Home is a Fire

I’m getting married in 111 days. This is fucking scary. We have a place to live, we have a car, we can even get a fucking cat. But her family is moving country, continent and hemisphere, she’s working just under twice as much as me on top of her study which I don’t have, she’s going to be poor for the first time in her life, she’s having pangs of doubt (which I hear is normal for women about to get married, but while I’m not worried she’ll leave me, it scares the living shit out of me (LIVING SHIT!)), she says I’m not ambitious enough, she says I’ll settle for being poor and that’s not good (apparently), she says she wants me to be happy, she’s stressed, she’s stressed at me, she’s stressed about her family, she’s stressed about her future, she’s stressed about the rest of her goddamn fucking life, she’s really fucking stressed, and I’m her only support.
But what about my support? My best friend has been going out with his girlfriend for four months now and I’ve met her once, and I’ve seen him three times since they started going out. My best friend. The guy I’ve considered the closest thing I’ll ever have to a brother. The guy who considers me the closest thing he’ll have to a brother. The guy with whom I spent seven years talking about nothing but music, girls and booze. The guy I missed most when I moved twenty minutes out of town. I have seen him three times in four months. No wonder I’m fucking losing it.
The people I do see are either not close enough emotionally to dump all this on, or have been dumping their shit on me (which I don’t mind, unless I’m actually upset already) and I’m scared to dump my shit on them. The only person there is is my mum. She’s great and all, but, I don’t know, she’s too similar to me, or something. Or maybe it’s the fact that she’s older, has been through worse (childbirth), and has advice. I don’t really want advice. I know what I need to do. I think I just want someone to listen to me and say “fuck man, that’s messed up! I think it’s crazy that anyone should be dealing with this, but considering how crazy things are, the fact that you haven’t imploded is pretty impressive.” Emotional validation, I guess, is what I’m after.
But in stead, it all comes out in this stream of consciousness blog entry that few people will see. But few people seeing it, is kind of the point of this blog. I started it so I could rant in a public place (that makes a difference for some reason) without feeling like I’m exposing myself to the whole world (or even all of the part of the world that knows me).
The title’s the name of the first song off Death Cab for Cutie’s new album. I put in on as I started writing. It kinda fit I guess. I feel lame for using a song title to title this, but hey, fuckit.

In My Head There is a Room.

Maybe about 3 metres by 4 metres. It is an old room with a few cracks in the walls, one of which is painted a shade of green which is bold, but not too bright (though it is the limier side of the middle). The other walls are painted an off-white. One of these white walls has two old windows with wooden frames that are the same colour as the walls. The paint is peeling off and showing some of the old dark hardwood. The floors are also made from a dark hardwood, though a bit lighter than the window frames. They are smooth and polished, though far from perfectly flat. The windows look out down a green hill, across the city and out to sea, over which a storm is rolling in. It feels good to be inside, even if it is a little colder than what would be completely optimum. In the corner, in front of the left window and adjacent to the green wall is an old desk. To one side is a computer kitted out with editing and audio software. It has been put to the side to not spoil the view from the desk. An old typewriter sites front and centre. It sits without pretense, and is there to be used. It clearly has been used, as shown by the rough stack of paper by the desk lamp, with ideas typed out in detail on them, and the waste paper basket filled with all that didn’t make the grade. In the space between the two windows is a place where artwork is displayed. The art is all original and made by either myself or a close friend and it is changed as required. An easel stands in front of the other window which has a big box of acrylic paint under it. A filing cabinet stands in the corner filled with legal papers and old ideas that, while worthy of being kept, have been deemed to be “just cluttering up the desk”. A large speaker sits next to the filing cabinet, while it’s stereo partner sits at the other end of the same wall. Above the speakers on the walls are shelves filled with books, CDs and movies, except in the middle which has a large television attached to the wall. Below the television is a unit consisting of a record player, radio tuner, and Bluray player. Opposite all this is the green wall, which has many awards and qualifications hanging on it, or sitting on a shelf next to the desk. In the middle of the wall is an old, impossibly comfortable brown couch which is positioned to make a perfect stereo triangle with the speakers. One or two other bits of art also reside there. On the fourth remaining wall, there are two sets of simple stairs, one above the other. The lower set descend into a small room, with guitars, a bass, some amps, microphones and some recording equipment, all pretty arbitrarily placed around the room. The floor is covered in a large salvaged rug, and the walls are just straight red brick. The upper staircase, goes up into a loft above the main room. There are photos stuck the the wall next to the stairs as you go up. The loft is made entirely out of wood, even the pointed ceiling above it. Some cupboards are built in towards the bottom corners of the triangular prism the loft makes, but this hasn’t stopped clothes being strewn all over the low, DIY double bed the lies in the very middle. At the far end, there is a small circular window that looks out over the same view. In front of this is a low bench with a few power points and a gap to the side to have room for a bar fridge. There is a kettle and a toaster, and there is always beer in the fridge for when people come to visit.

I am alone in this room, but I am very happy.

An Email at 1am

It’s been a while since we’ve emailed each other, and what I want to say is too long for offlines.

It’s almost ten past one in the morning and I can’t sleep. I feel like shit, really. I know job stuff went well today and all, but it’s really bugging me that it was you who made it happen and not me. I didn’t want to keep going, at least not straight away, but you went in for me, despite me trying to stop you. I just wanted to get my head together. You’re probably already blaming yourself a bit by now, and I don’t want reading this email to get like that. I dunno, I know you’re just trying to help in the way I said was best, but the fact that you’re more motivated about getting me a job than I am just seems to affirm what everyone’s been saying about me; that I’m lazy and unmotivated. I know you didn’t mean it like that, and I know I’m being stupid, but I just hate that I got an opportunity because of something I was refusing to do and you just went in and did, and that not only did things go well not because of me, but despite me too. The most hurtful thing anyone has ever said to me, and numerous people have said this (I think), is “you’re not trying”. The first few times this was said to me at least, I was already trying really hard. It wasn’t too long before I stopped trying, seeing that my efforts weren’t even registering on the “trying” scale. This mixed in with the fact that I can’t even remember what it’s like to apply for a job that I wouldn’t mind getting and feel like I might actually get makes it hard to keep going with job applications.

I’m sorry, you don’t need to hear this same old bullshit again. I guess I just wanted the satisfaction of feeling like I’d beaten unemployment myself and that’s been taken away from me. I’m sorry I’m so fucked up in the head and I don’t know what will help me.

Sorry.

Obi Wan

[draft from 19 October 2009]

My best buddy Chris hasn’t been so great lately.

Unrequited love’s a bitch. It’s not an uncommon situation he’s in. The girl, young woman, whatever, that he’s in love with is with another guy. Of the same name, oddly enough.

Escape: A Stream of Consciousness.

I’ve always felt like I need to escape from something. As if my mind needed to be freed on a level to which it has not yet been freed. I think it’s this digital mindset. Everything inside this little white machine. It all exists in there. All my creativity. All those songs. All those poems. The whole fucking internet. It’s so vast and limitless. And yet I feel trapped by it. I suppose it must be human nature to feel trapped where there is no limits. Life is even more limitless than the internet and yet everyone’s individual distinct lives follow the same old pattern. It doesn’t have to though. If people could give themselves permission to live dangerously and get what they really deeply truly desire from life there would truly be no limits. If you want to be an astronaut then get smart and fit and be an astronaut. Either that or put an ice cream container on your head and make a universe to be in. We live in a vast and potentially infinite universe and yet we trap ourselves in a small corner of it. And in that corner we trap ourselves in another corner of another man-mad universe. The internet. So I guess what I’m trying to say is that I need a new way of thinking. I need to get my head out of the computer and out into the real world. A world of CD players and tape recorders and pens and paper and typewriters and filing cabinets and people who you have to travel to see and telephones and board games and guitars and voices without auto-tune and everything wonderful upon which the contents of the internet were based.

tl;dr. Fuck this, I’m going back to pen and paper.

(not really)

A Quick Look at Chaos Theory

So, I was talking to a friend from the US just now. It was mostly done out of concern as I know things have been piling up for her lately. At one point in the conversation, seemingly at random, I mentioned my plans for this Wednesday night, which involve a trip in the early hours of the morning to The Pancake Kitchen. Because of me telling her this, and then explaining what The Pancake Kitchen was, she then set about initiating her own pancake based adventure. Now, what caught me about all this was the fact she told me “today will be a good day”. It was at that point I realised that the day may not have shown such potential for her had I not mentioned my plans for the middle of this week to her. Now, I won’t bore you with a rant on chaos theory as I’ve just spent the whole of November writing a novel about it for NaNoWriMo.

Anyway, I’d just like you all to remember in this world where everyone lives inside their own little boxes that the little things you do around, with or to other people will change their lives. Even if it’s just a small hint of an attitude in your voice. Actions trigger thoughts, thoughts trigger bigger actions.

Not sure why this post exists, but that’s blogging for you.

-jf-

Line of Best Fit

…by Death Cab for Cutie has been the song of the week. The song that inspired my own song Lost Signals (by that I mean, I tried to rip it off and ended up writing an original song).

Anyway, this week my youth group along with four others went on a camp. It was organised mostly by my youth group. There were about 50 people there, about 10 of whom were leaders, one of those 10 being me. The speaker, Tim Hawkins, was awesome. Our youth group has done a few studies of his (in DVD form) over the last few years and they’ve always been great studies. But when he’s live, he is, of course, even better. His message was very basic stuff for a Christian of 15, 16 years like myself, but it was really refreshing. It’s so easy to forget how big God is and take the proverbial driver seat.

Now, before I go any further, I’m aware that many of those reading this aren’t people of faith; some of whom have hurt me whether they realised it or not. I’d just like to say a few things about what I believe without getting to preachy. But be warned, this will get honest. I believe that God is very powerful, even if He were no more than a concept. I believe that I have seen Him change lives for the better, even if He were no more than a concept. I have seen Him give hope and purpose, even if He were no more than a concept. I believe that saying ‘no’ to God is a legitimate response, although I don’t think it at all wise. I believe He is loving and doesn’t want bad things to happen. I believe He allows bad things to happen because He wants us to love Him; without free-will, real love cannot exist, and if free-will exists, the ability to turn away also exists, and when we turn away from God, we sin, we hurt others, and things get messy really quickly.

Despite how well learned those who have questioned what I believe have been, I haven’t heard anything that cannot be rationally answered with my understanding of God (although, I certainly don’t claim to have it all down). It has not been this that has hurt me though. It’s the assumption that I’m “just like all the other Christians who will beat down doors and shove belief down throats”. If atheists were organised like a religion, they’d be doing the same thing. Just as this is unfair, it’s unfair to say all atheists have severe religious bloodlust, although that is the impression I’ve gotten from high school. I have wanted to punch some of you in the face. Christianity teaches to love ones enemies and forgiveness, and I practice this and honestly don’t hold any grudges (although it does piss me off sometimes when it continues to happen (this is why I spent a while away from Pamplemousse)).

But anyway, I rant.

Twelve of the fifty people on that camp committed or recommitted their lives to Jesus. That’s a huge number for fifty people. Even if there were no God, twelve lives have been changed for the better. Twelve people believe that there is something beyond themselves, that while they are so tiny in the grand scheme of things they can make a difference by being a part of the kingdom of God, that while they aren’t perfect, they are still needed in the world. Even if this is no more than a concept, it is a good thing; sure there are nutjobs out there, but Christians are only human too. You name anything, and there are nutjobs for that cause. But that has never been the Christianity I’ve known.

And we’re slipping into rant mode again.

But I guess this post has been a long time coming.

I think I’ll leave it there. I was going to start talking about today’s ordeal, but I don’t really feel like it now.

I stand by what I said in my first post: I appologise for nothing.

-jf-