The audacity of hope.

Many times in my life, I have told people that hope is a waste. That hope is, in fact, hopeless. Hope, to me, represents faith, only without the grounds for faith. Faith is something you have in your family, in your teammates on the sports field, in the decency of people, in the American dollar (maybe not so much anymore), in your friends that you find most dear, in God. There is no proof that God exists, at least not in a scientific sense. Your friends could abandon you, people could watch someone hurt die without a second thought, Dean could at some point drop a disc. These things are not law. And yet you believe, with all of your heart, and you are seldom wrong.

You believe because you want to believe, because somehow you know that what you have faith in will not fail.

It is an exercise in futility to spend time hoping. Hope is rooting for the Orioles, desperately trying to will them to a World Series from my couch. Hope is a lottery ticket. Hope is wishing that people who have left you will come back and it will be the same as always. It's hoping that there's a mistake and a free pizza gets delivered to your house. It's dreaming of that foul ball, curving perfectly into the stands and into your hands off the bat of your favorite player. Hope is a selfish (or sometimes unselfish) prayer. It's wishing upon a star.

Just like faith, there is no proof that you will have this happen to you. There's simply no way of knowing which lottery ticket wins. But unlike faith, it would be foolish to believe in your heart of hearts that the ticket in your hand is the $4.7 million jackpot. Hope is a bad Bon Jovi song.

After all of this, after years of disdaining every second that I have had to rely on hope, something amazing happens. Barack Obama, a black man with just under four years of experience in the Senate, a man who had to overcome near impossible odds to reach this point, told me to hope. To bank on the relatively unknown. To hope that change is coming to our dying country. The sort of change that seems more impossible than the odds he has already overcome. This man will become the president of our country, the country that I am so often glad to live in, but that I am so often not proud of.

I don't have faith in him yet. I don't know what he will do. Who knows what our new government is capable of? Who knows if the hole is already too deep?

And yet, on Tuesday I voted for him. I went home and sat down. I remembered the way I felt as I stood in line in Baltimore City to vote, and how the air tasted in that stale church, as people buzzed in excitement. No one said the name "Obama" as I stood there, but the news later confirmed what I already knew: Obama had taken 90% of the vote in the city. I knew. I had seen those people on the buses, on the street, in the parks, by the Inner Harbor. They had changed, something had filled them.

That night my eyes clouded with tears as I watched thousands cheer on my television. It was over, and it was all about to start. And I felt something. Something more than just the moment.

So this is what hope feels like, I realized.

All my mistakes have become masterpieces

It's been a different kind of fall than those in recent memory.

I'm back in central Pennsylvania, where the leaves are fiery and the stars are inches from your face on the right kind of night. Most everyone seems slightly annoyed, perhaps because the sudden drop from crisp and clear to cold and blustery came before they could completely unpack their winter clothes and stock up on hot chocolate and tea.

The Philadelphia Phillies have just won the World Series. This is as earth-shattering an event as any I have encountered. It was big when the Diamondbacks knocked off Mariano Rivera in 2001, when the Red Sox and White Sox won their first titles in a lifetime in back to back years, and as a Maryland resident, when the Baltimore Ravens won the Super Bowl back before Kerry Collins was washed up for the second time and Ray Lewis hadn't been mentioned in murder cases. But never has one of my teams won a championship, and for a team from Philadelphia (where I am more comfortable than nearly anyone else) to win is something that made me tear up. The city hadn't had a title in any of the four major professional sports since the 76ers won the NBA title in 1983. The Phillies themselves are even more endearing than nearly any other team. In nearly 130 seasons of play, they have lost more games than any professional team in any sport in North America, over 10,000 losses. They would need two completely undefeated seasons (162-0) before they pulled above .500 all time. On top of this, they had just one title, in 1980, in those 130 seasons. Until now. Beautiful.

There is a presidential election happening in four days, and an enormous one at that, one that will almost certainly end up being the most important of our lifetime. I've watched a man who I rarely agreed with but who was the politician I respected the most, both for his heroic life and his record of voting for what he thought was right whether or not that was popular, become someone who I never agree with and who I do not respect at all in a matter of a month or so. As John McCain wrapped up the Republican nomination, I thought it was safe that we would be getting a great leader no matter the outcome of the general election. Since the RNC, this hope has tanked as McCain and his campaign use highly irresponsible scare tactics, hinting at Obama's ties to terrorists among other things. The old McCain would have never done this... though we can always count on Christians to swing below the belt, be hateful and fear-mongering in order to push their own agenda. As my friend Brian said, I doubt very strongly that Mr. Whitaker from Focus on the Family's "Adventures in Odyssey" videos I watched as a kid, would agree with this letter from the future that was found on the Focus on the Family website and was later discussed on CNN. It makes me sad that so many Christians choose to be hateful. Jesus didn't hate. Though Jesus never had to listen to Kenny G...

But this fall isn't completely different. Halloween is tonight, which means that "the one night a year when a girl can dress like a total slut and no other girls can say anything about it" is here. That's pretty consistent. The Redskins have a new offense for the fourth time in five seasons. My fingers lose circulation when I play ultimate. The Charlie Brown specials start and run through New Year's. Movie nights happen more and more often, with more people piled under more blankets.

And memories of autumns long gone descend on me. A deep breath will remind me of Icy Hot and shorts that showed off our bright white legs in a long thigh-high stripe across the starting line. Knit blankets remind me of basement couches that I haven't seen in years, and that may well have been in a dumpster not long after I left them. Cigarette smoke mixing with fog from a cold mouth, a cloud with every exhale.

And there comes a time,
You must stay in the moment while your heart's still bleeding
And there comes a time,
When you must walk away though your heart's still beating.

Who is to say who wins or who loses?
I sing to myself at the end of the day when I know
what the blues is.
And all my mistakes have become masterpieces.
All my mistakes have become masterpieces.

mmmmmm capitalism!

In light of our country's recent economic downturn, I bring you an entry from my old blog:

Just a few excerpts from my economics professor [at Community College of Baltimore County Essex in the fall of 2007] during a class lecture. For those of you (Mohar, this is you) who know Obed [an education professor at Messiah]... this is Obed if he taught economics. None of this quotes are out of context. Sadly.

"The money makes you great! It gives you the will, the power, the love, to get up another day."

[To me, knowing I am a history major:] "If you don't plan what with to do with the knowledge of history, Magna Carta, and save all of your riches you receive from your knowledge, you will end up homeless, living on the street. You know what I am saying?"

"Profit Maximization is the goal! Cost Minimization is the key! If you have making six figures for IBM, you don't just be happy. You start your own business! You hire men in suits to work for you for six figures and they will be happy to work for you...but! You will be making ten tiiiiiiiimes!! that amount! You know what I am saying?"

"The knowledge of money is important, like the air we breathe."

"This money, it makes you have value. And this value is what makes America great."

Amen.


Peace,
Charlie


Now I would later find out that this man was not in fact my professor, but rather a professor who had been fired that week but was somewhat confused by what that meant. He apparently thought he was fired at the end of that semester. This explains why he sent away a lady at the beginning of class who said she was going to be our substitute, saying that he wasn't sick. It also explains why our real professor, a six foot tall black woman, stared him out of the class the next week.

If only I could have caught his name. This great country needs him now...

love,
Charlie

Factories and marching bands

This morning I woke up to the sound of "Holland" playing, off of Sufjan Stevens' beautiful album Michigan. It lyrically paints an August on the lake, and it is a warm day in mid-September as I write this, but still the song always makes me think of late fall..

Fall is my favorite time of year. The crisp taste in the air is perhaps God's very best creation. But "Holland" is for when that has come and gone. There are soft flurries with huge snowflakes out the window and I sip on some tea, curled up with a book under a quilt... all is calm, all is bright.

"And I guess that was your accomplice in the wood chipper..."

I recently heard of an old friend who was going through a tough time, and everyone seemed to know exactly why except for that person.

I'd like to think I'm more self aware than that, but I'm not. My problems are simple and not devastating by any means, and yet I walk myself into the same troubles again and again like a lab rat who hasn't yet figured out that, no, neither door one nor door two has cheese behind them. I face setbacks and turn to my friends, confused at how this new set of circumstances could have possibly cropped up, like William H. Macy's character in Fargo, shocked that his plan (which involved thousands of dollars and staging a kidnapping) isn't still completely on track.

I am certain that my friends want to smack me awake, to show me my own reality, just as I wish I could with this old friend of mine. Perhaps they know more about me than I know about myself. In fact, there's a good chance of that.

Life is easier to view from the glass above it. Living it is the messy part. I'm saying nothing profound.

I love you guys,
Charlie

"I read the news today, oh boy..."

I really should get away from posting at the wee hours of the morning. The typos and run-on sentences are hard to read later.

At any rate, here's a duo of poems that I have been toying with lately. As always, please feel free to critique them. The first is an old one that I think is almost ready for public consumption and there's a new one in there too. Enjoy!


honesty is the best policy.

late one night, the Girl Who Never Lies
went into the bedroom of the boy she loved
and cut off his manhood
so she could truthfully say
that she hated all boys


death of innocence

two kids scared shitless
the boy wondering how
not bleeding could be a bad thing
and the girl wondering how
she could have become
the girl in those videos
from health class

they lay in the black
this kind of death is new
they wonder what was to be
and what will be now

together but
completely alone



Eh, since this is a weak showing after not posting for a month, I will toss a stupid haiku your way as well.


wasted opportunity

every line precious
the syllables dwindle down
this haiku sucks ass


Alright alright. I promise to have a real post up here this week or next. Promise.

Love,
Charlie

Missing the point

I had the unique experience (for a broke college student) to have my feet in both the Pacific Ocean and the Atlantic Ocean within 48 hours. Neither time was a particularly clean experience, taking place in two fine and very different armpits of The World: Nicaragua and New Jersey.

My trip to Nicaragua was for ten days with my church from Damascus, MD. It wasn't quite a missions trip, as we went to churches already established and, to a certain degree, thriving in terms of most everything (except funding). We stayed on a farm (don't tell the customs people please!) just outside of Managua, the capital city, for about five days, and traveled to extremely poor villages in and around Somoto and Somotillo for five days.

As with most third-world countries, the streets have no names. You get directions by remembering where the Old Cathedral used to be in the 1980s and then count blocks. It's tricky. Also, the roads are very rarely paved, and never paved well, leading to the longest bus ride (seven hours) of my life. Then we would pull into these places that were living in 1880 and do things like hand them Bibles and soccer balls and frisbees and flashlights. We would pray with them and sing with them and teach the kids some Bible stories. Then at night we would go to the house we were graciously put up in. My brother Daniel and I spent our time in Somotillo in a house that was one room, about twice the size of my bedroom, with cinder blocks, logs and cardboard making up the walls and roof. The floor was dirt. There was no electricity or running water.

I hated it, and realized that while this was some sort of sick cultural experience for me, for these people, this was their life. They would know no other way.

Reaching Wildwood, NJ for the annual Wildwood Beach Ultimate tournament the day after I got back only caused me to further furrow my brow. As people were starving in Nicaragua, people I had met, here was I, dropping way too much money to stay near the beach in a hotel. Here we were, unable to finish our pizza and funnel cake.

I thought about American imperialism while I was in Wildwood. All the sweatshops in Managua and all over that country, all those ads for Coca-Cola, even the poorest villages. Those "On the Run"s next to some gas stations we grew to adore, the only places in the country (that I know of) where you could have air conditioning and a flushing toilet. America has Nicaragua, and many nations, in an economic stranglehold. It was always sad. Seeing it was enraging.

I thought of the beach we went to in Nicaragua, some small tourist trap we went to for the afternoon as a treat. The weather was beautiful, but the water was more or less impossible to be in, on account of some brown, dark sludge that was on the surface. And while the busy season is in the winter for them, it was unreal how empty it was. Unable to make this oasis easily accessible or completely desirable, the economy was missing out a potentially very good tourist industry to an extent. Even Wildwood, where in a matter of three days Sara stepped on a sewing needle, Tracy found a scuba knife in the surf, I stepped on glass and a nail and Dan stepped on something that made his big toe bleed a lot, they had money flowing in at a tremendous rate. Because in America, if the beach sucks, build a roller coaster.

I was angry. Where was the justice in this? How could I, as a Christian, just be content with seeing this? What could I do? Where were the picket signs? How could anyone be anything more than glad to be an American? How could they be proud of what we are?

And then it sank in. This isn't why I went to Nicaragua, to be jaded and cynical. I met people who had nothing, and yet fed me three times a day. I met people who didn't speak my language, nor I theirs, trying to tell me how much it meant to them that I had come. I saw people thanking God for what they had, and really, truly meaning it. I saw middle class youth giving up their summer, and last spring, and this fall, and all year round for the next many years, to help their church grow and prosper, so they could do more good in Managua and in the impoverished areas more and more as time goes on. I met a lady who showed me her home, built for $1,200 completely on the offering collection of my church and dozens of others. And I watched her eyes tear up as she smiled proudly when I said her house was beautiful.

And I saw God as I stood in a circle of Americans and Nicaraguans with my eyes closed, praying in our own languages the Lord's Prayer, Our Father reaching across the cultural divide, the language divide, the economic divide and showing us that we are all brothers and sisters of the same heavenly family.

I waded a little deeper into the freezing Atlantic Ocean, surrounded by joyous, drunken ultimate players but alone in my thoughts. I thought of my friends in Nicaragua. I thought of Adrian, whose funeral I missed while I was away. I thought about the past year, the good and bad. I thought of my family, and my friends, past and present.

And for the first time in a really long time, I thanked God for what I had. And really meant it.

"But we decide which is right, and which is an illusion..."

Well, the last few days have been rough for me, some of the pain self-inflicted. But the community is reeling from the loss of Adrian Wilson, who passed away a week ago. I don't know how good I would be at a tribute to Adrian, so I won't try. He was a great kid, heart of gold, and he is going to be missed tremendously. Please pray for his family and his friends, especially Frank Eanes.

I wrote a poem about time and leaves and love. You know this can't be good. But it's the only decent poem I've written in a month, so forgive me for how Robert Frost the themes are.


daily calendar

the tear-off sheets fall like leaves
leaves that can't come soon enough
leaves that will be too late to save us
leaves that are already too late to save us


I am heading to Nicaragua on Monday with my mom for a fellowship trip for church. My brother and sister are already down there for an immersion program. Maybe a week and half in a country where many have nothing will change my life-view, even a little bit.

Maybe that's all I need to snap out of this funk. A fresh look.

"He was bored and tired of my laments..."

Brand New sucks.

I really hate the boring cookie-cutter style of rock that they play. They are a high school garage band that made it without any real reason, or true inkling of talent. It's the worst kind of music, where it's bad, and they don't appear to care because they are laughing about their four bland, artless chords all the way to the bank. Mike told me that they had a new album out that was amazing. But Mike couldn't be trusted with something like this... he liked them when they were terrible!

It was my first day back in my apartment in over a month. Mike and I were burning incense and working on a puzzle of the Civil War, piecing together our fine country's history with Sia playing in the background. When her album ended, Mike put on something else.

It was dark, heavier... it fit how I felt to a T. The last time I was in the apartment, I was in a ball, in nothing but boxers, shivering and sobbing with no tears coming out of my eyes. Though I could see, in my mind was where my reality existed, far more real than the floor of my apartment or Duke or later Mike and my mom talking to me. In my reality where I watched myself die, again and again. I couldn't figure it out... I knew I had so much to live for. I have people who love me, friends all around, a good life. And yet my prison was showing these things to me and I couldn't escape. They didn't go away for days, waking or sleeping. They were there as my pastor and mom drove me home, at the hospital, at the ultimate tournament I played in despite my condition, as I threw up on my empty stomach. I never did want to kill myself, understand. It's just that that's what consumed me. It's not all that I thought about. It's what I lived for three days. And now this Zoloft was numbing me up to the world. A few days after the puzzle, I would park on the sofa and sit. And think about nothing. And care about nothing. And listen to Pink Floyd. I would stay there for a month.

But right then, the Zoloft hadn't gotten me all the way. And this album was playing, each song better than the last. Finally we got the the fifth song on the album. It started soft, slow, hazy. Then, almost two minutes, there is a drum fill, and the track is suddenly coated in guitars, dissonant and distorted, with the singer's untamed voice, moments before soft, now in agony.

Then just as suddenly and only half a minute later, the song shifts back into gear, lead in by four words from the vocals and the guitars suddenly falling into order, the words soaring.

I set down my puzzle piece.

"Your beauty is supreme.
Yeah, you were right about me.
But can I get myself out from underneath
this guilt that will crush me?
And in the choir I saw our sad Messiah.
He was bored and tired of my laments,
said, 'I died for you one time,
but never again.'
Never again.
Never again."

I sat down, stunned by this song, this powerful music. The song went back to the beginning's soft, dark contemplations, repeating and building, and building... as I sat, the second wave of the song reached it's peak, and somehow stayed there, riding on those wild guitars once again. Finally it hit the shoreline, not so much breaking as getting dispersed by the beach.

I didn't cry. I hadn't cried in weeks. But there it was. The song that caught the moment of being back to my private house of horrors. Beautiful and terrible.

"Who is this?" I asked Mike.
"Oh, it's Brand New's latest album," he said, smiling back at me and popping a puzzle piece into it's spot.

I later found out that "Limousine" is about a girl and a limo driver who were killed by a drunk driver, a tragic story (found here, here and here). But for me it was the song that made me feel something one last time before the drugs swept my emotions away for a while.

Music (and real music, not just songs), has a way of sticking with me, of making sense of things I cannot. There aren't words for everything.

But Brand New... they aren't so bad.

"the tolls i take r running me out"

I'm not sure what that drunk text message that is my title meant in the first place, but I think I agree with it. Here's a new poem. As always critiques are welcome.


The Confessions of a Yard Sale

They may tell you that they are moving soon
and there's simply no room
for that nice, near-new loveseat
in their place in the city.

But that's where Gary the Guinea Pig
got stuck and starved last spring,
and they just can't stand
how much Gary stinks on a hot day.

(They aren't moving at all.)
You can have the loveseat for $50.


If you are a reader of this blog still in Towson, Grub Street (Towson University's literary magazine) is out now, with my poem "Classroom Map" published in it. You can find it almost anywhere on campus, or so I hear. The whole magazine is really really good. My favorite poem is about zombies who wish they could be more normal, but aren't sorry for eating our brains. I don't know why...

There's something so amazing about having your name in print alongside something that you are proud of. I'm not a great writer, but I'm pretty good and I enjoy it. And I know I have heard something about a blind squirrel before...

I'm moving to Grantham close to permanently starting in the next week or two. This is an exciting time!

Love to you all,
Charlie

You're so vain. You probably think this life decision is about you.

Well, this is either big news for you, or a formality. So either brace yourself, or lean back and chill. Maybe just skip this post and listen to some music (may I suggest some from the column to the left?).

I'm dropping out of Towson. I'm moving to the Grantham/Harrisburg area (I'm looking at a few living situations, depending on the availability of a car), working full time, maybe taking a class or two at community college, and not doing school for a while.

I have made this decision over the course of the whole semester, so don't you leave me any comments asking me to reconsider. And yes, my parents know, and because they are the most kickass, understanding, patient and chill parents ever, they are not only okay with this, but supportive of this.

Here's my reasoning:

I am a smart, motivated, talented individual. I'm starting to hit the prime of my life. However, the things that interest me, that motivate me, that show my talents... those are not necessarily the same things that I am being asked to do in a university. I am very interested in history, for example. It is still my goal to be a high school history teacher. And I love reading about history, listening to lectures on history, all of that. What I don't like is writing papers on history. They won't matter to anyone. Not to me, not to my professors, not to my future students. They are just part of the system. I have to write these papers to become a teacher.

But I would rather write one hundred poems than one 3 page paper right now. I cannot bring myself to do it. I won't do it, in fact. And I haven't done it. So I'm failing again, and as I look around, all of these people who are not smarter than me are getting As and Bs. My self esteem is slowly getting wiped clean, just as I am rebuilding it.

The other problem is Baltimore. This place has actually grown on me as a city, and a place to live. It is, however, frustrating how hard it is to develop friendships here. This has never once been a problem for me before in my life. I could probably write for hours and hours on my problems with Baltimore, and my thoughts on how this happened, but the bottom line is that this is not the place to try to get back on my feet. The only place I feel safe and at home in this city is with Mike and Duke at my apartment. And it's just not enough. Leaving Mike and this apartment that is my home is my sole regret about leaving Baltimore.

Why the Messiah College area? That's easy. I'm 100% safe there. I'm surrounded by good friends... no, great friends. The area is as home to me as my home in Frederick, Maryland, maybe more. I feel at peace near those creeks and rivers and fields and mountains. The air feels cleaner. It's not perfect. But it's what I need. And sure, a few immediate opportunities that have sprung up (which I am trying to not get my hopes toooooo high about, and so will not mention them) which clinched central PA as my new home, and there's a good chance that none of them will work out. And even if none of them do, I feel at peace with my decision.

Just as there was a downside with leaving Baltimore, so there is for returning to the Messiah area. It's usually the first thing that people ask me about after, "did you think this out?" (Seriously, don't ask me if I thought it out guys. Yes. I did think it out.) And I do realize that of all the places in the wide world, moving to that area might not be exactly moving away from my problems. But I'm kind of finished making life decisions based around that situation. And if it is worse than I thought, having no school, a shrink to talk to, and many many many of my closest friends, plus my family right around as close as ever, all of these things at my fingertips... I think I am putting myself in a good situation. And again, finally, one I am at peace with.

Anyway, please pray for me. This wasn't easy by any means, and God and I aren't exactly on speaking terms (another goal for this year: talk to God again), so do pray hard, and for my poor parents too.

Duke and I are taking our show north. If nothing else, there's more fields for him up there.

Love,
Charlie

It's musiiiiiiic!

You may notice that I have a little somethin'-somethin' from a place called the Hype Machine over on the left hand side.

<<<<<<<< Do NOT be alarmed. This is a very very short list of things I am currently listening to on that beautiful site. If you like some of the stuff I have up (and well you should), but an older song has disappeared, click "sorrycharlie's loved tracks" and there it will be!

Especially enjoy Yael Naim today, as I am. I feel nice and pretentious when I listen to artists who sing in Hebrew sometimes and sing Britney Spears covers other times, and who doesn't like feeling pretentious?

...well, except for maybe Jesus.

Love,
Charlie

syntactic ambiguity

1. Nothing is better than eternal happiness.
2. Eating a nice, juicy hamburger is better than nothing.

THEREFORE:
Eating a nice, juicy hamburger is better than eternal happiness.

The first of a few surprises.

So there's a lot of news from my end headed your way in the next month, so be sure to look at this blog constantly. Leave the window open, and just hit refresh.

First things first, I am playing with my dear friend Andrew Bargh in Owen Monroy's appearance on B-Sides. I play French horn (and a few other things), and so that will be happening. That's going down tomorrow (April 9) at 10pm at Messiah's student union. We are playing a small set of Owen's original stuff, which is more than fantastic, in my opinion, as we open for this chick named Gretel. I had never heard of her (them?) until Pete Corning sent her myspace to everyone. She's really good, so have a little listen. As with all B-Sides, the show is free.

As I said earlier, there's a storm abrewin' from my side of things... by the end of April, things are going to be vastly different. You'll see. And I'll see you all tomorrow night!

Love,
Charlie

Andrew Bargh is a genius.

He found this video. Now there are countless videos that I love, but let's face it, this is something at we have all wished for at one time or another. These guys are brilliant and I'm mildly obsessed, since the things they do are things that Mike and I want to do every day.

Enjoy!
Charlie

The golden rule

I figured out a way to put into words the way I view the world now. And in fact, it's kind of an interesting thought for all of us, I think.

We've all heard this:

"Treat others as you would like to be treated."

It's known as the Golden Rule. It is all over Greek philosophy. Most of the major world religions have a very similar thought, usually summed up in a phrase like the one above. For example, the version of the Golden Rule in Christianity is found in Matthew 7:12a, which reads, "So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you." We have been taught this since we were kids, in Sunday school, the playground, when you share your gum with the wholeeee class. If everyone just followed the Golden Rule, what a perfect world this world would be.

But what if we don't all want to be treated the same way? Herein lies the problem. Some people like when they are the center of attention, while others want to be left alone. Some people would rather everyone suck up to them and make everything sunny, while others would like honesty, no matter how brutal. Not all of us want the same treatment, making treating someone the way we want to be treated kind of stupid, egocentrical and hard to compromise. Everyone happy would be, "Treat others as they would like to be treated." I wonder if that would make you truly happy, however, as you are too busy trying to please everyone to focus on yourself, and to get in touch with yourself.

It is in this way that I am mixed up. I am following the Golden Rule, more than most people I know, but because the way I want to be treated is a little quirky and weird, I come off looking like a spaz at times. For example, sometimes I enjoy people being a little bitter and sarcastic. It's really funny to me, especially if that person has some wit. As such, I am bitter and sarcastic whenever I feel like it. Which is very often. It is very unreasonable to think that everyone I'm around to be in the mood for that. Most of the time it comes across as bitching. Sometimes I like to be left alone... and so I leave everyone alone. This is also not okay with most people, I have found.

So what's the plan? Follow the Golden Rule, almost selfishly it appears, or treat everyone the way they want to be treated and miss out on personal growth?

O scriptures, be more obvious.

Love,
Charlie

My poetry class fell in love with you too. It might have taken them a few more stanzas than it took me.

So a revised version of my poem "Classroom Map" got into Grub Street, Towson's literary magazine, which apparently is Award-Winning. Aren't we all. (Not really so much their website.)

This poem has a few familar characters in it. I appear in it a few times as various people, that kid who always wanted to start a band in high school is in it, Matt Riley is in it, and of course, another important person in my life. My class loved it, and my professor loved it. Kenny Johns loved it, which is saying something, and Liz Laribee had some nice things to say, and had some suggestions I tried to incorporate.

A lot of potential

Cash thrown at your sister to attend the school of her choice,
you know, the one with the stone buildings
and the same history professor
as when your grandfather went there.

A local band at last opening for their heroes,
who are always named something too intense,
like Lovedrug or Copeland or Showbread.
They’ll outplay the headliner tonight, in their big chance.

A 6’ 7” lefty with a fiery heater and wicked hook
and an evil look that would make
Mickey Mantle Himself quiver in his spikes.
He’s only 20 and in the big leagues already.

And most of all, the girl across the hall
with the Technicolored eyes and kind voice.
The one who smells like pot, speaks French,
enjoys pottery and kisses as soft as she smiles.

But your sister meets a frat boy, drinks too much
and drops out by March.

The frontman quits and tries to go solo,
and the band never leaves the garage.

The lefty can't throw strikes, hurts his golden shoulder,
and opens a used car dealership.

And the girl across the hall starts to kiss other boys,
boys in bands,
boys who speak French with her over a glass of wine.
Another family fills her old apartment,
leaving your team in last place for another year.

And with that, spring break has begun for me. I'll be going to such exotic places as Gettysburg, PA and probably Frederick, MD. You will all envy my tan when I get back.

Love,
Charlie

A Fallen Weekend II: This Time It's Atlantic.

To know how this weekend's tournament went in sunny Salisbury, Maryland, read about my frustration in my last blog. Multiply it by ten.

Saturday: With thunderstorms in the forecast, the directors try to dodge a bullet by pushing back the start time of the tournament to about noon rather than 8:30. As a result, from 8 until 11, it is 65 degrees with a slight breeze. At 11 it gets dark, and the wind picks up. At 11:30, the wind is about 30 MPH (a reminder for those of you not familiar with ultimate frisbee: a large portion of the game revolves around steering a 175 gram piece of plastic around a field in the air). It is dark. By 12:30, it is pouring, only sideways from the 30 MPH wind. By 1 or so, the tournament is cancelled for the rest of the day. By 2:30, it is completely sunny again, and still 65.

Sunday: A nice clear day for ultimate! No cancellations today! Which, it turns out, is unfortunate, for not only is the wind still 30 MPH, but the temperature has dropped from the day before's 65 to 35. In addition, due to some selfishness, some misunderstanding, some selflessness and some mismanagement, one of our best players (who is especially good at playing in the wind) plays all day with the B team. We consequentially get crushed in our first two games.

This is the second year in a row Salisbury has made me hate ultimate frisbee. Last year, we (Messiah) played there two weeks in a row... for Huck of the Irish (in which we beat Towson 13-0) and Atlantis. We struggled through Huck of the Irish and got third. We tanked at Altantis, got back to PA and none of us touched a disc for a week. The place is an absolute hell hole for ultimate.

Guess where our sectionals are scheduled to be? The biggest tournament of our season?

I hate Salisbury. And I am starting to despise Towson as well.

A few misfired hucks, and a fallen weekend

It was windy as balls in Millersville this weekend. It was probably one of the most frustrating weekends of ultimate I have ever experienced. In addition to some extremely distressing things happening on the team internally that are split out onto the field, it ended in disappointment.

We lost in the semis to Bucknell, my old rivals from West Penn sectionals. They are certainly in my top five least favorite teams, and we lost in a pathetic way, going up 5-1, and losing 15-8. They ran this zone that was just tricky, nothing that we should have been shut down by, and we could not move the disc. Lots of drops and throwaways and poor defense, and next thing we know we are stuck watching Bucknell in the finals against

Messiah.

My old mates. Who I have been dying to play since last May. Boys who I love, would do anything for, and have done everything for me, but to whom I have something to prove to in terms of ultimate, whether that is real or imagined. Hanging out with them on Saturday night reminded me that I fit in somewhere, even if not at Towson. The whole chain of events just made me feel sick.

As some shit-tasting icing on the cake, I blew out my elbow. It's throbbing even while typing. Here's hoping it's better by Saturday. It might even turn out better than before once it's healed. I've heard of that happening...


I would raise a glass to that, if I could.

Cheers,
Charlie

Good morning, Baltimore!

Our ultimate team played at St. Mary's in southern Maryland this past weekend. My roommate Mike and I decided to stay on campus and fly by the seat of our pants. As we sat in an archway with our bags for the week, a few girls came up to us and offered us a place to stay. We decided to go for it.

I felt like I was dropped into a moment at Messiah College again. Our new friends treated us like old friends. We watched Hairspray and danced the salsa, I had my first shot of rum, went to a bar and danced with us, listened to Total Eclipse of the Heart in spanish with us, came to our ultimate games. People came in and out of their apartment whenever. They left it unlocked. They knew most everyone we walked past all weekend. One of them even helped out our girls' team, driving them around in the very earily a.m.

In short, there was community.

That word, community. That fucking word. At Messiah it was beaten into us. But now, at a place where there is little community, my weekend at St. Mary's made me realize, at long last, what I had been missing.

I miss walking into Ross's room, or Mohar and Phil's room, and bullshitting for a few hours. Or walking over to Dean and Devin's and discussing Amy Winehouse, or Ryan and Dan's room for some Madden (back when Michael Vick wasn't in prison yet). And I miss my new friends, and how sweet they were to us, complete strangers.

Most of all, I miss community.

Little boy blue and the man in the moon...

Here's the second poem I turned in. I didn't like it, because I thought it was like "Cat's in the Cradle," except a happy version. Which naturally defeats the whole purpose of Harry Chaplin's song. But my prof really liked it, and here it is either way.

Socks to the Sailor

We hear the screen door open
We sprint for the kitchen
“Daddy’s home!”
Socks slide on linoleum
And the thump of Dan hitting the floor
Scares the bejeezes out of the cat

The bright eyed man in a crisp uniform
Puts down his tattered lunchbox
Just before he gets hit by a kid
Then another, harder than the last,
And then Dan, making his recovery
Driving him, laughing, back into the mudroom

He tussles my hair
Knocking my glasses askew
And drops the hat of a captain
Onto Nelly’s head
Dan snatches it off and there is a scramble
And the sailor becomes a jungle gym

He reads to us for a while
And we are breathless in Narnia
Then laughing as Mr. Toad gets a motorcar
And when we see what’s through the looking glass
We, too, can’t help but to think
“Curiouser and curiouser.”

Now the sailor is weary through the door
And his mustache has flecks of gray
We have changed too
A long-haired hippie, a long-limbed guitar player
And a girl who wears her own uniform hat
But our socks still slip when we run to greet him

See you in a day or two, or maybe less.

Love,
Charlie

The consonants and vowels

Okay, so I started taking a poetry class. This was an off-the-cuff decision, and a good one. I am pretty mediorce, but I enjoy it a great deal. My professor reminds me of Helen Walker (for all you Messiah College fans out there), if Helen wore knee-high leather boots daily. She also really likes my poetry, although that could very well be a result of a class of primarily non-English majors.

At any rate, I'm putting all of them in here, whether I think they are brilliant, or brilliantly below average. This one was my first one.

(Untitled)

Nations in brilliant colours and sharp borders
Loudly stand in defiance
A too-blue English Channel splits
The stately red United Kingdom
And the pale yellow French Republic
As already out-of-date countries in Africa
Invent fresh lines and shades to be displayed
At a later date

Stars litter the land
A star for Moscow, a star for Helsinki
Stars for each of Beirut, Beijing, Buenos Aires
The same star dozens of times
With a different name with each appearance
Small spots spell out Strasbourg
Santorini
Seattle

A tug on the string
And the world whirs together
In an instant we are stacked
Pressed together
It is dark
Silent
At last
We have peace

Feel free to leave love or rip me a new one. If you hate it or love it, there's more to come. In fact, at least one more today.

Love to you all,
Charlie

This is bat country.

I am starting another blog. This is really getting out of hand. Just when I thought I was beyond my last one, I suddenly had to start again. Plus, everyone keeps telling me to write down my thoughts, write down my thoughts. So here are my thoughts.

I've changed a lot since my last blog, since fall of 2007. I went suicidal. I started taking antidepressants. I started drinking (only very rarely, and in a calm social setting), and have smoked once or twice. I started at another college, this one a huge university where there is no real shot of getting a sense of community. I think about things I never thought about before. I never cry. I read poetry, and just started writing some. I get frustrated with people for little to no reason. Sometimes I shut down for days. My sense of humor has broadened. I am more interested in meeting new people than ever, which is saying something.

I spend hours a day alone in my mind, listening to music or reading novels or reading histories or walking around. Maybe some of that will get in this thing.

I don't know what I want out of this blog. I'm not going to try to be really artsy or really funny or really much of anything. I'm going to write for me, and some days I will want to be witty (here's looking at you, Wit has truth in it), sometimes it will be dark, sometimes just about my day. Mostly it will be about nothing, and everything, because that's what I think about.

Cheers, friends,
Charlie