Jon Furniss, etc.

I was away this weekend with Joyce. We went to Pennsylvania to visit my family, wish my Grandmother a happy birthday, and just relax and have a good time.

Which we did. We stayed with my sister, who I hadn’t seen in a few months, and who is much, much less insane and much more laid-back than the rest of my extended family who lives in the area. We played a couple games of Scrabble, which my sister won, as always (well almost, I think I’ve beaten her twice. ever.). We also went strawberry picking which I felt was much more like work than anything else, but Joyce and Jules (my sister) both seemed  to enjoy themselves so it wasn’t too terrible, I guess.

Saturday was my mom’s mom’s birthday, so we went there to have dinner. Her new catch phrase is “I’m 85, I can do whatever I want.” I kept responding with “Yes you can Grandma, yes you can.” That was a fairly enjoyable evening. My family wasn’t as crazy as they normally are, and they didn’t scare Joyce (or at least, she won’t admit it).

On Sunday Joyce and I went to Longwood Gardens which was beautiful, as always. It’s a pretty fantastical place, so I recommend that everyone go there. It’s pretty cheap to get in, and if you have student IDs (or say you’re students, they didn’t even check us) then you get in for half off. It’s full of flowers and trees and grass and cacti and all sorts of fauna. It’s beautiful. I might post some pictures if I ever get around to stealing them from Joyce.

Then Sunday night we came home. I come home to find my father and mother on the porch talking to some people from down the street that I’ve never met before. Apparently, on Friday night, a drunk kid hopped the fence behind our house and my dad went out to tell him to get off of our property. This kid then tackled my father in the middle of the street and proceeded to start hitting him, as like twenty other kids were gathered around. My dad didn’t hit him back, because… I’m not really sure why, but he didn’t. Now my dad is in pretty good shape, I know that he could toss me if he wanted to, so this kid wasn’t really hurting him this much. My dad actually said he was laughing when the kid started hitting him in the abdomen because he couldn’t even feel it.

Then one of the kids who lives across the street from us and his friends pulled this guy off of my dad. They then proceded to form a wall between my father and him and tell the kid to leave. They wouldn’t tell me dad who he was or let him see him. So I’m kind of upset that I wasn’t there Friday night to go out and kick this kid in the face a few times because my dad wasn’t willing to.

Then I wake up this morning and my mom tells me that our diagonal neighbor across the street said that there were kids at the bottom of our driveway last night drinking and yelling “Come out Mother Fucker!” I wish I had heard that, because I would’ve called the cops. Then gone out with a baseball bat and incited them to come at me.

Oh well.

So I go away for the weekend and Levittown turns into Hempstead… What is the world coming to?

Joyce and I went to see Kung Fu Panda last night.

I was thoroughly impressed.

It was a very fun movie, and even mixed in some neat self-affirmation and Eastern philosohies.

My absolute favorite part though is that in the first two minutes of the movie the word “bodacity” was used. How can things get much better than that?

But in all seriousness, if you like Kung Fu, pandas, CGI, or good movies, go see this. It’s good for the whole family. And from my experience last night, it only made the kids in the theatre squeak with joy and/or fear about four or five times. And those were over pretty quickly.

So go check it out.

Last weekend I was in Philadelphia for the Wizard World comic convention. It was my first convention ever and it was pretty awesome. I loved it. I was able to completely nerd out the whole weekend.

I don’t really know that much about comics (although I plan on getting there, I have a stack of six graphic novels to get through, I’ll get back to you on those), but I am a pretty giant Star Wars nerd, so it was pretty awesome seeing stormtroopers up close and personal.

I went to a couple of the panels with eD!, he liveblogged them over there. I was sitting there trying really hard to listen, but not understanding anything and not getting it at all when the whole audience burst out laughing about something someone said about some obscure character I’ve never heard of. Oh well!

Then there is the Klingon Hunting. Klingon Hunting is the act of hunting down those at comic conventions dressed up as characters from anything (not just Klingons), and it is incredibly fun! We also then came up with a subsect of that called Klingon Hugging, which involved me hugging Klingons. I was able to have a group hug with four stormtroopers, I hugged Darth Vader, Boba Fett, Iron Man, a Transformer, a guy from Gears of War, and possibly some others. Once I obtain all of the pictures and videos from the other people who were with me I will most certainly post them.

We had such an awesome time there that we might be heading to Wizard World in Chicago at the end of this month, but we all have to check our wallets and see what’s going on in that aspect of our lives first.

It’s four AM and I haven’t yet gone to sleep.

Not that I’ve really been trying, but I’m pretty positive that any attempts would have been unsuccessful.

I’m feeling very… something, right now.

Kind of jittery and lost and drifting and confused and worried and wondering and contemplative and all sorts of crazy, but a tiny bit at peace, too.

I finally just went through my night time pre-sleeping ritual and my mouth tastes like toothpaste residue. I love that feeling and that taste.

I don’t know what I’m doing with my life.

More importantly, I don’t even know what I’m doing with the next two weeks of my life.

I plan on putting in my two weeks notice within the next week or so. (I would’ve done it today if I didn’t need that extra week’s pay check…) I have no idea where I’m going from there. I’ll figure it out, I’m sure, I always do, more or less…

Then I have two more years of college and I’ll have a degree and be out on the street begging for scraps. I don’t know how to find a job, or what kind of job to look for, or if I even want a job. I just don’t know.

I don’t even know what I want to do.

Everyone has their dreams and their desired jobs and all that jazz.

Me… I just want to be rich and possibly famous, but mostly just rich. I have no plans on how to get there though. I’d write a novel, but I’m lazy, don’t have any good ideas, and I’m lazy.

When did I become so lazy? When did I become this drifting, procrastinative, empty, lazy, apathetic blob? I used to care, and I used to do it really well. I used to dream, too. I used to have plans. That all culminated in my senior year of high school where instead of applying to all of the school’s that could have gotten me where I wanted to go, or given me the opportunity to do anything, I applied to three schools. Two local and one that I didn’t plan on going to anyway. If I could go back and change that I would. I would be recently home from college right now, seasonally employed somewhere, thousands of dollars in debt and happy with the decisions I had made.

Oh well. The past is the past is the past is the past. It’s so hard to remember that sometimes. We, as humans, pride ourselves on our memory, on our history, on our ability to learn from our mistakes and from others. And then we proceed to repeat them again and again and again and again. I know I do the same stupid things again and again and again, rinse and repeat, minus the rinsing… (”Yeah, I’m going to start saving money now…” “Oh, well, four hundred dollars in Philly over three days, three hundred dollars of video games I don’t need, a few hundred dollars of books and t-shirts won’t be a problem…” “And oh wait, there’s that phone bill, and car insurance, and Brazillian kid you pay thirty bucks a month for.” Go me.)

I just want a sense of purpose and direction and meaning and kick in the ass telling me where to go and what I should do and why I should do it. I want to love with a conviction and reasoning and logic behind it. While all of this “money can’t buy me love,” and “love is all I need” stuff is great, and I too want love with passion and meaning and hot, hot, hot sex. But I also want love with “I know where I’m going with my life so I can stop  being angsty and whiny and grab a hold of myself and just do something.”

I want to do something. I want an adventure. I want to fly to Australia and go on a Walkabout (speaking of which, after watching Lost, I Googled walkabouts and couldn’t really find any, if anyone has any links or information on any, that would be great!). The only problems with such things are mainly money and secondarily “responsiblities.” You have to work to have money to do the things you want, but then you never have time to do the things you want because you’re always at work.

I hope the self-help book(s) I ordered off of Amazon are able to help me actually help myself and make billions of dollars working only fifteen minutes a month. Or not, whatever. I just want. to. do. something. Anything. I don’t care what. If it’s cheap that would be nice. But honestly, whatever. I want to go gather experiences sew them together and fly them as a kite. A really big, bright, obnoxious kite that I can wave in everybody elses’ faces. They can then laugh at me because I have not the slightest clue how to launch a kite…

And I want to know, I want to know everything. I want to know who, what, where, when, how, and why. But I hate to ask questions. There’s me being a jackass again, but not the good kind. I make myself angry for being so stupid and contradictory all of the time. I then get angrier at myself for getting angry at myself. I then make up and become apathetic and unhappily content again. The three of me get along just great. </sarcasm>

I think that’s all for the angsty bitching and moaning and groaning tonight. Maybe tomorrow I’ll go make something of it. Or, the much more likely scenario, I’ll turn off my alarm clock when it goes off, sleep until one, play video games until four thirty, eat, and go to work about ten minutes late.

Look at me, I’m living the American Dream…

Something else that I should do tomorrow that everyone should keep bothering me about is to write about Philadelphia and load up other pictures and any good videos that I might have.

Apparently “no” means “yes,” and “yes” means “I understand that you’re not going to follow through anyway.” I’m not even sure why I said that or where it came from or if it’s even true. Because apparently things don’t even have to be apparent for you to use that word. Really, it’s true. You can say whatever you want whenever you want to and you don’t even have to mean it. They call that “freedom of speech.” But sometimes using that freedom is “treason” and you got shot or hung or electrocuted or lethally injected.

Mathematically speaking, it’s all in the numbers. That and the symbols. The variables also. And the graphs and equations and whatever else they use. You know? I don’t.

I actually don’t know much about anything. I am not an expert. I don’t have a niche. I don’t have expert power. Or any kind of power. Or knowledge. Knowledge is power. I am not knowledgeable. I am not even that good looking. Sex is power too.

If two guys walk into a bar why is that funny? I’m not laughing. And I realize that I am just one person and that the world doesn’t revolve around me. But I am me and my world does revolve around me and I can only see through my eyes and act because of my life experiences. So if you tell me that the world doesn’t revolve around me, I’ll tell you that you’re right and the world revolves around the sun. So what does that have to do with anything anyway?

If I wanted to write a poem about semantics, I probably wouldn’t. I am not as smart as you think I am. I am smarter than I behave. I live down to low standards and I refuse to excel. I am writing because I must. Don’t refuse me because you don’t agree with me. Refuse me because you are passionate about something and I am not that something.

I feel. Sometimes I feel nothing. Sometimes I feel empty. Sometimes I overflow. Sometimes I want to die. Sometimes I want to live. I love. I bleed. I cry. I sweat. I am not a band. I dare you to define me. I will be indifferent to any labels you place upon me unless they match my shoes.

I mix and match the metaphorical with the material and the physical and the spiritual and the mental just trying to make some sense of it all. What is life and what is death and what does it bring and what does it entail and why are they both so damn important anyway? Where are we going and why are we going there and what comes next?

Why do we spend so much time in the past and so much time in the future and so little time in the present? What is life if it is not now?

Then boredom sets in and I wonder again and again “What’s the point?” And again and again no one answers.  And why am I not entertained? Life is beautiful, or so they say, I should be complacent or content or even happy. Boredom, apathy, emptiness, these are a few of my seemingly favorite things. I hate what I am and I wonder why. Why why why?

I want answers. Solutions. I want motivation and passion and compassion. I want to feel. Whether it’s pain or joy or comfort or despair or worry or peace. I want to feel my blood flow through me faster and faster and faster. I want my heart to beat to a rhythm that I can’t quite keep up with. And I want my feet to move like I didn’t know they were capable of to the pounding in my chest.

When I say “my country ‘tis of thee” I want to mean it. But not really. I don’t want to be patriotic or nationalistic, because that’s so silly to be proud of where you were spawned. Be proud of what you’ve done, of what you can control. Sure, I’m glad to live here in the land of the free and whatnot. I’m glad that half of my country hates the other half and can’t agree on anything but still one side isn’t going around killing the other side. I’m glad that there is no genocide or ethnic cleansing. I’m glad that I have the right to do whatever I want to or not do what I want to. Really, but isn’t there something better? Am I a communist? Probably not. A fascist? Nope. I might believe in anarchy, but I’m far too lazy to research it enough. So I tend to ignore politics and want to travel not be proud of my country.

So what’s the common theme? I don’t even know if there is one. Maybe it’s that I don’t know. Maybe it’s that I don’t care. Maybe it’s that I just want to feel something more tangible and real than what it is I am feeling right now.

I am disillusioned and disenfranchised and I don’t have dysentery.

I had spaghetti for almost every single meal this weekend.

I repeat to myself again and again “I am not who I think I am. I am not who I think I am.” until I finally believe it. Then I realize that I don’t even know who exactly it is that I think I am.

Sometimes I have the spaghetti with just parmesan cheese. Sometimes I have it with Catalina salad dressing, orange and tasty, but sometimes the taste is too much and it’s too thick and doesn’t taste good any more. Sometimes I have the spaghetti with pizza or breadsticks. Rarely I’ll have it with sauce. I enjoy spaghetti, but there has to be more to life.

Perhaps I spend too much time thinking about pasta, or eating pasta, or making pasta, perhaps I don’t spend enough. For all I know there is some profoundly simple thing about pasta that will save the world, something deeper, yet more in-your-face than just carbohydrates. I don’t know. I’m just that kid with too many abstract dreams and not enough concrete ideas who’s convinced he’s going to go somewhere as he treads water in a stagnant pool of his own laziness. If it weren’t so terribly depressing and true I would’ve liked that sentence.

And if I were more adventurous I would eat only cupcakes and go parasailing in the Amazon. Who knows, maybe I will someday. Either way, right now I’m on Long Island and sometimes girls tell me that I look like a duck. That used to make me angry, but more and more it just makes me apathetic. I’ve been struggling with myself to fight apathy for about six or seven years now. I’ve said “I’ll do it tomorrow” more times than I’ve thought “I love cupcakes” and I love cupcakes a lot. But if I’m really being completely honest, I’d say I love vanilla cupcakes with vanilla frosting and rainbow sprinkles. And no, I’m not a gay white supremacist. You dive far too deeply into my cupcake preferences.

But when I say “I don’t even like cherries that much” it’s not because they don’t taste good, because they do. It’s partly because I don’t really like their texture and partly because I can’t tie knot from the stem with my tongue.

For me, texture is just as important as taste in a food. If it smells and tastes delicious, but feels gross, or weird, or just not right, then I can’t eat it. But that’s just me and I am just one tiny insignificant speck of human on one tiny insignificant little ball of dirt off on the edge of the galaxy. That little ball of dirt means the world to me, though.

I use too many buts and thoughs. I should use “on the other hand” more. On the other hand, I hate using “on the other hand.” It’s a lose-lose situation and I got both losses, from the trite to the cliché, wondering how many times you have to quote something before you don’t have to put quotes around it any more. “I think, therefore I am,” said someone who existed once.

And why exactly do we say please when we don’t really mean it? Because nine times out of ten we just say it to help ourselves get what we want, not to be polite. So maybe I want to be a writer and I don’t really know the parts of speech or what makes a sentence or what the rules of grammar really are. I don’t write what’s right, I write what feels right. Whether it’s a run-on or it runs off, it get’s left behind in my rampant trail of not editing.

So ask me anything. I’ll answer you either truthfully or not to the best of my ability. Because those days when I don’t feel pretty, and those times when I don’t feel alive, and those moments I want vanilla cupcakes with cherries on top are all moments that I think and therefore am. So take me or leave me or love me or hate me or emote or don’t emote. Wake me up or leave me ensconced in a dream that I won’t remember anyway. Tell me why I won’t succeed and I will tend to agree with you and add on at least ten additional bullet points.

This is me and this is my mind and this is what you’re in for.

but it is not because I am not a beautiful person,
and it is not because I am dangerous and unwholesome.

I don’t even know why she doesn’t approve,
maybe because I can’t put a roof over your head,
or because when we live on the streets we might end up dead,
or because I force rhymes when I’m not really feeling them just to sound more poetic.

When we visited for Christmas
and told her we were Buddhist
She called her priest
and they prayed for us
but apparently the demons didn’t leave
because we were still meditating
and following all eight-folds
at the end of the week
and Jesus didn’t want us to exchange presents
on his imaginary birthday anymore.

Then on Easter
she was surprised we even came
and wondered why we were so eager
to hunt for eggs with the kids
and your sister gave us dirty looks
as we rolled in the dirt
shouting for joy every time
we discovered a brightly colored
candy filled shell

At Thanksgiving she said
“Thank you for my wonderful children”
but she didn’t say thank you for me
and that little part of you
that’s still rebellious at thirty-eight
smiled, because your mother
is still irked by me.

Maybe it’s because she thinks
you lowered your standards
or she feels bad because
she thinks you didn’t raise you right
or maybe I just give off bad vibes

But honestly, none of that matters
I am not beautiful,
but you love me.
You are beautiful,
and I love you.
And it doesn’t really matter
that your mother doesn’t approve of me.

——————————————————————–

And just a quick note, or clarification or something. Since I’m writing for me now you’ll be seeing a lot more random writings of me spilling my heart or just making up stories. I’m not going to just put up the things that I think are good, I’m going to just put up what I think is at least tolerable. And I expect, and want, and even beg for critiques, whether they’re positive or not, let me have it. I want to become a better writer. I want to write things that will make people feel. That’s all I want.

Also, because I’m just going to be putting up whatever, I probably definitely will be writing more.

Also also, I wrote this yesterday while at work, if it makes a difference.

And this is my brand new blog. Hoorah!

I think I said something along the lines of now that school is done I’ll post more. Clearly that hasn’t been true. But it’s still a goal. I also decided that I’m going to stop trying to write what I think everyone else wants to hear and instead just write what I want to write. I figure with 6.5 billion or so people out there, there has to be at least a couple of people out there who actually care about what I think. Or something. Whatever, I don’t care.

So yeah, anyway, school ended. I got a 3.657, which is higher than last semester, and closer and closer to the 4.0 I’d love to have that I’ll probably never get because I’m too lazy. But we’ll see!

Next weekend I’ll be in Philadelphia for a comic convention with eD!. It will be my first comic con ever, and I am uber excited about it, I’ll post stories and pictures and videos and such.

Hmmm, I’m feeling kind of absent minded right now. I’m trying to gather my thoughts into some sort of coherence so I can end this post with some semblance of respect for myself.

I’m planning on designing my own theme for the blog, which is why it’s so plain and default right now. I was going to wait until I had designed it before posting, but then I found out how complicated it is, and how little of an idea I have about how I want it to look. And how I don’t know any CSS or PHP and hardly remember HTML at all. Oh well.

Does anyone want to hire me to do something? Or anything? I’d be more than happy to do… something. I’m planning on departing my current job sometime in the not too distant future. So yeah… That’s all for now.