Help! My Favorite Place Has Been Invaded My Vampires and Now I'm Being Held Captive!

It’s the worst of times when you find yourself slapped in the face- Both physically, and mentally. Either way, the worst feeling is when the one thing you’d grown to love is snatched away, or turned against you. You’re just left clinging for your life, hoping that that one thing will somehow, in some way, go back to the way you knew it.

You’re just desperate for things to be normal again, but things are never normal. Your hopes are at the top, but sometimes there is no choice but for it to be shot down. You learn, but you learn the hard way. You feel like crying, and in your head all you can tell yourself is ‘it’s okay, you’ll be okay’. Sometimes- most of the time- things do get better. Other times, they only get worse.

Imagine yourself, going to your favorite book shop/coffee shop/ record shop, every day. You have friends, you know how it runs- you know how the system works. Then, suddenly, everything changes. The owner dies, and next thing you know there’s a for sale sign on the outside door. You think over and over that the change won’t be that big of a change. You think that maybe if enough people are against it, nothing will change.

Until a few weeks later, you walk towards it unexpecting- thinking that everything will be the same. Only to find it empty- gone without a moment’s notice. You realize then how important that book shop/coffee shop/record shop was to you, and when suddenly, not a month later, there’s a new book shop/coffee shop/ record shop, you realize that it’s something that can’t be replaced. It’s too important to you.

You see, all the people are still there. All the same people who’ve known you by name, or have seen you around. The only thing is that this time around, there are also the new faces nobody’s ever seen before. You should be glad they’re there, but you’re not. You miss having good old Rhetta bringing you a coffee/ recommending a cd/ getting you a book. The coffee/books/cds just aren’t/isn’t as good as before. Everything is tainted with that newness that’s screaming in your face.

You didn’t realize how important something was to you until it was gone, and now you’re just left desperately hoping that somehow time would turn back and everything would be back to normal. That the same table you sit at by the window still had ‘Fck whatever president on it’.

Things have changed, and sometimes it’s not okay, and you don’t want to be on your way. You just desperately want things to be the way they are in your head. Desperately.

What Goes Around Comes Around;

-Karma Police

Just One Moment, Frozen.

The way time works for someone like me is this: Fast, quick, and unnoticed. For a while now, it seemed like my life moved with me; so therefore nothing changed. My Mom was still younger than she looked, my Dad still had that too large belly, and my brother- although married- was just my brother.

Maybe it was because everything came in a pace, but sometimes when something throws you off, it really throws you off.

It was any other day, and it was cold out despite the fact that it was almost Summer. I exit my Grandmother's house, and walk towards the parking lot, where my Father's car is. As I'm walking I see my friend's mother walking out of the hall leading to the lot. I smile at her, and suddenly, running out of the hall behind her is her youngest son.

Now, my friend had moved here two years ago. He has a family of five: three boys, and one Mom. No Dad. Nothing. Well, when my friend had first moved here, the youngest son was just a baby- he couldn't even walk. This all registered as I watched this little human run by me, laughing gleefully.

And I realized at that moment, that a lot of time had passed. Two years had turned a baby who needed his mother to carry him to a little boy who could run around and see the world. For a minute, I just stood there, shocked.

I remembered all this stupid stuff that I never really remember until I'm sad. I remembered seeing my friend before he was my friend, when he was the new neighbor, and he was kneeling down and comforting his younger brother, who then was just a little boy. I thought about how that little boy was now in the fourth grade, and I thought about how my friend wasn’t as I thought of him then. He wasn’t kind and caring, he ditched class and did who knows what.

And I just stood there, and for the first time in who knows when, I just felt incredibly sad. I realized I was growing up. There was no Neverland, and no matter what I wouldn’t be able to imagine myself a meal in a few years. I wouldn’t be carefree, and the responsibilities that are already beginning to pile up are going to pile higher.

Eventually of course, I continued walking, feeling incredibly bittersweet. But now, when I think back to that one moment, that little boy rushing past, I just smile. It’s amazing what can trigger such a feeling, but it’s moments like that that really give me a reality check.

I'm feeling a bit nostalgic,

-Karma Police

[Untitled]

How do you see the world around you? Do you wake up every morning telling yourself, “today is going to be stupendous”? Do you see each day as a chance to do something great and meaningful in the world? Do you see each day as the time you must endure until you fall asleep again? Do you see each day as painful torture?

How do you see the people around you? Do you see them as wonderful, cheerful people? Do you see them as people you should unconditionally be kind too? Do you see them as cruel sadists who take advantage of your kindness, and therefore you hate their rotten guts outs?

Could it be true that the way people treat you is a reflection of the way you treat others?
“treat others as you would have them treat yourself”

Do you hide yourself from the rest of the world, maybe because you’re afraid, pr perhaps, you’re just sick of it all.

Maybe, you don’t even give donglefuidck about any of this (its the little thing on the bottom left).

Aimless wandering usually isn’t fun. Neither is aimless pondering. When you do, you’re pretty much lost. It could be literally being lost, being lost mentally, or just a certain feeling. The feeling when you just sit there, after you’ve aimlessly pondered, and wonder, what was all that for?

You feel you’re doing everything wrong. Of course, you haven’t, and you know it, but you’re not quite ready to accept it. You’ve done bad things, maybe you haven’t exactly killed a million people, but you haven’t really done anything good either. It’s an odd feeling, and indescribable one. My attempt at describing something indescribable would fall short, but here it is: it feels there’s a huge bomb inside of you. It’s blown up, and you’re waiting to feel it. Yet you don’t exactly have fire and debris flying out of your mouth and nostrils. The tension of waiting to feel it, feels like it could kill you already. It’s that tension, that anxiety that can just drive someone mad. There’s not much to do about it but try and relax, but that’s sort of hard sometimes. You know you have to fix whatever the problem was. You know you have to do something, at least should. Yet, there you sit, aimlessly meandering fields of grass. Fields empty of everything, but the grass under your feet, and you.

-digital delay

The Way We Get By

Desperate times call for...desperate measures? Or so they say. Still, they (whoever "they" are) are right. When you're desperate there's not much you can do. Desperation can lead to acts of glory, or acts of worthy of nothing less then a fling of dung. Quite often pressure follows right behind desperation's tail, leading the unwary to do stupid things. That, or it would allow some people to truly stand away from others, and show themselves.

"In life you need either inspiration or desperation."
-Anthony Robbins

Regardless of who Anthony Robbins is (apparently some public speaker/self-help guy), that is a good quote. In life, you need some sort of motivation to move on. You need something that will drive you forward. Without a destination, what's the point of a journey? Why should you compete, when you don't expect to gain anything from it? Why should you learn if you're not going to use that knowledge? Why should you? To an extent, that good quote is also wrong (maybe). Perhaps, the point of the journey, is to realize what the destination is.



On a completely separate and random note, the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival was held on the last weekend of April. Being the first one I actually bothered to care about, I can't wait to see another one of the annual event. Though I wasn't actually there, there was a live stream...of...some of the performances... With performers like Prince, Jack Johnson, The Raconteurs, The National, Portishead, Rilo Kiley, Tegan and Sara, Death Cab for Cutie, Metric, Swervedriver, and plenty more...this one was great. Now, Bonnaroo is next!

-digital delay

Scrubbing for my Dollar

To start off the month of May, I’ll write a little something about ‘greed’.

Being my bored self, I took a look at my aunt’s bookshelf, and I spotted an odd looking book, titled “DUH! The Stupid History of the Human Race”. (hmm, maybe that’s true…). I flipped to a random page in the book, which led me to “Chapter 14: Dumb Things Famous People Said.” Wow…really, really interesting…is it?

Actually, it is. Coincidentally, this quote was on the page:

“I think greed is healthy. You can be greedy and still feel good about yourself.”
-Ivan Boesky, financier

I laughed to myself when I read that. In some ways, that’s true—because when you’re greedy, it’s always about yourself. Moments where you feel greedy are the moments where you feel selfish. Don’t take me wrong—you might not be a selfish person, but everyone has their own selfish moments, right?

I can’t even recall the countless moments where I’ve felt greedy. Ranging from video games to books to music, I’ve always dreamed of getting everything. I mean, if you have an amount of wealth equal to that of Bill Gates, you could just point to something you want and you’ll get it! How GREAT is that?

But then again, would you have the same feeling of satisfaction and accomplishment when you buy the item? When you work extremely hard for your money, and you actually start spending it on something, you feel good when you get it, because you know you earned it really well. I mean, you also ‘earned’ the bunches of money you have (when you’re wealthy), but when you earn less, everything you buy will seem so much more valuable. Instead of saying “Oh, wow, the newest Guitar Hero is being released tomorrow. I’ll just go tell my chauffeur to drive me there tomorrow and get it,” it’d be much more satisfying in the end if you said, “Oh, the newest Guitar Hero is being released tomorrow. Let me work hard to earn the amount of money, and then I’ll go buy it!” That way, while you’re playing the game, you’ll have a warm feeling on the inside that you worked your butt off to get this time to play.

Dang! That was a long, random ramble. I’m just sittin’ here at my aunt’s computer in San Diego typing some random article because of this random spark of inspiration from this random book I found on her random bookshelf. Yeah…random.

-the clam.