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Sunday, June 16, 2002

Feeling like and Adult

This is an answer to Angela's Question

I know this is not what I thought 30 would look like. Then again, when I was 25 I used to say that all my friends and I had the same flaw, we could not see ourselves five years in the future.

Things that make me feel like an adult:

-Writing checks for my bills every week
-Living on the other side of the country of my family
-Grocery shopping

Thinks that make me feel that I am not being adult enough

-My eatting habits
-The state of my apartment
-living in a studio apartment

As for Jeremy's questions,

What are the new difficulties that one faces in adulthood, and are there (ethical, sustainable) means of surmounting those difficulties?

I am not sure what the new difficulties are. My biggest is problem is getting involved with communites. The exisiting groups I run into do not seem to meet my needs or interests.

Are "alternative lifetyles" more likely to yield happiness than "traditional" lifestyles? If so, what are the difficulties involved with pursuing an alternative lifestyle, and what activities could counteract those difficulties?

I am not sure. Most "alternative lifestyles" work hard to build a self-selecting community within that lifestyle. I am not sure you could classify my life as eithe traditional or alternative right now.

Do adults need play, and does play provide more for an adult than simple regression?

I think that adults need to play more then we admit to. I think there are social aspect to play that we get few other places. I have to admit that sometimes playing leaves me empty and I want something more substaintinal. I guess I should look at the games I am playing.

What is the role of ritual in an adult life? Of learning?

I do not know the answers to either of these. But they are questions I ask myself all the time.

Who are the people who are thinking about these ideas? What are the helpful texts?

The only people I know thinking about this are my friends.

Labels: adult, Angela-la-la, Jerery P Bushnell, QA, Questions

- Rich, 1:00 AM

Sunday, June 09, 2002

The day after the trip

I have wasted most of today. I did get out of bed before 8 AM, but I did not do much with my time. I spent most of the day watching TV. That is the problems with having so many TiVos in my living room. I had too many good things to watch. Television has always been a big time suck with me. I just never seem to get away from it.

I talked with Jeremy on the Phone for a little while. There were a lot of things that I felt on my trip. They are the kinds of things that I usually talk to Jeremy about. I tried to talk about them, but I just could not find the words this time.

There are about a dozen things that I could have done today. I only did unimportant things. I keep on telling myself that I am going make better use of my time. I am just not sure how to do that.

Labels: Jerery P Bushnell, laziness, self, travel

- Rich, 10:20 PM

Wednesday, May 22, 2002

Dreaming the night away and writing the day away

Dreams are an odd thing. Most of the times when someone tells another person their dreams, the listener is just being nice. Most of the time the dream lacks context. The person who had the dream can see a lot more then they can explain.

Like Sand Like Leaves is a dream journal that some of my friends do together. I really like writing about dreams. I like to read dreams also. There has been a lot of action on this journal lately. It is worth checking out again.

Tell me about one of your recent dreams.

Labels: dream, dream journal, Jerery P Bushnell, Like Sand Like Leaves

- Rich, 10:57 PM

Tuesday, January 15, 2002

Live Journal

I have decided to use my Live Journal site as a Dream Diary. I think it is a good way to use that site. Jeremy said that he is thinking about having a group of people use Live Journal sites to start a dream collective. I really like this idea. It gives me something meaningful to put on my Live Journal. I have been having a hard time putting anything meaningful there without keeping things off Sad Salvation.

Labels: dream, dream journal, Jerery P Bushnell, livejournal, sadsalvation

- Rich, 2:13 PM

Saturday, December 29, 2001

More Music

Jeremy saw the entry where I say he is one of my musical influences and my album of the year entry. He sent me his top ten list for 2001.

From his web log he links to the best of the 2001 lists at Othermusic.com. I am happy to say Ben Folds - Rockin' The Suburbs is not on any of their lists.

Labels: 2001, Best of, best of 2001, Jerery P Bushnell, list, music, other music

- Rich, 10:43 AM

Wednesday, December 26, 2001

Musical Influences

When I got back home I found out the Hatboro Music Shop was closing down. The Hatboro Music Shop was one of the big places for me to buy music when I was growing up. Jeremy and I decided to visit the store for what will be the last time. This is a store that Jeremy and I would walk to when we has nothing else to do in the summer.

When we where in store I told Joe, the guy who had run the store for the last 55 years, that the Hatboro Music Shop was one of the greatest musical influences in my life. When people talk about musical influences they only talk about bands. There are a lot more things that shaped me as a music lover then just bands. Bands and records might be the lowest on this list. I bought a hundred records at a record store, that store is a bigger influence then one of those hundred records. It got me think about what things shaped me as a music listener.

Here is an off the top of my head list of my greatest musical influences. They are in no particular order.

Hatboro Music Shop
Repo Records
WMMR
WIXQ
My Family
Jeremy Bushnell
My Duel Tape Boom Box/High school tape swapping
Car Radios
Replacements - Don't Tell A Soul
personal headphones (ie the walkman)

PS. In case you were wondering, Everclear - World Of Noise was the CD I bought on my last visit to the Hatboro Music Shop.

Labels: Hatboro, Hatboro Music Shop, Jerery P Bushnell, list, music, tag overload

- Rich, 11:22 PM

Wednesday, November 28, 2001

Play-station-life

I talked to Jeremy today. One of the topics we talked about was video games. He asked me what I would buy if I was going to buy a game system. I told him that I would buy a Playstation 2. I would choose the Playstation 2 because the number of games it has. It is also backwards compatible with the old PS1 Games. I also like the games that are out for the Playstation 2. This is a topic that I have put some thought into.

He said that he is thinking about buy a video game system because there is a new kind of narrative that is going on with games right now. It is a narrative that he would like to know more about. He wants to know about the stories that are going on inside these games. Games are at a level now that the interface can really give someone the ability to explore that world.

I have stayed away from buying a video game console. It is an idea that pops in my head from time to time, but I have kept myself from buying one. The main reason that I have not bought one is because of time. I have enough ways to waste my time as it is. I never find the time to do a lot of things that I really want to do. If I bought a Playstation 2, it would be one more thing in my life that I could use to waste my time. That is something I should stay away from.

Tonight I went to a story and looked at the Playstation 2 again. I looked at the games, the memory cards, the accessories, and everything I could buy for it. I walked out of the store without buying anything. It almost seems too overwhelming. I have too many choices when I am standing there. There are too many games for me to choose from. I could pick the wrong game and hate it. I could make the wrong decision and waste my money. It is almost too big of a world. I do not know if I want to get involved with it.

The conversation about video games started with something my sister said. She was complaining that parents let their kids be hypnotized by video games. In the long run it hurt the kids ability to concentrate. Video games give so much feed back for every little thing you do. Most things that need concentration and focus give very little feedback. All the time I see kids that are playing Game Boys and not paying attention to their parents. All the kids want to focus on are the games. I wonder if it is any different then drugging the kids.

I play the game Civilization on my PC. Time just blows by me when I play this game. I loose any kind of touch with the outside world. I know that when I am done playing the game I cannot focus on anything. The game is still running in my head. I have to concentrate less just to get the game out of my head.

There is still a chance that I will buy a Playstation 2. I will have to see how I feel in the weeks ahead. I know that I should not buy it, but that has not stopped me in the past.

Labels: game, Jerery P Bushnell, Playstation, video game

- Rich, 10:20 PM

Thursday, November 22, 2001

Thankful

My friend Jeremy asked a group of us to come up with a list of a hundred things that we are thankful for. Going back to high school Jeremy started lists of 100 Favorite Things. It is something that we have been doing ever since.

Jeremy asked us to make a list of the 100 Things we are most thankful for. I see my Favorite things and my Thankful things to be two different lists. Jeremy does not see it that way. I do not want to be trivial about thinks that I am thankful for. I think there is a problem with people who thank God for ever little thing. I am seeing that the same way. The 100 Favorite Things list will have to come later.

Here is the list of things I am thankful for:

Family, My Job, Friends, worldwide communication, place to live, my mind, my health, sense of humor, the time I am living in, people that care about me, my comptuer, the people I work with, chances I have, my view of the world, my sense of the world, laughter, my car, Enjoying the company I work for, living in America, my background, the Bill of Rights, Coast to Coast air travel, My Parents, Being Missed by my friends, my life to this point,

Labels: 100 favorite things, Jerery P Bushnell, list, meme, tag overload, thankful, Thanksgiving

- Rich, 12:09 AM

Tuesday, October 23, 2001

Do I Pray? Part One - History of my Faith

While I was in Chicago Jeremy asked me If I pray. He was asking because he has been praying lately. It is kind of odd. Another part of this trip Jeremy described himself as a "Militant Agnostic." He said that even if there is no God, he can get something out of praying. He can hear a voice while he prays. He thinks it is his internal voice of God. I think I understand it, but I might not be describing this correctly. You can ask him if you like.

It means something that he asked me this. Jeremy knows as much about my life as anyone in the world. I might have to fill everyone else in on this. I was raised Catholic. I come from a long line of Catholics and it was important to my parents to bring me up in the faith. We went to mass every week. I went to public school. That means I spent my Tuesdays in CCD for during my school age years.

In college I stopped going to Church. I never got into the Church Scene at college. I had a lot of Catholic friends in college, but I did not feel anything for church at the time. I stopped taking comfort in the mass. I still considered myself Catholic, but I was moving further away from the Church. I did not see the glory of God in listening to a Priest every Sunday. About this time most of my friends who went to Catholic School also started to reject the church also.

When I got out of college I started to go to church more often. For a while I would go about every other weekend. I felt that I did not have much faith. I believed in God, but I was unsure about the word of God. I would see a lot of people around me who seemed to have a lot of faith. They seemed to get comfort from their faith. I could never seem to find that.

There are other things that made me start feeling apart from the church also. I agree with the Catholic Church's stance about abortion, the death penalty, and sex before marriage. I do not agree with the church about homosexuality, woman priests, and general ideas about sexuality. I would sit in a church and listen to the homily. I would feel that I agreed with nothing the priest was saying.

In this time I also became bothered by way other Christians treated Christianity. I would see bumper stickers that say "Christ died for your sins" and I would wonder if those people missed the lessons of Christ's Life. I wonder if these people turn the other cheek or if love they enemy. All over the place people abuse the idea of religion. I know is should not effect me, but it did.

I have an image of God in my head, but it is not of him micro-managing my life. I used to work with a woman who would thank God for every little thing. She would thank God for getting to work safely everyday. She would thank God not having car problems. I can see the idea that God has a plan for everyone, but I do not see got running people's lives down to the smallest details. To me that would take out the whole idea of free will.

When I moved to Portland I really stopped going to church. I went to church a couple of times, but I really felt out of place. I kept on telling myself that I wanted to go, but I would get around to it. I have not gone to Church since I moved to San Jose. Currently I live six blocks from the Cathedral Basilica of St. Joseph, but I never go there.

In the past six months I read a lot about Islam. There was something that caught my eye on the web one day and I kept on reading about it. For about three months, everyday I spent about an hour reading storied about people who converted to Islam. I was not sure if the religion interested me or it was the stories about people finding something that transforms them. The people in these conversation stories seem to radically change their lives. Both the ideas of finding religion and transforming seem equally as powerful. There was something that bothered me about Islam. I have put those ideas down for now, but they still linger somewhere in my mind.

Right now I can say I believe in God. There are too many things that point me to God's existence. If I am asked about my religion, I will say that I was raised Catholic. I do not know if I am still Catholic or not. I am not really sure about my faith. I will say that I pray. I will address the idea of prayer in part two of this post. It I do not break it up, I will be up until dawn writing about it.

Labels: catholic, CCD, faith, Islam, Jerery P Bushnell, prayer, religion, self

- Rich, 10:32 PM

Wednesday, October 17, 2001

Lots of things to write about

I feel that I will be writing about things from this trip for months to come. I did not so a lot of activities, but Jeremy and I talked a lot. Those conversations are things that give my mind something to think about. I know that subjects from these conversations will be coming up for weeks to come. Some of the conversations where just little seeds that will bloom later. I hope that no one reading this will be bothered by that.

Labels: Chicago, conversation, Jerery P Bushnell, vacation

- Rich, 7:56 PM

Back From Vacation in Chicago

Today I am going back to work. My vacation is over and I have to go back to the grind.

Last night, right before I went to sleep, I realized I had a good vacation. As I was laying down in my bed I felt like I did not remember what it is like to wake up for work. It felt like sleeping in my bed was almost an unfamiliar experience. Intellectually I knew was just getting back to my life. It was my physical memory that felt different.

There is part of me that did not want to come back to San Jose. It would have been nice if I would have been able to stay on vacation forever. It would be nice if I did not have to work and I had all the money I needed. I know that I am a long way away from that ever happening. I knew that too much of my life is in San Jose. I do not have the kind of support system that would allow me just to leave here and never come back.

I will have to see how long it takes me to get back into the swing of things at work. I know I only took five days off. It feels much longer then that. I think that I really emotionally escaped my job while I was in Chicago. I did not think about any of the day to day parts of my job. It might be next week before I am back in the swing of things.

I might be getting back into work before I get there. Last night I had a dream about TiVo's Evangelist, Richard Bullwinkle. I do not remember anything about the dream. I just know that he was in the dream.

Labels: Chicago, Jerery P Bushnell, San Jose, travel, vacation, work

- Rich, 6:31 AM

Monday, October 15, 2001

Meeting Jeremy's Girlfriend

I finally got to meet Kat tonight. I "met" here for a few minutes on Friday, but it was only for a few minutes. Last night Jeremy, Kat, and I had dinner together. I have know about Kat for a long time, but I have never met her before. She has been dating Jeremy for more then two years now.

Kat had been described to me as a Communist. She is a part-time union organizer. She described herself as left-of-liberal. I am on the other hand of the political spectrum. I am not a total right wing nut, but I am a card carrying republican. I voted for George Bush, Bob Dole and George W. Bush. I can say that we have different points of view on the world.

Kat looked just as I expected her to look. She has long dark hair, glasses and a sly smile. Jeremy had described her to me and she looked that way. I was surprised that she was so close to my mental image. People are never that close to your mental image of them.

The odd part was that she did not act anything like the way I expected her to act. I was expecting her to be more mysterious. My mental image was someone that was a few mental steps in front of everyone else in the room. I expected someone that was cynical and hard to the world. I guess I expecting a old goth girl that how grown up.

Kat is a much more cheery person then I expected. She seemed to be the kind of person who almost bubbling over most of the time. It is hard for me to describe her without it sounding like I am making fun of her. I am not trying to make fun of her. She seemed like the kind of woman still likes stuffed animals.

I think I understand what Jeremy sees in her. She does not seem like an easy woman to understand. Jeremy said that he has had two types of girl friends in his life, the Smiths fan and the stuffed animal fan. He thinks that Kat is in both groups. I can see why Jeremy likes this.

Labels: Jerery P Bushnell, kat, relationship, vacation

- Rich, 10:46 PM

Sunday, October 14, 2001

Chicago Style Pizza

Tonight Jeremy and I went out for Chicago Style Pizza. Going out for Pizza with Jeremy is one thing that we have been doing for a long time. In the past we would go to Giuseppe's and figure out our lives. Our lives are not that simple anymore. We cannot figure them out over a pizza.

Our waitress was a woman from Brazil. We flirted with her a little. We also flirted with the waitress when we want to dinner my first night in town. There so something that makes it easy to flirt with a waitress when you are with another guy. If you are alone, it is hard to flirt with a waitress because you are a little too scary. It you do it when you are with a woman, you are sleaze.

I cannot try to figure out all the different topics we talked about. Going out for pizza is nothing really worth writing about, but it is just the reason I am having a good vacation. It is nice just to get the chance to hang out. It is nice to be here and it is nice to be with Jeremy. I miss the kind of time that we have together this week.

Labels: Chicago, flirting, Jerery P Bushnell, pizza, vacation

- Rich, 11:27 PM

Thursday, October 11, 2001

Notes from the Road

I am currently in Chicago staying with Jeremy. I have been here for the last two days. One of the things that we have been talking about is relationships. It is a subject that both Jeremy and I like to talk about. I gave him my mundane tale of my love live a year to date. It was not a very exciting story.

I have also been reading the End of Summer Party web log. The people on the End of Summer Web log and my romantic life have been bumping around in my head. That is a pretty bad combination. They jogged a couple of ideas loose in my head.

I was thinking about the New Years Eve party where Chris kissed me. I really liked that kiss. She kissed me a couple of times when we were in college. She was a very good kisser.

This made me think about the last time I kissed a woman. I have lived on the west coast for three years now. In that time I know that I have not kissed any women. I have only had one date in all of that time. That date ended up going nowhere.

I have to think to beyond those three years. I cannot remember the date of the last time I kissed a woman. I know it had to be before March of 1998. In March of 1998 I knew that I was going to move that year. I knew that I did not want to add any attachments to my life.

I think the last time I kissed a woman was the summer of 1997. I had a face to face meeting with a woman I met on the internet. We had dinner at the King of Prussia Mall in suburban Philadelphia. After dinner I walked her to her car. She kissed me. I felt as if I did a bad job kissing her. I was very nervous about meeting her. I must have been right. She never called me again.

Labels: blog, Chicago, Chris Wass, End of Summer Party, Jerery P Bushnell, kissing, relationship, tag overload, travel, travel notes

- Rich, 6:58 PM

Tuesday, October 09, 2001

Trip to Chicago

I am off to Chicago tomorrow. It is the first vacation that I have taken in more then a year. I am really looking forward to it. I will be staying with my friend Jeremy. Jeremy has been my best friend since high school. I am not sure if I am his "best friend," but I can say that our relationship is enduring. I can say that he knows me as well as any person in the world. I can also say that he and I connect at a level that never seems to diminish.

There is one thing that worries me. It seems that my personal concerns are the same personal concerns that I have had for the last six years. I do not know if I am doing the right thing with my life. I feel isolated from people. I do not have relationships with women. I do not know what direction my life is going. I could go back to 1997 and these would be the same things I would be talking about.

I am not sure if this has worried me in the past. It worries me now. I am worried that I am not developing. I am worried that my life is not going anywhere. When I was moving out west the big cloud hanging over my head was that I was not going to address any of the problems I was having. I was just going to change the zip code where those problems resided. While moving out west helped me become more independent, I do not think it answered all my problems.

I have to find a way to not treat Jeremy like a therapist while I am out there. I am afraid that I will keep on talking about the things in my life that I do not like. I feel this would be a big problem. I would be dumping too much on Jeremy. On some level I feel that he is one of the few people I can be really open with. He is someone who really understands me. On another level I feel that I abusing him as a friend.

I will have to see how this works out.

Labels: Chicago, Jerery P Bushnell, travel

- Rich, 11:11 PM

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