Ode to being a bad boyfriend

TOMORROW

I'm out with the boys again tonight
So I know where you will hide
And I won't be there to set things right
Or dry the tears you've cried
"Love is one big compromise"
I know that's what I said
I mix the truth in with my lies
I shouldn't play with your head
Though doubt plays with mine
Whenever I think of you
I should have seen the sign
I didn't think it through

I'm sorry for the tears that I make you cry alone
The selfish fears that keep my secret heart unknown
I keep telling myself that I'll be good to you one day
But morning after morning, the mirror hears my say
Tomorrow, (it's always tomorrow) I will be better then
But tomorrow finds no change; I'll say, "I'm sorry" again

My hugs have turned hollow,
My kisses miss their mark
How can your sad heart follow
When you've lost me in the dark?
But pray for me, keep praying
That one day I'll find my way
And keep my love from straying
From your side where it should stay
I love you, but I'm lost in my sleep
Wake me from this place so strange
Then you'll have no more cause to weep
For I promise tomorrow I will change

Can you hear me now?

OVER the last 6 months or so, my Nokia cell phone has deteriorated rather steadily. It is one of those non-flip solid phones with rubbery buttons. It started with superficial defects: Paint on the buttons wearing off, screen scratches etc. Then the problems spread to difficulty with actually pressing the buttons, particularly number 6. I prefer to fix these sorts of things myself rather than making use of the warrenty or insurance that it may be under. I take it as a sort of challenge. So I take the phone apart and jam tiny bits of paper in between the rubber buttons and the contact points so that when I press the buttons, it will press harder on the contact points and register as a button press. Easy, low-tech fix and it works... for a while. After about two weeks of success, the button pressing difficulty reverts pretty much back to the way it was before. I figure that this is probably due to the paper bits settling and getting compressed. I open it back up and jam more bits in and close it back up. Again it works but for a limited time only. After this second fix goes bad, I pretty much give up and resign myself to simply pressing very hard on the buttons to get them to work correctly. I don't know if it was a result of the increased pressure inflicted on my phone with each keypress, bad luck or just wear and tear but my phone began to drop calls. My phone would give me a "call dropped" message every time I answered an incoming call or when the other person picked up on an outgoing call. The first time it happened, I didn't know what was going on because it never happened before. After a few calls I got the picture. I would call someone and it would ring, but as soon as they picked up, my phone would drop the call. Then they would call me back to see what I called about, but as soon as I picked up the phone, it would drop the call again. I had to sit there with my phone in hand, impotent to answer it. You can imagine how furious this might have made me. Go ahead, imagine... now multiply that by 5. I was millimeters away from developing hemorrhages in my brain and ulcers in my stomach... and blisters on my feet (from the constant pacing). I think I got so mad because this was not something that was within my power to fix. I could no longer take it in to be worked on because I had already violated the warrenty, and when they opened it, all those paper bits would pour out. I turned to that cure all fix for deviant electronic devices: Pounding it till it works. It worked! It worked for a good solid two weeks or so. Then it started dropping my calls again upon connection again. No amount of pounding would solve it, so I just turned it off in disgust. When I turned it on the next day, it worked again! This happened about three more times roughly a month or so apart. Then just recently it gives me a "no signal" message permanently plastered up on my main screen. Well isn't that just dandy?

So I bought a new one. This one has a camera. It flips shut. When it breaks I'm taking it in.

An ode to unproductivity

INSOMNIA

The day long past has burned away
Yet did not credit me with sleep
The dark silence in its subtle way
Covets my waking mind to keep
I can not escape the sickly embrace
Of the world watching window in my room
Its unearthly glow bathes my face
Offering me endless novelties to consume

How much is a gram of love worth?

JUST today in fact, I recieved in my emailbox a "Love 'O' Gram". It's a curious service brought to you by the good folks over at loveogram.com . Here's how it works: it lets you anonymously send the people you like an email saying in effect that they have a secret admirer and the admiree then through the website sends out emails to the people they like (again anonymously) and then if two people like each other, the website lets them know. This sounds innocent enough but if you have a wide circle of friends it doesn't take much immagination to see how quickly this could get out of hand. Immagine if you will that you fancy two or so gals/lads and you recieve this "love 'o' gram" and you straight off send it to those two. Okay so you don't get a response. Uh oh. Well now you are really curious who sent you that email. Now you have to find out, and the only "safe" way to do that is to send the loveogram to more people (people you think may like you). Well now you have a bunch of people (probably friends of yours) sending all the people they know loveograms too. Soon everyone is in a frenzy about who likes who and feeling either the rush and confidence of mutual attraction or the crushing blow of unrequited love. Perhaps I'm being overly negative but I forsee two extreme outcomes of this email. 1) in one shot you get the person who sent it to you and all is well. 2) You don't find the person, everyone goes nuts and you end up finding out that someone you only kind of like, likes you back or kind of likes you back anyway. But now you have a strange sort of contract of commitment towards this person. Via email you already said you liked em'. It just complicates things.

I could see this loveogram might be useful if you are curious about someone you don't know really well, but pretty much my only social contacts are with a fairly large group of good friends. So the question is which one of them sent me this pandora's box. Well I thought about it. First thought was that it was one of the girls that I fancy. But maybe it was one of my guy friends playing a joke on me. Or maybe this is all a ploy by the company who profits off of love 'o' grams and just sent me the email randomly so that I'd go crazy and send it to everyone I know. What to do?

So I decided the safest thing was to send it to my guy friends first to see if it was a prank of some kind. They both have girlfriends so I thought it was safe--ish and I was hoping to catch them in the act/declare my undying love for them etc. etc. Well apparently it wasn't one of them. Which leaves me with it being someone I know or a random computer who is romantically interested in me. At this point I'm just going to ask the around, find the culprit and hopefully cut of this disaster before it gets too far. What would you do in my situation.

Crunch Time

THESIS writing time is upon me and though I have shirked its inevitable pressures for a long time, I am actually looking forward to this process. My advisor says that I could be out of here as early as May. This will take a phenominal amount of work to accomplish but I want to do it. I have been in school for approximately one year longer than I should have. I'm glad I've been able to stick around here in Charlottesville. I want to stay if possible, but by all accounts, I should be finished with school and doing... well, real work. The trick now is that during all this writing and revising I have to do job searches as well and I have to be confident enough that I will graduate so that I can give the employer an accurate starting date. But first things first, I have to check my email. Then I'll start writing. Wish me luck.

Fresh socks: a theory

ALMOST never will I throw out something that is still usable. I am a frugal person. Whenever I see something that is only slightly broken, I tend to spend more energy fixing it than it would take to go get a new one. This applies to just about everything that I own from computers to key chains. Even my wardrobe falls under this principle. For instance, my Dad gave me a jacket with a silky lining in it. The jacket is fine but after much wear the lining is FUBAR. I have on more than one occasion spent hours stitching back together this gossimer fabric. The jacket still works though, I wore it today in fact. Now for the longest time, I have put up with my socks simply because they refuse to die. They are threadbare or stiff or weakly elastic, but they work. They keep my foot covered. Recently my resolve grew and I decided that I would, in one swift coup, throw out my entire sock drawer and get a new sock wardrobe full of plush new socks.
There is nothing exciting about buying socks but I feel that I must mention my confused interest in the fact that they came in a resealable bag. What reason could one ever have for keeping their new socks in an airtight bag? At first I thought it was ridiculous, but then I realized. New socks are a treat. The first time you wear them, your feet feel special. After the first washing, the socks loose their magic. They are still good, but they are not new socks, and each subsequent washing carries away a little more of the memory of that first virgin experience. Until you are left with socks that, like my ex socks, carry on bereft of all their former glory. On that first wearing your foot is treated with the kind of respect it deserves for carrying your heavy frame everywhere your brain decides to go. Sliding your foot into that soft, warm and sweat absorbant fabric is one of the best ways to start off your day. It is an experience that should be savored, saved or at least kept fresh in a resealable bag.

Like Gideon's fleece

JUST over a month ago, I attended a church conference. Many pastors from many places spoke on .... many things. One of those things was supernatural healing minsitry. Above all, this was the topic that made the most impact on me. The whole conference had been covered in prayer support for weeks and during the whole event, channels were opened up for the pouring out of the Holy Spirit. For those of you who hear that and think it's just a church term, let me explain my experience. So I have been a Christian most of my life. I pray, read my bible, go to church and hang out with my Christian friends. I never really felt that I "heard" from God anything specific. The general "do unto others" proverbic wisdom seemed to be all God really wanted to say anyway and as long as I followed that, I was in the good. During one of the sessions (the one on supernatural healings) I heard from God in surroundsound amped up to eleven (it's higher than ten) way. I wrote in my notebook words that didn't come from my mind. I wrote that He would heal a woman's limp at UVA (my school) if I prayed for her. Then I began to go numb in my right leg. My heart was racing because I knew that what I had written would come true. The kind of knowledge you just can't explain at all. Kind of like deja vu. It was a clear prophecy. The woman was one that I had seen around on campus before but I had never met her and I had no idea where or when I would see her next. She has some sort of leg problem, a unmistakable large limp. I was pumped up, I was sure that I was going to see a miracle. Even reviewing that experience now it's amazing how clear God was speaking to me.
Wait for it. More than a month goes by without sight nor sound of this woman. I don't know who she is so I have no way of finding her. I ask a few people who she is but they don't seem to have seen her before. Finally, with my enthusiasm waning, from my window, I see her walking out to her car. I walk out of my building and get to her car just as she is pulling away. I stand awkwardly on the sidewalk for a minute before returning inside. I think to myself, next time I see her, I'm going to run out to meet her.
Before long, I get that chance. Consider that I'm kind of a shy guy. How awkward is it to go up to a handicapped person and say, "excuse me, I couldn't help but notice that you are handicapped. If I pray for you, you will be healed." I got about half the words out, "Hi, I noticed you have a limp, can I pray for you?" Easy enough I guess. She seemed to be in a hurry and I didn't have the time to explain all of the above. Then she replies, "Sure I can use all the prayer I can get." She tries to get in her car so I stall her, "Do you mind if I do it now?" "I have to go pick up my son right now." She gets in her car and drives off. So I'm left on the sidewalk again standing awkwardly, thinking, "that's it?" It certainly wasn't the amazing experience I expected. I wanted to see her leg grow healthy right then and there. I wanted her to go bounding down the street praising Jesus. But she just calmly drove off. So I sat around for a while and I said a prayer for her. Have I done all I can do? Did I blow some opportunity? I don' t know. But I feel a bit like Gideon sitting at home thinking, "what am I supposed to do with this soggy fleece." I've never heard from God like that before, so I have nothing to gauge it by.