Yarn

Some people's worlds are like sweaters. They are woven and tied loosely, bound up neatly in a nice pattern. At the same time they are loose, and not densely packed. They flow well.

Some people's worlds are like t-shirts. These are tightly woven and very densely packed. Where sometimes you can put a finger through the weaves of a sweater, you can not do this through the weaves of a t-shirt. Tight and organized. Rigid.

My world is like a ball of yarn. Incomplete. Random. T-Shirts and Sweaters just don't come unraveled very easily. A ball of yarn, on the other hand, unravels easily. Threads go every which way with a little bump that knocks it off the table and rolling down a hallway.

Yes, my world is like a ball of yarn.

posted by Pacer 2/28/2003

Thursday, February 27, 2003

Untitled, Unfinished

Oh but let me tell you what I know
You just gotta flow
You just gotta be
So that you can see
Through this haze,
This daze of a life
So you can make it through this strife

posted by Pacer 2/27/2003

Tuesday, February 25, 2003

Abstractions in Stupidity on Birthdays

Today is my birthday.
At times like this I feel keenly aware of my shortcomings.
I don't know why.
Probably because I am neurotic.
So be it.

I am entering some poetry of mine into a writing contest.
I will not win.
Maybe someone will like it, though.
That's all I want.

Sometimes, though, I want to do something grand.
Write the "Next Great American Novel," so I can throw it back into her face.

Her being one of the nasty English teachers at my college.
Nasty little people, misleading and killing the dreams of those who write.
Bending them into their horrific caricatures of critics.
Theory?
I theorize their minds are already dead.
But enough said.

So I will send these poems, and they will be refused.
Who knew,
someone will say.
I did, from this day.

One day
maybe I will be good enough for someone to say:
Hey, I knew his way
down the halls of the places he used to stay.
Maybe. One day.

posted by Pacer 2/25/2003

Monday, February 24, 2003

Notes on a Love Song

Just to see you smile is all I want
And just to be near you in the soft morning light
I don't know where this will go, you know
But just to be near you is so nice
And so fine
And just to be with you
Smiles we'll never have to buy
As long as we are nearby
Each other
So I see that the night has made its way
But that's okay, that just starts the play
And just to be with you

Oh I don't know if this will be true
But it can't be false
All the way, as I look in your eyes and see
That something is there
Trust me if you can and we might go see
Far away lands of

Oh I don't know if this is true
And I don't know if we'll ever be through
With each other's arms
And dreams
But just to be with you is all
And just to see you smile once more
In that morning light
Is all I need to get me by

Just to be with you
Just to see your hair shade your eyes
I don't know what this all means
Maybe it means love with you
But maybe it just means love
So if you can trust me
And this feel
Then we'll never have to buy a smile
As long as we have each other nearby

And just to be with you
Is all I need to make a dream
Seem a bit more real
Oh and I don't know where we'll go
Somewhere or nowhere seems a safe bet
But you, here, now, is all I see
And you, here, now, is all I want to be

Just don't smile your eyes away
With you heart in a box
Hold on to you mind
Don't let it get too far away
And maybe we'll be okay

Just to be with you
Is all I need
But careful is my heart
For my mind still says
We might not be true
But my heart aches the urge
To say we are
And just to be with you

posted by Pacer 2/24/2003

Unfinished Notes

You want love
I'll give you love
The 2-cent type
The kind you find at a store
Over near the rack, yea
She's got a nice ass

But what is Love? You say
I'll tell you what it's not
Not some feeling you have in your mind
Oh yeah, you think they're so fine
But its not Love, not the real kind
Just the self-love of the ego
But wait, where did she go?

I'll tell you what I can do
All the secrets of the heart
Yes, they can be bought
Cheap hair and stares over the corner

posted by Pacer 2/24/2003

Unfinished -- Forgotten

When reading Alex Bozarth's response to "Christ is the bleach of my life," my first reaction was "Christianity is not a disguise for agnosticism -- it is the opiate of the masses!" Afterall, Marx was right, right?

Seriously, though, this simple point illustrates something about Christianity, and religions all across the globe, which people seem to forget. Christianity is what it is, nothing more and nothing less, and it always be what it is. The problem with Christianity and Mr. Bozarth's interpretation of it is that Christianity can not be distilled into a single point.

Christianity is a ruse to disguise agnosticism for some people, just as Mr. Bozarth wrote, but it is more than this.

Christianity can be an escape from life, an opiate for the masses, it can be a political tool, and it can be a sincere spiritual part of someone's life.

The problem concerning Christianity and other religions is when one person fails to recognize the multiplicity of these religions. When someone fails to recognize the fact that Christianity is different for every single person on this Earth, not just Christians, and then fails to respect this fact then conflicts arise. And this is the same with Islam, Hinduism, Taoism, et cetera.

I don't intend to preach about Christianity, and why it is a part of my life, but I'd rather focus on the need to try and understand other people's views on religion. To attack a religion solely on one person's view is a folly of logic, for that view is a personal view and far from universal. Instead seeing the forest, you are only examining one tree.

posted by Pacer 2/24/2003

Friday, February 21, 2003

V-Day Surprise

The card was missing. I flipped through my wallet again but, sure enough, it was not there. I could not begin to think of where it might be. She sat across from me with a smile on her lips. A smile I would not normally get. I didn't want to ruin it. The card was not there, however.

I fumbled through my wallet once more. It had to be there! I know I used it today. I even had the money to use it! This was not a good thing, not a good thing at all.

"Is something the matter?" She said. I looked up. The smile had changed slightly. It was changing. I could not stop it. I might as well come clean.

"I can't find my card." I said.

She didn't blink. The smile slipped away. This could get hairy.

"Dude," one of the people waiting nearby for a table said to me, "I can cover it if you want."

I knew the guy. He had been in one of my classes. He knew where my sister lived. But I did not want to take it.

"Here." She said. I looked up and she had put the right amount on the table.

"We can come back with tip," I said. She nodded. A smile began across her lips once more. Then a laugh.

What a Valentine's Day.

posted by Pacer 2/21/2003

Random Acts

"Random Acts of Kindness," the bumper sticker had read. And that's how it had all started.

Jason had really taken the bumper sticker to heart. It had seemed like a good idea at the time, and he had intended to follow through on it. The second part of the bumper sticker seemed a bit harder, "and senseless acts of beauty," but Jason decided he could do that as well.

So Jason started out one day on the corner of a street downtown with a cooler full of cold soda drinks. As people would walk by he would offer the drinks to them.

"No thanks," one man said, "I'm already saved."

This puzzled Jason. Saved from what? Had he been held hostage by someone. Jason had seen the man come out of a nearby bank, maybe there had been a hostage situation? Jason was confused.

"No thank you," a woman told Jason, "I don't have any money."

Jason tried to explain to her that the drinks were free of charge but she could not seem to understand.

"So what's the catch?" Another man asked. He seemed confused as well. "I mean, don't you have a flyer to hand out or something? Do you want me to go to your church?"

Jason thought about that one for a moment. I mean, Jason thought his church was cool and all, and he had a lot of fun there, but did he want this stranger going? And what the heck was a flyer? An airplane? Jason didn't have that kind of money.

So the day went on like this but eventually Jason was able to convine enough people to take a soda. Jason was beginning to think these random acts of kindness were more difficult than he thought.

So, with that in mind, Jason set off on another venture: a random act of beauty. Jason decided the best he could do in the beauty department was music. He had a guitar and knew how to play it, somewhat anyhow, so he decided that he would serenade the people of the town while they went about their business.

So, once again Jason went down to the street corner and this time he brought his guitar. He was tuning and trying to think of something to sing when he noticed a young lady walk by and drop some money into his guitar case. He was perplexed. Undaunted, however, Jason set off to do his act of beauty.

Some that day would say he had succeeded, while others might just groan at the memory of that guy wailing like cat being beat. Regardless, at the end of the day Jason was shocked to find more money in his guitar case. Quite a bit, in fact. Why he had enough for a Value Meal at McDonalds! Jason was confused, but happy. He had not had much to eat that day.

So Jason decided to walk down to McDonalds and buy himself some food when, on the way, he came upon a little girl crying. Jason asked her what was the matter, and she pointed up into a nearby tree.

"Muffins won't come down!" She sobbed. "He's been there for hours!"

Jason's heart went out to the girl. He once had a cat who became stuck in a tree. He didn't think it had ever come down, either. Jason was determined to not let this girl suffer the same fate as he, nor the cat suffer the same fate as his, and he began to climb the tree. Besides, this would just be another one of his random acts of kindess. He was really piling them up today, Jason thought.

So, as he came closer to the cat, Jason began to notice how high off the ground he was. So did the cat. With a pitiful meow the cat bounded over Jason, clawing him in the back during the process, and scampered down the tree and into the arms of the little girl.

"Thank you mister!" The girl cried for joy. "Oh, thank you, thank you!"

"Miss," Jason said, "think you could call someone? I'm stuck."

"Yes," Jason thought, "that bumper sticker wasn't so easy afterall."

posted by Pacer 2/21/2003

Thursday, February 20, 2003

The M&M Experiment - Hour 4

After eating and laying down a bit, I feel none of the adverse side-effects which might be associated with very, very old M&Ms. I did not give in to the MilkyWay, which very likely saved me, and now I am lying peacefully on my bed.

Overall, the experience could have been worse. While I felt a bit uncomfortable at the beginning, filling my stomach up with regular and non-out-of-date food seems to have calmed things down.

As of now I am going to end the hourly reports of the experiment. If any developments occur, however, regular updating will continue.

posted by Pacer 2/20/2003

The M&M Experiment - Hour 3

My stomach has begun to make strange noises. I am not sure if these are from hunger or other reasons. After eating lunch in the dining halls I almost ruled out hunger as the cause for the noises, but the lunch was not so well made. I did not eat much and could conceivably still be hungry. I am not sure about this, however.

No strange effects have occured. No hullicinations can be counted. There was a kidney hanging outside one of the dorms, but I am fairly sure that was a real kidney and not something of my mind. It was meant to taunt the rival dorm. I hope, anyhow.

My Coca-Cola habit has not helped. My mind is racing, as is my heart, but I am managing. I decided I needed something acidic like Coca-Cola to negate anything along the lines of bacterial hazard. By my reasoning, the Coca-Cola's acidic nature would destroy these dangers. I hope they did.

I think I might lie down, now.

posted by Pacer 2/20/2003

The M&M Experiment - Hour 2

The M&Ms have some white substance in splotches all over them. I am not certain what it is. The consistency reminds me of wax. Perhaps the wax coating on the inside of the bag has gotten all over the M&Ms. The M&Ms themselves are a bit crushed. The m on some of them has worn off. Perhaps the wax like substance was this m? Who knows.

Some of the M&Ms were stale. I have not had M&Ms in a while, but I do remember they are not supposed to be crunchy. At least no the plain ones, anyhow. Some of them are missing pieces of their coating, and some have odd growths that look cancerous. I comfort myself by remembering M&Ms are not alive and could not actually have cancerous growth, but I still feel a bit queasy about eating these. My hunger vetos all logic, however. Down they go.

I am now an hour into the experiment and have thrown my caution to the wind. Not only have I begun to drink Coca-Cola, something I should not do because the caffeine in it affects my heart in unhealthy ways, but I have also consumed the whole M&M bag. The MilkyWay is eyeing me in a funny manner. It might have to go next.

posted by Pacer 2/20/2003

The M&M Experiment - Hour 1

On my desk at work sits two MArs candies I bought from a vending machine. I bought them a week ago. They had been in the candy machine for much longer, however. Given no dates on the packages themselves, one can only guess how long they have been there. This much is certain -- they were there at the end of last semester, putting their date at least around 4 months.

The packages of the candies are yellowing. One is a a MilkyWay bar, the other a package of plain M&Ms. Today I venture into the uknown and try the M&Ms. God willing, I will survive this venture. If I do not, then you will know by my silence. I intend to report hourly, if possible.

So here goes -- the first M&M. Wish me luck.

posted by Pacer 2/20/2003

Monday, February 17, 2003

Childhood Cafeterias

To a small kid with self-esteem issues, which means every kid out there, the cafeteria is a battleground of self-consciousness. Trying to decide where to sit, who to sit with, and hoping beyond hope that they would allow you to be in their presence was enough stress to send anyone over the edge. Like the time Joshua Gillman just stood up, screamed, and went running out the cafeteria door. Even the teachers were so shocked they didn't follow him immediately. I heard they caught him down on the playground, swinging in a swing and mumbling to himself. But that was just the story I heard, and there were many.

From stories of Joshua to Mary Beth, the girl who just started weeping and wet herself right then and there, the stress level of an elementary school cafeteria is palpable. You can almost cut it with a knife. The goings on in a cafeteria can scar you for life, and these are the kinds of scars that can't be surgically mended.


The large dumptruck backed into my driveway carrying a fool load of bricks. They were all one color, a nice brownish-red. I had specifically selected these bricks for my project, meticulously going over each type of brick and finally choosing this one. It had taken weeks to get even this done. This project would not be done halfway, that's for sure.

The truck pulled up to the top of my driveway and two large men jumped out. They asked me where I wanted the bricks to go. I pointed to a place over near the cement mixer and told them that would be fine. They nodded in assent and began unloading the bricks, pallet by pallet. It must be heavy work. No wonder their arms were so large. I don't think I could have done it, unloading the bricks I mean. But unload they did.


There was this one incident I remember quite clearly. You see, I had the privilege, some would say, to be sitting right next to the guy who perpetrated it. A very odd little boy he was, going by the name of Simeon Naudle. Someone had twisted his last name into "Noodle," and so he had been nicknamed. It worked, however, for he was a slight boy to begin with.

Noodle was about average, now that I think of it. He got along with some folks, didn't get along with others. He had a few friends, but not too many. The year the incident happened was the year some of those friends moved away. I can't imagine losing your entire power-base of friendship and having to start over. Talk about scary. Talk about stressful.

But on that day I saw Noodle coming out of the line with about ten or twenty milks on his tray. I remember thinking "Holy cow, why the milk?" Now that I think of it, I don't know where he got the money for all of them nor how he successfully navigated the maze that is chairs and tables and little, hyper kids in an elementary school cafeteria with twenty of those cartons balanced on his tray. That was a feat in itself.


The bricks were unloaded and sitting next to the cement mixer. The first batch of cement was slowly turning around within the cylinder so as to keep from hardening. This job was not a quick job, the cement mixer would be important. One couldn't work fast enough to complete the job before cement dried and hardened. At least not by one's self.

I went to the scene of the project and finished clearing the base. It had to be fairly level and cleaned of any grass or debris. I had made a small trench run along the ground where I was going to build the thing. You have to have a decent base or the hole thing would fall over. I hard learned that once already.


So Noodle notices the empty seat next to me and makes his way in my direction. By now I was so interested in the balancing act of milk carton on top of milk carton that I could not keep my eyes off of him. As he came next to me and sat down I ventured a question: "Noodle, what's with all the milk?"

No answer, so I asked another: "Are you thirsty?"

No answer, again. He just sat there, staring at his milk cartons and grinning some foolish grin. After a while he began to arrange the milk cartons in patterns upon the table--one on top of the other. It was as if he meant to build a wall to block the rest of the cafeteria out.


The project was going well. Half of the bricks were now lining my property, making a carefully designed wall between myself and my neighbors. It is said that fences make good neighbors. If that's true then these will be the best neighbors ever, for this will be the best fence. I slathered some more cement on top of the next layer on the wall and placed another brick. Yes sir, these will be the best neighbors.


After some time Noodle had entirely walled himself in with the milk cartons. It was an interesting sight. Not even the class clowns dared knock it over, for they were envious of the cubbyhole he had made. I guess that deep down inside we all understood. Every once in a while even a kid has to wall himself off from the rest of the world. It's a natural instinct. There was a reason why ancient men built walls around their homes, and there was a reason why Noodle built his wall -- protection.

For Noodle, however, this wall could not last. Eventually the bell sounded the end of lunch and we all began to get up to leave. Noodle just sat there. After I had put my tray up and was walking out the door I glanced back at Noodle. He was carefully undoing his wall. The grin was gone. It was more of a grimace. Back into the cruel halls of childhood he'd have to go, with no wall to protect him.

posted by Pacer 2/17/2003

Wednesday, February 12, 2003

Razor

Still on a razor blade I stand
Tilting each way in the wind
As I attempt to traverse this world
In its imperfect chaotic state
'Though now I have switched one blade for another
And I thought one would be less fine.
I was wrong.

So be it.
I still stand
And sway,
And stagger on.
You can not scare me from my goal
Forever on into the dark
Like a soldier into battle
The unknown be damned.

posted by Pacer 2/12/2003

Apprehension

Apprehension is something I am keenly aware of when I am around you.
It come with the territory, I suppose.
The more you care, the more apprehensive you are over something.
This is especially true with something new.
I can't help it, I wish I could.
It is something I wish I could control, but it sits in my chest like a lead weight.
I guess I am scared of you.
Or of no you, perhaps.

posted by Pacer 2/12/2003

Sunday, February 09, 2003

Meditations on Love

I.

When I speak of love, I do not know what I mean.
Love is a fickle thing.
Love comes and goes, and shifts and reshapes.
I'd like to say 'love,' and let it mean now, and you
But I can not. Be sure, that is. For love is, but
It is not.

II.

Love is what it is, I suppose. And all we can do
Is measure the fullness of our hearts when we are with you
Until they overflow, or run dry. Like our mouths.
But love, we know not. It only knows us.

III.

If I could reach out and grab love, I might have a chance
If I could capture it. But love is the most elusive of all
God's creations. Never standing still,
Ever changing.

IV.

If I told you love, it would be now
But tomorrow I can not predict love
Or hate, or fear or anything
Just now, but now is love

V.

If I held love I could tell you love
For now and forever
But hold it I can not
For love is outside the grasp of me
Or you.

VI.

Love.
You.
The same.
Now.

posted by Pacer 2/09/2003

Saturday, February 01, 2003

The Sun

With the sun winking
And the wind blowing
Welcoming us to the day
And the memories of smiles past
Is there any fault in thinking
We might make those smiles last?
And that we might make more,
This day of sun and fun
Or will those be the last?

posted by Pacer 2/01/2003