Toxic and timeless

You write prose once and then it's done.

You write a song and you can sing it over and over forever; each time it's different and new.

Why doesn't everyone just sing?

Why do I know how to write sentences, but I don't know how to compose verse?

I think I quite grandly screwed up when I was learning my particular skill set.

My brother went to school and became an artist. I went to school and learned to be an architect of bits. When we were young, we both liked computers, we both liked to draw. As he became a teenager, the drawing won out; for me, well, you can guess. Could it have gone the other way? I think it could. It has a lot to do with our upbringing.

It's late, and I can't articulate the differences between my brother and me. I spend a lot of time thinking about it, though. Sometimes I wish I were more like him; I wonder if he ever thinks that about me.

Together we're formidable. With our father, we're unstoppable. With our mother, we're solid as a mountain.

I suppose that makes me lucky.

But we're all planning to meet

I looked at the government's 'travel' website today and learned what it would take to get a US passport.

Really, it's not so bad. I could do it tomorrow.

I see the next year or so going like this:

1. May 15 - Talk to my boss about my career path with respect to our company. More specifically, what I'm going to be doing there in the future, and how much I'm going to be paid to do it. Shortly I won't be able to afford to maintain my current standard of living on my present salary because...

2. September 1 - Move into an apartment of my own in Cambridge. I've decided I need to live by myself; it's just something I need to do at this point. I've been reliant on having other people around for so long, the next step is honestly to learn to rely on myself more.

3. Sometime in 2008: Well... I'm still figuring that out, but I'm starting to believe that the best thing for me to do at this point in my life would be to try out some new places. And I don't mean Cambridge vs. Brighton.

We'll see.

all alone at a table of friends

It's been a long time.

A lot has happened. I'm not sure if it has ended up for the better or what. It's certainly more complicated.

I guess I may end up living alone starting September. I'm not sure how I feel about that. My other housing options don't seem to really be going anywhere, as far as I can tell.

I want to move closer to work. That means my rent goes up by about $500 a month, if not more, if I want to live somewhere I'd want to live.

Life keeps moving. People pair off and go in different directions. This apartment seems to be our last shot at all living together, and we're all already prepared to move on. We were the day we moved in.

I guess that's what happens.

I'm mentally preparing myself to be a bachelor at large. It's odd how we end up in these unexpected states.

It's funny how many of the things you thought you valued and thought were cool when you were younger, it turns out, drive you nuts when you get older. It all seems so incredibly lame. So annoying. So trite and cheap.

It turns out that I'm not quite who I thought I was, and the things I always thought I cared about, I don't much care for at all. It leaves you staring at new meaning. Or at least staring at the old meaning wondering how you could have cared.

My goals are changing, somehow, and I can't really tell exactly what the difference is. I think I expect more, which is sort of crazy, because I already expected a lot.

I want to put myself someplace I'm not comfortable. Or someplace where I have to start over. This seems to be my theme lately.

Wanderlust

So when I went to school, I chose a practical career. Granted, it's one I enjoy.

There's some things that go along with that, though. Ten hour work days, commutes, being tied down, steady income, thankfulness for eventless weekends, mumbling in the kitchen at 7:30 pm trying to figure out what to throw together to eat, alarm clocks, getting ready for work in the morning, trying to find time to get some errands done, having errands and calling them such, buying clothes at least in part so that you'll be presentable at your company, having a company and describing yourself as working at such, using the term coworkers and forgetting about the social meaning of a bunch of people laboring together for the man.

I'm twenty four years old.

If I were to quit this job and all the things mentioned in that paragraph, leave this place and disappear for two years, when I came back I'd be twenty six. I'd still be a baby. This, really, has me wondering what I ought to do with those two years, since I seem to have them. A few options:

1. Go back to school for more computer science and software engineering.
2. Go back to music school.
3. Go back to art school.
4. Go volunteer somewhere.
5. Go get a job somewhere I don't really speak the language (Japan being a prime candidate, seeing as I'm at least already learning the language).

There are problems. I don't have a portfolio or anything of any sort for #2 and #3. For the others, well, so maybe those are the main problems. They're also the most fun sounding. All five, honestly, sound great. I enjoy what I'm up to, but I often wish that I had more control over what I do with my time. School would be good for that.

It's a matter of feeling like I'm accomplishing something in my time off. This works best if I have more time off, or am in a position where I can't help but learn something when at rest (re: Nihon).

I feel sort of like something has to give, soon.

Never Play Poker

My English teacher in my senior year of high school wrote in my yearbook.

He's a flamingly gay man who would hang little ornaments from his handlebar mustache around Christmas time. He is fearless and observant, and amongst other things, he wrote in my yearbook, "I could always tell how you're feeling by the look on your face; never play poker."

In the years since I've thought about that frequently. I've always thought that he misjudged me, in that I don't think he ever saw how I play the pokers of life. But perhaps he's correct, after a fashion. Don't play poker, David, because you wear your heart on your sleeve.

Today I was called extroverted. Really extroverted. I suppose I've become that way; I suppose it makes sense. My problems don't get internalized unless I'm afraid they're going to hurt someone. And even then, they're only hidden from the people they'd hurt. When I'm happy I act it. When I have something on my mind, I find someone to talk to about it. My thoughts are all out there in the world, being stored in some sort of human network between my friends and family.

I try to be fair. I try to only put things on people I know are willing and glad to accept them. I'd certainly do the same for them in an instant, because externalizing your thoughts also means you want to store some of other peoples' as well. This isn't gossip - it's empathy, joint problem solving, shared joy, philosophizing.

Some people don't work this way, certainly. I become frustrated with them when they close up and honored when they share a piece of their lives. Thoughts are a gift, a sign of affection, closeness and trust. The people I get along with best are open in this way. They provide and accept thought and desire, worry and fear, with grace and caring.

Internalization happens when it becomes clear that bringing something out into the open will hurt a person I care about, and, of course, this is something that happens frequently with big things and small. I'm not a gossip. I keep peoples' secrets and cherish them. Freedom of information, for lack of a better term, certainly only works when tempered by an appropriate amount of nondisclosure. Life, unfortunately, often means knowing when to keep your mouth shut.

And so, my teacher, unfortunately your observation is half the picture, as it necessarily must be. As much as I might appreciate thought and information, I appreciate my friends, family, and causes more. If I know something that might endanger or upset them with its careless enunciation into the open air, you will never find it out by looking at my face or asking me to answer questions.

Often it's difficult to tell which is the appropriate thing to do, and when that happens you'll find me at my most uncomfortable. The ambiguity of the decision doesn't change the consequences of making the wrong one.

So maybe he's right, and I shouldn't play poker.

Probably, though, it's because I'm just not crazy about the game.

Lost in Cambridge

I think I need a place to speak. I'm not sure about what. I need to keep writing something. I had the realization the other day that I hadn't written a piece of fiction in at least a year. That sort of thing has just ceased to be a part of my life. I'm becoming more and more of a kaishain in life than anything else; I spend from 7:30 am until 7:00 pm dealing with my work life as an employee. I have four hours to myself at night.

Even that time is being usurped; Tuesday nights are now game development night. Wednesday it's cards. Thursday it's Japanese. What do I do anymore? I'm ceasing to be more than the sum of the activities my environment imposes upon me.

There was a time when I wrote down my thoughts on life. On politics. On technology. On everything. There was a time when I encapsulated all that into little worlds, one at a time. There was a time when I enjoyed screwing with language just to see if I could. There was a time when I wrote just to write.

There was a time when I had things to say. I seem to have lost them, though, somewhere between home and Cambridge.

Maybe it's time to draw a map.