when we picked up the shovels

I had a conversation with Nate, wherein we talked about our old blogs, and read choice bits to each other, digging up things that should only surface in the presence of people you've let worse things surface in front of.  It also helped that it was two in the morning.

He pointed out mirror selfies I took when I was 14, and had a weird swoop thing going on with my hair, and I read, out loud, his old description where he called himself a "dreamy 16 year old."
There's a lot on these sites that says a lot about us.  It's an archive that contains things that I've forgotten, & certainly things I hope you've forgotten.  Yet, I allow those things to stay because I can't bear to get rid of them for fear that I would forget forever if ever I wanted to remember and suddenly couldn't, because the pages would be bare.  So, I continue to wonder if any of my friends, or anyone who might know me in some way has ever stumbled upon an old page out of curiosity, or to dig up something I've said.  I know I had opinions at the time, and I can't help but cringe at the thought of what they were, not even knowing the reality of them.  This thought, is, 100% very narcissistic, but that's what a blog is, right?  Valued narcissism from days of old, that has a value extending beyond that which you give it. Shared value. True Value.  The hardware of the internet. (Figuratively, & best understood if you don't have an Ace in your town.)

A few years ago, I used to blog on a page that was shared between myself and four friends. We would each post once a week, and our posts would be on a set theme. It was fun, of course, and it's made a pretty nice archive of what we were then. At the time, we would all talk a lot outside of the blog, so it was only natural that we took some of our thoughts and made them public in a place such as that.  However, it would be safe to say that group communication between all of us has deteriorated a bit.  Individual, not too much. Group? The Parthenon.
Here's the deal.  I can't help but wonder what it'd be like if we were to post there again.  To post there as we are now.  Is that healthy? Perhaps not, but it'd be interesting, and it would, if nothing else, add to the archives that are old blogs, serving as something to look at in a few more years, like a really, really weird scrapbook.

Get out your shovels, dig & unearth old words. But, don't, please, don't be afraid to plant.

-Ranger

Summer Angst 2014 Pt. 1 of Many, at Least In My Head

For the past few summers, I've had this grand aspiration that I will have some sense of who I am bestowed upon me, that I'll be around a fire with friends and we will slip into a conversation that when I emerge gives me this knowledge it's foolish to want that easily.

It's while sitting in the swing in my backyard, cold, tired, that I wonder more than I have this year what I am going to do in these months.
Right now I find myself struggling to keep this post feeling the same from beginning to end, to be consistent, I guess. I'm piping music into my ears. "Killin The Vibe" is one of the tracks. Ironic, because I am trying my hardest to keep from killing the vibe. Excuse me, Killin The Vibe. Really, I think I've brutally murdered the vibe with a Bag of Hammers.

But back to that false illusion of group realizations that comes about in YA novels and is very much a factual thing to those who do so little socializing that actual factual interactions with people in a fantasy void situation is a thing that is still very much foreign, therefore I exist solely on bitter tea, barbecue chips, and idealized everything.
I go days without leaving the house and that is fine but I cannot drive yet, with nobody but myself to blame and that is perfectly fine because it is good that I have nobody to blame. Besides, I'm so cheap anyway that I would not leave the house because gas. And putting on pants. Putting on pants is no fun. (Which is why I have two pairs of pants on right now?)

Every spring I tell myself that I will see friends, I will live out some movie, and as the summer draws to a close we will all have some sort of collective revelation as to how our lives will play out, or at the very least, we will somehow in that moment, or collection of moments figure out how we at least want our lives to play out, discussing our plans to make that a reality as the fictional night draws to a close. (Or until someone falls asleep.)

But as that probably won't happen, I have to think of what will happen. 

I will probably see my friends. I will probably spend time with my family. Those things, hopefully, will happen.  

I don't expect to live as if I am in a novel that is planned by the mind of someone else to appeal to the mind of everyone else, and I'm fine with that. I am so very glad of that. But if I do have an adventure, have excitement, I won't complain.

I hope you've had a good day, by the way. Thanks for reading this far. It means a lot to have people read this, and I hope that maybe something could be taken away from it?
If you can think of anything you'd like for me to talk about, there is a comments section below, so don't hesitate to post a thing there. 

Thank you. 

-Ranger

When It's Late and Ideas Don't Come but This Does

I don't mind the chill, honestly I don't, I just need to hear you make sounds sweetly as I flail around freely with deliberate intent, planned as one isn't to be had. You're like a banjo string and he's your bow and sometimes other strings get played but you, I wish so greatly to inform you, produce the sweetest melody and I wish so bad I could tell you that, to tune you and hear you bend to understand but I can’t. 

The skin, the sound in this place where your voice resonates provides for those who need it more than I, although that’s not true because I can convince myself of anything. Don’t let me grip your neck as we glide through this, dissipating as i watch you travel. 

Paper Gowns

I don’t think anybody goes to the dermatologist happy.
I mean, you have to strip down to your underwear and shiver in the cold, dead hospital air as a nurse takes pictures of you in said questionably disrobed state, marking the dots upon your back with her eyes, great intent for your dermal demise gleaming within them.
I arrived this morning to find that the office had moved from its previous location, so my deep and intense knowledge of the office from that one time I came with my parents many years prior was washed away and irrelevant.
Perfect.

My mother was called back first, leaving me to discuss things with the receptionists, who had previously been discussing cysts that had not been properly drained on patients who I assume are now moderately famous in the social sphere surrounding this delightful department.

As I was sitting, happily tapping away at my iPod like some stereotypical teen in a commercial advertising safe texting, i.e. not driving, a receptionist leaned over the formica countertop, and asked if I was on any medication. “Uhhh…” I managed to reply. Better than my usual stare.
"Well, do you have allergies?" (She was very helpful on my journey to self discovery.)
I replied telling her that I believe I am on Zyrtec, but I don’t know. It’s there, and I take it.
A+ answer.

"Do you smoke or chew tobacco?"
"I don’t think so." (Once again, fabulous reply.)
"Do you drink at all?"
"No ma’am, not that I’m aware."

I clearly know a lot about myself as evidenced by these answers.
Moments later I was to find myself in a room, instructed to take off my clothes and put on a gown with a thing that is supposed to be tied in the back. I didn’t realize that this feature was even there. It’s times like this that I am amazed by people’s ingenuity, you know? I mean, what a time to be alive, when the gowns have little things you can tie to show only select parts of
yourself.

The waiting continued for a good while, and it was at this time that I began to wonder what would be the end result of these reference pictures, should they take them.
Would they get sold to a creepy trucker for $50 a pop? Is that what my body is worth?

Obviously I don’t do well in small rooms alone. Unless it is my own, and I have a computer. Then I can express my greatest fears to my friends through the internet. It’s more comforting to complain to people who can’t physically walk away from you. They can just say they have to go eat or something and you would then have no reason to not believe them.

Then, it happened.
They came.
The reference pictures were taken, and I smiled and was polite.
All in all it was quite uneventful.


If anything, I regret not having a selfie with the dermatologist greatly. He looks strangely like Rainn Wilson. With white hair. He also sounds like Rainn Wilson. And acts. Just. Like. Him.  
Perhaps he labels his yoghurt?

But alas, as quickly as it happened, it was over, and I was once again sitting in the waiting room, my mother finishing paperwork as I pored curiously over the pamphlets displayed for me to admire, and I guess learn from.

“Oral retinoid therapy.” (I’ll have to google this, because I’m curious now.)

“Young people and psoriasis.” (Should I ever feel flaky, I’ll read this further. Or maybe I won’t… or will I?)

“Hair loss and restoration.” (If I should lose my magnificent mane I will not be needing a slip of informational paper to console me. I will take much more drastic measures.)

And then there was one simply called “Warts.”   (I can’t completely say this wouldn’t be worth looking at.)

Let my tale of the dermatologist comfort the souls of all of you. May your skin be clear, and your moles be ever so consistent as I have been told mine are.

Have a good rest of your day.

-Ranger. 

let me write about you

Let me write about you.

Let my mind that won't shut up hold its tongue as your presence provides an escape I must apologize for. 

Remain silent, hum softly, be, and let me write about you. 

Let my muse borrow yours for a while and watch as they run off to go do something i can't imagine but feel physically so vividly as the power to be more than in the precise moment escapes both of us. 

Literally i beg you let me fill my head with air and scrawl my treasured nothings upon the yellowed paper dredged up from a basket of professionalism. 

Can I hum along too because i rather like the song that swirls around your mind. (And when I do get around to writing about you I promise that I will let you peek, but I don't want to because then I think you'll want yourself back.)

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.