the P.Pole

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Breathe in for luck. Breathe in so deep.
This air is blessed, you share with me.
This night is wild, so calm and dull.
These hearts, they race, from self-control.
Your legs are smooth, as they graze mine.
We’re doing fine.
We’re doing nothing at all.

My hopes are so high that your kiss might kill me.
So won’t you kill me, so I die happy?
My heart is yours to fill or burst,
To break or bury, or wear as jewelry.
Whichever you prefer.

The words are hushed, let’s not get busted.
Just lay entwined here, undiscovered.
Safe in here from all the stupid questions.
“Hey did you get some?” Man that is so dumb.
Stay quiet, stay near, stay close, they can’t hear.
So we can get some.

My hopes are so high that your kiss might kill me.
So won’t you kill me, so I die happy?
My heart is yours to fill or burst,
To break or bury, or wear as jewelry.
Whichever you prefer.

Hands down this is the best day I can ever remember.
Always remember the sound of the stereo.
The dim of the soft lights.
The scent of your hair, that you twirled in your fingers.
And the time on the clock, when we realized “It’s so late!”
And this walk that we share together.
The streets were wet, and the gate was locked,
So I jumped it, and let you in.
And you stood at the door, with your hands on my waist.
And you kissed me like you meant it.
And I knew… that you meant it.
- Dashboard Confessional, Hands Down

Today I wrote my Statistics, Probability final exam. I feel very confident, and for someone doing very well in that class already, this should not be taken as a sign of arrogance (there are many others, take your pick).

According to my roommate Taylor, he has noticed that I seem to be quite moody today and, to a lesser extent, recently. He asked if it was my time of the month, and I asked whether he would like to settle the matter outside.

From past experience, I only get as described (that would be, dark, moody, etc…) over a very specific subset of things out of the larger set of Life. These would include (mainly):

• while seething over  some recent wronging
• during spells of feeling neglected
• when having trouble with girls

Now, let’s say that these three form a mean of sorts, an expected value, with variance being some expression in terms of my relationship status, proximity to other people, and how much duress I am experiencing at the moment of Great Upheavals. Possible values would thusly be varying reasons ranging from predominantly indignation-based (on our graph: left, for some arbitrary reason) to predominantly sadness-based (right).

Now, if each of these Great Upheaval events are distributed with identical underlying distribution models (I’d like to think of it in terms of some exponential distribution, where we consider only the wait time before the first event), then the Central Limit Theorem suggests that given enough observed Upheavals, the distribution of them all as a whole could be approximated by, you guessed it, the Normal Distribution.

This makes a lot of sense, since most everything in Nature tends towards some Normal Distribution model, be it the weight of individual penguins or termites per mound. Some say this is a quantifiable argument for God’s existence, but this more rationally explained by the underlying mathematics present. However, the elegance and perfection with which the underlying mathematics works out—now that is more like an argument for God’s designing hand in my somewhat educated opinion.

Also, the integral of e^(-x^2) from zero to infinity (mostly un-integrable by non-math nerds) works out to be the square root of Pi divided by 2 (i.e. √π/2) and this is where the Normal Distribution’s Probability Density Function is derived. Yeah, I know.  Calculus, meet Statistics.

I am also not feeling so great. Physically, very healthy. Otherwise, not in the best shape, as I came to realize today. I should probably seek medical attention wherever and as soon as possible.

Before I start, be warned. I’ve had two ounces of hard liquor today (mixed with tonic water and citrus juices), but I feel pretty coherent. Please do read the following and love me as I am.

Firstly, this will be my third post just today–also the second filed under Emo and Downer.  It has been a long day with a wayward soul.

Secondly, I don’t feel anything except very, very tired. Okay, I’m feeling a little listlessly lamentable too (did you see what I did there?).

Thirdly, I was strangely eager to try Rafael’s gin and tonic along with his (original) almond-liquor sour creations today. They were good, and warming.

Finally, I am listening to the soundtrack from Stardust. …A-a-and now I want to disappear for a week or so.

My knight in shining whatever, if you are to strike, strike soon and with a vengeance! Save me from this villainy and tyranny of gloom! You may not know what to do, but when the moment is right, you will know. May the Spirit be with you even as I cannot. I will now brave the folds of my bedding and hope to escape their clinging, slumber-drenched grasp come the Sun, tomorrow. And as I part, I shall impart some intoxicated wisdom–that I’ve finally learned today, after so long–with you, fairest of readers: “Today will be over before you’ve known it, but tomorrow is forever.”

I ask only for a tomorrow with the Sun, the Moon, and you. You know, the one I’ve been going on about since forever.

I can’t decide whether I would prefer to imagine that I’m singing this song to someone, or having some stranger sing it to me. It’s been quite some time since I’ve posted about how I’ve been feeling, but here’s an attempt. Actually, it’s sort of coincidental that a band I’d heard about just a week or so ago would have a song I’d randomly try to adapt to say what I want to say. Goodness, I sure twist things up. I need to find a dying hole, pronto.

Lyrics with highlighting after the jump.

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I’ve been playing lots of Rock Band (well, not lots, but whenever it’s convenient and Sam’s up for it) and I’ve gotten quite a taste for it. I don’t play too many music or rhythm inspired games (DJ Max Portable and Lumines, if that counts, along with now Rock Band). If anyone hasn’t played it before, and thinks they probably won’t like it, I’d suggest you give it a whirl (or at least a twirl) before you say no to it. I personally never understood what the big commotion was before I had ever played it, but now I’m smacking things happily and failing nailing all those guitar solos like the rest of us happy Band players.

In mostly unrelated news, I do believe with the end of October, my annual season of feeling more than a little depressed has, since starting, come into full bloom, with leaves falling and everything. I really can’t say (or maybe I don’t like saying) why I always feel so bad this time of year, but I do know that Halloween (yes, that’s last night, considering when I’m writing this) is pretty much my least favourite day of whatever. It’s right up there beside Valentine’s Day and those rainy spring mornings where you wake up and the sky is still dark and it’s cold and wet outside and you’ve got school or work and it’s too cold to not wear a coat and you just know it’s gonna be a miserable day and you want to lash out at something or go into the corner and cry, or like that one morning I had way back when when I woke up with “…big, big girl, in a big big world…” in my head and I cried myself back to sleep. I hate these days.

I don’t know, folks. I’m a complicated man with complicated problems and complicated thoughts, but I’d like something simple, something sweet. Will the Internets deliver?

The last time I posted a song by The Academy Is… it was an emo post. Although there’s no real reason for this post to be marked that, I sort of want to start a trend. That’s me, a trend-setter! Try and keep up, will you?! Again, they still remind me of Fall Out Boy (though I’m thinking they don’t suck live), albeit slightly more depressing sounding.

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My life reads like the classifieds.
Pages of what’s for sale, what’s on the auction block.
Attention bidders! It’s Lot 45.
He’s got a decent voice, he’s got that crooked smile.
Hold on, you haven’t heard the best yet:
He writes good story-lines, he’s got those honest eyes.
So take him home for just $9.95,
He’ll sing the songs you like, he’ll keep you warm at night.

Back down, cash out, that’s the city for you.
Break down, back out, and get what’s coming to you.
When you said you were falling apart,
I thought you meant that you were falling apart.

I’m not the type to forget about nights like this,
When every single move that I make
Is documented and scored for style points.
The once ambitious one now holds the smoking gun.
And if I die in my sleep, are you still willing to be
Everything you promised you would be?

Will you be the first one to tell the neighborhood papers
And all my family and friends that still care?
Did you buy what I sold and did you feel what I told you?
I hope that you still do.
Will you promise yourself, that this isn’t all we’ve got?
- The Academy Is…, Classifieds

Once in awhile it’s good to take a quick survey of yourself to get an idea of what you’re doing at the moment and what you could be doing differently. I find that I don’t do this nearly enough, so that whenever I finally get around to it I am more than slightly amazed at how unbearably mundane my life tends to get when I let it. Where are the surprises? From whence does (somewhat murderous) convention come? No one likes stale bread and neither do I.

In terms of my faith, there are lots of moments (more often than not, actually) where I think of what I’ve come to accept as “Christianity” or my “religion” and feel completely  disgusted with it all. I try very hard to separate, at least in my mind, a life-giving faith in Christ from a stagnant religiousness. If you were to ask me, “religion” entails a lot of routine, tradition, and repetition, and although there are some things that should be repeated for the sake of memory (such as the Gospel’s truth and Communion), there are a lot of other things we at Jaffray do and live that really aren’t anything more than niceties. For example, the sermons we get often take the same minor-themes and repeat/re-preach them, dwelling on things that don’t really benefit believers as much as say, focusing on the exclusiveness of Christ’s message, or the sinner’s continual need for grace.

As for school, well, it’s almost out. I’ve got maybe a week left of review before I begin to write my papers for IB in May. After that, I’ll be done. I’m pretty sure high school’s going to end all too soon for me and I’ll be wondering where it all went in about a month or two, but in any case, at least by then it’ll be over and I’ll have decided on where I’ll be headed next year. We haven’t learned anything new since last week since we’ve covered everything already and so I feel more or less bored (review isn’t nearly as interesting as people will have you believe). If it weren’t for random little gestures here and there between Amy and myself and going out to play frisbee or grab a bite with friends, I’m pretty sure I would’ve just as likely stayed at home for the past week and would continue to do so for the coming one too. With the TTC strike, it looks like I’ll probably be doing that anyway, unless they miraculously get back to work by Monday.

And for everything/one else, I’m looking back and wondering where and why I spent all my time on the things/people I did. Perhaps my memory is failing, but I don’t seem to be able to recall a single reason for many of my past friendships and relations, apart from convenience. No wonder I got bored. Damn, that sounds harsh. Maybe I’ll have to retract that or at least add  to it sometime soon. Or maybe I’ll let this one moment of more than slightly resentful reflection speak for itself.

And to all a good-freaking-night.

PS: I’ve discovered that it is surprisingly hard to be bored while sleeping. Hope that helps anyone out there with a similar proclivity towards weariness.