Kiss and Tell

With contrived acquaintance

Comes Isolation's content

Though carefully desired

Convictions are bent.

Indiscreet and improbable

Oh Notch that I've carved

Has crowned this Noble

And has us thus scarred.

A mutual chase

Unknown to the knees

Who's predisposition reveals

An inherent displease.

Doubt dutifully stored

Thy may be benign

Yet through whispers of love

Thy may be divined.

Invite the Pedestal

Despite the conceit

You may know truth

I subsist on Defeat.

It's a Wonderful Time of Year

This week has been packed with excitement and I'm not just talking about the produce.

First and foremost Halloween, a favorite U.S. tradition, was responsible for three consecutive nights of insobriety and merriment (not to mention sugar). Turns out the Sunday date made it better instead of worse. I was impressed with the costume turn out. Way to be creative America.

Secondly, The Giants won the World Series. To put this into perspective I am a fair weather baseball fan however, I am a consistent Texas hater. Therefore the glory brought to California at the expense of Texas was pure joy. Hell Yes.

Thirdly, I voted today. You should too. Just make sure you know what the hell you are voting for. I would be a hypocrite if I claimed that I voted on all measures. As citizens it is as much our responsibility to vote on issues as it is to refrain when we are ignorant. I keep trying to encourage people to put in their say, but always with this as a disclaimer. At any rate, elections are always exciting.

And finally, the produce (how could I resist). I think this is self-explanatory.

Yes indeed it is a wonderful time of year.

Artificial Intimacy

To my mothers disgust and my father's pride, I favor the greyhound when traveling to and from school. Though the utilitarian benefits are an undeniable lure, it is the people who make it the obvious choice for me. Around a third of my travels feature a fascinating seat-mate and one-of-a-kind conversation. If you ask me, that is an impressive hit rate. I am constantly searching for people to share their worldly perspective with me, and it turns out people without enough wealth to back up their pretension are easier to coax wisdom from (I'm sure the extensive travel time doesn't hurt either). The trick to getting past superficial chat is a quietly probing question. As long as you don't show too much interest they assume your conversation is just a way to pass the time. Without the worry of ties you can fleetingly become their confidant. Though your stories may be fabricated, whatever you say reinvents truth. Both truth and morals are flexible in this temporary world. Sometimes I hear myself define morality differently from my own so I can more easily identify with the person I'm talking too or understand where their morals lie. 

One of my recent companions inspired me to make this into a post. He was around my age and on his way to Monterey without money, phone, or people. It was hard to get past the smell he greeted me with, a combination of dirty hair and cigarettes, but he was very interested in the music I had in my CD player which was distraction enough for me. As we ambled into conversation, I found him to be unusually articulate. He explained how he had bought his ticket with his reserve money and was hoping to find work and shelter (I mentally checked where my wallet was stored). Apparently his parents were missionaries in Thailand and he had only been in the states for a matter of years. We stopped and compared our religious doctrines and they lined up suprisingly well even though I'd call him more idealistic than myself. He kept explaining how he was just going from place to place till he found what he was looking for (love from what I gathered). He was wildly obsessed with imagination and animatedly told me about his internal adventures. Initially he toyed with drugs and thus became enraptured with his thoughts but apparently his new focus was living in elevated consciousness from which drugs were a distraction. From there we plugged into Radiohead's Kid A and let the music take us both close to one another and yet painfully far from humanity. The dark bus plowed on toward my home, his new life, and our seperation. 


When the album came to a close we quietly discussed the emotion and experience of our listen. I mused, "Our age group is the most open-minded. I have accepted that despite any efforts, my experiences will form into less flexible opinions. That's why I am in such a rush to thoroughly examine all sides of every life question." He paused, considered then plainly stated, "Is it okay if I kiss you?" Taken aback, I brushed him off, too confused to decide.


Breaking the heavy silence, I asked him had he ever been in love. "Once," he replied. Curious I inquired further. After much deliberation he decided to tell me the tragedy of His Girl. 


He began cleaning up his life when she informed him that she was pregnant with his child. Excitedly, he prepared for their life together as a family. One night her mother called him to say she and his unborn child had been killed in a car accident. From there he dove further into drugs and contemplated suicide. In tears he explained, "I wanted to kill myself but my instinct for self preservation prevented me from following her." He then tried to re-mold his life after this experience with a painful desire to explore what it meant to be alive. Though his hope kept him going he was eternally afraid that she always would be the only love of his life.


We talked awhile longer about our deep insecurities, it's strange how easy it was to rawly lay everything out for him. After we had poured everything out, we fell asleep arm to arm. As I drifted off I thought to myself that I could love him.


An announcement woke us declaring his stop to be upon us. With a fleeting goodbye, he carried himself and his only belongings off the bus to an unknowable and separate new life.

A Time for Kool-Aid

I grew up idolizing Weird Al Yankovic for his proud jab at conformity. It was romantic and rebellious, exactly the sort of cause every preteen searches for. My friends and I continued to design a sort of cult around him and took it upon ourselves to actively stand out. We took pride in our work and responded to the label "weird" with a flattered blush. 

Seven years after our hay-day, I went to revisit our doctrine. Some part of the ignorant idealism is still attractive to me. Over these past years I have been seeking temperance. My philosophy holds open-mindedness as most sacred, and somewhere along the line I lost the edge and aggression that comes with knowing what you stand for. Generally this was a healthy and needed shift of mind, but it still leaves me seeming weak and conviction-less. Clearly defining what I stand for could benefit me even if it makes me less diplomatic. I can deal with being wrong as long as people respect my opinion. Creating a foundation of views is a good starting point, it can always be built upon and improved with the help of collaborators.

Despite my desire to become a more confrontational individual, I want to give a brief defense for conformity:

At some level we all acquiesce to society's will. It is the only way to keep order and an identifiable culture. The pressure to fit is always under harsh scrutiny by intellectuals but their constant criticism comes across as a rejection of humanity. The desire to be part of a group is basic human nature and with good reason. Back in my rebellious days, we antagonized people to the point of losing their respect. We even lost a group member who found our actions to be too embarrassing in the face of public opinion. Sensitivity to others allows us to work together to a communal benefit. If we lose sight of society we can easily be written off as mentally compromised which prevents others from valuing what we have to say not to mention the emotional difficulties of social rejection. If we understand and respect the bounds of culture others are more inclined to listen to us because they have an easier time relating to our ideals and rationale.

Fitting in is important to our success. I know most people have this internalized but bringing it to the surface helps us understand why we tend toward the herd mentality. Next time you scold yourself for following the crowd, take a step back and make sure you are acting against your values before you are too harsh with yourself. As long as we stand by our ideology when it comes to bear, it is useful to accept our conformism.

Origins of Idledom

I have always wanted to coin my own word. Even though I'm not the first to invent "Idledom" according to Google, I have adopted it and am determined to make it my own. The best part of a made-up word is imposing your will upon it. The flexibility is only limited by its root. I will start narrowing the scope for my Bush-ism with this working definition:


I·dle·dom - [ahyd-l-duhm] noun
1. a proper name for a realm of thought
2. an idle state/place of being


Ideally it refers to my imagined world of ideas. I plan to treat it as a metaphorical kingdom.

Though I am not entirely satisfied, for now I will settle on this definition. I probably just need confirmation from an authority  that this is clever before I will proudly stand by my invention. This seems to be a recurring struggle for me and is a common motivation. After all I am here to please, why else would I bother with something as public as a blog?