So, I've become really self-aware lately. I'm doing a lot of things I haven't done in years, like getting back into photography, and drawing. I've started reading books other then Sci-Fi / fantasy novels. I just finished 1984 last week and am reading High Fidelity and have Kerouac’s On the Road on the night stand for my next read. I've started to work out (at home) more regularly and began meditating for twenty minutes before I go to bed. I also haven't smoked a cigarette in like three weeks. I'm not sure I understand why this is all happening and where the need to do these things has come from. I feel as though I trying to prove something, probably to myself.

This weekend I went down to my parent’s house in Plymouth to help my father install a hardwood floor. It took all day Saturday and Sunday and was pretty exerting labor. There is something self-gratifying doing that kind of labor yourself though. You feel your aching joints and tired muscles and look at what you accomplished that day. You can feel and visibly see an accomplishment that you hands, muscles and sweat created. It’s a pretty good feeling. I also brought back my parents scanner and will putting up various photo albums from all points of my life soon so everybody can look forward to that.

This is a poem that states very clearly (with the exception of one line) how I feel about Jenn. Nobody has to read it. It is your choice. I found it and thought it was great and I wanted to link to it.

All I Ever Wanted...

Well, well lucky me. I skipped the last three questions and still got an 86 on my first calculus exam. If only I hadn't been in such a rush to go to that K5 meetup.

Speaking of pretension, picture this scene:

Two young 26 year old guys watching Monday Night Football.
One wearing a T-shirt and nylon shorts drinking Bass and eating chips and salsa.
The other wearing khakis, a button down shirt, and a sweater. Drinking red wine, crusty bread and cheese.

"Does not work to potential." This is what it constantly said on my progress reports from school. I know I am of above average intelligence. I know this from various different tests and my capacity for understanding tough subjects. Yes, it's true, I don't apply myself. I have no talents, no knowledge of the arts, I don't follow politics or international affairs, I don't have active interests in music or movies, I don't read the classics or modern literature, and my computer talents are mediocre at best. I don’t do all these “typically smart people do these” things, and I know people think less of me for it, people I care about. They don’t say, “Matt’s an idiot” or anything like that. It’s more along the line of subtle body language and slightly demeaning remarks. Sometimes I feel they steer conversation to subjects I have no knowledge only to make me feel like an idiot if I try to join in. I have dabbled in all these areas to try and be like one of my friends or my ex-girlfriend, but I never seem to retain any of it or I just lose interest in it. I just don’t think I’ve found the right thing to do yet.

Assumptions. Everybody makes them about everything. For the most part they’re harmless, but sometimes they’re not. When people start assuming what other people are thinking or feeling, trouble starts. Actions do not necessitate thoughts or feelings. Quite the opposite a lot of the time, I’d say. A lot of the time people want to say things they find more acceptable to others, then how the truly feel. We are afraid of the reaction we’ll get from other people. When telling the truth from the beginning would probably have been for the best. Of course, how do you know you’re not making assumptions about yourself?

My first post to K5.

One of my biggest fears is ending up alone. I don't want to be 40 some odd years old and still trying to get a date. Yet there are people out there that honestly believe they won't find somebody they would like to spend their life with. I can't imagine going through your entire life alone. Friends and family are great but there not always there and you can only open up to them so much. Having some sort of a significant other that's there for you is something else. You can tell them everything and they understand you or at least sympathize with you. You always have somebody there to give you that comfortable feeling. I find it sad and depressing that there are people who focus on their careers and thinking that will make them happy when it will only be a small measure of their life. A career is only 40 hours a week, what about the other 128 hours you’re not at work. Do people really want to spend that time all alone?

Emotions are what make us human. If it were solely based on intelligence, we'd all be like Data from Star Trek Next Generation, or Vulcans from the original Star Trek. I believe in order to be happy in life you have to be happy with yourself and the people you care about. It doesn't matter what you do, where you live, how much stuff you have or how much money you can make. A job is a job. You should be able to work at one with out it upsetting you on a daily basis. People need to learn how to deal with their emotions. Keeping your feelings bottled up inside only makes things worse, and the longer you do the worse they can become. Of course if people could deal with the way the feel with the people they feel that way about therapists would be out of jobs. We’ve become a society where it’s OK, not to tell people how you feel. To keep your emotions tucked away. We tell our therapists about it and that makes it all better? What about the people that caused you to feel those emotions in the first place? You still haven’t confronted them. They will probably keep doing whatever it is they do to make you feel that way. Emotional confrontations are always the most difficult thing to do in life, especially the closer someone is to you, but in the end people would be better off.

"Country music is laying on the floor with a bottle of Jack Daniel's thinking about a woman who just walked across your heart like a large Somonoan wearing golf cleats." - Otis Lee Crenshaw, on the Conan O'Brien Show.

Picture a beautiful, cool, dry day in the lower 60's. The sun is shining and the birds are singing. There's a young man standing in the yard enjoying the view and the feel of fall. Students are bustling to and fro. Staffs are returning from their lunch breaks. The young man is watching the people go about their business and ponders his place in the world. It had seemed so simple only a few weeks ago. Now, everything has changed and things aren't the way they should be. The young has to question again, 'Where am I going?', 'What am I doing?' He contemplates this in a logical manner. The variables have changed; different equations have been brought into play. He thinks, ‘How can I change the future if I do not fully understand what went wrong in the past?’ He looks around one more time and heads back inside.

When I Heard the Learn'd Astronomer
by Walt Whitman

When I heard the learn'd astronomer,
When the proofs, the figures, were ranged in collumns before me,
When I was shown the charts and diagrams, to add, divide, and measure them,
When I sitting heard the astronomer where he lectured with much applause in the lecture-room,
How soon unaccountable I became tired and sick,
Till rising and gliding out I wander'd off by myself,
In the mystical moist night-air, and from time to time,
Look'd up in perfect silence at the stars.

Up, Up, Down, Down, Left, Right, Left, Right, B, A, B, A, Start.

This page is now Valid XHTML 1.0 - Strict DTD! Yeah! So, is Jenn's. We both also have Valid CSS, too.

Why is it when I search for sixfoot6 on Google I get 6,770 pages? I knew he was popular, but gees does he get around. A regular Hugh Hefner.