a word that i want to describe to a non-english speaker: blunder

life is a waterfall of fun

we find ourselves torn from life, and yet reborn when falling weight of worlds--abysses of still magnetism churned, tear their loins internally, internally exploding--fall together in what can only be the epiphany of god. it's as if there is a world, a dark cave infinitely deep. we fall toward, no matter directions opposing, the course is always home and our gravity is the weight of literally nothing

Study Abroad Packing List & To-Dos:

- walking shoes (?) (p)
- cell phone (local calls are $! in europe)
- get bank stuff in order -> let 'em know your leaving
- get a credit card (p)
- winter clothing (look BCN Packing List.doc) (p)
- get friend's music
- get computer fixed
- digital camera/1gb memory card/usb cable/charger (p)
- order camera charger/usb cable (p)
- print friend/family photos (p)
- computer/charger (p)
- backpacking pack pack (p)
- computer shoulder bag (p)
- school back pack (?) (p)
- computer speakers (p)
- snowboard (p)
- boots, goggles, hat, gloves, pants, jacket (p)
- money belt (?) (p) (ask mary)
- meds in ziplocs w/ generic names (talk to dr. about that) (p)
- shampoo/soap/deodorant/toothbrush/toothpaste/shaver/cologne (p)
- pick up visa at spanish consulate in chicago (p)
- visa (p)
- photocopy of visa (p)
- passport (p)
- photocopy of passport (p)
- airline tickets (verify on internet)
- CEA Arrival Card (?) w/ phone #s of Resident Staff (?) (p)
- signed authorization from dr. for meds (p)
- DRS paperwork
- Health kit: vitamins, Band-Aids, antiseptic, alcohol wipes for sterilizing wounds (p)
- sunscreen (p or buy there)
- sunglasses (p)
- clothing dress (look BCN Packing List.doc) (p)
- travel books (p)
- personal books (p)
- purchase alarm clock/radio
- ipod/usb cable (p)
- phrase books/dictionary (p)
- purchase adapter/converters (?) (p)
- umbrella (p)
- rain poncho/jacket (p)
- room decorations (map of india/map of barce/spain/prayer flags) (p)
- get nece. friend/fam. phone #s (p)
- get inter'l driver's license (p)
- thesaurus (p)
- pencils/pens (p)
- look for/sign up for salsa/flamenco lessons
- ...

i said my first goodbyes to mark and gleb today. i'm going to miss you guys.

like a free agent, just bouncing

we are reminded of our humanity in that nobody can avoid love

i walked out of my spanish class at about 5:30 after watching amores perros (fucked up movie). it was already dark. my eyes caught soldiers across the way through the graff main hall windows. they were in port o'call. it felt like we'd really fucked up and here it still was, like a movie. fucked up. then, i met up with one of my best friends, altaf, and we went for thanksgiving dinner with a bunch of internationals and an old lady key note with the biggest bling i've ever scene. i think that call that an ethnic piece lol too bad she was wearing a blatantly plastic leather coat lol. the ward room was pleasant that night.

for my truly wonderful friend kaitlynn

i can't wait to see you create, to see you move on stage, the light on your face. to see you pray inverted, otherwise known as hold people's hands up, two feet above their shoulders, clap shaped hands in your hands, where they can see the beaconing dreams of what dreaming can be; a true life story; peace.

i am really excited about something new. for a while, i thought but couldn't tell for sure, that i might be getting nervous, but then i talked with emma (my new swedish friend) for a while at my first keg party in a long time and her first ever, and at some point i said, 'okay, i'm not nervous anymore:).' it was really great.
alicante: where emma will live; where i will hopefully visit!

andorra: where i will snowboard this winter. andorrans speak french, maybe english, catalan, and spanish! isn't that awesome?!

don't get me wrong though, i do enjoy some real, good art every now and again.

i read a portion of Mein Kampf and i feel sick

While I know this may be an informal statement in a formal writing, I feel it for some reason necessary to express the absurd disgust that these words of pure hate left me; what a taste in my mouth, on my tongue. For a moment, I thought that my utter disgust with his absurd depiction of Jewish, devil eyed boys preying on innocent, young girls bothered me, displaced my sick stomach twice removed from anything but emaciating nausea, because one of my best friends is Jewish. Then, I realized that it was not that at all. It was the thought of so many ignorant, receiving eyes that cast their glances over these pages and said 'yes!' finding commonality, identification, a shared blood with this hate devoured man (all I can think of is bile). It was not my friend. It was to know the sway of these words among a people so broken. To get even a taste of the hate which they owned to the walls of their veins. The death. The disgust. The spit in his face, the entirety of humanity. We are a broken and lost people, so brutal and cruel, but then I feel the headache in the back of my skull and I think of love but I can't touch it. Not right now.

they said they were cartographers, but they were just as lost as us

it's been too long that drill sergeant, pasture and president alike command faith, faith in God, faith in country. by his hand and that of karl rove and others, the two have been drawn together (faith in god and faith in country) with a string not yet invisible. i say, i urge, notice the kinship. those who fight our wars are those who knelt on our church floors not so long ago. they were asked but really taught to have faith, faith in God. mobilize the christian right. that was and is their plan. they've brought their mission's goal to near fruition. so we've got these boys. young guys, guys my age and younger. kids. we were just in high school not so long ago. kids, fighting this war; all the faith in all that's good in this world and the next. only now do their thoughts, not their faith though, waiver occassionally with the bearing, ugly goat of real. they mobilized it. "they"; who's "they"? don't forget because a.d.d. is no myth in this country, except for them, those boys' memories. "they" are the pictures that i can draw up in my mind. you know who it is and was. but make no mistake, there are many others to blame for the way we've reaped young men's souls struck through with pure faith. we all have too much faith and too much blame. blame is blind redemption. and faith is just blind. yes "they" are to blame, but so are we because we could've done something. "they", they must be held accountable and so must we, to hold them and ourselves up against this light of darkness: the disgrace of those that have forgotten the names. those that we sent alive to die and those that have completed our run.

For those with unbearable pain, please, find a way to be happy.

Live It Up
Willy Mason

The sun don't set in Gettysville
The place that I call home,
A thousand people walk these streets
But we're still all alone,
This city's isolation
Like the drug that paves the roads.
Take the subway uptown
To my mother's place.
She's got a thousand friends
But all they know of her's, her face,
All alone inside her head
Her thoughts begin to race.

Live it up
Live it up they say
Live it up
No time to waste your life away.

Next door to me the ceiling leaks
The cracks stretch across the walls,
Like skeletons of dreams deceased
Too brittle to evolve,
He lies beneath his plastic sheets
Bitter and blind to all,
Shadows beneath his sunken eyes
Now taint all that he sees,
Like burned and blackened photographs
Life's easier a dream,
He settles for a cheap escape
Forgets all he believes.

Live it up
Live it up they say
Live it up
Things havn't always been this way.

I watched my whole world crumble
As I dried my mother's tears,
And learned to never stumble
As I calmed my father's fears,
They say I've seen a lot
They say I'm wise beyond my years,
Though my castle may have crumbled
I won't face the world alone,
The youth has seen the rubble
And we're ready for the load,
As the city burns
My generation's shouting in the roads.

Live it up
Live it up they say
Live it up
Things havn't always been this way

Live it up
We better turn this boat around
If we keep on following the goals
Someday we are gonna run aground

Live it up
Live it up we say
Live it up
Because now its in our hands to make change

Isn't it amazing what a smile means?

i don't know

our battle IS a spiritual one, but as i stare into the beauty eyes of what might've been but couldn't, i still stare, proceed with think, and wish i could feel a hug and i almost feel the sensation down my spine, but i still stare and feel the pain (, the feeling of beauty of hold eyes on looking glass) and all of what this is that i couldn't characterize of this still-small-world that i am and have always been in touch with, held in by, me. yet.. i stare and what i hesitate to call anything or give a name

yet i stare and it hurts and it does what it does to me, what i can't talk about, yet i stare at you and wish to kiss your lips and hug and wish for my brain not to hurt


and i wish i could remember a song from when we shared bodies, hidden intimacy; holding well defined backs so tight.

The most beautiful people i could ever hope to know!

new passport pic