...sterces

two days in a row. and the world stands still. what could possibly be happening? twice in 24 hours; it seems a bit excessive.

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it seemed so easy, yet lending sound to these thoughts would obviously be anything but simple. torments, little uncertainties, questions facilitated by this lack of closure. to speak would erase this restlessness and return me again to some better mindless sleep. or will it? will the closure i need be the closure i feared?

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finally, these apprehensions have found a voice, i hold them in no more. but with these words comes only the worst. no peace, no rest; just the end i hoped would not be. bated words flow at last; confirming my fears and bringing with them a host of regrets. the mystery was better. silence was golden.

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alas

so i owe you all a post. actually i don't owe anyone a damn thing. but somehow i feel guilty for the haunting silence that has overrun this place. being that i have been busy and generally lacking creativity, i have been absent of late. and in this absence i may have chased away all of you readers; the ones i hated, and sadly the ones i liked.
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but alas!!! what a word. it sounds so good in my head and even in writing. alas! alas! alas! but who says alas? it is my contention that anyone who uses "alas" in every day conversation is a boring person and is thus trying, in speech, to compensate for their otherwise drab personality. i hate those people.
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alas!!! i have found a new audience...emptiness. my words echo and fall pointlessly to the floor. so here i am, in the same place as always. a sudden desire to write and nothing to say. i find this indicative of a greater problem in life.
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i think ambiguity is perfect; i like when something leaves you with more questions than answers. questions of meaning, depth, and reality. beautiful sentence fragments that need no revisions. rainy nights filled with irony. sometimes, though said with eloquence, the poetry does not erase the underlying hollowness.
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i am drowning in red.

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hey

so after climbing up on my soapbox and proclaiming my dedication to honesty and lack of censorship; i seemed to have vanished. my apologies in that i have been exceptionally busy with my life, love and proverbial pursuit of happiness...not to mention another project that seems to monopolize my creativity and writing time.

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anyways, i am still alive. and, i really have nothing to say. except this....grey's anatomy on the american broadcasting network is the best show i have seen in a long time. lame i know, but i am obsessed. i have been watching it since the pilot, being that it is set in seattle, and every episode that i see fascinates me. the more i watch, the more i am amazed. in short, the writing is absolutely perfect it is brilliantly cerebral; i am hooked. watch it (ideally start from the first episode if you have never seen it.) i am a harsh critic and this show won me over from day one. if you think it sucks...you are dumb.

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and now; since i have nothing of merit to say i will leave you with something that someone said better. again, ben gibbard is a genius and his attention to detail, set to music truly mezmerizes me and my elitist musical opinion (at least that's what the naysayers call it.) enjoy!!

what sarah said (death cab)

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And it came to me then that every plan is a tiny prayer to father time

As I stared at my shoes in the ICU that reeked of piss and 409

And I rationed my breathes as I said to myself that I'd already taken too much today

As each descending peak on the LCD took you a little farther away from me

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Amongst the vending machines and year-old magazines in a place where we only say goodbye

It stung like a violent wind that our memories depend on a faulty camera in our minds

But I knew that you were a truth I would rather lose than to have never lain beside at all

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And I looked around at all the eyes on the ground as the TV entertained itself

'Cause there's no comfort in the waiting room

Just nervous pacers bracing for bad news

Then the nurse comes round and everyone lifts their head

But I'm thinking of what Sarah said that "Love is watching someone die"

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So who's going to watch you die?...

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exit

it has come to my recent attention that i have a much wider audience than i ever thought. not with strangers, i mean i have the stupid stat counter and i can see you all coming in and out my doors. the thing that gets me is that i have a much wider audience among people i actually know or knew. and this concerns me. you see i come here for various reasons but mostly just for an escape. often times the craziness that is life gets so jumbled up in my head that making any sense of it is virtually impossible. some of the thoughts are trivial like, "i wonder if she knows that she is the only one that thinks she is intelligent?" or perhaps, "if i close my eyes, when i open them will the stupidity stop falling from your mouth?" but then other thoughts, though common, do not fall in the same banal category as their aforementioned counterparts. and these are the thoughts that tend to come out here. sure i have discussed my undying love for beer and the stupidity of my former co-workers. but somewhere, somehow things took a turn here.

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i seem to have opted for a different kind of post. perhaps by choice, but usually these words find their way here on their own. it is like these thoughts want to be here and thus, they are. not because of my desire to be perceived by the faceless reader as brooding or deep, but because they exist somewhere in my mind. to them, my mind as their home will not suffice. they want their own existence beyond thought and so they have chosen another invisible place, here in this digital wasteland. sure i could come here and launch into a sarcastic tirade of insults, cleverly mocking the fashion sense of the average wal-mart shopper. in fact, that could be an entire blog, which if there were a wal-mart anywhere near here i would gladly indulge you all in the travesties against clothing that seem to adorn 97% of the wal-mart shopping americans. but for what, so we can all have a laugh at sarah's $17 overly faded denim? or perhaps we could all chuckle at some witty caption below a picture highlighting the unfortunate gap between jeni's over stretched tank top and her stirrup pants.

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and you are lost, hyper-ramble has taken hold and i must now bring you back full circle. this is many times my shred of solace, my escape from the storm. and in this place, the words that seem to find their way onto our screens are not what many of you are used to. to the faceless reader, they mean nothing, they are the ramblings of a stranger and sometimes, someone, somehow relates. and i like that. if i can lend a voice to the thoughts of a stranger while simultaneously making sense of that which is often not spoken, i am happy. i am happy just making sense of this mess whether or not anyone relates.

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but to you, the ones i know, my posts seem to conjure up a host of questions. for instance, i have now spoken of the mess in my head, which a handful of you "friends" will glibly interpret as a problem. you will read, you will ponder and you will question my mental state. somtimes i lose you, as each word unfolds you derive some ludicrous interpretation. i am discussing no one in particular, and those bloggers i know first hand fall not in this category. however, if you are wondering, "is he talking about me?" the answer is emphatically, yes. if that question somehow found its way into your mind, you are in fact the very person i am speaking of who comes here, reads, silently judges, and leaves. and to you i say, "stay away." this place is my place and you are not welcome. to most, these could be the thoughts of anyone, and in my anonymity they find nothing odd. but then there is you, wondering, "what the hell is wrong with sam, has he gone off the deep end?"

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i am still the same person you always knew, but my smile often masks a host of other emotions. i speak of my down falls, my struggles, and my worries. but you never saw that. you know me as the easy going, fun loving guy who is always ready with a sarcastic comment. you always laughed but that is all you ever did; you never saw beyond the laughter. and now you are thinking, "what a conceited bastard; he thinks he is so funny and so perceptive." to which i would normally reply with some back-handed rebuttal. but i am done, i spoke of this once before, though i did not lend it the clarity i have opted for this time. and now twice, i have acknowledged your unwelcome presence, and twice i have shown you the door. if you are disturbed, worried, confused, or angry, find a better hobby. i don't need you lurking in the corners here, passing your misinformed judgments and arriving at the outrageous conclusions you so eagerly look for. move on.

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to the rest of you, i love you. thanks for stopping by and keeping me company, you are welcome any time.

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introspection...

i came here to find meaning and realized that meaning is nothing more than a lofty concept. yet somehow i delude myself into believing that maybe once, if only for a moment, meaning will come. i blindly pursue depth, thinking there is such a thing. perhaps in these words lies an epiphany; perhaps in my ramblings i will find myself. yet in this futile search i am lost. somehow, i no longer recognize what i am searching for. i have become my blindness, masking myself in some unfamiliar ambiguity. what lies in the mirror matserfully disguises what lies beneath its counterpart. chaos, a disillusioned soul, an empty quest. then all at once it falls around me and the silence grows. yet silence is not peace and this place is not real. i cannot hold this new self together any easier than i can find some old more familiar self.

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breakdown

i sat and watched you; trapped in your own reality, oblivious to the way things are. i tried and failed. to help you is impossible, we all tried and failure came in many shapes. you isolate yourself, not because you want to but because you know no other way. inside your mind is a world none have seen, you hide it, telling yourself no one would understand. inside your heart is emptiness, scarred by life and filled only by the constant flow of sorrow. behind your smile is nothing but fear, fear of love, fear of trust, fear of them. and they do it again, and again you bleed but again you tell me you are fine.

you cannot come out, you cannot find yourself, you can never know what you are looking for. you are blind to their blows, numb to the pain, tired of fighting what to you are shadows. and so you quit. there was no beginning and so there can be no end. you once loved with the softest, innocent trust but you would never know that, you cannot know that. gone are the tears, instead sorrow and pain bring overwhelming doubt and silent vows of vengeance. they did this to you, but to admit that would only give them the power you swore was never theirs. and again you fall; enduring defeat after defeat.

love will find you and love will leave you. you will watch it come over you and fail to recognize what wraps its arms around you. oh that you could see beyond yourself. oh that you could name your pain and leave it behind. but you won't, you will never give them power. you will stay inside yourself, trying to hide what we all see. you will bleed, smiling all the while. never can they know they have gotten to you. their power is your failure.

it was them, not you! to deny this has been your ruin and to admit this will bring ruin. a ruin to the darkness you created, a ruin to this perception that is now your reality. find your tears, feel your pain and let this place fall all around you. you have held this together long enough. let go.

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plans

go buy the new death cab album; it came out today!!!!! you won't be disappointed, i have had it on repeat all day and it gets better with every spin. go buy it now, and if you don't have any of their old albums buy them all too. ok, better post to come soon, i guess summer is over so i will try to get back to a more regular posting schedule. my thank you's (is that how you make "thank you" plural) go out to all of you who keep checking up on me in my sporadic updating schedule.

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nite

it seems lack of sleep has driven me here again. this time it is the other end of the spectrum. i came here to read, to lull my mind to some sweet oblivion. but i am still awake and so now i write. perhaps a short stint at creativity might be the proverbial straw that pushes me into the darkness i cannot find.

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sometimes i think if i sit here and type, something will come out. tonite, that is not the case. instead you get a running commentary on my inability to put my mind on one subject long enough to discuss it.

*

i really pity people that secretly evaluate you and gloat in your shortcomings. what a miserable existence, to lurk in the darkness waiting for the next failure you can pass on to your lifeless companions. how does one's life become so mediocre that they must feed the dogs with the happenings of someone else? have enough people become wise to your ploys? have your ranks become so small that you must seek satisfaction in the missteps of those who have long since moved on? well, enjoy!!! i am glad to do my part to keep the rumor mills spinning.

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um?

i couldn't sleep this morning; i got up before 6:00 a.m. for me, that is early, i hate mornings. i have been blog hopping ever since and felt the sudden urge to post myself. however, i have absolutely nothing to say. why does every morning news show suck and why do they all do the weather report at the same time? do people really care what the weather is going to be like in the summer? it will be warm or hot, i don't need some dip5hit to stand there and tell me that three times an hour. and now, french fries are linked to breast cancer. dammit, again i don't care. granted, i love breasts and never wish any harm on any breasts, but do i need some ugly ass women to sit there and talk about french fries and breast lumps. that is the last thing i want to hear about before the coffee works its magic. change the channel you say, i did, its the weather again. ok, i am sorry, my wife was a weather anchor and then i cared about the weather, plus she was good to look at. so no, i don't hate weather anchors, just every weather anchor but her. and on that note, stop sending me concerned e-mails about my posts. have you ever heard of a metaphor or a concept. i hate to do this because i want people to take what they want from what i write, but i must assure the worried that my marriage is peachy keen. i couldn't be happier. so when you read my posts, they could have a completely different meaning than the one you got...many times, that is the point. if you can't grasp that, you are too dumb to read them and you should stop coming here. there is my word vomit for today, like i said, i am not a morning person, coherence comes to me after copious amounts of coffee. apparently so does diplomacy. is it too early to start drinking? c'mon weekend stop taunting me.

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interruption

atmosphere, heavy...the faint smell of a cigarette lingered in the air; adding texture to the otherwise stale smell. an acoustic guitar, somewhere in the distance, competed with lively conversation swirling all around me. laughter and alcohol did their best to cover the overwhelming poignance everyone sensed, but never acknowledged. we all hoped the loneliness we came with would not accompany us into the darkness awaiting just beyond last call. in typical fashion, i drank and talked anticipating happiness but finding only stinging laughter.

in the midst of the chaos, silence; there she was. our eyes met briefly but they spoke volumes. in me she saw the disillusion i try so hard to mask. in her, i saw hope; something better than the miscarriages past glances had afforded me. i saw the sunrise, an awakening from this private nite i accepted would never end. i looked again, secretly hoping she would do the same. oh, that fleeting rush she holds in her eyes, i had tasted it only once but the addiction was instant. my subtle glance was greeted with a knowing smile and a warmth like i had never imagined. yes, there it was again, a soft sunrise, a gentle glow, and i felt it. she chased away the numbness i had long ago accepted as permanent.

it was too much; all of these feelings all at once. i struggled to make sense of them, struggled to digest them, i tried to think but i knew not where to start. the next hour unfolded in my mind and i began to hail my courage through glass after glass. i would approach her and her smile would fill this familiar emptiness. we would talk, she would laugh and this hypnosis would relent. it would be perfect; she would animate this lifeless soul. if only i had spoken to her before she was gone. if only this was not another moment slipping through my fingers entrenching my emptiness and returning the numbness. this was me, too comfortable to care; too aloof to answer opportunity's knock.

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dell

the following is the latest in a string of e-mails i have sent to dell. i am abandoning my usual use of all lower case letters for this post. enjoy.

To whom it may concern,

I hate to be a nag over here but here goes. I just had my laptop fixed by one of your fine technicians this morning, which I greatly appreciate. However, my speakers still sound like helpless drowning victims, a.k.a distorted. The gentleman who fixed them says he does not know what is wrong with them since I now have a new motherboard and speakers. Any thoughts? And now on to more pressing issues. Please join me in this short but pertinent digression. I have a brand new problem. After your technician put my laptop back together, the space bar stopped working. In other words, if I press it, it does not make a space. I know this may seem trivial but by no means is this some menial problem. I use my laptop everyday for my job and now it is handicapped with no consolation. Given its impairment, I feel it deserves a free parking spot but no one has obliged the plight of this ill fated laptop. So you see, the speakers, luxury, I hope one day they will sound better, but it is inconsequential at this point. If they drown, they drown. However the space bar, my God, this issue requires the attention of the world. For without it I am doomed, reduced to a bumbling idiot, trying in vain to communicate with the world through the shoddiest of syntax. Please, lend a hand, heed my cry, and rectify this most tragic impediment lest I be banished to grammar hell for my blatant disregard of spacing. Fortunately for you I am using a colleague's computer to draft this message. But, in case you think this problem deserves little attention, please read this same e-mail as it would look had I sent it from my Dell Inspiron 600m.

Regards,

Sam

editor's note: i also sent them a copy of this with no spaces but when i tried to publish it here it was one long line and looked terrible on blogger. sorry!!!

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familiar

it never made sense to me. she, familiar but unknown. me, ever-changing into sameness. i could always predict her unpredictability, always misunderstand her logic, but she could never satiate my boredom. people change but changing together means always being the same. the laughter was stale, the music the same. today is yesterday and yesterday, tomorrow. this jaded poison has sucked the life out of every movement. familiar exchanges take the place of heartfelt emotion. "i love you" rings empty in the silence, lingering briefly in the air before falling helplessly to the floor, returning the comfortable awkwardness we were so accustomed to. i once lived for the moment but this moment has become forever. i am blinded by complacency, i am numb. life happens around me, and i, i have become sidelined by this indelible emptiness. words fail me. and my rambling trails off, leaving you again with questions that can only be answered by ambiguity.

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grey

it was saturday. the rain and the sun traded blows, each trying to establish dominance. but this battle was an afterthought, only an atmosphere with which to hold the ensuing battle. the real struggle was all mental and thus it took precedence in my troubled mind. saturday's conflict was not as cut and dry as the classic skirmishes our society has afforded us. for, in this scene the lines between good and evil, between right and wrong, between black and white were all blurred. instead there was only a murky grey. good was evil and evil was not definable.

saturday was a flash back. but this was no mental snapshot, instead i was physically thrust into an all-too-real shadow of my haunting past. a past that brings restless nights, empty days, and surprising moments of confusing anger. time and its intrinsic healing ability has rounded off the edges and numbed the acuteness. yet there is no amount of time that will ever erase these scars.

in a moment, i am undone. time and all its power mean nothing. clarity is lost and i am once again left to make black and white out of grey. somehow, your delusions transcend everyone present, yet they baffle me. will you ever see the world beyond your mind? the world in which you are wrong; the world in which the pain you inflict is visible not to me but to you?

to me, this will never make sense. to you, there was never any sense to make. in grey you see black as white and wrong as right. your pride holds your humility and your pleasure, pain. your lies are infallible, to you, they are truth.

saturday is gone and my innocence is lost. saturday is gone and your innocence is reassured. somehow, someway, you win. you brought awareness to my pain. you forced me to assign words to your delusions. you confirmed my fears; your words still hurt. i told myself you meant nothing but saturday melted my indifference leaving me in speechless horror as it became water running through my hands.

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sigh

i write tonite because of you. you taunt and frustrate me to no end. why do you elude me when i need you most? it is like a game to you, you see my desire, my utter desperation and yet you stay just beyond my reach. i cannot grab you, i cannot taste you, i can only imagine your sweet, satiating oblivion. oh, how i want you, but my longing frightens you. you engage my thoughts and it is that very engagement that keeps you at arms length. i breath slowly and deeply, letting gravity have its way with my body. but my mind races. where is your numbness? where is your peace? if only tonite i were sleeping at last.

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saturday

i have turned into the blogger i hate. a good two weeks and no post. not that i have had nothing to say, it was the time to say it that interfered with publicizing my thoughts. and now, time is on my side but creativity is not. what a bitch. perhaps, the sun and its unwelcome heat has dried up my puny imagination.

it is weird being away from this little pseudo-world. intelligence, wit, charm, and entertainment lie within its bounds. and beyond this imaginary place, i find these things much more sporadic, like the now random intervals between my posts. and so today i returned to a place i love, a place that only exists electronically and yet a place that seems more real than the trivial exchanges of last nite.

oh, friday nite...the alcohol, the music, the lies, the empty quests of a thousand men. drunk and lonely, frustrated by the rebuttals of the fairer sex, they pour out into the embrace of darkness. to their homes they return only to find a nagging emptiness. a cold bed is all that awaits; it serves only as a reminder of their failed charm. but saturday is just around the corner.

she sits alone nursing her wine and he, equally lonely, offers to join her. they talk, he lies, she laughs, he smiles. the drinks go by and the conversation continues. feelings built on deception start to strengthen their grip on her inner isolation. she has vowed to never let her guard down again but vows are just that. nothing more than empty promises made to oneself in their darkest hour to somehow numb the pain with false resolution. in this moment their is no guard, no recollection of any vow, only a longing and a perceived answer. she is overcome with acceptance. together they leave; alone she awakes. and in her sobriety she makes a vow.

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hi

just want to let you all know that i am still alive. i am extremely busy (in a good way) at my new job and have not had time to post. i think this will be the case for a while. no, i am not gone for good, i am still lurking in the dark corners of your blogs. i will try to post as often as i can but it will be much more sporadic in the near future. hopefully it will be more regular as things calm down here.

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me

so i had to try this damn thing too. i saw amber's and being the egomaniacal person i am, i gave it a whirl.

Your #1 Match: INFP

The Idealist You are creative with a great imagination, living in your own inner world. Open minded and accepting, you strive for harmony in your important relationships. It takes a long time for people to get to know you. You are hesitant to let people get close. But once you care for someone, you do everything you can to help them grow and develop. You would make an excellent writer, psychologist, or artist.

Your #2 Match: ENFP

The Inspirer You love being around people, and you are deeply committed to your friends. You are also unconventional, irreverant, and unimpressed by authority and rules. Incredibly perceptive, you can usually sense if someone has hidden motives. You use lots of colorful language and expressions. You're qutie the storyteller! You would make an excellent entrepreneur, politician, or journalist.

What's Your Personality Type?

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laters

today the sun has chosen not to show its face. instead, as i look out the window all i see is a suicide grey. this day is like a poorly lit movie. the kind that is painful to watch. the whole time you sit there thinking, "someone turn on a light." nevertheless, the weather is irrelevant and has nothing to do with my mood. as far as i am concerned the weather is always the same inside. and so today i sit beneath the fluorescent bulbs and wish for darkness. i hate overhead lighting, i find it both bland and intrusive.

segue...i am quitting my job today. yup! i am out of here. in this line of work, you don't give two weeks notice when you say you are done...that's it. i start a much better job on monday and i can't wait to get the hell out of here. once the boredom is deafening, i will go through the formalities with my boss and be on my way. this is also irrelevant.

okay that is all for now, a grey day, a fluorescent day, a new day.

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again

it's may and i have not posted. dammit, i am a slacker. i have been busy and this place has taken a bit of a back seat lately. i really haven't had anything to say...sorry.

she said it was serious, she said it was a big deal but inside i laughed. i laughed because i always laugh. to her it is always a big deal and to me it never is. the stresses of life, the uncertainty of tomorrow, the issues of the moment are intoxicating to her. to her there is nothing else, no way out, no bright future. but i am numb. she never thinks i take her seriously and truth be told, i don't take me seriously. i can't. i won't allow myself...i take nothing seriously.

and so there we are again, together in the moment but only to together in the sense of time and space. in every other sense of togetherness we have nothing, we have opposite emotions, opposite dispositions, opposite everything. she knows this; i know this and then i speak. i hardly recognize the words as they come out of my mouth and she cries again. i want to be what she needs but i can't. what happened to me? am i emotionally inept?

somewhere, somehow, i lost my way. before that undefined moment in life, i felt. sadness was sadness, happiness was happiness, and pain was real. but something changed, in a certain light i would say i became the wiser. yet in another light, inablility to feel certain things looks more like a step in the wrong direction.

coping mechanisms are all i know. i use the proverbial crutch. i feel no stress and give no issue its due time. i push away the uncomfortable and somehow whittle everything's importance down to nothing. and then i laugh...and then, she cries.

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yeah

so i guess i must be doing something right here in idiotville. they gave me my own office today which makes me very happy. but my smile comes not from the reasons you may expect. i don't care about the privacy, it does not stroke my ego, and i don't feel as though i have made it. my pleasure comes from the fact that i am now my own d.j.

from time to time on this here forum, i have complained about the music at work. now those complaints will be no more. clients will come in and wonder where my euphoric smile is coming from, my production will double, and mondays will even be decent. i now have control over my mood. this may make no sense to some, but to me, music is a part of me. my feelings rise and fall with the intensity. my body feels the rhythm from head to toe, brilliant lyrics fascinate me, and the artistry is mysterious.

my involuntary smirk is brought to you today courtesy of rilo kiley.

happy thursday everyone!!!!

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