April 2, 2004

Well, it's still April 1st on my neck of the woods, but this is what came up, so I think I'll just move forward to tomorrow. Time waits for no one!

It all started a few months ago. I wrote a daylog about my first blood donation. This spawned from my decision to start helping more, in a general sort of way. I'm pretty healthy, so it's the least I could do. It wasn't nearly as bad as I though, so that was good.

My second blood donation was not as smooth as my first. I had taken prescribed medication within the previous 4 weeks and couldn't remember the name of it, so I was refused as a donor. I went back after the 4 week period and everything was cool... except for the girl who didn't know her phlebotomy very well. But after quite a while, and little added discomfort, I was on my way.

They always run through a few things briefly when you donate about if you get sick within the next few days and what-not, but I usually pay about as much attention to them as I do flight attendants at the beginning of a commercial flight. "What's that... seat belt, oxygen mask, emergency exits. Roger." After about 2 days, I started to get a soar throat and swollen glands. I tried to remember what they told me about getting sick, but since I wasn't really listening to them in the first place, that memory had slipped away. So I called the donation center and told them the situation, and they told me to call someone 800 number. I finally got ahold of someone, and they ended up asking me a bunch of questions about who I was and what was wrong, so I explained and they said they'd take care of it.

about 2 weeks later
I came quietly home this evening, so as not to wake my roommates daughter, Jade, sleeping in the living room, and made my way into the kitchen to listened to the messages on the answering machine. I skipped past the leftover messages that I lazily have yet to delete, on to message number three, the new one.

This message is for Nicholas.
Could you please call Mercy Medical Center.
We have some questions to ask you about you and your donating.
Our number is ###-####.

Now, I know reading this just makes you think that they want to question me about my sickness that I reported, like a responsible blood donor. But when the blood donation center needs to talk to you, it can't be good... plain and simple. The first thing that popped into my mind was all the possible ways that I could have contracted AIDS, thought there aren't many, of which I am proud to report... but there are a couple. Then I started to wonder if my THC levels could have cought their attention while more closely examining my blood. Whatever it is, it can be a little frightening to get that kind of call. I calmed down a little bit, but I have to wait until tomorrow to contact them. I hate waiting for shit like this.

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Update: They wanted to know if the problems I was having were cleared up or if they are chronic. WHEW!

Tonight, I begin the drive home...

It is 1,600 miles from Albuquerque, New Mexico to Asheville, North Carolina.

Home...

Someone here in New Mexico once asked me about what the mountains of North Carolina are like.

"It's a wonderful place to live, but I wouldn't want to visit there."

It was the most true answer that I could give. I've only been home once in three years. I remember gazing out the window of the Greyhound in childlike wonder at the beautiful green carpet of plants growing heroically from the patches of soil on the granite cliff faces. I remember the electric charge in the air, and the smell of an impeding thunderstorm. I remember the smell of moist, rich soil deep in the forests. I remember the sight of honeysuckle, the plant that will always be associated with my childhood in my mind.

I just hadn't been there in so long... And it hurt so much when I had to leave.

The mountains of North Carolina are my home. I grew up running through the valleys, climbing the rock faces, eating blackberries straight off the plant, and finally throwing my sweaty young body into a mountain creek before I went home to sleep to the sounds of summer thunderstorms pounding against the tin roof of our house. I grew up reading books deep in the woods, lying in the shade next to a bubbling waterfall. I grew up in a place where I could learn to enjoy my own company. Where you can trek through the mountains for days without encountering another human being. Where the nights aren't lit by harsh sodium streetlights, but by the soft glow of the moon, the stars, and the clouds of fireflies blinking their mysterious messages into the night. There is an energy that fills me there that I have never been able to find anywhere else.

Tonight, I leave here to go home. But I can't stay. Yet.

My future wife is going to finally meet my family. She is going to get to visit the places where I had lived and laughed as a child. She'll see the creeks I used to swim in, the cliffs and trees I would climb. She'll see the rolling, blue-tinted hills on the horizon that will always bring the warmth of home into my heart.

I'M GOING HOME!!!

And this time, I'm not going alone.

I spend my days looking for portals out of this world. Don’t get me wrong. I love this world. My world. The world that I have made. Created and approved. But I wonder about other worlds too. I wonder what lies through the portals that I search for. Will there be another me there? Another you? Tell me. Tell me if you know. When the science guys prove string theory, will they tell us? Or will they keep the other worlds to themselves. Their own private vacation resorts. Will they go and become new gods in those other worlds? Or will they just walk over and take notes like all good science boys do. I wanna prove string theory. Not personally, but in general, I want to hear it on the news. Hear it on NPR. "Today, scientists prove the existence of hundreds of other worlds occupying the same space as our own." Our dead relatives are all there in one such world, the one where things exist as pure energy. They say another world grows cotton candy instead of grass.

For now, I search the sidewalks and alleys for portals. I think about how I could rip a hole in the universe to see the others. I think about whether it would be like looking in a mirror or through a window or both at the same time. I wonder.

Wedding Prep 101: pt.4

Ok, new news. We changed the date, don't know if I already mentioned that. But now it is going to be on July 16,2005.

Also, I recently spent a week in Forest View. They found out I am bi-polar. Not that suprising, a lot of the women on my mom's side are bi-polar.

I found the perfect wedding dress. It is white with pink flowers beaded on the top.

Well, I will try to keep you updated over spring break, but I make no promises.

Thoughts Inspired by the Act of Sales Order Processing, 11:45am

The man who can fly; no-one tells him what to do. Only the flightless man is ruled.

But what of Icarus? Icarus did not expect to die. He expected to fly off and live out his life. He was laid low by the Sun, because Icarus himself was ruled, he was ruled by the Sun.

The Sun rules us all. The Sun rules those who claim to rule us. The Sun gave life to every living thing. It continues to sustain us. We owe it. Sun-worship is no longer fashionable amongst the Human tribe, but of all religions it makes the most sense; the Sun is a tangible thing, its godliness a matter of scientific fact. The Sun is not an abstract concept, or a philosophy. It exists, it made us. No-one requires faith in order to believe in the Sun. It is.

Look too long at the Sun and you go blind, your skin cracks, your wings melt. It strips you. No God invented of human mind can do those things. The Sun does not require the help of human agents. It can kill us by itself, if it so chooses. One day the Sun will burn and destroy the Earth.

Every morning the Sun rises in the east. It traverses the sky in full view of everyone and sets in the west. Neither the Christian God nor the primitive tribal Gods of other religions appear to us daily in the sky. They hide themselves away.

Perhaps this is why we no longer worship the Sun. We don't have to. The Sun doesn't care whether we worship it or not. It'll get us all in the end. There is no special hurry. Perhaps we invented God to give the Sun a human face, a face with a big white beard and a temper. The Sun does not have a face. Neither do oysters.

And what rules the Sun? Nothing rules the Sun. It rules itself. Arguably, time rules the Sun, but time is not a thing, it is a process. Human beings can only relate to things, not processes. It is not time that one fears as one grows old; it is the thing we are becoming, the failing body in which we are trapped.

Just gotta get out. Just gotta get right out of here.

I have written a poem. It goes "flower roses dewdrops, birdsong breezes clouds jelly trifle chocolate", in italics - because italics make text seem more poetic - and that's that. From now on this will be my mantra, the chant which will cure my imbalance and keep me.

So, like, I came from school today to find this one letter in my mailbox from New York University. I don’t even know why I applied, I knew even if I got in I’d need at least $10,000 in scholarships and grants just to come remotely to being able to pay the bill. Anyway, I was sort of running late for the weekly M:TG tournament at my local card store, so I chucked the letter onto my table and left. With a 3.6 GPA and a 1420 SAT, I knew I had almost no chance of getting in, let alone getting any scholarships, but I was banking on my FBLA and APs. Came home later today, popped open the letter

REJECTED

Guess I can’t go where Bud Fox went. Ugh…so like, what now? Buy a semi-auto and blast away the incoming freshman class during the Open House? Mailbomb the gosh darned admissions office? DoS nyu.edu? I’m not sure, but I probably will just get over it and get on with my life now. I mean, what if they, like, nuke NYC while a course at NYU is in session, a course I could have attended? Perhaps this is a divine sign of some strange sort, a foreshadowing.

Nah

I think the real explanation is that I should have done some fucking work during my four years in high school instead of spending it on pointless computer games. I spent 180 hours on EternalVisions MUD. That’s over 7 DAYS of NON FRICKING STOP gaming! Counter-Strike? OMFG, that must account for AT LEAST a month, considering that I pulled all nighters every other night during the summer. Diablo 2? Also days! StarCraft? The whole freshman year! Where is all this now? My EternalVisions account is long-gone due to inactivity; the Counter-Strike servers I played on are no longer in existence; I gave Diablo 2 away to my friend; StarCraft was replaced by Warcraft III...

Games didn’t do my homework!

If I spent even 1/10, no, 1/20 of that time on homework, I’d be a fricking OVERACHIEVER! If I spent 1/5 of all that time reading, I’d have read HUNDREDS of books by now! Had I worked during that time at minimum wage, I’d have thousands! But now, it’s gone...ALL GONE!

Fellow young E2 noders, don’t make the same mistake I did! The fools learn from their mistakes, the wise learn from mistakes of others...

WORK!