The Monsters and Magic of Entropy

I just came to and realized that I have toppled head first down the rabbit hole of information theory. I have only a vague sense of how I got here. I remember reading Umberto Eco, typing out a quote, looking up a term. I might have clicked on a hyperlink. But now I’m face to face with the monsters and magic of entropy, black holes, transinformation, and Kullback-Leibler divergence and have no idea how to extricate myself without triggering a quantum data loss or a disequilibrium resulting in certain theoretically-posited molecular annihilation.

The Mustard Seed Revolution

Yesterday, I fully realized that I am more interested in prophets than profits. I am more interested in an economy of love and peace than an economy of money and power. More in reconciliation than retribution.

Maybe this makes me unfit for this world. Or maybe it makes me perfectly fit to change it.

After the beep

I can usually say that I’ve left my sentimental days behind me—years behind me, in fact. But the “it’s me” in the voicemail you leave means more than it should to me because I’ve been trained to read into things that only seem to need to be read into, or at least taken out of context enough for me to separate word from meaning and make a textual scene from a mere informality.

How it doesn’t

Yesterday I had trouble getting in because the keypad on the door of my apartment building wasn’t working. It doesn’t work quite often, but this time it was doing something different. I thought to myself, that’s not how it doesn’t usually work.

I’m seeing a girl who tells me that she tries to make me smile because she loves my smile. She holds my hand when we walk down the sidewalk and understands without me having to say a word. And I think, this is not how it doesn’t usually work.

A Winter Away

I understand that we all have seasons in our lives. But what happens when season lasts too long? What if a winter didn’t break for years? Would the grass remember how to grow or the sun to shine? Would the birds still find their way back—and sing their song? Would one remember the warmth of a summer sun on his face?

On a solitary, twenty-three degree night in Denver, Colorado, these are my concerns.

Academic, again

I have resumed my academic pursuits once again—namely, work on my dissertation. So, if in a conversation with you I start talking about Godwinian anarchism or atavistic response to crisis, just ride it out. I’ll stop talking eventually.

All I need

Tonight I chose to be alone. I left a group of friends at the pub to come home and, in silence, think. I left because I realized that friend can never mean much of anything in this world. I say that because we all believe in lies. Lies that tell us what we should want, who we should be…who we should be with. And anyone (everyone) who is lost in this blessed deception can never be trustworthy.

What is friend compared to Savior? Or mate compared to Lord?

He is all I need. He is all I need.

Syllogistically Speaking

I’ve realized that I’m at a place in my life that don’t need a woman. What I mean is that I don’t need a woman to take care of me or to make me happy. I manage to remember to shower and feed myself most of the time, and I’m pretty darn happy with my life. However, I think the only way that I’ll stop opting to fall asleep in my recliner instead of going to bed is through the influence of a woman. So, syllogistically speaking, if going to sleep in a bed instead of a recliner is a beneficial to me, and a woman is the only way to get me to bed from my recliner, then a woman is beneficial to me. Or at least deductive reasoning would argue such.

Updating my status...

Matthew is losing touch with his dreams. In the wake of the apparent losses he is forging new ones. Dreams of waking to the sunrise. Of bicycling from Denver, Colorado to Eastland, Texas. Of doing what he has always been afraid to do. Of giving the best he has on behalf of another and never expecting anything in return. Of really not caring what others think. Of losing his life to find it. Of letting another praise him, and not his own lips. Of being joyful always. Of becoming a servant to all.

The Answer in the Anomaly

Because a smile broke out this weekend more times than I can count. And I meant every one. Because a friend asked me questions I couldn’t answer, and I found peace in that. Because I woke up late but got there right on time. Because a coffee shop conversation found mystery in hope.

Because a promise realized pays the debt of patience tenfold.

the one

Some day I'll stop being "the one who got away" and start being the one who will never leave.

Rules of Consumption

If, hypothetically, one were to get a beer buzz (some might say beer 'drunk') on a Saturday night, one should follow that up with a whiskey buzz (some might say whiskey 'drunk') on Monday night. After doing so, one might realize that this talk of “alcohol tolerance” may, in fact, be a myth.

The New Romance

A touch of the leg, a brush of the hand and I’m sure that I’m just a pawn in a move that breaks every rule of every game that we’ve made but who’s for rules because the joy is in the breaking out of the noise that ended you last time and who’s to say(?) such a double-edged play might end with you in or near my bed or at least leave you feeling less dead than the night when loneliness put a bullet through you.

A Broken Temple

If my body is a temple, then it’s a broken one. Shattered stained glass and cracks in the foundation. Only just standing. And now it’s poisoned. I didn’t do the breaking but I drank the poison because I thought the only antidote for pain would be numbness.

I desperately need a mason and a carpenter and stained-glass painter who can fix this mess of a hollowed-out holy place unfit for a savior of your kind. But the shingles are slipping and the arches are crumbling. Please come quickly. Please come quickly.

I'm not very good at being alone at night

And some times it gets to me.

“Swan dive swing vote”

That was the title of the piece I tried to write last night. As I typed, words eased onto the page with subtle threads of sound laced throughout and signification as dense as a sonnet. But then it stopped. I didn’t want it to, so I pushed it, shoving more words in, forcing creation into intent until the very subject matter of the work played out once again, as if in an absurdist drama rife with irony. A heated exchange of signals in my brain and a balance of chemicals being tipped to a disadvantage, for me, but potentially advantageous to any who might read it and think so this is what madness sounds like.

PANTS!

These are the pants I'm wearing right now:




They are more awesome than you can ever hope to be.

Perplexed

Two times in the past two days on two separate occasions, a beautiful girl has smiled really big and waved at me as I was riding by on my bicycle. Both times I kinda sensed that they were expecting me to stop and talk to them. But I didn't stop either time. Because I was convinced they thought I was someone they knew.

unimpressive thoughts

1) People like photos with people in them. I've been watching the number of hits on some recent photos I posted to flickr, and I've found this to be true.

2) I am the only person on my hall who actually lives here. The lady in apartment 3312 had a postcard stuck in her door for over two months. Yesterday morning, the FexEx man left a package in front of the door of apartment 3309. And it was still there when I got home at midnight tonight. I haven't heard my next door neighbor in weeks, and I've never even seen the person who lives in the aparment across from mine. On my hall, I am the only person, actually, who lives here.

I guess it begins again

Running into you in places I didn't plan to be. Surprised every time, I never get out what I want to say. That your hair looks great grown long. That your perfume smells beautiful, if smell can be such. Instead I talk small and have no idea what I’m saying. Because your eyes. They captivate, enthralling all of me.