25 August 2003
Monday

So far this trip up the coast has been a bit of everything. I'm really worried that my buddy who is one of my best, deepest, and most sincere friends has changed to the point that we're not so close anymore. It makes me want to cry at times, but I don't know what to do. This guy is honestly one of the reasons why I live, and I don't know what I'll do without him in my life.
Besides that, I visited three Catholic Churches in San Francisco today, Old St. Mary's, The National Shrine of St. Francis of Assisi, and St. Peter and St. Pauls. This hits a problem that's pretty deep in my life. I'm stuck in Roman Catholic dualism. Here I am, I like to embrace the body, bodily desires, and passions. Yet my training says to seek something spiritually greater, and when I see beautiful Catholic buildings I want to just stay there and drink in the serenity. It reminds me of my duty to mortify the flesh, yet this is the very flesh that I celebrate in my own creed of life. And it tears me apart.

20 August 2003
Wednesday

I have actually shopped with pleasure at the Gap. I suppose this is the triumph of my yuppification. Then again, it was only to replace a second hand plaid shirt I really liked that somehow got shredded in the laundry. Mom still thinks it came home that way. Yeah right. Lets see, everyone is traveling. Tyler is off to New Zealand for a few months. Anthony is running up to Detroit. Jesse is heading to Sacramento to visit his grandfather for possibly the last time. And of course Jeremy and I are to sojourn up to Spokane in a few days. How the time goes.

In something totally unrelated, I found a new dead singer I like. There was a program on the History Channel about "Hitler's Women," and one of them was this lady named Zarah Leander. I will say that she could blow Marlene Dietrich out of the water. Then again I don't exactly think Marlene Dietrich was that hot of a singer. Oh well, I must get to bed.

17 August 2003
Sunday

So begins my last week at home. The time goes by too fast. At Mass today, we were warned that the Mass rubric will be changing in September. Apparently you can't kneel through the Liturgy of the Eucharist anymore. Ya gotta get up somewhere within it. I intend to boycott this silly thing. We had a Mass that worked just fine for 1500 years. Then we redo it, and it can't even last for 40 without being tweaked. Oh well. This is also the Mass that doesn't have any problems with the choir in sandals.

Life has become more and more absurd. The California Governor race is a perfect example. We can choose from Arnold Schwartzenager, Larry Flynt, some porn star I forgot the name of, Gary Coleman, and Los Angeles' own Angelyne. As if that isn't enough, Harry Potter is in the running. See an advance copy of HP VI here: http://www.nationalreview.com/comment/comment-hayward081103.asp I swear I am not making this up.

In normal news, I called up a couple friends, and said my summer goodbyes to a buddy. You know, somehow I surrounded myself with cool and loving people. I don't know how I did it. I just wish I felt less bad so often.

16 August 2003
Saturday

Good heavens how the time goes! I had a nice day out with one of my buds. I found that my new favorite rose is Abbeye de Cluny. It smells lovely. As always, I'm worried about money. I have expensive tastes, and I love buying new things. Its a problem I have. Another problematic aspect is that I know I buy things because it temporarily feels an emptiness I have deep inside.
I was talking to one friend of mine, and we were dissecting that which is me. He said he wanted to see me happy, whatever that may entail. I said "you've just never seen me content and at peace." Which is true. I never really have been content and at peace. I don't know what to do about that. Maybe some of us just aren't fated to be happy.

8 August 2003
Friday
Song: Cesar Franck, Choral No. 1 in E

I was talking to a friend on IM tonight, and I think I uttered one of my personal paradoxes: my body wants shall we say animal passion, my heart wants the peace and warmth of slumber with a lover, and my soul wants to transcend the physical for true spiritual connection. Now how am I supposed to please them all? Oh, and my mother wants me off the computer again. C'est la vie.

7 August 2003
Thursday

I think I am slowly becoming a better Buddhist. Although I'd rather not. My friend Tyler has been instructing me intermittantly on Budhist teachings, and how I am not to commit suicide as that would instantly throw me onto the Wheel of Sansura, which is sort of an downward spiral sort of thing. Very difficult to get out of I am told. If I nix myself, I can expect to come back as some sort of insect or worse. (I'd much rather come back as a rock star, so I better not nix myself.) But in seriousness, Tyler was telling me that I should cultivate an ability to let go, to understand the ephemeral nature of things and accept them.
Well here I was today flying high earlier as I've made several hundred dollars over the lump sum I needed for going to Europe. My organ lesson was great, I got a good haircut afterwards. Mom had asked me to return a video from last night. So, after coming back from the video store, I hit a car in the parking lot. I caved in the rear bumper of a white Honda. Dad's Yukon wasn't even scratched. I of course made sure to contact the owner, and we got things straightened out. She's a pretty girl about my age. She was actually really nice, I said I couldn't bail since that was soo bad karma. She laughed and said totally. I offered to pay of course. There went my extra spending money. And so now I've spent the last three hours online selling stuff on ebay. Hopefully I'll make a decent amount and recoup losses. If not, there's a swapmeet I'll be selling at this Sunday. I think I will make well, but I am worried. Easy come, easy go.

6 August 2003
Wednesday

Hmm. Its very late and I am somewhat out of sorts. My room is an utter shambles, and I only have myself to blame for it. Tomorrow I must be up early. Fortunately I have a couple hundred dollars for next school year, that should get me by for a couple weeks while I have to stock the apartment up with the necessary foodstuffs and necessary luxuries. Oh, and my redwood tree is growing splendidly. I'm so proud of it.

4 August 2003
Monday

I am so lonely. It seems that none of my friends bother to respond to my emails or ever get on IM anymore. And my roommates for next year are not exactly the sort of people I were hoping for. You'd think that in 5 years of college I'd finally find a friend to live with. Guess not.

I was thinking as I drove home last night that as I get older everything gets more complicated. For instance, pleasures and likes. When I was little, I liked milk chocolate and hated dark. Now I like dark. Things that had subtle or complex tastes I didn't like. Now its the other way around. And I don't know what the meaning of that is.

1 August 2003
Friday

Goodness how the time goes! Mom has made oatmeal cookies, and they've actually lasted more than one day. I'm suprised. Later tonight I was hanging with the guys down the street who rent a place. They're sorta post-college white trash. At least they're not the sort of boys one's mother would want associating with. So here I am a sober one getting into a discussion on representative government with 3 other guys who are all older than me, drunker than me, have more nicotine than me, and it appears a lower opinion of women than me too. I was listening to their conversations about how many women they've had relations with, interesting things they've done with women, disgusting things their friends have done with women, anecdotes about various sluts they've known et cetera. And here I was on the one hand deeply jealous---c'mon, what man doesn't want to have hundreds of women going after him---and disgusted on the other since these ladies were statistics rather than people. It kind of reminds me of what tends to happen when I finally buy into something that the media or some capitalist want me to believe. "You want this," "you need this," "you must have this to be happy," "this is the latest thing." And when I get whatever this thing is, sit down on my bed, unwrap it in my lap, I think "why did I buy this stupid thing?" So I guess here it is with drunken neighbors. But hey, they invited me to a party tomorrow.

31 July 2003
Thursday

Ok, I had decent ideas for stuff earlier, but in true form I have forgotten anything worth talking about. I had a music lesson today, my Albinoni adagio is getting better, its just not quite where it should be yet. We ended up talking about how the moral and ethical standards of the US are plummeting. I realize that many people my age must be in debt up to their eyeballs, although I wish I had a shiny new car, a cell phone--almost a requirement now since Dad's on our one telephone all day--and a fashionable wardrobe. It would be nice to dress like a sexy bitch some times. Otherwise its the usual going on at home. I'm working on a model T yet again. The bloody thing should be done tomorrow, and it will be nice to get it out of my hair. I've another new camera to play with, it should be rather jolly. And my brain still can't remember what I wanted to say initially. Oh well.