A New Beginning, Part Deux

So here we are, at the end of something and the beginning of something new. But aren't we always there, really?

This will be the last entry in this wonderful blog. I have decided to move over to Livejournal, because it's easier and there's more features. I hope you'll take the time to rebookmark me; I would hate to lose anyone in this move.

That said, I hope this is for the better. My new home is listed right down below:

http://www.livejournal.com/users/candres/

See you all on the flip side!!

Chas R. Andres
Ex-Proprietor, This Blog



- posted by Chas @ 10:24 PM

 
The Easy Way Out

I said 'no' that morning; just out of the shower while you were waiting to go to your aunt's house. You were a nervous wreck - I could feel you shaking, your pale hands on the keyboard as you looked intently ahead at the screen. Your family waited for you - in the car, even - as our carefully thought out reasoning shot back and forth over the cable that seperates our towns.

I said no because I thought I knew you. What did I know? Not much, truly. I thought you were malleable, naive. I thought you were just seeing the world open before you, spreading its colors to your rapidly changing irises. I could have turned you into my vision - I could have corrupted you for my own neurotic way of loving. I was more scared of that than anything, really. I saw a blank canvas, but I also saw a good friend. That morning, I cared more about you than I did about my own lonliness. I didn't want you to exist as a spectre of my embodyment. I was scared you would lose yourself in me.

I don't claim to understand you now, but I now know more than I ever thought I could have on that frost-laden night when I drove you home. You are far from an empty canvas. You transformed in my eyes like stars in the night sky; suddenly changing, forming patters, shimmering with life. I can honestly say, now, that you are one of the strongest people that I know. My fantasies would have crashed off you like waves on a ship's bow - you would have survived and I would have been the emotional disaster.

Could I have loved you for who you are and nothing more? I don't know. In my heart, I know it isn't right to try. There are moments when every bone in my body is telling me to run to you, to just hold you in my arms and end the lonliness right now - it would be so easy, so fulfilling. But it would be wrong. I would hurt you and I would hurt myself. I don't know how - but I know it's true. I'm sorry that I couldn't be there by your side - it pains me, perhaps as much as it pains you.

This isn't me being neurotic, or me wanting to fulfull some desire to martyr myself to lonliness or unrequited love. I want nothing more than to find someone to compliment me, someone who can drive me away from my predestined fantasy and into the beauty and spontinaety that reality can offer. Yet, I have mistakes to make before that will happen for me, before I can make that happen with anyone. I have things to learn, people to seek, love to give and recieve.

You know what? I care too much about you to let you become one of my mistakes.




- posted by Chas @ 11:13 PM

 
Personification

How easy it would be, to personify my desires and affections on a person. I've done it before and I could do it again. I am remarkably adept at making myself fall for someone.

How simple it would be, to take someone aside and turn them into a vision of pure beauty. I would give them a poetic soul and a pedestal of platinum wrought with gold. I would build it high and place my amethyst on top. She would be the sun and the moon and a soul to guide me, the magic to light up my life. I would dream about her nightly until my subconcious fell deeper in love with her than I would have ever thought possible.

How joyful it would be, to have someone in my life that I could lean on perpetually. Someone who understood me, because she was more a part of me than anyone could ever be. A woman so unreal that she was everything I needed her to be. An Angel, no, more than that...an etherial blinding light that would outglow any angel born in the mind of a mortal artist. A muse, the true dream of my spirit and essence.

All I need is a warm canvas and I can paint this vision - all of this can be mine for the low price of choosing fantasy over reality. I can forsake a soul for the sake of my own mad creation. I can fall desperately in love with someone who I refuse to even see by the light of our own reality.

But is that love? Is that true love, what I've been desperately seeking? No, it can't be. And so I remain alone. The vision remains locked forever inside of my head where it can harm no one. And so, I walk slowly toward the setting sun, always looking for the only person in the world who I don't want to paint on even in the slightest.



- posted by Chas @ 9:25 PM

 
More thoughts that may or may not matter

The fact of the matter is that I'm a filmmaker because I can't be a musician.

I never could get the hang of playing an instrument. I picked up the trumpet in 4th grade, as I was required to play something in the band and I failed the test that would have let me play the drums. Once I finally was about to get beyond playing the simple stuff, I was accepted to Fenn and decided that band would be too much on top of all the added work I was going to be getting. I didn't pick up another instrument until 8th grade, when I played the saxophone for a year with little to no success. Neither instrument reached out to me, and I had no desire to play music. At that point, I barely listened to music.

When I was very young, I didn't understand music. I have vivid memories of being asked the question "What kind of music do you like?" at five years old, and replying "I don't really like music." to the surprise of nearly everyone. I had no interest in it - hell, I barely had interest in visuals. I read books, and that was about it.

My filmmaker thing started in 6th grade, and it wasn't about self expression. It was about magic, I suppose. The magic of being able to convey ideas through a visual medium, the ability to fabricate situations that wouldn't exist otherwise. I could transfer ideas in my mind to others using this magical technique. If humans were telephathic, I wouldn't have ever picked up a camera.

Right Now, what is important to me is conveying raw emotion. I want to go up on stage and bare myself to the world, and I truly admire those who do. Perhaps it's why my better friends tend to be either musicians or actors.

It's not to say I don't love making films - I do. But it's a less pure method of conveying yourself. In a solo, it's just you up there, totally naked to the audience. Every spot of emotion flies out as fast as it can be conveyed through keys or strings or wind. The wall is broken - it's just you and the entire world.

Films are rehashed, over and over until logic takes the place of emotion. They are slick, professional, complex, multilayered. Beautiful yes, but they lack even the personal qualities of theatre, much less of live music.

Perhaps one day I make a film that is the equivalent of a guitar solo...

- posted by Chas @ 6:10 PM

 
3:02 PM Radio

Senior spring is already getting to me - or maybe it's just winter. I haven't done any real homework for over a week, only enough to keep up in my various classes. I have a good 6 hours of physics work due on Tuesday, and I haven't started and can't bring myself to start. Work aside from my various Film jobs has lost all meaning to me - and even my film class work is lacking. I just don't care. I want to just read science fiction, listen to Pink Floyd, and be with friends that I care about. All my brainwork is currently being devoted to working out things I consider more important than Statistics or English or even making a movie...

A strange thing happened to me today. I was sitting in front of my computer listening to a mix CD through headphones and reading about baseball. The news was that John Burkett - a pitcher I never really liked - had announced his retirement. I was glancing through pages on a message board thread about it, when all of a sudden the song "Midnight Radio" came on through my headphones. It was the last song on that mix, because it's beautiful for driving around to late at night. I don't really have any connections with that song, it's never really meant anything to me. Yet, this time, it hit me. All of a sudden, I just broke down and started crying.

I don't do this - I can't even remember the last time I cried. Probably over a year ago at any rate. The song just...overwhelmed me. That's all there was to it. I don't know why I cried, and I don't even know what I was sad about. It just happened.

I wish I could say that I feel better now, but I really don't. I had a wonderful time last night, but that doesn't matter to me right now. It's all I can do to write this message. I don't feel like I've been depressed - this has probably been one of the best terms I've ever had, in terms of enjoyment. But perhaps I am regardless. I don't even know if finding love would help.

- posted by Chas @ 2:50 PM

 
Truth isn't always Beauty

In physics class today, my teacher spent a few minutes delving into the meaning of scientific truth. What we came up with was the precarious definition that scientific truth is something that hasn't failed yet, and has been tried enough times that it isn't likely to fail. Basically, it's an experiment that can be reduced down to a set of known values and an equation. Our concept of scientific truth, whether or not it is simple for a human to understand, is simplicity itself in the eyes of the universe.

He then went on to say that the problem with dogmatic religion is that it cannot adapt to new findings. Whereas in science we are always proving and disproving facts, you aren't allowed to rewrite the bible. I agree with his statement, but I am also scared of the human desire to reduce the entire spectrum of universal existence down to one equation, one mathmatical truism. The end result of the pursuit of this scientific truth is that everything will not add up nice and neat. It can't the universe is too complecated.

I don't think it ever will for humans. We can't percieve enough of the universe, or even what's directly around us. We simply aren't capable of understanding much of what we see. Like two-dimensional creatures trying to wrap their minds around a third dimension, there are added complexities in the universe beyond what little we know.

Not that it isn't good to try - we won't get anywhere without trying. But isn't it time for science to look beyond the physical realm? Science has often left the philosophy to the philosophers, and focused on the tangible. But it's all one great big jumble, really. It's like trying to solve a puzzle with half the pieces. So much of the metaphysical is ignored by both science and religion. Science, for none of it can be proven by conventional means. Religion because it conflicts with dogma and bureaucratic law. In many ways, we haven't come much closer to understanding life's mysteries since we first gained conciousness so many years ago. In other ways, it feels like we're just about to open the door and stare at the harsh light of the fabric of the universe itself.

- posted by Chas @ 10:14 PM

 
The Long and Winding Road


I pulled out of the parking lot and into the night. My left hand numbingly fiddled with the heat and stereo while the right held the wheel fast. I put on my newest favorite night driving CD, Teitur's Poetry and Airplanes , and set off toward home.

Have you ever been in that mood where nothing can cheer you up more than a sad, heartbreaking song? I mean, I wasn't in a sad mood, nor was I just taking joy out of the pain released in the music. I was resonating with the music at a skewed, oblique angle. It becomes an anthem of defiance, of pride. I sang along to the chorus, stifiling back proud laughter. I understood the song, I had overcome it, I was more powerful than it.

I still sleep with the lights on
I still stay up late alone...

I pulled into the rotary as the contents of the car careened from seat to seat behind me. I like that feeling - it makes me feel like I can control physics. Like somehow the world inside of this car, this reference frame, is my own to dictate. I wouldn't want to be in control of the world - that's a task for no man or woman. Yet this small space, this insignificant black particle speeding through the black New England night. It's something, it's tangible, it's mine.

Yeah I'm tired of postcards
Especially the ones with cute dogs and cupids
I'm tired of calling you and missing you
And dreaming that I've slept with you
Don't get me wrong I still desperately love you
Inside this weary head
I just want us to love, just instead...

Odd, that. I still do desperately love her. But I'm tired of it all. I'm tired of the games, the unknown, the what-ifs. I'm tired of devoting my heart and soul to her, only to have it ripped away again. It's not her fault, really. She never asked for my heart and soul. But the real problem is that I relied on her for everything these past few months (years?). She's been the snow under my boots, so to speak. I've relied on her for all of my confidence. I mustn't do that anymore. I must find confidence within myself...

I've taken over the fast lane now. I just blew through a yellow light and I've gotten ahead of everyone in front of me. It's me and the road and the black - the road goes ever, on and on. West. At this moment, I do have confidence. All the confidence I could ever want. It's perfectly natural.

I’m fire - you’re the ocean
I’m energy - you’re the rhythm
Love is somewhere in between
What you believe and what you dream
I’m just trying to make you mine...

I've found another car now. It came upon me in the slow lane, blew by me, and cut me off. A third one, now, compicates things further. The first car slides back to the slow lane, and I gain on him again. We are engaged in this rythmic dance, now, at 70 miles an hour. back and forth. Trancelike. I miss my exit, the one that takes me home faster, out of distraction. I chalk it up to fate, and keep speeding. Off west. For a second, I don't want to get off in Harvard, either. I want to keep driving , keep going until fire and ocean meet in California. Despite what Eric says about it, California holds a lot of magic for me. I ache to taste it again, and I know it'll happen soon. I'll get into Cal Arts - I know I will. It's certainty now. Destiny. I'll be back to the land where the mountains meet the sea - but I'll be there alone. Back in my vision of the artist. This time, I'll have that confidence I lacked. This time, I know I can handle it. I ache to handle it, to experience it. Freedom. I slowly tap the accelerator down a little more. The other car is gone. I am rushing off toward my future.


I Tend to fall asleep in the fast lane
Sometimes sinking low in the high life
No more happy songs of heartbreak
Or playing white knight misunderstood...

The moment is shattered as I see my exit, and I glide over to get off the freeway. My exit says "Harvard/Worcester". I've never noticed this before - I usually don't go home this way, and Worcester is about 25 minutes from Harvard. The clock says 9:30, and I contemplate going to visit Mink for a second. We've gotten to be very good friends in an incredibly short amount of time, and I know she's lonely and she needs someone to make her feel...validated? No, just to listen to her. I know that feeling. It's worse, sometimes, when you have love in your life and they're just far away. You get used to that wonderous feeling of having someone, and when they aren't there it's worse than when you're used to the lonliness. My mom would never let me go see her now, though. Too late at night to be going somewhere. The fact that I don't know the way to her dorm sealed the deal.

I’m lost in my head
Been thinking all around
Gotta find the off-ramp to my heart
Stop-lights in a row
When all I want is “go”
Drop into first and I’ll get home
It’s ok, I’m alright
I’m just a little rough around the edges of this life
Play it cool, you can always follow
Breadcrumbs in a line when you are lost…

I'm flying though Harvard now, gaining speed even though I'm off the freeway. There is something sublime, something zen about roaring through the town of my youth at top speed. The trees and houses fly by on fastforward. I know the roads better than the halls of my school, so I'm almost on autopilot, just switching the high beams on and off depending on traffic. It's all going to fade into the darkness soon. I've said how much I've hated Harvard for years, but I'm growing to like it just as I'm about to leave it. I can never go back, not really. I can visit the physical place again, but never the metaphysical here and now. It will only live on in my mind. As I get to the center of town, I slow down. I don't really want to get home. I want to enjoy the world tonight. Passing back into the darkness again, something tells me not to speed up again. I trust it, and the next car that passes me is a police cruiser. Intuition is a wonderful thing if you use it right.

Once your name was but a whisper
A simple wish upon my tongue
Staring at your shadow
Was like staring at the sun
In this dark, dark hour
You still illuminate a room
Oh God give us the power
Gotta keep ourselves in tune
Let’s go dancing
Waltz around the rumour mill
In your faded dress with the daffodils
Let’s go dancing
Let time stand still


I want to find that person. I want love. But it won't come easy, I know this.

I pull into my garage as the haunting song reaches it's conclusion. Perfect timing. I snap off the stereo, and get out of my car. For a second, the moment becomes deja vu. I will be here again - not in Harvard, and not in that car. Perhaps not even listening to that song.

When I am next here, my Love will be waiting for me inside my house, cozy and warm.

I will get there.

But I have to speed through the darkness first.


- posted by Chas @ 10:20 PM

 
Happy Birthday!

I took a day off from school today to try and recenter myself both physically and emotionally. I've been fighting a sickness for probably two and a half weeks, and I wanted to kick it for good. I also think much of my roller coaster emotional state has been tied to that as well. I slept for 15 hours straight, and I don't regret it.

I was awoken by some of my friends calling me from school. It was 1 in the afternoon, I just woke up, and they sang me "happy birthday" (it certainly isn't my birthday, for all of you slow readers)

I mean, things that awesome make life so much more fun. I'm in a much better mood now.



- posted by Chas @ 11:22 PM

 
Too much Aimee Mann, not enough Beatles

I haven't been writing in here as much as I've wanted to, or as much as I should have. It isn't for lack of things happening to me - in fact, it is quite the opposite. Too much has happened to me in the past week to gain sense of it. It's gone by too quickly, like a film on extreme fast forward.

Sunday morning, before all of this started, Alex Fishman asked me how life was. "Highest highs and lowest lows, man" I replied. That turned out to be more prophetic than reactive. Literally, in the past...it's only been 3 days? I've been riding the roller coaster at top speed, flipping back and forth from one extreme to another at the whim of those around me. I have felt like I was a part of something bigger than ever before, and I've also felt at my most alone. It's been quite a ride. And it's not even close to over.

Something Kati told me: I am a man of extremes. It's a safety mechanism, really. I can't deal with uncertianty in anything. Everything for me has to be all or nothing, positive or negative, sure or unsure. Confident. When I don't know what to do, I'm too vulnerable. I end up feeling cold and alone and confused. Sure, I enjoy spontinaety...but even that has to be certain. If I'm feeling spontaneous and someone plans something, then I'm not certain anymore. It ruins the illusion that I'm not quite as fucked up as I really am, that I can't deal with the fact that no one knows what's going to happen next. It scares me too much.

I'm getting verbally shot at online at school, and I can't take it right now.

See, the administration put up these posters in the middle of the cafeteria, hanging off the ceiling in bright annoying colors. They're full of sillouette drawings of people engrossed in happy activities, and they're emblazoned with words like "DIVERSITY" "FREEDOM" and "HARD WORK". It looks like a cross between my elementary school and nazi germany. I can't describe how much I hate these banners. So does everyone else, it seems. A petition was circulated to take them down, but it was shot down. I'm the only person now arguing that they are wrong, that the message of "WE WILL FORCE THIS BULLSHIT DOWN YOUR THROAT" is counterintuitive to the message the posters are supposed to have. People have not accused me of not caring about the world, not being indealistic enough, being too critical of art, and being 'not a nice person'. The only advice I got was to use the energy that's getting me so worked up over this to go help people who need it. Good advice. But it just made me feel guilty because I'm so woefully apathetic when it comes to "real" causes and so righteous when it comes to stupid ones. Hooray for alienation redux.

On an unrelated note

Where the fuck do I get off? Where the fuck do I get off? You've caused me so much pain over the past howevermany units of time I can't count anymore.e You've been everything for me, and that's not a good thing. I've relied on your for confidence so much that I don't know where to turn now. Inside of myself? Eventually. I'm not ready for that yet. I needed you, but a conflict of ideals and some stubbornness came between us. Rationally, you were right. You're always right. Emotionally, screw you. I needed you and you weren't there for me. You sugar coat everything for me? Fine. You were right - I needed that. I can't look myself in the mirror and see everything yet. I expected too much of you even in friendship, I suppose. Or maybe I'm just not ready to have a friend as honest as I wanted you to be with me. I'm not sure yet. Get over me. Please. I need to learn who I am without you constantly at my side.

What a funny thing for me to say to a girl who I've never seen.

I know I have lots of good friends, and they'll be here for me, etc. etc. I don't fucking care right now. This is my moment of utter desparation. The happiness will follow, and then this again, and fuck I want off this ride. I won't escape with my sanity. Sanity? Insanity. Whatever.



- posted by Chas @ 6:44 PM

 
My Cryptic-less Entry


Kati is not the one for me.

I thought she was because she played a bigger role in my life than anyone through high school.

But she is not the one.

I still love her to death

But she is not the one.




- posted by Chas @ 10:26 PM

 
Contrast

It was a beautiful day today, the kind that reminds me how much I love New England. It was fourty degrees and sunny, but after a month where it barely hit thirty at the high and once hit -45 with the windchill, this was as good as spring. I skipped between classes, as opposed to the normal speed-shuffle with my hands buried as deep as I can squeeze them in my jacket pockets.

This is the kind of weather you can't appreciate anywhere else in the world. In temperate climes, each day is just about as good as the next so you never truly appeciate what you've got. Even in the far north, I can imagine the climate change to be much more gradual. I don't know if there's ever a day in such sharp contrast to the weather of the previous month. It's brilliant, really. It's as if the entire region's energy over the Patriots Super Bowl win warmed us up by ten degrees. I wouldn't be surprised if someone told me that's what happened. It's truly a wonderful thing, to be a New Englander after something like that. We all care so much about our Patriots and Red Sox, the entire mood of the state shifts depending on the outcome of a game. I'll miss that if I move out west.

My dad drives a 1994 Cadillac. It's one of those forest-green jobs with the slick lines and huge leather seats. It's a cross between pimp and old man, the last gasp of youth mixed with the first acceptance of old age. He bought the car when I was in seventh grade, putting the year at...1998 or early 1999. I think. It's done quite well since then. It burned through oil when he bought it, but as long as you keep refilling it nothing goes wrong. My mom nags at him over this, but it would cost over a grand to fix it, and even then there's no guarantee. So it eats oil.

The passenger side window doesn't work either. It won't open - just refuses to budge. We could fix that too, but again it would cost too much. Nothing upsets my mom more than that window. When she was a child, her parents refused to open the window at all in their car and chain smoked all the time. She has a mental response to it now, claiming she can't breathe if her window isn't open. In the dead of winter. When we drive together as a family, which isn't often, she has to open up the sunroof and try to 'suck' air from out of the top of the car. Usually it ends up bathing my sister and I in a sixty mile an hour breeze - no small discomfort in this climate.

Just this week, my mom borrowed my dad's car while he was away in California, letting me use her car. He doesn't trust me with his. My mom somehow managed to smash the passenger side rear view mirror, but she "doesn't remember how". Apparently I was supposed to notice this and pity her, and since I didn't (I wasn't driving that car, and don't usually prowl around the garage seeing what's up with the mirrors) I was in trouble. The oil leak is worse than ever, and the shocks - the greatest feature in the car when we bought it - are about to die. The inspection sticker is 3 months out of date, and it couldn't pass inspection as it is now even with a hefty bribe.

My dad still won't fix the car. Truth be told, I don't think he's ever going to fix the car. But he won't sell it. He refuses to let it go.

"I can't get a car anywhere near this good for what I could sell this one for. It makes no sense to sell it. No sense at all."

As much as I want him to give up, to either fix the car or get a new one, I fear he'll just drive it until it explodes...



- posted by Chas @ 5:10 PM