The Silver Lining

No one really gets to see the "silver lining" in the clouds. We can only look up and see a gray sheen on the bottom of some cumulonimbus.

















It's not quite silver, but it's the stuff dreams are made of. I took that picture at around 35,000 feet altitude while leaning over the guy who had the window seat. He was asleep, luckily.

You don't have to be in the jet stream to see the silver lining though. Got deferred from your "dream" school? Welcome that blank canvas of other opportunities. Failed your driving test? You'll have a funny story to tell. Ran out of boxers? You'll have an even funnier story to tell. So hopefully you all get what I mean.

So if you ever feel neglected
And if you think that all is lost
I'll be counting up my demons, yeah
Hoping everything's not lost

One Liners

Entertainment in a single sentence. These one liners are little compilations of my life, other people's lives, experiences, imagination and just a few spark-thoughts that keep me going throughout the day. Hope you like them!

Today my 13-year-old brother proudly declared that he knows that "WTF" means "Wow, That's Funny" and has been using it all over the internet.

I conduct job interviews for a living and nothing gives me a better sense of wielding karma than giving the job to the nervous kid instead of the better qualified arrogant prick.
(thought of that while getting my college interview on)

"I was waiting for you," she said, and for an instant I wasn't alone.

From the moment her arms wrapped around my chest and her head found its place against my shoulder, I knew beyond a doubt that I would never think of five feet as too short ever again.

I woke up knowing that today was going to be like every other day because there was only one thing I was going to think about and it made me want to go back under the covers.

I never knew why I was blessed with these disproportionally large man-hands until I used them to cover my face against the world.

I want to introduce something pretty meaningful to me. I started playing the guitar in 6th grade and the first song I ever learned was "Everlong" by Foo Fighters. It was different from learning the piano or violin though because this was 100% my own initiative. I'll admit, I was a big believer in the thought that playing the guitar definitely adds points to your "score". But it's more than pretending you're Jason Mraz or Chris Carrabba (although, I wouldn't want to be that short in real life). Any feeling I have, I can channel it through six strings.

Last Saturday I drove to Sam Ash with literally a bag of money. My mom doesn't think I should keep all the money I make (thanks mom...) so she allots me increments every week...from my own account. So I went into the acoustic shop and picked up the last one of these Yamaha FG 730S guitars off the shelf. I like to relate this moment to when Harry Potter first recieves his Phoenix wand from Olivander and he feels this instant connection with it. I played a few John Mayer songs on it and decided it was definitely worth my bag of twenties, tens, fives and I think I even had a few ones in there. It's kind of the first expensive thing I paid for myself so it's special in that way. I don't plan on bringing my violin and even less the baby grand in my house to college so this'll be my musical output for the next phase of my life.

I haven't named it yet. I figure with its vanillablonde top contrasting with the almostblack back and sides, it deserves a pretty name. And yes, I did just channel my inner William Faulkner in creating the words vanillablonde and almostblack.

Driving to School

Everyday the morning has this subtle, ominous demeanor. Especially in the winter when it's still dark when I pull out of my driveway, nothing gives me a more surreal feeling than listening to a few tracks in my half-awake state. Some music I'd recommend in the AM:

Kanye West- Good Morning
The Postal Service- Sleeping In
Thievery Corporation- Lebanese Blonde
Remy Zero- Fair
Nick Drake- Northern Sky
Common- Be

Scar Tissue

Excerpt from one of my favorite books:

I took the mike and belted out, "Give it away, give it away, give it away, give it away now."

That line had come from a series of conversations I'd had years earlier with Nina Hagen. Nina was a wise soul, and she realized how young and inexperienced I was then, so she was always passing on gems to me, not in a preachy way, just by seizing on opportunities. I was going through her closet one day, looking at all her crazy clothes, when I came upon a valuable exotic jacket. "This is really cool," I said.
"Take it. You can have it," she said.
"Whoa, I can't take this. This is the nicest jacket you have in there," I said.
"That's why I gave it to you," she explained. "It's always important to give things away; it creates good energy. If you have a closet full of clothes, and you try to keep them all, your life will get very small. But if you have a full closet and someone sees something they like, if you give it to them, the world is a better place."
I had come from such a school of hard knocks that my philosophy was you don't give things away, you take whatever you want. It was such an epiphany that someone would want to give me her favorite thing. That stuck with me forever. Every time I'd be thinking, "I have to keep," I'd remember, "No you gotta give away instead." When I started going regularly to meetings, one of the principles I learned was that they way to maintain your own sobriety is to give it to another suffering alcoholic. Every time you empty your vessel of energy, fresh new energy comes flooding in.