and i've, never been so alive*

autumn makes everything alright. not sure why exactly that is, but...no matter. it does.
the hill outside of matches' deck reminds him of aspen. colorado, colorado. everything feels like colorado; why is it that everything must reference that which already was? certainly there are groundbreakings...but still. is this the danger of growing up? are things less and less 'new'? but just now, that was new. same as it ever was.
need some artwork for the ol' room! suggestions are welcome. little tired of seeing the same old walls, though the room may shift through states.

"Please beware of them that stare
They'll only smile to see you while
Your time away
And once you've seen what they have been
To win the earth just won't seem worth
Your night or your day
Who'll hear what I say.
Look around you find the ground
Is not so far from where you are
But not too wise
For down below they never grow
They're always tired and charms are hired
From out of their eyes
Never surprise.

Take your time and you'll be fine
And say a prayer for people there
Who live on the floor
And if you see what's meant to be
Don't name the day or try to say
It happened before.

Don't be shy you learn to fly
And see the sun when day is done
If only you see
Just what you are beneath a star
That came to stay one rainy day
In autumn for free
Yes, be what you'll be."
~nick drake - "things behind the sun"

and so, matches will be, what he will be. it's so endless and difficult to sculpt one's self...to constantly whittle away, honing and refining, in hope of making a more promising end product. don't get him wrong...he is still going to try to achieve, and to be the best person that he can be (or believe in). but, these things should happen of a harmonious accord; they should be natural intimations and instincts, instead of the dried and prying conscience of guilt that assaults one when time is slipping away unremarkable. he will be more self-reliant, instead of looking outside of himself for purpose and promises. m has an inkling that everything he needs in life is cloaked within himself, it is a matter of finding the passageways and obtaining the sight in dark places...finding the ability to allow consciousness an exit from the maze of being, with a shining star to guide it. the trick is that the star was always inside, not remote; it is both outside and in. and how would you expect to recognize it, if you hadn't danced and played with its children, learned to recite their names?

had you there for a moment. because a cold saying, a bland recitation (who ever imagined associating the word 'vanilla' with blandness, thesaurus? you think too lowly of one of matches' favorite flavors~ henceforth will feel no itching remorse for dog-earing your pages and pages and again, pages)...these things do not capture the spirit of an object. once you truly know someone (however possible that may be), it feels fumbling and awkward to refer to them by their names. how could matches say colin's name, in a conversation with him? colin has expanded far beyond the borders of a mere name. what's most funny about that situation is, people love to hear their own names. how glorious to be remembered! how appreciable to experience someone regarding you directly. it is quite charming when someone you have known for a thousand moons still calls you by your name every so often, in solitary dialogue. what a singular and simple, and intimate, pleasure. and at the same time, how ridiculous...are you still to be lassoed by a string of so few letters? has your known self not exploded beyond the means of the alphabet to this person? how loving, and yet how cursory.
perhaps if matches had a more melodious moniker.

but somehow, that was precisely the point. and yet not. question mark. to name something, to acknowledge that star of guidance lends a deep intimacy and tangibility to the world. but what if the world is not meant to be held on to? what if containing something within your hand, within your sight, within your thought, is the deepest of injustices? how then do we apprehend this "life" that sneaks to the side of our beds while we slumber, and wakes us, with the slightest of caresses, to a new day? how do we box yesterday, and put it behind us?

how do we do this?
gotta keep trying. and the beat keeps runnin, runnin, runnin, runnin, runnin, runnin, runnin,

* - actual results may vary

where is your sunlight?

matches' is bottled up somewheres unbeknownst. have you ever noticed how explosive things become under the right lighting conditions? they flicker with new dimensions and enthusiasms. they pounce off the page, like a pop-up book with something to prove. a short while ago matches was wandering through a jungle-ravine, enjoying the pillars of light crashing down through the canopy. the willowing paths of the falling leaves spiral-sliced through them, down, down (always in a state of return, this 'nature'), and flared against the darkening sky like strands of chinese lanterns. it was the calmest of storms; the most pristine chaos. but the wedges of forest that were too thickened for the sunlight to nestle into, they became two-dimensional...framed and frozen. light is what lends things their motion....any techno club will speak to this phenomenon. only a few souls would dare dance in the dark, the pitch-black, and it is because they carry lamps within. sunlight is warm, purring and primal, and the gradual shading of it only serves to accentuate the times and places when beams beacon-like through the darkness. matches' best example is the rose bush in 'the secret of nimh'. remember?

"in the right light, at the right time, everything is extraordinary."
~ aaron rose

on another note, mattress was last seen smiling straight through a streetcar ride. kids always have the ability to amaze; in this case it was an entire collection of them variably wearing renditions of business casual, a sweater-vest, and an indiana jones-esque jacket and hat. not to mention the smallest, who probably barely could recreate the sounds to make two distinct words, but managed to say "bye!" (or "buh!", whichever it was) to everyone leaving the train. the tall one with the collar and tie sounded like quite the little botanist, with his ramblings about the tomatoes, cucumbers, and potatoes all growing on his windowsill. not to mention that when the streetcar first turned the corner for approach, sweater-vest said "it's a green one, exactly as i said it was going to be!" perhaps m is the only one who finds that charming. but that's okay.

a raccoon for you, to complement the random nature of this post.

gingerbread season

where is home?
is home a precious territory, bound by walls? is it also a yard, a street, a city? does it vary depending upon the place, upon the person? is it an origin, a belonging; is there some magnetism that pulls us toward it? does matches then belong at the center of the earth, on the basis that he is relentlessly pulled towards it? what if there is some obstruction, some hard thing in the way that stops this natural persuasion, this tendency downward? can that be considered meant to be, such that he can become complacent where he is sitting now...this chair and this ground existing as he does, with feeble and also intricate attempts at composing purpose? or should he be grabbing a shovel just this very moment and spading his way towards the earth's core? it is a valid feeling, this gravity...it is inescapable. it is a feeling much like the longing for home; it wrenches the stomach sideways and pangs with fear when one rebels against it. but since we speak of physicality, let us imagine matches breaking free of his orbital relationship with the planet (hereby you are implored to imagine this, with all dues paid to comedy and terror). free from its both gentle and generous tussles and tugs. this is conceivable at the moment...so it must not be like the longing for home, which ever aches in some remote corner.

is home then a feeling wrapped in both hands; a mug that is filled with steaming peacefulness and carried around to chase off the cold? it does seem like this feeling arises most often when the turbulences and frosts of the world spill or chill our spirits, so perhaps that is more spot on. closer to home, as it were. cringe. this is a troubling admission, though...because if home really is more of a feeling than a physical place, then home is nowhere. how discouraging~ but also everywhere; how uplifting! yet sadly, the nowhere seems in this occasion to obscure the everywhere. at least if a fixed point of home were to exist, it would be no logic puzzle, no soul-seeking to decipher the presence or absence of the feeling. the remedy would be swift, and if not, at least tenable. matches submits that there is no academic buzzword more open to complication than the word 'feeling'. this is troubling territory, if we want to get anywhere, which it should be assumed we do. or perhaps m is alone in his journey to forge a ring of steel. no matter~

if home is a feeling, then what is to stop it from being accessible at any time, in any place? how comforting that would be, and also, how disturbing. what could shatters one's western conceptions of life more than to hear that every place is just as special as another? how is it that matches comes by such unrest, living in different places? clearly there is more to the equation than some fickle neuron-switching...there are elements of home, brushstrokes and arpeggios, that swirl the sediments of life into a content clamor. for one can never be content without movement...and while that may seem in direct contradiction to the ideal of a home, it is moreso because there is a great deal of misunderstanding involved within that concept.

"and i tell you, one must have chaos in oneself in order to give birth to a dancing star."
~ nietzsche

ah, matches despises quoting foreign authors, for what justice has the translation done to their words or their intentions? it cannot be told. but what can be said of a home? time cracks and shatters all ideas about what it may have been. it exists in the past, on some separate frequency. matches is just having trouble transposing this tune into the present~ home can be found...it exists just as it did previously, in feelings. it may not be as potent as it once was, surrounded by familiarities and family members, friends and futures. but matches believes that we can nurture the elements of home by making them foremost in our lives...surround yourself with good friends, love, curiosities and interests, passions and ponderances. heirlooms of the heart; these things are not to be sold for any price. they are age-old patchwork quilts, with warmth beyond the capacities of technology. think merely of the first, and already the world looks a bit brighter, a sliver more snug and inviting~

"one may have a blazing hearth in one's soul and yet no one ever come to sit by it. passersby see only a wisp of smoke from the chimney and continue on the way."
~ vincent van gogh

apple cores

matches' sincerest apologies for the delay in postings...spent a weekend in seattle free from the ball-and-chain of computer access, and have been otherwise occupied since returning. autumn is in full swing now, like a rockies bat (rimshot sound effect; use your imagination~), and it feels refreshing. m's favorite month could be said to be composed of the last 15 days of september and the first 15 of october, but those digits are by colorado standards. apparently on the most western of coasts, things taffy themselves out a bit longer and with more suspense. though the leaves have been tinting and falling, the real feel of autumn has only more recently ripened. these seasons, they are spaced brilliantly...somewhere between remembrance and reality. they show up again just moments after you've managed to uproot yourself from their last performance.

"she says she has no time
for you now

so think about the lonely people
then think about the day she found you
or lie to yourself
and see it all dissolve around you"
~ keane - "she has no time"

what an atmosphere that song creates. trust. trust trust. do we trust? could we, should we; have we, will we? trust is quite possibly the most important element of a relationship. without it, there cannot be anything. well, something, but probably not anything worth having. when it comes to human relationships, there is no way to avoid having expectations. it's difficult to do on an activity to activity basis (aw, stood up for a date), but even moreso for affectations and emotional involvements. downright impossible. if you know someone as a friend for multiple years, you expect them to be a friend the next time you see them. there's no room for drastically chromatic mood-ring changes; we need stability in our connections. to be let down is a terrible, jarring experience; it shakes the foundations of trust and it severs bridges of communication.

for every turned phrase or shared expression between two people, there are a thousand unspoken and unseen tremors beneath the surface. a sentence traveling between two minds plays out a vast psychology of chutes & ladders; it is weighed, balanced, and judged. it alights upon fingers like a fluttering butterfly, or it is repelled by a formed phalanx of shields. the spectrum in between is dizzyingly inarticulate in its nature, and it is meant for feeling, not speaking.

and so it goes; we fly through jungles of communication with a strange sense of botany dictating to us our perceptions about the trees. we carve our names into them; we make them our own. we form conviction, and with conviction, feigned understanding and expectation. the problem is that the trees are deeper than we know or can see...they have an entire biology beyond merely what their appearances, scents, textures, and medicinal properties tell us. unless we come to understand this fundamental biology (which, in the case of this abstraction, is quite impossible), the trees will always maintain a measure of distance, and the ability to always surprise us with something new.

discord comes; trust is shattered. how do we pick up the pieces? are the broken doomed to be left so sharp that they cut the fabric of the world around them? is there no way to repair? can love not mend this rift, so obviously separated? is this lack of trust not merely a misunderstanding; a hardness that so far refuses to be broken up?

"trust only movement. life happens at the level of events, not of words. trust movement."
~ alfred adler

m is in full agreement with adler...words cannot do. will not do. words are phantoms without something real to anchor themselves on; they are fictions conjured by an imagination. as saul williams once said, though the quote may be massacred - fictions can lead to futures. people can make them into realities, but it takes a strong will and the courage to follow through. what does your soul look like? you're the one who produces its impressions, its ripples in the world. you're the only one who can possibly know. everyone else has no choice but to assume your authenticity, to believe that you act consciously...to trust you, to be yourself.

matches wants to believe. but hopes and beliefs are two quite different things.

pocket pocket

have you ever wondered about the information that is encapsulated in the spaces that we stroll through? just received a text message, which means that split-seconds ago the information was crashing its way through the air right in front of matches' face. it didn't leave much of a scent, though the context of the message was food (on some level). he is imagining that it would have been a blueberry tang latticing its way through the labyrinth of molecular structures~

but that's just it...there is so much that goes unnoticed and unregarded. we have no faculties for this perception, and perhaps it is just as well. radio wouldn't exactly work if we had sixty stations smashing together simultaneously like pots and pans between our ears. have you ever listened to a song on headphones (radiohead frequently does this) where the sound gradually sunsets from one side and rises in the other? there is a moment of precise equilibrium in there somewhere, where you can feel the focus of the noise buzzing in a specific place inside your head. it feels like a brain-itch; one of those difficult ones much like on the bottom of the foot when you have shoes on. you shift and shuffle, and it seems not to alleviate it but rather to aggravate~ that is probably what it would feel like today if we suddenly acquired fluency in radio frequencies...a spinning top cleaving its way through your mind, ever shifting and inescapable.
there are other ways in which space absorbs more information than is typical. reflections often serve as a window, giving a two-dimensional frame a depth and a picture that is entirely not its own. antimatter personally is an avid fan of people-watching, and he often observes the gallery of people biding their time on buses by way of the shadowy carbon-copies in the pane of glass next to his seat. sneaky sneaky. but the point is that in this way, a wafer of space receives an entire scene of information that didn't belong to it at any other moment. what is even more interesting is that it takes a conscious perception to pick up on this (anyone knows the properties of light, and notices that when they sway side-to-side, the reflection does as well).

this is useful because it helps us to realize how powerful our minds are in projecting and receiving this information, regardless of circumstance. will go more into that in a second, but for a practical application....next time you are playing pool and a bank-shot is necessitated, visualize in your mind the reflection of the table, right next to it, as if a pane of glass were placed right at the banking wall, or as if the table were folded over like a book being opened. aim for where you see the reflected pocket, and your shot will be true. just remember to also be a good striker and avoid putting any english on the sides ; )

the last bit of information for mattress to touch upon is the shading of emotions and thoughts upon everyday toasters and tables. the mind's eye is a chimera, and moods play an immense role upon what we think. memories can tint even the most innocuous little item. one sees something, anything, and a bolt zigzags its way through the corridors of the brain, lighting up a thousand tiny rooms with pictures, people and subliminal clutter. keeping these things down barely seems worth the effort, it can be so exhausting; objectivity is one of the most difficult riddles. in the end, you must be yourself when existing, when observing, when attributing and imagining. if anything can be learned from the profound philosophies of the whack-a-mole arcade game, it is that nothing can be gained from suppression except a momentary repose and a few tickets to be exchanged for cheap plastic frogs. but then, even cheap plastic frogs have value to some people~ cheap is in the eye of the beholder. but you know who you are, and that has more to do with the memory than the momentary charm, doesn't it? perhaps they are the same thing. regardless, it comes catapulting back when you least expect it. and that has made all the difference.

"what have I got in my pocket?
not fair! it isn’t fair, my precious, is it, to ask us what its got in its nassty little pocketses?"
~ tolkien, "the hobbit"

smoke & mirrors

Mobile post sent by thievedrelic using Utterz. Replies.

that's where the magic happens~ and additionally, it was taken at a tea shop that can (finally) hold a candle to trident. so it's got that going for it. which is nice.

why do the leaves change colors so dramatically? from the top down? is it a lack of water, and the closest to the roots retain their verdure longer? is it the sun, crackling and crisping the canopy first, then working its way downward? whatever the case, its clear that they are drained, detached, then spun to the ground to be trodden upon and crumbled.

"resolution is the aftermath of that which could not be defined
hanging on a cliff with no options but to die, rewind or recline...
resolution is the fire in the sky left by a phoenix rising.
a caged bird lost, but still free,
flying over a treacherous sea with no effort; gliding.
resolution is the thought you cannot contain
when city lights turn to magnificent heights
and release has no echo of pain.
resolution hinges on a breath, that passes as quickly as an untangled life."
~ souls of mischief - "phoenix rising"

is matches supposed to pick some fruit from the leaves? is it some large-scale cyclical metaphor for why death is beautiful? it's not too difficult to shake the sadness from autumn, because you know somehow that spring is still curling its way around the globe; that it inevitably returns. it's difficult to be so complacent about death in general...or perhaps it is the generality that is easier to swallow, and the specific instance that is venomous. but then, maybe it isn't a metaphor at all. m supposes that assumes a lot more details about existence than he should be granting most of his readers' opinions.
let's set the whole leaf thing aside, because m isn't really certain where he was going with that.

this weekend was one of the most amazing sets of days that matches has ever experienced. to save space and patience, the chronological sequence of events will be omitted. a good primer (the best, usually) would just be the facts, the bones of the structure. monday prior, reilly called up matches and invited him to a beach house in pacific city. of the seven cats going to the house, matches knew two quite well, one marginally well, and three not even by reputation until said phone call. necessary preparations were made, and matches and chris were scooped up en route from seattle to the beach. the next day, three more people whose existence matches was oblivious to before the weekend showed up. that's quite a count by any metrics.
what mattress wants to sieve out from the entire experience, though, is why it was any more spectacular (and it was) than the average day in the life? he wants to trace and stare at the surface of this nautilus until some pattern emerges which prescribes the elements of an adventure.

one. the combination of the company. this mix creates a very interesting space for the mind to squeeze into...seven unknowns and a handful of true friends is a motley crew any way you look at it. on the one hand, you have the few people with whom you have a wealth of experiences...shared moments, inside jokes, automatic comfort zones. these people bring out sides of you that you know well, or dig up lost fragments that had slipped into subconsciousness and can be speculated upon with new revolutions. you have parts of these people composing you, and they have similar grains from your mind arching through their existence. on the other hand, you have the immutable clashes of identity with the new people...the edging and blending of worlds, the probing and receptive exchange of word and thought. there is something special about meeting new people, some playfulness and freedom that lets us soar above ourselves and redefine however we choose the lines of our personalities. there is some enrichment that people feel from having experienced the conscious presence of one another. it's like a long-rusted attic window finally thrown open...the dust is stirred, carried away; a new life is breathed into the room. matches thinks that perhaps this feeling is what most authors strive for...the hello, nice to meet you; the dusting off of the book cover and the introduction to a mind long gone, but still somehow present and persuasive.
the only problem with meeting new people whilst in the company of old friends, is that the latter will call you out for using old jokes and staple tendencies on these newcomers who have yet to associate you with such seemingly-spontaneous cleverness : )

two. all this is bound together like a cord of firewood by the cabin, the weekend away from it all. for some reason we are unable to let the world and our humanity be binding factors every day of our lives...we snub coworkers and create a polished persona separate and guarded. perhaps there are just too many people to allow a universal acknowledgment....we don't have the time for everyone on a single bus, let alone an entire city, nation, or planet. but somehow shared events have the power to wrap us closely about one another; to let us drop our defenses. if you have an enemy, ask them to the circus~

three. the dynamic landscape; the raw power and fundamental awe of experience. anyone who has ever been to an ocean can tell you about the waves' ability to amplify in magnitude your thoughts, and more importantly, the division between your natural self and your constructed. now add two pinches of heavy oregon fog, throttling this beach into a full-blown dreamscape. allow matches to recount to you the sand at a specific bar of the beach in pitch-black night, out of which cascaded luminous sparkles when you stomped. he had two engineers in his company, which should by all rights add up to at least one whole physicist, and neither of them could offer a satisfactory explanation for this phenomenon. all were equally amazed and befuddled. allow matches to tell you how he finally had the beach bonfire that he has been thirsting for since the dawn of time, and that it was everything he hoped it would be.
add he and justin winning five straight games of beiruit in a row, which was precisely the number of games played. please, step to the reigning champions~



exhaustion sets in. but perhaps, perhaps, there will be more to recount, like all great things, as it is remembered.

sand-dollar

Mobile post sent by thievedrelic using Utterz.

you might be wondering about the errant pictures posted, such as this one. just cell phone snapshots...and the reason? matches isn't telling. but rest assured that there is one, and that it isn't some sort of scavenger-hunt puzzle-box sort of thing that anyone need worry about deciphering. this was the most recent work-habitat, in california, and doesn't he look simply ecstatic~ onward.

matches also has not put on his glasses for a month or two, and he just did...and wouldn't you know it but a scratch has appeared (dead-center) that will surely distract him from whatever is going on beyond it. damn.

matches is going to a beach-house for the weekend, so he hopes you will all enjoy yourselves...be righteous to one another.

adina

adina

This mobile post was sent by thievedrelic using Utterz.

hello rain

"and that was what now she often felt the need of - to think; well not even to think. to be silent; to be alone. all the being and the doing, expansive, glittering, vocal, evaporated; and one shrunk, with a sense of solemnity, to being oneself, a wedge-shaped core of darkness, something invisible to the others. although she continued to knit, and sat upright, it was thus that she felt herself; and this self having shed its attachments was free for the strangest adventures. when life sank down for a moment, the range of experiences seemed limitless. and to everybody there was always this sense of unlimited resources, she supposed...one after another, [we] must feel our apparitions, the things you know us by, are simply childish. beneath it is all dark, it is all spreading, it is unfathomably deep; but now and again we rise to the surface and that is what you see us by....
...they could not stop it, she thought, exulting. there was freedom, there was peace, there was, most welcome of all, a summoning together, a resting on a platform of stability. not as oneself did one find rest ever, in her experience...but as a wedge of darkness. losing personality, one lost the fret, the hurry, the stir; and there rose to her lips always some exclamation of triumph over life when things came together in this peace, this rest, this eternity..."
~ virginia woolf; "to the lighthouse"

if there is one condition of life that could be viewed as a persistent antipode (amongst the many, no doubt), it could easily be said to be the division between solitude and friendliness. which is not to say that solitude is not friendly...in fact most times that matches finds himself sincerely in the former, he feels himself a pitcher overflowing with goodwill. it could be a couple of things....it could be that, grass being ever greener on the opposite bank, one always thirsts for a social atmosphere when one finds themselves in an absentia which so bleakly contrasts with it. it could also be that a brief sojourn from the complex structures of social frustration gives one's batteries a bit of a recharge, and traces human connections with a profound and optimistic outline. every cobweb needs the occasional shaking of its dust; every thorn is meant for bristling. it could also be (and here is the trick) that when one slides off all expectations and personality traits, like that last tantalizing article of clothing, something happens...some exchange, outpouring and inflowing, that harmonizes the soul with everything existent and every possibility that could cannonball through the waxpaper walls of the imagination.

because silly as it may sound, when matches props himself upon the stilts of solitude, the world just seems to fit together like jigsaw puzzles and tangrams. it clicks into place and cracks open its shell like a coded briefcase, consolidated and right-angled with smooth lines. being alone, truly, and being truly alright with it...this is a repose that is not allowed for in most bustling lives. but matches has never been a proponent of the bustle. a single mind, open to all the information that we have everysecond access to, is quite a dynamo; a spinning top with fizzes and pops. endless questions are woven into every fabric or material that could possibly be built with. endless colors and sounds are new, infinite; they are fireworks and arias.

tapping into that mindset is another thing to be filed as being so simple that it is just as simply overlooked. all one needs for access is an open heart and mind; an ability to let go of personal titles and claims. of course there are countless times as well that m wallows in self-pity or is reluctant to loosen his grip on himself; times that make isolation feel like a stray prison sentence - agonizing and unjust. but instead of letting them double one over in loneliness, we also have the choice to let them guide us...let them show us specifically where we are putting on clamps and binding, instead of letting the steam hiss, roar, and de-pressurize the system as a whole. pain is so often avoidable...it is painful just to think about how much could be avoided with the application of a little perspective. they need to make a cream for that~