What do I know?

Fucking nothing, that’s what.

The date came and went. I felt nervous for most parts of it and I could never truly relax. It was mostly because I couldn’t stop questioning myself. I think that my thirst for a bond with a female was so great that I could only think about what I needed to do to best be accepted by this female. And so in my head I put that in terms of what would an average man with experience in the sack do in this situation. I was able to be myself, sort of, but I was just never totally comfortable because I was second guessing my every move.

I couldn’t find a time to make a move at the restaurant. I didn’t make a move at the theater cause, well, we were watching a movie. At the bar after the movie, we got a little bit closer to each other but still couldn’t find a time to do anything. The final goodbye came in her car because she drove me to the bus station. I was very unsure what to do so I played it safe, went for a hug, as we hugged I heard a kiss sound right next to my ear (don’t know what the fuck that was all about) and then I peaced.

A couple of things kept bothering me about her but I was willing to overlook them for now. This morning I texted her letting her know that I had a good time and that I wanted to meet up next weekend. After a few hours she texts back telling me that she isn’t looking to date.

Back to square one!

I’m not mad, I’m dumbfounded and frustrated.

Fuck it, I’m fucking mad!

The thing is that the vibe of the date was ok and like I said before, there were a couple of things that bothered me about her but her most attractive quality was that she was willing to play along with my flirty texts and she seemed interested in me. I felt like she accepted me and was attracted to me, and that alone was good enough.

That’s one of the things that I have been thinking about lately. So much of what we do is to feel accepted and sometimes we are wiling to give up who we truly are just for the comfort of acceptance.

Adrian just wrote how things are planned to bring people comfort, and I agree, but to me the reason we feel comfort is because we feel that we are accepted. If I get this house, and I get these things, and I listen to this type of music, then people will accept me and as long as that is true then I will be comfortable.

Which brings me back to my date thoughts. It felt great to think someone accepted me so even though maybe it would have turned out that I disliked this girl, it still makes me feel shitty that she just said no to me.

So now after talking all that shit about getting a kiss and then hoping to fuck her on the reg, you guys can ask “Hey Adrian, what the fuck do you know about getting pussy?”

And I'll answer "Fucking nothing guys, absolutely nothing."

P.S.: This line from Adrian’s blog below, “My feelings were eased, however, in the presence of true and great authenticity” brought tears to my eyes. That’s exactly how I feel when I’m around you guys. Just an honor to be around great Senators. Love you all so much!

Yesterday I Saw The World

It had been far too long since I was jettisoned this far from the routines and habits that ultimately amount to present-day American culture, but after two bong hits the shackles were broken, and I was finally free again to observe and experience the truth of it.  You, my friends, are a refreshing and absolutely crucial island of reality among the endless sea of absurdity that surrounds us.  How far it spreads I do not know.  I fear the sea level is rising, but I don't believe the world will ever allow itself to go under forever.  For our island is natural, and nature cannot be stopped.

--

So I got really high yesterday.  Really, really high.  Similar to tripping, this high led to the dissolution of many delusions that are almost forced into your brain by day-to-day life in Los Angeles.  I extrapolate this to represent all of American culture, and possibly all Western culture, and who knows what else, but really all I know for sure is that this is how it is where I am.  The delusion of a "nice neighborhood" faded rather slowly; at first I enjoyed the green lawns, the tree with red flowers, the clean sidewalk and pavement.  But the repetition of it all...the regular intervals at which the trees occurred...the perfectly matching shade of every lawn...it lifted the curtain and revealed the planning and human thought behind it.  "Those humans will feel comfortable if we make it look like this," they must have said over a conference table.  Suddenly I felt like an animal in a zoo.  Nature was destroyed, paved, and my entire environment was designed and built in its place for my comfort.  This had always been a background thought, but suddenly it slammed its way to the forefront.  We're being made to live a designed existence.  I thought of the urban planners as high lords looking down upon our movements from above, but in turn I knew this was an oversimplification.  Later this very day, Adrian would be travelling to another section of the artifice to meet with one of these very people in the hopes of enjoying a night in her presence*.  This girl is no high lord, she is no different than any of us, working a job so she can carry on a healthy life that she will try to enjoy.  The planners themselves are part of the plan.

Finally we reached the car.  Pop music was on, and with two of us high and the third possibly second-hand, we were able to see the utter lack of human complexity and thought presented by the song playing.  The song had one idea: treasure.  It was a guy telling this girl she was his treasure.  No reasons or explanations were given as to what elements of her humanity connected to elements of his that were so rare as to feel as if he had actually found a treasure.  Ultimately, it simply provided a singular thought (we dubbed it "mono-thought") that was positive and easily relatable.  The planners knew what people liked, and calculated the music accordingly.  I was feeling more and more like a lab rat.

When we entered CVS, I lost any and all feeling of connection to natural, unplanned reality.  This store was designed for placated humans seeking comfort and convenience, so as to minimize the interruption to their planned-out routines that serve to continue the artifice.  As we waited, the other humans stood in their line silently; maybe it was improper to talk, maybe everyone had simply run out of thoughts.  The three of us positioned our bodies such that one person was not facing either of the other two, but also such that we wouldn't draw any other human-attention to our group.  I felt like the character in Rick and Morty, living in a simulation of the universe being run on minimum power.  We are crazy animals to have created such a situation for ourselves, all in the pursuit of our own comfort!!  What was crazier to me was that this was widely accepted as normal, and how I could be seen as the delusional lunatic for failing to accept it myself...

I was still shaken by these implications when we returned to the apartment.  My feelings were eased, however, in the presence of true and great authenticity. We were met by a freshly showered and dressed Adrian, trying with measurable success to cool his nerves before a potentially monumental life experience.  As we joked around and interacted, making each other laugh and provoking each other's creativity, I saw a pillar of reality among the artifice.  This is unplanned, natural experience, and here it is just for us.**

Later, after leaving the apartment, we were left to our highness and made our way down to the pier.  As we walked, the sun was beginning to set behind a patchy veil of clouds.  The orangey and grey-green scene looked something like an artist's rendition of a distant sun setting on an alien world.  But this was our world.  This was reality.  Throughout the high, I'd been feeling weird about my essence as a human.  I just felt like this weird alien thing, and like everyone else had figured out something that I hadn't.  In that moment, looking at the alien-like sun going down over the edge of view of this planet, I felt like I had more in common with that scene than I had with any of these other people that I pass when I'm out in the world.  And I was again reminded of nature, and how that is what is real.

As with any uncomfortable high, I looked forward to coming down.  I had spent my day outside of this culturally agreed upon reality, and was instead observing it from the view of natural reality.  But it was time to return.  And this is the challenge I face.  Because the reality that feels most natural to me, the one that I "understand" the most, is what I'm referring to as "natural reality."  But I'm fairly certain that I need to assimilate into what I guess I call "culture reality" in order to live the best life possible.  Culture assimilation is how you meet more people and make more money.  The right amount of these things (and the right people of course) allows for more diversity and richness in life, and while not impossible, it definitely feels harder to gain these things without assimilating into normality.

Later that night, after coming back down to something in the neighborhood of normal levels of perception, I just chilled and hung out with the girls and got a good dose of life-affirmation.  Earlier in the day I felt like a complete outcast and lunatic, on or past the fringe of culture, but talking with them really re-calibrated me to where I was, and come to find out I'm not crazy...if anything I don't have enough delusions.

--

* i.e. pussy
** I love Terrence McKenna because he knows and talks about this experience specifically.

Thoughts from last night

I got high. These are the three thoughts I wrote down on my phone.

1. If bacteria and viruses end up killing out the human race, it will put our planet into a new age of evolution.

2. I just used tagging correctly on instagram. I tagged the person I wanted to see my post on someone's photo of them.

3. The point of humanity up until now has truly been about separating ourselves and gain individuality through violence. Now, in our most interconnected times, we should be fighting for peace and love and to remain interconnected to better live on into the future. Any way to save this world is benefit to humanity and will be for the betterment of our species.

All Around, A Terrible Day

Let me begin with a statement that nothing horrendous happened in my life today. No one died, I didn't get hurt (or die, for that matter), the world was the world, it was a typical Monday in America.

My day was terrible because it wasn't positive. And because it wasn't positive, that doesn't mean it was inherently negative. This is just me meditating on my day and remembering all that happened:







See all that blank space above? That was my day. My day was a void. Nothing. Nothing happened. Nothing good. Nothing bad.

I wasted my day. I woke up at 1, a usual on my days of no work. I made eggs. I downloaded Cosmos. I played Hearthstone while listening to Duncan Trussel. Now, this is where my day got derailed. I had never listened to Duncan before today, but Adrian and Jesse were talking about it and I finally remembered his name. But he started talking about spring, and positive and negative, and doing things with lives. What am I doing with my life? Nothing.

I've essentially relived the same day every day for the past few weeks, with a few alterations and exciting things, but when it boils down to it, I'm wasting my days.

So I made the following comic as I was listening to Duncan talk about psychedelic

drugs and life:

Am I the best version of me out there? No. There is a Josh in multiple parallel universes who have it so much better than me. But the original thought that spurred this comic is what I am saying at the top right: "I think I might be afraid of happiness." Duncan said this and it got me thinking about happiness and comfort and mistaking one for the other.

I'm comfortable guys, except I'm not. I'm about as uncomfortable a person who lives in comfort can be. I'm floating in limbo. I need to change and I know this. So what I did for the rest of the day was wallow in the awful. I did absolutely nothing. I didn't shower, I haven't brushed my teeth, I jerked off, I cooked dinner, I watched Hannibal, and I drew a nude self portrait. I bored myself. To tears. All in hopes to teach myself a lesson.

Hopefully tomorrow I fill in for Mike at Division and feel a sense of purpose. If not, tomorrow is going to be an interesting day and a blog-worthy one at that. Will I skate? Will I go to Samy's to buy film and try and get my light-meter fixed on my SLR? Will I go food shopping? Will I just run and never stop? Will I scream at the top of my lungs and hate my own guts? Or will I sit, in comfort, and wonder if I'll ever break this cycle of awfulness.

We'll see.

Bonus: Nude Self Portrait. (Not Really Safe for Work. I covered up my dick, though. (or did I? (I didn't you can see my balls.))): http://i.imgur.com/p648nLN.png

Not my best work, but if I keep trying, I know I can be mediocre.

Waddup, fuckers

Drawing 04

Drawing 03

Drawing 02

Drawing

Drawings from Last Week, Today: (3/11-3/16). Part 1/2

So as you all know, I've been trying to draw more and more. Last week, two separate nights in a row, I combined all the Deathly Hallows and decided to draw whatever came to my mind. I tried to let my mind wander while drawing these and I think it's apparent.

So for the first of two posts pertaining to last weeks drawings, I give you the drawing I entitle:

"Fuck"

As you can see, "Fuck" is kind of a lovely mess. I believe it is a reflection of how my brain works. But unlike past drawings in my notebook, I decided to give this drawing some flavor.

Sometimes when I fuck up, I self-criticize myself and point out my own fuck ups in a drawing (see Part 2/2). This time I did criticize myself, but I also embraced how I fucked up everything.

This drawing began with the face, as many of my drawings do. I think I originally wanted the character to be looking down at someone. I had drawn one of my characters looking at a child on a previous date and I wanted to emulate what I had done here. Well, I fucked up. My character turned into a hunchbacked creature and I decided to write "Fuck" in bolded, yet flowing letters. Following this, I decided to draw the speech bubble, which I try to have fun with. I hate the normal speech bubble. I like making it whimsical and weirdly shaped. But once again, I fucked up, as is apparent by the two humps in the top right.

But I did something I usually never do: I decided to continue drawing whatever came to mind. I decided to draw the bikers next. Driving up and over the mountains, I decided to also add clouds. Due to my lack of good perspective drawings, I tried to draw a cloud going behind a mountain, but it just looked like clown hair, so I embraced it and gave the mountain a face.

Next, I drew the lake in the middle because the negative space in the middle of the speech bubble looked like a lake. When I thought about the lake, I wanted to draw a dinosaur in it or at least Nessy, which is why Pac Man is in the middle of the lake. The original head I drew looked too much like Pac Man, so I embraced it. Then I actually tried to draw Nessy and added the castle just for the reference to make sense.

Following this, I wanted to try to draw something else, maybe something the character was looking at. That's what the Chain Chomp looking mother fucker kind of is. I decided to draw shapes on its back to not make it another video game reference and I wanted to draw a cowboy riding it as if it was a horse, so all the shapes on the back kind of look like saddles.

Then I drew that kid saying "MAH!" and then drew his "MAH" and I decided to end it there because she accidentally became the object everyone is looking at in the drawing. All attention is on her.

But while this may seem like a mishmash of thoughts and images, this is how my brain works. But I am learning from this process and the only way to get better at things is to keep doing them. I overcame my own negativity here and was able to semi-accurately display what was going on in my mind and how my mind works at certain times (especially when the Deathly Hallows are involved).

Stay tuned for Part 2/2 where the drawing is entitled: "This World is a Void: or I'm Feeling Self-Destructive".

-Josh Age: 22

Quake pome

There was a quake

'Twas of the earth

And everyone around

Was all like what

The fuck was that

What happened to the ground

Just saying hi.

Checking in. I'm at my parents house in ATL but flying to LA on tuesday!

Not sure what to say. Everything is going according to plan. I'm going to go on this big west coast bike trip. Living with my parents for three weeks has sucked ass. I miss you guys and can't wait to see you next week.

Date Thoughts

As I told you guys, I went on a date yesterday and I’m sure you are all now at the edge of your seats waiting to hear how it went. I figured I would recap it with some of the highlights of the night and then include some retrospective thoughts.

-We saw each other said hi and then first question: “ok, how do you say your name?” Just like I thought. Asked how her day has been and the ride over, which immediately led to a, “how about you? How was your ride?” so I had to explain the whole car situation. I think she was a little bit weirded out but I made amends later on.

-We went bowling at this place called Shatto 39 lanes. The place is freaking huge! There are a bunch of bowling lanes that are still pretty old school so no crazy animations after hitting a strike or the bowling ball magically coming up from under the ground. Fuck I’m pretty sure there were kids working behind the lanes setting up our pins (tried that joke, let’s just say it went in the gutter).

-I was wondering how the whole conversation while playing thing was going to work but it naturally defaulted to both of us standing next to where the balls sit and we would talk in between shots, sometimes for 5-10 mins at a time.

-Had originally bought one game for each but that quickly turned to two. We kept talking and playing (I won both games easily) and after 2 hours it was time to go.  At this point, the conversations were mostly about what we do for work, where we have traveled, and family. Nothing crazy, just getting to know each other’s backgrounds.

-As we are leaving the place, I suggest to go out to dinner. She accepts (strike!). I had looked up a few places around the area and we decided to check out this small Korean bar/restaurant that got really good reviews on Yelp.

-We walk on over, talk and shit until we get to the place. Now the door to this place is wooden and broken down so I was kind of hesistant to go in because sometimes these places can be intimidating to eat in if you are not the right race. She decides to go in to check it out and if it ain’t for us we would leave. We walk in, a waitress immediately asks “How many people?” She responds, “Two” and now we are in for a ride (spare).

-The place was actually really cool looking inside with all wooden bars, chairs, and tables. The walls were covered in doodles and writing by what I’m guessing were previous guests. Very cozy and tight but the whole language barrier was tough at points.

-We wanted beers, but on the menu it only mentioned “small” and “large” without a list to select from. We decided to go with two large beers. The menu was overwhelming with a huge amounts of different plates of which most I didn’t even know.

-It got octopus, she got some ramen. They were both spicy, but mine was very spicy. I had an empty stomach, so the spice combined with the beers (which ended up being pints of hite) was not the greatest mix.

-We get to talking, the food is great, we are having a good time but the waitress never comes back to check on us. The only thing to do was to keep talking.

-I had two kind of stumbles. One was when I made a borderline racist remark about how finally there were a couple of white people joining us at this restaurant. She didn’t hear what I said though but I think the people next to me did. This one guy (I don’t like to stereotype or judge but I’m thinking he was of an Asian race) was just staring at me while the girl was asking me to repeat what I said. I couldn’t repeat what I said with those knives looking at me so all I could say was nevermind.

-Once the fellow stopped looking over, I told her that I said something that didn’t come out the way I planned and couldn’t repeat it because of the people next to us.

-My other stumble happened when I was telling a great story and was getting very animated. My hands were flailing a bit and my right one kind of slammed down on the table. The only thing was that before it hit the table, a chopstick got caught on the way. Simple physics made the sauce covered chopstick fly into the air, spew the sauce on us and land about 5 feet away from our table. I apologized a lot. She was cool.

-Then I learned she smoked (YEY!). We told each other some high stories, some good and some bad. It was all great though. Then somehow the Christmas album came up and she mentioned that she also made a Christmas album with her friends. Wild coincidence! Can’t wait to show her it! 

-After 2.5 hours, I didn’t want to call for the bill and make her fee like I wanted to get the fuck out but I thought it needed to be ended before it got awkward (I think I timed it right) (Hit the 7-9 split).

-Got the bill, paid (it was an expensive date but hopefully it was worth it), and then walked her to her car. Mentioned that I had a good time and we should do this again, we hugged and then she headed out. She also offered a ride, I don’t know if I should have taken it, but I declined (Field goal! (Bowling term)).

Looking back on it: Overall it was a 5+ hour date that went pretty well. Now what I can’t stop thinking about is whether I’ve gotten to the point where I want some sort of relationship with a girl so bad that I’m willing to sacrifice some things for it. Meaning, am I subconsciously just playing a game to win the trophy or am I actually doing this because I’m enjoying the ride. Nam saying? Or are my expectations for a first date way too high and I'm searching for something that is not there? Again, I thought it went great. We got along and everything but I don’t know.

TL:DR: I talked to a girl for a long time (perfect game).

March Poem 05

The day drifts on

And I lie here

Pondering what it is

About a potato

That likens itself

To my unmoving, horizontal laziness

Perhaps its weak, flimsy skin

Covering the soft, puffy blandness 

Within

Perhaps the bloated lumpiness

A potato does sound good right about now

Josh Age 22

I've been thinking about drawing more.

This is my first one in my new sketchbook.

Could this be the one?

For those keeping track at home, I'll be going on a date this saturday at 4pm. I'll be bowling with a girl that I recently met online. This is the third person I'll be going on a date with if you count the one I got stood up on. Wish me luck!