As I read books I fold the top corners of any pages that contain words that move me.  Usually it’s something profound, or a line that resonates with what is going on in my life.  Sometimes it’s only relevant in the moment. Like a line about a strangers outstanding beauty, which I read while at the beach and a stranger with outstanding beauty happens to walk by.  Sometimes it is relevant to larger life questions/ethical-decisions/pursuits. Sometimes it’s just clever word-play.

Once I have finished the book, I go back through the dog-eared pages and read them again. I decided that I wouldn’t capture the quotations that I liked as I was reading so that my reading wasn’t interrupted and so that there was some form of quality-assurance. I find that I am unable to identify the quote on about half the dog-eared pages that I originally thought warranted the dog-earring. The ones that survive the QA process make it into a Google Spreadsheet document that I’ve been keeping.  It documents the book, author, copyright date, chapter, page and of course the quotation itself. Every now and then (usually when I go to add a quotation to the document), I like to read through all the quotations that have made the cut. More importantly, all the quotations that have made an impact.

I love learning new things, and reading helps me to do that. I love reading that others have shared my feelings or thoughts before me (and have been clever enough to juice their mind grapes into written word). I love hearing stories about long ago, the future, and even the present. But mostly, I love being moved. I love music for those few songs that move me, and I love reading for those few lines (sometimes there are only one or two in a book) that move me. So naturally, I enjoy a collection of those lines, in a single Google Document. A spread-sheeted validation of my emotions, of my belonging, of my existence.

I often wonder while reading the quotes I have chosen to capture whether or not someone else would have chosen the same ones. By reading the lines from a book that moved me the most, could that give others insight into who I am and how to better emotionally invest in me, or at least how I invest emotionally in the world around me? I’m not sure. Maybe one day I’ll enjoy finding out. Until then, I’d like to leave you with a quote that I recently read. I won’t tell you who said it, or where it’s from, because the words themselves are significant enough to me without any greater context (other than my own life).

“Woman, you have lived! Did you think you could get through life with only scratches? That is not living. It’s hiding.”

In the spirit of trying something new, I’ll give this idea a shot.  Bare (your soul) with me and let me know if you liked it.

This my excavation and today is kumran
Everything that happens is from now on
This is pouring rain
This is paralyzed

I am not sure if it’s the changing of seasons, or the new incumbent in the Oval Office, or the economy, but every one’s got the bug.  I think all the hype around ‘change’ this past year got everyone excited, and since ‘changing’ political climates isn’t something that is done overnight (or even over the course of a 4/8 year term), people are looking for immediate change more locally.  I don’t mean in the grab a garbage bag and pick up trash around your neighborhood kind of way. I mean internally.  I know I am. Everything that happens is from now on, and it can be as you want it to be.

I keep throwing it down two-hundred at a time
It’s hard to find it when you knew it
When your money’s gone
And you’re drunk as hell

I keep meaning to put more into certain things in my life, and less into others.  And there’s only so many times you can say or hear it until you want to vomit (think the Shania story in I Heart Huckabees), until you have no choice but to sick up on your shoes or to do it. Nothing was missing, it was so obvious all along, but it’s hard to find it when you knew it already. We often don’t see what’s right in front of us.

On your back with your racks as the stacks as your load
In the back and the racks and the stacks are your load
In the back with your racks and you’re un-stacking your load

It’s funny how that works.  Do we resist because it’s a commitment, or do we commit because we look forward to resisting? Another classic case of the chicken and the egg.  Or the me and the shotgun that shot the rooster that the neighbors recently acquired, as it were.  The only thing that has kept it alive this long is the fact that I’ve been up before it on most of the days it decides to create a ruckus.

I’ve twisting to the sun I needed to replace
The fountain in the front yard is rusted out
All my love was down
In a frozen ground

I don’t care how warm you think 62 degrees is, you are wrong.  I know its -10, or 29 and sleeting where you are, but I’m wearing two pairs of socks, pants, a long sleeved shirt and a hoodie and I cant feel my toes.  I have no insulation, the hut walls are made from glorified cardboard, and the windows are small glass slats that don’t close fully.  The wind picks up, and it feels like winter, like I’m standing in a frozen ground waiting to be set ablaze so that I can feel all ten of my toes once more.

There’s a black crow sitting across from me; his wiry legs are crossed
And he’s dangling my keys he even fakes a toss
Whatever could it be
That has brought me to this loss?

I love my friends because they know how to hate me.  I realize that may sound weird, but that’s only because it should.  They taunt me not to feel better about themselves, but so that I feel better about myself.  Don’t try this tactic on your friends, because I’m fairly certain it only works on narcissists. Whatever could it be that makes this work? I’m not sure, but it does.  I guess you can only feel so bad, or be made to feel so bad about something for so long or to a certain point before you sick up on your shoes, or do something different. Your reminder that you refuse to settle. Not because you say so, but because you live so.

On your back with your racks as the stacks as your load
In the back and the racks and the stacks of your load
In the back with your racks and you’re un-stacking your load

Then in a familiar place again, a place where you spend all your time, you find or see something new. Whether it be the downstairs mix-up at Greg’s place, a new friend on Twitter, or a foot-long tear in the sheets in your bed.  As Shiraki would say, ‘the same, but different’.

This is not the sound of a new man or crispy realization
It’s the sound of the unlocking and the lift away
Your love will be
Safe with me

This is not the sound of a new man or crispy realization, they are old and tired ideas, and some played out like a Back Street Boys song in the 90’s.  They are persistent however.  If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it? Fuck no.  If it ain’t broke, break it, then build it back up better. I have so much to share, and so little need to share it.  You have so many secrets, and they are safe with me.

So much of what I capture on this here blog is on the fly and in real time.  I don’t label each post ‘Live Blogging My Brain #’s 1-87′ because those are pretty boring and non-descriptive titles.  Also, not every single post of mine is on the fly, and using a naming convention that would occasionally be broken would only serve to wreak havoc on my OCD governed brain.

When I’m not in front of my computer and I have one of these moments where I am moved by a beat in a song, or a dust particle in front of my eye, my brain doesn’t particularly care to remember whether or not at the time of these synapse firings my fingers were working so diligently to capture their every nuance. It still happens just the same.  But if a tree falls in the my brain and my fingers aren’t there to capture it, does it make a blog post? I won’t bother using spoiler tags: It doesn’t.

Thus, for every blog post I do write, I’ve lost seven (statistical data pulled from studies done at the Institute of I Just Made This Number Up).  Which could be translated to only one day of your week is it worth getting out of bed.  Maybe not, I wasn’t always the best at maths.  Regardless, I just wrote a blog post about not writing blog posts. I know what you are thinking you trendy little hipster,  so ‘meta’ or ‘ironic’ or ‘funny’ or whatever incorrectly used cool word you wanna call it.

Where this post will end in the next two paragraphs, I never really know.  I don’t like to the know the endings of things before I read/watch them, and my own blog posts are no different.  I really do like them to be as big a mystery to me as they are to the reader.  Now here’s my breakaway.  If I’m busy doing other things when these moments occur, so much so that only 1/7 of them get captured accurately in real-time, then I must ask myself what I’m doing from day-to-day and minute-to-minute to allow for such a colossal loss of raw mental download.

And finally, here’s your takeaway. Sleep is overrated.  Sex is oversold.  Jobs are for losing. Dreams are for chasing.  Do way more of what you want to be doing. Do absolutely none of what you don’t want to be doing. You will never have enough money.  You will never have enough time. You will not get another chance.  You will only happen once.