Thank You.

Today I am using this place for the rightest of reasons. 

Today the internet lost a pioneer and a good friend. 

And that seems like such concrete fact. 

I should say who it is I am talking about, too. 

Mr. Peter Oakley, perhaps better known as geriatric1927 was, and in a sense, still is, one of the most influential YouTubers, as well as someone who inspired and encouraged me to create and write and make music and to keep doing whatever it is that I do and upload it to the internet to somehow be shared. 

And I didn't get to properly thank him. 

But then I know that even if I did, I still wouldn't feel as if I did. 

And that says a lot. 

I don't really feel sad. 

Of course I feel sad for his family, and I will miss him, but I don't feel sad. Not in a way that perhaps I should. 

Had I known Mr. Oakley in a world where he didn't have his YouTube channel, I would be incredibly sad, in a way that perhaps I should. 

I would feel that the world had lost someone, a perspective filled with history forever. 

But I don't feel that way. 

His YouTube channel has 434 videos. 

Videos in which he tells his life story, from the past and to the present, an archive from someone who was so honest and genuine and kind to so many that even now his creations can inspire others to do the same, to get those who they want to share, elderly or young, to  make accessible their lives. 

To make the world perhaps better. 

To make knowledge truly global. 

To make personal lives shown honestly and truthfully to others in a way that will give an understanding of connection in a connected world of disconnect. 

To simply be, and still inspire. 

I think that is what the internet is for. 

On so many levels I feel that and I know it has its seedy underbelly and things that are damaging to all involved and yet I forgive it wholly because there are so many great things and people and things that can build us up and cause us to crumble and stories that will sweep us up and reconstruct us and anything imaginable. 

Things that without people like him, would not exist. 

Thank you, Peter, for all that you did, have done, and continue to do. 

-Ranger. 

different

Something feels different and i don't like it ---

i don't like that the sameness feels different.

i don't like that i know that the sameness feels different, 

different than the actual different which is me shoving you out of a chair in the middle of the night, spinning around, tripping over stuff we dropped wherever we felt with a pillow draped over my head while wondering how horses sleep that way. 

It's different than hearing you read things i adore that make me smile weirdly like every character of so many books that i hate, hanging onto every syllable that you let slip forth from wherever it is you get those words. 

This difference hurts because it's not sameness no matter how much i want it to fit the label of that weird clump of letters, because i'm too damn scared to see if it will, so i'll just let it exist as it has and hope that when i'm ready to peel that sticker it'll stick. 

Oh look, a blog post.

I wish that I knew how to blog in a way that doesn't seem like I am blogging, but rather blog in a way that is me speaking to you and you listening to me speaking to you so fluid like the words of someone you love that you don't think you'll ever see, trickling into your ears like syrup or something you find delectable, stickier than this prose that is not. 

I guess I could try that here.  It is possible that I will be able to make words you will enjoy and share, and return to consume. But, it is more highly possible that my lack of grammatical skill and shoddy syntax will leave you with a lingering bad first impression. 

I will of course cling to the hope that something comes of this though. 

Know that if you do find yourself following this page, I might potentially persuade others to contribute, preventing you from having my presence flow onto your feed whenever my hands feel inclined to slap they keyboard in a manner pretentious enough for this site held dear to those who post tea mugs, fandoms, and blogs with yiff in the name to sound edgy, not to mention the blogs that contain all of these things in the same post containing only one image drawn by a single hand. 

This is a blog with a layout blander than a hospital wall, the contents resembling an OIan Mills background. 

This is a blog on which I wish I knew how to blog. 

-Ranger. 

hai

swggity swupdate it's an.. update?
that didn't work.

Novelistic thoughts; or where big words attempt to impress.

Although it probably just seems really silly, I think I have a fear of dying alone.   

That's it.  I don't want to die alone.         

Another thing is that I surround myself with too many thoughts like these when I am alone.  I can't let them take over my mind, so I have to find someone to take them away from me.  Yet, it seems like when they leave me, they return them as if they are a morbid memento of what once was, as a parting gift, and when I open up the box that holds them, I find out that they have multiplied.

~A small sliver of my novel, still a mere collection of words yet to be completed.

-Ranger.

I treat my friends like mismatched tile cleaner bottles.

This was originally written on an iPod touch in the middle of the night, so that should tell you a bit about the state of mind that I was in when writing this.

As of the time of, well, writing this, I'm about 1/3 of the way into The Perks of Being a Wallflower.
A great book, or at least, it is so far.
I've been told that it is sad, which I don't doubt it is, because it has had some sad moments that seem to...draw me in...that make me feel like I can relate and sympathize.
The way the family gathering was described reminded me of my own family gathering experiences, albeit with less alcohol and abusive remarks. I'm talking about the way Charlie felt awkward in that situation, mostly.

As a preface to this part of the post, I would like to start out by saying that I am one of those people that would love to be OCD and organized but at the same time has no idea about how to go about that whatsoever. As Adrian Monk would say: "It's a gift...and a curse." And as I would add, "a hellishly annoying one at that."

I think what I am getting at is that I also apply this to people probably more than I should.
I don't like this at all.
I find myself wanting to categorize friends, often unfairly, sometimes paring down on my contact with people I would like to, deep down, talk with all the more.
And then, at the same time, I find myself forcing my presence onto my friends that I might not even want to talk with all that much, or even be around, for that matter because I simply want to achieve this perverse sense of symmetry.

I can't think of any good ways to describe it. Are there benefits? It doesn't help me keep or make friends.

I guess it's something for me to think over, and maybe you guys can...see if you do this.

-Ranger

Extruding prose like icing from a frozen pastry.

I often wonder how normal it is to stress over each paragraph written.
I am a perfectionist, and if I don't become happy with something I have created, I either destroy it or never do anything with it.
This is sort of relavent to me at the moment because I am going to be 15 very, very soon.
And I sort of had a pseudo-conversation with a friend about this, but for some reason I can't help but feel like I am going through some humorous existential crisis.
As selfish as it sounds, I can't help but regret not doing something...notable until now.
Does anyone else share similar feelings?