Dashboard Confessional

Perusing my iTunes library I came across an old unlabeled album...which turned out to be Dashboard's good ol' Swiss Army Romance. Depending on who you are, you may have fond/anguished memories associated with this album. Well I gave it an abbreviated listen. Verdict: simply cannot take it seriously, it speaks a language I'm no longer interested in except as a novelty. Joe Pug on the other hand... (if you haven't listened to joe pug you're really missing out). Any music suggestions out there?

To Be

"Father, accept your servant J----- into your care, who walking with you these many years in darkness will now walk with you in light. Match his struggling devotion with your faithfulness and forgive his sins, both real and imagined. As you remember J-----, remember us too, and comfort us. Hasten the day when with renewed bodies we will stand before you in your new creation."
"Yes, this world is an oil on canvas, and every day I wake with the desire to tear through it to another reality."
Nothing is meaningful to me. Where does meaning lie? "Meaning resides in God. A meaningful life is life in God, it is God's presence. Living meaningfully is like imagining that God is with you and in you at every moment, but it is not that. It is the reality above your imagination."
"I have the most distinct memory of riding through frosty fields at sunrise, singing because I was alive and only God could hear me, and I feel only bitterness, because I can no longer know joy without pain."

Gilead in Retrospect

Places I don't want to die:

In a restaurant
watching tv

reading a book

in a cubicle

only good candidate i could think of for a place to die:

cliffs of more

Highlights from Gilead: "While you read this, I am imperishable, somehow more alive than I have ever been, in the strength of my youth, with dear ones beside me. You read the dreams of an anxious, fuddled old man, and I live in a light better than any dream of mine - not waiting for you, though, because I want your dear perishable self to live long and to love this poor perishable world, which I somehow cannot imagine not missing bitterly..."

"I know this is all mere apparition compared to what awaits us, but it is only lovelier for that. There is a human beauty in it. And I can't believe that, when we have all been changed and put on incorruptibility, we will forget our fantastic condition of mortality and impermanence, the great bright dream of procreating and perishing that meant the whole world to us. In eternity this world will be Troy, I believe, and all that has passed here will be the epic of the universe, the ballad they sing in the streets. Because I don't imagine any reality putting this one in the shade entirely, and I think piety forbids me to try."

"Boughton says he has more ideas about heaven every day. He said, 'Mainly I just think about the splendors of the world and multiply by two. I'd multiply by ten or twelve if I had energy. But two is much more than sufficient for my purposes.' So he's just sitting there multiplying the feel of the wind by two, multiplying the smell of the grass by two."

The protagonist's conclusion: though the reality that awaits us after death will surely exceed all we can imagine, the fact that we cannot imagine it leaves us to live on this earth as if it were all we will ever have. We must relish every scent and scene in courageous resignation to our own impending demise. I call it the tragi-heroism. Not a bad place to be.

Bored with the internet

Rainy Days

I love rainy days in Seattle. Not downpours, just those characteristic sprinkling days, because they make the multitude of coffee shops so inviting. What shop should I occupy today? There are so many good ones to choose from within 2 miles of my apartment that I haven't even been to them all, in fact I don't even know they all exist. Today I choose an old standby, Ladro in Fremont. Perhaps the most perfect place to study. We're like a big family here.

A surreptitious webcam photo. ;-)