Derek Jeter

Derek Jeter does not tip.
Derek Jeter does not clean his facial hair out of the sink.
Derek Jeter leaves the door open when the air conditioner is running.
Derek Jeter takes the last piece of bread.
Derek Jeter leaves the seat up.
Derek Jeter borrows things and never returns them.
Derek Jeter enters a strangers home and fails to wipe his feet.
Derek Jeter eats candy out of the bulk section without paying.
Derek Jeter does not return frisbees that land in his yard.
Derek Jeter hangs up on telemarketers.
Derek Jeter rings doorbells impatiently.
Derek Jeter always forgets to feed his fish.
Derek Jeter is evil.

Vaguely Inspired

Alan watched as the blaring red lights of the clock radio reorganized themselves to demonstrate a new minute and blinked as the string of light piercing across the room, the only surviving bearer of illumination, caught his eye. He surveyed the damage. To his right the windows were covered in whatever loose garments were accesible hours earlier when light first started creeping over the horizon. He had even relinquished his only blanket to the task. To his left was the scattered remains of his stereo, the victim of a frustrated bout to attain a noise level suitable for the task of sleeping. His knuckles still throbbed from an angry moment when his prayers for relief were left unanswered. The wall still bore the scar of his retribution.

The pinhole beam, emerging from the only uncovered portion of the most distant window, did not provide enough light for Alan to really see anything. His memory and hours of uniterrupted contemplation were the only real methods of visualization. He remembred each action and the consequences distinctly. They were the only occurences to break up empty hours. He remembered the textures of his stored garments. They'd left a distinct feeling on his skin when Alan ripped through the dresser desperate for material thick enough to block the morning sun. He remembered the taste of blood and frustration. The flavors invaded his mouth when he first began to beg for a few moments of rest and had bit down on his tongue. He remembered the sounds of soothing ocean noises. The noises, produced by his late stereo, were a miserable attempt to relax himself into sleep. He remembered the exact order of events for each minute of the long combat -- although there were very few events to keep straight.

Alan stood up suddenly and leaned heavily against the wall next to his bed as he'd done every few minutes for the past nine hours. He couldn't stay still although his muscles protested each command to movement. His shoulder brushed against the wall's open wound, gushing cement dust and paint chips. At exactly nine o'clock in the morning eastern standard time Alan coughed.

The previous night was less brutal. Alan managed to fall asleep a mere six hours after lying down. He even stayed asleep for a good three hours before the sound of his parents on the stairs brought him out of a peaceful state. After the first night he rode his bike to the grocery store to buy something to allow him to sleep. He hoped that the exercise in combination with a strong medication would aid in the inevitable rematch. It didn't.

This night he'd long since overshot his parent's morning preperations and remained awake long into their first few hours at their respective places of employment. Alan felt the carpet around his bed for the discared bottle. As the night progressed he'd indulged himself in more and more of the supposed sleep-bringing liquid. Earlier he worried about taking more than the recommended amount, a label clearly displayed the risk, but as it got to be later and there was no affect, he felt less inclined to care.

Alan walked over to a mirror, flipped on the light switch, looked at himself from head to toe and sighed. He uncovered his windows, pulled on a shirt and headed downstairs to the kitchen. Maybe the next night would bring some relief.

General Announcement:

To anyone who can get me a copy of The Wonder Years on DVD or whatever, you will have given me a gift that no amount of money or effort could ever match. I mean it. I haven't even looked to see if it's on DVD yet, but I know there are many of you out there that are not halted by mere availability of items. There are those of you that can make things available for you -- ahem -- and for me. I emplore you, I beseech you, please help me out.

Pomp

I tend not to be terribly retrospective. In general, I think I'm a fairly forward-thinking person, but considering an era of my life is coming to a expedited conclusion I shall indulge myself today.

I'm no longer a high school student. My brother is no longer a teenager. He and his friends act more like adults every time I see them. I'm going off to university soon. I have a job, two, in the actual field I hope to go into after college. This, though I say this without the necessity of saying it, is an extremely surreal period. I often cringe away from excessive ceremony. Today's festivites will most likely bore me, more than move me. Speculatively, I don't think any of this is going to "hit me," as they say, until August and the long string of good byes. However, this is the beginning of the end. Today. A long string of abstract names, announced from a podium. A long string of capped gradguates, filing across the stage to accept a piece of paper. Very bazaar.

To go off on a tangent, the hats they make us where are freakin' sadistic. First of all, as I was looking around during rehearsal yesterday, I noticed that the they look like something from a horrible science fiction film. It wouldn't seem out of place for a flying saucer (hanging on fishing line) to ascend from the heavens and scoop up the robed, capped crowd to be taken for anal probing and what have you. That's not even to mention to goddamn tassle. Whoever decided to make it part of the ceremony to attatch a little annoying bunch of string on the side of the hat, so it whips you in the face whenever you turn your head is a real jerk. The whole thing is ridiculous. End tangent.

I strikes me funny to think that next year I'll have an entirely new set of friends. On one hand it is extremely exciting to think about. The concept of reinvention has always fascinated me. Next year, if I care enough, I can be an entirely different person and no one that I interact with will ever know me as anything else. To my friends back in Rochester I will always be what I am now, but, if I want, that Tim can end forever. I'm not even implying that I don't like any particular part of myself or my personality. It's just extremely exciting to know that I'm not locked into anything anymore. On the other hand (getting back to the original parallelism here), I've known some of the people I'm going to say good bye to for an absurdly long time. I can't even begin to remember all the things we've gone through over the years. And although it feels like we're all growing into very different places sometimes, I still feel like it was a good ride. A crazy adventure, if you will.

And the funny thing is, there was no point in any of our minds (I think) that we even considered trying to stay together in the same general area. Considering how close we've been over the years it seems strange that that was never a factor in our college search at all. As a matter of fact, biased as my opinion on this may be, we may take the cake for the most geographically seperated group of close friends from school this year. Dan and I are the geographically closet of all of us and we're going to opposite sides of the state. Kevin and Eric are off to Texas and Arizona, respectively. Tony is off to God knows where. Of the extended group you've got Schreiber and Heyman going to Geneseo together. A bunch of guys going to RIT. But of the crazy guys who spent all those numerically-indiscernible nights with me aruging, laughing, exploring, creating, et cetera -- we are freakin' spread out.

I'm just wondering, not accusing, of course, but why didn't we ever have that conversation? We never even discussed the idea of staying close. Obviously, I was pretty set in my desire to go to New York City, but it just seems awkward that we never talked about it. I don't think things would've turned out any differently. As a matter of fact, I'd bet money on it, but we should've talked. We have a lot of history and all that. And now that's just what it is. History. Bittersweet, I suppose. This sounds like an episode of Boy Meets World.

I don't know if I'm the only one of us that feels this way, but I don't think all those arguments were in vain. I know no one ever changed their position in the course of a discussion, no matter what anyone said, but I feel like in the longterm we've all shaped each others personalities and opinions more effectively than school or our parents or whatever.

Ah, whatever. That's life.

Woo! Go Class of '06. Ahem.

GANGING UP ON THE SUN

The new Guster album came in the mail today. It was in a handwritten package. That sort of stuck in my head since this morning.

It's not that I don't like it -- it's very good music -- it just doesn't seem like a Guster album. It sounds a lot like Coldplay or maybe the Shins. I like both of those bands, but I was looking forward to a Guster album and, I dunno, it didn't come. They dropped the acoustic guitars and the bongos for Keep it Together so it was no suprise when they remained absent for this album, but there were even more transformations this time around. The lead singer seems to rely a lot more on falsetto stuff in this album (a major reason for the connection between Ganging Up on the Sun and Coldplay -- I honestly think the vocals in the new album sound a lot like Chris Martin's vocals in X & Y) and there is a ton of synthesized stuff, weird background noises, and extremely layered, complicated music. It all sounds good. It's just so far removed from the folky pop songs I remember hearing in Parachute and Lost and Gone Forever. They're better musicians, yes, but I think they "evolved" out of their niche, out of the place they held in my music library. It's a very polished album, though. I do like it a lot.

Around this time last year I was gearing up to leave for New York City for the summer. I think I left before graduation last year. This is going to be a very different summer. Last summer was -- what's the word? -- doubled sided. I left for six weeks, had an amazing time, learned a ton of useful information, made new friends, blah blah blah, but I came back and I had no connections to anyone in Irondequoit anymore. It was the most surreal shift I've ever encountered. I went from the buzz of a living, breathing city, the constant flow of visitors coming and going, and an endless series of acitivities to silence. I remember the first day back. I woke up and stepped into the hallway outside my room and was shocked into stillness. There wasn't anyone around. There was no elevator sliding open. There was no argument sounding from someone's room. There was nobody sitting in the hallway thumbing through a book. It suddenly occured to me that I hadn't been by myself in six weeks and solitude was a completely alien thing to me. I stepped back into my room, shut the door, and went back to sleep. It really wasn't until school started up again that I settled back in.

So far this summer has been somewhere in between. Nothing can match the intensity of what I experienced last summer, but there is a pretty much constant flow of phone calls, things to accomplish, activities to engage in, etc. I hope it doesn't get overwhelming. I need to remember that between work and what else I still need to find time to read, to study movies, to, most importantly, continue to write. I don't know how much time I'm going to have for that in the next couple of years.

Meh, could be worse. Could be bored.

Somebody told me last year -- I think it was my mentor from school -- that they like to keep a certain amount of suffering and solitude in their life so they can remain a skillful and inspired writer. It seems so strange, to keep everyone at an arm's distance, just so you're not content or, rather, complacent. I think about that from time to time, but something about it always strikes me funny. Sometimes I think that philosophy kind of defeats itself.

Eric & Tim Do Irondequoit, Part I

The other day, Eric and I decided to begin our nostalgic tour of Irondequoit to capture, photographically, the places that brought us the most adventure and joy as we grew up in this strange little lakeside town. We, I, dubbed these photographic excursions "Tim & Eric Do Irondequoit" because I lack the creativity necessary to produce effective and captivating titles. For our first excursion we hit up northeast Irondequoit, the area near Eric's house: the woods, the swamps, Durand beach, etc. We had what one could consider a second excursion recently when Eric and I sought bugs for our Biology final product, but it produced no worthwhile pictures and my computer ate the pictures anyway, so I have none to produce. Logically, that Eric & Tim Do Irondequoit, the "second" one , will be striken from the record. We begin with a fresh page to try Part II again.

Anyway, here are the pictures from the first excursion:

Our first stop on the day's journey was a little swampy area that is primarily related to Eric's childhood and not so related to mine, but, without hesitaiton, we explored on.

The land, as Eric informed me, is completely private property, but he stated quite plainly that the only people that get in trouble for going on private property are people that either don't know they're on private property or incredibly stupid.

The primary significance of the current setting is the small, delicate blue flowers that inhabit the swampy region. Eric's mom identified the flowers based on the plants, but I have since forgotten their name.

Here is a view of the field, showing many of the flowers at once. They went on for quite some distance in all directions, giving the grass a blue hue somewhat like an aging carpet.

Whenever one is exploring a swampy area there is always the illusion that one's feet are to stay dry. The explorer assures him or herself that they'll be able to manipulate their way through on logs and dry patches, that their feet will remain dry. However, once that illusion is expelled by the inevitable aquatic assualt on the feet, one is freed to explore more deeply and carelessly. I'm not sure who fell first, for it's only important to note that someone fell first and then someone fell second. Moments after this picture was taken Eric and I were both submerged to the knees in muddy swamp water. And, damn it, it was worth it.

With our socks and shoes already at maximum water saturation and with nothing left to lose, new realms of exploration were opened to us. We took, courageously, to the swamp waters.

I was off looking around in another area when I heard Eric shouting for my presence. Eric had spotted a rather large turtle floating in the swamp a few feet from him and felt inclinded to call me over. I'll never forget the look on his face, wheels turning behind excited eyes. I wasn't sure what he was going to do next, but I knew there would be a next.

I don't know how the thought never occured to me, but before I realized what was happening Eric was wrestling with the turtle. I asked him if he thought it was a snapping turtle and, struggling to avoid the claws that were thrashing back at him, he replied "Yes. Yes, I think it is," The necessary grin was, of course, plastered across his ironically smug facce.

When we showed these pictures to Mr. Borland he was very suprised that the turtle didn't extend his neck around to bite off Eric's hands. I guess he was in a good mood that day. Eric and I began to discuss an escape plan because we both knew that as soon as we let that thing go it'd be after us, snapping at our heels, before we could escape to the land.

We managed to escape without much difficuly (essentially we dropped the sucker and bolted). Afterwards, on land, we stopped to survey the damage the swamp had inflicted on our shoes. I was very concerned because I happened to be wearing a parcticularly new pair of sneakers.

We wandered a bit through the woods and emerged, miraculosuly, at the golf course near Durand.

Eric and I spied a pair of golfers and we seriously considered asking to borrow their clubs to play a few holes. Based on their appearance we decided they probably would not comply and probably not interact with us very politely.

Instead we approached a house, clearly marked as residing on private land, and decided to investigate.

Eric began to venture up the hill towards the house, reminding me of his opinion of private property.

We got sidetracked when Eric spotted a mushroom in the grass. He is always on the prowl for new and interesting vegitation. His dad, a regular mushroom expert, told us that golf coures are great places for mushrooms to grow.

Eric has a pretty good knowledge of mushroom (proliferated from his father) but he was unable to specifically indentify this particular one.

Growing bored, we began to make our exit from the golf course. Eric made several stops to investigate the plant life. I made several attempts to get him to go ten feet without stopping.

We biked out of the park, Eric insisting that he had something to show me.

The way Eric spoke of these swans -- well -- you'd think he was referring to a celebrity or something. It sounded like he found it very strange that I had never heard of this particular couple of swans. In this picture the mother (or father -- we're not really sure which) is shielding the young from our advance.

Our next invariable stop on the adventure of nostalgia was Durand Beach. We crossed the street from the swans and headed down the hill to the beach. It was windy.

I relinquished the camera, an act I am not apt to do, and Eric snapped a few pictures of me sitting on a log.

Shortly thereafter I resumed my position as camera boy and Eric went off, probably in search of more plant life.

We crossed the street yet again to go over to that old castle thing.

You know, the White Lady's Castle or whatever.

And, of course, no leg of the journey would be complete without investigating some mushrooms, Eric insisted that I snap a few pictures ofthe mushrooms that inhabit the base of the castle to bring home for his father. Eric's dad said it is very hard to identify these type of mushrooms since there are so many types that look extremely similar, tiny little brown ones. Whatever.

And that's Part I. I'm sure Eric and I will find time to undertake the second portion of our nostalgic tour sometiem in the near future. I'm not sure what region we're to hit up next, but, rest assured, it will bring back childhood memories.

Belated Summary of the Florida Trip

Since I haven't uploaded pictures to this journal in a few months and my brother is in Florida right now, I thought I'd give a little brief summary of the Spring Break Florida Trip for those who did not have the pleasure of being on it. To my cohorts who did have the pleasure, feel free, feel encouraged to correct anything I may have remembered falsely and add things I will invariably forget.

We left on the morning of Friday, April 14. Our first destination after leaving Rochester (with only a few minor setbacks and complications) was my Aunt's town house in Springfield, VA -- only a quick train ride from Washington, D.C. We got some dinner and headed into the city.


I don't remember this picture that well. In fact, the only reason I can place it in the correct order at all is because of the clothes everyone is wearing. It's somewhere in Washington, D.C.

This is at the base of the Washington Monument. By this point in the trip I was getting kind of bored and frustrated because I've been to Washington a million times and I don't care much for monuments. My frustration was so great that when I was dubbed "Camera Boy" I started to get a little touchy. I'm not in the picture because, obviously, I was being Camera Boy.


This is at our campsite in Myrtle Beach. We spent two days there, Saturday and Sunday. We had a few logistic-related arguments, but nothing major. By this point I figured one of us would have been killed by another one of us, but nothing along that vein occured.


That's all of us, still in Myrtle Beach State Park. Baglio, Dan, Kevin, Eric, Tony, and Me.


This is the actual beach. There was a beach up by our campsite that wasn't Myrtle Beach. It was just, you know, Myrtle Beach. However, this is not that beach. This is actual Myrtle Beach. Nevermind.


Kevin. I don't know when it happened. I assume sometime in the Everglades, but since I've got this nice close up of Kevin to talk about it I'll indulge myself in a little anecdote. One of the days we were driving it was so hot that Kevin decided it was no longer practical to wear clothing. While the rest of us in the back seat slept he disrobed and covered his manhood with a pillow. I woke up to screaming and Tony averting his eyes, while taking pictures. Although it would be particularly fun to post said pictures, I'll do Kevin the justice of refraining.


Baglio. Without Baglio we would've been lost about thirty minutes into the trip. He wasn't one of the original people who planned the trip, but thank God he decided to come. He was extremely helpful and he has some type of magical magnetic sense of direction that can't be explained by modern science.


To be honset, I'm not sure if this really fits here in chronological order, but it's pretty much characteristic of most of the day trips. We watched movies in the car on one of the laptops, died from the heat, and slept. I think that in this picture we're watching Sin City, but I coul easily be wrong.


We decided to leave Myrtle Beach at night as to not waste the daylight hours driving to Florida anymore. We headed off. Dan and I had the first leg. Somewhere between Myrtle Beach and the Georgia border we ran into this place called Hickory Hills. The roads were perfectly, eerily straight to the point where one wondered if they were real roads at all. It looked exactly like one of those Tiger electronic racing games where the background never moved, just the little black pixels that represented cars. It was also ridiculously foggy. We began to discuss scary subject matter as is often the way while driving at odd hours of the night. Essentially, the main subject of discussion was what one would do if they fell asleep and woke up to find the car stopped, the doors ripped open, and everyone else missing. We developed numerous variations of this same scenario, but the result was usually the same: "Dude, I'm not a coward, but I'd freakin' off myself. That's scary shit." We refused to switch drivers (and therefore stop) until we reached a Texco station. A few miles before we were about to stop when we passed by a seedy-looking motel with, I kid you not, a giant billboard with nothing but a butcher's knife on it. What the hell is that?


Since we drove through the night we were a day ahead of schedule and without a place to stay. I slept through Georgia (both ways actually), but I woke up to find us in West Palm Beach, the home of Baglio's grandparents. Now we were all geared up for a nice lunch with a generous Italian family, but a pparently there was some type of picnic his grandparents were off to and that plan was nixed. We briefly discussed scaling the wall of their community and breaking in to the picnic, but instead we spent some time at the beach and drove the rest of the way to Miami. When we stopped for gas in downtown Miami we observed a total of four fights (two of which were fist fights) in the span of ten minutes. Needless to say we moved on to other parts. We happened upon the really high class part of Miami, Coral Gables, and wandered into what we assumed was a book store. It turned out, in truth, to be a church of Scientologoy.


Eric, of course, had the camera out and was flashing pictures. Here is the office of L. Ron Hubbard (or at least the office for when he returns from the dead). The cultist-like receptionist asked us very politely about the camera, but refused to directly tell us to put it away. Dan, after scanning the contents of Dianetics, their primary text, engaged in an argument about psychology and other things, but the cultist refused to engage back. We decided we would try to infiltrate Scientology and make a documentary out of it and as we were walking away we found a store, very near by, devoted to spy equipment: hidden cameras, concealed weapons, etc. We figured it was a sign. The next part of the journey involved finding a place to say the night in Miami. We called information about a thousand times (by this point Kevin had become close friends with the people at 411 and hypothesized that they all lived together on a giant blimp that circled the country) and eventually found a place to say halfway between Miami and the Everglades (our destination for the next day).


We decided that we would splurge a little bit and go on an airboat tour of the Everglades. We saw a very convincing sign claiming that an upcoming tour was the "orignial" airboat tour. Well, of course we couldn't pass that up. It was actually a very good time. The guide was extremely charasmatic and the scenery was very exotic. After we left, driving through the Everglades, we saw about a hundred more signs for airboat tours claiming to be the "original."


The next stop was Joe's parent's place on Sanibel Island. It was a really fun time. Joe's dad took us to play pool and darts, and we got a cake. Two, actually. We went swimming in the pool and spent the night at Joe's afterwards. The next day we hung out at the family picnic-like thing, and played one of the scariest games of Ultimate Frisbee I've ever encountered. We also played a lot of tennis and shuffle board because we're lame like that.


We took some bikes and explored the island a little bit. We all climbed up some palm trees in some guys front yard to steal some coconuts. We made sure he wasn't home by knocking on the door beforehand. The plan was to pretend we were at the wrong house if someone was home and politely excuse ourselves. Kevin got hit in the head with a coconut.

This has nothing to do with the picutre, but I'm reminded of the time when Kevin was talking to Drazen on his cell phone and he cried out "I killed a hook, but dont' worry. The bitch had it coming." Ironically enough, Drazen was at a meeting for Project Graduation and was sitting right next to Kevin's mom, who heard the whole thing. For the rest of the trip Kevin would randomly blurt out "I told my mom I killed a hooker..."


The next stop was Tony's grandparent's house in Clearwater. We got there relatively late from Joe's house (because we left relatively late) and essentially got food and watched a movie Jesus Christ Vampire Hunter. I fell asleep about two minutes into it because I was beat from the travelling, but everyone else seemed to think it was really awesome in that really bad kind of way. I don't know why we don't have a lot of pictures of Clearwater, but we went to the beach again and Kevin and I got into a relatively serious argument. He was convinced that this little girl was at least "sixteen or seventeen." I swear to God she looked twelve. She had a freakin' pal and shovel. And a scrunchy! Kevin was convinced otherwise, stating "With a body like that, who cares how old she is?" I shuddered and walked away. Okay, so it wasn't that serious of an argument. We also went to a pawn shop. Tony's grandparents took us out to dinner and we left after that heading back into Georgia (which I slept through again). It was another eerie night. Dan and I, again, had the first leg. We drove listening to some classical music, the Planets and Enigma Variants specifically, and almost got into several accidents. Somewhere along the way we drove by this car dealership with the creepiest looking mascot on the roof. Needless to say we stopped to take pictures.


This is the cabin in North Carolina that we stayed the last night in. It was almost impossible to find and as soon as we did we realized we were hungry again and headed right back out of the mountains to find some food. I bought a Bob Dyland CD and we listened to that on the way back to the cabin.


At night we went up on the roof and set off some fireworks. The guy across the street (who flew a Confederate flag) also set off some fireworks. It turned into a sort of battle back back and forth, which, we believed, personified the Civil War. The Union won again when he ran out of fireworks and we still had a mountain to go through.


The next morning we drove the entire way from North Carolina, through West Virginia, Ohio and Pennsylvania back home. In Pennsylvania, about five minutes before it closed, we hit up a Phantom Fireworks and literally filled the car with fireworks. Kevin was the primary purchaser, but Baglio and Tony bought a lot too. I was almost hoping that we got into an accident because it would've been the most amazing display if there was a fire. We got home late Saturday night and I slept practically straight through to Monday morning.

Obviously that is only a fraction of the pictures. Many more of them are on my Facebook, but only those with Facebook can see those. Many more still are on my computer. 2600 hundred in all.

A Thoughtless Engagement

With my friend Tony heading off the join the Army very soon I've been thinking about the role of the military in the modern world a lot lately. I don't know what it says about me, but something about the really old school way of conducting battle seems extremely -- I dunno -- nifty. I'm talking about feudal battles with the ranks of warriors, the open fields, the parley, the codes of conduct, etc. Maybe what is most impressive about that type of combat is that it expedited the whole process. It didn't have to be a fight to the last man; it was much easier to keep civillians, women and children specifically, out of the way of harm; battles were shorter; there was no threat of nuclear weapons; death tolls were dramatically smaller; there was a certain mystique and civillity to the whole proceedings that is noticeably absent from modern military engagements.

And maybe it's just the obscuring lens of time that makes me think this, but it seems like back then people were really fighting for something important to them -- not just getting all nationalized by a rabble-rosuing war mongering president. I seriously doubt that that is actually true (war mongering was obviously a major part of the feudal era), but something about the modern era of fighting stinks.

Delving deeper into the matter, I'm starting to think what bothers me most about modern war is the technology, but, more specifically, the separation between the murderer and the murdered. I've always thought that killing something with a knife would be really emotionally difficult to do -- such close proximity and directness of effect. You plunge a sharp pointy thing into someone and they stop breathing and bleed a lot. Every level of technology not only makes it physically easier to kill someone, but more emotionally distant of an action. With a gun you pull a little trigger and lots of complicated things happen inside this mysterious tool and eventually a hunk of metal is flung out towards whatever you were pointing at. You never even touched the part of the weapon that killed. It only gets worse as technology gets more advanced.

In a bomber plane the pilot presses a little button from inside the cockpit, surrounded by metal and glass, and death is reigned upon victims below. The pilot can't see the victims; they are tiny little ants below and emotionally easier to kill. There is a separation. In battleships missles can be shot from miles and miles and miles away. Somebody turns some keys, programs a target, and launches a really big explosive into a location they can't see. Now there is a computer separating the murderer from the murdered.

As much as I can say purely speculatively (as I've obviously never been in the military myself) it is easier to bring oneself to kill the enemy than it used to be. And it should never be easy to take someone's life. We've put these walls between our actions and their results, all in the name of more efficient and easier killing. It's a lot like refusing to name an animal that will eventually be dinner. We don't want to kill a father, a son, a doctor, a husband, a grocery store clerk who used to paint a lot as a kid. We want to kill a target. An objective. Not a face or a name, but a number. And the farther we are from that person when we kill them the easier it is to forget them -- there's no image of their death to remember.

And that's why I am against using our military in global conflicts. We're not mature enough to take direct responsability for our actions. I think it should take a lot of effort to take someone's life. There should be a lot of thought and, yes, remorse. It should be absolutely necessary to do the deed. But where is the need for that kind of thought when guilt is buffered by miles of ocean and a targeting computer?

Please Confirm That You Are A Human Below

I hurt. I need to get some more sleep soon. Sunday maybe. Sunday is always a good day to recover from the torment of the other six days of the week.

Actually, I'm pretty sure I don't have to get up early tomorrow. We should film something tomorrow, but I haven't done an updated schedule in a while. I'll figure it out. Dan's got his work thing, so I'll have to see what's left to do that he isn't in. On the other hand, I'd like to take a break -- NO! NO! Forget breaks. Let's just get this thing done. Maybe, maybe we'll take a break on Sunday. Maybe.

Graduation rehearsal today was the awful. I can't believe we have to rehearse three times to respond to our name and follow the person in front of us. The first person alphabetically should be the only one who has to go to rehearsal. I mean, I feel bad for said person, but it's the luck of the draw and somebodies got to take one for the team. Everyone else can just follow the example of the people immediately ahead of them and that's all there'd be to it. Whatever.

Filming took longer than I expected it today, but we did some good work and I'm glad to have that stuff out of the way. I really do appreciate everyone's efforts even though my stress level prevents me from being, on set, as polite, forgiving, or compassionate as I would like to be. Whatareyougoingtodo?

I'm off to the jazz fest, I suppose, for some excellently priced free music.

Action!

On the way home from filming today I started to think about the sort of things I've gained making this outrageously complex feature film without a budget, experience, time, or any other reasources. I'd like to think my mastery of cinematography has been dramatically improved -- last summer, in New York, I was always nervous about picking shots, thinking that my fellow students would be able to tell how bad I was right away. Now, if nothing else, I'm more confident about what I do. My articulation and direction still need work, but it's improving. I think a lot of the problem there is that almost all my decisions are made on the spot. I vaguely remember a time when we used to storyboard this thing. That time is long since passed. I sometimes wonder what it would be like to have a staff and everything. Ah well.

I like scanning the script and realizing just how rapidly the number of scenes left to film are shrinking. I am very burned out and I need to relax a little bit, but I won't be able to until it's done. I defenitly have reached a new level of understanding of a characteristic about directors that I once heard: apparently, most directors take about a month off after every film just to recover and not do anything. I know I'll want to. Or, at least, I don't want to have much responsability for a little while. We're getting there. Not having school in the way is a defenite plus.

There was a point when I thought this might be a low key, pleasantly boring summer, but I'm positive that is no longer a viable option.

Today was one of those days I don't like -- as far as filming goes. I always seems that whenever I have the most people coming for a shoot, the most things go wrong before it starts. Reading that back it makes perfect sense that that would happen, but it doesn't make me feel any better about the whole thing. Mr. Borland described me as "demanding but supportive" after the scenes we did on the bus the other day, and that's what I strive for, but sometimes, like today, I'm just demanding. And that's just not a cool thing to be with your friends, in my opinion. It'll be worth it in the end, I guess.

I'm really hoping for another good Brazil versus Germany final this year.

Done And Done

As I sit here at 10:36 in the morning on a Wednesday, eating half-warmed macaroni & cheese from a plastic tupperware thingy, listening to the Dave Brubeck Quartet, I can't help but feel a little surreal about this whole graduation thing. If you count that lovely advanced placement summer work, which I do, I haven't been completely free from school, like I am now, since the summer of ninth grade -- but, even then, I had practice for the summer musical, Into the Woods, every other day, so, seriously, school's dominating grasp has by tight affixed around my torso since, well, the start of high school. And now it's not. There are no tests in the future, just a few mildly obnoxious end-of-the-year items to attend to, most noteably, of course, the graduation ceremony itself.

The last day of high school was somewhat of a blur and there is a very concrete (I'm not sure if "very concrete" makes sense -- are there degrees of concrete-ness? It seems to me that something is either concrete or it isn't, but the phrasing stands) reason for that. Thanks to our beloved English teacher (and my mastery of the procrastination skill set) I had the real pleasure of pulling an all-nighter to finish up the massively annoying and, furthermore, massively useless final paper. I stopped counting a few pots of coffee in, but if I had to guess I'd say that I consumed between twelve and sixteen cups of coffee and, as a result, I entered the last day of school with the worst stomach ache I've ever encountered in my seventeen years as a human being. Not to mention my head was cloudy from the, you know, lack of sleep.

I don't recall this at all, but I've seen photographic evidence (everybody always seems to pull cameras out of nowhere lately) that I entered the building, perhaps around 7:15, dragging my canvas man purse along the floor with a look of utter defeat plastered to my sunken face. At some point, in the bandroom, I collapsed in a heap of clothes that Hoffman was gathering to tidy up and woke several minutes later, unaware.

Dan did his usual End-of-the-Year video. I went to some, but not all of my classes. Got some Thai food after school. It worked for me. I've never felt happier than when English class was over yesterday. And, in all seriousness, that is not hyperbole. I reached a new plane of bliss and contenment that I never knew existed.

So, this summer, I'm going to work as a production assistant for a film being made in Rochester called Sophomore by our old friend Tim Beideck. I noted, yesterday, as I was uncomfortably waiting for my interview on a large leather couch, surrounded by the intimidating walls of a massive metal fouyer, that our boy Timmy B. has really moved up in the world from his days as the front man of a mildly succesful local band and the director of a string of short films using local talent. Apparently this is a multimillion dollar film, financed by private investors, moslty in California, that is very like to feature the talents of several big name actors, including, I'm told, Anthony Hopkins. There was even a big metal clock over the only other doors in the lobby that made the exact noise your imagining on the minute. Ch-chunk -- the only noise to interrupt the oppressive silence. I'm pretty excited.

My job is not nearly as glamarous as you may be thinking. For example, on Thursday I begin to sift through headshots and sort them -- man, woman, young, old, etc. There are thousands of headshots to go through because they put an ad in Backstage magazine calling for paid actors, which, as you may know, brings down swarms of desperate professionals from the likes of New York City. Later on I may have the pleasure of packaging up the contents of the wardrobe room to be transported to a dry cleaner. I mean, but still. I'm not complaining.

Today I'm not doing anything. And that makes me proud.

I Hate High School, by Tim Moran

I hate high school.
I hate literary criticism.
I hate 1:27 AM.
I hate agendas.
I hate 3 x5 index cards.
I hate that little red line that runs along the top.
I hate public restrooms.
I hate white boards.
I hate florescent light bulbs.
I hate asking permission to go to the bathroom.
I hate emergency escape windows.
I hate book covers.
I hate Microsoft Word.
I hate the internet.
I hate late passes.
I hate overhead projectors.
I hate chairs that are attatched to desks.
I hate chalk dust.
I hate nameplates.
I hate cleaning solution and mops that spread more germs than they take away.
I hate how much hate I have.

And the Judges Say...

I would go to law school if it meant I could be just like Josh Lyman on the West Wing.

And I just realized that I'm going to live on an island next year. Not one of my most brilliant moments to be sure.

I'm Tired, I Want to Watch an Episode of The West Wing Before I Go To Sleep And I Can't Think of a Title

There two distinct ways this summer can go, I think. One version, which appeals to me immensely, involves a lot of reading, learning, experiencing, etc. The other version, which appeals to me just as much, but on an entirely different plane, involves a lot of fun, entertainment, and -- what's the word? -- memories, I guess.

I'm sure there is an easy way to make a reasonable mix of both potential summers, but I've always been one to turn life into an either/or situation. Call it a flaw, a failing, whatever, but it's just the way I like to do things.

Basically, the goal is to find a way to relax without the horrible guilt of not accomplishing anything. Someday it's going to be necessary for me to just take a nap, or watch television, or sit around doing nothing without it bothering me. To return to the original theme, I'd like to be able to spend all my time going out to eat, catching movies, relaxing at the beach, wandering around the city at night, camping, playing soccer and baseball and frisbee, getting back my hackee sack chops, chilling at coffee places, attending as many concerts and sporting events as my wallet can sustain, shooting pool, playing cards, throwing darts and, at the same time, I'd like to read up on philosophy and art history, devote some serious time to the piano, catch up on all the books that have been stacking up around my room, seriously run again, write some more short stories or works of greater length, immerse myself in photography, watch all the films that NYU says I should've seen already...

This is all, of course, in addition to finishing Sandstorm once and for all, preparing for my first year away from home, and probably, without exaggeration, ten thousand graduation parties.

Eh, you know what? There are much worse things to be worried about.

(Oh, and I liked what I said about Performing Arts the other day during the final circle even though it wasn't as long or as personal as what everyone else said: "This community is a lot like a sailor's compass -- you don't need it to get where you're going, it doesn't get you to where you're going, but it sure is a helpful tool to get you there." I'm not sure if that comes across clearly. I got the impression that some people were offended by it, but it really was a compliment. I didn't intend to downplay the importance or helpfulness of the program. I simply meant that, without sugar-coating the compliment out of honesty, the program is extremely helpful even if it's possible to be succesful as an indivdual without it. I mean, think about it, it's immensely difficult to navigate a sailboat over an extended distance without a compass, to the point where most people would fail miserably at an attempt, but it is possible. It is possible to be succesful in a performing arts career with a highschool performing arts program, but it's comparably difficult. I hope, for the sake of my ability to articulate myself, that this explanation is for a minority of people who didn't read into my comment deeply enough and that it makes as much sense to the average person as I think it should.)

Two Things

1) I just had a really good Peach Snapple.

2) NYU just sent me a letter recommending films -- I haven't seen or heard of any of them. What have I gotten myself into here?

Breathing

Well, that's that. The last full week of school come and gone. I doubt that my stomach will be in condition for even a brief nostalgic glimpse at the bastion of evil. If all goes according to plan, as soon as the eighth block bell cries freedom (or, perhaps, sooner), I'll launch myself into a vehicle and venture as far and as fast as possible in an outward direction, away from the home of the slow, paralyzing, mind-numbing destruction of my sanity. It's going to be a good week.

I'm somewhat back to normal. We've been, miraculously, keeping up with the schedule, and we're set to film again today -- the last time for the weekend. On Monday we're in a classroom to film two scenes and then in the auditorium after school to capture Kevin's presentation. We're taking the day off on Tuesday (see previous paragraph), filming a few scenes with Eric posing as a doctor in the afternnon on Wednesday, and getting the massive chunk of scenes that take place in the boardroom done on Thursday. That's as far as I can remember into the future, but we're getting there. Although we're behind schedule and we won't be done on June 23 like previously hoped, we will be down to the last 10-15 pages in the script. Unless, you know, we get father behind, which is always pretty likely.

I'm quite pleased that Economics and Statistics are done. My plan is to take Sunday (or maybe Saturday afternoon as well) to do the English paper and finish the Biology projects, turn them in on Monday and call it a year. Alright, enough with the boring specifics of my life and on to the boring general musings...

I've noticed, personally, the last few days of school that most teachers completely ignore the mental and emotional state of students when assigning work, or in dealing with students in general. Melissa made an observation the other day, saying that teachers like to think that stress in student's lives is completely unrelated to school and only connected to some abstract social problem that they have no control over. She went on to say that this is a false sense of separation. That makes sense to me. Teacher's are very in to their jobs -- they're professionals. They want to push students really hard and, as Mr. Borland said, they feel guilty when they don't assisgn a lot of work. He, Mr. Borland, also said that most teachers relieve their guilt by assigning busy work because they don't have the confidence to separate the work that needs to be done from the rest.

The whole thign is your average: "Am I going to get everything done in the amount of time I have?" versus "If I use all the time I'm given to the maximum, things should turn out okay." Those are the two ways to look at it, I think. One, you think about all the things you want to get accomplished and try to schedule them in. Or, two, you're not focused or disciplined enough to organize what needs to be accomplished, so, instead, you do the next best thing: make sure you're using all your time, hoping that that'll accomplish the same thing. Number two is significantly less taxing and downright easy, but not nearly as effective as number one. In my ever-cynical opinion, which method do you suppose I imagine most teachers utilize?

I hate hearing things like "I have to give you a final project" or "we're supposed to have a end of the year examination." Do you agree with it or not? If you don't I certainly hoped you discussed your aprehensions with the school administraters. Or, if you agree with it, why don't you take credit for its existence and drop the have to's and supposed to's. I feel relatively cheated by the whole high school experience. I feel it could've been so much more. So much more focused and effective. I guess that's what I get for going to public school. I think I would've really enjoyed a boarding school, one of those really expensive private ones where academics rule your life.

Instead I got most of my education from discussions and arguments with my group of comrades. I give very little credit for anything I know, as arrogant as that sounds, to the teachers I've have, a handful of amazing teachers excluded. Most of the credit goes to Eric, to Dan, to Kevin, to Tony, to Schreiber, to any number of real teachers I've had, friends who've joined us in a heated battle of wills, arguing an abstract points over and over again. Not because they were people that knew more than me starting out, just because they were people that were somewhat invested in me as an individual and willing to learn in an indirect way.

I mean, what are the things I'm best at? Writing, filmmaking, history...The writing comes directly from Dan, working on I-don't-even-know how many projects over the years as well as a constant stream of book recommendations from Eric over the years. The whole filmmaking thing is directly routed in the old Inner Cirle, Dan, Kevin, etc., and the Scream Project. I mean, if it didn't begin there, where did it begin? And history -- that leads right back to the heated discussions, usually of a political nature and always with more historical references than probably appropriate. But there it is. We created our education, I think. And I'd just like to note that here before Eastridge High School, blue and white, gets all the credit for our success someday.

And as much as some of those arguments get on my nerves now, I really appreciate them. I think the problem is that they're really hard and really taxing now. We've all gotten kind of good at it...and we take less recovery time than ever. It's sometimes, somedays, a constant stream of arguments. There are days when one can't make a stament without having to defend it to the ground. Something as simple as expressing a personal desire needs to be justified. But I digress, I meant to say thank you, but, instead, I said a lot of other things.

Thank you.

Blinking

I have been continously stressed for about five days now. It's really, really starting to grate on me. Everything is conspiring to piss me off lately. School, the movie, random uncotrollable circumnstances...

I took the day off from school and, essentially, stayed in bed all day. I've never done that before. I just didn't feel like doing anything. I couldn't convince myself to move. Extremely unnerving really. I played frisbee with Shadow a bit this afternoon. I watched Memoirs of a Geisha finally.

I don't really sleep anymore. I can't. I need for this school year to be over and the movie to be out of production, but that's never going to happen. Ever. Ever. Ever. We just keep on postponing the completion date later and later. If it wouldn't be so disappointing I'd say we'd call the whole thing right now. That's really how I feel and nobody is doing a good job of convincing me that they'd particularly care.

Another frustrated entry, I guess. I hope things swing around soon. I've tried talking to people about all this, but it doesn't really matter. It's not rational enough for any of that to work. I just need to keep on venting and hope for a change.

Photographs & Frustration

Fellas, I consider myself -- or at least I hope I can -- a relatively calm and collected person when it comes to facing challenges, even the logistical variety, but whenever I think about all the stuff that needs to happen in the next two weeks for Sandstorm to happen my lungs stop doing that life-sustaining task that they ought to be doin'. I don't know what to say. I really, really need some help here. I'm trying to make everything come together on my own, but I need someone to step up and give me some serious help. I get so nervous when I'm reminding people about stuff for the second, third, fourth time and they're looking at me like I'm crazy. I can't keep track of it all anymore. I'm writing myself notes, but I've got hundreds of little things to keep track of and I'm finding myself running from Mr. Edwards to the cast to the crew to Starkweather for cameras and I'm forgetting to talk to people about costumes or forgetting a prop or something. Like, for example, I just remembered that we need the giant milk carton for tomorrow.

Help.

Reminder: talk to Mr. White about the news anchor scenes.
Reminder: talk to Ms. Starkweather about the black box on June 15.
Reminder: talk to Mrs. Wozniak about filming those two scenes in her class.
Reminder: talk to Mr. Cummings about "Mr. Cummings' Philosophy Class"

This is just a sample of the scraps of paper in my notebook. I'm not a produer. I'm not cut out to be a producer. I can't keep track of my personal life, much less an entity this complex. I don't know. End frustration.

Anyway, I put together a bunch of photo albums, finally...
Florida Trip, Part I & Part II

And on Saturday Eric and I started what I intend to be a series of photographic tours of places that are somewhat nostalgic for us in Irondequoit. There are and will be several tangents, but if we follow through it should end up being a photo series that will serve to solidify the last few years of our lives into a memorable little thing, a thing that can be glanced up later, you know...stuff. Anyway, I'm proud to present:

Eric & Tim Do Irondequoit, Part I
So far it only consists of Northeast Irondequoit, but since I doubt it will ever include much of West Irondequoit that's like at least 1/3 of the way done. You know, or so.

I also have a bunch of pictures up including "V for Vendetta Day" and "The Orchard" (although most of those pictures were posted on this blog anyway).

Also I have an album of various pictures that I just kinda like. I randomly named it "The Way of Various Things & Stuff" because, well, I don't know. It was random. I said that. What more do you want from me? I'm not a fountain of creative titles you know. God.

I just found out that the Giant Carton of Milk and Wonderbread costumes are destroyed and have been for many weeks. I don't know what's going on anymore. I am the closest I have ever been to a nervous break down in my entire life, I think. If I end up doing this for a living I better have a good producer. I really wanna just say "Fuck it." Forget the whole thing.

EDIT: I think sticking through with it until the end will serve as the first of many challenges I'll have to overcome to make it in the future. However, I still have a strong desire to scream at the top of my lungs.

Are We There Yet?

I would like to make a very important announcement: for the first time in my life there are no films in theaters that I have a desire to see that I have not already seen. None. Not a single with even the slightest interest on my part. I'm so -- estatic!

Let's see, let's see, let's see. I've been thinking about the sort of stuff to write in here (and as a result have spent a lot less time writing) and one of my main conclusions came to me when I was reading other people's entries in their journals. The entries that sort of tire me out, the ones where I find myself skipping paragraphs, skimming the lines, and altogether not completing are the ones that simply go through a play by play of the individual's day. They often complain, present little self-observations, or speak about the brilliance of their day without striking at the meat of it or explaining why it was so bloody brilliant. They're often long, extremely specific, and probably dramatically more interesting to the people who know the authors better than I do.

As for the direction of my own internet real estate, I barely care about my own day-to-day experiences enough to write about them. Therefore, I assume that they must come across as ridiculously boring to any readership I may have amassed, except for, perhaps, the occasional witticism or what have you. The entries I like the best are the general ones, the philisophical ones, the ones that talk about goals or reflect on a broad expanse of past time. Not the play-by-plays, the catalogues of events, the ones that are far too specific to serve either of their possible purposes: they contain too much information for any type of time capsule effect and they contain too much information for the contemporary readership to stomach. I hope to, from here on out, to lean towards the former type of journal use and stray as far away from the latter as humanly possible.

That said, I'll now launch into a description of today's events at Darien Lake with the band. Relax. I'm kidding. The difference between my thoughts and actions is not usually extreme enough to be compared in touching sentences. I hope.

Oh goodness. Stars of Tomorrow is, ahem, tomorrow. I ought to write that acceptance speech. Good job on my part for putting it off to the last minute.

In a more general sense, school is weighing very heavily on my lately considering there are only seven more days of it. I don't feel relief as it nears completion-- I feel cocnern as more and more "final projects" get assigned and the number of days to work on them diminish rapidly. Furthermore, the schedule for Sandstorm is finally at the point where we don't have the luxury of rescheduling. There is so much to do with it. I hope that once we finish all the scenes that need to be done before the end of the school year I'll feel a lot less stress about the whole thing. Aww, shit fucker cunt waffle. I just realized that if we're going to re-record the dialogue then I'll need to get all of Tony's done before he leaves for the army. That is going to be a really serious trick.

I know I like to be busy and all this shit, but I really would like to go on autopilot for the summer and I feel that that is just not going to happen. I love making films, but I absolutely never want to make a film of this scale in this way again. It has brought me such an intense amount of stress and it's only going to be worse in the next few weeks. If I have to get a rough cut of it before Tony leaves for basic, which I guess is pretty much what I'm going to have to do, it means a pretty busy June for me. Goodbye free time.

To be honest, very many aspects of my life frustrate me right now. But the future looks good. You know -- like July.