So, I found god right?

This is a piece of writing that I thought had been lost to the mysts of time, and the binary code of the internet. But I found it today and I'm amazed. It's something I assumed was lost forever and now here it is. I've never wanted to rediscover something more than this. It's not even very good. It's somewhat terrible. Written in 2004.


when i met her, god when i was seventeen, i met god, exactly where she should've been if god was to be somewhere, visiting, new york city. she said "you look lost" to me. it was true. in the mayhem after leaving central park i had been misplaced from my, well, friends. i said something like "yea." she said while looking me in the eyes, "it'll all be fine. just stay by me and you'll be ok." the only part of me she could see was my eyes and i hers. they were dark and warm. she was short. much shorter than i anyway (which now when i look back i see as ironic). she then said "hi, my name is god." i told her some name i can't rightly remember. she then grabbed my hand and we moved with the rest of the group. she told me that she was from canada. of course, it all then made sense. of course god is from canada. the police came and came at us over and over. i held tightly on to gods hand and arm. what i assume was one of her angels or profits or someone was on my other arm. his strength was firm and he was silent. she kept saying "hold on, we'll be ok. if we all stick together we'll all be ok." god was exactly what i never knew i wanted her to be. the cops finally broke through and everyone was either tackled, fallen, running, or in relative custody. the last i saw of god was her reaching hand being drawn back into the wailing crowd of black and homemade patches of resistance. as i ran it became clear that i had been touched by the hand of god and her power was all around me. for those minutes or however long, the most beautiful girl in the world was dressed in all black and i never got to see her face. that is the day i met god and how she let me know that everything was ok, and to prove it she gave me her hand and her eternal blessing.

the sex talk

This will be interesting. First drugs and alcohol and now for our culture's biggest obsession, sex. Sex has a few incarnations in my mind and life. There's sex as an act. Nothing too crazy, just straight up doin' it (for lack of a not funny term). Then there's sex as is perpetuated in the media and society at large. Cultural sex, I suppose. When I think of sex a lot of things come to mind, but the basis of my thinking is how sex, no matter how defined, is used. That's what I am going to focus on.
First, sex is how we make more of us, fundamentally. Going further humans have made sex into something oddly beyond that. From this basic perspective sex is something two (or more) people share and hopefully enjoy and gain something from. Of course this isn't always true but I'll get to that. Looking at it like this, for me, sex is cool, to sound a like a dude, for sure. It's a really interesting way to know someone else. For me, it brings me to a basic level of human interaction. Unless one person really isn't enjoying it but appearing to, the act is incredibly revealing. You're both naked and therefore unable to hide what you may feel you should, or are ashamed of. Hopefully the other person doesn't really care about that so much. Sex, in this way, is not only about physical sensations that can be incredible, but sensations that stimulate emotions and emotional feelings between the people involved. It's a good feeling to know that you're not the only one enjoying the moment. Or the moments afterwards when it seems that maybe what just happened didn't. Because I don't think those moments can be captured and relived. They happen and are always different. They're the kinds of moments you want to relive but are not sure you should in fear of tainting a beautiful memory. It's when these moments aren't what they were and the act becomes routine or worse, painful, that sex can be a bad thing. When it's not special, when it loses what makes it beautiful. This is where I have had a hard time with sex.
To be blunt (how weird, me, blunt) sex frustrates and disgusts me. Not good, fun, happy sex, but sex as a tool (I've been trying not to think of what innuendos I am unintentionally inserting here, damn!). I get tired of seeing movies where there may be no reason for it but somehow sex comes along and makes an oddly placed appearance. Sex is certainly part of the collective human experience, but it's an obsession. I don't find pornography appealing, funny yes, but there's no part of me that seeks out that kind of stimulation. Here's a good example of something that happened a couple of days ago. Our water heater died, so I went over to the next condo to take a shower. I subsequently used the toilet as well. On the back of it were a bunch of magazines. Snowboarding, outdoors stuff, a boot catalog, and a porn magazine. So I thought to myself “Ok Matthew, let's check this out, just to see what the fuss is all about.” I looked at the whole thing and wasn't turned on at all. It was all so fake and weird. I'm sure the look on my face was quite funny. I felt puzzled. Am I the only guy here (there's 18 of us) who thinks this magazine is kind of gross and an odd piece of our culture? I probably am. Since I looked at it I have thought a lot about it. I don't know those women or care to see their naked bodies so much. They're grotesque. Huge boobs, massive. Way too smooth skin (photoshop?), no non-head hair, anywhere. What the hell? Is that the ideal? Is that what I'm supposed to want? Where does this shit come from? Fuck. It's hard for me to really express what I feel. I feel perplexed. Is this exploitation of women? Forcing them to augment their bodies so that for a few years they can pose in what I assume must be uncomfortable positions so that other people can gawk at them. Do women really aspire to that or are they just taking advantage of our weird culture? I don't know. I've seen a few porn movies, but that was in high school and my friends and I laughed more than anything (probably because we didn't want each other to figure out we all had huge boners). I do remember getting a little queasy and sickened. It was just gross. I was literally turned off from sex. And to this day I still have an odd aversion to it. That has a lot to do about how I see women treated.
So as I said before I see sex as a tool, a lot of the time. Everyone knows that sex is used to show dominance and as a way to force people to know who is the dominator. That's really when I get disgusted. By far sex crimes and the misuse of sex is perpetuated by men, the world over. I am a man, a guy anyway, I have a penis. I find that when I get frustrated with how the world acts (I'm reluctant to say works, because it doesn't) I try to oppose it. Sex is a great example of it. I'm turned off my sex because of it is used by men, abused. I certainly do not do anything that is abusive sexually towards anyone, but I associate what is dangling between my legs with that of those who use what's between their legs for ill purposes. I feel an association. I probably shouldn't, but I am of the sex (culturally gender) that perpetuates this abuse. I get so tired of sex being about power or one persons pleasure. I just get sick of it. Sex is used to degrade and dehumanize enemies, or even non-enemies. It's used to subjugate. And boy do I dislike subjugation. It is hard for me to get over that. I struggle with it and I suppose that limits my capabilities in sexual relationships I may find myself in. I am also very conscious of personal space. This can lead to funny situations as I've learned, and it's something that I'm working on. I think I also resent men. Not all, but the worst of men. Men who rape and abuse and use sex to make them think they have power. I need to get over that. I'll be a male until I die and after I die I will have been a male. There's nothing I can do to change that. I try to change what a male can be, and so do a lot of others. And that is a good thing. It's no wonder that I have often hung out with and felt most comfortable with women. Here I am surrounded by total dude fest and thinking about the philosophies of sex. Because everything here is a sex joke. You have to prove that you're a man and not a homo by either talking down to gay people or women. Awesome. Why am I here? Different post. But anyway, I see a lot and read a lot and I get tired, physically and mentally, of how women are treated, treated by this penis and quick satisfaction culture.
That's that. And this is this.......I have a lot more thinking about this to do. On one hand sex is so cool and awesome, but also so messed up and misused. I don't want to misuse it. And I don't thin I do or will, but there's that fear, and I need to get over that fear. Maybe I just need to have more sex. That'll solve it. (I just laughed, chuckled, good for me).

something a little stronger

Ok, so here's something I thought of while brushing my teeth. I have an odd perception and relationship with alcohol and to a somewhat lesser extent drugs. The last time I had a drink was January 1, 2003. Pretty easy to remember. Got way drunk with friends on New Year's Eve and was still drinking, alone, as the sun began to hint at rising then passed out waking a few hours later to drive my girlfriend home and then myself. I was incredibly drunk and hungover I don't know how I did it. But I do know why, because, to be blunt, alcohol fucks you up. I drank to drink and no other reason. That was one of the few times when I drank that I wasn't overly conscious of myself and what I was doing. I think I had my first drink when I was 13 or 14. Who knows. I remember nursing a Coors Light while watching Woodstock '99 live with my much older cousin. We watched Metallica. I don't think that was my first drink, but it's the earliest I can remember. From that point I was pretty much a responsible drunk. I got drunk but not too drunk so that I was able to make sure my friends and fellow drinkers didn't get themselves into too much trouble. I think I really began drinking when I started getting into 1960s culture and more specifically when I began listening to The Doors and reading Jim Morrison's poetry and books about getting fucked up in Southern California and London and wherever else. I drank (and did drugs) not out of peer pressure (because none of my friends at that age did anything their parents would disapprove of), but because I wanted to see what it was like. When I drank and got high I wrote a lot and played music. Not that any of it was any good or legible but it was a release, or something to that effect. Eventually I did meet people who drank and did drugs and hung out with them. I did do some stupid stuff but never blacked out (well, once, I think). My parents knew I drank but for some reason they trusted me enough not to ground me forever, not that I would have listened anyway, I knew everything at 17. After that New Year's day I was so disappointed in myself that I couldn't drink for a while. It's been 6 ½ years now. Weird. I don't resent people who drink simply for drinking. Just like with anything else if it affects me in a negative way then yes I'll be upset. The only people I know who don't drink are my family. In a weird way I feel like a drinker on occasion. I know how to interact with drunk people and actually have fun doing it. I find it interesting as well how when people noticing me not drinking they get offended or standoffish (off fish!). It's funny. I guess they think I'm weird or a creeper. Maybe so. Ok, back to what inspired this history of my drinking life. I find myself every so often contemplating drinking again. I make plans for when I'll have a drink, just one. But when I get to that point I don't drink. I have a few reasons. One is a reason from when I did drink. I used to play music with older college kids when I was in high school and they provided me with access to all kinds of drink and drug (women too oddly enough). I was always welcome to sleep on their couch and I often took up the offer but I usually liked to sleep in my own bed at my folks house. That was a half-hour drive and damn if I was going to drive drunk and get pulled over. So I wouldn't drink, or limit myself to one or two beers. That worked. That's one of the reasons I still don't drink. Though these days I don't have my own bed so much, but it still applies. Another reason is hangovers. I really only had a couple of times when I can say I had a real hangover. One ended with me shotgunning the remnants of my fourth malt liquor 40 and talking to a dog who watched me and then passing out. I awoke in pain. That was horrible. Since I quit drinking I have changed a lot as a person. Anyone who knows me knows how much I exercise and am obsessed (I'll say it!) with personal health and wellbeing. I like waking up early and enjoying the daylight as opposed to staying up late (it's 11pm right now, what the hell?). I have no room in my life for hangovers and feeling shitty in general. That seems to be one of the big reasons for me not drinking. I feel, be it founded in reality or not, that even if I have one or “just a couple” of drinks I'll feel like shit in the morning. But then sometimes I eat too much food on the weekends and wake up feeling like shit. It may be that I really dislike having headaches. Really dislike. Though being sick has become somewhat of a novelty for me, being as that I do not often get ill. I'm weird. Straight up. I then think what will drinking get me? Nothing really. Less money, more possibilities for things to go wrong. I also think it's funny that I seem (at least I think so) like a guy who likes to drink and party. Maybe I don't come across that way when folks know me a little better, but I'm thinking more of first impressions. I always like the question “You don't drink? Why?” (somewhat flabbergasted). It's translated more as “Why the fuck are you here then?” i.e. where people are drinking. I do like to drunk watch, when I know the drunks. They're fun to talk with a fun to confuse. I'm a bastard. So that's drinking.
Drugs are a whole new place. I can say, be it quantity, quality and hours spent, I have been high on drugs more than drunk. Totally. I started smoking weed when I was 12 or 13. I feel old when I can't quite remember. I've never not liked getting high. Even after I stopped drinking I kept smoking weed. I was never a stoner so much. I just liked getting high when I could. I did other drugs too, but mostly weed. I liked codeine and morphine, but they were too good. So was the cocaine. Too damn good. I used my head when it came to that stuff. I did acid, mushrooms, mescaline, and other things I don't quite know what they were but messed me up good. Got into cough medicine too. Fuckin stupid. Never did anything crazy and never will. I always knew the really hard stuff wasn't worth it. Like alcohol, I think of smoking weed, or doing it more often. I've done it a few times in the last three years or so, but had a good long time when I didn't smoke at all. Some two years I think. Basically college. Most of my peers were high or drunk while I was at home reading Orwell books and drinking tea and writing prose. Weird. My best friend in high school put being high on weed so succinctly that I have yet to find a better description. He said when you're high everything is a mission. It's so true. That's why it's so hard to do more than one thing at a time. No multi-tasking while high. There's no way you can keep track. I think that's why I don't smoke so much anymore. I don't need to be on a mission. It's not relaxing. Playing guitar or reading is enough. I really am an old man. Shit. I really have to be in the right state of mind and place to get high. And I don't hang out with people who smoke anyway. They mostly get drunk, and some complain about pot smokers and how bad weed is. Oh the irony. Indeed.
The question I come back to in many parts of my life and this one in particular is “how will this or does this make my life any better? Will it be better if I do it? What do I gain, or what can I lose?” I lose money, a soft bed, and maybe self-respect. That said, and for some reason I think of Cody laughing at me, I will drink again, that's for certain. But who knows when or why, but that'll be a funny day.

of interest

I remembered something that I wrote last fall, in Nebraska I think. This is it.

I've learned to accept a lot of things in and about my life. I know that I cannot change most things. I can only change how I look at things. I accept how great and awful things can be. It's hard and frustrating and heartbreaking. this said, there is one thing that I cannot accept: that I am alone, that I have to be, that I was born to be. There are many people who I share commonalities with, people who I am like. there just seems to be something missing. One part of me that's not in them. Soul hunger. Can I give that part of myself to someone else? Would they even know that's what I am doing? Regardless, there comes a point when being alone gets old. It starts with the idea that it's only temporary, that sometime soon something else will come along. Then comes the virtuosity of being alone. The joy of solitude. Oh, how glorious it is to bask in its vast palette of opportunity. Then is ambivalence, or just not having time to notice. And when you stop and breathe out, you see how at every turn you wished there was someone there. Because what is a sunset, a view, an adventure, and idea, without someone else to share it with? After a time these thins seem futile, mediocre, empty, wasted. It's difficult to describe beautiful for someone. It's easy to show them.

It was after writing this that I told myself I was going to start really living. Even if it hurt, or didn't make any sense. I think it's working.

It's hard enough

I recently brought up my “things I like post” in conversation and have been thinking more about that lately, and of course science too. Going along with that I've been thinking about the idea of beauty in the world and in my life.
Much of what we do as humans (or for any other organism) is based on reproducing to create further generations. To quote the quotable Richard Dawkins “That is why we love life, love sex and love children.” True enough. There are many things that I enjoy in life that are a result of natural selection and evolution in general. For instance, I like to watch the flickers behind my house looking for food in the grass then see them fly away with their striped wing patterns and chest markings. I know that their colorization has an adaptive reason, but I do not enjoy it less because of that. I just like to watch flickers, or any other bird mostly because they're fun to watch and they have markings that are amazing either pecking around a tree or in flight. There is no reason why one should be tainted by the other. They can both be appreciated for their beauty and complexity. The other example is people. I feel that a lot of people dislike science because they feel it is sterile and heartless. Sometimes, but if you are able to appreciate how beautiful a cell or a process is then it is a joyous thing to observe. I'm an archaeologist (of sorts, I know) and I have seen a lot of beautiful pieces of pottery, architecture, and stone work. A lot of the time artifacts or sites are simply turned into data. That helps us quantify things and hopefully help us learn more. At the same time I often look at a piece of pottery with a sense of awe not only because of its age or location but also because of its beauty and the fact that I know another person made it with their own hands. It's also funny to think about aesthetics in the archaeological record. We always look at site location in terms of utilitarianism, though I have often looked at a site and though “yea, I'd build here, it's got a great view.”
The Dawkins quote really sums up what I'm try to pin down. Humans have appreciated beauty for a long time. I tend to think of more simple things in nature or human emotions. It makes sense that things like sex and sexual attraction exist. If we had no motivation to have sex and reproduce then our species would be out the door quick. That said one would be hard up to find a scientist who rejects sex and intimate relationships because they're simply evolutionary tactics to get us to make offspring. Sure that's why, but at the same time having relationships and sex are very enjoyable despite their intention (they should be anyway). People coming together and creating something positive, even if it based on evolution, isn't a bad thing. Particularly for those people. That goes for the feelings parents have for children and vise versa. It makes sense from a scientific side but also enriches our lives because humans have created this crazy thing we call culture. We've essentially created the idea of feelings and let them affect how we interact and deal with the world and one another.
I care why something is beautiful on the basis of fitness or adaptation but also care that something is beautiful when it makes me feel good to observe or be a part of it. There is no reason to let one or the other dominate all the time and restrict how one sees the world. It's easy to get lost in either one. I'll still marvel at mitochondria and feel so humbled when standing under a massive 400 year old Ponderosa pine with my arms stretched as wide as I can around it. Sometimes some things make one feel totally irrational and silly but are totally worth it.

and good

The future is very close, well that's how I feel anyway. Things are coming together as they often do in my mind. This time, though, I am being somewhat reasonable and confident. With fire season as slow as it is I have been able to examine things that would otherwise go un-thought-about. It's almost a good thing that I'm not making hundreds of dollars a day for weeks on end. Almost. I have been noticing things that a year ago I did not. Even when we have been on fires I have found myself enjoying the green of the flora, the breeze through the pines (best sound in the world), the birds fleeing the fire (how morbid) or just swooping around through the tree tops, the smells of a long awaited summer. I keep getting reminded of my childhood summers. The feelings of a carefree existence. It's so odd. I have one of the most physically brutal jobs I will ever have, and yet I have time to feel. I'm not mindless. I see more to the woods than how it should burn and how much my next paycheck will be. It's odd, wonderful. I have come to a point of caring. Not caring about some things, and caring more about others. I do suppose that this could find me in a bad situation if I am not vigilant at a time when I need to be. Though, with my insane infatuation with the fact that the woods burns with some frequency, I find it hard to believe that I'll be caught too off guard by the cunning mistress that the superintendent warns us is most capable of lulling us into complacency. I'll survive, I'd better dammit.
So anyway, the future. It's so reasonable and accomplishable. Things are lining up because I have lined them up, and if all the forces I cannot control keep cool most things should be great. The one thing that really energizes me is the strong possibility that I'll be able to leave the country for a while, and not alone. A lifelong goal so close, so close.
I can't say I've had a better two days off. It must be the book that I'm reading.
I am struggling with the feelings that I am having about this job. It's cool and fun and it pays well, but I want it to be over as soon as possible. I still have a good four months left. It'll be long in some ways I'm sure and short in others. The whole inevitable future thing walks beside me through each day, and I realize that where I am now is not my future. I am feeling more confident in myself and about my abilities as a person. I hope to be put in a leadership position this year for a while. I know that I can lead people, I just need more fire knowledge. There are people whom with I work that are in no position to be in the positions that they hold. I feel that if I show my skills as a leader their lack of abilities will come out. That sounds bad. It is, but it's different when everything your job involves could kill you very easily.
I bought some cilantro, that is also something that raises my spirits, a loaf of bread too.
Not sure what it is I just wrote, but it was fun, and good.

well

Here I am, sitting up late at night once again thinking about the past. This I often find myself doing. I suppose it's because of the lack of things to think about at the moment. The past comes to me and I often look at moments that I look at often. I think about “being over” things, but I never really am. It's pretty much impossible to be. There is a set of moments that I think about, with some frequency when in this state of contemplation. I have decided that what I feel is not regret. It's the feeling of knowing that an opportunity was lost. And was what was lost worth being where I am now? I'm not sure. Many good things have happened since, but who knows what would have happened. I realize that the opportunity lost was what I am still looking for. I guess that makes it harder, that's why it keeps me up late at night when I should be catching up on fourteen nights of lost and uneasy sleep.
Sitting here wondering about all of this makes me feel that I'm not in the right place. Be it physically or mentally. I am certainly somewhere, regardless. Too bad the somewhere is a place that I need to get out of as soon as possible. It's almost an addiction. Terrible and soothing. Mindless. I suppose that's the problem. I have nowhere to think. No time to remember me. No time for my mind to wander beyond the next twenty-four hours. My feet move constantly, but that's only life proving to me that it still exists and it's happening all the time.
The past two weeks often found me seeing where I was from a different perspective from the one that I usually find myself in. I noticed the greens of the trees, the songs of birds, the needle covered logs, the intricacies of sound, the pain in my feet. Things we get used to ignoring. I found my mind wandering to the simple. Where I wished to be. My life is really easy, at least for now. I have people thinking for me, which makes it harder to find myself after all is quiet, smoldering. There's a bad metaphor in there.
Well, anyway my glasses and my small computer makes my hands look even bigger and veiny as I type in the darkness on the verge of instant sleep.