I can't help the poor if I'm one of them.

Time: an entity we each possess, but will never have enough of. We spend it; we waste it. We need it. Time is the one true equalizer in humanity. It's what broadens perspective. It tears people from another. It leads people back. Time will never go away.

The further you go from The starting point is how much closer you are moving toward the end. We're taught to blindly respect one another and put the other man ahead of ourselves. We are to believe everyone notices every flaw. We are made to put our faith into tradition, what has worked before and thus will always work. The number of truths is shrinking with age, and the methods of reaching them stretch tighter as one gravitates from their start.

There is no leaving what has been done. Figuratively, yes. But regardless of what has already happened leading up to this exact second, it happened. There is no leaving what has been done inasmuch we cannot escape whatever's coming next.

If I could create a timeline of each emotion that dominated over me and why it held control on me, I would. Since I don't share the same outlook as I did when I was 16, or 17, or even 20, I couldn't do that. It's kind of like losing your virginity: once you're in the club you can't really get out. 

At 21, I think I'm in my own club. I have a CEO and a couple associates who share the same (general) thoughts and same (basic) values. What I keep most sacred, other than my written words and love for all things zebra or cheetah print, is to hold the individual above all. This is not just to speak for myself, but to how I act on others. I support original thoughts, original ideas. You don't always have to search for the profound; it's just right there, simple and perfect. 

Here, right in front of my face, in time. All is growing, and all is fleeting.

u c?

It's funny. I'm not a big social networking guy. I don't have a Twitter. And even when I do write posts on Facebook, they're usually just Atmosphere or Circa Survive lyrics that somehow apply to my life now more than ever. I think the reason I go on sites like this (I also own a Xanga), is so I can get away from all the nonsense. These stream-of-conscious type blogs I can write, in secret, for strangers, are as close as I can get to reality.

I find this to be an interesting time period. There are subtleties I've been noticing of myself, physically and mentally. For so long I've let my sideburns grow long and disheveled, but they didn't look like pork chops; they looked like a sixteen year-old who didn't shave for awhile. A few weeks ago I said I was going to let my mustache grow and shave everything else on my face every day. Well, it grows back a lot quicker now. It's one of those things that's like... It won't grow any slower than it is right now for the next 40 years. Before testosterone levels starts going down. I'm getting bigger in stature. I've consistently been working out for a healthy amount of time. So it comes to reason. I still smoke an unhealthy amount of cigarettes and smoke too much weed and eat too much fast food. But I'll live.

I must be in the 10 or 20% of people that can smoke more weed than the average weed smoker and still live a completely unaffected life. I still work full time and make fine money. I don't write nearly enough, not like this. I mostly write in a black and white speckled composition notebook. My poetics. There are only two people in the world that really know about them. Me being one, of course.

I've come to, though it took way too fucking long, completely appreciate the work process and work atmosphere. That my parents were each doing this long before I was ever conceived. I have this strange respect for everyone who's alive. And I do truly mean that in this instance. I must be in a good mood or something.

When I was young and not in school, when I had vacation, I'd catch random movies on TBS-type networks. One stood out in particular. It was called 9 To 5. It's pretty popular. But a little old. Not a movie a 9 or 10 year-old boy would generally gravitate towards. But anyway. I just always kind of pictured myself fitting into that nine to five type workplace. Of course, I'd rather be a professional writer who could live wherever the fuck I wanted, but that's for another day. I'm happy right now.

The whole point to social networking and Facebook is just that, last night, I wrote that there aren't enough hours in the day. I kind of liked it especially because it really is true.

I'm WOLF

Last night I fell asleep around 3:00, and awoke at 7 to be sure I was to work around 8. I'm pretty tired, but this is what I should be doing at this age. I can still afford to get away with only sleeping minimal hours every night. The recommended amount of sleep is like. . . eight hours? They say "you sleep a third of your life" because 8 hours is a third of a 24-hour day. Top-notch investigative reporting here. I just want to make sure I don't fit into that cliche. I think sleep is a waste of time.


About a month or two ago, Trey asked if I was interested in going out late at night on a work night, and I obviously accepted. I work eight hours a day five days a week. Trey works about 10 hours a day six days a week. I have night work every night which I get paid for (outside work), and Trey was kind of sensitive of that before I told him, "I'd rather be awake living life than sleeping." Since I said that, he's referenced it five or six times, and I think that's rad. It's like writing your name in chalk on the ground; it's proof of existence.


After reading The Fountainhead in April and May, and Crime And Punishment in July and August, I've been on a reading diet. The Fountainhead made me once again change my outlook on reality, and Crime And Punishment reinforced my beliefs. It's pretty intense to grasp the concept that no one will ever be able to jump in anyone else's head, not even for the crackle of an instant.


Last Thursday, before I left work, I was told I was being promoted into accounting (it's an auto company), and given a raise. Behind closed doors, with knowledge that only I could know, I am actually being trained by the person whom the company intends to fire as soon as I catch on. I'm a fast learner, and an exquisitely groomed office phony if it means advancing.


This was kind of all over the place. Goodnight.


E

Grieves

I've been so busy trying to get my computer to start that I forgot whatever I was even thinking of writing about. Whatever.

I've had a lot of mixed feelings lately about the friendship I keep with my ex girlfriend. I've had mixed feelings of her the last 3 years, actually. I'm probably properly branded as a sentimentalist. Some might say it's romanticism. Maybe I don't completely not believe in love just yet.

But mainly, I just think I'm an idiot most of the time.

About a week ago, when Trey was over, we stepped outside so I could get an old pair of shoes to throw on with no socks so he and I could get Slurpee's as the market around the corner. I grabbed for my tattered black shoes and said, "Man, I've had these for like three years now. And I still wear them."

Trey didn't pause, and responded, "Maybe that's your problem. You need some new things."

That's why I like Trey. He is forceful and tries to get his way with every other person in the world, but with me he can still get his point across by only softly pushing me in the right direction. I understand what I need to do, and I understand who I am. The gap between the two is growing like mold, wider than in any other part of my life.

In brief nondescript detail, I got my first legitimate girlfriend at 18 and fell in love and all that jazz for the first time. I left for college in Virginia and her and I could never really keep it the same. It's not that long distance relationships don't work; they can. It required an amount of love that both her and I were more than willing to give one another, but I could never really translate it from my end.

We spent the summer together before I left in the fall, and a week for Thanksgiving and spring break. And also a month for winter break. In a year-long relationship, we were probably together, live, in person, about 4 months.

She broke up with me recently after she turned 19. In an unrelated nature, she moved to Texas with her mom and I never really heard from her again. The 2009 summer was a long one. The following winter was long. Every day I rotted away like sand in an hourglass. But by the following spring, I started to get over the depression. It took a long time.

I turned 20 in March that spring, and had a summer of revelations that really changed me in how I acted towards people. All the hate and jealousy I seemed to always focus on almost vanished overnight. All I wanted to do was listen and observe. It was the birth of my new set of ideals. It was an important time. (All the while, between summer '09 through the fall of '10 I didn't hear from my ex.)

By random occurrence, just as our relationship started on a harmless field trip bus ride to Pasadena to see a live showing of Sweeney Todd, she sent me a text message that read simply my full name with an exclamation point at the end. That was in November of 2010. We've been back in contact since. She lives in Texas; I live in California.

This is why I feel like such a dumb ass. I recognize how counterproductive she can be to my life. We can literally write back and forth all day and have a half hour phone conversation that she has to pay for with her stupid fucking service plan. She tells me she loves me and I tell her I love her too. We really are two peas in a pod sometimes.

I also know she's one of the only people I've met who's smarter than me. Who can manipulate my emotions. Who can get me begging for mercy. I generally keep my relationships with other people in the same context, though usually I'm playing the role she is, and the other person is me.

I have issues with vices and addictions, and she is one of my many. She came back to visit recently. She drank wine with my mom and caught my first rap show. We had a lot of sex. She even calls it love. And maybe it is. I have read books and watched movies and heard from strangers and taken advice from my parents, but this is my life I live. And as stupid as she makes me feel sometimes, she also makes me feel likethe greatest asset to the world.

She's hard to love because it hurts to love her. Even from some distance. I'll probably keep this itch I've had for her. But being a practical human being, I'm not holding back from meeting the next best thing that comes along in my life, though I won't settle for anything less than what I've already had.

ER

Sports and stuff.

Today was kickoff Sunday in the NFL. There was the Thursday night opener where the Packers beat the Saints 42-34, even though some experts still lamented that "Drew Brees had a better game than Aaron Rodgers. . ."

It doesn't matter. You see a lot in the NFL, when there's a pretty good quarterback who happens to play for a team with a bad defense, that the quarterback will rack up a shit load of passing yards over the course of a season. Because when you're losing by four touchdowns, all you do is pass. When the Patriots are beating my Chiefs 28-0 after the first quarter this season, it seems logical Todd Haley will have Matt Cassel air it out almost every down. Drew Brees had more touchdowns, more yards, more completions, and more attempts than Aaron Rodgers, because the Saints were in dire straights from the third quarter on.

Along with when March Madness gets going around my birthday--the first day of spring--this specific Sunday is typically one of the best sports days of the year. This year it sucked.

Around 10:00 I made it to my friend John's house, although I was there for the football connection I share with his younger brother, Josh. Early on, the Chiefs were getting manhandled by the Bills. While their offensive line stretched gaping holes for Fred Jackson to run through, we had clogged running lanes for Jamal Charles. Their receivers and tight ends made all the catches. Our offensive line couldn't protect Matt Cassel; he himself couldn't help his own cause at all, often looking bewildered in the pocket. It was a bad game on both sides of the ball. Before the game, I preached ad nauseam: If we can't beat the Bills at home, who will we beat this year? 


With our schedule, having to face the Steelers and Packers and Bears and Vikings and Patriots and Jets, maybe no one.

The Chiefs' struggles this first week really sap me of enthusiasm, because my childlike optimism has yet to leave me in wondering, Could this be The Year the Chiefs win it all? Last year they started 3-0 before their first loss, and even made the playoffs. The only thing worse than liking an NFL team having a shitty season is having a professional baseball team that does the same. My whole life, from when I started religiously following the Texas Rangers at age 10, the Rangers have fielded one of the worst teams in baseball. Only last year did that change.

My neo-pessimism of the Chiefs season is compounded by having to actually sweat out a playoff race which I didn't at all expect to exist with the Rangers. Today, they beat the A's 8-1, and, with the Angels loss to the Yankees (which my mom and younger brother went to), the Rangers' lead in the division grew to a mere 2.5 games. There are only a few weeks left in the season. About a month ago, I was ready to kick my feet up, leading 7 games with a 1-0 lead in the ninth inning. Since the Angels won that game 2-1, we haven't really seemed to have the same momentum.

Virginia Tech beat East Carolina yesterday. They are 2-0 now, but they still have a lot to work on. Their starting quarterback, Logan Thomas, needs to get his shit together before the conference season starts.


ER

How

EVEN BEFORE I STARTED DOING DRUGS, I was bad with introductions. There used to be this girl I'd see on occasion, at a various function or gathering, and each time I shook her hand (because I shake hands) to say hello, she'd deliver me some self-exposing smile and say, "Eric, you have got to be the most awkward person I've ever met." The truth is, she only felt this way because I was the only person in the world who knew a secret she couldn't afford to let out. Well, there were two people: me, and my best friend who had sex with her.

Introductions aren't all that worthwhile because most don't end up meaning anything. Some people aren't skilled at meeting new people in a fluid fashion, because they don't know what to say. This isn't my issue. I have everything to say, I just don't always choose the right things. That's why this paragraph is rolling as a brick of contemplation in the midst of an otherwise decent handshake with this blog.

My name is Eric and I'm 21 years old. I live in Southern California and work full time at an auto company. I know next to nothing about cars, and mainly enjoy writing and making money. 

When I was 18 I graduated in decent placement in my class and went to Virginia Tech to study Communication and become a writer one day. After I came home to California for the summer, I didn't go back, mainly because of depression and partly because my priorities shifted. I didn't go to school in the Fall/'09-Spring '10 year. Last year I went back to school. And this year I'm back out because I'd rather be making money right now.

I also enjoy rapping in my spare time and reading books. I'm a dire sports fan.

Today: Virginia Tech 17

            East Carolina  10

This is my friend Trey rapping. I'm his wing man in the video. 

I'll have many more posts in the future to help round myself out. I also look forward to reading what other writer's have to say.










ER