Ivory Lines Lead

     Gibbard You Silver-Tongued Devil. It's a common known fact that Ben Gibbard, lead singer of Death Cab For Cutie, is a panty dropper. The eloquent way he strings lyrics together and his soothing man voice is enough for anyone to get googly eyes. My personal favorite is Lightness. A song about... Well its all up to interpretation isn't it? I, a man not even two decades old, cannot tell anyone what to think. I love that about poetry. It's all about what we perceive. What we want. What gets us hooked. Gibbard knows how to do this in a way that is expressed from indie punk to softcore acoustic to modern hipster. He is a Master.

     I just want to look at his song Lightness. This is a beautiful song. Gibbard is always writing about his love life, whether its going well or drowning in a toilet.

The first verse:

There's a tear in the fabric of your favorite dress

And I'm sneaking glances

Looking for patterns in the static

They start to make sense the longer I'm at it

     Now obviously he's talking about seeing past a woman's dress, although, I don't think he's talking in a perverted sense. I think that he saying that he is seeing past this woman's physical appearance and into her. Saying that he loves this person. When he talks about the "patterns" I think that Gibbard means that he doesn't really understand why he likes this person until he really thinks about it. You can't find a pattern in static. Static is a jumbled randomness that doesn't have any sort of direction, but the longer you look at static, you can find a shape (just like with clouds).

Second verse:

Your heart is a river that flows from your chest

Through every organ

Your brain is the dam

And I am the fish who can't reach the core

     The woman in this song is a loving person, very open to Gibbard, but there is something that's holding her back. Gibbard describes himself as a "fish" that can't seem to get into her mind. It sounds like he can get her to like him and be interested, but he can't get her to love him and commit to him. She thinks about things too much and needs to just accept her feelings for Gibbard. Something is holding her back from him.

Third and fourth verse:

Oh, instincts are misleading

You shouldn't think what you're feeling

They don't tell you what you know you should want

     This is all about the difference of the head and the heart. The difference between what you think you should want and what you want. I think Gibbard really touches that point that there is a fine line between what you want and what you actually should want. Gibbard is saying that, when it comes to love, you shouldn't go off of what you think is right. You should go off of what you feel is right.

     There really is a fine line between what your head knows and what your heart knows, metaphorically of course. Trust me, I know where the limbic system (emotions) is. Its my major. I agree with Gibbard though. When it comes to caring about someone, it doesn't have to make sense because if you truly care about them, then it will eventually make sense. When two people care about each other and don't have the same beliefs; I've seen those relationships work out. You don't have to believe in the same thing as much as you have to believe in each other. Obviously, yes, it would be harder, but what relationship isn't hard in itself. I'd say, "put up the fists," but in a loving and caring way. Yeah that makes sense. Oh who cares! It's love and I'm 18! Nothing of that importance makes sense to me yet.

Better Luck Next Time Loser

There are good days and there are drop out days. Yesterday, was a drop out day.

     It was supposed to be the trip of the season, finally I can go to the America East Conference Championships for collegiate indoor track. Wow I was excited. My achilles was starting to feel better and I was ready to score some points for good ol' Umaine. Though I was in for a big surprise after my warm up to find that my spikes were missing. The one thing a racer needs is their shoes. I. Did. Not. Have. My. Shoes. I frantically searched for them; going through everyone's bags and throwing everyone's things aside, although I was destined to never find them. I ended up borrowing a fellow teammate's shoes. These shoes were a size too small and very narrow, they hurt my achilles so much. So, even before the race, I was doomed. The nerves started kicking in and I wanted to throw up. This was supposed to be the race of my season. I was finally going to break 8:40 in the 3k, a time I would be very satisfied with.

     We went up to the line as my teammate yelled, "those spikes have magic in them." It was supposed to get my spirits up, but it just reminded me that I was probably not going to do as well as I thought. Adrenaline rushed my body as we lined up to the start and waited for the gun to go off. Standing there, kneeled down in a starting position, I prayed that I would be able to finish and do well despite every obstacle that suddenly came my way. Looking straight ahead, my heart beat slowed, then BANG. The gun went off, and a sudden jolt of anger and excitement came over me. The shoes felt fine. I felt fine. It was time to crush a race, though as soon as I hit three laps into it, I started feeling the squeeze from the shoes on my achilles. The pain was awful, especially since I knew with every step I was making everything worse. Of course, just my luck.

     I dropped out. Ran onto the inside of the track. One of the most humiliating things that I've ever done. I wanted to hang on, I wanted to just finish. Why couldn't I just finish and accept my time? A question that I still ask myself. Sometimes, I just feel like a failure. I told my parents that the race wouldn't be worth driving 7 hours and seeing, the sad part: I was right. This was such a disappointing race. My coach must be upset with me. He must think that I'm a failure. Today, a friend who saw the race gave me a hug and said that they were sorry. I hate that. Everyone either thinks that you are a faker or they think that you need sympathy. Really I just want to forget everything. So why can't I stop thinking about everything that happened last night?

Il Monstro

     I've been reading the Hannibal Lecter series by Thomas Harris for a while now; its a horrifying truth. This cannibal is a genius and a murderer. What I get out of it is the way that they describe him. I think one of the biggest themes in the books are what to call Hannibal. He's categorized as a psychopath, but he doesn't seem to show any signs of being one besides killing people. A psychopath is someone who is unstable and very aggressive. Hannibal may be aggressive, but only slightly. He's also very stable, always holding himself up and being the most proper person in the room. I don't think he's a psychopath. I think he's something much worse.

     In The Red Dragon, Will Graham, a FBI investigator, describes him as a monster. The worst form of evil. Hannibal The Cannibal is a perfectly sane person that commits the most evil of crimes. The idea of them asking for his help on cases is bewildering to me. He never truly helps, all he does is make the FBI agents think harder. Sometimes he even makes things worse. No. Hannibal is not to be trifled with. He is actually the most evil that anyone could be, but under all that evil and killing, there lies a lonely man. Family killed when he was young and was force fed his own sister. Some can see why he became what he became. Then he met Will Graham, a man that was chasing after him, and when Hannibal was in jail, sought him out to ask him for help. He fell in love with Will Graham. Then Graham left for good and Clarice Starling came into the doctor's life. Starling was a beginner and Hannibal quickly figured it out. He got her to confide in him the reason why she became an FBI investigator. He fell in love with her too. More so than Graham because he couldn't kill her. Lecter is just an evil lonely man.

     Throughout Harris' books, the main goal is to catch a serial killer with the help of Hannibal because he was caught years ago and is being help in a mental facility. The books go through two stories in each book. One story is about an FBI investigator trying to find the culprit, and the second story is about the killers themselves. This gives the readers an inside scoop on what's going on in the killers' minds, so not only are these books thrilling, they're pretty sad too. The ending of The Silence Of The Lambs was very emotional for me, and that feels weird since the books are thrillers. I like Harris' style of writing because it's not just a plot-based book. It's a book about thinking, literally too because its about psychopaths, though I think that the story is about the idea of evil. We think of evil as this category that is completely a fantasy. When we think of evil, we think of the bad guys in books or movies, but its so real. Anyone is capable of evil, not just the mentally challenged. It can be in a proper man such as Dr. Hannibal Lecter.

     

The Abled Disabled

     DIS 300 is a course that I'm in that is about the study of innovations made for the disabled community. Now this is a three hour class that meets once a week, I get so bored most of the time, but last class we talked about amputees and what science and engineering have done to help out. It's really interesting to see how science has progressed in the disabled area. We went from not being able to help out to being able to give these people their lives back. Honestly, some of the stories I've heard are pretty heartwarming. We live in an amazing time, and the technology can only get better.

     TED is a show where you can see a variety of things, whether they are super boring or super interesting, TED's got it. So, in my lecture, we were shown this episode where this guy named Hugh Herr. He is an american rock climber who lost his legs in an accident. His team was stranded on a mountain and his legs attained frostbite. So he became an amputee himself.I'm not sure if he was a professor before this accident or after, but he was a professor for MIT. I won't spoil the video because its a really good video to watch.

     If you didn't at least start to tear up while watching that, then you're actually heartless. When the dancing starts... its just all really heartwarming. It makes you want to be a part of the whole operation. A part of something so big it can change someone's future. Isn't that really what we should be doing anyway? Helping each other? We live in a world where even amputees can participate in the rigorous activities of everyday hobbies. What's next though? Are we going to be able to create tissue and rebuild a leg? Are we going to actually improve the human race for the better. Can we as a species do the exact opposite of extinction through the ideas in or minds? I believe that we can, especially after the things that I've seen already done.

Goblin - Issue 4 "We Looked Like Giants"

     The summer before my first year at college, I wanted to experience it all. I hadn't gotten drunk or gotten laid, and after graduation from high school, I was feeling quite rebellious. Determination took over me to get my before-college needs out of the way. I wrote this in inspiration to the song We Looked Like Giants by Death Cab For Cutie. It's about the complex feelings of sex; car sex. At the time, I was an avid believer in sex before marriage. Sex is one of the easiest things to do, but at the same time it's so hard. *no pun intended* So it came to the last week before I left, and I had already gotten drunk. Basically running down the home-stretch trying to accomplish my goals. This my be the one I love the most.

---

     The cold, the dark, the silence. Goblin was usually asleep by now, midnight was never a popular time for hi. Sleep had become a foreign passerby that walked on and on, away from Goblin. White was gone, taken by the holy hand of the King himself. All the butterflies added up to this one sum of nothingness. This moment, in the cursed midnight, was worse than any cockroach.

     Sitting on a branch of Goblin's treehouse, he conversed with Loneliness. Once enemies, but now pals, Goblin and Loneliness talked for hours. It was tonight that Loneliness wanted to bestow Goblin with a terrible gift. Loneliness jumped from the branch and disappeared into the forest, only to come back with one person Goblin would never imagine to come: Smiles. Smiles was a beautiful creature that was so loose on what she wanted, red lipstick wherever she went. Smiles approached  the treehouse and Loneliness seemed to disappear within the confusion.

What're you doing here smiles?

Oh just looking for a bit of fun.

Goblin's hands were sweating profusely. It was so easy... Would it be better than a butterfly?

     Before Goblin knew what was happening, they were inside his treehouse. There's a moment in every similar situation when a yes-or-no decision is made, a decision made for the amazing event that everyone fantasizes about. The one moment of touch and feel that exhilarates the body with waves of love, at least that's what I've been told. The decision was yes, and the two were soon intimately learning how each other's bodies worked. Swimming in the bed sheets, Goblin wondered what led him to this moment. He wondered why the hell he would disrespect himself like this, and all that came to mind was White... and the unfair King.

     An embarrassing hour went by and the two lay to wonder about the surprising climax of their relationship, hoping the other would start the conversation. As easy as it seems to have a conversation, it's not easy talking right after the combined feeling of release and regret.

So do you want to come by tomorrow? STUPID

Smiles answered the question by leaving, and that was it.

     That was it, except that Smiles had taken a part of Goblin with her, a chunk out of his inner skin. It wasn't a noticeable scar, but, if you looked really hard, you could see the damage. That part of Goblin is gone, just like White, just like Violet. It was all gone for Goblin. He didn't know how important it was to him until it wasn't his anymore. Smiles owns that chunk of Goblin.

     A pool of thoughts flooded Goblin's mind without filter. Anger emptiness regret relief and loneliness. So much loneliness. Violet was gone. White was gone. Loneliness came back to sit beside Goblin on his midnight branch. There were no butterflies in sight. A terrible end to a wonderful summer in the forest of butterflies that contained no butterflies.

Goddamn the foul temptations

We looked like giants

Up until the regretful sensations

Trapped in the confused adolescence

---

      In the story, I blame everything on my loneliness from White, but in reality, it's my own damn fault. Of course everyone as a teenager fantasizes about sex. That one time between two people that just feels so great, though no one talks about the aftermath of sex. As young adults in college, 'hooking up' seems to be the new thing to do. Everyone tells you that's how to appreciate college to the fullest, but not a single person will tell you how the awkward feelings flood you afterwards. Personally, I hate the feeling. To this day, 6 months later, I still feel awful about it. That part of my life is gone. My first was with someone I didn't even care about. My first as with someone that didn't even care about me. Yeah of course it was fun, but passionate? Not at all. Sex is supposed to be a bond between two people in the most intimate way. A way to show true physical love, so why would you waste that on someone that won't be in your life for the long run? 

     So many questions arise: what will my future wife think, what will the girl's future husband think of me, and what if someone did this to my future wife? Sometimes we are so caught up in the moment that we forget what's in store for us later. Like if I had just waited to experience that with my wife, maybe it would have been a better experience. Maybe it wouldn't have been so awkward. Maybe I would've enjoyed it more. I won't ever know because I gave that part of my life up. Waiting is a sign of true love and patience. Patience is key. Key to everything we do.