So we're going daily now?

Actually...yes.

See, when this blog started, it was an assignment. Also, I had a boyfriend at the time. Those in conjunction reduced my willingness to post. Allow me to explain: Assignments are required, and so less fun, and not something I'm motivated to do. That part's easy. The boyfriend part is just that I tend to ramble on and on. It's really quite something. Being in a relationship, I had a regular outlet for that in talking with Michael. I also had some other friends I could ramble to. Now, I still have friends (and still talk to Michael), but I've been feeling like my relationships lately have largely been me rambling to people, with little or no return content, or even input.

[BASICALLY I'M A LONELY MOTHERFUCKER AND THIS IS A WAY TO BE ME WITHOUT MAKING MYSELF SEEM LIKE A MORON]

Something like that.

Anyway, that means that now it seems like I can update here pretty regularly, just blathering on about my day and what goes into it. Now then, let's get to it!

This morning I had a weird-ass dream. It all happened in like an hour, which I happen to know because I woke up around six thirty lay in bed for a bit, and then woke up again at eight. There was some detail before I'll jump in, but I don't really recall it. I just know that I was in, I think, my great aunt and uncle's house, and the floor was at once hardwood and water. There was something dangerous swimming around in it. Everybody had to go, so I was alone there. After a time I knew I could leave whenever I wanted, finding my way home by bus, but I chose not to. I think a part of this had to do with the fact that there was also a child there (who was the younger version of somebody I know now. That was weird) who I didn't want to leave alone until his parents came.

So me and this kid went outside, and there was a street show going on. We sat and watched for a bit, I was holding him on my lap. It was sort of an open mic deal, where audience members or people on the street would just walk up and do something. After a little while, -situation shift- people began arriving for the wedding reception. My childhood best friend and his parents and sister showed up. I said hi to him and talked to him a little, and then a little later went and talked to his sister. Then I woke up, and everybody was gone. I realized that I -had- talked to my old friend, but I had only dreamt talking to his sister. I figured everybody had gone to the reception hall, so I made my way there. On the way, I found the ruins of an old stone church. I tried taking pictures of it with my phone, but the hardware was screwed up, so no go there.

Now, things get a bit fuzzy, but I'm -fairly- sure I then went to the kitchen in the reception hall. I believe I encountered my sister there (the wedding would have been for her, as she was married recently), and we ate some fruit and I told her about how I had dreamt about having a conversation, and how seamless it had felt. I feel like I then looked outside, and where it had once been dark, it was now daytime, and so I began to suspect that I was indeed still asleep. I then thought, "hey, lucid dreaming. Let's do it." I decided the first thing to try would be flying. I managed to get off the floor a little, and the float around some. For some reason, I didn't want to try too much more.

Then, I woke up again. I was still at my great aunt and uncle's place. So now I'm finally awake, and I go to where the reception is. I go through the kitchen and outside, where I encounter a friend (somebody from life who I've known for a long time, but haven't ever been especially close to). I told her all about the lucid dreaming and about how I was tired to being asleep. I had been asleep a long time, at this point, and was tired just from that. She sat behind me and held me while I talked and relaxed (wouldn't happen in real life).

Around when I decided to go get involved with talking to people (who were all around a campfire which had long-since gone out), I woke up again in the middle of my twelfth grade English class (which was populated with strangers). Apparently myself and somebody else had both fallen asleep in class, but everybody decided to leave it, because we were both talking in our sleep and narrating a really interesting story. We were discussing this when I finally really woke up in bed.

Christopher Nolan would be proud.

Anyway, so I did a little work in the morning, but mostly was being mopey for no good reason. Then I went to school and to class x2, and was mopey until the end of English when, because of the events of the class, in conjunction with another secreter reason, I felt better. I had lunch, and then realized that I had a full day until I really had to do anything more. I debated going on an adventure, but instead just headed to Cogswell to hang out. In the school parking lot I found a dirty, scratched up but in-tact CD labeled "Wild Nyte." I don't know what's on it. I want to clean it up and see if I can play it. In other news, there's an abandoned restaurant behind Cogswell. I made it a goal my first year there to try to get inside of it after four years. Today, I found an open window, but it was stuck ajar at too-little width for me to reach in and open it any further. After several minutes of trying to figure it out, I gave up on it and headed inside.

So now I'm at Cogswell with no real plans, tired of being here but not wanting to move, and life is boring right now. (for proof, consult the massive wall of text I just assaulted a possible eventual audience of one with). I guess this is the close for that. Buh-bye.

(Fun fact: I remember that in first grade, I thought that if you were a scientist, it meant you were either a botanist or an astronaut. Not that I knew the word "botanist" at the time.)

Hai!!! (No, legit)

So Karate.

Today, after class, I took a trip over to Target to buy some sportswear, which is something I've never done once in my life. We had our first meeting for the class on Monday, during a block that we share with intermediates. We did nothing but sit and watch the whole time. We were told to return today with loose clothes, so I went and got me some (part of the outfit is purple, purple being the best one). I then returned to school, got some lunch, hung out in the computer lab, played Picross 3D (in 2D) and finally went to class.

I fucking loved it. I've never been any sort of sport or even exercise-oriented person, but everything there just felt awsome. We did nothing today but warm-up and work on the basic stance for shotokan (do I capitalize that? I dunno), but it was great. The first warm-up is everybody just running around in a big circle, either direction, trying not to run into each each other. Then push-ups, sit-ups, jumping jacks, jumping around, the works. I loved it. I loved working on the stances. I loved everything.

I dunno what it is about it. I just felt really comfortable with (admittedly only the very start of) everything, and I look forward to continuing with it. I might even go ahead and take the higher level courses, even though I'll have gotten my phys. ed. requirement. Maybe I'll even look into training somewhere?

Well, let's not get ahead of ourselves. It was only the first real day, after all. Still, though. I'm into this shit.

"Hai" is "yes" in Japanese, and is the affirmative for anything in class. We're meant to really belt it out. Now, I've done some theater, and my projection's alright, but today, after the instructor (Sensei Peter Rabbitt!) told us to up it a notch, I was pretty surprised with what came out of me. It was clear that the people around me were, too. xD

Anyway, that's that. Off to procrastinate some more.

¿De dónde? ¿Adónde?

Year two, day two:

I'm at school right now. Before I get into what I'm doing here (nothing) I'll rattle of some details of how I got here. Maybe one day this thing will have more specific content, like a theme or something, but you should always write for your audience, and I don't have one, really, so random assortments of words will do for the time being.

I'm from a tiny little town in Maryland, up on a hill and in the woods. I adore it there. I'm going to school, however, in Silicon Valley. So how'd that happen? Well, at the end of high school, the world said, "hey, Merrill, go get a degree."

Bewildered, but not wanting to disappoint my home planet, I replied, "well, alright." Glancing around quickly, I noticed that I was sort of interested in 3D modeling, and that there was a good school for it in California, near a lot of relatives of mine. I hurried to it (applied and was in within a week - the only school I applied to) and promptly spent two years wasting my parents' money.

Now, this isn't something I'm especially proud of. I'm pretty disappointed in myself for it. Fun fact: I've never held a paying job. I'm pretty much just a lazy ass who gets everything handed to him and still complains. It's no good, I'm aware. Anyway, that only relates in part.

I went to this art school for two years (the modeling program has its foundations in traditional art), and I loved a lot of it. I loved graphic design and I really loved figure drawing and sculpting. I was never a hard worker, though, and never very motivated, so I always did very poorly, and didn't ever become especially skilled. Not skilled at all, really. Every semester, then, I felt terrible about being at Cogswell (that's the school), and after four of them I realized I was constantly threatening to leave.

It actually became sort of comical to my peers. After the first semester, I decided that I wouldn't return. I was told that I would be missed. I did end up returning, though, and people were pleased. At the end of the second semester, I warned that after the summer had passed, I would not be back. At this point I had built some tighter friendships, and people a little more concerned. I was told that I would be missed very dearly. Come next fall, though, I was back. Following that, same deal, but the response was a little less worried; the idea had become pretty usual to everybody. They figured I'd come back. I did. At the end of the fourth semester, I was really definitely deciding not to come back. I was really wasting money at this point, doing really terribly in my classes, not really enjoying myself, and that was no good. I didn't sign up for any classes, I pack myself up, and I returned to Maryland, where I decided I would get a job, finally, and go to community college to collect gen. ed. credits while figuring out what I'd like to do with life.

It should come as little surprise that the next semester I was again back in California. I had finally left Cogswell, but the better of my friends were out west (a poor reason to enact a remote plan - which costs more money, of course), and I knew the area and I wanted to go back. I called up some friends of mine who were getting a place, and moved in with them ( I live in "Merrillspace," a blocked-off portion of the living room), and now go to a local community college wtih the goal of eventually majoring in Spanish, maybe at San Jose State.
So that's where I am now. I'm just beginning my third quarter here (quarters go by way faster than semesters, damn), and so far I'm doing much better than I have in school since, I think, forever. So finally I feel like I'm not wasting as much money. I'm going to go ahead and work on become a resident too, so as to further aid that process. Maybe I could even get an actual job? That'd be nice.

This is totally unrelated, but I just discovered that a bird shit on my backpack. Oh boy.

Anyway, so now I'm at school. My schedule this semster is M-F 11:30-1:30, which are Spanish II and English, and M/W 6:30-7:30 which is karate. Not a bad setup. Lots of afternoon time (for a job? Merrill, get a job). My Spanish teacher is great, especially relative to the last one I had (probably more on that later), and my English teacher is mind-blowing. I don't really understand what's going on in that class, but hopefully I'll figure it out. It is, after all, only the third day. The karate instructor I've only met with once so far, and all I really know about him is that his name is Peter Rabbitt. He seems like a decent guy, though. I think I'll enjoy the class. I think I'll enjoy the semester, on that note.
So that's a little snapshot of me at the moment. I'm off to do other similarly unproductive things. Later.

Ba-ha!

Mmmkay, so....heya.

I don't know what all I've written in this blog. I probably already explained the premise for it somewhere in the previous posts. Here's a quick recap, though:

I was in a class called "Creativity and Content Development," and one of our ongoing assignments was to write a blog. This was one of my two attempts to do that. Both failed. Indeed, I think I failed to do pretty much all of the assignments. One thing I did do was write a ten page paper on why I didn't care what grade I got in the class. The paper was in .5 spacing, but like size 20 font. All the text was in text boxes shaped like letters, the ten pages spelling out C-R-E-A-T-I-V-I-T-Y. At the end of the class, the teacher handed out three Marie Calender's gift cards. I got one. I guess that means I did alright, despite not doing much, work-wise. Oh boy.

Anyway, I left this blog abandoned for all that time, and forgot about it. That was about a year ago, apparently. So why am I here now?

Well, I was looking up the word "azure" (this is really how this story begins), and it seemed strangely familiar to me. I then realized that, back when I used to play Gaia Online, I made a "guild" for people at my then-school called the Azure Assembly. I made a little logo for it and everything.

Now, I didn't especially care about the guild, but I was fond of the logo. I couldn't find it on my computer, so I went into Gaia and looked for the guild. I could not find it. I even tried browsing my posts to try to find it, but to no avail. In my posts, however, I did find a project of mine there, where I had been trying to collect in-game currency by doing forum posts. Basically I was just rambling to myself.

I realized that that's sort of what I do with my friends anyway (actually, it's exactly what I do with my friends anyway), and I decided that maybe it would be a good idea to start up a blog, because I think it'd be good for me, or something. I went ahead and rambled about this to my dear friend Jessica, and in the process remembered that I had this thing. Tada!

So now I'm here. I have homework I should really get working on. I'll do that. I'll talk more about the last year later, because that seems like an appropriate thing to do.

Until next time.

PS Fun fact: I gave that Gaia Online project and this blog the same title.

Dark Savants

A poem that I -think- is complete.

----------------------------------

A little peek from midnight’s window
Tells me there’s a limping doe
What a pity, what a pain
What a pretty little shame
And what a waste of Autumn flesh
A little peak through midnight’s window
Down the trail does see go
Down the trail doe she go
Down the tail, friend nor foe
But just her spot of sanctity
Though give it just a day and see
How these things sort themselves out
See how they become something bigger, or smaller
As the world decides their fit
Into the greater, grander, grosser, gleaming web of
Mystery
Of dusty pleas and destiny
Of dancing luminary sea
And see that sea
Come see with me!
There’s nothing to compare
To round the cape at stormy morning
Something dark and yet forlorn
Of emptiness, will sweep you up
And take you where you ought to go
So go, and treat once with despite;
This shadow isn’t lack of light
But rather it’s a lovely sight
But rather it’s the grandest show
Once you glimpse the misty wispy
Clouds that hang below the sky
And see the colors shifting simply
Simply lovely, sweetly sigh
A perfect truth you used to know
Will draw you deep into the throes
Of a place you had begotten
Towards the place that you forgot when
All the world had told you “no”
It’s lost, not gone
please put your faith
Into your own secret tongue
From which your soul is wrung and from
and from which all our worlds are sprung
The rooster crows and crow, he caws
And all the Universe of difference
Would lead neither one to doubt his advance
Too many are too blinded - think they’re fine
within their toil. But a look up from the soil
To the colored clouds above
Lets them hear their secret songs
And then dancing in among those secret words
They’ll realize
Finally, they’ll realize that while they never had it wrong
It was never what it could be.
It was never naked harvest near enough to honest living
It was never naked harvest… and the moon
The stars, now shining, show us each our secret sanctity
The coalescing colored clouds sing us each our secret song
The rooster crows, the crow, he caws,
The world decides what these things mean, if anything at all
And the doe, she limps along
And watching her through midnight’s window
Fresh from the fray
Full of failure and bound for more
I see the misty skies above
streaked with awe and pain and love
And I realize
Finally, I realize that nobody gets to the source of Trouble
Faster than the Dark Savants
I’m pretty arbitrary, when it suits me

Space is a big place

The other morning, after celebrating the birthday of a friend the night before, I came home at 3:00 AM and sat on the couch. I had intended to get on the computer to continue a conversation I had been having online before going home, but I was too tired to do anything physical, so instead I just lay there, thinking. Before long, I found myself pondering infinity.

I've done this before, on a limited basis, but I had never really appreciated the fullness of infinity. Even that morning, I'm sure I didn't reach the end of it. However, this morning I went further than I ever have. Space is a big place. It's difficult to think about it going on forever. There has to be an end somewhere right? There can't just continue to be new content, right? There's not just infinite black, right?

But then, what about the alternative? There can't just be an end to things. That's absurd. If existence just stops somewhere, then...well, just no. That can't be right. There are no walls in existence, are there?

Eventually, though, I found myself someplace I could accept. It's not so difficult to imagine Earth circling the Sun, nor the entire solar system, nor the Milky Way. It's not difficult to imagine other galaxies, even. I figure, then, that it just gets bigger and bigger. There's no largest increment that is charged with stretching on forever. It just keeps getting bigger and bigger, and as a result, every layer has a sort of finiteness to it. That's comfortable to me.

Of course, it can work in the other direction too. We, nor our cells, nor our atoms are the smallest thing out there. Maybe there's an infinite line of even smaller things. Maybe there's just an infinite line of things. We're just somewhere between the start and end to infinity.

Well...yeah. We're just somewhere between the start and end to infinity.

Also: What if the only relic an alien race will find of human existence is a doorknob?

Once upon yesterday

I heard a joke yesterday, and I realized it had been my favorite joke for a time, many years ago, but I had totally forgotten it:

What do you call a black pilot?

???

A pilot, you racist asshole.