R.R.

"The face is the mirror of the mind, and eyes without speaking confess the secrets of the heart."
- Saint Jerome

THE FILTER

i got this idea from my good friend natalie...
to filter out the bad guys.
she had her own list of questions. this is mine:

1. do you like baseball?
- if yes, do you like the yankees?
2. do you like cursive/the good life?
3. do you like (real) hip hop?
4. who do you prefer... nas or jay-z?
5. do you like classic rock?
6. are you religious?
7. are you witty?
8. do you like seafood and/or sushi?
9. do you eat meat?
10. what is your highest level of education?
11. do you like to drink beer?
12. what political party do you identify with most?
13. do you wear boxers or briefs?
14. do you work out?
15. do you do drugs?
16. do you like art? make art?
17. do you chew with your mouth open?
18. do you snore?
19. do you like "jeopardy"?
20. do you like the movie "rules of attraction"?
21. do you want to have kids?
22. do you want to get married?
23. do you like bill murray?
24. do you ever use the "N" word?
25. do you have a job?
26. do you have goals?
27. do you like chipotle?
28. do you take longer to get ready than me?
29. are you a good speller?
30. will you change songs in my car without asking me first?
31. how do you feel about growing a beard?
32. would you be willing to run through sprinklers with me?

*some of these things are NON-negotiable!!!

knowledge

"An immature love says I love you because I need you, but a mature love says I need you because I love you."

took me awhile to realize this.

Tim

saw tim kasher last night at the troubadour. he did a LOT of new stuff. it was amazing!

William Wordsworth

That though the radiance which was once so bright be now forever taken from my sight. Though nothing can bring back the hour of splendor in the grass, glory in the flower. We will grieve not, rather find strength in what remains behind.





i miss ryan.

Fairytale.

A man of words and not of deeds
Is like a garden full of weeds,
And when the weeds begin to grow,
It’s like a garden full of snow.
And when the snow begins to fall,
It’s like a bird upon the wall,
And when the bird away does fly,
It’s like an eagle in the sky.
And when the sky begins to roar,
It’s like a lion at the door.
And when the door begins to crack,
It’s like a stick across your back,
And when your back begins to smart,
It’s like a penknife in your heart,
And when your heart begins to bleed,
You’re dead, you’re dead, you’re dead indeed.

The Greek Slave

"The Greek Slave" - Hiram Powers

sonnet by Elizabeth Barrett Browning
inspired by the statue.

Sole

i put up a tent to daydream in.
the freedom fighter calls life a nuclear nightmare.
and if you don't like the tone of my sinking ship,
pray for me while i cry for you.

whoever i can't kill, my daughter will.
and at night, in complete silence, i can convince myself i'm psychic
as i walk through berkeley and wish i had a cause.
i know it's bullshit, but it's all i can believe in.
the more time i spend staring at people who never dare to stare,
i also know it isn't hopeless if i'm thinking this.
and avoiding cliche is like lying in my living room,
staring at the ceiling, complaining about how ugly that it's getting.

only two of my childhood friends escaped the experiment,
some were killed, some became killers.
some mourn a lack of ambition through parents
who passsed on the nest 'til there were no worms left.
the successful went on to go to college then do nothing;
if you're their fool, you're everyone's fool and no one's friend.
it's a native american thing, you'd never understand why
i've learned to eat pain like a sunday snack,
march to no tune, and got a collar and doggy biscuit.

self-taught master of sleepless hallucination.
loveless thinking pill,
learn it to dance for my sister's dog sake,
my mother's mother, and my father's veins sake.
they all wanna spill my guts into the street and wrestle me in it
like i can't digest what i can't swallow

for all the loveless pedestrians holding bloodless hands.
and when alone with death for the first time, but realize it was there all along.
the amusement park lines aren't as good as the in-my-head-lines:
this is my newest installment in my latest last will and testament series.
i see people who try too hard to be themselves
and wanna throw them lines like no one is themselves,
follow your guts to traffic.
'cause your remote control dreams are worth more to you than to them.
you have to believe me, i wrote this with a pink pen
and my face never goes red when they ask what it means.
misunderstand me in your perfect pose, while plastic seats scream, "your excellence,"
your pretty putty padded ass.

well-trained men learned to worship the lovenessness all around;
shallowness is quite becoming.
all the parts of life that are not mind-numbing experiences,
throw your hats off to those of us who can run off cheap batteries and wine.
we'd love to run you off the road and write a book about it.
if you stood between the day the little pig took the big pigs out to dinner
to eat them with barren hands
that done wrote ten million words and never got my point across.
like people afraid to be different wanna make a difference.
most nights i sleep alone and freezing and have no dreams.
tonight is different: awake and freezing, i have no skin
left for my parachute.

this advice isn't for you, it's for me; in my stomach forever.
tomorrow they'll forget me 'cause i never learned to kill for oil but then again,
i never learned to sit still and probably never will.
feel the need to hide these beautiful places until my rich man's death bed.
we can't sleep, i can't write at all in my room 'cause i had a girl there once,
and the moral of the story is...
there is no story.

City and Colour

this man is amazing.
i love these lyrics!

And you can try to fight this all you want
But I wont be there when you’re all alone
And this new season brings with it signs of hope
You can leave me waiting by the phone

And I know there is some place I can go
Where no one knows my name

And I still remember the sound of your voice
All though your silence still rings so clear
Do you think that I would call just to hear you breathe?
You always knew that just one word would dry up all my tears

And I know there is some place I can go
Where no one knows my name
No one knows my name

Chelsea Handler

i love her.

Joseph Conrad

Who knows what true happiness is
Not the conventional word
But the naked terror
To the lonely themselves,
that wear a mask
the most miserable outcast
hugs some memory
or some illusion.

-Joseph Conrad

President Obama

i will never forget where i was, who i was with, and how i was feeling at this time. i truly feel proud to be an american for the first time. i really believed in obama and i truly feel that the best man won. he is going to make a remarkable president.

10.29.08

this was my day today:

6:45AM: wake up
8:00AM class
work on my PVC project
8:20AM: realize i need diff glue
8:30AM: go to Lowe's by CSUSB
9:00AM: work on project in class
9:02AM: realize it's not the glue, it's the pipe
but continue to work on it anyway.
11:30AM: get home
12:00PM: go to Lowe's to get the RIGHT pipe
get the pipe, go home.
1:20: go to the gym, work out
2:00: go to the grocery store
get some goods.
2:30: make an amazing lunch
-salad, salmon, broccoli/cheese
3:00 ralax for a bit.
5:00 watch the world series.
8:00 watch the Obama special (got teary eyed)
9:00 go BACK to Lowe's (for the THIRD time today)
get the right pipe
get home... turns out that the pipe cutters aren't cutting the pipe.
10:15: i begin to cry and feel kinda crazy.
10:20: try to calm down and decide a bath is the best policy.
10:30: take the longest bath ever. calmed down.
11:00: i get AMAZING NEWS!!! nov. 30TH HURRY UP AND GET HERE!!!

today was filled with ups and downs.
i def have a love/hate relationship with PVC pipe!

Your heart is an empty room

Burn it down till the embers smoke on the ground
And start new when your heart is an empty room
With walls of the deepest blue

Home's face: how it ages when you're away
Spring blooms and you find the love that's true
But you don't know what now to do
Cause the chase is all you know
And she stopped running months ago

And all you see
Is where else you could be
When you're at home
Out on the street
Are so many possibilities
To not be alone

The flames and smoke climbed out of every window
And disappeared with everything that you held dear
And you shed not a single tear for the things that you didn't need
'Cause you knew you were finally free

'Cause all you see is where else you could be when you're at home
Out on the street are so many possibilities to not be alone

And all you see is where else you could be
When you're at home
There on the street are so many possibilities to not be alone

-Deathcab

Inmates

When you said you loved me...
did you really love me?
Or did the words just spill out...
like drool on my pillow?
‘Cause I was naked when you said those words,
but I felt covered in your whispered worship.

And as you passed out fast on my shoulder,
I imagined a child waiting so sad and still for his mom to arrive.
Did she leave you an orphan,
in that big, brown leather chair?
Said, “ Don’t you move a muscle, kid,
I’ll be back in twenty years,”
You were scared, you were lonely,
but you must’ve been aware;
life is a series of calluses, this is just another layer.
So, build’em up, tough it out...
Yeah, that’s your skin – don’t let anyone under there.

-The Good Life

Navesink Banks

"All hope abandon, ye who enter here"
Said the sign I read that was hanging above her bed
And the siren's all willing
But a man can't ignore the signs
You gotta keep a good eye on the winding road ahead

And my first sin was a young American girl
And my first sin was a young American girl

And I spent time 'neath the trestles
With the punks and the dimestore saints
We kept faith and a switchblade tucked beneath my coat
And I ran with dirty angels
Slept out in the rain
We were scared and tired and barely seventeen

And my first sin was the fear that made me old
And my first sin was the fear that made me old

And now I walk down by the shipyards
Near the place where I was born
Saying, "Oh Maria, if you'da known me when"
But she only smiles by the light on the Navesink Banks
Saying, "Listen baby, I know you now"

Then she steps into the river
And I just stand by the moon
Thinking 'bout a ghost I hear at night
And she says, "Your first sin was a lie you told yourself.
"And your first sin was a lie you told yourself."

-The Gaslight Anthem

Moab

They say the sun won't burn forever
But that's a science too exact
I can prove it
Watch - we're crossing the state line
See those headlights coming towards us?
That's someone going back to a town they said they'd never
They swore it on their life
But you can't break out of a circle
That you never knew you were in



There's nothing that the road cannot heal
Washed under the black top, gone beneath my wheels
There's nothing that the road cannot heal

Some will spend their precious time trying to decorate their lives
Taking measurements for some new look they want
So from one to ten, ten's exactly what I am
Zero being everything I'm not
Tell me what you like
Is it less than five?

-Conor Oberst

McCain Supporters

this video just made me cry. i can't believe the ignorance and hatred.

Voltaire

"It is forbidden to kill; therefore all murderers are punished unless they kill in large numbers and to the sound of trumpets"

"Stand upright, speak thy thoughts, declare The truth thou hast, that all may share; Be bold, proclaim it everywhere: They only live who dare."

"Of all religions, the Christian should of course inspire the most tolerance, but until now Christians have been the most intolerant of all men."

Trenton Doyle Hancock

MAN MAN

will we ever find the one that we were meant to love like we want to be loved
take this flight into the sun
or did they die in a dry hump fire years before we were born
when all the hogs devoured the dogs like lightening after the storm
and her lips were wet like a rose with summer sweat
and when our eyes met i knew i was through
tiptoes on cobblestones in glass stilettos
it breaks my knees when she hides her nosebleeds in my dreams as i sleep
and i know i'll never be the man that she thinks she really needs
but it don't stop me from trying to be

On the Manner of Addressing Clouds

Gloomy grammarians in golden gowns,
Meekly you keep the mortal rendezvous,
Eliciting the still sustaining pomps
Of speech which are like music so profound
They seem an exaltation without sound.
Funest philosophers and ponderers,
Their evocations are the speech of clouds.
So speech of your processionals returns
In the casual evocations of your tread
Across the stale, mysterious seasons. These
Are the music of meet resignation; these
The responsive, still sustaining pomps for you
To magnify, if in that drifting waste
You are to be accompanied by more
Than mute bare splendors of the sun and moon.

--Wallace Stevens

Tower of Terror

Jen and I on Tower of Terror

Millstone

I used to be such a burning example,
I used to be so original.
I used to care, I was being cared for.
Made sure I showed it to those that I love.

I used to sleep without a single stir,
'Cause I was about my father's work.

Well take me out tonight,
This ship of fools I'm on will sink.
A millstone around my neck,
Be my breath, there's nothing I wouldn't give.

I used to pray like God was listening.
I used to make my parents proud.
I was the glue that kept my friends together,
Now they don't talk and we don't go out.

I used to know the name of every person I'd kissed.
Now I made this bed and I can't fall asleep in it.

Well take me out tonight,
This ship of fools I'm on will sink.
A millstone around my neck,
Be my breath, there's nothing I wouldn't give.

Throw me that lifeline,
This ship of fools I'm on will sink.
A millstone around my neck
Be my breath, there's nothing I wouldn't give.

Never hit the brakes
there's no time to save him,
He just ran out in the street
anybody know his name?
I think I recognize him
sure it's him?
... mistake

Woah.

So take me out tonight.
This ship of fools I'm on will sink.
A millstone around my neck.
Be my breath, there's nothing I wouldn't give.

To save my life tonight.
This ship of fools I'm on will sink
A millstone around my neck
Be my breath, there's nothing I wouldn't give.

Under a Honeymoon

You look at me like you’ve been saved
From another one that got away.
So I’m your latest cup of tea
To keep your cold hands company,
And I will warm you.
I will calm you down.
Until those waters
Are ready to be sailed upon,
Under a honeymoon.
Under a honeymoon.

You say you’ve never felt this way
At least not this early.
We decide to hold nothing back –
We’ll act how we want to act.
And so, eventually, we became pretty good actors.
Acting and reacting and acting and reacting
Under a honeymoon.

We know the sun is gonna rise,
We tell ourselves to act surprised,
We’re comforted in our denial
That dark love can be reconciled
Oh please, oh please, …. reconcile me
From all these bad actors,
All these bad endings.

Under a honeymoon;
We want what we’re not and we don’t want to stop
‘cause it feels right –
or at least it’s feeling good,

….at least it feels good…

I always fall in love too soon,
Caught beneath the glow of a honeymoon

Shakespeare

Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:
O no! it is an ever-fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wandering bark,
Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken
Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle's compass come:
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
If this be error and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.

Waiting

A coma might feel better than this,
Attempting to discover where to begin.
You're weighed down, you're full of something.
Of sickness, and desertion.
You're weighed down, you're full of something,
You're underneath it all.

So say goodbye to love,
And hold your head up high.
There's no need to rush
We're all just waiting, waiting to die.

Hoping a better place is all I need,
With moments of innocence and mystery.
Oh, it's the little things you miss.
Like waking up all alone.
Oh, it's the little things you miss,
When you're underneath it all.

So say goodbye to love,
And hold your head up high.
There's no need to rush
We're all just waiting, waiting to die.

All your friends seem like enemies
When you're broken down and empty.
All your friends seem like enemies
When you're broken down and empty.

So say goodbye to love,
And hold your head up high.
There's no need to rush
We're all just waiting, waiting to die.

All I Need

night time
raining outside
window open
lights off
candle lit
in bed
listening to this
[close your eyes and picture it]


thats what i want.

Epitaph

and we'll write in the sand, "Here lies the destiny of two hurt souls afraid to be cured again... That could be our epitaph."

Language of the breeze

If what they say is true
You are a shadow in the fourth dimension
To float away with you
We see the corners where nothing happens
While we drifted we were one
Ceilings lifted walls were gone
You speak the language of the breeze
All your leaves were meant for me

Ida Scott Taylor

“Do not look back and grieve over the past, for it is gone; and do not be troubled about the future, for it has yet to come. Live in the present, and make it so beautiful that it will be worth remembering.”
-Ida Scott Taylor

Looking Back

I have been cleaning out my room today because my new furniture arrives tomorrow. This forces me to go through all my crap from years ago, which has caused me to feel both depressed and nostalgic.

Sometimes, stepping back and looking back really helps you appreciate who you are and the person you have become.

"If we met today, promise me you'll stay awake long enough to hear me say 'let's go to sleep'"

"I thought so much about losing you that I never really had you."

Rules of Attraction

I want to moan and writhe with you and I want to go up to you and kiss your mouth and pull you to me and say "I love you I love you I love you" while stripping. I want you so bad it stings. I want to kill the ugly girls that you're always with. Do you really like those boring, naive, coy, calculating girls or is it just for sex? The seeds of love have taken hold, and if we won't burn together, I'll burn alone.
Brett Easton Ellis - The Rules of Attraction

Waste of Paint

I have a friend, he is mostly made of pain.
And he wakes up, drives to work,
and then straight back home again.
He once cut one of my nightmares out of paper.
I thought it was beautiful, I put it on a record cover.
And I tried to tell him he had a sense
of color and composition so magnificent.
And he said

"Thank you, please
but your flattery
is truly not
becoming me.
Your eyes are poor.
You're blind.
You see,
no beauty could have come from me.
I'm a waste
of breath,
of space,
of time."

I knew a woman, she was dignified and true.
And her love for her man was one of her many virtues.
Until one day, she found out that he had lied
and she decided the rest of her life from that point on would be a lie.
But she was grateful for everything that had happened.
And she was anxious for all that would come next.
But then she wept.
What did you expect?
In that big, old house
with the cars she kept.
"And such is life," she often said.
With one day leading
to the next,
you get a little closer to your death,
which was fine with her.
She never got upset
and with all the days she may have left,
she would never clean
another mess
or fold his shirts
or look her best.
She was free
to waste
away
alone.

Last night, my brother he got drunk and drove.
And this cop he pulled him off to the side of the road.
And he said, "Officer! Officer! You got the wrong man.
No, no, I'm a student of medicine, a son of a banker, you don't understand!"
The cop said, "No one got hurt, you should be thankful.
And your carelessness, it is something awful.
And no, I can't just let you go.
And though your father's name is known,
your decisions now are yours alone.
You are nothing but a stepping stone
on a path
to debt,
to loss,
to shame."

The last few months I have been living with this couple.
Yeah, you know, the kind who buy everything in doubles.
They fit together, like a puzzle.
And I love their love and I am thankful
that someone actually receives the prize that was promised
by all those fairy tales that drugged us.
And they still do me.
I'm sick, lonely,
no laurel tree,
just green envy.
Will my number come up eventually?
Like Love's some kind of lottery,
where you scratch and see
what's underneath.
It's "Sorry",
just one cherry,
or "Play Again."
Get lucky.

So I've been hanging out down by the train's depot.
No, I don't ride.
I just sit and watch the people there.
And they remind me of wind up cars in motion.
The way they spin and turn and jockey for positions.
And I want to scream out that it all is nonsense.
All your life's one track,
can't they see it's pointless?
But just then, my knees
give under me.
My head feels weak
and suddenly
it's clear to see
it's not them but me,
who has lost my self-identity.
As I hide behind
these books I read,
while scribbling
my poetry,
like art could save a wretch like me,
with some ideal ideology
that no one could hope to achieve.
And I am never real;
it is just a sketch in me.
And everything I made is trite
and cheap
and a waste
of paint,
of tape,
of time.

So now I park my car down by the cathedral,
where the floodlights point up at the steeples.
Choir practice was filling up with people.
I hear the sound escaping as an echo.
Sloping off the ceiling at an angle.
When the voices blend they sound like angels.
I hope there’s some room still in the middle.
But when I lift my voice up now to reach them.
The range is too high,
way up in heaven.
So I hold my tongue,
forget the song,
tie my shoe
start walking off.
And try to just keep moving on,
with my broken heart
and my absent God
and I have no faith
but it's all I want,
to be loved.
And believe,
in my soul.
In my soul.
In my soul.
In my soul.

-Bright Eyes

Tainted

"I admit and deny nothing... for if you believe me tainted in your eyes, I must be."
-A.M.G.

someone said this to me today and i thought it was pretty profound.

Longfellow

"Look not mournfully into the past, it comes not back again. Wisely improve the present, it is thine. Go forth to meet the shadowy future without fear and with a manly heart."
-Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Ode to Tim Kasher

"An Empty Bed"



"Album of the Year"



speaks for itself.
i love him.
so much.

Heart of Chambers

In your heart of chambers
where you sit
with your picture books
and your ancient wit
In that nook I found you
so old and tired
would you be the one to carry me?
I'd like to be someone
you could finally learn to love again

Made our iron bed side
cold as graves
so we stoke the organs
that may comfort grace
and they conjured spirits
to make you smile
would you be my long time baby?

I'd like to be someone
you could finally learn to
breathe
at our sides
let's take the time
to mend these smiles
to get them
could make it home
love is surprises
live our own lives

In our beds we're the lucky ones
filled with the sun
In our beds we're the lucky ones
fill us with the sun

Letting Go

“Some of us think holding on makes us strong; but sometimes it is letting go.”
- Hermann Hesse

Hansel & Gretel

hansel said to gretel, "let us drop these bread crumbs so that together we find our way home because losing our way would be the most cruel of things."

losing your way on a journey is unfortunate but losing your reason for the journey is a fate more cruel. the journey didn't last long. sometimes i traveled alone. sometimes there were others who took the wheel and took my heart. but when the destination was reached it wasnt me who arrived. it wasnt me at all and once you lose yourself you have two choices. find the person you used to be or lose that person completely... because sometimes you have to step outside the person you've been and remember the person you were meant to be, the person you wanted to be, the person you are.

T.H. White

"Perhaps we all give the best of our hearts uncritically -- to those who hardly think about us in return."
-T.H. White

paul baribeau

name ten things you wanna do before you die and then go do them.
name ten places you really wanna be before you die and then go to them
name ten books you wanna read before you die and then go read them
name ten songs you wanna hear again before you die, get all of your friends together and scream them

think of all the things that are wrong with your life and then fix them
think of all the things that you love about your life, be thankful you are blessed with them
think of all the things that hold you back and realize that you don't need them
think of all the mistakes you have made in your life, make sure that you never repeat them

because right now all you have is time time time
name ten thousand reasons why you never wanna die, go and tell someone who might've forgotten
try to list the endless reasons why it's good to be alive, and then just smile for awhile about them

soon the sun will rise and another day will come
soon enough the sun will set, another day will be gone
and right now all you have is time time time
but someday that time will run out.
that's the only thing you can be absolutely certain about.
-- paul baribeau

Walden

"Live each season as it passes. Breathe the air, drink the drink, taste the fruit, but resign yourself to the influences of each."
-Henry David Thoreau

Jack Kerouac

“The only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn, like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars and in the middle you see the blue centerlight pop and everybody goes "Awww!”

definitely one of my favorite writers of the 20th century!

Rebecca

i've been really into old movies lately... mainly from the 1930's/40's.

i love this film, and no... not just because it's called "Rebecca".

"happiness is something i know nothing about."