Hmm...

I look around each day with a clean-slate on my mind. I force myself to look at things, regardless of whether I have learned a lesson about such situations, with a tinted lens of newness.

I don't really know if there's more to that thought than that. I think it was just a thought and now it's gone. Thoughts tend to flee like that.

All That's Known....

It's impossible to ever really know what we're doing. Usually we're sitting, carefully perched on one leg, sitting on a couch looking out at the world and challenging it to look back, or endlessly moving without a real knowledge of what we're doing but that it will bring us new meaning. That is, in the end, the summation of our friendship.

Peter Rimkunas is a product of Gorham, Maine. His family consists of five of the most rambunctious people that you'll ever meet. Never having met his parents, instead hearing tales of jumpsuits and singing, to name a few, I have had the pleasure of meeting only his siblings. Peter is unlike either of his siblings but instead a summation of their parts. His brother Jonas is an outgoing and outrageous guy who pounces around a lot with no worry or care. His sister, Miriam, is much more on the quiet and reserved side. Her power stems from her ability to wield words like a finely honed blade. Peter on the other hand is much like Winnie the Pooh in that he is always jumpy and fun but when the situation calls for it he can be serious and extremely thoughtful, saying nothing but really saying everything. Peter is one of those people who you can't help but like. His aura is always colorful. He is always willing to say something that will cheer you up. Most of the time he does it unintentionally.

Sean Edwards is a very different ball of wax. To meet Sean is to meet your everyman. Sean too was born in Gorham, Maine. His parents are divorced and live in two very different worlds. To listen to him talk is almost to see the shots of a finely aimed rifle. He never keeps a thought to himself but saves the really good ones for just the right moment. A scholar of letters, typed no less but still letters, who reads life like an old book. The best thing about Sean is that he knows how to speak. Not really speak in the general but to speak eloquently and know what to say. It could easily be said that his word and personality are comforting in their simplicity but always hide more than you expect them to.

Then there's me. I am only me. I can be nothing else. Peter, Sean and I compliment each other so that you can only hope to say nothing and say more. I have been forever changed by my relationship with these two guys.

The goal of this assignment was to write a character profile. Character profiles are usually about one person but at the same time sometimes you get the inkling to write wildly about that giant pink elephant in the room. In my life I've had the pleasure of meeting so many people . Yet rarely do I feel the urge to do things by the book. I chose to do this assignment not on one person, that's too normal, instead. I opted for a profile of a friendship. That's what life is. To deny such a fact is to deny life itself. I never feel like doing things by the book. This assignment is no different. If I should fail, I accept such a fact. Failure too is part of life. In the end I had to do a profile of the most important thing in my life: my friendship with two of the best people I've ever met. In the end, the air in any room that we inhabit is a character unto itself.

Poetry from my mind place....

This post will be short and sweet. I've decided that I'll start posting poetry on here from my little black notebook.

~Voluntary Imprisonment~

Looking out from the display case,
people looking in,
I wonder, wander, waddle
through the recesses of humankind,
my own but more theirs,
writing stories about their
lives.

They see me
but what they really see
is a wandering pair
of interstellar eyes
searching desperately,
but knowing plainly,
that truly we
are both
lost.

Sometimes a passerby
will happen into my case.
Glimpsing out they see
as I see.
Yet even for but on
moment
they can't hope to know
true vision.
They leave, not obtusely,
but without knowing that
vision, hidden wisdom
some might say
that I experience
within.

So here I sit.
I watch people pass by
and silently I tumble
their realities about in
a grand jar.
They see me,
only seeing
what they want to see
and me,
silently sculpting
an immoreality.

Just a glimpse into the future poetic endeavors and decided to start now.

Thoughts On The End Of January

It's February 5th. I've been alive for nearly 21 years. I've never felt so old.

That having been said, I feel as though it's crazy how quickly time seems to be passing. I went to sleep some Mondays in January and would wake up on Friday morning. It was nutty. I am starting to believe that one of two things are happening:

1) I'm getting senile.

2) I'm beginning to lose my conception of a time based system.

Frighteningly there's a final option that could be taking place.

3) Both of the above.

I know I'm not getting senile because I don't stand on my porch in my skivvies screaming at kids for stepping on my ungroomed yard. I can be sure that I losing my conception of a time based system. I don't worry about time anymore. It's just not an issue. I spend hours sitting in a semi-circle of wing backed chairs with my friends without realizing it's the wee hours of the morning. I should be concerned. Yet a little piece of me is finally relieved.

I've been waiting years for this. I lost my watch, almost on purpose, and haven't looked back. Sure, when I'm sitting in class I watch the clock religiously praying to the gods that I can just get out. I find that in recreation terms I adore the concept of not watching the clock. I spend my time wasting it.

I think that the reason for all this concern and foresightedness is that January went by so quickly. I realized on the 31st that 2010 was here with a vengeance. I had been alive for little more then two decades and suddenly time was just speeding right by. I have to say that, while I should be angry, I kind of dig it.

Guess I realize the fear that some people feel toward turning thirty and then sixty. Sounds exhilarating to me.

Today....

...is February 2nd. I really don't know how I feel about February. Besides the impending and obligatory holiday known as Saint Valentine's Day, I live in Maine. I live in a town in Maine that you only would have heard of if you had applied to the local state school, University of Maine. Here's the other thing about Maine: It is always cold. Maine is not just cold either, it's a special kind of cold that makes you curse the trees for being able to withstand freezing up and falling apart. There's about one month in the summer when you're all "YAY, IT'S TOALLY SUNNY AND NOT BAKING ME ALIVE" and then, POOF!!, back to cold. Therefore I have made the decision that in true style and pizzaz, I will be boycotting this state. You may ask how a poor college kid with no money to charter his own plane out to Key West plans to boycott the neverending snowy.

Step 1) Refuse to ever acknowledge that winter is even here. I will do this by wearing tropical shirts and bermuda shorts at anytime that won't endanger my well-being. I will also fill my coffee cup in the morning with a new and colorful tropical drink.
Step 2) Whenever someone asks the temperature outside I will respond thusly: "Oh you know, sunny with a cool tropical breeze." In this way I will convince all my fellow Mainahs that I am neither sane nor reliable
Step 3) I will enforce on all of my peers the policy of positive thinking. Therefore, if I hear one of my buds saying "Boy, it's a real chilly one out there bub!" I will swiftly smack them across the face or hit them with the nearest loaf of crusty Italian bread. I'm hoping that after a short amount of time this will have a Pavlovian effect on all of my friends. They will begin to think of it as summer or find themselves in A WORLD OF CRUSTY HURT.
Final Step) I will refer to Maine, here on out, as Bermuda. Maybe, if I hope and try, it will work and we'll transform from snoozeville to Palmsville.

It's a fourfold plan with no space for failure. Has anyone seen my Bermuda shorts?

I know that love exists because...

With Valentine's Day approaching quite quickly it's no surprise that I'm looking for little signs of love everywhere.

Today, as I was walking to my Journalism class, I noticed two people walking away from each other. They were both wearing a huge smiles on their face. Every few seconds the young woman, who I'll call Sally, kept glancing over her shoulder at the young man, I'll call him Joe. Everytime that Sally would look back from Joe she would plaster yet another smile on her face. Joe, in the meantime, would look back at Sally as she was looking away. Each time it would be when the other was looking away. Finally, at one small moment they both looked back at each other at the same exact second. For a brief moment I saw a view into what love should be. I haven't got any idea who either of these people were but I do know that joy can come in any form.

I find it so endearing that little moments like this still exist. There are so many instances today when people are bleak and narrow minded. We've entered into a day of sorrow. If people can take little moments to notice the small things on a day to day basis then we'll easily find ourselves inhabiting a much sunnier world. Yes, disasters will keep happening and there's no way to stop that; our responsibility is simply to change the circumstances in our miniature world through little steps. When you're walking along the sidewalk and you see those windswept dunes in the snow, smile knowing that that is natures Blue Period. We can not control all things. We can control the smile on our face.

I want to thank Joe and Sally. Today you've given me something to smile about. Now to just find myself some snow dunes.