a fresh start

"When will those clouds all disappear?"
-The Rolling Stones

The beginning of the summer always brings changes around here, and this year is none different. Times of big change can often lead to overexaggeration of problems, which we tend to make bigger when in reality they are quite small. Nonetheless, the last week has been hectic in almost every area of life.

To begin with, I'm not trading stocks anymore. I'll do it as a hobby, but not as a job anymore. It wasn't so much the stress or anything, but with my imminent move to penn state coming, it feels like a lot of things have to be put on hold. Instead, I've decided to get another job. I'm not going to post it on here yet because I still have to pass a drug test(yeah, ha ha) before I get it so I'm not going to say anything about it. That leads me to an interesting story. About 11:30 this morning I leave to go get the drug test at a place on West Carson St. I follow the directions I got, but somehow I pass it. If you're ever driven on Carson, you know that it's tough to turn around, so I did the dumbest thing possible: go across a bridge. I ended up in the heart of the city and to make a very, very long trek short I visited Northside, Squirrel Hill, Greenfield, Homestead, Squirrel Hill again, Southside, and finally found the damn place at about 1:45. However, when I get there, there is a sign on the door that says that they are in the process of moving across the street for one day only. I can't get a god damn break. The one day out of 365 that they move is the day that I need to get this stupid test done. I got home around 2:30 and things just kept getting worse. I was informed that a person who I consider a mentor of mine has terminal cancer and doesn't have long to live. I'm not going to go into specifics, but it just shook me hard because this person is still quite young. It's days like this that make you really start to believe that there are no guarantees while you're alive, only oppurtunities. I had a lot of time to think things over while playing basketball, and I came to the conclusion that because we have an unknown amount of time here, we can only be ourselves and spend time with people with whom that's good enough for. We never know how long we have, so what is the point of pretending to be someone that you're not? In the end, there is no point to that.

Things started to turn around a little later on tonight when I was playing an old video game with my brother. The game was Quest 64 and it brought back so many good memories. When I played the game, my brother would always be the navigator, the co-pilot so to speak. He was the person that had to put up with all my crap when I couldn't figure something out(I've called him a useless idiot more times than I can remember). Despite that my nature is one of intense passion and extreme competitiveness in everything I do, I realized that nobody should take as much flak as my brother takes. When I've had a terrible day, a day like today, he would usually be the first person that I would go off on. Yes, it is true that he can be really, really annoying at times, but that's just what makes him him. I know that taking him to Eat n Park with my friends later on in the night is no compensation for the many tirades that I gave him, but I figured I could at least do something nice for him. At around 11, a large group of us gathered at the famous spot to have a little late night snack. Conversation was abundant and as always, the night turned out as a success. Later on, a few of us went back to nayhouse's to play pool, but I could see that my brother was getting tired, so we left to go home around 1. I'ts funny how all it takes to turn a shitty day around is the support of a couple of good friends.

I never wanted to make this into some Oprah Winfrey inspirational special blog, but I need to thank all my friends, especially my close ones, for putting up with my shit. They are like my family and I'm very appreciative of them for that. I can act like the white, nerdy, goofy kid that I am around them and they could care less if that doesn't exactly put me in with the cool kids. I'm starting to do some whiny tribute though so it's time to move on.

Finally, I'm going to conclude this with the first poem that I read in my poetry class from last year. This poem combines nature and emotion which are two of my favorite elements in poetry into one long haiku. It pretty much sums up how I'm feeling right now. As always, enjoy.

Hitch Haiku
By: Gary Snyder

They didn't hire him
so he ate his lunch alone
the noon whistle

Cats shut down
deer thread through
men all eating lunch

Frying hotcakes in a dripping shelter
Fu Manchu
Queets Indian Reservation in the rain

A truck went by
three hours ago:
Smoke Creek desert

Jackrabbit eyes all night
breakfast in Elko

Old kanji hid by dirt
on skidroad Jap town walls
down the hill
to the Wobbly hall

Seattle

Spray chips from the cargo-booms
a fresh-chipped wench
spotted with red lead
young fir-
soaking in summer rain

Over the Mindanao Deep

Scrap bass
dumpt off the fantail
falling six miles

Moonlight on the burned-out temple-
wooden horse shit.

Sunday dinner in Ithaca-
the twang of a bowstring

After weeks of watching the roof leak
I fixed it tonight
by moving a single board

Stray white mare
neck rope dangling
forty miles from farms.

Back from the Kaweahs

Sundown, Timber Gap
-sat down-
dark firs.
dirty; cold;
too tired to talk

Cherry blossoms at Hood river
rusty sand near Tuscon
mudflats of Willapa Bay

Pronghorn country

Steering into the sun
glittering jewel-road
shattered obsidian

The mountain walks over the water!
Rain down from the mountain!
high bleat of a
cow elk
over blackberries

A great freight truck
lit like a town
through the dark stony desert

Drinking hot sake
toasting fish on coals
the motorcycle
out parked in the rain.

Switchback

turn, turn
and again, hard-
scrabble
steep travel a-
head.



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