Verbosity on Occasion

Someone recently asked me if I still wrote to this journal, not that I let many know it even exists, but since they asked, I figured I'd check.

I think I do.

The reality is that I'm on MySpace now and it's a lot more rewarding to have all my friends who care to read about me able to 'subscribe' and receive notice whenever I write to read at their leisure, which I always appreciate.

The last post was about how I had hoped to have a sexual encounter and things just didn't go well.

Since then I have had two, one was intended to be a one night stand and was everything I needed it to be. The second was just a few days ago and was really more of all night and all day event and hopefully will be the first of many, I intend to have regular contact there.

Anyway, there are now two well earned notches in my bedpost. I don't really know the tradition well, is it supposed to be every time or every person and is it only if it's in that bed? Well for me it's every person and regardless of where it occured, because I'm still not comfortable having sex in my own apartment because of my prudish judgemental roommate(s).

Speaking of them, things are tumultuous at the moment. I don't know if I want my one roommate of 5 years to live with me anymore, he's being a real asshole to everyone that matters, Us his roommates, his parents, his real friends, and keeps having really shallow people over and snubbing everyone else. I'm REALLY starting to hate it.

The other current Roommate is a sublease for my old roommate who has moved on and away now to a professional career, he's a good roommate, a little loud but I sleep at weird times, but I don't think he could afford full rent, only the sublease rate he's at now. I'm recontracted for next year but these two aren't. I've got one friend already lined up for the fall, and can't wait to live with him, we're good friends and I appreciate him quite a bit, but the third slot is still in the air, it could be one of my current roommates re-signing or we have a third friend that has recently had to change his plans for the fall (read: break-up).

Work and School are fine and not at all noteworthy.

My family is well.

My sanity is pretty normal.

My stress levels are pretty good too, I really don't have much to write about.

Have you ever noticed that after really intense emotions, in this case it had to do with my romantic engagements, life just seems more vibrant? Today I was walking along a wooden boardwalk in some trees during 'hurricane' rains, it wasn't windy though and just a light drizzle and the colors of the wood and the trees were so bright and powerful, it really looked like a wet oil painting and felt like a glimpse of a paradise rainforest, it reverberated deep with me and made me think about the people I love and miss.

I had my knife ready and my bedpost is still bare.

That's just how it is.

"Emotional Rollercoaster: Being excited and disappointed, ecstatic and dejected, all at once, it's draining. But at least I've got excited and ecstatic!" -my away message.

Ok, I know better than to put all my eggs in one basket, but it's a really quality basket that needs a little patching but nothing I'm not more than capable of providing and I can see it holding all my eggs for a real long time.

I know not to county my chickens before they've hatched, but this time I think I might be looking at a prize rooster, the kind that makes it all worthwhile and you can really be happy caring for.

I've heard not to attribute to malice what can be explained by mistake, but the longer I wait for feedback the more I fear the worst.

I know a bird in hand is worth two in the bush but I worried for so long about getting my fingers pecked that the good birds are migrating and it seems only the turkeys and dodos are left.

The grass IS greener on the other side of the fence, but I'm not really a green-grass type these days.

And lastly, A stitch, in time, saves nine. Nine e-mails that I wouldn't be fretting over if I had just been gutsy enough in the first place.

Fortune favors the Brave after all, and one is the lonliest number.

Adam

I peeked open a bleary eye, a blue light cast an eerie glow around the blinds, predawn. I risked a glance outside, peach beams graced the roof of the building opposite, the sun was rising on Nov. 12, as most everyone surely expected it to do, but for some it was a day much anticipated. Suppressing a rush of excitement I rolled myself over and attempted to force calm, I knew it was too early for me to arise, I would want to be well rested today. I tried a litany for calm,
"To Believe in the Life of Love, To Walk in the Way of Honor, To Serve in the Light of Truth, this is the Creed of our Fraternity, this is the Creed of Sigma Nu." Oops, that didn't help, not on this day. I rolled back onto my back and stared blindly out, thinking about what was coming, of course my eyes slowly focused on the stately draped flag of Black, White, and Gold, a serpent knowed in the center. Black for Honor, White for Truth, Gold for Love, that's what my book said. "Oh Serpent, I'll be seeing you today for certain," I thought to myself. I recalled as I often did looking at old sly that our battle was ongoing, Adam to crush his head, he to strike my heel, yet I would proudly pin him to my chest just the same, and today he would be my quiet reminder. I tried to quiet all of these thoughts, the much abused collegiate voice of reason insisting that sleep was more important at this point than the steady stream of Sigma Nu thoughts working its way through my mind, but of course I didn't listen, not for this. A melody stood out from the jumble of my semi-conscious thoughts, "Brothers in Sigma Nu united, Brothers who by the Sword were Knighted..." I hummed it quietly to myself, "Oh yes, today we shall see..."

Who am I, Sir?
A Fraternity Man, am I
A Sigma Nu, Sir
and will be until I die.

I'm pretty sure I was a mosquitoe in my last life. Think about what all that would mean.

Adam

Have you ever been snowboarding? It's difficult! Snowboarding is like surfing on firm water, ok, obviously, anyway I didn't want to talk literally. I'm lying here tonight trying to sleep and I'm drawing a parallel between life and snowboarding. You can decorate your life however you want, it doesn't really matter how you look to the other snowboarders and as long as you have your basics in order you're going to survive (pants for the cold = food for survival). Follow the metaphor and you can begin to discuss how our life is a path down a mountain, etc. Fill in the cliches about the passage of time and the development in life yourself. What applies specifically is that if you hit a bump or a snag or crash into someone or something, it can stop your progress and with snowboarding it can be a real pain to get back onto your feet. But it's impossible to improve on a snowboard without actually being upon it, believe me I've tried to learn academically. Reading how to snowboard is like using an anatomy book to tell you who you are, it's not going to cover any of the things that make you individual. Anyway, the thing is, you've got to get up and keep going or things aren't going to get better. Ok, so why snowboarding and not rodeo or skateboarding or any other "fall off your horse" sport? Well, for one I'm trying to plan a trip for this December and I've got snowboarding on my mind, but the real truth is that in snowboarding if you let yourself start worrying about how you're doing, how fast you're going (through life), or how you look, or where you're headed too much, you'll mess up, your body tenses at these things and you get in your own way and your progress stops. That's what I've been doing, I've been worrying so much that I've not made any progress and when I've fallen down I've just sat their in the snow worrying that much further down the mountain is where I'm going to break a leg or fall off a cliff. I remember last winter when I was skiing for the third day ever and I was exhausted. I sat in the snow on the side of a run for about 10 minutes, and the wisdom from that experience was if you sit in the snow too long your ass is going to get cold and you won't have gotten any further along. It might take some serious effort, but I also remember that when I got back up after those 10 minutes I made my fastest, most fun path down the run the entire trip. Good times are ahead!

I use to believe I would make an excellent leader. I've always had a sense of superiority or natural birthright talent that I considered indicative of amazing leadership potential. In High School and again in College I found that any group activites quickly found me making decisions and giving orders, furthering my belief. I have just come to the conclusion that I would in fact NOT make a good leader anymore.

First off, my early advantage was simply being more intelligent than most of my peers, capable of analyzing a situation and making an educated decision. I retain that ability, but the majority has since acquired those skills as well. Perhaps in a non-academic community I would retain my advantage but not here.

Second, the choices I had to made were always ones where right and wrong were clearly defined, where outcomes could be forseen, or even a correct answer existed. This is no longer the case, making decisions for a group now can positively or adversely effect outcomes for many years to come, reguardless of the situation, because of the people involved and their various influence on the future.

Last, and first to come to mind, and most disappointing, I realize I have lost my ability to function independently. Where once a boy would travel through the woods alone with a stick to poke at interesting things until the sun was halfway set, now I feel frustration and depression if I do not discuss my choices and their consequences with others first and do not feel complete without adequate daily social interaction. Part of it has been society, part of it my choices, part my upbringing and part nature, but reguardless of the myriad causes, I now feel the full weight of being alone in a very large and hostile world, arriving not suddenly but gradually like a thief in the shadows.

I've been ambiguous in the discriptions of leadership positions, but my inner confidence was such that I felt, even as a child, that I would make an excellent King, and that never faultered in my mind until tonight. I'm sure all children fantasize at King, but most of them do not consider things like taxes, food supply, laws, civil defense, etc. Of course, that's probably the point itself isn't it, when it was a matter of analyzing information I was confident in my ability, but when I realize that the more important role of a leader is to provide for his people, interacting with and supporting them, I feel insufficient.

People cannot be analyzed the same way. You can observe a person's behavior, but have no indication of their true character or motive, and must eventually decide to trust them or not to, but with no guaruntee you have made the correct decision or whether they will change or betray you later. I developed a personal statement my Freshman year of College, I would tell new friends that I trusted them completely and would unless they gave me reason not to, but once it was lost it could never be regained. I felt like I was making friendship easier to discover when seeking quality friends because I had already made the difficult decision of whether or not to trust them. Unfortunately, it makes it so much more harder on me when some of them do not make the cut. I could list them on my fingers, but I would not fail to recall the name of any of them, or when precisely they lost my trust. Well, verbose as always, this message has become sidetracked.

What I have decided is that my current self would be unable to hold an office of the public because of that need for social acceptance, I would become power hungry like a Disney tyrant who had power but rather than rule wisely, allowed their kingdom to decay while sidetracked by the need for adulation. Maybe I could overcome it because I could forsee it, that is the first step in avoiding a trap, becoming aware of it. But the next steps are harder, and include finding another way. If I am to remain a community leader and a strong man of character and judgement upon which others can rely, I must stamp out this streak of "social butterfly" I have cultivated the last few months out of fear of responsibility and my reoccuring refusal to mature. I must face my fears, and my faults, I must let them pass through and out of me, until only the man I want to become and always be remains.