older song meant for an older day

December 23: A quick update.

I'm cooking some sweet potatoes right now, and sitting beside a cup of tea from Harrogate . Tommorow I'm planning on spending the day with my friend next door, having hot chocolate with baileys and watching bad Christmas movies.

I think tonight I'm going to watch the movie "Eastern Promises", which is a bit unnerving. I think its going to be a tough one.

I'm trying to process the fact that I'm not seeing my dad or mom this Christmas. I'll have to tell you how all this goes tomorrow. overall, its not so bad. Well I mean, its tough, but I have a community waiting for me when all this is over. The grace of this college life.

That is my today. Hey, let's all try something: hang some green and red materials around the house, turn on some lights and music, and bring in branches from trees outside (because I think the smell of actual tree smells better than those cheap plastic christmas trees. I am not down with fake trees). I think by then it will feel enough like christmas to get over the fact that it feels lonely. We might find some solitude.

Until then, all the best. Tis the season. And all the rest.

take your eyes off me, just for a moment

I'm in the closing chapters of "paper season" right now. Which means I'm working on my last of 3 ten page papers.

Its also the Christmas season, and in true student fashion I have been too busy to stop and reflect on what Christmas feels like. To me it feels like a lonely season of looking for family.

I should be sitting outside in the cold with a smoke, putting together thoughts with friends, being real as opposed to desperately trying then feeling bad about it later. i took a couple shots at being human this week, and now i feel bad about it. thus is life.

side note- i'm way too vague when I journal here, because i don't want to come across as one of those creepers who reveals "a bit too much" online. then again, my handmade journals feel very unfulfilling to write in today.

side note 2- I grew up with the gift(s) of guilt and sarcasm, and they have haunted me to this day.

It is the Christmas season. sometime before this year has run out of time to fill with moments I'm going to drink my fair share of fair-trade Sumatra coffee, and I'm going to write something pretty while I can.

We'll see.

Side note 3 - my whole plan to parent myself at age 22 is not worth shit. Let me be the first to say that I need some mentor figures in my life. thats me. (take deep breath now).

- Adam

listening

birds are leaving over autumn's ending

I just finished a three page paper, in one sitting, so I thought I'd reward myself with a little bit of writing prose time. right now.

So... here I am... In the collegium. Dang. This is not as easy as I thought it would be.

So, I almost completely burned out yesterday. I had this fun idea to put on a concert during exam season, with three papers haunting me on the horizon like 3 dark sailed pirate ships.

My burning out involeved the planning of a concert, with Adam Loewen (a friend of mine) and Jacob Moon (some guy from Ontario).

But, actually, the concert was really good. I think there is an inherantly relaxing quality about coffee paired with acousic guitar and friends.

The whole thing about me planning events by myself, while also trying to think about personal life and school work, is not going to fly next semester. Next year I'm going to plan less, and love more.

Let me leave you with this: a poem from that a girl I like wrote (i should probably tell her, one of these days. assuming that she doesen't read this, or does not already know. girls are very cunning that way).

I bought some eggnog at superstore
it's in a carton in my fridge; open cause i already had some
couldn't wait
but now
its waiting
for coffee and friends

more to come.

- Adam

And, PS- I know it sounds like I'm treating girls like static objects, instead of unique persons. Which is something every guy deals with, but not one talks about. as soon as you start treating a person as an "it" it becomes easier to abuse that person, disrespect them, try to use that person as the means to an end.

there is a great value in being human.

so, let this be a lesson to me. appreciate friends. and really spend time trying to connect with a person, rather than spend an evening trading clever comments and calling that intimacy. forget that.

weekend in the city chapter 3: let down and hanging around

i'll keep this list short because
a) i'm getting sick of my own voice
b) i'm sitting in a session, overlooking the UN building. Yesterday we (dave, renee, and other random people and I)

a) took a tour of the UN
b) stood beside east river
c) ate sketchy mozza ball soup from carnegie
d) rode sketchy subways
e) took in a comedy show on broadway

f) walked down times square, the land that never sees the dark of night. more stories later.
g) considered seeing rent. still considering.
h) hung out with abby. more stories later.
i) heard dave tell the story about how he almost got shot the first night, twice.

thats the short of it. New York never stops moving. its kind of a gong show.

more later. i am too worn down to write.

PS- i was lying. theres no more stories later. i'm just feeling really apathetic. thus is New York.

a weekend in the city, chapter 1: ghosts from broken homes

I'm flying out tomorrow. so starting a travel journal seemed appropriate. I'll be on the run until Sunday, so hopefully that inspires many "prodigal son"esque writing. meanwhile, i'm stressing out about next weeks peace festival.

I'm trying to figure out which books to bring. my heart is telling me Blue Like Jazz and Traveling Mercies. If my copy of Life After God had arrived via mail by now, that would probably find some space in my backpack as well.

I checked out the hostel i'm staying at online- the seafarers- which definitely seems built for the sake of young adulthood. I'm down.

I wrote a pre-trip poem, which turned out a little bitter and scared of the unsureness of this trip. I swear a lot, i won't lie. swearing is one of those "i really want to feel human" things that i love. right up there with beer and artsy movies.

I realized that i don't have a good jacket... so rather than try and find a ride to commercial drive, the place where all good jackets reside, i stopped into Valhalla Pure. $100 later, i have a new jacket... and a whole lot of conviction. damn.

i really want to listen to some music, and forget about stress. forever. i promise that these journals will be progressivley less crappy and depressing. it just feels like one of those nights.

i'm having a lot of those lately. lets have some down-time when i get back. i'll bring the tea.

later

listening to: cities

- Adam

because this city, this city is haunted.
theres no hope left for these souls.

- alexisonfire

the balcony sessions

wb yeats: he remembers forgotten beauty

Then my arms wrap you round I press

My heart upon the loveliness

That has long faded from the world;

The jewelled crowns that kings have hurled

In shadowy pools, when armies fled;

The love-tales wrought with silken thread

By dreaming ladies upon cloth

That has made fat the murderous moth;

The roses that of old time were

Woven by ladies in their hair,

The dew-cold lilies ladies bore

Through many a sacred corridor

Where such grey clouds of incense rose

That only God's eyes did not close:

For that pale breast and lingering hand

Come from a more dream-heavy land,

A more dream-heavy hour than this;

And when you sigh from kiss to kiss

I hear white Beauty sighing, too,

For hours when all must fade like dew,

But flame on flame, and deep on deep,

Throne over throne where in half sleep,

Their swords upon their iron knees,

Brood her high lonely mysteries.

- later.