How to be a Man according to Brian Field, part one.

"If someone hands you a pistol, you've gotta check the action. If you don't know what the action of a pistol is, you shouldn't be holding a gun in the first place."

This Last Week Or So...

Things to do:
Buy Books
Sell Books
Pay Bills
Clean Room
Take Care of Miscellaneous Shit
Learn How to be a Woman
Read Books of Substantial Literary Quality
Family Responsibilities
Show Sheep
Work for $$

Things I have actually done:

Looked at Bikes
Bought Bike
Looked up song tabs
Played song tabs
Made Mix CDs
Generally laughed
Drove around
Ate
Ate
Ate
Spent time with miscellaneous friends
Felt sorry for myself

[[Heard you tried to, to keep your hat up on the shelf]]

Hiatus abolished, disguised as self-centered political musings

Okay, here we go.

...

Neither here nor there
we talked for 1 hour forty seven minutes to be exact.
About what makes someone a pragmatic, about how not to be idealistic until your idiotic, on whether or not we were nineteen and disillusioned.

Pragmatism; \ˈprag-mə-ˌti-zəm\ a practical approach to problems and affairs. (Nathan tried to strike a balance between his principles and pragmatism) 
the function of thought is to guide action, and truth is to be tested preeminently by the practical consequence of belief. 
What does that mean, exactly? If I am honest, I allow my thoughts to stray always from my impending actions. 


But then the other voice in my head, the one that isn't Nathan, I suppose, says that all my thoughts really do just react or re-instate some sort of action. This proves the American-forged philosophy correct. I'm currently looking for a loophole in opposition, I promise. 
In the meantime this means I'm a pragmatic? When I was younger and forced by public education to evaluate my personality via online testing all the time I came to the conclusion that I was a realist idealist.  What does this mean? A 5'5 blonde girl who liked reading Dickinson and going to professional bull riding events. 
The truth is, I don't know what that means. I had dreams but I was tethered to a state of conservative reality.

I hear people say that the world needs free health care. That sounds really perfect. Then everyone could always be healthy and things would be really easy. I guess I just wish that doctors weren't people. Then every time a diseased person walks into a health care clinic they won't have to worry about malpractice and negligence and ending up on a wait list for fifteen more years. They won't have to wordlessly receive simple antibiotics when what they need is a double bypass surgery.


Ah but that happens now, doesn't it? I'm a bird with an identity crisis. 


I guess we will need Will Smith in a pair of Chucks to solve our problems. Sooner than later.

They Capture Light Well

After the wedding I let Joe drive and we ended up at Thriftway with chocolate milks in our hands. I forget the name of the brand now. Something about moo, something with double vowels. Not too creative. I had been a little aggressive in my conversation with the cashier - I wasn't wearing shoes, I was over compensating. The boss from my summer job, (also named Joe) had said that most of his past girlfriends never wore shoes. He also told me they all had dreads. I never knew how to react to that statement, me with my little beaded knots of hair, so I would lean down and pull another root of ivy from the ground. Damn non-native plant life. 

I am nervous right now, can you tell?

Well, we sat outside Thriftway on a plant box with a wide enough lip for people to sit. It was made out of brick, or something like it. An obsolete building material kept around for aesthetic value only. I never want to resemble brick. Joe was talking about the wedding, "A pastor friend told me something the other day: he said that people do a lot of thinking, if not the most, at weddings and funerals. The think their thoughts at funerals, and at weddings. That's a reason I bought new pants today." (I still don't understand how that relates, but I'll let it remain a mystery.) 

I was momentarily captivated by the light coming from the street lamps. There was so much of it. It trickled down through the thick summer air and pooled in the parking lot. 

I don't remember what I said particularly about the wedding, but I had the over-arching impression of innocence and eloquence. ence ence ence. They captured the light well, with white sheets stretched out as drapes and shades along the sun-edge of the sitting area. I thought a lot. I decided I wasn't praying enough for my future One Love, and then I took that decision back. There is so much to pray for. I keep telling people that I just want a dog and a house in the mountains. Maybe that statement is real, will become reality.

I am afraid to use too many sentences that include the word I. I am afraid to spend too much time making assumptions about other people. I am afraid that I will never find the balance between the two and begin to be a real writer. When one is real, does she even have to begin?

Before I Forget

And once the creeds fade from the lips of the people
the pictures will still remain.
staying the same on the flags my dad placed in front of our
steeple of a house

we called it a home.
I keep choosing words because the pictures they paint are also made out of stone.

Window View

When the ceder
 branchs twist 
she turns her 
collar to the 
wind

The weather
 can enclose the
world
within it's
hands

I wished to fly

We were walking by the water back to our car parked by the tram. We had just had the full Portland Blues experience, purchased by 12 cans of food and a lot of smiling. I wanted to dwell on the idea of a society dominated by hagglers. Goods for Goods, no longer paying homage to Mammon.
Becca looked up and said, "I have this friend, he traded everything he owned since when I first met him." She stopped momentarily to trail her hand along a chain link fence, "He started with stuff, and then started trading that stuff for other, more compact stuff like tools and knifes that would fit in his backpack. He consolidated. Then he traded more. Now all he really has left is his back pack.."
We piled into the subaru and drove home listening to mix CDs.


And now its time for a poorly written reflection:
Today I realized that everything is based on actions. Every relationship depends on the action and inaction of the words you use, the time you show up, the acts of love you commit to. This is not a subtle and intricately woven question concerning life. This is a frank statement that I may or may not even believe as truth, but regardless it is significant enough for me to write about now. I can think about my emotions and beliefs and how they translate to other people all I want - but the only way other people will realize anything that I feel is through action. Active expressing, active doing.


I wish to consolidate my words.