Sunday, July 29, 2007

woo!

so for the last few weeks ive been waking up in random places and trying to figure out where i am and how i got there. i pretty consistently end up in a new place before i have time to figure anything out, so i still dont really have any idea whats going on.

im in buenos aires right now, hanging with jaime and nate. i spent this morning hung over as shit, (from bars/clubs/dancing my pants off last night,) frantically flipping through channels looking for the iraq soccer game. apparently argentina cares a lot about soccer but not much about iraq.

the closest thing i could find was a weirdass argentine news "war on terror" segment which consisted of a 10 minute u.s. airport security montage with a thumping techno remix of wagners flight of the valkyries in the background. fuck. of course the game was the headline of every major news channels website, (cnn, al jazeera, bbc...) but nowhere to be found in argentina. grmph!

i gave up and we ordered some chinese food por curing hangover, which helped. (by the way, "por" is spanish for "for"... idiot.) hangover cured, i had to be contented with repeatedly checking the internet. which eventually led to this.

next stop, the weekly independent clothes designers market outside jaimes house.

so its been cville->providence->cville->salem->cville->rva->obx->dc->buenos aires...
and soon itll be buenos aires->dc->nice->cannes->paris->newcastle->london->dc->rva->nyc->rva.

sweet.



!

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Thursday, July 12, 2007

cars and bullets.

heres to car wrecks and murders and disease! heres to avoiding them. and heres to the friends that didnt.

...

walking the streets of la, i remember the story he told me about when he was in south africa...

he and a friend with a car were driving through johannesburg when at a stop, a gang of armed kids walked in front of the car and told them to get out. so they got out of the car and walked to the side of the street. the kids turned to get in the car and just then another group of gun toting south africans point their guns at the car, claiming it for themselves. someone starts letting off shots.

they hit the ground until a lady in a house nearby called to them to run in. as they were running, his friend fell. he turned around and grabbed his friend and they both got in the house. the lady looks at him and starts screaming. he looks down and their is blood all over his chest. he pulls up his shirt, trying to figure out where hed been hit. they start frantically looking for the bullet hole.

a richochet had cut him and his friend was hit in the leg, and he got blood on him while carrying his friend.

but he was fine.

...

so heres to the cyclical nature of all things. heres to death and rebirth and learning with each cycle. heres to coming closer to the truth every time we die.

...

heres to you...

ارام

and the name we shared...

عادل

...

heres to the fragility of one life, and the endurance of many.

...

farewell and welcome noble ghost.

our ranks give tribute, our blades bear your name.

Monday, July 2, 2007

transitions.

transitions!

its over. cville is all gone! before i get drunk off this last little bit, i just want to spend some time with you and remember. i have no idea what ive learned, but i know "its something". i cant explain it... but i feel it all.

so heres a tribute to all of it. heres to human flaws! heres to seeing them. heres to weaknesses! heres to knowing them. heres to car wrecks and murders and disease! heres to avoiding them. and heres to the friends that didnt.

heres to the fragility of one life, and the endurance of many.

all the promises i made. im still good for them. heres to keeping contracts. heres to honor and pride and making shame an ongoing joke.

heres to abrogating treaty. heres to seperateness and navigating the maze of differences that leave us at an utter loss for understanding eachother. heres to not understanding eachother. heres to not understanding.

heres to giving up. heres to giving in. heres to liking it.

heres to arbitrary direction in life, because you know that even when you forgot who you were, you were still yourself. and the trees are still too old and wise to care. and the leaves are still pretty the next day, when you remember again.

heres to the constant rumbling of airplanes behind the trees. heres to the orphans that have become my family. heres to the children that see such wonders for the first time and dont understand them. heres to teaching them.

heres to the tyrants that will not love the truth of seperateness. heres to understanding and respecting them as your fellow man, but keeping the blade on their necks. heres to eternal vigilance, so that we may teach our children in peace.

heres to the graves weve long since paved over. heres to those that died for their fellow man. heres to the immutable truth that wins every time, but heres to the occasional failure that makes us smile. heres to the deaths of hundreds of millions and the birth of ten times more. heres to the bombs that destroy ten cities for every thousand we build.

heres to the cyclical nature of all things. heres to death and rebirth and learning with each cycle. heres to coming closer to the truth every time we die.

heres to my own death. heres to the kreb cycle and photosynthesis and atp and glucose and the life of each individual cell and the will that becomes more than the sum of its parts. heres to not understanding what makes me alive.

heres to endless progress and factories and cities and airplanes and healthy people. heres to blogs that get too long because im rambling and because i dont want to let go of each cycles beauty.

so onwards to the next cycle. ill do better this time. im not perfect, but i should try. the trees tell us so. the ones that dont are long gone.

heres to the illusion of a zero sum game, and harnessing the suns energy on giant floating platforms of solar panels that grow calorie rich crops as yet unheard of. heres to machines that will farm them while i sip unimaginably perfect lemonade and toy with my childrens genes.

heres to the endless struggle and the refugees and the camps and the loss and the airdrops and the devil on horseback and the taliban and zionism and hezbollah and the mahdi army and the basij.

heres to the hope of giving them all proper burials.

heres to the mistakes my fathers fathers father made and the people that took everything from him.

heres to the mistakes my fathers father made and the people that took everything from him.

heres to the mistakes my father made and the people that took everything from him.

heres to the mistakes i will make and the knowledge that no one can ever take everything from anyone. heres to that immutable justice.

heres to the mistakes my children will make.

heres to the mistakes my childrens children will make.

heres to the mistakes my childrens childrens children will make.

heres to their struggles, and their heartache.

heres to the meager 3 years i spent in the school jefferson built for me to eat that heartache and hate the world and learn to love it all in the end anyway.

...

heres to my love for you.

i love you.

...

yes, you!

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