It's so hot today...you step outside (Ojai) and you're already dead. Worked a little, played in a tree house with Ryan...good stuff...I don't think I'll ever quite grow up.

Sat most of last night in Barnes and Noble reading and browsing, and later in Carrow's alone with my warm cup of coffee. It's really good sometimes to just sit and think about all that life has shown you so far. Life is so interesting when you actually take time to look at it.

Never underestimate the medicinal value of skipping stones

Boys throw stones
While their sisters look on in scorn
And both are embarrassed
By the jeans that are torn

Time and experience rise and fall
We walk in the evening on the shore
Perhaps it's not important after all...
These rocks and jeans that are torn

In the bowl of the sky
Head upside-down
Will there be a reason for every sigh?
Feet in the water, head upside-down

Words piled on tottering words
There are other ways to speak---
I sat down here; I glanced just then;
The line between game and sincerity...

An unexpected catch in the throat
An unexpected tear
Not all that risks the water will float
But even in the drowning, humble courage will bless the fear

I have had so many requests from people wanting to read my thesis that I put it on a Tripods site so everyone can read it at their leisure. Please feel free to comment on it at this post. The link for it is in the right-hand menu. Enjoy...

P.S. Sorry there are few bugs in the text, not sure how to fix them...should still be readable though.

I fell asleep in my car today, looking at the California oak leaves swaying above my head through the open sunroof. It was a very uncomfortable position, but I was so tired...

Strange how moods go up and down...one minute you're happy, and the next you need a friend so terribly...

I don't belong here anymore. The school year has started and left me behind. All that was my world for four years is no longer mine. This is perhaps the first time since graduation that I have slowed down enough to realize that it is really over. Time now for new lives and new places...I'm scared.

My dad told me that a person cannot live life at deep level of intensity all the time. I wish I understood exactly what he meant, and I wonder whether he is right---I don't want him to be right.

I will never cease to be amazed by the quality and caliber of mind and soul of those few brave soldiers of faith and truth that surround Thomas Aquinas College. After a long and rather depressing stint in the 'real' world, I suddenly found myself sitting in the dust of a fire break 3000-odd feet above Ojai under the competing light of moon and stars, probing with my new-found friends the mystery and depth of Love. LiLosSoljr spoke words that illustrated deeply hidden things in my soul so perfectly that all I could do was look up at the stars and ponder; and the ideas sparked that night have not yet allowed my brain peace. I am drawn back to a time early in my Senior year when I was consumed with the question: what is Love? Only to unwilling let the question drift steadily to the back of my mind unanswered. But it is back unexpectedly, with all its subtleties, and it seems somehow a bit less elusive this time. Yet I go in circles. How can I be so intensely in love if there is nothing distinct that I am actually loving? Why must I think and love and feel in terms of forms and passionate idealistic perfection? I am destroyed and yet filled to overflowing...poetic dreams rising and falling with each new day. I have asked these questions again and again; and a light begins to dawn slightly as I sit, donut in one hand, coffee in the other, singing 'Robin Hood and Little John' from Disney's Robin Hood: Love is made up of good friends, good company; Love is laughing, singing, working together; its about giving and accepting what is given gratefully without expectation; it is appreciation of what is good and a mutual acknowledgement of that. As my best friend, and one of the best men in the world, likes to say: 'Friendship, (real love) is two people standing side by side, looking to a third and greater thing. The Light of the World, perhaps...?

Hey everyone! I am getting a lot of interest in a new order of Home School D shirts, and since I ripped mine I would like to make another order too. So here's the deal: I got screwed out of a LOT of money last time I made an order, so this time I am going to wait for every one who wants one to send me the money first, then I will make the order. I REALLY want to make this order, so everybody talk to all your friends and try to get as many people as you can to get one, because the I can't keep the cost as low as 15 bucks unless I get at least 10 shirts. If anyone wants to get a couple of extra too, there are always a few people that ask for them after the order has been made, and you would be sure to sell them. Anyways that's the deal; I hope enough of you want them to make this work!

Please send or give all money to Sara Derego at TAC, because she is on campus and easy to find and I don't have an address right now. All of you MUST call me or e-mail me about size, quantity, and when and whether you sent money for the shirts. I would like to wrap up the order in less than a month, so try to get your money out soon. I will keep a public tally on my blog so you all know what's going on and when the order will be placed. You can call me or e-mail me at:
Phone: 509-251-1968
E-mail: speeedshift@hotmail.com. Thanks guys, hope to hear from you!

Darren

The bitter taste of cigarette smoke lingers on my tongue as I walk toward that dark ancient structure that, for the moment, I call home. I sinned, and I walked the empty streets in my despondency. A dim figure approached, treading the sidewalk under the cover of the trees. I walked warily into the street, keeping my distance in the threatening Santa Paula night. It was a priest---Father, a familair face from St. Sebastian's. There in the chilly street I received absolution and the advice: "Keep watch with me and pray, that you will not be taken unawares: for the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak." I have too long forgotten that God is BIG. That He is majestic and incomprehensible and terrifying. And as I walked on, marveling at the encounter, I was humbled. Nothing we do goes unnoticed; nothing that happens is chance; we are loved as we will never know.

It's a wonderful God that gave us music. This strange and wonderful analogy for emotion and thought; mathematical, poetic, and yet deeper still...A crying soul or a jubilant spirit; a producer of thought or a mindless blissful sinking...

I have been hurt but not broken
I have been sad but shed no tears
I have seen but remained detached
I have heard but did not turn
I have been tired but not slept
I have been awake but not alive
I have been happy without joy
I have laughed without smiling
I have loved but not given
I have judged without compassion

Where has it gone?
Why do I fade?
Why am I crumpled?
Something is askew
I plead as I pray by my bedside

Well, I'm sitting behind the main counter in the lounge of the Glen Tavern Inn, plugged into the Inn's DSL line (this is probably VERY bad) hoping no one will poke their head around the corner and see me. I just had great day: worked on Neoteronous' car and got it running again; went bowling with him, sis Katie, Steve and Mr. Shields; and had a great talk with Little Lost Soldier Girl and her roommate. Very nostalgic...I do miss TAC. Anyways, life is good...I am going to put out a post soon about Home School Distortion T-shirts, so check back.

I have confessions...I must speak, for my soul is bleeding.I just watched M. Knight Shyamalyn's The Village. You may say what you like about the plot and it's strength or weakness, or whether the movie seems to push communism, or whatever; but one thing I will say is that it captures something in me so well that I sit and can't stop thinking. Something elusive and mysterious---it is tremendously romantic not in the 'girl-boy' sort of way, but in a more universal, and deeply human sense. Your heart is strangely affected when the Park Ranger sees a blind and muddy young girl drop over the fence and ask tearfully but genuinely for help; and it's not because she is attractive or because the situation is desparate or any of that: it is a simple and effective reminder of human searching and loneliness. In the end we are all alone, and we long for that which we are not: to fade into the mist like the mist itself; to draw yourself on a piece of paper so everyone can see you and wonder---but you are not there; to long and to cry and to love with all your heart something that is too big for you...and always the longing, almost desparete at times, but a pain that is dear and lovely just the same. And now I think too much and it is too late at night for me to go on...

With my chin resting on the power-steering pump of the engine filling the spot where the back seat should be, the back of my head propped up by a CD case and my back molding comfortably to the contour of the steel wheel-well under me, I thought in passing how interesting and unexpected things often are. I was on my way to Southern California in the back of a 1974 International Scout with four other people, all our shit and a six-cylinder engine and transmission. This was after blowing a head-gasket in my brand-new 1963 Rambler, sitting by the freeway all day in South Seattle on old couch cushions waiting for a tow, and then sleeping in the front seat because the garage was full of everyone else trying to sleep. (The house was off limits, for reasons I cannot divulge.) Now, with my few belongings, (less the car) and some of my very best friends I am heading for a couple of odd-jobs and frugal living for a time.
I light up a Marb Red and watch the fog roll in. The breeze is cool and the air fresh and salty. Ahhhh, So-Cal. Life has been very good to me lately; I keep on discovering weird little things about life and myself: for instance, reading the Russian novels for Senior Seminar at Dr. Ferrier’s house was one of the most profound and moving experiences of my life; both for the literature and the example of Catholic intellectual living. Another odd discovery is that when you are broke and out of luck, life becomes a whole lot deeper and much more frightening. I have also found that though I long for love my heart is slow to trust—not just slow, but defensive and bitter. A warm cigarette for a hollow kiss, the sad night air for hug. The passing traffic and empty park for bleeding soul conversation. But the fog is rising slowly from my own shortcomings, and though the road ahead is long it is filled with smiling, caring faces. And work—sweet work! I have need of the burning muscles, the long days, the stability and the ability to not have to depend on others for my daily bread. And the Lord will provide.

Well, the new car is now officially dead. They no longer make a head gasket for this engine, so...it may never rise again. Ah well, I made as far as Seattle; now for the tow home...no So-Cal or go-cart job. Life.

On the upside, home means free room and board!