I want to take the bullet,
The one aimed straight for your heart.
I want to meet the wolves halfway
And let them tear me apart,
But that’s not the way they do it here.

I want to lay on the tracks,
Feel hot steel screaming at me.
Expose the bones on my back,
Let me show you what I mean.

Yeah, it’s a different kind of love.
I want to climb barbed wire fences
And warm our hands in blood.

And this is my gift
Asking you to fix my ruined hands.
And it’s a gift that keeps on giving,
And right now it’s all I have to give.

I want to write the perfect song,
And play it just for you,
While you are tangled up in sleep.
I need you more than I’ll ever know.
Until I stop breathing,
My lungs will take you for granted.

—Thrice, In Years To Come

I remember a time in my life when I was scared about love. A set of rather adolescent experiences in high school, of which I only now find myself comfortable speaking frankly, had caused me to cling to an unattainable ideal. In Lolita, Humbert Humbert well describes such a happenstance that similarly “made of it a permanent obstacle to any further romance throughout the cold years of my youth. The spiritual and the physical had been blended in us with a perfection that must remain incomprehensible to the matter-of-fact, crude, standard-brained youngsters of today”.

Eventually, I had given up my ideal, but still felt forever tainted, regretfully breaking more than enough hearts in the process.

And as fleeting as the entire experience was, it still enough to galvanize, to make me want to take that bullet, or let the wolves tear me apart. Being tangled up in that mad love, the love that goes against reason or better judgement, softened the stone in my chest, and it felt like I was finally alive.

Gimmie a girl who can make me feel this way.

The Thrice = Love Series

1. Introduction
2. The Journey
3. As The Crucible
4. Rock It
5. The Rush
6. Far From The End

Entertain the hope that somehow you’ll escape me
Weld the bolts and close the iron gate
Drink deeply the illusion of your safety
My how wishful thoughts inebriate
Masquerade and revel in your opulence
Writhe unfettered by your stabs at ignorance
Swim through hues and whispered tones of heresy
A dozen strokes to run your blood cold enough to believe
Remember me
You look so surprised to see me here
Hells black wings did I over perch these walls
For stony limits cannot hold me out
And now you all die

—Thrice, The Red Death

And now again the music swells, and the dreams live, and writhe to and fro more merrily than ever

—Edgar Allen Poe, The Masque Of The Red Death

It’s simple.

Gimmie a girl who isn’t afraid to ROCK THE FUCK OUT to this song.

The Thrice = Love Series

1. Introduction
2. The Journey
3. As The Crucible
4. Rock It
5. The Rush
6. Far From The End

True friends stab you in the front
Keep you from getting what you want
When one more fix could kill you
They help you realize that
You’re more and less than you first had believed
You’ve so much to give and there’s so much you need
Shortcuts through graveyards and a brand new way to breathe
Three thousand miles just to learn
All that’s gold does not all shine
And helping words aren’t always kind
When one more kiss could kill you
They help you realize that
You’re more and less than you first had believed
You’ve so much to give and there’s so much you need
Shortcuts through graveyards and a brand new way to breathe
Three thousand miles just to learn
How to let my guard down

—Thrice,The Beltsville Crucible

When you look back at the problems you faced a year ago, they seem insignificant compared to the problems you face now. Finding out how things end up, and seeing the path that your actions have paved, makes everything passed seem simple and logical. Even knowing this, I still look back on a time when I was faced with a troubling dilemma, a situation where I continue to wonder what I may have done differently. At the time, I brought my troubles up to Darren, a person with whom I could always confide without being judged.

His advice was to give no advice at all. He told me that he understood how I dealt with my problems, being one to always weigh the options carefully, and that he knew I would make the right decision. Perhaps being his older cousin, the one he himself has always turned to for advice, made the situation strange to him. Nonetheless, it was the first time I had experienced such a trust, and it was heartening to know that someone respected me enough to put his faith in me before I knowing what my choice was.

I admitted this to John, and he told me that the worst mistake he could make was assuming that I would make the right decisions. As he put it, it’s his job to keep me in check and make me constantly question the things that I do. Of course, he always presents things tactfully, so he doesn’t end up hurting more than helping.

Neither Darren or John is more correct than the other, because it all depends on the relationship. You need some friends to understand what you do. You need other friends to stab you in the front. I know I can count on Darren to accept my decisions, and I know I can count on John to give me the honest truth when I need it. The important part is the respect that goes both ways. Without respect, an opinion is meaningless. My introduction to the dominant/submissive lifestyle has given this even more significance.

Gimmie a girl who I can respect enough to understand this, and who can respect me enough to be her crucible.

The Thrice = Love Series

1. Introduction
2. The Journey
3. As The Crucible
4. Rock It
5. The Rush
6. Far From The End

I see the parts but not the whole
I study saints and scholars both
No perfect plan unfurls
Do I trust my heart or just my mind
Why is truth so hard to find in this world
Yeah in this world

‘Cause I am due for a miracle
I’m waiting for a sign
I’ll stare straight into the sun
And I won’t close my eyes
Till I understand or go blind

—Thrice, Stare At The Sun

Even at my age, whether others may consider it young or old, I haven’t decided on a specific set of beliefs, whether they be religious, philosophical, or psychological.

In trying times I find myself wishing that I had something, some form of structure that would make sense of the things that happen. The most serene people I know are also the most pious, as they seem to have an answer for the seemingly unexplained or undeserved. I’ve often asked theists, the ones whose intelligence I respect, what has made them believe in one or several gods. Most commonly the answer is that they have enough evidence for such an existence. Even though I’ve had a few serendipitous experiences myself, things which I can’t explain by chance alone, it hasn’t been enough to give me a definitive answer.

I used to be an atheist, then an agnostic, until I became completely undecided. It’s rare to find other people who are open-minded enough to admit that they are still learning, or have yet to discover what so many other people already have. What I know for sure is that I still have the rest of my life to find out, to walk that path and make that journey.

Gimmie a girl who isn’t afraid to stare at the sun with me.

The Thrice = Love Series

1. Introduction
2. The Journey
3. As The Crucible
4. Rock It
5. The Rush
6. Far From The End

It’s been more than two years since Thrice has released a new album, until Vheissu, just five days ago. I’m still exploring the tracks, approaching each song with an open mind, but never dissecting too much through analysis. Due to the uncertaintiy of what to expect, listening to something for the first time is always a little different.

It can be easily observed that they’ve grown through all of their full-length albums. It’s difficult to listen to Identity Crisis (2000), because of how rough and undeveloped it is. The Illusion of Safety (2002) was much improved, introducing a unique, experimental style, though heavily influenced by punk and metalcore. The Artist In The Ambulance (2003) took things a step further, achieving tracks that were both esthetic and intelligent.

Ever since I stopped smoking weed on a daily basis, of which a great deal of time was spent listening to music, I’ve been enervated by the fact that songs would never sound as good, until this album.

Vheissu has renewed my hope. Saved my life.

It goes beyond everything else to a completely spiritual experience, from the album artwork to the chords and the key signatures. Thrice has reached out with music that is haunting, moving, emotional, trying things that they’ve never tried before. Dustin Kensrue sings more than he screams, even goes falsetto(!), only occassionally calling on his hardcore roots. Electronic sounds, piano, acoustic guitar have been worked into the tracks themselves, instead of being relegated to the introductions. The mixed meters are less obtrusive, but still interesting enough for prog-rock fans. Even with all of this, they continue to defy genres, as they’ve done in their previous albums. It all works.

Thrice is coming to town, and the concert is just six days away.

I was only introduced to Thrice in the last two years, but I’ve been through a lot with them. Different apartments, roommates, girlfriends, breakups. Even the lyrics speak to me, lifting, moving, never crashing. I only ask one thing.

Gimme a girl who loves Thrice.

The Thrice = Love Series

1. Introduction
2. The Journey
3. As The Crucible
4. Rock It
5. The Rush
6. Far From The End

It’s difficult to sleep with so much on the mind, and even more difficult when you’re filled with anger about not being able to fall sleep. With my duvet wrapped around me last night, I turned my alarm off completely, deciding to get into work whenever I woke up, knowing that I’d need the rest to focus on a persistent network issue. After trying to fall asleep for an hour without success, and feeling like I’d waste the rest of the morning, I got up very frustrated. Those who know me, know that five hours is considered calamitous. I cooked a heavy breakfast of bacon, eggs and toast, knowing that I’d still have time to get to work early, a bit of sustenance to get me through the rest of the day.

The main problem I’ve been facing for the last week has been the setup of a VPN for a new out-of-office sales rep we recently hired. It was the perfect morning to get to work early, because I could work on the server for about an hour without having to worry about affecting any client computers. I traced the problem to an outdated version of the firmware, and crossed my fingers (after my last flashing disaster) as I burned the latest version. This was at 7:00 in the morning. I spent the next 13 hours trying to figure out why internet access stopped working within the range of internal IP addresses .1 to .36 (which makes absolutely no sense without being a power of two, and especially odd when we had no DHCP ranges set).

This meant carefully learning the existing structure of a network I didn’t set up and figuring out the Windows internet protocol. I’ve had no formal training in being an MCSE, so a lot of the day was spent reading through white papers and technical notes for a possible DNS/DHCP/IIS/firewall/RRA setting I may have looked over. Network service slowly degraded throughout the day as I began troubleshooting, including a simultaneous crash of the main custom software on every system, a loss of dynamic dns addressing (which brought our new online service down), until I couldn’t even find the network address of the router.

When you’re filled with angry perseverance, you get a lot done. If only other people could understand that. Wearing a face of determination means I don’t have time to be pleasant, or have a lunch, or listen to innane stories of your grandchildren.

On the walk to work, I had already decided that as soon as I got off, I was going to play some table tennis at one of the bi-weekly sessions, vision blurred, eyes drying, as tired as I was, and passing out after dinner. This obviously didn’t happen. I’d been seriously planning on going since last week, but things just kept getting in the way.

Until the last 15 minutes, the only thing I could think about was whether I’d have to pull an all-nighter, and whether or not I’d even be able to solve things if I did. That’s the risk of tech support; the solution can be as simple as it is elusive, and there can be no progress until the very last tweak. Halfway through the day, I already decided that I’d call an external network specialist to help if I didn’t get anywhere by tomorrow afternoon. I was too tired to worry about not getting the network up before the next business day, which would basically bring the company to a standstill, and too tired to be angry at everything that was going on. After figuring out our network structure, three calls to tech support, and learning internet protocol theory from the ground up, I finally figured out that all I needed to do was do a hard reset of the router, and configure everything from scratch.

It was probably the most difficult day I’ve had since I started the job, but I knew that if I could get through it and fix the problem, I’d be able to get through anything that could be thrown at me. Not only did I get the web connection working through the entire subnet, I also got the sales reps laptop to connect to the VPN through dial-up. Yesterday was a late night, getting a website done for a client friend. Tomorrow’s another 14 hour day, and even though I’ve known about it for a month, I don’t think it’ll make it any easier.

I realized that I only really feel lonely on days like these, when my body aches, my mind loses focus, and all I want to do is have someone else take care of me. To have someone else decide what to do, because I’m too tired to decide for myself.

Stepping outside, hungry and exhausted, I put on a wintery playlist for the walk home, since it was two hours past sunset and the fall nights are getting frigid. The first song that came on was Explode by the Cardigans. I’d been saving this song for months now, skipping it every time it came on so I wouldn’t get tired of it.

Today I finally deserved it.

I’m lying down, naked from the waist up, giggling uncontrollably. The nurse dampens some tissue with rubbing alcohol, and rubs down my torso methodically. I feel it evaporating off my skin, staring at the ceiling, unsure of anywhere else I could appropriately keep my eyes. Suddenly, there’s a sharply dragging pain on a small area, and I see her making quick, short arm movements in one direction.

“Ow, what is that?”, I ask jovially. I’m still giggling, a result of my nervousness. She picks up on this.

“It’s sandpaper. Haven’t you ever been exfoliated?”

The sandpaper removes the dead skin, making the electrodes stick better.

“Are you telling me that this is going to make my chest glow, and reduce the appearance of any lines and wrinkles?”

She playfully returns, “On these five spots, yes.”

Afterwards, I’m told to sign a form with a short explanation on what is being done, that acknowledges my understanding.

Holter monitoring provides a continuous recording of heart rhythm during normal activity. There is no discomfort associated with the test.

I’m given a journal to record any abnormal heartbeats, whether it’s a skipped beat, an extra beat, or an irregular beat, but for the 24 hours that I’m wearing this device, I don’t write in it once. It’s a guessing game for them, to sort out the what’s normal and what’s not. After any test they do, urine, blood, stool, holter, they say the same thing: we’ll call you if anything shows up in the results.

They always say, no news is good news.

It’s been a long week, although it was technically made shorter from the long weekend. Three cancellations in three nights. Nothing’s working out. I left work early yesterday because my eyes stopped functioning. The previous day I’d worked a full 14 hours.

I used to get angry or frustrated at things like this, but now I find myself cold and emotionless, accepting things as the way they are. The advantage is that I’m a much more stable person. It isn’t even any attempt to be stoic, but I’m sick of all the bullshit.

All I want is a break, just one thing to go my way.

Please?

I caught my father after a shower. How formal the word, father. Like addressing a character in some Elizabethan play. His hair was mussed, wild, even thinner than before. He’s been going gray since he was 15, and every couple of months he colours it black again. It works for him, taking at least ten years off his age. People don’t really know how old he is until he tells them that I’m in my twenties.

The bacon they serve me for breakfast is dry, dull, devoid of soft fat, or grease that pools in the waves of each strip. A result of his heart condition. No more cheese, red meat only once a week.

Even my mothers’ delicate hands have deeply withered, though they remain soft from her attentive care, which include varying sorts of designer hand creams and specialized lotions that follow her everywhere. My parents have long stopped wearing their weddings bands, but she wears one of my grandmothers rings, a beautiful old-fashioned cut on a clamp mount, left to her in the will. I remember my grandmother pinching my cheeks, holding my hand, her skin loose but, like mom, supple as a softened chamois.

I see this ring on my mother, and realize that she’s getting older too.

This was my elementary school. The Catholic institution I attended during the first few years of moving here. Where I used to offer best-friend status for a mouthful of Big League Chew. Old, familiar four-square courts are still painted on, unmoved. The T-ball poles are rusted out and missing their tethers. Countless feet jumping, running, skipping during recess have caused the pavement to warp and crack. Even the old portables are anything but, their familiar beige tones still inhabiting the back of the school, built out of concrete and plastic foam when the town was budding, and the classrooms couldn’t handle all the students. Walking up the wooden stairs, I bet they even have the same groaning creaks.

Continue reading

Leaving by bus, in the rain and in the dark, is something special.

The perfect album to put on is Ágætis Byrjun by Sigur Rós, with songs like Starálfur and Olsen Olsen, but especially Sven-G-Englar and Ný Batteri. Sounds are distracting all around with the people talking, the battering of raindrops on the windshield, the thud-thump of the uneven highway road, but they gradually fade to a lethargic pulse. The unrecognizable timbres of each distinguishable instrument take over.

This is the moment. The exact purpose of the song. The notes are pure, amorphous colours in the darkness, a dulcet damper for the outside world.

Soon the rhythm of the passing city lights will become more and more sparse, and all that will be left in the windows are the reflections of those with their overhead lights on, reading books or keeping eye-contact.

It’s been ten months since the last time you did this.

How has so much happened since then?

I wasn’t planning on writing until next Monday, but I can’t seem to get away from this.

With the falling temperatures come late mornings. Stepping outside earlier, the sky was still dimmed with the street lamps on from the previous night. It felt like the sun had already set, and it was only going to get darker. I was in the mood for some jazz, so I fidgeted on my iPod until I found a Duke Ellington collection. Unfortunately, most of it is comprised of big band swing songs, fast moving, major keys, a sound that didn’t quite match the mood. I settled on Going Up, a calm progressive jazz piece featuring brushes instead of drum sticks, harmon mutes in the trumpets, and Les Spann on flute. Four years of private lessons, with four different bands in high-school, have made me appreciate the polished, roundness of his sound. He travels chromatically with utter smoothness on the woodwind, and unlike on the piano, which the fingers can move across in one sweeping motion, each note is played with a seemingly random combination of fingers. In his head, he’s four bars ahead of his fingers, allowing his intonation remain precise with each purposeful note.

Sometimes it feels like music is the only thing that can bring out my emotions again. Most of them have been replaced by simple determination. Everything is business business business because the world is cold cold cold.

I’m going home for the Thanksgiving long-weekend. A much needed break that I’ve been planning for a while now. Funny that I still call it home when it’s a five hour drive away, and I own my own house in this city. Home isn’t where you grew up, it isn’t where you live now, home is where the parents are.

Three pictures.

Patience is the greatest advantage. Time brings all answers. Knowing that the sun will rise again tomorrow puts the mind at ease.

Sometimes you just need to wait.

After the last housewarming party, Pita stayed the night, having come all the way from Montreal, not wanting to drive back after a few hours of drinking. I asked him to stay on Sunday, and we ended up playing all the old Gamecube games that we used to play and master, back when we lived together. We never had the chance to do this since he moved to Taiwan and back to Canada over two years ago, so it was quite a reminiscent experience.

Discovering I had a free weekend, I invited him over a little while ago for two days of pure gaming. The invitation was extended to his roommate, after Pita said that I should meet her, being a hardcore gaming chick who apparently can kick his ass in Soul Calibur 2. I have yet to observe this ass-kicking chick phenomenon for myself, and unfortunately, I haven’t had any time to practice with Kilik or Raphael, so I’m prepared to get my ass handed to me. I’m hoping to make it up in Super Smash Brothers Melee.

This is the last weekend of fun before I start to get serious about work (aside from a LAN party I have planned for the first week of November). I decided not to take the job at the bookstore, and put my full focus on a web solutions business that I registered this week.

They should be here any minute.