It echoed though the park last night

I got my pics back from the Walgreeners yesterday! (Matte finishing ftw) Some of the things going from my eye to my heart lately (click to enlarge):

Hehhehe what age did Rowland reach this year I wonder?

I think that this would be such a fun job. Seriously. No seriously.

My Great Grandma just before she could duck out of the way. She claims she is the worst thing you could take a picture of which I think is hilarious because I think she is beautiful. (The apple doesn't fall far from the tree I guess... not that last part, the "I think I am the worst thing to take a picture of" part.)

My sister's 15th....she's going to be on the road soon..... wow

Higgins' b-day cake that Misty made, delish (apparently I am the royal cake photographer)

Runyan with a funnnnny shirt (not just the slogan, but the fact that it is unapologetically pink)

This was sometime before we went to Kennedy's Irish Pub the other night and had a roaring celebration in honor of his Immune System. He has been courageously (and sometimes humorously) battling leukemia and with the completion of treatment, this was the day by which he was again able to "enjoy himself" as his 'GrandOldRunyan' AIM profile more eloquently than I can put it, puts it. A very proud and memorable moment, toasts all around for the jolly old fellow that remains ours, Matt Runyan.

Meadowbrook, if Heaven is more beautiful then I am really excited.

I'm much too lazy to get out my favourite picture from this roll though, when Melissa & I went to the baseball game, I have it in a very special frame you see, made on a very happy day. It's very nice though, you can take that to the bank anyway. Special times with special people. Extraordinary. I'm more blessed than any words can do justice to say.

That I meet in the Summer // Indian Summer

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My friend Charisse sent me these two photograph pieces that her friend made when she went to France. As I have a completely irrational love for Amélie, I thought they were as good as hot cocoa. Imagination is the best (always has been my #1 "turn on").

I finally tried to gather all the parts for my hammock to assemble in the backyard, only a.) I am void of conceptual/mathematical thinking (I'm wading around in the shallow end of that gene pool, where was my brother "Baun" when I needed him?) and II.) the hooks were missing to latch it on had I actually figured out which way the polls were to go. So I ended up with a mom yelling at me to not leave it on the porch for tomorrow and a smashed ring finger for trying to carry them all back at once. I may go read out at Meadowbrook from now on anyway, it would fit the mood of my reads for the summer: The Chronicles of Narnia! (Have I already mentioned that I'm reading them? I'm too lazy to go back into my own history and find out ah well) I'm on #1 right now, The Lion, The Witch & The Wardrobe. which I think is just splendid. It is almost like Huck Finn/Tom Saywer in how it comes so wonderfully through the eyes and heart of a child, from the genuine unselfish care for others all the way to how they describe each dish of food that seems to show up from chapter to chapter. Each book is pretty much comparable in font and page number to a Goosebumps book so hopefully I can have them be my summer 2005 to remember, I'll try.

Well the Pistons run as world champs game to an end tonight. Writing this in between sessions of swearing and fuming as I am, I am very proud of how far them came and all they accomplished in their 2 years in the finals. Also a bit bittersweet about this final outcome doubling as the end of the month + run of practical High School reunions up at the O.T. For the first couple times I was not all about it, but I must say it grew on me, hearing about how 3 couples from the 2001 campaign are (or are engaged to be) hitched, and how another pair of couples are expecting teh stork. Growing up is weird. It was a very nice night after the fact though, lying in my car waiting for Isaacs to get done chatting with a few of his gals back inside; the windows down, the moon shining in, summer breezing through as I'm checked into Morrison Hotel two times through (stellar 5th album from my beloved Doors). It does seem like there are too many good things in life happening to be sad.

I really don't know how to approach any of this. I don't know how to dress it up here with paragraphs and perfectly connected thoughts. I really need to say it someplace before I go numb, but I don't ever want to betray the magic around her. A few friends that met her through my stories tried to comfort me by bringing her down and I stopped that right away. Because I still feel the same way that I have since I've known her. And I still feel like the same jerk tugging on the cloak of an angel "umm... excuse me, but I love you." And please don't think I'm mad at her or that she is like baiting me and teasing me that is not true. It's like the opposite, because it's like I've ruined it to where she will (justifiably) think twice before doing anything that could in any way be seen as having the same feelings, and also the other way around, so that any good deed I do for her will have the noose of my love dragging along with it, even though she says she knows I never did anything for her with any hidden expectation of something in return, tangible or otherwise. I'm always excited to give to her. Sharing music, making things for her, going to fantastical places. Like today. We went to this place called Meadowbrook, this unbelievably beautiful garden/forest/cottage haven from everything that could ever be bad. The flowers there were wonderful there were too many for one person like me to absorb or describe fairly. Like this song here that I first heard today, every listen finding more hidden delights and making me more anxious to learn more. Like her. She's the only woman who has stood up to every dumb thing about me and has always believed in me. I can't explain how that makes me feel. Misty (Higgins' girlfriend) saw me sad tonight and told me she was sorry and gave me a hug and my eyes wattered up thinking that that's the closest I've ever been to being wanted by a woman. I wish I was normal. I feel so bad where everybody around me is so happy and then they look over to me. I'm always very happy to see them happy and to succeed, I just feel like that Shawshank quote: "I have no idea to this day what those two Italian ladies were singing about. Truth is, I don't want to know. Some things are best left unsaid. I'd like to think they were singing about something so beautiful, it can't be expressed in words, and makes your heart ache because of it. I tell you, those voices soared higher and farther than anybody in a gray place dares to dream. It was like some beautiful bird flapped into our drab little cage and made those walls dissolve away, and for the briefest of moments, every last man in Shawshank felt free." that I can only be happy when I'm not thinking of the mess that no one wants to clean up that is me. I saw 'Hotel Rwanda' a few nights ago and I couldn't listen to music the rest of the day because it all sounded like self-pity, it really made me feel ashamed to be indifferent about anything at all and for thinking of myself ever at all. Maybe that will be a direction, I hope so. We shook hands after it all tonight, I put in Radiohead for the last 10 min of driving her back which was wrong of me, I hope she didn't get any idea that I was mad at her or anything close to that, it was just like me getting a start on what I thought was going to be what happened before but afterwards I put in this band here and hopefully things will be different from then. She said something when she got out that if I hadn't already been thinking and feeling the way I did, would've been the meanest thing she's ever said to me I think it came out somewhat wrong though. I really hope we can be friends again like before. If I lost her friendship I don't know. I'm going to finish the last root beer I got from what seems like another time and try to escape all the memories that don't exist and sleep and rise one day at a time.

And what good is a heart that is slightly out of tune?

I seriously almost used this as an away message today:

Angel: "You know.... this is Justin Bentley's only day off this week."
God: "Well, let's hope his 1 day vac. is a blast! (thunderbolt) HAHAH!"

So a perfect t-storm washes any hopes of golf, swimming and basketball down the proverbial shitter. Ah well. There is always plenty of time to screw things up on indoor recess I soon proved. The com. upstairs blew out (It's a fucking e-machine ok!!? And I don't need a hug!!......) so my fam. picked up a new one for the library (If you can call a room stocked with pulp fiction and Goosebumps book a library) and my Sis inherits/gets for her b-day the other one, provided Dr. J. (note: that's so great that I was somehow able to reference a moment 2 days ago while watching NBA Finals pre-game with the amigos and 'Dr. J' Julius Erving came on, to which I announced that I should completely change my major, even if 0 credits change over, into pre-med only so I may go under that moniker henceforth) could find the problems with the other one. So with phillips head and cell phone camera in hands, I went about pulling wires, snapping pics of those small ones that control your lights on the front/will not let your com. start up if they are replaced even slightly adjacent to where they originally were, and then moving power supplies and motherboards to and fro, only discovering 1. 90 degree heat is just sunshine + lollipops when you start to get frustrated and b. that everything is basically fried. Fuck. No more run-on sentence or swearing (2 demerits). I need to get into an english class, I still feel I can put things I want into words more or less but I run on and on + I can't break things into paragraphs right + I use semi-colons like words I throw around without knowing the meaning (2 vices I giddlily allow myself). I mean how many times have I said something was a 'Catch-22' when you and I know damn well that it was not? Ha.

Well I put the two computers back together finally, just in time to dodge raindrops out the door and make off for Melissa's. We went down to Birmingham and I wish I could put all the wonderful feelings from tonight into a bottle, I know I'd be ok for good if I could. I don't know why I don't feel like going into details or even going further. I think I want to keep it all a secret. I'm sorry.

I'm thinkin' about my doorbell // When ya gonna ring it? When ya gonna ring it?

So I really think I've now turned the corner on 'Donnie Darko'. Since I first saw it nearly one year ago, I have thought that it was remarkable, creative and complex (but not for the sake of being complex)...until the end (warning spoilers! ha) when Donnie 'goes to the happy hunting ground'. For me it wasn't a matter of optimism/pessimism or a desire to pull the film apart at some point to bring it down a notch or to just be "different" ("Trying to different is just the same as trying to be the same" a wise man once said.... oh hell it was Rajala), but it was just a simple question of why, in order to bring balance to time and to save those he loved, he had to place himself into that situation. It has always bothered me, I mean not that it would make for a more exciting ending, but it always seemed to me that he could go back after it all and just peace out of there for 4 weeks and come back and continue with life once again, and his lady would still be around (the argument of "they would've only worked together had they met exactly as they did" doesn't hold up for myself; if it is love, for me, it will find a way) and everything would be safe as milk. Well thank you very much Charisse for she called me the other night/morning and the subject came up out of noplace and she, as a result, sent me a link to a FAQ page. I've been going about this all wrong.

My major hang-up was that him having to die was "the only way, because it was his destiny", which I though wasn't right because of how he was seemingly able to control his own destiny. We were both right. According to the supplemental pages, the whole of the film actually occurs in a spontaneously created parallel universe, opened for 28 days, which will suck the primary universe that we know into a black hole, thus erasing history unless "the chosen one" is able to set it all straight when a vortex opens at the end of the 28 days, pulling the primary universe back to the origin of the tangent universe (Exhales). As it turns out, he does, according to this (The) Philosophy of Time Travel, have to bite the bullet. So really I think I was looking at it with a slightly wrong frame of mind, like watching 'The Shining' and waiting for the musical number; it seems like much more a sci-fi angst-drama now than existential/psychological. Less a debate on 'destiny vs. free will' and slightly more (theoretically) 'Back To the Future'; because really you can't say "Donnie had to die, he was a martyr and it shows just how destiny is inescapable", because they add fictional circumstances, without which the story would be implausible (one 28 day shot, otherwise time is erased; the 'ghost' of Frank guiding Donnie through, weeks before Donnie caps him). Which is fine, (It's just like 'Being John Malkovich' & 'Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind', reality with a twist) I'm very glad that a.) I think I know where it's at (please scream at me like my ma if you think otherwise) and 2.) I feel an added appreciation for the film. I really thought in reading up, something would come unraveled or fall apart, but I like it probably 10% more now. 3 thumbs up.

Quick thought: Is it the greatest feeling ever when a lady calls you when you least expect it?

I'm trying hard not to pretend // Allow myself no mock defense // Step into the night

Michelle ('My Belle'), the Pharmacist at my work is one of my all time heroines without any doubt. We've been working together there for 6 years now this July, never a dull moment. But really she has helped me along through life not only through smiles and laughs, but also by being tough as nails with me when I get off track and not giving my best, which I really appreciate because I know it prepares me and motivates me to reach for the stars in and out of work, she's like a surrogate Mom for real. She also helps me out like mad, she overpays me to do lawnwork with her coolness husband Mr. Bake and gives me gifts/rewards like U-M football tickets to Isaacs and I (where she graduated from) and playclothes to roll around in and an old receiver + record player that they were getting rid of for free. Hopefully I can convince Melissa to take it so we can listen to albums to and fro this summer.

I convinced Melissa to come out to the Tigs game this past Friday. I was very happy that she came, it way way made my day. Another baseball stadium she gets to cross off her list, I'm jealous but happy that she let me take her to the new Tigs stomping grounds for the first time. While we were waiting for Isaacs and Jenny to come up we got our pic taken with the mascot Paws, he tried to give her some sort of secret handshake, she was all stocked up and made him buy someplace else. Hahhah. It was a great time, we made fun of each other throughout and then the fireworks together afterwards. On the way home I put in the new Shins album for the first time (I decided I was finally ready) and I was really happy she was there with me.

Last night we all tried to get our best Major League impressions in when we all met up at the old High School for a softball spectacular. The ringleader, Jessica Brubaker ("Bluebaker") I've known through Isaacs and the others for years, and had known she was an A+ pitcher in the H.S. days. What I had not known until as recently as 2 months ago, was that she is (since her graduation with us in 2001) the current record holder for H.S. softball wins in the United States. In the whole country! I got my "Jessica + Brubaker + "United States + softball wins" on with yahoo and sure as can be there it is. Just more proof that every person I know is amazing. We all gave her a hard time about how we were going to hit homers off her all day and I was going to "get up there, kick off my kleates and take the biggest swing in history on the first pitch" and etc etc. It was really fun, Isaacs and I turned the greatest double play in the history of the sport, and as we started the bottom half of the 1st inning everybody literally froze at the same time staring at the horribly dark clouds blowing in from left field (they had been there for at least 30 min). You could feel the childhood terror rising in everyone, myself at the top of the list. Everybody did the ".....RUN!!", gathering, dropping and forgetting keys, phones and wallets running as the downpour began and the wind blew sheet metal off of the nearby roof under construction. We got back to Bluebaker's house soaking wet and laughing (I guess we were under Tornado Warning the whole time), played euchre (Isaacs and Higgo skunked Sarah Kasacaviges (sp? sounds like 'casa-cabbage patch') and rather than buying the case of beer as house rules call for, she did the alternative and ran naked around the house, holding a huge USA flag I hear) and talked about the summer that lie ahead, with raindrops pattering gently on the roof.

Audrey Hepburn's favourite poem

For attractive lips, speak words of kindness. For lovely eyes, seek out the good in people. For a slim figure, share your food with the hungry. For beautiful hair, let a child run his fingers through it once a day. For poise, walk with the knowledge you'll never walk alone...

People, even more than things, have to be restored, renewed, revived, reclaimed, and redeemed and redeemed and redeemed. Never throw out anybody.

Remember, if you ever need a helping hand, you'll find one at the end of your arm. As you grow older you will discover that you have two hands. One for helping yourself, the other for helping others."

– by Sam Levenson