books that I am reading. Who knows. You’ll have to read to find out though. Ahh, what a hook. Read it and find out. Such is life.

So, in short, welcome to this Blog of Mine.