Liquid Nonsense

This last weekend Phil invited me out to Michigan for his friend Margot's wedding. The idea was that we would leave Friday around noon and stay through Sunday. Thanks to the poor planning by the folks over at United, that didn't really happen. They cancelled our flight and then conveniently put us on another one roughly 12 hours later. Yup, we flew across the country to Michigan at 11:50pm on Friday. Factor in time zone changes and that means we arrived at our final destination at about 10-something am Saturday morning. The wedding was at 4pm that afternoon, so we got to spend the remainder of that morning and afternoon catching up on some precious sleep.

The wedding itself was very simple and quite expedient. I'd say the entire ceremony part took less than 10 minutes all together. Even though it was really short, it was very well done and I thoroughly enjoyed it. The dinner and reception that followed were equally as awesome.

Margot and Adam, congratulations!



Also, 'cause I thought the picture came out rather well. Phil and I looking cute at the Riverside Inn's dock.



Since Friday afternoon was made available to me, I decided to go down to ASU and finally graduate. I'm not even going to relate the entire afternoon's story since that would require vastly more energy than I'm willing to give right now. Suffice it to say, I'm no mere mortal when it comes to ASU's bureaucracy. Three signatures, two forms, a readmission statement, and transcript transfer, and three fees later I have the credits for the one class standing between me and graduate. In my mind's eye I've already graduated as my computer science nonsense was done a year ago. In the University's eyes I just have to shuffle the paperwork around so they'll print the damn degree.

Today I was looking for some change to try something new. I've heard Phil discuss his enjoyment with Bikram Yoga as a good means of physical exertion. So, using the wonderful interweb I discovered that there's actually a Bikram Yoga place about three blocks away from my house. So I gave it a shot.

Holy shit, the last thing that made me sweat like this was called "all day outside in Shanghai." I feel like I'm back in China, except that rather than being outside all day, I just got completely soaked 20 minutes into a 90 minute yoga session. I don't think I've ever been this limber in my life. Scratch that. I was feeling limber, now that a few hours have passed I can feel the beginnings of what is undoubtedly going to feel like divine retribution for my efforts tomorrow.

On my way in there was a late teens/early 20's (I didn't want to stare too much) leaving without his shirt on with an absolutely flawless body. If you can tell me that I can get his body, or even something just approximately near it, I'll cancel my gym membership right here and now.

Of the 5 quotes from my previous post, the one by Og Mandino is probably my favorite. I like stories, narratives, and experiences that reinforce that love is a living breathing force that has to not only be maintained, but made to grow. The path it will take is always unknown and the destination is non-existent. It essentially is the truest emotional embodiment of the Taoist/Zen expression "the journey is the destination."

Effectively one year after my college life has concluded I am in the midst of many of my friends navigating their own love lives. Some of them have gone off to be married, some were going to be married and circumstances have changed, some of them are in a relationship to kill time, some of them are in serious relationships just enjoying whatever course life may take. The diversity is truly quite staggering.

Maybe it's my sentimentality or simply the emotional glare from my idealist-rose-tinted glasses, but it's all pretty amazing. All relationships have their highs and lows, but isn't that why we're all involved? Isn't it your privilege to feel compassionate pain when your significant other is miserable? Isn't it your privilege to be the first thing someone else sees when they wake up on Saturday morning? Isn't it your privilege to sit and cry when your both all worked up? Isn't it your privilege to know that somebody out there thinks of your face and smiles because your just that damned important? I think it is. All of these things are the privileges granted in relationships. All the good, and all the bad, moments two people share define their wholely unique experience.

Yes, love must be remade. It must be tempered carefully and continuously so that you can always forge something stronger.

I'm well aware that I'm a sentimental sucker, a romantic, and an idealist. Especially when it comes to matters of love, but isn't it my privilege to feel that way?

Go to this site. Hit refresh until you find a total of five quotations that are meaningful to you, reflect your outlook on life, or whatever. Post them.

But seduction isn’t making someone do what they don’t want to do. Seduction is enticing someone into doing what they secretly want to do already.
Waiter Rant, Waiter Rant weblog, 11-29-05


Love doesn't sit there like a stone, it has to be made, like bread: remade all the time, made new.
Og Mandino (1923 - 1996)

I'm tired of all this nonsense about beauty being only skin-deep. That's deep enough. What do you want, an adorable pancreas?
Jean Kerr

Many years ago Rudyard Kipling gave an address at McGill University in Montreal. He said one striking thing which deserves to be remembered. Warning the students against an over-concern for money, or position, or glory, he said: "Some day you will meet a man who cares for none of these things. Then you will know how poor you are."
Halford E. Luccock

When you take charge of your life, there is no longer need to ask permission of other people or society at large. When you ask permission, you give someone veto power over your life.
Geoffrey F. Abert

You scored as Cultural Creative. Cultural Creatives are probably the newest group to enter this realm. You are a modern thinker who tends to shy away from organized religion but still feels as if there is something greater than ourselves. You are very spiritual, even if you are not religious. Life has a meaning outside of the rational. Cultural Creative 94% Postmodernist 69% Existentialist 56% Idealist 50% Materialist 44% Modernist 25% Romanticist 13% Fundamentalist 0% What is Your World View? created with QuizFarm.com

Your Ultimate Purity Score Is...
Category	Your Score	Average
Self-Lovin'	21.7% I wouldn't shake hands, if I were you	64.8%
Shamelessness	54.8% It takes a couple of drinks	78.9%
Sex Drive	60.5% A fool for love, but not always	77.3%
Straightness	92.9% Just go fuck something, okay?	44%
Gayness	5.4% Makes Dr. Frank-n-Furter look tame	83.8%
Fucking Sick	60.2% Dipped into depravity	89.9%
You are 47.31% pure Average Score: 72.4%
Take The Ultimate Purity Test and see how you match up! (By The Ferrett)

It isn't that often that I get really stoked about a movie coming out. Sure the summer movies are fun and usually involve big budgets and things going "boom," but I'm rarely super jazzed about them.

When I went to see Lady in the Water, which I thought was awesome, there was a preview for a movie coming out later this year by Daron Aronofsky. You may remember him from such films as Requiem for a Dream, and Pi. The new one is called "The Fountain." Rather than talk it up, I'm just going to post a link to the high definition trailer that I've been watching over and over.

The Fountain

I feel this is the choice line from the trailer:

Bodies are the prisons for our souls... all flesh decays, death turns all to ash... and thus death frees every soul.

In other neat movie news I plan on seeing Little Miss Sunshine this coming weekend. Supposedly there might be a small group of people going to see it. If anyone is interested, send me a message.

I've sat really thinking about what stops me from getting tattoos. It's mostly related to me not knowing what I want to get. There are plenty of things that I'd like, tons of images I associate with, and more than enough ideas floating around in my head. My problem is that I would ultimately like a coherent body of work, and that requires tons of future planning.

The more I pondered this one the more I realized that it isn't so much that I can't decide on something I'd like, it's that choosing tattoos is like getting a Christmas present. I frequently don't ask for anything in particular because I want to see what people will come up with given the chance to figure out what I might like. In a sense I think of tattoos the same way. I want to be given them more than I actually want to choose them.

I want parts of my body to be a living canvas, but I'd like to introduce my tattoos as "This was given to me by X for reason Z, and this one over here was a brilliant design by Y inspired by when we did W."

Here's the deal, provide me with a decent design idea and why you think I should have that tattooed to my body and it'll get done. The original concept will be attributed to whoever offers it up, and I will choose final motif so I can get the coherent set I would ultimately like. Be as descriptive as you'd like as I will probably pool my resources on artists and have them construct something. If you'd like, I will even submit the final proposed design back to see if you'd like modifications.

I will treat recommendations as seriously as you offer them. Some of the people reading my blog have known me for over 10 years, and others haven't even known me for all of 2006. All are welcomed to offer suggestions, ideas, and creative input.

I'm interested to see what people manage to come up with.

So I'm sitting here watching the new Pinky & The Brain DVDs and having an ongoing discussion with myself. It might be my healthy sense of ego, but I feel that open-forum discussions where I'm the only participant are worth writing down at some point.

Tonight's colloquium in the compound is more of an exploration of my relationship with sex. As a side note, the last time I watched Pinky & The Brain I was probably in early/mid high school, yet I feel it adds an important dimension to the discussion. I would say it triggers a feeling of nostalgia for a time long since past, but honestly it doesn't. Similarly today I talked with a coworker about how awesome it would be to be in first grade again playing with blocks and to have carefully metered 30 minute recess periods. No, this is not me setting myself up to sound like a pedophile, it's me illustrating the zen part of the discussion.

Pinky & The Brain as well as thoughts of first grade give me a sense of simplicity and a general lack of complexity. In my head I'm a 23 year old sexually active first grader that apparently has the opinions of a 40 year old porn star, a penchant for entheogens, and a slightly more than "working" understanding of Eastern Philosophy.

I don't understand why things need to be complicated. One of my favorite lines from 20th century literature comes from Antoine de Saint-Exupery's "Little Price":

Grown-ups never understand anything for themselves, and it is tiresome for children to be always and forever explaining things to them.

I feel that love and love making should always maintain a certain amount of childlike exuberance. Losing the bright-eyed excitement and bushy-tailedness of crawling around naked with someone else feels like a migration away from that child-like place of freedom and into the land of adults. Which is all fine and good because adults are very important individuals and they have many important things to do like pay the bills, be responsible, and do other adult-like things because "that's the way things are." Sure, I have to do these things too, but that doesn't mean as I get older I necessarily have to swap my action figures for a suit and tie... I can swap them for anal beads.

My attitude towards the matter of sex as a whole could be rather easily summed up as "playful." Well, perhaps pornographically playful. It's a subject I love discussing with other people because the answers are always diversified and you end up learning what people hold close to their hearts. You like being punched in the face with full power while listening to country music and being suspended in a bath tub full of Jell-O? Fantastic! On the weekends you like to role play by dressing up as a giraffe and letting six of your best friends "go on safari" shooting at you with paint ball guns only so they can "bring you down" and gang-bang you in the back of a pickup truck? Awesome, I totally support you! Periodically, you beat off to a fantasy composed of frat boys dressed up in tuxedos with the ass missing performing a concerto around a pot roast marinated with any number of body fluids? Wonderful, tell me where the parade is and I'll be there!

It doesn't help that I'm the kind of person that takes a purity test and writes down the description next to every check box that I didn't check, modify it slightly, and make a twisted to-do list of sorts. I have a healthy sense of exploration and excitement towards sex that I feel provide me with a certain sense of fantasy-related creativity and openness.

In conclusion:
1) Sex is good.
2) Creativity is good.
3) Enthusiasm is good.
4) Restraints are wonderful.
5) Openness with, and the supporting of, others is of paramount importance.