My day thus far:

Currently Meiko By Meiko see related

I had the weirdest dream last night.

I was walking along Shields St. to get to my apartment. But it was like a mixture of Shileds and Kipling back home. Basically where the University was supposed to be it was the old Fun Plex.

Somebody kept calling me on my cell phone over and over again and saying they were at Blockbuster, and for some reason I got the feeling that it was someone very important to me. But everytime I tried to respond they just blasted Rihanna through the phone.

This weird cat started following us (there was somebody with me now, but I'm not sure who it was). The cat was brown and it's spinal cord seemed like it was protruding an abnormal amount from its back. Sort of like a dragon or something.

A rabid dragon cat.

So we keep walking, and this rabid cat is following us, and the phone keeps ringing, and I keep answering, Rihanna.

Then we turn around, the cat attacks, my friend is yelling "A snake! A snake!"

Suddenly the cat stops, stands back, and my friend says "Mommy will teach you how to sing."

She begins to move her hands like a conductor, the cat folds his paws in front of him like an opera soprano, the phone rings, and the cat begins to sing along with Rihanna.


--

I wake up and think: I wish I could have talked to whoever was on the phone. And then I start to wonder if the cat was really rabid or not.

I look at the clock. 10:07.

Class starts at 8:00.

Work starts at 10:00.


Three seconds later, my phone rings.

"Hey it's Allison from work."

"Yeah, I'm on my way."

I keep expecting Rihanna to blare through the headset, but it doesn't.


And I think: "Life is much more interesting in a dream."

My major.

Currently Songs for Silverman By Ben Folds see related

Yesterday, I was listening to a professor give a lecture about what he did after he got his English degree. He served coffee at a coffee shop that rarely had any customers, and he read Moby Dick. Eventually, he developed a fascination with the book, and spent 15 straight years (so far) reading it extensively.

Last night, I was listening to This American Life, and they had a story about an English major who became the Jose Cuervo man after he graduated. He had people drink tequilla shots out of a shot glass balanced on his bald head and danced around with free t-shirts sticking out of his speedo. Now he is doing commercials for razor blades. Most of the ads feature him jumping into fountains or being sprayed with fire hoses.

I learned that, after playing Kevin Arnold on The Wonder Years, Fred Savage pursued an English degree from Stanford. After his graduation, he appeared as a womanizing professor on Boy Meets World and a serial rapist on Law and Order: SVU. He played in the World Poker Tour. He then won the award for Worst Director at the 28th Golden Raspberry Awards for his work on Daddy Day Camp. Now he directs kids' shows on Nickelodeon.

Vin Diesel was an English major. Enough said.




Basically, all these things made me wonder:
what have I gotten myself into?

I've always thought that I had some stories to tell--that I hopefully have enough inspiration to make telling stories a career. But I just looked over my past blogs and realized that since last year, I have written around 3. That is 3 times that I was motivated enough to write something. That means that as far as motivation goes, I basically died when summer came around.

So, this is an attempt at a revival. This is me taking those chest shocker thingies and rubbing them together and going all out.


Bzzzzzt!

love always,
jim.

Because all you see is where else you could be...

Currently Listening Narrow Stairs By Death Cab for Cutie see related

When you're at home.



Day 1566-

I've come to realize that the world is getting smaller everyday.

What I used to consider far away isn't so far anymore. When I was little, going to Lakewood felt like a trip around the world. Now I consider driving to other states on a whim.

What used to seem really abstract isn't so abstract anymore. When I was little, I didn't think about the fact that people wrote books. They were just there. Now my teacher gives me handouts on the best ways to get published.

I would say that no matter how far away from home you are, your brain tries to make you feel like home is as close as it has always been. So, the distance from CSU to my house has become equivalent to the distance from Columbine to my house. And every distance has gotten smaller in order to fit the proportions.

And the smaller proportions seem to make everything a lot easier to understand.


ok bye!
-jim.



I don't even know what some of that meant.




I am SO excited for Death Cab on the 28th.

We could take a trip to the animal zoo. . .

and laugh at all the funny things that animals do.





It's crazy to think that the school year is almost over. I'm basically a quarter of the way done with college.


I remember this time last year, going through all the goodbyes and senior circles and grad parties, and now there are new people doing all those things. And it makes me feel kind of unproductive. Do I need to be doing more to complete the end of the year? Should I be more stressed? Am I missing something?


I realized that other day that I basically view everyone in the world as coming from Littleton. No matter how different people are, for some reason I still picture them all growing up in the same town that I grew up in. I've just gotten so used to growing up the same people, that when I meet someone from somewhere else, I just don't seem to acknowledge it.


I was driving today and thinking about how weird it is to love a place. Ft. Collins is the same as Littleton basically. Both have grass and trees and roads. King Soopers is still where you buy groceries. So why is that when I am driving here it seems different? It's not just different in places where I have specific memories, but it seems to permeate everything here.

I think it's because every road here is just a short link between memories. These are the roads that connected every aspect of my life. And I like them.


I had forgotten how much I love driving at night. It is one of my favorite things.


I had always wanted to be quoted. So today was a milestone. Thanks Chad.


Great job to all you theatre kids!


love always,
jim.

A few of my thoughts for today. . .

Currently Listening Ups & Downs: Early Recordings and B-Sides By Saves the Day see related

Today I thought about the following:

• Whenever I am carrying a cup with a straw in it, it makes me nervous to run up stairs.
  
• Can a straw skewer your eyeball?
• I never trust the people who put up the "mail not in" sign. I'll check anyway. I'll bet you money that the mail will be there. It never is.
  
• I'll check again later no matter what the sign says.
• If:
  
• W=Western,
  
• B=Bacon,
  
• and C=Cheeseburger,
  
• than a Double Western Bacon Cheeseburger=2(wbc).
• And as we all know 2(wbc)=Delicious.
• God provides in wonderful ways.
• Whenever I try to measure things in relation to my thumb, it just makes me think about how big my thumb is.
• pretty big.
  
• It's weird that you can get a sunburn one day in Colorado, and have to wear mittens the next day.
• I'm excited for this weekend.
• The number on my receipt for Carl's Jr. was 82. But on my bag they wrote: "82 m." What does M stand for?
• Male?
• Made with love for jim?
  
• Mmmmmm. . . what a delicious double western bacon cheeseburger?
• Perhaps today's meal is brought to you by: the number '82' and the letter 'M.'
  
• it's probably Medium.
  
• I decided that I am going to try doing crunches whenever my roommate leaves the room.
• I think this will be an easy way to start, because I'll probably only have to do crunches about once a week.
• I keep thinking that I spelled skewer wrong earlier.
• according to Google, I didn't.
• If I were a computer, or a video game, or a professional sports player, or a contestant on American Idol, I would punch my roommate in the face for swearing at me so much when I do things wrong.
  
• The other day somebody said they'd like to live inside my brain, just to see how I come up with the thoughts that I have (because I had said something weird again).
  
• I doubt they would be very comfortable in there.
• not because I have extremely odd thoughts
• just because I don't think they would fit that well.
• my head is not person sized.
• and if it were, then I guess that I wouldn't be a person,
  
• because I would be much too big
• that would probably make them not want to live in my head anyway.
• because I would be a GIANT.
• Would I want to live in a giant's head?
• maybe.
• can I control the giant?
• or am I just watching?

I think these are some of the hard-hitting questions that we all need to ask.


Just a few of my thoughts for the day.

love always,
jim.

when I go out. . .

Currently Listening The End Is Here By Five Iron Frenzy see related

I play in the street
I get hit by cars
I make mashed potatoes
I get hit by cars.

----------------------------------------------
Hey everybody,

So lately I've been comparing myself today to myself a couple years ago; The people I was closest to, the songs I listened to most, the ideas I held most dear. And I think it's made me understand the shock that time travelers must feel. It's like I've gotten into a Delorean, accelerated to 88 miles per hour, and driven through some sort of tear in time and space*. And everything is recognizeable but totally different. It's still Hill Valley, but there are flying cars, people think my jacket is a life preserver, Dr. Brown saves a lady named Clara from falling into a ravine and ruins the geographical name of the location forever, etc. And I realize, Great Scot!**, time is just a crazy thing.

Time seems really fluid. At some moments it seems like things take forever, but at other times I realize how short things really lasted. I feel like I'm often living in the past. But is that really possible?

I really liked things as they were back in high school (and as they are right now for that matter). But it often feels like two completely separate places. One place has Twin Pines Mall (where I meet the Doc in the middle of the night and he gets shot by some Libyans***), and the other has old man Peabody's farm (he thinks I'm a space alien and he shoots at me with his shotgun but misses and blows up his own mail box).

Not that either place is necessarily better--or anymore lacking in excitement--but sometimes I feel myself wishing that I could change where I was; Wishing that I could go back in time. Not necessarily so that I could change things (because that could have disasterous consequences [Clayton/Shownash Ravine e.g.]), but just so I could enjoy them again.

I wish I could go back, but I guess it's exciting to be moving forward. Granted, it's terrifying. I don't know what the future is going to be like, and the truth is: I really liked the past. But I think I'll enjoy the future: it has the excitement of the unknown, it has unlimited possibility.

And after all, apparently "we don't need roads.****" So that's something to look forward to also.


love always,
jim.


Notes:
*temporal displacement occurring at exactly 1:20 AM and zero seconds, Saturday morning, October 26, 1985.

**or, if you prefer: This is heavy!

***the Libyan nationalists were mad because the Doc promised to build them a bomb, but he just took their plutonium and gave them a shoddy bomb casing filled with used pinball machine parts.

****sorry about the fact that this entire post is basically Back to the Future references. Couldn't really think of any better way to say it.

The roads were paved with plans we've made. . .

Currently Listening Interventions and Lullabies By The Format Wait, Wait, Wait see related

Day 1541.

I had a dream last night that I was sitting in concert choir.

But there weren't very many people in there. Just Andres and me and what seemed like the choir kids from my graduating class (but it couldn't have been all of them). We all were sitting in our regular concert choir seats so we were pretty far apart. We sang this song that we had never sang before. We sounded really terrible (kinda like we always sounded when we first started on a difficult song). Andres just did that weird smile that he does and said that we'd get back to it tomorrow. Dave came down to me, and I said, "I'm really glad we get to go get lunch now."

And for some reason it seemed perfect. It made me wake up and really miss high school.

Not that I don't like college, but I miss simplicity. I miss singing terribly and trying it again tomorrow. I miss lunch with Dave and Stephen. I miss having everyone who I have known for my whole life within a few miles. Now everybody is all spread out and that's weird to me.

When I got up, I was thinking about how Columbine's seniors are graduating soon and that means that I'll be done with my freshman year soon. It's gone by really fast. I can remember watching people before me go off to college, and then come back for summer, and go off again, and thinking "I'll never be that old." Somehow I really thought that the time would never come for me. Somehow I wasn't subject to the laws of space and time. I was a time traveler, a Peter Pan; forever young.

But now I'm one of those people who have gone off to college, and is coming back for summer, and then will go off again. But I still don't feel that old.

miss you guys,
love always,
jim.


P.S. Dodgeball tournament today. Wish us luck!