It Goes On

I am back, very unceremoniously but back none the less. I honestly do not have much to say right now. In the past I was cocky enough to think that my writing was witty or interesting. Even as I write this I realize it seems a bit cocky to think anyone would like reading this entry but fuck it. In the last year I have had my ass handed to me by life. No direction and a severe feeling of emptiness and being stuck. I live constantly on the brink of breaking down and giving up, barely enough energy to get dressed in the morning. Through this all though I keep the hope that something good will happen. As Robert Frost once said "In three words I can sum up everything I have ever learned about life...It Goes On"

Sometimes whether we want it to or not..life goes on and it can only get better....I think.

Nice Blogs Finish Last

I guess the major question for anyone who logistically wants to write a blog and have it be popular is can you write something interesting everyday for months on end? In a world where everything moves fast so the scene girl with a sidekick, a twitter, a blog, and a half naked profile picture on facebook can update every last one of those things before you can even start to hate her, its very hard to keep anyone's attention for 2 seconds.

However, for whatever fucked up reason people like to read about the mundane lives of other sad souls from every walk of life. Anyone from a washed up writer to a preteen girl can have a blog that generates reader after reader to laugh at it or sympathize with it. Anyone can have a blog that is successful but in the end who really gives a fuck. 50 years from now no one will care about what you think about Obama and no one will care about this fucking entry.

Later,
Andrew

Drug Induced Similarites

The Pink Floyd "Wish You Were Here" vinyl is spinning behind me, Shine On Parts 1-5, a 70's machine played through a 21st century surround sound system. Just trying to keep a grasp on the past it seems. As a society we cannot just seem to let go of the fucking spinning disk and its lower sound quality. However, at some point a thing get so old and by the wayside that it becomes cool again. As a bunch of grunge and pop loving, raised in the 90's on anything from Nirvana to Hanson kids are proceeding into their live free, die young 20's, vinyl is back on the shelf. New record players are being produced and the pot smoking hippie infused generation of the 40 somethings who were raised in the 70's, can now join the pot smoking hippie infused 20 somethings as the only vinyl lovers still around.

Growing up through the 90's and into today (almost 2010, holy fuck) there was always this feeling of connection to that group of kids that grew up in the 70's, from clothes to music, examples, Dazed and Confused and That 70's Show. We wanted to be them and they just wanted us to do our fucking homework now that they are 40 and our parents. Everything seemed so fucking cool back then, nothing like the 80's where all the drugs from the 70's backfired and some dumbass introduced coke to everyone making way too much money. Kids were finally being kids, slacking off, smoking pot while listening to the guitar solo from Comfortably Numb in their parents basement. They dressed different, they acted different, and they grew up different. As a kid and now a semi-adult, going back and growing up in the 70's probably wouldn't of been much different than the 90's. No Spice Girls or one hit wonder techno but the fact remains that a 40 something can sit in a room while a vinyl spins out the opening to Led Zeppelin's "Over the Hills and Far Away", and get the same feeling as a 20 something when he throws on his ipod to the opening of "Come As You Are", they would feel like they owned those years.

Another month I drowned away

FUCK!!

It has been a month since I last blogged. Either A. I am a lazy piece of shit or B. I am a forgetful piece of shit.

I assume its a combination of both. I am like 95% percent sure of this.

I spent 4 days at Amherst this week and it taught me one thing...sometimes you just have to get in the car with some strangers and listen to The Island: Come and See

Yours Truly

Wanting to Leave Only to Return

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When I got back from my 3 week trip to Montana I said to myself and Dale (who was with me at the time) that I was retiring from hiking for a year. I guess I considered hiking and going on treks sort of a job in the same sense a baseball player considers baseball their job. For a while it was defining me as a person. I was always just living until the next hike. Thinking back on it I believe it was a much more relaxed and logical way to live. Instead of always being worried about what is happening and if your life is going the way it "should" you are focused on what is coming up and the times ahead. It is much easier to live in the moment and be content with things you cant control. I have not gone on a large trek in a while and I am beginning to feel that pressure to make things the way I imagine they should be. This is very often how you mess things up. So soon enough I would like to get away from everything this way I will want to return again.

Goodbye,
Andrew

I Thought You Were A Lifesize Paper Doll

"But whether it be dream or truth, to do well is what matters. If it be truth, for truth's sake. If not, then to gain friends for the time when we awaken."

Rarely do we realize how little control we have over those around us. We imagine, because we spend much time with ourselves, that we are the point from which all things stem. On those rare occasions where we step back we understand that we are just the opposite. We have the ability to be the beginning, middle, or end for anyone. The quote above by the dramatist Pedro Calderon de la Barca states the only thing we are is a variable. Most of the time we are in dream which is visible, isolated, brief with no actual beginning, middle, or end. During this time our goal should be to do well because when we do awake and things do stem from us we will have the people and knowledge we need to live up to our own self image. We have control over ourselves and to us everyone else is a variable. To them we are the variable. I believe we should make the best at being a variable for whoever is out there wondering why they cannot control us. For every variable needs a constant. This way maybe when we awaken all that crazy dream stuff may be real.

I thought you were a lifesize paper doll but then wouldn't we all be dolls?

Hi, How Are You? Part 2

How much do we hide from people on a daily basis? A few times a day I will be asked by either a stranger, acquaintance, or a close friend how are you? It seems no matter what the situation that day may be or how I actually am that the response is always some form of the word good. Very rarely do any of us respond to the question how are you? with some form of the word bad. As we grow further and further away from family I feel that no one knows us inside and out anymore. This may be why people take so much effort in choosing a mate for life. Not because of evolutionary need to reproduce but the newly developed need to have someone know us through and through. Subtly we are hiding bits and pieces of ourselves everyday even though there are people out there who we don't talk to anymore who know us well. Somehow we pretend that hiding parts of ourselves will protect us from losing ourselves to other people. My question is why.

I realized today how much "stuff" I have. Whether it be computer parts, books, movies, posters, or clothes I realized there is a lot of it. I am not sure what my life would be without all this "stuff". In a way I think we are defined by our "stuff" because it is solid hold in your hand memories, like a book you read as a child or an old t shirt. We connect "stuff" with people, some who may not be around anymore, and through this we can piece our lives together. Its funny how much you could look at my stuff and learn almost nothing yet I can look at it and see my entire life. This is why yard sales are so interesting because you are buying other peoples "stuff", you are buying their memories. (For sale: A piece of who I am- $5).

Song of the Day: Your Hand In Mine- Explosions in the Sky

Hoping you are all actually good,
Andrew

And everyday we will write something new

Yesterday was my birthday...I am 20 years old...20 years does not seem like a long time but when I think I am only 3 more of these away from 80 I think god damn...I do not feel older but I know I look older. I have begun to listen to records (vinyls)...and that must add some old points to my tally. I dont feel I know much more then when I was say 15. The world is still round..2+2 =4...girls are still confusing as all hell and I still am not sure what all of this schooling and training means. I can't picture myself in the real world yet people tell me that I am in it. I guess the only thing I have learned in the last 5 years and the only thing being a teenager taught me is that
A. You cannot control 95% of your life.
B. Don't ever be afraid to fail...worst thing you can do is not believe you are doing the right thing.

I am left with questions though as my birthday ends..as I was listening to my new Johnny Flynn album, the song Brown Trout Blues stuck out to me. "Time rolls the back wheels of my mind".."I wonder if I'm doing the best I could"....i guess we can never know we are doing the best we could. How do we judge ourselves as easily as we judge others?

I def. feel I have to get away for a little while...or at least start doing something different. I'm not one to worry about things but I have to make a change. I am going to start with a tattoo..see where it goes from there. I feel like my trip to Montana last summer started something that I never kept going on. So for my birthday I am giving myself a second chance. I hope to blog everyday for a month in an attempt to figure out what is actually going on.

Johnny Flynn and the Sussex Wit

And We Lit the Sky On Fire

When you look up happiness in the dictionary you get three main definitions

1. Characterized by good luck; fortunate.

2. Enjoying, showing, or marked by pleasure, satisfaction, or joy.

3. Being especially well-adapted

When you think about happiness and what it is to obtain it, the third definition seems to be the most appropriate. Luck is not a solid enough basis for a definition and not a very optimistic view of happiness, so it baffles me that this would be the first definition. If you can adapt to the world around you, good or bad, there is nothing stopping you from being happy. Sometimes you just have to accept that this is the way it is, luck or no luck.

I think that this summer I am going to post a smashmymac video in which I take my mac and smash it to pieces. For a number of reasons (most being my fault probably) my mac is barely functioning. The keyboard and mouse both stop working randomly...sometimes together...like just now. At times the screen brightness will go out of control and I will not be able to control it. So the plan is when we (Tim, Dale, Leland, maybe Jim, and I) make it to Texas I am going to grab my camera and smash this piece of shit into pieces.

Tim Kelly and Matt Good brought back lots of fireworks and we set some off at south cape beach. No 14 year old girls were present. Tim got hit by a rogue roman candle blast.
















Next stop Texas

Spring Break or Lack There Of

Could not seem to sleep tonight. This is my second college spring break and for whatever reason this time of the year brings on a lot of change and things to ponder. Which is most likely why sleep is evading me tonight. I guess it is always a time where you begin to think about next year or this summer and what life is going to bring. I have noticed however that no matter what I think or want to happen next life has a way of doing whatever it wants, regardless of my desires. Maybe it is not worth worrying about because in the end your going to do what feels right, and things will fall into place because of that. I have been sitting in bed for about 2 hours, and even though I was really tired earlier I cannot fall asleep. Life has a way of keeping you up sometimes.