Tuesday, December 14, 2004

Nih!

aah, don't feel like writing here lately, but i will later. sometime you'll randomly check back here and there will be lovely new things to read. sorry to dissappoint but you should know i am being creative. i've been drawing lately for the first time in a while. any time when i'm giving people gifts there's a chance i'll draw them a card. this Christmas i'm doing some of that. haven't drawn at all in forever. it's great. plus my mom has this one room set up as her studio. it's mostly taken up with stuff for making jewelry and clothes, etc. but there's a drawing table with all kinds of art supplies and two nice speakers from the stereo system. so i was feeling right at home, getting into the groove with the art. plus i was able to use my favorite art tool: watercolor pencils. those so rock!

so Christmas is coming. we do it white elephant style here. i get to give a present to my brother-in-law, which is fun because he's a "vocal" Republican, so i can tease him that i'm giving him a subscription to the Michael Moore fan club or something. actually, don't tell but i'm getting him John Stewart's "America (The Book)," which, if you haven't checked it out, is absolutely hysterical. i got my grandma too and she wants pajamas. can't fault her there. two folks got me and i'm going to ask for 1) a gift certificate to my favorite music store (cuz CD's are expensive!) and 2) the computer game i covet: "Pirates!" it's a remake of the 1987(!!!) classic by Sid Meir, who created Civilzation. i was obsessed with Pirates! back in the day. it's still one of the all time greats, and i mean top of the heap. now i get to play it again! i'm the luckiest man that ever lived! how many people get to say that their favorite game ever, way above all the rest, which they thought was obsolete and they would never play again, gets remade in this age of awesome graphics, etc. by the premier game designer? dream come true. but that's if it works on this laptop Michael got me to use for a while from the university he works at.

been cracking out on Civ III lately. i'm gonna go buy the expansion today for $20. it adds cool stuff like having slaves, being Mayan and sacrificing slaves, Fascism, etc., etc. when i go back to Oly to play the board game, though, that will be awesome. really got a hankerin' for that lately.

was reunited with a friend from back in the day in Austin when i first becaame a Baha'i and was really high on life. we had some really good times and were part of a whole group and time that i'll always be nostalgic about. now we're like "that was 11 years ago!" so we're gonna hang out tonight. that will be awesome. lots of catching up to do.

studying for the GRE. i think i'll do alright. i'm gonna go ahead and apply to grad school and forget about teaching. counceling is the thing for me and i need to just accept it and get on with it. even if the schools don't accept me, it's just one year. i'd make it in the next time around. got accepted to be a substitute teacher but that doesn't start till Jan.7, so i applied to some temp agencies. i'd like to go ahead and do some social work stuff but when i look at the job postings i never meet the qualifications. we'll see.

hope you're filled with Christmas spirit! (take any excuse to be a little happier!)

Wednesday, December 01, 2004

Getting Up to Date

this seems a little new. i came to write in my blog simply because i have a desire to write, not becuase i have some particular stuff i want to express or vent or because i want to connect with people. i just want to write--put words on the page and see where they take me. that's actually not been a standard feeling for me at all for a long time. i've always known that writing is perhaps the most effective way for me to express my stuff and work through it and be creative but it always took something else on top of just writing to get me to do it. why is that? one thing i know is that i've always had this concern with doing things that have no result. it's one of those totally irrational anxieties that is also incredibly ironic considering the collosal amount of time i have spent doing things that are basically different ways of frittering away the day.

it's like this: i know i'm not doing enough to change the world and myself for the better, so if i spend much time just writing and being creative and that kind of thing i'll become invested in something that isn't a "service" or "important." so i'll turn away from that to more serious things like thinking about life, solving the riddle of the cosmos, going out to make a difference in some way. but i really want to be creative but push that down for now. but i don't know how to make a difference, how to change the world. but i must. well, i know what i have to do. i'm clearly just too weak to do it. there's something wrong with me. if only i could find it and root it out. in the meantime i'll save myself from total panic and perpetual anxiety attacks by escaping into games, sports, TV, and what have you. the world won't go away but it won't be solved. it's like a rubix cube that's wrapping itself around my mind, becoming more conviluted the more i grapple with it. i can't handle it! so i'll go smoke some pot. now i'm really a pathetic loser. look at me. i wish i was chopped liver. better not think about that. smoke some more pot. watch some more sports. play some more video games. the days are passing. i'm moving away from myself but once i've escaped i find myself standing in the mirror once again. no escape, none but the knife or gun. but forget that--not an option. clearly stuck in a hole now. what was i trying to get to in the first place. truth. goodness. virtue. greatness. lost my shot at those things. what's left? if i can't be worthy i can be sure to hide myself from the gaze of those who will surely see me for the utter failure that i am. but that's everyone that matters. oh i'm in a pickle now. take me away please, restart me, squish me into a blob and start again PLEASE! but God won't listen. i keep waking up every day. keep waking up, dammit. the road is too long, too treacherous, too tortuous, too confusing, and i am just too damn depressed. turn in to the safety, the forgiveness, the love, the hope of my lady, my girl, my baby. oops, i slipped up. now she's gone. gone forever. nothing o hold on to now. falling....falling...falling out of my reality and itno the realization that i am one depressed, imobilized crazy man that needs to get his frickin life together cuz it aint gonna get any better unless i make it better. well, i'm depressed wnough to take medication. start the Lexapro. that makes it better. my brain's back on side of the good guys. leave all this swampy mess behind. do something completely and utterly new and different. go to China! everything's new, exciting. clean slate fresh start. living, learning. look at everybody looking at me! i'm a celebrity. i'm tall. i'm worth something. but China isn't my home. i can't stay here, not now. now that i feel like i can really do something with my life, i've got some stuff to prove to me, hurdles to jump, levels to reach, dragons to vanquish, magic items to find and use. maybe someday that whole process can go on in China or wherever but i gotta go back to my home and make it HAPPEN. make what happen? i dunno. find a profession that i enjoy; engage in the process of mastering something; get paid with benefits; take care of myself in "real life" as opposed to foreign guest in China life; do the things, such as writing, etc., that i feel called to do; build a healthy, balanced life for myself.

that's the challenge right now. so what emaotion do i feel about it all? FEAR. i'm afraid i will fail, everyone will see that i have no clue what i'm doing, i'll go left when i should go right, i'll trip and fall on my face, and stand in front of the judges and forget everything i ever learned. not to mention the fear that i already met and blew it with the girl(s) of my dreams and i'll eventually just settle for less. i also feel curiosity though. where am i going exactly? what will it be like when i arrive? who will i meet along the way? how hard or easy will it be? will i become happy, content? will i experience tragedy, cataclysm? will i someday feel like i've come close to fulfilling my potential? will i be a father and a husband? if so will i do good job or will i screw it up?

the other big feeling is impatience. i want to know the answer to these questions NOW! forget that--i want the resolution to all of it immediately! i'm sick of waiting! day after day after day. let's do this already! to a large extent i have significant capacity to speed things along. that's why i came back from China early, that's why i'm going with this teaching certification program and for becoming a teacher pronto instead of grad school (besides the fact i was starting to feel very doubtful about neing accepted.)

there are some areas, hoever, where impatience just doesn't pay, namely that of falling in love, having a female companion, and all that good stuff. after Kristen and i went north and south i found i was no longer consituted the same as before i was in a relationship for three years (or was it forever?) i have a really hard time being just Daniel On His Own these days. it's been 1.5 years but i'm still ancy. i was really ancy before, so i went out nd got a girl. oops, she's not the girl i want to be with. too late, i shattered her heart. tried to pick up the pieces and help her put it back together, but she preferred me to make myself scarce. so i did. got into a relationship with another girl, so wonderful she was (and is.) thank heavens we're still frinds. she wasn't the one for me either, nor was China the place i could stay. so i went east and she went west. now i still find myself looking for a girlfriend and behaving like an idiot sometimes as a result. no question, that will be great but it's like a big camel that's decided to take a rest and simply will not be moved by any force on Earth. keep trying and the only reaction i get is a faceful of camel spit. that camel, she's a good camel, and i'm sure we'll journey over this desert together for a long time. but right now i just gotta accept that she's takin a chill pill and gotta do some other stuff. not that i think girls are like camels. girls are beautiful, too beautiful. i just have this urge to put lots of energy into a relationship. habit? it's something to guard against, even if i do meet someone with whom sparks fly and stars align. i've learned that even when everything is lined up wonderfully in the beginning, things can end up worse than i ever imagined they could, and it was largely because of mistakes i made that i have the opportunity to not repeat. and that is simply life.

i could go on and on but--oops, did that already, but it's MY blog and i'll ramble as much as i darn well please! yes! this is fun. i like it. feels good. not as good as cheap 1.5 hour massages in China though. gosh i miss those! the lack of massages is seriously something we have to work together to correct in this country. if Bush had been pro-massage it would have really thrown a stick in the spokes for me. bye

Sunday, November 28, 2004

Pox Pout

Got chickenpox. Writing this in Word, but let the damn self-correctness be. Don’t really want to be writing but don’t really want to be doing anything but lying on my bed, but don’t really want to be doing that. Sitting in any place for very long I start to feel the sand gathering over me. I’ll be a man-shaped dune. You can’t find me. No one can find anyone including themselves, but that’s normal. Not a depressing thought, just…trudging through that thought. Life is like following a treasure map that that leads you on vast quests with only clues at the end. Keep going. You’re almost somewhere worth being, you’re almost happy. Sounds self-absorbed high school blah.

So!? If I wrote poetry it would sound like high school crap. I’m no poet but, point is, some problems came up around then that still haven’t been solved. Same old subject matter. Is it all about happiness? If I was happy would I be writing, would I be in a trance riding chemical waves, hitching my soul to a butterfly, hoping it won't be eaten by a crow? When I don’t feel happy I wonder what it is and how to get it and keep it. When I feel happy its because I feel really close to someone. Most of the time that happens with a girl, sometimes with a guy, and every once in a while that Someone is God.

Right now I, um….don’t feel close—enough—to enough. Being cooped up in a house day after day, sweaty, scrungy, and…poxy (chicken style) well that gets old fast. I should be reading all the time. Read read read! Haven’t done that yet. Maybe no energy, maybe no attention span. Maybe some of both, more of the latter. Oh so sick of tv. Hate hate hate tv. Hate the tv. Kill it. It should be swallowed by the earth like Carey’s house at the end of the movie. With fire.

Oh, oh, oh….. I’m going over the stuff I’ve got going (nothing) and the stuff I’m planning (everything) and I’m like “that’s all good” and “I’ll be so busy with all that I won’t have time to sulk” and “don’t worry just do the next thing. The next thing. The next thing.

I’ll be a teacher…teaching kids. Will they let me do that? Oh boy, I know I can do a good job but will I? The whole things pretty nebulous right now. I guess a couple months from now if I’m actually teaching with a regular schedule and fitting everything else that’s important and necessary and fun in where I can, maybe my life will feel normal and structured and leading toward something tangible on earth. Maybe that will be good. Maybe that will be conducive to happiness.

Not to say I’m not stoked about he prospect of being a teacher, just very afraid of failure and rejection. And middle school kids. Petrified. Not really but man let’s get on with this and see what happens!! Transcripts go off in the mail tomorrow and I apply online with the fee, so then were off! They say within three weeks I can start hunting. But then it’s Christmas vacation. We’ll see. Good thing I didn’t get a holiday job yet. Woulda had it for a week and had to quit. You don’t call in sick for two weeks on a holiday job. But what’s left after this episode? Not money. Actually since you’re here reading this you clearly care, so I was wondering if for just a short while, I mean briefly, if I could just sorta borrow like, y’know, just…oh, never mind.

Music. I looooove music. I listened so much in China. Don’t know what I would have done without my trusty headphones and CD player. Without them on, I wouldn’t have picked up my butt and started writing tonight, that’s for certain. It definitely a night for keeping Massive Attack’s Protection on repeat. I love this Light My Fire rendition. Plus the title song.i just frikkin love Massive Attack.

I had the desire to reach out, connect, express. Putting words on the screen always seems to address that, fill something up inside. Damn lonely thing too. All this and there’s still just a screen in front of me, people watching TV in the background. Long road ahead. Where’s my hugs and kisses? Where’s my lullabies and sweet nothings whispered softly? Where’s my slow dancing and eye-swimming? I’m worthy! I can love with the best of them! There’s no length I won’t go to to make someone happy, when I know they want it, they’re quietly waiting, they want to love me in return. why can’t normal frienship, family bonds feel more like that? Why can’t we live like the happy aliens? Why is that desire so strong that all the other stuff about job and money and stuff and this and that—the whole rest of life!—just feel altogether like such a nondescript, utilitarian floor to stand on so that I have the chance to really live, which is to touch souls!? Why is that so hard to do? I’m really hungry for it these days. One way or another, that’s what what I’m looking for. And I don’t want a girlfriend out of it, thank you! At least not now. I just wanna go a little higher with someone else. sometimes this life is just too long. Can I move on to the next world now? That’s really what I’m looking for. It lasts forever, so aiming toward it is a good thing, but it offers such delayed gratification.

Times like this are for praying. Do it and it works. It makes it better. I’m gonna go do that. Pray. Seems like the best people that lived figured out that was the only way they could make it through this world. Praying all the time, in their ways. Haven’t tried that yet. sometimes i feel like reaching out to God is like being a diver stuck on the bottom pulling on the cord to give the signal "pull me up!". but the cord is wrapped around a big 'ol coral reef. you gotta keep pullin if you wanna get anywhere, but it's more to get unstuck than to really start raising your altitude.

Wednesday, November 24, 2004

Hello Again

Hey yo, I’m back. Most of you reading this have heard a fair amount from me over the electrowaves but none of it has been inside the blogosphere. Well, I’m back to blogging. Guess that means I have to have things to talk about. Hmmmm…..

Well, this entry won’t be very ambitious, but I’ll get you up to date o a few things. I just got all the stuff that I need together, so tomorrow (I just forgot how to spell tomorrow. Bet that doesn’t happen with Spanish.) I’ll begin the process of application, etc. which will lead me, I hope, by early January to get a position as a middle school teacher somewhere round here. There are a number of openings even at this time of the year, so I just have to find the right one. The program I’ll be participating in is called “iteachtexas.” Basically, there are two parts to it. One is an online curriculum that must be completed within 6 months. The other is field experience as the “teacher of record.” So I get the internship stuff at the same time I’m being the teacher and getting paid with benefits! Sounds nice, huh? It feels right for me right now. The only downside is, of course, jumping into teaching without any experience as a teacher here. I did get some quality experience in China which will no doubt help me tons, but China’s a li’l different. Especially in the classroom. (why am I capitalizing so much? Oh, I’m doing this in Word and it’s doing it for me! That was weird.)

So anyways, I’ll be doing that instead of grad school. I wanna know what it’s likee to be a teacher before I jump headlong into something else. I got the feeling in China that I could really dig being a teacher long term, just not an oral English teacher in China. The interaction with the kids, being this consistent part of their life to whatever extent, the performance and comedy aspect, those appeal to me. Grading papers sucks though. But maybe it would suck less over time. Whatever happens, I’m stoked to try this out. I’ll probably end up teaching for a year and a half and then we’ll see.

Otherwise…..well, yesterday I was sick all day with a 102 degree fever. I slept all day. I was still kinda sick today and I slept all day. Plus I drank lotsa water and took some medicine. Now I’m doin fine. Just came outta nowhere.

We had our real Thanksgiving on Saturday because everyone was available. Tomorrow the actual day but it will only be mom, mike, me, grandma, and mike’s parents. Everyone else is spreading out here and there. My sister’s on call. She’s a doctor.

So that’s enough for now. I’m feelin pretty good, though I’ve been susceptible to the gloomy weather. Here and there I feel overwhelmed by life and not happy, but it passes, and I go back to feelin real good about the way things are goin! Talk to ya later.

Love,
dan

Sunday, September 26, 2004

And it was gooood!

Welcome to my new creation, the blobular lifeform that is my.....blog. this is a genaration of such internetty, functional names of things isn't it? for instance, our President's official title is "The President of the United States," but the much more apt name for him is simply, "Dubya." while those two syllables do him justice, when i think of bearing all (or 85% of all of consequence) the word "blog" just doesn't encapsulate the whole endeavor for me. all of this is being said by Ace Ventura's butt by the way...

anyways, yeah so this is my blog. WELCOOOOOOOME!!!!!!!! it's a real kick if you read every fifth word. really. i put a lot of work into this..... (snicker)

well to begin with, i actually was raised in a barn. no, but i think i was born in a hot tub. that would explain a lot, especially my keen affinity for hot bubbling clhorinated water flowing all over me, consuming me, washing me clean of all sin----oh, oh, okay i'm back, i'm back. right now you're thinking, "I'm not sure i have time for this..." time is Deutchmarks, and Deutchmarks aaaare German.

so right now i'm battling the whispy willow man called Insomnia. his crafty roots have got me by the pinky toes and aren't letting go. (knew i should have had them surgically removed. hindsights 20/20 and all...) he keeps me up all night with those creaking limbs, and during the day he summons platoons of fuzzy bunnys to nuzzle me to sleep.

it all started when i woke up and said to myself, "Ugh." then i thought, "i could happily leave China right now. there's just not enough for me here right now. i've seen it i've done it i've tasted it i've certainly smelled it. and i've loved it, indeed. but i need to move on with my life.

and i've decided to do so: I WILL BE ACCEPTED TO GRADUATE SCHOOL POSTHASTE AND UPON THE PASSING OF TWO YEARS SHALL RECEIVE THE DEGREE OF MASTERS OF SOCIAL WORK. with a concentration in counceling. i wanna be there for the young folks, basically anyone whose age starts with a "1," including, possibly 100 year-old people, but i don't know i could do for 1-year-olds, except hug them and squeeze them and call them my own! yes, my biological sun dial is... dialing. kids are the best to me right now, yet somehow...um...i can wait. when it happens though, it'll be gooooood!

so, yes, by November or January i'll be back in Texas, with some time in Washington i hope before i must scrounge up employment in Austin. i'll work on finding a groove, busting a move, got somethin ta prove, got a thorn in my hoof (that's pronounced hoove by some), but i'm going make some strides that will certainly behoove (ha haaaa!) me and hopefully lots of other people. say what you will of me, i've always longed to be a bright light in other people's lives, that is when i'm thinking about other people and not being totally self absorbed. and so we return to the title of my blog. (Monty Python? does that make it funnier?) i hope not to blather on ceaselessly on myself. though this is some nice therapy, i do want you to enjoy reading it! yet it seems a perilous affair to bring up other people and their lives here in more than passing. like gossip, which i despise. but my life is all wrapped up, thankfully, with others,' and i've few complaints about you (except that you all smell of wilderberry) so i'll find a way to gracefully make reference to your charms here. those are all i want to remember anyway, unless you start trying to sell me Cutco knives. then you've crossed the line!!! but like those blades my love for you all needs no sharpening. it only longs for use, so my highest hope(or on the top 5 list opf highest hopes) is that my chances for showing you love, and my success ratio for those times, ever increases. no joke! i love to be loved. the only thing better is to love. i'm growing up, slowly but surely (grad school! whoa...), i hope while i learn to be a man in other ways, i mainly learn to love. to live it, breath it, soak it in from man, nature, and Creator, and express it in such ways that will bring us spiraling closer together and higher and higher towards our Hearts' Desire. and if Kate Winslet is reading this, that means you to. my email is danieltaom@hotmail.com. i'm kinda hard to reach by phone. gimme a buzz.

a'ight all you crazies, lazies, hazies, and especially you rainbow daisys, i'm outta here, but i'll be back, and i'm bringin' fruit!!!

catch ya on the slip'n'slide