it's finally raining in texas.

i had almost forgotten what it smelled like.

well, it seems that we now only have eight planets in our solar system. what an interesting development.

after years of being taught that there are nine, i shall now have to write this down...perhaps on my bathroom mirror, so that i shall be reminded frequently.

wouldn't want to go embarrassing myself by climbing to be the resident of a nine-planet solar system!

tonight was a brief reprieve from the already cascading mounds of homework for the semester.

a small gang of my fellows met and worked on our zine project...

it was a night of creative dryness for me,
where my pen expended much of its ink for nothing.

my drawing skills have recently departed me,
and i can hardly even draw a straight line.

i would think it would be more like riding a bicycle,
where you don't forget how,
and less like doing math problems,
where practice is necessary...

it is as though my brain and my hand are upset and not speaking.

i shall have to practice more,
perhaps turn more to the life drawings,
and less to the ubsurd simplicity of the weightless line.












...see what i mean?

tomorrow i scan in some new photos.

what an exciting proposition.

so, my summer has drawn to a close and in the morning i embark on another year of school.

my final year of college, indeed.

it is a bittersweet feeling to know that my last summer as summer is over...

soon, the hectic life of academia will overtake me once again,
and my time of sleeping is over forever.



...i wonder what exciting things will happen to me this year?

tomorrow i am going to finish my current holga roll and take it to get developed.

(...grab a knife, seal in blood)

i really could use a rant right now.

something nucleur with explosions,
a veritable maelstrom of subjectiveness,
a torrent of offense and dejectedness.

but i can't think of anything to rant about right now,
unfortunately, i'm in a relatively good mood.

except for the heat. perhaps i could rant about that.

it's 1:00 in the morning, and still 92 degrees.

imagine that? what is this nonsense?



what a hellish tale i tell.

i think i would like a bit of rain to moisten my spirits.

it sounds like rain outside, but that's just the sprinklers.

aren't sprinklers illegal in texas?

perchance.

i got a postcard from n8 today,
what an excellent turn of events.
it has a nigh naked lady on it,
but that's okay,
because it's from europe.



perhaps tomorrow i shall tumble my bike off of something,
if i last until then.


...i'm afraid that i might crumble into dust.

i missed my train today.

it was a close one though. i almost made it.

however, arriving at 7:31 to catch a 7:28 train just doesn't quite cut it.

it gave me some time to think-
(the next train didn't leave until 9:15)
so i wandered the streets,
periodically settling on park benches,
peering into closed store windows,
trying to convince the homeless guys who constantly accosted me
that just because i was a white dude with a backpack
didn't mean that i had a penny to my name...

(i don't think they believed me when i told them that my own bus fare had been paid for with the last of my change.)

i was pondering a question that brian posed to me as we were barreling down the road in a futile effort to catch my train.

he asked me what my dreams are.

now isn't that an interesting question.

naturally, i answered with the usual grad school, future poster shop, eventual professorship rhetoric that i am used to spewing out to friends and family who enquire into such things. but as i wandered the streets around the train station a few minutes later i still felt a surprising discontent with my answers to the question.

(what are my dreams, really? the fact that i had been caught so unawares with the question was itself unsettling. shouldn't this be something that i think about rather consistently? dreams are, after all, perhaps the most personal thing you can have...)

between the time that i jumped out of brian's car (barely avoiding a thorougly fatal conflict with oncoming traffic), and the time that i finally stepped onto the train to fort worth, i kept the question about my dreams at the front of my mind.

(on the train there were about twenty young fellows with the lowest riding pants i have ever seen. there really was no point to their having them on at all. boxer briefs were the garment of choice, i can say without hesitation. it was really quite a spectacle to see these dudes walking around like penguins, trying hard to not take steps so large that their trousers would rip. they also only had one good hand each, as the other was constantly engaged in keeping the pants from falling completely around the ankles. i've seen it before, but not in a while.)

but excuse me, i am remiss.

my dreams...how am i supposed to describe them? my dreams seem to deal so much more with feeling than accomplishment. as i was riding the train home i experienced a hint of my dream; as i sat there reading my book and gazing out of the window, (the lights were rushing past, streetlights, cars and signs) i felt the gentle rock of the car and heard the faint drone of the whistle, i felt content. content in the simplicity of my experience.

and perhaps that is my dream.

of course there is much i want to accomplish; i want to be successful at what i set out to do. and i think that i have more drive than most.



(not too far back i had a chat with my buddy n8, and he laid before me his 72 year life plan. he had every year accounted for, it was flawless. it was pretty amusing for me to listen to at the time, though i really didn't put it past him to stick to it, joke or not...)


...and as i pondered my own dream delimma, all i could really conjur up for sure were fleeting images.

(an apartment in the city,
painting the walls, hanging the pictures,
the girl i love,
riding my bike to work, taking the long route,
creating things i like,
with people i like,
good music, all the time
road trips, the top down,
camping in the mountains, hammocks
rolls and rolls of film,
rolls and rolls of canvas,
painting something i like,
painting something someone else likes,
art shows,
design awards,
jamming, rocking out,
classrooms,
more good music all the time,

and most of all, hanging out in coffee shops after hours,
with friends of all shapes and sizes, expanding our minds
and our hearts.)

i would also like to grow long flowing moustachios, but that seems a bit more unattainable at the moment.


(perhaps i am just a bit of a romantic, with my head in the clouds. it seems like the air would be harder to breathe.


i'll think about this some more as i lay in bed.

(the night can bring dreams to life.)