Goodbye my friend

Simone

Thinking of my special furry boy.  It's

Aids walk set up

Deep; like a cup of black coffee

This week was good and this week was sad. I lost a first cousin once removed in a truly awful way. I have nothing elegant to say about this. I did not know this cousin, I don't know that I ever met him, but I know his family and those who now grieve for him and their pain is my pain.

I have not been good at finishing things these last few years. I've become to precious with myself and I have to kick my self important habit. I'm not sure when it began but I at some point I decided to expect too much from myself and my output. I don't think the world needs musicians and artist to put out perfect work. So I'm going to try harder to finish things to the best of my ability, but I'm not going to try and hold myself to impossible standards anymore.

With that I'll say that monday night I completed work on the sound track to a Web Television show. I've been working on it for a few months. Finishing something felt so good. It felt even better last night when I got home to find payment for the project waiting in my mail box. It's not often I get paid to do what I love, and it feels very good.

Tuesday night I decided to run the 11 miles from the office to my house. I have had a goal of running a half marathon in under 2 hours, and on the run I decided it might be a good time to go for it. Off the bat I'll disclose that I was carrying a back pack, and I didn't stop my timer at stop lights. Excuses out of the way here is what happened. I got to the 11 mile mark and realized I was at 1 hour 40 minutes. I decided to tack on the last 2 miles and go for my goal. Sadly my calf muscles started cramping on me and I was only able to run 12.77 miles in the allotted 2 hours. I didn't technically hit the goal, but I really did.

Love to everyone.

One Sided Saga pt. 14

ellroe Sunday, December 30, 2001 6:59 PM

at dawn on the twenty-seventh of april, sierva maria was just falling asleep after cayetano had left the cell, when with no warning they came to begin the exorcism. -gabriel garcia marquez "of love and other demons"

just read that today, thought you might take comfort in knowing other people have had bad luck on the 27th. coincidence seems to be all over these days.

shortly but briefly, brandon

One sided saga pt. 13

i should maybe be punished Friday, December 28, 2001 5:50 PM

what sucks about phone numbers is they have to be in the correct order. don't bother calling 913 422 5079 in the evening, cause they never answer the phone. it's true, i am an idiot.

my # 913 206 2078 feel any more real? i'm free for pretty well all of saturday. i'd love to hang out or whatever. please call or email me, let me know what would work for you. or you could not, free will is a beautiful thing.

i'm going to go take a nap... brandon

One Sided Saga Pt 12

[ No Subject ] Thursday, December 27, 2001 11:12 PM

oh my.
i tried calling a couple times tonight. but alas, to my great disappointment, as you very well know, i was unable to reach you. too bad really, it seemed i was full of incredibly witty and poignant things to say, so instead i tried to write songs expressing the pain and anguish one feels at growing up a white male in urban western kansas. as of this writing it's not going so well, but i do believe i've achieved the guitar tone necessary to convey my thoughts.

that being said, what would be a practical time to reach you? i was beginning to wonder if either of us actually existed, so i thought maybe it would be best to branch out into another medium. and everyone loves the phone.

i remember once, when i was in seventh grade, a friend of mine, mike, a very straight laced kid(he's in law school at ku), called me at nine o'clock with a proposition, he'd been hearing stories at school about crazy all night phone conversations. needless to say he was filled with envy, how dare all his class mates get wild kicks on the phone. so his proposition was that the two of us should talk on the phone all night! oh, the tales we'd tell the next day at school. he could just see it, both of us dead tired, drowsy and whining all day long. "why mike? why brandon? why are you so tired?" "on the phone? all night?" "what did you two talk about?" oh wouldn't they all like to know. as it turned out after about 30 minutes of gossiping about our friends, at 9:30, i hear a click...dead silence. come to find out the next day at school that mike had heard a noise, assumed it to be his father, hung up and immediatey feigned sleep. after that scare he was too frightened to call back. to think back on it now, it's a very special imagined memory, to see mike tucked in bed still reeling from his exploits. i think the whole story is a metaphor or something, but i'll be unavailable for comment on the symbolic aspect of my anecdote. this doesn't even come close to the time mike and i camped out in my parents motor home drinking mountain dew with coffee crystals mixed in.

i think that was probably one long run-on sentence. i apologize if it makes no sense, but i would never push the send button if i were to go back and edit any of my emails. even using the speel check feature can sometimes be too much.

friends are a funny thing. wow, i'm ultra profound! i know how i think you feel though. my friends, i love them to death, but they can take their toll. i may just be paranoid, but sometimes i feel like my friends' greatest pleasure in life comes from watching their close friends fail. i know it's not all true, and maybe it's a male bravado thing, though none of my friends are overtly masculine, but they just seem to pay a lot more attention to the things that are not going well for someone.

cigarettes? nope, i tried a couple of times, but i could never get properly addicted. every once in a great while, in the midst of serious binge drinking i'll beg dan for one, and he'll refuse to give it to me because he knows i'll only take a few drags proceed to not inhale and then put it out. i once bet dan 20 bucks that he couldn't go a year without smoking. to my knowledge he made it the whole year. he wouldn't let me pay him the money, but he did go right ahead and start smoking again. thats dan.

i'm brandon and i'll be in touch. i think maybe i'd even like to see you sometime, my mental picture of you is changing quickly from a girl i met at tanners to a string of randomly informative emails. busy this weekend? oh, bitter sweet tragedy.

10.25 in 1:35

One Sided Saga Pt. 11

christless Tuesday, December 25, 2001 9:02 PM

i respectfully declined the invitation to attend church with the fams. it would have just annoyed me to the point of anger. other people can do what they want, just don't expect me to respond at the Christian roll-call.

i wouldn't say i'm a jealous person, i've come to the point where i feel confident with who i am and what i'm capable of, if my feelings/attractions for someone are ignored or go unrequited...oh well. it can suck, but i'm young and this is a very large world. my two year relationship was great, until the end, then it just wasn't happening. she went away to go to college, and that pretty well did it. we kept it up for most of the first year she was away, but it just started to drag. i suppose all told it was almost three years, but the last three months hardly count. it really began different then any other relationship or near relationship i've ever had. we just really liked being together, we never bothered to talk about weather or not we were dating or exclusive or what. the first two years i just never felt like being with anyone else. then things just changed. other people started to appeal to both of us, and in the end we were both unfaithful. as far as indiscretion goes we were both fairly harmless, but it was enough to let us know it was over. we email infrequently but i don't see her very often. i saw her in october and found out she's getting married. we had a great talk, and i'm very happy for her.

lets talk about age later, i'm windy tonight and i haven't even talked about jesus's b-day. what i got... bongo drums! i just didn't have enough things that make noise. william s. burroughs "naked lunch". gabriel garcia marquez "love and other demons" electric razor. personal hygiene rules. paints, brushes.

what did you get? did you have a good day?

and as a final surprise:

cool orange blue sky dull grey water waves a while time saved frozen

and since i'd rather feel summer:

sand scratch between toes a salt water soothing cool leaving shore behind

haiku is tough, merry ex-mas, brandon

Saga Interruptus

Hello internet! I trust you are well and full of many wondrous items. I have been hiding from your in my past and for that I apologize.

Turbo Sunshine had a show recently, on Sept. 4th and it was good. Here are a few videos.

I've been running a lot this year. I'm trying to maintain a relatively good base of conditioning for the entire year, and hopefully much longer. I have been pretty great about fitness the past few years, but in each year there seems be at least one period of slackassedness that takes me from in shape to out; and I think that is entirely avoidable in my life's current configuration. I'm primarily running these days, with supplemental calisthenics. I would like to get back into lifting of the weights as I had been earlier in this year. It's just not nearly as fun as a good long run. I have found in the past few weeks as I've gotten busier that I'm not able to run as consistently as I prefer, so I'm implementing a new plan of increasing the distance on each run. I've been running in the 6-8 mile range 3 to 4 times a week and I would like to be in the 9-11 range. More on that as it develops.

Our home is nearly finished. I changed the chandelier last weekend and built a new shelf for the laundry hamper and vacuum in the hall closet last week. sometime this week I'll run a network cable to Angie's room for her computer and do a bit more light switch covering. from here on out it's going to be a lot easier. Touch ups here and there and a lot of work on projects.

Simone our previously sick kitty is still a bag of bones, but he seems to be as active as ever and happy. He has me trained to feed him, which reminds me to give him his pill every night and in this way balance seems to be achieved. Frusciante is fat and loves eating the food Simone leaves on his plate. Bettina is happy with everything except the lack of air conditioning in her room. Special attention was paid in the set up of this home to remove vulnerable wiring from bunny height. This makes getting her out of her room and into the main living area a lot easier and hassle free, thus greatly adding to the time she gets to hangout with the rest of us.

Angela is doing well at work, gaining more duties constantly. She seems to be recognized in her company as a valuable asset. I'm proud of her. My work has been pretty busy these past few months. With technician's on the east coast for the Daily Show's coverage of the RNC and DNC I found myself having to actually be out in the field working on a small telethon. Not fun.

I have switched mobile phones and providers. I will now look to see if they make any nice apps for blogging on blogger from and android device.

and now, back to the past in progress.

One Sided Saga pt. 10

purple laze Saturday, December 22, 2001 12:45 AM

how old do i feel? right now, four hundred and seven. it's been a long week, and everyday it's been "well, i can go to bed early tomorrow." now, when i should be going to bed, i have no reason to put it off any further, i refuse to give in simply because i don't have to get up in the morning. i never feel much younger than 22, thats probably a good indication of my youth, refusing to recognize how green i really am. some days i feel really old, but not wise. my perspective on age has been severely bent this last year. i'll qualify that statement someday.

i've been in k.c. almost a year. sometime this month, in fact it may be my one year anniversary today, or yesterday. prior to k.c. i lived in l.a., but the great magnet had other ideas. i grew up in western kansas, on a farm outside of a small(less than 100 people) town called paradise. i can't imagine having grown up anywhere else, the memories i have from this time in my life are the most beautiful thing i know. be that as it may, the greatest thing that ever happened to me was moving off the farm to a town of twenty thousand called hays, kansas. many aspects of hays make my blood curdle, but to compare education and experiences, with those i would have had staying in a 1 horse town put it in a different light. hays is still a one horse town, but the horse was mister ed with a penchant for grain alcohol.

what kind of terms are you and the "ex" on? my longest relationship was an indefinite two years, i can't imagine four.

are you a jealous person?

to be dead for the next fifteen hours, brandon

One Sided Saga pt. 9

the near future is always just ahead Wednesday, December 19, 2001 11:54 PM

i should make a habbit of calling people silly more often, it has a nice effect.

i thought we discussed the age issue, but i guess i'm really not positive how old you are either. i happen to be twenty two, and i kind of enjoy that. it's a pretty fine age to be. other stats of intrest.

i like cats. i'm sure your dog is exceedingly pleasant though. i currently have no pets. it was just on my mind because i was playing with the cat at work today.

i drive a horrible car, an 88 nissan pulsar, but we get along. i don't much care about/for cars anymore. living where i do i appriciate having one, but if it comes right down to it, i'd rather not own one. public transportation has a long way to go, and kansas can be so damned incoroprative and cold. also, my car is a gay, with a taste for cross dressing(it wears a bra!).

i currently live with mom and dad. sometimes i cringe to have to tell people that, but only if i actually care about them. anyhoo, i figure i gett of on technicalities of the unfortunate. and it's just a temporary thing while i save money....okay, i'm just a dork. how sad life can be(i think that was sarcasm).

i'm right handed.

i don't know my eye-color, but i've been known to tell people they are grey/green or blue green.

i have an older brother and a younger sister.

i know it's dreadfully immature, but i love few things more than fun. drama is cool, but only if it's really funny, and it's understood it's all a joke anyway.

i'm paranoid about over simplifying.

i love to run. i don't get why alot of people have a hard time understanding this. it clears my mind.

and while i'm being honest, and this always weirds me out, though i wouldn't say i'm at all ashamed, i do, occasionally, from time to time, enjoy the marijuana. i've been told this makes me a bad person. if you're of this opinion, kindly give me a chance at explination before telling me to go straight to hell with all my dope fiend friends.

the i before e except after c rule always gives me problems.

brandon

One Sided Saga pt. 8

not yet near future Wednesday, December 19, 2001 12:56 AM

i've been told i'm very passionate. i suppose i even belive it, even though i don't much belive what other people tell me about myself, in this case it may just be true. i connect most things to my heart and soul in one way or another, any other way of living just seems kind of empty.

that being said, i was at "our" tanners, briefly this evening. it was like crazy packed, so we all left to find a bar you could actually sit down in. it was a fun night, just laughing and telling stories and what not.

work today was very fun, some days i'm reminded of just how cool my job is. we had a group of special needs grade school kids come in today and i took them back to my favorite part of the building, the alzheimers wing, and we all had a ball. most grade school children kind of clam up around residents but these kids were like crazy lovey, giving hugs and what not, i was moved to the point where i was forced to use words like cute and adorable. then when i would normally be getting off work i took a van load full of residents to see christmas lights. it's a fun thing for them to do but i'm seriously under compensated for that amount of responsibility. some days i'm just shocked at the amount of trust the center has in me. i have no real qualifications, a horrible driving record and no medical training...lets send him out to drive a huge van full of people with medical conditions!

i used to have idols, rockstars and things of that nature, certain teachers and my father i suppose. now though i wouldn't use the word idol. i respect a lot of people, but idolatry just doesn't feel right to me. y tu?

would it be out of order for me to call you sometime?

brandon

One Sided Saga pt. 7

i'm a very bad person Monday, December 17, 2001 9:09 PM

so like, i meant to have my hiaku finished and turned in by the due date. i always have the very best of intentions. it's just like, sometimes, well i'm easily distracted. like this guy once said in this one movie, i'm my own worse distraction. your hiaku rocked. thanks so much for taking me seriously enough to write a hiaku. i promise i'll have mine done by the end of the month. i suppose i should have written one when it first struck me, but it just seemed like i'd done enough work just coming up with the idea...

my weekend was decent like. friday just went to the pub on santa fe with my two crazy cats dan and kurt. just being lazy and cool at the pub. not feeling especially social. saturday dan and i cruised over to lawrence to see an old high school friend of mine. he graduated from ku last year only to turn around and get a job there. now he has the same lifestyle, just gets paid poorly for it. it was pretty fun, i got to play presidents and assholes! havn't played that forever, ever play?

my sis was also in town this weekend. she goes to school at kansas state. she's two years younger than me.

how's your dog?

questions are better. i've already asked two. you can ask as many as you like, but much like my failure to fufill my end of the hiaku thing, i may not answer timely.

lets go back to an old email. i was thinking today that maybe my answer to your co-dependacy question was too abrupt. did you want to delve a little. i've never much talked about it with her, but i know when i was way younger my mom used to read books on co-dependancy. her father was not the greatest of men, and it took my mother along time to get over the enviornment she grew up in. i have a tremendous amount of respect for how my mother came to understand and improve herself.

i heard a mariah carey song today and i thought of you. ofcourse now i know you more as emails then the person i talked to at a bar, so it seemed a little strange. but then again, i suppose i'm a little strange, but so we all are.

are you a person of passion?

brandon

One Sided Saga pt. 6

envy for your thoughts Wednesday, December 12, 2001 10:17 PM

europe and the caymans in one summer...now i have another problem with god. equal division of vacations, dammit. my most memorable vacations are very difficult to re-call. just silly spring break trips and thigs of that nature, but telling these stories isn't exactly suited to email, so until some other time...

so refreshing to hear someone else with an axe to grind about religion. i used to be quite a vocal athiest, i suppose i've grown a little past that. i like what you said about "something" being out there. something or things, and who can really tell what they/it feel about us, if it/things feel at all. religion really bothers me when people stop thinking, they just use their religion as a blanket answer to everything that comes up. la da da da la...... so it goes on and on.

my favorite inanimate object. maybe my acoustic guitar, but thats too easy. probably i would maybe sort of, er umm, say...a cheesy plastic skull that came out of my first car, it was on the gear shifter stick thing. i finally stopped putting it in my car when i wrecked every vehicle it was in. it's also cool cause my sister gave it to me, and cooler yet she won it from one of those claw machines, in a bowling center no less. it has paint on it from one summer when my friends had a job painting gas meters. now it just sits in my room, making me giggle once in a while. i wouldn't say i love it, but i'm rather fond of it. in it's own way it understands me.

i finally caught up on my sleep, i was in bed by 900pm last night! i guess that needs exclamation.

feeling any better? i'd send you some chicken soup but i broke my modem the last time i tried.

and a break from the questions, maybe a trade. haiku for a haiku. you first or you can call me out if you'd like. i've been thinking about writing hiakus(does that plural?)but honestly have not written one since grade school. i think that dis-claimer meant something like, "yes my haiku kicks alot of ass. i'm sure you must think i'm some sort of proffesional, but i'm not. just a guy who thought it would be fun to write a haiku."

okay then brandon

One Sided Saga pt. 5

sleepy Monday, December 10, 2001 6:22 PM

i'm so much jealous that you've been to europe. how old were you when you went? any european details would be read and appriciated.

i wouldn't really worry about sounding like an idiot about religion. i'm not what you would call a religous person. infact it seems we probably have alot of common ground. it gets pushed to the fore front of my mind alot because i work in a christian facility, and i really don't consider myself a christian. i agree with alot of their principals involving human interaction but i don't much go for the value system. i'm still trying to figure the whole thing out so i guess that i'll remain a little vague on the point. i would like to hear/read more into your views....

i went on a little quest to western kansas this weekend so i'm very much the tired one. i went back to see some family and friends. i had a good time, got to party with my uncle who's kind of my rock and roll mentor. the town i went to was hays, where i went to high school. the city wide hobby there is binge drinking, which at times can be fun, but when you move away you get out of practice, and it can kind of kick your ass.

do you have a favorite inanimate object? if so, what is it and how long have you known it?

brandon

One Sided Saga Pt. 4

so says one, so does anotherWednesday, December 5, 2001 9:19 PM

so jokes are pretty funny.

i have a pretty firm grasp of co-dependency.

as for unlimited funds. i'd rent an apartment on the strip in l.a. and buy a house somewhere very isolated. i'd probably buy an animal or two. then i'd build a studio in my isolated house. i'd record until i got to into it then i'd fly to l.a. and party my balls off with my brother. i'd also pay my friends to join in my life style. when this becomes to routine then i'll try and see as much of the world as i could. i'd also write a novel and run a marothon(i'll do these last two anyway, but it would be nice to do it with unlimited funds) oh, to have unlimited funds. what would you do?

speaking of florida, i'm thinking of moving there in late june. i have some friends in orlando who want to get a house and make music all day. who could resist?

the party went very well, it did not suck nearly as much as i gave it credit for. i did have to stay at work far to long though. tonight i've been working on rock n' roll as a second job. i mixed nine songs. i bought a digital recording station about four months ago and i've been working on an album since then. i think i'm getting better but my perspective on the thing is pretty well lost. i'm really only trying to make great songs that sound ultra cool. is that too much to ask?

are you a religious type? explain.

best o' luck on your finals.

brandon

Another Archival Nugget

Today's alternate email from the depths of a soon to be deceased email account is to a different girl in a different situation. I realize I'm taking the blogging to an overly selfish area with this stuff, but it's a strange and wonderful thing to be able to read what you wrote to people 10 years ago.

rolling tamborine men and a perfect day toastTuesday, March 26, 2002 11:18 PM

well then...
i just finished running, i thought about a lot and nothing. i raced a train. the train left me with a valuable metaphor, which i'll now relate.

approximately 3.5 miles into my run, a familiar chug pushes it's way over my breath and into my ears. my first impulse is to speed up, out there even i can become competitive. the engine passes me by in no time. i'm feeling vaguely annoyed.
trains are loud and rigid. they go where they are told, and they have no appreciation for beauty. the trail i'm on runs parallel to the tracks for another two miles, no matter what happens i decide, i will beat this train to the point where our paths divide.
i notice the pace of the train slowing...naturally i accelerate. the train moves at or near my speed for about a quarter mile, then slows to a stop. victory? i remember what vencil smiley once told me "hot pockets, never count your chickens before they move out of your house and get a full time job." i focus, i know god can be tricky. i'm gaining ground on the engine, and only half a mile to our separation point.
at almost the exact moment that i pass the engine i hear the breaks release, this fucker means business. i'm just a quarter of a mile from the goal, and i have a safe three hundred yards on the machine, but i can hear him loud and clear. this train wants to win. about fifty yards from the finish i realize that i'm sprinting...thinking maybe i'm a little carried away. just as i make the turn i hear the whistle blow, but i've won by a clear second and a half.
i like to think dinah blew the horn in honor of my victory, it probably had a little more to do with the fact that an intersection was rapidly approaching and all trains blow their horns there, but i figured i deserved a favorable mis-interpretation.

that may be a metaphor, but now that i've bothered to relate it, it just seems confusing. realize i decided to write about that while it was happening, and it seemed like a much better idea then.

in response to your deal: i must explain that i make no title distinction between "friends" and "more than friends". the two are not all that different for me. you are my friend, and i've thought about you a lot. i think your changing faster than you are prepared for, and i know you'll handle it fine, if you remember to think.

i'm here and i'm very versatile. office hours are flexible, call whenever necessary.

One Sided Saga Pt. 3

Re: it was a Sat. early morning, but a Fri niteMonday, December 3, 2001 8:58 PM

well then.
my weekend was a wonderfull time, but the week started off badly. about one day a month i just don't have the energy nor patients my job requires, so it makes for a tough day. today was such a day.
but hey, i'm alive and tommorrow will be much better. except for the fact that we have our center christmas party tommorrow night, and i have to deal with all the family members that never come any other day of the year.

as for performers thats a good question. i'd have to say roger clyne, of the arizona peacemakers. just something about his songs and stage presence. i've only seen him live once but hey, it was enough. have you ever seen mariah live? did i spell that right? i can't think or type tonight.

do you read much?

later,
brandon