Sometimes You Just Need a Little Help

Being brought up as a male in a very traditional nuclear family, I was never encouraged to show my emotions. I was never encouraged to hide them either, but for most of high school and a good portion of college that's what I did. I filled the masculine stereotype of the typical male--never show your emotions unless it is anger or happiness. Sadness, fear, longing, insecurity, and even strong feelings of love were to always be kept inside. I would tell myself, "Rick, you're a man and you can deal with these weak human emotions. You don't need to express them." Sadly, I had myself convinced for so long that this was the way I was supposed to handle them.

In my senior year of college, however, I met a very special girl (you know who you are!) and as I got to know her and grew closer and closer to her, I began to open up. Slowly but surely the barriers I had constructed around my heart and around all of those "un-masculine" emotions started to wear away. I had finally learned that it was ok to feel, and express, the full range of human emotion. For me, it was such an odd, yet liberating, feeling to be able to express what I had kept hidden for so long and not be judged or viewed as "not being a man".

Even more recently I began to experience many of these feelings all at once--fear, sadness, joy, love, longing, hope, doubt, and many others. Never before had I been awash in so many different feelings that I thought it would tear me apart. Constantly I was torn between so many conflicting emotions that I had no clue what I was supposed to do. How was I to reconcile everything that was brewing inside of me?

Thankfully, that special girl was still there for me as she always has been. I was able to pour out everything I was feeling to her. I felt at ease laying my heart out on the table in front of her. I allowed myself to cry like I never had before. One of my biggest fears in life was appearing weak, and I always saw crying as a form of weakness, so keeping the tears locked up was something I saw as essential. Because of this preconceived notion about crying, I would never let myself do it--never would I let my guard down. I couldn't because then I would be weak.

It took a very special woman, and almost two years of being close to me, for me to finally realize that by crying, by opening up myself, by showing what's behind all of my barriers, that I wasn't weak, I was simply human. As much as I wanted to be the strongest and most secure person I could be, I still had weaknesses. One of the greatest feelings in the world is finally making the realization that even though you have weaknesses, it is still possible to be loved.

It's taken me over 23 years to be comfortable enough to open up to my parents, the people who gave me life, and tell them how I actually feel, it's taken me 20 to be able to relate emotionally with my brother, and it's taken me almost 2 to be completely open and at ease with my emotions around that special girl that started this whole process.

So what's the point of this outpouring of personal realization? Why did I feel the urge to sit and type about this? Simply put, my heart just wanted to say thank you to that special girl. She's helped me to blossom emotionally, and I can't imagine a more wonderful person to be able to express my emotions with. Thank you, Kristin.

Top 15 CD's of 2004

Yes, I do realize that it's not even December yet, but over at Decoy the staff have been asked to get their top discs of the year list together for our year end special. Usually I'd be a little pissed about not waiting out the rest of the year and jumping the gun, but after I looked at the release schedule for the genres of music that I listen to and listened to a lot of the pre-release demos available to me, I couldn't find anything coming out in the last month and a half of this year that would have a chance of making my top 15. If there is some magical cd that manages to capture my ear, I'll just include it in next year's list. So without further adieu, here are the top 15 CD's of the year (according to me) in no particular order:

• Dead Poetic – New Medicines I’ve had a hard time keeping this cd out of my stereo. I can’t explain it, but somehow Dead Poetic have crafted the perfect blend of smooth emo and jagged, screaming rock that keeps me captivated every time I spin this disc.
• 36 Crazyfists – A Snowcapped Romance A lot of people might have knocked this cd because 36CF seemingly played it safe by streamlining their sound, but in doing so they created one of the most accessible and listenable metal discs of the year. There is not a single song on this cd that drags, which is a great accomplishment in my book.
• Isis – Panopticon This is easily the most epic cd I have heard in years, if not ever. The layers of each song, built upon each other, create such a wonderfully beautiful tapestry of new school doom metal that you won’t be able to turn this cd off until it’s over, at which point you’ll probably just listen to it again!
• Emery – The Weak’s End This cd felt so genuine and so heartfelt that it captured my ears upon my first listen. Every song is filled with hope and a passion for love. Simply a beautiful, yet bittersweet album.
• Machine Head – Through the Ashes of Empires Come on now, everyone was expecting this to suck at least as bad as Supercharger, but instead these guys blew me away with their return to their roots in crafting one heck of a brutal metal album.
• Unearth – The Oncoming Storm Speaking of brutal albums, Unearth released what is, in my eyes, the heaviest album of the year with The Oncoming Storm. All the way through this is one unrelenting album that will pummel the crap out of you.
• 4Lyn – Take It as a Compliment I’m pretty sure that there aren’t many of you out there who have had the chance to listen to these guys, which is unfortunate, because they’ve made a very unique cd where they were able to synthesize nu-metal, garage rock, and hardcore into a cohesive cd that will blow your mind if given the chance.
• Further Seems Forever – Hide Nothing Upon first listen, I was unimpressed by this disc, but then I happened upon some rough times and during them this cd connected with me so perfectly that I turned to it almost exclusively for a while to soothe my mind, and it was during this time that I realized what a truly beautiful disc it actually was.
• Alexisonfire – Watchout! Alexisonfire’s last cd didn’t impress me at all so it really blew me out of the water when I heard Watchout! Alexisonfire matured a ton between releases and this cd manages to mix plenty of melody into their already established emocore style to create a very enjoyable and slick disc.
• Flaw – Endangered Species Go ahead and laugh at me all you want for choosing this cd, but I’ll stand behind it 100% as one catchy nu-metal album. This made it into my top 15 list simply on the merits that I listened to it a freaking ton! I’m still trying to pry it out of my car stereo, but so far no luck.
• Codeseven – Dancing Echoes/Dead Sounds It seems like most music critics agree that this is simply a phenomenal piece of musical art. I can't agree with them more. This is space-rock done perfectly. Buy it now!
• Demon Hunter – Summer of Darkness For being a quasi-side-project Demon Hunter blow away their modern metal peers. On this disc they manage to take each metal cliché, exploit it, and then play off of it to make a wonderful, yet familiar album.
• Silent Drive – Love is Worth It Of all the cds I listened to this year, Silent Drive win the award for being the most dynamic. This cd was a joy to listen to because of all of the different rock styles that they managed to cram together on this disc. This is a great and truly diverse disc.
• Strata – Strata For authentic, emotional hard rock look no further than Strata’s self-titled major label debut. The heartfelt lyrics and mature musicianship lend this cd to being one that will tug on your emotions while still remaining a firmly rocking affair.
• The.Switch – Beautiful This band, hailing from the Czech Republic, are probably a new name to 99.9% of you reading this, but if you can grab their disc from CDBaby.com, you’ll be in for a treat. Imagine the Deftones mixed with Candiria and Tool and you’ll get a small inkling of how good this band is.

So there it is, my top 15 of 2004. Hopefully I've turned you on to a few bands that you might have missed.

Must... Find... Brains...

Sausage pizza. You'd think it couldn't hurt you. You probably think it's just a harmless food. Well, you're totally wrong. Sausage pizza is a definite threat to the top of your palette if you eat it right after it comes out of the oven. As yummy as it might taste, the searing heat exuded by the tomato sauce will easily scald the skin on the top of your mouth causing you to run around the kitchen waving your hand in front of your mouth (like that's going to do any good) looking for something cool to drink to sooth your burning mouth. Of course, by the time you find anything to drink, the pizza sauce has already had plenty of time to burn all of the skin in your mouth leaving you scraping it off with your tongue for the next 20 minutes.

Since my mouth is completely burnt from that damn pizza, I couldn't really drink too much coffee this morning because it burns my mouth when I drink it and when it gets cool enough to not hurt my mouth it's too cold to taste good. So I'm pretty much screwed for my usual ingestion of caffeine for the morning. I did bring a diet cola in to attempt to offset the missing coffee caffeine, but I don't think it'll help.

Now compound my lack of caffeine with not really being able to sleep last night and you have a recipe for instant zombie. I don't know why I couldn't sleep last night, but for some reason when I closed my eyes I simply continued to lie there with my eyes closed instead of being whisked off to a magical land of midgets and dragons.

So being as tired and unenergized as I am, all I can think about is somehow getting caffeine into my system, and barring that, I can turn to my co-workers brains. There's got to be caffeine in the human brain, right? Mmm..... must eat brains......

CO-WORKER: So have you finished the help text yet?

ME: Help... text.... need.... brains....

CO-WORKER: Well, yes, it was a little rudimentary and could use some fleshing out.

ME: Fleshing.... out..... yummy..... flesh.... breakfast.....

CO-WORKER: Umm.... why are you reaching for my face? Is there some jelly from my donut still on me?

ME: Jelly..... donut..... brains....

CO-WORKER: Oh my God! Stop it, my face! That hurts! I think this breaks one of our company policies!

*Rip*

ME: *Crunch crunch* Yummy...... brains..... taste..... like..... meatloaf.....

Hmmm..... ok, maybe I'm not quite that zombie-ish this morning, but I sure do feel like I'm dragging and can't get energized. It sure doesn't help that it's overcast and dark out, either.

This World is Absurd

Really, there are so many times that I wonder how certain things in this world can happen. Why do good things happen to bad people and the converse of that are often on my mind. I worked hard in college. I was one of those few kids that would take a Friday night to go hang out in a study lounge to contemplate the readings of Camus and do my discrete math assignments instead of getting plowed beyond comprehension and trying to hook up with random chicks. Yeah, I was that guy--the nerd, the dork, the "studious one". I really, really tried in college and it paid off, I thought, in that I graduated with two BA's, one in computer science and one in philosophy, and had a cumulative GPA of 3.6 something. Personally, I was pretty proud of myself and what I learned at St. John's University.

After doing as well as I did at school, I had hoped it would translate over to success in the real world as well. As you know, I am getting close to finishing up my first year as a tech writer for Kingland Systems in Rochester, and I thought that I was doing pretty good. I was on par, salary wise, with some of the people I graduated with and was doing better than some others, but then I learned about one of my college classmates and the job he has.

First, let me tell you a little about this mysterious guy from college. He was that guy that spent more time in the weight room than in class and even more time partying and trying to find easy chicks. He was prone to doing really stupid stuff and getting horribly tanked for just about any reason. The list of some of the stupid stuff that he did is pretty darn long. One drunken night he and some friends took all of the furniture from our dorm lounge and tossed it to the street three stories below. On another drunken escapade he thought it was a genius idea to simply kick apart the doors to the stalls in our dorm bathroom. On another ocassion, he put some mice in his neighbors room.

This kid was simply amazing in the ways that he lived up to every stereotype of the big, dumb, partying college kid. Even on the night before our graduation he exercised his stupidity and made my coffee cup look smarter than him. It was our senior party and we were all out at the bar. Oddly enough, party dude wasn't all that drunk, but that didn't stop him from stealing the car of a pizza delivery man "just because". He wasn't allowed to walk at graduation and I'm not sure if the owner of the vehicle pressed charges or not, but any way you look at it, this was a stupid thing to do by a guy who was known for doing stupid stuff.

Now, it's about a year and a half after he's graduated and I fully expected to hear that he was working at Kmart or McDonalds, but instead I find out he's selling mortgages to people and raking in a six figure salary. How the hell does something like that happen? He's easily making double, if not maybe triple, what I am and he was a total screw up in college. All he did was party, act dumb, and made school out to be a joke. I worked my ass off, actually learned stuff, and I'm the one who came out on the short end of the stick.

Really, when I think about it, I wonder what the hell is actually up with this world. Sometimes I wonder if God has it out for me. Maybe I'm his pet joke that he can always turn to for a laugh. I can see it now, after a long hard day of watching over the atrocities of the middle east, God plants his gaze on the midwest and focuses on a lowly character... me. He sees the ironies of his life and the frustrations he is confronted with and chuckles. "What a funny, little human," He thinks to Himself, "but at least he's fun to smite when I'm bored!"

Just Had To Put My Mind To It

Apparently my rededication to working out is paying off a little. I'm almost down to 180 lbs. now. I've been hovering at about 182 the last couple days, but any way you look at it, I've made some good progress from about 2 weeks ago when I was pushing 195. I was so sick of feeling lazy, feeling fat, and feeling unattractive that I had to do something about it... so I did.

I've been trying to put in a few miles running at night as well as some lifting to build muscle while I burn off all that icky fat. I managed to get most of my strength back pretty quickly (I've been away from lifting on and off for a month or two since our basement flooded). I can bench 200+ lbs. again. Curling over 100 when I want to lift heavy. I've been getting in a couple hundred sit-ups when I can. Now I'm not saying this to brag or anything. I'm just starting to actually feel good about myself again. The key word is starting, though. I still think I can get in much better shape and I plan on trying to. It is nice to see more muscle definition, though, instead of simply knowing it's burried somewhere under a layer of padding.

Today I even braved the outdoors and went for a 2.5 mile outdoor run. Usually once the temp drops below 60 degrees I stick to running indoors, but today was just too nice of a day to waste away on a treadmill or stairclimber. I did get some sore lungs (they're not very good in the cold), but damn if it didn't feel refreshing to get outside and just be in the sun. It's been so dreary and bleak here in southern Minnesota for the last couple of weeks that the sun felt like it jump started my entire system. All of you that live where it stays warm all year round, consider yourselves lucky. As much as I love snow and cold and winter, I think I only need a month or two of it a year.

Expanding Outside of the Bubble

Well, I tried something new last night--fencing. I figured it was about time I tried something new. I felt like I might have been getting stuck in a rut and with the cold weather fast approaching, I wanted something to do other than sit at home, read, watch movies, and play video games. I know that would have been the dream life if you would have asked me what I wanted to do when I was 12, but now I just need some other things to do.

So how did it go? Well, considering I've never done any fencing before and only watched bits of it on the Olympics, I needed to learn the basics which was pretty much what was went over last night. I learned the rules, the different styles of fencing, the gear, the stance, the movement, how to hold a foil, and some basic foil movement.

After just this initial lesson, I can see that fencing is a lot more of a precision and finess sport than I thought. I've never been particularly good at extremely precise sports as I usually just take the brute force approach to most sports. It'll be different to focus on small things instead of just trying to be the strongest/fastest/most athletic person doing it.

All in all I think it is an interesting sport and I'll have to stick with it for a while to see if I can pick up the techniques that I'll need to actually be a functional fencer! Besides, I need something to fill that sports void that has formed in my life since college ended. Winter volleyball leagues in Rochester have already started, so that's out (unless anyone knows a team that could use an extra player or sub). Basketball leagues are started and I haven't played in a while so I'd probably be one of the bench star wonders. There isn't much for ultimate frisbee here in the winter, so that's out. Looks like it'll be fencing, weight lifting, and running for the winter for me!

Imagine...

I've been really moody lately so things that usually wouldn't affect the jaded tough guy that I usually am have been making a profound effect upon me. Maybe it's because I'm pondering things a lot more now. Maybe I'm unsure of things in my life and because of that, I reflect more upon what is around me. Maybe I'm just in a phase. Who really knows?

Well, as I was checking some of the message boards I usually visit, I found a link to this video by A Perfect Circle. The song is their cover of "Imagine" by John Lennon, while the video is simply stock footage of the evils of this world. I often don't think about things outside of my little personal bubble, but when I do, I realize that this world is one heck of a scary place.

I cannot imagine being homeless. I cannot imagine being malnourished. I cannot imagine holding a gun and shooting another human being. I cannot imagine being shot. I cannot imagine being abused. I lead a very normal and very well off life in comparison to so many of the people in this world. I feel selfish for complaining about some of the things that I do when such atrocities are happening around the world this very minute.

I find myself very distraught over the state of this planet and the human race as a whole. I want to help, but I don't know where to start. I'm afraid to try to help on my own. I want to do something, but I think I need a helping hand to hold me through because I just don't feel strong enough on my own. Maybe I'm just making a big deal out of some odd inner turmoil I felt after watching a music video. That's probably it......

Imagine there's no heaven,
It's easy if you try,
No hell below us,
Above us only sky,
Imagine all the people
living for today...

Imagine there's no countries,
It isn't hard to do,
Nothing to kill or die for,
No religion too,
Imagine all the people
living life in peace...

Imagine no possesions,
I wonder if you can,
No need for greed or hunger,
A brotherhood of man,
Imagine all the people
Sharing all the world...

You may say I'm a dreamer,
but I'm not the only one,
I hope some day you'll join us,
And the world will live as one.

--John Lennon

A Minnesota Based Video Game

Yesterday I picked up Test Drive: Eve of Destruction for Xbox. It's a game that my brother Ryan and I have wanted for a while now. There's just something about demolition derbies that we love. Call us backwater hicks, but we love seeing cars ramming into each other until they up and quick working.

Ever since Demolition Racer came out for Dreamcast, we've anxiously awaited another demo derby racing game to come out. Finally, a couple of months ago Eve of Destruction came out. Since I can't ever justify spending $50 on a game, I've been waiting for it to drop. With a gift certificate to EB Games, I managed to get a used copy for $25, which I can justify, even if I'm running a little low in the cash department at the time (I'll just have to sell some of my older games on ebay).

As soon as I got home, I threw it in and Ryan & myself proceeded to beat the hell out of each other on the race tracks. The gameplay is awesome and I recommend this game to anyone who likes a healthy dose of destruction with their racing. There was one other thing that was very surprising, however, and that was the locales of the races.

Apparently the makers of Eve of Destruction think that demo derbies only happen in Minnesota because every one of the locations for the tracks is from Minnesota. What's also amazing is that the makers successfully recreated the major landmarks of the town. For Hastings, the oil refinery plant is the background. In Kenyon it's an elevator. In Mankato, it's the big silo complex that's in town. I was amazed that all of these towns I've been in were the locations for this game. I guess it made it seem a little more fun knowing that I was racing, virtually, in local towns like Anoka or Dundas.

I've never played a racing game that wasn't based on either ficticious courses or gigantic cities like New York, San Francisco, or Chicago. Ah, Minnesota, enjoy your time in the video game racing sun!

Do You See Yourself in the Clouds Too?

In an attempt to try something new and possibly help me to lead a calmer and less stress filled life, I have borrowed one of Kristin's meditation books and decided to start trying to meditate each day. Yesterday was my first foray into trying it out. In the past I've set aside time for me to think about things or to simply attempt to be at peace, but I've never tried to meditate.

In the past when I simply sat and contemplated life, the world, death, my actions, and people around me, I could never think about things that somehow didn't involve me in some way. With the meditation routines laid out in the book I'm reading one of the key things is simply forgetting everything around you and focusing on a specific image, concept, or action.

Last night's meditation was an attempt to get me to imagine myself in the light and heat of the sun before becoming completely enveloped by it's healing touch. This, I believe, is an especially hard meditation for those of us living in Minnesota, the state of freezing ass cold. Anyhow, I tried to clear my mind as much as possible and imagine myself in the sunlight.

There was a problem, however. I couldn't imagine myself in the sun while touching the ground. To truly feel the sun, I had to imagine myself up in the clouds with the sun. I didn't think too much of it at the time, but the end of the meditation has you being enveloped by an encircling light emanating from the ground. How was I going to be surrounded by this light if I was stuck in the clouds?

I contemplated this fact a lot on my way to work this morning. What exactly could it mean? I don't think I have any concrete answers to give, but one thing that came to mind is maybe I have a hard time dealing with down to earth subjects. Instead of wanting to be realistic about my life, the situations I experience in life, and my emotions I would rather think of them in an idealistic, perfectly realized way.

This brought me back to thinking about the play Of Mice and Men that I saw this last weekend. The main focus of the play is that of companionship, but playing almost as big of a role is the notion of lying to oneself in order to deal with one's place in this world. George was constantly telling Lenny about the place they were going to eventually have in order to make their current life hold value. They didn't have any money and were constantly hopping from job to job, yet this "head in the clouds" thought motivated them to keep trying, keep pushing.

I often wonder if that is how my life is. Am I only pushing on because I see a wonderful future ahead that may or may not happen, or am I truly happy right now? Questions like this could easily drive someone crazy, but I think this is an essential question to ask. I don't know exactly how to answer it, but I do know that planning for my future and imagining what my future will be like are definitely two motivational factors in my life. I keep hoping that it will get better than right now. I know in my mind that it'll get better, but sometimes my heart drags me down with foolish insecurities and fears (two other things I've learned about myself).

Now, if one meditation can spawn this much deep thinking, I can only imagine what it must be like when in a true, deep meditational trance. I don't know if my paltry human mind could take it and know what it all means.

I Bring You My Return

Well, I wasn't gone as long as I thought I would be and I don't know exactly how often I'll be writing here, but I felt like I needed to come back and write simply to get out many of the thoughts that are constantly swirling around in my head. I've been so deep in thought almost every moment of every day that I felt like my head might explode if I didn't get some of it out. I started a written journal but I couldn't get down all that I wanted quick enough. I'm still going to use that for my personal writings, however, so don't expect anything deeply personal to show up here. I'm still a little uneasy talking about things that are close to my heart right now.

Anyhow, you may have noticed the new look. I hope you like it. I decided to scrap the homemade and homebuilt site I had for the ease of updating through blogger's interface. I can now post from just about anywhere with a computer at just about any time, which is a concept I like since many of my more interesting thoughts hit me when I'm not always near the computer I used for editing my site.

So, you might be wondering what's new with me. Oddly enough, I don't have a lot to say. There's still a lot of things going on in my life which will definitely have a bearing on what I'm going to do with it, especially for the near future. I'm still swirling in emotions, many of them dominating my thoughts, but I'm working on getting them under control. I'm going to attempt to start meditating to help clear my ever-busy mind, hoping that it might clear up some of the doubts, worries, and fears I have about my life right now. I know I don't need to have my life figured out right now, but there are a couple of things I would like to know where they're going because I think they're integral parts of how I will choose to live my life (yeah, sorry for the ambiguoty, but that's all you're going to get). It's an odd time right now and I'm hoping that by writing again I can better understand the plan that God has laid out for me. He's not making it easy right now, I'll tell you that.

Now with all of that knowledge under your belt... I welcome you all to the first day of the rest of my life.