if you're still tuned in...

curtis-ho.blogspot.com

fun fun fun.

i guess i shouldn't hide it any longer. i'm moving. this place has a lot of good memories, a lot of bad memories, and far too many apathetic ones. but it's served me well.

i suppose the new address is fairly obvious.

dear soul-etches. we've shared many a moment together, haven't we? from the first moment i created you with that tree-nature-green layout that everybody laughs at today, creating that faux bosox lineup, saving those journal entries...yeah. i'll still keep you around in remembrance of all you've done, if not for the memories. you've helped me learn a lot about myself.

i feel like i should say something inspiring. something that will give you the respect you've given me all these years. but all i can think of is...

thanks.

WHAT THE EFF.

I don't know why I got so effing strung out about this. I have far more important things to think about. It doesn't mean it's not important...Wait. Yes, it does. It's not important to me, it's really not. And nothing will be amiss, either; I don't feel like getting lost within the horde of faces, so I'm not going to jump in. I'll be Scar for once, getting to watch others fall into the stampeding bison. Yeah, that'd be nice.

Go away. Good riddance.

Heh, kind of feels like an epiphany. I like the sound of crumpling paper.

-------------
Hide and Seek - Imogen Heap

Where are we?
What the hell is going on?
The dust has only just begun to fall,
Crop circles in the cockpit.
Sinking.
Feeling.

Spin me 'round again
And rub my eyes,
This can't be happening.
When busy streets, a mess with people,
would stop to hold their heads - heavy.

Hide and seek.
Trains and sewing machines.
All those years,
They were here first...

Oily marks appear on walls
Where pleasure moments hung before the takeover,
The sweeping insensitivity of this
Still life...

Hide and seek.
Trains and sewing machines,
(Oh, you won't catch me around here)
Blood and tears,
(Hearts)
They were here first.

Mmm what'd you say?
Mmm that you only meant well?
Well, of course you did.
Mmm what'd you say?
Mmm that it's all for the best?
Of course it is.
Mmm what'd you say?
Mmm that it's just what we need,
And you decided this.
Mmm what'd you say?
Mmm what did she say?

Ransom notes keep falling out your mouth,
Mid-sweet talk, newspaper word cut outs,
Speak no feeling, No i don't believe you,
You don't care a bit,
You don't care a bit.

------------

the draining communion cup.

i think it's about time i went home. i don't know where or why this has suddenly overcome me, but i get the feeling of broken-ness. but i don't think this is the kind of broken-ness for God. this just feels like plain being borked every which way to the point i feel like...like i don't know anymore. to a point unknown. and it's not one of those "i can't deal with it any longer so i'm going to kill myself" kinds of broken-nesses, but more of a "i can deal with it, i just don't know how to" which, in my opinion, is far worse because then you have to live with the stupid thing and not know a) what's wrong, and b) how to fix it.

but that's only a half truth. i know what's wrong and i know what needs to be fixed. i think he's trying to get my attention again, and in a big way by using such little things. i dream these dreams to make these attempts only to have them fail, so i can realize that what i'm chasing is fruitless. and what are the odds the one cup i picked was draining itself?

i know i haven't blogged in a while, but it's always been in the back of my mind. i think subconsciously i avoided blogging so the few people who did spend a few minutes of their day to read my posts would stop doing so. not because i didn't like them reading, but because i always felt a little dishonest when blogging because i could never really get at what i felt or wanted to say without being struck by the fear of what those readers would think of me.

even now that fear still strikes. what if they, on the off chance, decided to check on this page and read again? should i say "please don't come here anymore" or disable the page entirely, or start saving everything as drafts? no, because if people care enough to visit this page and read, then i guess i shouldn't deny them nor reject them for their troubles.

sigh (and i actually sighed there; it's more than a convention of speech, you know).

all of this envy and jealousy and longing and regret and hoping-for-what-might-be and plain overall THIS SUCKS is just. everywhere. as of an hour ago. maybe it's the people. i won't try to pretend they're good influences; some of them are downright bad, but most of them are simply...neutral. but that could be even more dangerous because the complacency and apathy rubs off on me, and i grow stagnant. as i said earlier today during a nice lunch with two others, "i'm just...sitting."

these people. they are so amazing, so wonderful, so beautiful, so filled-to-the-brim-they-can't-hold-it-in, so blessed, and what a wretch am i. this feeling is so striking, so very jarring down to the depths, beyond the frayed edges of who i appear to be, tearing through the fabric and cloth of the facades i have spun to keep it all in. the angst, the sorrow, the weeping, the dead.

am i fighting the good fight? am i running the good race? am i keeping the faith? i think i've been down on the ground, resigned to wait for the count to reach ten. i think i've stopped running and resorted to walking the rest of the distance. and i don't think i am. what a waste i've become; fourteen years of christian schooling and this is who i am. a lump of flesh and bone, of dust and blood combined, given the divine breath to breathe and to live and to...squander it all upon NOTHING. NOTHING AT ALL. everything i've accrued has amounted to nothing.

and that is the deepest despair of all. everything i have gained is nothing, because i have gained nothing. "the car went nowhere because there was nowhere to go."

i don't sleep anymore. i dream, which is infinitely worse than sleeping, because i do not control the world in which i dream, and where the yearnings of my subconscious are brought to life, the fears of my subconscious are given life. and when i wake, the greatest feeling of loss overwhelms me because in the few seconds i sit upright in my bed, breathing quickly with my heart racing, i come to realize it was all just a dream. none of it was real. the people i loved, the people who loved me, the things i did, the things that happened, none of it was ever real, except for in my head.

i don't expect anybody to understand because i don't expect anybody to read this. and if somebody were to read this, i wouldn't expect you to understand this anyway even though you say you might, because each person's broken-ness is different. how can the broken cup say to the broken vase "i know how you feel" when they were composed entirely differently? each had its own shape, its own purpose, its own life, so how can the cup understand the vase whatsoever? it can't, simple as that. it can pretend to, it can try, but it won't. ever.

i don't mean this to be a sad, pour-your-guts-out post. i intended this to be an honest, true-to-heart post. uncensored - well, not completely - truth. and like i said to someone a few weeks ago, "lol i thought you knew me =P i don't get happy endings, remember? i'm the guy who gets the okay ending." and i find that to be quite true. i'm not trying to be pessimistic (but maybe i am anyway), but if you ask me how i'm doing, much more often than not i'll reply with "okay" or "alright" (ad nauseum), and hardly ever a "good" or "great". i'm the black knight, holding the last piece of the princesses' heart to always ensure it will remain forever safe and unharmed.

------
done to 'see right through me' by mobile.

the hand stretched out over infinity, yet failed to grasp naught but tendrils of hair seeping quickly in between his fingers. the blood was pumping through his ears, causing a symphony of crashes and cries and a cacophony of weeping and sorrow all combined into one beautiful yet tragic song. the emptiness inside his gut, the pounding of his head, the heaving of his chest, how much time had passed, and how much time did he have left? too much, too little, and yet all the time in the world.

everything froze.

he saw her as she was, her eyes glistening with the tears of lost hope as her own hand flailed outwardly towards his own. in this halted eternity time could not touch, their fingertips brushed and their teardrops let fly sparkled in the rushing winds. and then time returned, doubling its efforts and causing it all to move twice as fast.

his mouth opened and lips moved, shouting words only she would ever hear as they were lost within the cavernous expanse. she was growing farther and farther away, slipping away into the sheets of the vast unknown. her eyes hid themselves, shut tight with teeth clamped down upon a lip as her hand made a final stretch. he struggled to connect over the boundless gap, his fingers stretching and pushing closer and closer...

he fell for a long time. and yet he could not help but let the hot tears fly as he listened to her song trailing behind him.

wow, consecutive. i haven't done that in a while. probably because then i forgot about the post previous and how important that was for me to get down. and then i think, maybe i should just hit the EDIT button.

it is time for me to see with eyes unclouded by things like hope, things like hate, things of love, and things of legend. do such things actually exist, or are they simply abstract concepts thrashing about somewhere in the world behind the eyes? perhaps they are not so much veils over the windows as they are smudges of dirt, so that even when there is nothing to block the light, the silhouettes and shadows still appear imperfect. but yes, i have rid myself of such things, there is no more doubt behind the eyes. and in doing so, i have enabled myself to see beyond my own sight, to know things that i could not have known before, for it is because of the children of hate, the wellsprings of hope, the flushes of love, and the heroes of legend that i become derailed from my original purpose: to see without obstruction. time, a mistress more fickle than fortune herself, reveals all things as she pleases, less merciful than her wizened father before her (renowned, i am told) in choosing the moments to deliver revelation. this epiphany of seeing as i have never seen...it must be godsend, for lady time would have taken an eternity to bestow it upon my brow.

it is time for me to see, for the first time of my life.

don't ask where i got that from.

so i had this post that was seriously long 'cause i was cramming everything i had been feeling lately into it, but realized that some people might have gotten offended because i mentioned specific names. okay, well not SPECIFIC names. but names that would have been recognizable to those who are "in the know". and when i thought about it some more, i came to the conclusion that the post should be taken down - or never been posted in the first place - because i am no one to judge. i have neither the right nor the place to comment (read: SLANDER) others, no matter how frustrated i may have been feeling at the time. i was simply annoyed because i was trying to read a book for one of my courses at the time...and all the person could do was whine.

so yeah.

what am i left with now? absolutely nothing. when i went to bed yesterday i was thinking, the kind of thinking that i HATE because i always get left with the short end of the stick, about myself and my relationships with a few other people, one in particular. and it dawned (or dusked? har har) on me: i am nothing special in anybody's eyes. not including His, of course, because everybody is equally loved, equally special in His eyes.

but in terms of THIS world. i am nothing special. nothing out of the ordinary. in fact, i'm probably fairly mediocre in many standards. i am flawed (well, that's assumed). i am imperfect (ditto). and then i remember Bean, the little boy from rotterdam who had to make his own way around. julian delphiki, an illegal experiment to turn anton's key and thus produce an amazing level of genius. he was given the name Bean because, the first time he tried to really go anywhere, another boy stated about him scornfully (excuse my french),

"he ain't worth a damn bean."

to which bean replied,

"am so."

and from then on his name was Bean. everybody thought he would amount to nothing, that the tiny runt of a child would die of starvation because, as poke observed, he was not one scared of death or running from it, because death was already in him. and yet little Bean, the boy who everybody thought never would be, became everything he could be. and more. yet somehow i don't have that bright of an outlook for myself. i don't know where i'm going. unlike Bean, i truly am nothing special. Bean was simply coated in a layer of soot that, eventually, he shook himself of to reveal the gleaming silver beneath. for me, though, all there is under the soot is a lump of coal.

i am nothing special. so why does He care about me? why does He love me the way only He can? if i am nothing special, why do i matter to Him? why did He take the time to create every cell in my body, to know how many hairs are upon my head? as nothing special, i deserve nothing from Him. maybe this is what the woman at the well felt like. she had figured herself to be nothing, yet here came Christ, willing to get to know her and offer her life everlasting.

to be loved is to be known and to be known is to be loved.

it's a profound statement, even if i thought that the video used that line way too much so that it lost its effect around three quarters of the way through. i am nothing special, yet He loves me and knows me, and even if He didn't love me, He would want to love me. even if He didn't know me, He would want to know me. He would start to love me. He would get to know me. and it's boggling as to why.

...woah. it's not so much an epiphany as it is a random realization, but...woah. modernity. the phenomenon of industrial life. modernity. the mother who gave birth to therapeutic culture. therapeutic culture. the curative to the feelings of paranoia. that really, we are insignificant and small.

i need a cottage to go to. or maybe a park. or maybe...just a good book.

can we at least be honest now?

...no, i don't think so. not yet, anyway. not entirely, maybe not ever. but i can still hope, right?