just Philip

i saw a dad hit both his kids in the back in the register line today. not lovingly, like...just asserting his power cause he was pissed off. i didn't know what to say about it at all. i couldn't even bring myself to try to smile and act happy to maybe lighten the mood, which i was disappointed in myself for.

i could see the kids held back their tears. they shouldn't have that skill already.

one of the many things i've learned about myself since the school year ended is just how much i enjoy seeing a smile. what an amazing gift a smile is. i got to see a bunch of them on the faces of some very outgoing toddlers throughout the remainder of my shift. blessings, all of them.

i want to be the father of the kids that won't quit smiling and laughing because they're so good at it from all the practice they get at home.

i miss you.

is andrew mcmahon a brilliant musician? the answer: a resounding "yes."

i saw jack's mannequin on thursday night at marquette with alison and co. it was absolutely stellar to say the least. he had a huge smile on his face the whole time, like there was no where in the world he'd rather be than on stage, right there. it was addicting.

and the question is raised, "when one ends a sentence with an abbreviation, does one use two periods or one?" i know not the answer, but i made my decision. one period it is.

friday morning/early afternoon was spent finishing alison's gift. woops. i will say, though, that even though it should have been done, its incompletion brought about some hilarious antics and a heightened sense of anticipation on the part of everyone.

the night brought with it the big birthday bash for alison and connie. i'm pretty sure that most everyone had a great time. nick and i dominated beer pong for 7 straight games. he was the designated drinker.

i brought the mad skillz.

we ended the night at ma fischer's and a piggy-back-ride-filled walk home. the piggy back ride ended when alison complained of arm fatigue.

she was half asleep on my back at the time. still haven't figured that one out.

saturday was a lazy day until my family came down for the varsity band concert. that was a lot of fun and a really entertaining show. always good to see the fam, even if it's only for a couple of hours.

as my night ends, i leave you with this. enjoy, kiddos.

don't fly fast
oh pilot, can you help me?
can you make this last?
this plane is all i got
so keep it steady, now

it's cold. i hate how unbelievably relentless it is. there's nothing i can do about it but throw my hands in my pockets and deal with it.

i should do that more often.

sometimes it's hard for me to tell where optimism ends and naivety begins.

there's no sense wasting my time on anything that's not worth it. i am absolutely guilty of giving more value than is deserved to things that don't do it for me. but really, who cares. the era is winding down. and the sooner it ends, the better.

fuck eloquence. fuck poetry.

today was really shitty. really. shitty.

i've spent the last few days being sick. which sucks, because i really dislike being sick. and this wasn't just any kind of normal wussy sick. this was a knock you on your ass, "i'm laying down because i'm afraid that if i stand up i'll fall apart" kind of sick. stupid flu. of course sleep, which is one of my favorite things to do, is at a premium when you're sick because the idea of ever being comfortable is just a joke.

plus, apparently my mind does bizarre things when i'm sick and almost sleeping. i had the song "walking by" stuck in my head before i went to bed. i remember waking up every 10 minutes or so (i think 10 minutes, maybe more, maybe less) about 50 times and each time i had the same couple of stanzas of the song flying through my head, along with some weird visual of some wooden blocks coming together to form something. i don't even know what it means, but for most of the night, it made perfect sense to me. then when i woke up for good around 10 i was like, "wait...what the hell was all that?"

but, despite being sick, i still got to go watch my brother swim in manitowoc. he's on the city swim team, and holy crap, the kid's a fish. he won all of his events (backstroke, butterfly, and freestyle), and pretty huge too. it was crazy to watch him just blow past everybody like it was no big deal. then today i got to watch my sister's special olympics basketball meet. their team won both games by an average of like 20 points or something ridiculous. again, very cool to watch. i was very proud of both my little siblings.

as fun as it's been to be home, i am ready to go back. i'm pretty excited to start this new job so i can start having an income again. i'm excited to see my friends again too. i'm going back tuesday evening so if you're around, just holler. hehe...holler. funny word.

time for some shhhhhhhhhleep.

2007. can you believe it? time is flying, and fast.

the new years eve celebration was a lot of fun. bunch of people went down to alison curtis' apartment and escorted 2007 in with a bang. we sat around and played guitar hero and watched the packers beat the hell out of the bears until about 11, when we all went to the rave for a few hours. the rave was so much fun with the dancing and the confetti...of course it was outstandingly loud so the classic midnight phone calls became me sending out a couple texts and getting some voicemails later on, but hey, sacrifices must be made right?

new years day was, as usual, entirely devoted to college football. overall, nothing that i wanted to happen happened, with the tiny exception of THE BADGERS BEATING THE RAZORBACKS. wow, they played like shit, especially in the second half, but they did what they had to do to get the W, and that's all you can ask. penn state beat tennessee, so the big ten is 2-0 against the sec in bowl games this year. outside of that, everything sucked. michigan got pounded by usc, west virginia came back to beat georgia tech, and how oh how did boise state topple the goliath that is oklahoma? they smacked em right in the mouth. as much as i bashed boise state for being overrated and a joke and undeserving of a bcs bid, i know when to admit i was wrong. they showed up and stuck it to a very good team. hook and ladder on 4th and 18...what a call.

consequently, after the game ian johnson (star running back for boise state who scored the winning 2 point conversion) proposed to his girlfriend and she said yes on national television. on sportscenter, rece davis had this to say:

"you gotta be the football hero to get the girl."

oooooh. well shoot why didn't somebody just explain that every time i threw my hands up and asked "why?!" looks like i got some work to do.

on another sports note, my heart goes out to the friends and family of darrent williams. for those who don't know, he was a standout cornerback for denver who got shot in a drive-by immediately after a new years party. how pathetic; what cowards.

in any case, it's been a fun couple of days here. now it's time to sit back, relax, maybe do a little painting and guitar playing, and enjoy the post-holiday down time.

"we need to find a better outlet. a more...constructive outlet."

i saw this shirt at hot topic when i was shopping for a secret santa gift. it was a picture of a monkey holding a lit stick of dynamite in one hand, while the other arm was basically just a stub and wrapped completely in gauze, as was his stomach. the caption was "i'm a slow learner."

in a way, that's me. i do the same things, over and over again, and i can't get it through my head that it does not, and will not work. i try to say the right things, and do the right things, and give the right things, and change what i need to about myself without compromising my identity, and be patient, and then, boom. dynamite blows up, and i'm missing another limb.

other monkeys can pick up fun things that don't blow their arms off, but not me. just bomb after bomb after bomb, same shit each time. and as much as i want to make the change, i just can't seem to turn the corner.

shoot.

do you ever have a time when something happens and you're not tired, but you don't want to be awake because it's too hard to keep thinking about?

me too. time for a completely unnecessary nap.

nothing stops a marathon runner. come hell or high water, these people press on. they define what it means to be relentless. they go til they have nothing left, and then they keep going. so i can't help but wonder

...why?

what on earth drives these people? of course they train for it, so reaping the benefits of the training seems like a likely motivation. they train and train and train to be able to go on forever. they push themselves to get better at pushing themselves. they work hard so that when the time comes, they're able to work harder, longer. but is training in itself enough? it seems cyclical. no, i don't think people train to be able to run to be able to justify training. that seems to make no sense at all.
i think it's more likely that they want to reach a goal. that ribbon at the end; the satisfaction of knowing they accomplished what few have accomplished. so, if there was no goal, no end in sight, does the runner keep running? take away all benefits. so it doesn't help health, doesn't lift your spirits, it justifies nothing and is justified by nothing. is there such a thing as running for the sake of running? can the fact that there is such a thing as "running" be reason enough to do it?

shit no. who on earth would do that to themselves for absolutely no reason? the die-hards will say that they'll run for no reason other than personal satisfaction. never enter a race, no one even knows they do it except themselves. that's reason enough for them; and that's about as pure a motivation as one can have. but take that away, and that's all she wrote. if running a marathon got put on the same level as staring at the wall, people wouldn't waste their time, because it'd be just that...a waste of time.

i'm tired. i'm tired of putting my ear to the phone and listening to it ring; i'm tired of asking rather than answering.

i'm ashamed to think that i waste even a moment of my time wishing i was someone else. yes, shame. it's a sick feeling somewhere in the pit of my stomach when i realize that i would trade my shoes for someone else's. i'm tired of feeling like that. i'm tired of feeling like i have to get down on two knees and beg to be time-worthy.

because i don't. if you need me, you'll be able to find me, but

"i'm pretty tired...i think i'll go home now."

The following is an excerpt from the email I sent out to my bible study.

"We return once again to Thanksgiving week. It is a time for many things, like laughs, fun, food, and family. It's a time of sharing, a time of caring, a time to remember the year that was. Yes, it is truly a joy to sit down with the people you love and share all the things you're thankful for. Which is rather odd, considering that the first Thanksgiving really included none of the above, unless of course you consider giving native peoples small pox in exchange for that nasty bout of syphilis you got from them to be a form of "sharing."

But we've traversed forward by leaps and bounds since then. Who doesn't share in the awkward silence that follows a disgruntled family member twisting the question and listing off the things that he is not thankful for, or would be thankful for if his good-for-nothing boss would pull his head out of his behind and see that he deserves a raise. And goodness knows there are plenty of laughs coming from that new lady your uncle is dating that may or may not be really drunk, even when something completely unfunny is said. And who doesn't have fun dressing the battle wounds of twenty wailing ankle biters who have fallen at the hands of that one odd duck of a cousin who has, in all likelihood, spent the last year MacGyvering a plan to torture his cousins using only a couple legos, a comb, and a small piece of twine. And honestly, we can all be thankful, at the very least for the fact that none of us are in a correctional facility. Especially that odd duck of a cousin who may only be 9, but is surprisingly knowledgeable about how to boost the power of a pellet gun, to a point of being slightly scary.

We all have crazy families. Some crazier than others, but in the end, the love within them is truly genuine, and that alone should be enough to make anyone thankful."

Happy Thanksgiving everyone.

i opened up the post to journal window earlier tonight with the intent to go off on another rant about how pissed off i was at whatever. i'm glad i got preoccupied

because i do that too much.

new thought: life has a funny way of managing my self-perception.

...ok i'm going to be honest, I don't think that statement makes any sense. i spent about a minute writing it because i wanted to make sure it sounded cool, and i ended up with a bizarre sentence that, while seemingly interesting and thoughtful, actually doesn't really mean anything. to top it off, i put an extra line before it because i anticipated it being interesting and wanted to draw attention to it. shit. speaking of extra lines, i stuck one before the previous statement too. which left me with two lines of type floating in 5 lines on the page. that seems excessive don't you think?

i'll try again, this time getting straight to the point without some poetic introduction. i'm intimidated by other artists. there, i said it. i joined the deviantART world (which is a kick ass site by the way) and it's really put into perspective the amount of artistic talent that exists in the world. sometimes i get cocky and think i'm good enough to do this for a living. "starving artists are just people that suck at what they do. i'm above that." which is just plain stupid. there are probably a million people out there that put me to shame that list art as a hobby. and here i sit thinking i'm going to take the world by storm like i'm the next michelangelo. blah. i understand that i'm only 19 and just getting into the swing of the whole art thing, but looking down the road ahead and seeing how high the bar is just to reach the level of "decent" is enough to make me...well, scared.

i'm scared.
and i'm scared.

what is it about lower case letters that's so appealing? i screwed up and capitalized an "I" up there somewhere, even though i enjoy keeping them lower case. see? it's oh so rebellious. oh the general public would certainly rather have me capitalize those i's, but i say nay! my i's remain uncapitalized, shocking the conservative i-capitalizing community.

I'm an Idiot.

when i was younger my biggest issue was my competitive temper.

whenever i played sports i would get so angry if one of my teammates screwed up. i remember a baseball game when i was playing shortstop i made a diving stop, turned and flipped the ball to the second baseman from my back. it was beautiful. except the second baseman dropped it and the inning kept going. i got up, threw my glove onto the ground and jumped on it. my dad walked out onto the field and dragged me off. i was told that i had to sit the rest of the game and if i didn't cheer on my teammates, i'd sit the next game too. and it wasn't just sports i played. when the packers lost on sunday i'd pace endlessly and throw stuff and kick the couch because i was so furious, to the point of my parents sending me to my room.

so from an early age, i had a million and one lessons on the concept of what a team is. how everything is a team effort, and the outcome of a game never comes down to one play. sure that fumble at the end of the game hurt them, but it wasn't the entire reason they lost. for the other 59 minutes and 50 seconds they didn't play well enough to win. the whole game matters, the whole team matters. you didn't lose the baseball game because mike dropped that ball. you lost because your whole team didn't score more runs than the other team all game. as i got older, i figured it out, and now i like to think i have a very firm grip on what it means to win and lose as a team.

my dad and i are notorious for using sports analogies because that's how we can make sense to each other. and i'm going to make one here.

i'm sick of people having this bullshit attitude of "i'm more important than the group i'm a part of." and it's all over the place lately. i'm sorry, but when you agree to be part of a team, whether that's a band or a committee or a sports team or whatever, the team's priorities become your priorities. so if you say you'll take care of something for the group, and they're all depending on you to do it, you'd better figure out a way to get it done. and if that means sacrificing stuff you wanted to do, so be it. if lebron james called up the cavaliers and said he wasn't going to make the game because he cared more about this, that, or the other thing, it'd better be a life or death situation or he'd go from being america's golden boy to being on the sports world's shit list so fast it'd make his head spin.

"i'm sick of your attitude." -dad

he was right. it's damn frustrating.

so like i said i got that painting done for kelly about a week ago. here are a couple pictures of what it ended up looking like. the thing with this first picture is that the flash from the camera makes parts of it hard to see



so here's one with me holding it. the flash issue is gone, but then of course there's that issue of me looking like a bit of a goon while holding it hehe.



so there you have it. i think i need to take some new pictures of it with natural lighting for the portfolio. enh, later. now back to watching college football highlights.

well i went and shaved my head. which is pretty awesome, because now i don't have to put any crap in it, or worry about it looking greasy when i've been wearing a hat, or really worry about what it looks like at all, ever. it's a lot easier. of course, as kelly pointed out, it wasn't difficult to begin with. but i'm known for finding the path of least resistance (aka the most slacker path possible) with anything and everything, and this is it. of course now i have to worry about possibly being mistaken for a nazi, and the fact that it'll be a little colder. but you take the good with the bad i suppose.

in other news bible study is going well as far as i know. hopefully the members are happy with it because that's obviously all that really matters. i'm not positive, but i think things are all on the up and up with it. and tonight after bible study craig and i stopped by kelly's room to check out her painting, and subsequently succeeded in distracting them from doing homework for awhile.

on the subject of homework, my classes are going to shit very quickly. i'm going to have to work my ass off to make up for the slacking i've done to this point. hopefully everything works out. i'm pretty sure it will.

once again, i still have not hung out with kasey wagner, the only friend i have here that i haven't seen, which is ridiculous because she's one of the best ones i have here. (if you consider yourself my friend and haven't seen me...then you should probably call and yell at me so we can hang out.) it has been...lets see...73 days. that's a long peckin' time, especially since the last 40+ have been while we're at school. something's going to have to be done about that.

lastly, we won our first dodgeball match the other night. it was pretty sweet. once again, we got into plenty of arguments with the other team. oh well, you do what you gotta do. so long as we keep winning, i don't care if we're the most hated team in the whole thing. is that a bad thing? that i prioritize winning over my own self image and keeping the tempers of both teams down? ...maybe. but i'm ok with that.

i finished the painting on friday which was good. i gave it to kelly tonight after walking mary home from andrea's sorority which has the address 108 langdon. except oh, addresses on langdon go 120, 112, 104...what? turns out it's actually BEHIND all those things, not on the street itself at all.

i was confused. still am. shit.

i'm listening to something corporate right now, which makes life just that much better.

i listened to Mozart's 'Requiem' in its entirety tonight. it was pretty good. i would, tho, like to get some classical music without vocals. i'll look into that later.

i have two exams later today in anthro and contemporary art. i've memorized i don't know how many peckin pictures in the last couple hours. and sadly, that probably won't be enough. and i'm going to suck at the anthro exam. the review session yesterday was completely useless because our TA's decided to either make us answer the questions ourselves or referred us to a place where the answer is. it's like, no. i came to this thing expecting standard review session format. that is, we ask questions, you answer them. done. the only good part of the whole thing was that kelly had drank a pepsi and was a huge perkster so we laughed quite a bit throughout the whole endeavor. sans kelly, the thing was completely useless.

i haven't even begun to think about the crap i was supposed to do for 3-d tomorrow. woops.

blaaaah. i'm so far behind. i can't wait til the weekend. i miss the stress-free environment of home over summer. yeah summer sucked, but at least i didn't feel guilty for not doing shit when i got home from work. at work, i had deadlines to meet and was under pressure to do my jobs fast and flawlessly, but when i got home i could completely forget about it. at school, there's no escape. there is always something that's due or something to study or whatever. not saying that i do it, cuz i don't, but i THINK about doing it and in turn, feel guilty for not. it's annoying.

on another note, i'm completely broke. i have zero dollars. i am going to apply for a job on the east side as a graphic designer, but who knows if that'll work out. more on that if it ever becomes relevant. til then, i got nothing.

i owe kelly a painting that if i could be working on it now, i would be.
i owe kasey a hang out that has to come sooner rather than later or i'm going to go crazy.

i spend about 95% of my time being entirely confused. the other 5% is spent ignoring that fact.

i am jack's conspicuous naivety.

am i missing something here? either i'm unlucky or i'm nuts. possibly both.

i have no idea what i'm doing.

basically, there's some interesting goings on that i'm dealing with, but not really sure if i'm handling them really well or really badly or somewhere in between. i can't tell if i'm being open about it or if i'm being closed off. i tend to think i'm more closed, but then i worry that i'm a huge whiner and everyone knows it but me, and then i think well maybe i whine about the little stuff and people think i'm a whiner but if they knew the big stuff they'd think otherwise, and then i wonder if maybe the big stuff isn't so big it's just cliche and everyone deals with it and i'm delusional to think that i'm "handling" anything because in reality there's nothing there to handle.

phew.

and then my brain explodes. or something. it's just all rather frustrating. everything lately seems really frustrating, even if it's the littlest thing it's like i get so mad so quickly now. i dunno why. yes i do. no i don't. i think i do but i don't know, nor do i have a solution. crap.

i'm sorry, i feel bad, but if i could change it,

i
would
do
it
in
a
heartbeat.

sometimes i think getting emotional is like adrenaline for the artistic side. i was pissed off about some shit that's been happening lately, so i plugged out 2 songs. hopefully i can keep it up, now that i'm in a better mood. we'll have to see...