I booked a flight to Providence tonight using my Mom's AA advantage miles. I'm excited about that. I'll be there for 3 days, Sunday through Wednesday. I have to find a place to live, no excuses. Cool.  ¶ 11/30/2005 08:57:00 PM 5 comments

  neighborhood #29 (wednesday drive) I was born into a car culture. Growing up and living in the suburbs of Texas (well anywhere in Texas, really) I couldn't wait until I was 16 and would be able to drive around. Because it was difficult to get anywhere without a car, so we think. I grew up my entire life living blocks from grocery stores, and I could count the times I have walked to them on my fingers. We need to drive those two blocks...we need to drive to the fast food restaurant...we need to drive to the park to exercise...we need to drivewehavetodrivewealwaysdriveeverywhere. Of course the reason we think this is because we have space to grow; always around me new streets are being paved, new houses and stores built, and new neighborhoods created. It's crazy how much concrete surounds me. Concrete and landscaped grass. The cities I call home here in the Metroplex are always expanding, always changing face. Sometimes I think about it and it's pretty cool, sort of a manifest destiny of idealism and growth. Other times I think about it and it grosses me out...I mean it can be truly sickening.
But I digress. The point here is that I drive everywhere. Everyone I know drives everywhere. We are reliant on driving. Everywhere. Everyday. I can't count the hours spent in my car; it's unfathomable. So it would make some sense that sometimes when I need to think I hit the road. I might never leave the city limits, but I head out for a while. I like the process, I like staring at people, I like mentally photographing what I see everywhere around me.

This afternoon I took a drive through the city. I don't know if it was the autumn colors, the crisp air coming through my window, the jazz coming from KTCU, divine intervention, traffic, or something else entirely, but it kind of worked. My mind this week has been everywhere but where it needed to be. My eyes have constantly been flashing in between screens, my mind missing what was important (what needed to be thought about). I just needed to not think about anything...no lack of job, no apartment yet in Providence, no money worries or gift issues, no current events or tragedies or joys. Just clear the air, soak in the changing neighborhoods, the kids leaving schools, the patients outside hospitals, the window painters downtown, the college students doing the same thing I was a few months earlier. In these days of transition and uncertainty, as the fears of the real world plague my thoughts, I took a drive to try and forget it all, re-focus, and come back at it all from another direction. And it kind of worked...until I came home and went back to the computer. And the TV. Shit.  ¶ 11/30/2005 05:50:00 PM 2 comments

  show me how the piggies eat! It's cold out finally, and maybe it might actually remain this way (ha! I bet 80 by the weekend, dammit). Regardless, I need a kickstart for this holiday season, b/c I've already spent too much time among the huddled masses at Target and it just ain't cutting it. So is there any better way to do so than by indulging in A Christmas Story? I doubt it. In fact, I bet you can't find a better cure for the Post-Thanksgiving blues. Go ahead, try. I tripple dog dare you.

Oh and I saw an ad in the paper this weekend for A Christmas Story action figures. Fudgein 'a man.  ¶ 11/28/2005 09:46:00 PM 2 comments

    ¶ 11/25/2005 02:24:00 PM 2 comments

  Sounds like I found a place to live in Providence (I chose 'sounds' because I'm agreeing to love there sight unseen). I won't start working until the end of January but I plan on moving up sometime after the first of the year. Cool.

Happy Thanksgiving.

UPDATE 11:50 Wed. 11/23 Sounds like my place fell through this morning. I jinxed it I guess. Damnation! Back to Craigslist it is.  ¶ 11/22/2005 10:43:00 PM 2 comments

  click the picture to make it larger. click the 'X' in the corner to make it all disappear. More often than not, when I hit the NEXT BLOG>> button up in the toolbar to read others' blogs I find there are many, many blogs written in Spanish. Other languages, too but Spanish seems to have a majority.
Here are some pictures I've taken around my neighborhood over the weekend. I have lately been looking at everything wishing I could take a picture of it all and remember the scene forever. Nothing else but how it looks. Not really how it feels, but just how it appears. But isn't that just our culture anyways? How it/we appear is all that really counts.  ¶ 11/20/2005 08:56:00 PM 1 comments

  "the highway kind." Friday I had a bi-polar day. I can't explain it really, just somewhere around the late morning I suddenly realized that I was in a sour mood, and somewhat depressed. I have no idea what triggered the surge of emotion, if anything at all, but the remainder of the day was spent drained of energy and emotion and, well, feeling. I felt as if I were just existing, nothing more, and certainly nothing less.
Around sundown I drove up to Denton for the night. I met Mike at his new place ("shitty apartment" as it was described to me several times during the directions there) and we grabbed some dinner and caught up. Afterwards with absolutely no motivation between the two of us we sat through an hour of Friends and the first part of Matrix:Reloaded (his television only picked up TBS) all the while discussing everything from racism in America to artificial intelligence to the current world's energy crisis and the potentials/necessaries of a coming pandemic. In the other room his roommate was breaking up with his 'girlfriend' of the month. We then decided to head out and grab some beer. More or less completely ignoring his roommates' invitation to some random parties (again, a lack of motivation between the two of us to take the energy to go to someone's...hell I'm boring myself even typing about it) we threw in Boondock Saints because I had never seen it and everyone I know has told me I needed to. Halfway through my second beer I cut myself off when I realized I was tired from awaking at 8am to wait for a plumber appointment--scheduled 8-12--who subsequently showed up at 11:56.

Driving South out of Denton on I-35W one finds themselves surrounded by mild hills. Nevertheless there is beauty in the night. Undeniably beauty in the stars and the shadows. Coming across my radio as I drove past the rises in the land was the accoustic sound of musicians covering the haunting Townes Van Zandt. Looking out my windows, listening to the music my hair began to stand on end. Suddenly I was in New Mexico. Red River, with Julie and Kevin three or four years ago. And it was cold, and it was early morning, and we were surrounded by snowy hills. But no--that wasn't right. That time was only once. That's not my New Mexico. My mind blinks and I'm in Ruidoso, among the hills of Alto and Sierra Blanco, and I'm young. I can smell the pines; I can feel the cool, crisp wind against my skin. I am 10, 12, 14, 18 years old staring out from my grandparents house, from their deck that faces the tall mountain to the East. Ignorant and naiive; beautiful and imaginative. I am with family, I am all alone. My mind is flooded with memories of joy and happiness that filled my youth and my countless visits to the hills of southern New Mexico. My soul explodes in feelings of bitersweet longing to return to what no longer exists. I am reminded of feelings I have forgotten to experience for a long time; I am reminded of sleepless nights feeling the ghosts of Billy the Kid and other rustler spirits' wandering the woods outside my bedroom window. I was often frightened of what I wasn't sure then existed in the night sky. It was always so quiet there at night; quiet in the daytime, too--but at least then I could see. I could see the endless pines, stretching off to the distance in all directions. I could see the wind as it made its way through the hills and valleys, blowing needles onto the ground...
The music ends as I approach the outer banks of the Metroplex. Suddenly I am surrounded by suburban lights; urban sprawl captures me and neon forever expands to the East, West, and South. I am no longer accoustic, in the hills of my youth; I am in the concrete plains where I also grew up. The concrete that I long to forget and that I know I never will. So we scan the music to find an appropriate soundtrack and...oh yes, The Colour and the Shape. How perfect. I immerse myself in the music as I drown down the stretch of road outside my windows that I have driven hundreds--possibly thousands--of times. I think back on the day almost ended. As the clock strikes midnight 'My Hero' comes forward into the space around me. Making my exit from the freeway I slow down, now just a few miles from home. Over and over in my head I hear the words of the song echoing, "...He's ordinary...he's ordinary."  ¶ 11/19/2005 01:11:00 AM 1 comments

  twelve candles
Okay. In celebration of my half-birthday which is a few days away on Nov. 26, maybe I should take a moment to look at the first half of Chapter 23 and see where I am currently. As you can see, for clarification there has been some minor adjustments made to the map from my opening statements.

In the beginning I was finishing up college in Denton, TX (Black X) and had decided to join the Peace Corps after graduation. Graduation of course was contingent on my completion of an internship, which I had not yet secured in April. Nevertheless I believed (as it did turn out to be) that I would complete this internship over the Summer in Grand Cayman (blue arrow). For the Peace Corps I had requested being located in Africa or Eastern Europe (red arrows). However shortly after I had applied I received word that I had been assigned to potentially be sent to the Caribbean (blue arrow again). Summer ended and I graduated in August, returning home to the U.S at the end of that month. Ever since then I have been living in Fort Worth with the expectation that I would be leaving for the Peace Corps at then end of January. Starting at the end of October I received word that I would not be leaving for the Peace Corps in January as expected, and that my only option would be to wait and see if the Caribbean program would be open again at the next time of departure, which would be June or July. Feeling as if that were a long time to put my life on hold for a possibility, when there are so many important others out there, I began looking for other options. Within a few weeks my direction had changed dramatically, and I was discovered and subsequently was offered and accepted an AmeriCorps* VISTA position in Rhode Island, starting...when else but the end of January. So instead of leaving for the far off reaches of the world next year I find myself leaving for a completely unexpected destination, Providence Rhode Island (yellow arrow). (Note...for those of you out there still asking me where Rhode Island is, c'mon folks. Learn your geography! But because Josh loves you, here's a start). I know nothing about Providence, I know no one there. My only experience with the city is turning my head right to glance at it as I passed by once on I-95S from Boston to NYC...and maybe an episode or two of that show Providence with the CSI-NY girl and Honeycutt from M*A*S*H*. But then again, I knew no one or nothing about any of the places I applied to go to for the Peace Corps. So they're not too far apart from one another.

Now, as for this blog, it's definitely not been what I thought it would be. There has been a lot of rambling, complaining, and observations that I have endlessly commented about on this strange year of mine. And that being said, it hasn't all been my best side that has shown. Still as I sit here on the floor of my house typing and bouncing a raquetball off the wall (sorry Mom), Green Day blaring in the other room, I am still trying to figure out where I am headed. Having a geographical destination makes a world of a difference (no pun intended). But unfortunately as I pain to admit it, geography is more than just a location on a map. And as for all this talk about maps, they come in more than just what cartographers prescribe to us. I find that they come in the form of the people you meet, the books you read, the media you watch or listen to, the God/Spirit we chose or chose not to acknowledge. Our directions stem from these different map forms. I knock on people for not knowing their geography, but the same people I say these things about know more than I do when it comes to life directions stemming from elsewhere.

So I'm halfway through year 23 of my life. What do I know? The answer is far overshadowed by what I don't know. However, I am realizing everyday that I know a lot more than I acknowledge to myself. As I prepare to start out on a totally new adventure in my life I am realizing that over the past few years as I have learned so much I have also forgotten much of what I know from growing up. Lately I've been making New Years resolutions with myself everyday.

Over the course of this year I became an X-Files junkie. It started when my afternoon dinner hour just happened to coincide with the time that the show was being shown in reruns and soon carried over to late nights coming home from work and being brain dead (so to speak) and watching marathons on TNT. Since the beginning of the year I've just about seen every episode of the show. So what is the truth? Well that's for us all to find out on our own. Nevertheless we must always remember, no matter what chapter of life we find ourselves in, that the truth is out there. All we have to do is keep searching everywhere, in everything we do, and never lose hope.

(thanks to Google and Peter Janes for help figuring out my half-birthday. Figure out yours here.)  ¶ 11/16/2005 02:27:00 PM 3 comments

 

































I've been posting more pictures on here lately. I guess I just feel like photographs say more about my life right now than words can. Or at least words I am willing to actually admit to myself and write down. Yeah I don't really know what that means either.

I've been trying to find a place to live in Providence. I have a few prospects, some I think I could be serious on. It would be a whole heck of a lot easier however if I could somehow manage to spend a few days there. Not too easy when you're 1800 miles away. I'm sure something will work out. I have charm, I'm sure people wouldn;t mind renting their place to me sight unseen. Actually most people I've been talking to seriously are current or former AmeriCorps* volunteers. Community yo. I might be growing up and actually become a part of one again.  ¶ 11/14/2005 04:45:00 PM 6 comments

  Don't like the direction you are going to? Hey yo. I was offered the VISTA position in Rhode Island! I don't know what I'm more excited about: having a direction in life, having a job, moving to a cooler (temp.-wise) state, or any number of exciting things that this means. Oh, so I'm taking the job. Starts in January. Now it's time to start scouring Craigslist and finding a place to live. Oh boy. Craigslist...there be people puttin' some crazy stuff up on dere.

I know, I know, some of you are saying: "What could possibly be in Rhode Island?" Oh I don't know:

If all Rhode Islanders are like this, I think I'm going to be juuuuuuussssssssst fine. Now everyone: Rock...Rock Lobster.

  ¶ 11/09/2005 06:55:00 PM 5 comments

  Canis Diabolus/"Hope." This morning when I went out to get in my car upon opening the driver side door I found a dog resting in between the front of the car and the garage door. (At the house we have a detatched garage.) This caught me off guard, finding a dog there, because A) Obviously we don't own a dog and also B) Our driveway has a gate, which was closed. Sure the fence in between us and our neighbors is a gate that I suppose a dog if he tried hard enough could squeeze through, but this was a pretty big fella.
Anyways, our eyes met, mine full of surprise, his seemed full of emptiness and fear. I knelt down to try and get him to come over but instead he turned and started around the garage. I followed, noticing he didn't have a collar on. As I came closer he moved faster, moving around the building. I doubled back and moved to the other side. We met again, about ten feet away from each other, and again he looked into my eyes, and I his, and what I saw was pretty erie. He turned and started back the other way, and I followed suit, only to never see him again. The dog just dissapeared. I looked everywhere, even out into the front yard to see if he had made his way out the now open gate and down the street. But I never saw that strange dog again. It seemed as if he just...vanished.

I have another interview with the Volunteer Center of Rhode Island on Wednesday morning. Very cool. I really hope this works out. It seems like it would be a really great opportunity. Really. I also heard back from another application I submitted, the job in Colorado. Different, yet pretty similar personal feelings about that one as well. So, here goes...
No Really.

  ¶ 11/07/2005 09:42:00 PM 4 comments