Beats me where to start. In the last month, I've gained a girlfriend, changed jobs significantly, been an armed sentry on a military post, been scheduled to deploy to Germany for six months, continued going to jujitsu, worked on my story, dropped classes, written a Starcraft battle report with heavy use of Photoshop, regained contact with Sarah (oye, she's having her OWN whole chapter to deal with, but then, what's new? She can't stand still any more than I can, nor can she live without passion, as I cannot. It's what happens. [shrug] Having read my other journal entries, and most likely heard of her directly from me, you know her to a slight degree anyway, but her web site is a wonderful place to get to know her better, although not perfectly or anywhere near completely. It gives you a clear glimpse at a certain side of her, and, like a kaleidoscope, hints enigmatically at a hundred others.)
I don't think I could live if I didn't have four or five pressing issues pulling at me and struggling for control.
My time is so scheduled of late that I can't devote myself to the personal creativity I love, such as working on this website, writing stories or poetry, playing my guitar, or even reading. I have to steal the moments I can . . . I read for fifteen minutes a day at lunch, and I get to think about my story for five minutes or so a day, but not consecutive minutes most of the time.
I was going to write when Jen and I started officially dating, but my head/heart was buzzing so much with questions and uncertainties that I didn't want to post them for the "world" to read and hurt her feelings by expressing doubts to others that I hadn't shared with *her.* I didn't talk of the doubts with her because I wasn't sure they were legitimate, and when I began to understand where they were coming from I did, in fact, talk of them to her. Much of it had to do with the elimination of possibilities. I thrive on choice and contingencies, and in so many ways my life is an unending stream of possibilities. It feels awkward to go from many to few, or one. Of course, only marriage is permanent. But nevertheless, I had made a formal decision to see whether Jenni is someone I wish to spend the rest of my life with, and I can't give less than my all in making the effort to discern that. This means that for the foreseeable future, and possibly forever, I have narrowed the pool of potential marriage partners to one.
See what I mean about not having time? The only reason I have time today is I called off work sick. Funny how it's doing more for my mind than my body. Even now, the clock is my enemy, ticking off the moments of my freedom. I'm looking for an artist right now with whom to collaborate on at least one project, and possibly more depending on his/her versatility. Some of you know of the comic "Gloom Cookie," but I'm guessing most of you do not.I don't know that I would ever be able to nor *want* to work with the artist, Ted Naifeh, but his style is adaptable to the sort I'm looking for.
Gloom Cookie is basically "Goth FUBU," but with an infinitely higher level of self-awareness and genuine artistry than acutal FUBU, which I have such contempt for as I simply do not wish to express at this time. It is simultaneously Goth satire whilst being wholly Goth, and does not sacrifice the medium for the message. --or even vice versa, which is the problem with *most* people who label themselves Goth.
I feel creatively bound, and have since I started working at Chevy Chase. Up early every day, always something I have to do in the evening, never more than a minute, maybe two of time to think at work, perhaps twenty minutes of actual break time for lunch each day. As always, when I close off those hours which to me are the most magickal, filled with possibility, at the breaking point between drudge and dream, I begin to die. I have always thrived at night, when the masses of humanity sleep, and the weight of their banality is lifted by merciful dreams they care not to entertain. Every night, just as I begin to come alive, and feel the strength in myself awaken, when I feel the drive to create, the need to compose; it is then that I force myself into bed and set the alarm, so I can become like every other drone on this miserable planet.
How am I to live? What am I to do? The world has organized itself around a diurnal schedule rendered obsolete by Thomas Edison in 1879. (Here, for fun, read a more-enlightened-than-thou [ok, yes, pun] diatribe into why Edison should *not* get credit for inventing the lightbulb.) I can only look forward to the beginning of school, and with a little judicious scheduling, perhaps the chance to awaken at my more proper hours, as I cut back my work schedule, possibly switching to "peak time" which means I wouldn't even have to be there until 11:00 AM. That means, instead of going to sleep at 1:30 and waking up at 7:30 after six hours of sleep, I could then go to sleep at 4:30 and wake up at 10:30 after six hours of sleep. See the improvement? Heck, I might even go to bed at 4:00, and get six and a HALF hours of sleep.
My needed schedule concerns me in correlation with the concept of Jenni. I joked to her, but was also terribly serious, that if we ever married, we would never see each other. She is a day person, and has chosen a career ensuring that for the next forty years, she will get up at 5:30 in the morning and go to bed at 9:30 at night. I sincerely hope that I will have only been in bed for perhaps two or three hours by the time she gets up, although, since my body has a natural sleep schedule of six in the morning until two in the afternoon, we might just manage to brush our teeth in unison before she begins her day, and I end mine. Now, depending on when/where I do *my* work, it is possible that we could have up to four hours of time per day in which our schedules coincide with availability. All those believing this to make a healthy relationship, raise your hands.
There have been times where I've been creatively productive, despite living a "normal" schedule. In fact, I first started putting together this web site a year and half ago while working a 7:00-3:30 job at NIH. It was, however, a 7-3:30 job wherein I only had to actually work for perhaps an hour or two each day, leaving me free to feed and build my creative impulses for a much greater length of time than has been the case at other times and in other situations. I'm going to call a close to this entry, seeing as how I'm experiencing numerous classic symptoms of dehydration, in conjunction with being really hungry. It's 5:25 PM, I haven't eaten yet, and my day has concluded it's opening act. I have been awake for three and a half hours. Unfortunately, instead of being able to be awake for the sixteen hours one would expect, I should curtail my life at 11:30, after a total of nine and a half hours. Or, wait . . . I could plan on getting four hours of sleep tonight and go to bed at 3:30 . . .
Ok, fine, I'm NOT done writing yet. I'm eating a microwave pizza possessed of 400 calories, and had a Slimfast earlier for another 200 calories, but I didn't drink it for the calories, I drank it for the vitamins and minerals. That leaves me with another 1400 calories for today. As long as I keep drinking water (which I'm doing right now) and don't have soda, I oughta be ok. So, how to spend 1400 calories until three in the morning. I can eat an average of almost 150 calories an hour. That seems strange, seeing as how we only burn about a calorie a minute, and if I'm burning sixty an hour while consuming 150 . . . Ok, I don't care enough to think about this right now. I'll just keep doing crunches and pushups throughout the day.
I got my yellow belt in jujitsu last Saturday, which is the first promotion. I'm hoping to earn my green belt in the tournament this spring, and then test for purple at the end of the semester. I'm mostly pleased with my progress. As far as practical application goes, out of 13 matches on the last two practice days, I've only lost 3. One of those was against a first-degree brown, and the other two were against a fellow yellow belt with a lifetime of wrestling experience. He's stronger than me with more mass, but I think I'm going to have the edge on him in technique.
As for Sarah, what are you getting yourself into? I can feel it . . .
I've been painting miniatures, too. I have an army for Warhammer 40K, as has been discussed. You buy the models plain pewter, then using paints you conveniently purchase from the same company which sells you the models, decorate them yourself. Depending on who you are, it's either symbiosis or parasitism. It sure saves THEM the trouble of painting the figures, and they also get to SELL you the supplies to do it yourself. Kind of like if T-shirt companies instead sold blank shirts, dyes, and logo iron-ons. I'll have camera film again at some point . . hmm, we actually have a web camera . . . I suppose I'll put up pictures at some point. I also built a model myself from parts. I bought a relatively cheap B-2 model from a hobby shop, glued as much of it together as I wanted, then made sci-fi weapons out of Games Workshop parts and various bits of hardware, and then painted the thing. I painted flames on the afterburners. =)
Well, time to go . . . so much more to say that I cannot write . . .