9:10pm :: So the web site is up, but I shouldn't worry about this. Tomorrow I have to visit the recycling depot and move the majority of my shit to the storage space for its week-long sit in a ridiculously-arid metal box. What I need is a new plant; something to bring joy to the smoke-filled, torn up studio apartment.
So I watched "Jacob's Ladder" today and it did absolutely nothing to me except make me realize how unimportant lyrics are in music. Does that make sense? No, of course it doesn't. I actually had the ending figured out half-way through the movie (it's pretty obvious if you think about it, how everyone keeps saying that he's dead, but after all, what's to really say that any of us are alive?). Damn. It was still a good movie though. I wouldn't thought that it was from '90 though.
Last night, while drunk, I bought my dad's birthday gift, but had it shipped to my apartment on accident. This is why there should be some sort of lock on credit cards purchases if your BAL is too high. Not only would he not receive it, but I most likely would not either. I mean shit, I bought it at 10pm MST on a Friday. What the hell kind of business is open at that time?
I'm now out of cigarettes, and this hot apartment makes me realize that none of this has any point. I just can't spill out the mindlessly-introspective dribble that I could before on this thing. I just type and the words appear: what magic. Staring at an LCD monitor while my thoughts and feelings become immortalized in bytes.
I bought the "Deluxe Edition" of Weezer's first album today and became reminiscent of when I first heard Weezer: 1994, 13-years-old and just getting into decent music. "Undone" blew everyone away, and I can remember discussing whether or not they were British with people (the video gave few clues). I had that album for like 6 years before loosing it to the void that is/was the Sugar Hill Studios CD player. I have it again, but it won't be the same. There's something very satisfying about owning a good CD for that long and it still being in good condition. It becomes a memento, a piece capable of inspiring nostalgia of a different time, albeit not really that long ago. I still have the case to the Blue album, and it sits in my collection, unplayable. It will now be replaced, although I will never be able to throw it away.

After reading the majority of Carlos Castñeda's chronicle of spiritual experimentation (with the blue crow and Doors-peyote-like desert landscape on the cover), I think I can start to really develop feelings and reactions on it. I enjoyed the book immensely, and am still curious as to why my dad shipped this to me. I would love to see a movie like this, but I don't think that it would ever be possible to fully capture the emotion involved in his experiences in a visual form. The story works much better if the imagination is forced to work to conjure interpretable images. Maybe I'm wrong though, maybe it would be a good movie, and I'm sure some films in the past have been, in some way or another, inspired by this book. Good stuff.
I have nothing to do, but I don't want to type anymore. It's senseless at this point. Maybe I'm in too good of a mood to say anything worthwhile.

7:33pm :: I guess at this point, I am tired of typing and sitting around messing with HTML code and Dreamweaver. But I must record things. Tonight I bought a plane ticket for Houston in mid-May. I figure that it would be better to buy it now when I'm sluggish with cash than to wait until two weeks before when I'm unemployed and eating Burger King everyday.
Today I re-asserted my feelings on impressing people: it's easy, all you need is a pretty face and a little manipulation of the situation. I have, in 2 days, fixed two major issues that I was supposed to have known about but in fact, did not. I've learned more about Access and SQL in the past week than I ever learned from any half-ass college or high school class. I've coded more PHP and ASP in the past 2 days than I have in my career. I really like this job.
Yes, I'm excited about the job, but I think I'm more excited about the apartment. Since I now supposedly do not have to pay off my car, I'm free to spend wildly. Tonight I bought a 6-pack of Nimbus and a marble cake with yellow icing for $3. I think tomorrow that I'll go to both Zia's, seeking a new CD or DVD to plug entertainment value. But shit, that has nothing to do with the apartment, or does it?
I will be 1/2 mile from the awesome ethnic supermarket where I buy jiaozi, I will be within walking distance of 4th Avenue, Congress Street and an interesting-looking donut place on South Stone. I will also be surveying the city in a plastic chair on a cement porch, while the setting sun bounces into my eyes off of the mirrors of the skyscrapers. I will smoke marijuana and watch the stream of multi-colored automobiles turn into a two-tone sectioned vision of lights. Most importantly, I will have a quick, and very awesome commute.
So what happened to the semi-depressed, overly-introspective, thoughtlessly-clear-minded Colin? I don't know, but I think that all trace of him will be left here on Stone Loop, waiting for a bobcat to arrive to take him to a hot dog establishment (no names mentioned). I haven't changed, I'm just better for the troubles. We all have to hit our low points and degradations in order to reach our true pinnacle. And to think that I'm not even 23. I'm going to start telling this to anyone and everyone; I'll write it on my business cards and make sure to verbally mention it to conservative, gun-toting men in revealing khaki shorts and hats with chin straps. They'll smile and nod, unaware of the fact that the facade is far more stretched than human perception can muster. Maybe there's no facade, maybe I am really like this. I just think my outright personality is simply malleable enough to allow something like this to continue to a great extent. Confess your liberal sins, and you will be saved!
Why does your/my tongue loosen so much when drink is applied? Are there little tongue gnomes inside alcohol which pry it loose until the vocal chords are forced to respond in contractions? I think so, and so should you.

7:47pm :: It's funny to me that the conclusions in life are often times not our own. They are sometimes forced upon us, the product of another's will, another's destiny or another's ignorance. Either way, we must accept it and learn something from it. In this case, I have learned that you should always trust your initial thoughts for what is best, and disregard outside influences, because that initial intuition is the most objective you will have throughout the situation.
I am in a very good mood tonight. I finally got part of the web site up, removing broken links and making the images legible, along with re-writing the HTML and scripts while maintaining the design. Sucka wha? Now it's just a matter of making things consistent.
I thought about today my tolerance for hunting. I think that although I have respect for the freedom to live (honestly more so for animals than for people), I also have a respect for the civil liberties of the individual. The individual should not be restricted from any act which furthers the pursuit of his or her happiness, as long as that act is within reason. Is hunting within reason? Yes. It is not poaching, or eradication, it is systematic killing for sport. I think I also respect it as a valid part of life because many hunters are after that same peace in solace that I am after. Whatever we do, and whatever our thoughts are regarding politics, war, the place of women, we both seek reflection and peace of mind through nature. We lie awake at night and stare at the same stars, and are grateful at dawn when the sun again brings us the warmth necessary to keep going.
Alright, enough of that. I think I should Eegee's a lot more. It's good, and it's reasonably priced, much more so than Subway. Fuck Subway. I love those Cold Cut Trios, but they're just too damned expensive. So I finally turn on the A/C in the apartment after 6 months, and it's very refreshing not to have to stay up late waiting for the air to cool. Modern conveniences are easy to criticize but they're also easy to love.
That enough.

9:15pm :: I don't believe that the heroes are dead, they just stopped shaving and moved into the forest, building cabins and living as virtual hermits. They read of strife and plight in the newspapers, but it's always delayed at least 24 hours, and they assume that the other has taken care of the situation. So they sit around with bushy beards and plaid shirts in front of roaring fires trying their best to keep warm, occasionally stepping outside into the cold to chop wood and listen to the hum of winter.

10:31pm :: You never know what's going to happen when you put Colin in front of a camera.

10:22am (Yuma) :: This has, unfortunately, become the Yuma trip. I was unable to find a copy of the Tucson paper in town, so I now sit at the Barnes and Noble near the South Side Mall, plotting my next course of action. I do still plan to see those fabulous dunes, but how they will receive me is up in the air. The desert was good to me last night. Kofa National Wildlife Refuge lies about thirty miles north of Yuma on Highway 95, surrounded by the enormous acreage of a military installation. The road in is dotted with signs indicating how dangerous it would be to pass these lines into the desert. The moon was high, full and bright last evening, illuminating the landscape of rocks, chollas and the rarer saguaros. I fell asleep unexpectedly shortly after switching off the music, watching what few stars had shown up for the evening, and carefully listening to whatever noises the army behind me had to offer. I know animals visited during the night, as I found some fresh rabbit shit very near to my car, although I didn't see, nor did I really expect to see anything larger. It was warm last night, but quickly cooled into the low 50's, only to warm up about 10 degrees just five minutes after the sun peaked over the mountain ridge in front of me. Just as I was about to start my car to drive to an abandoned mine down the road, a truck with a horse trailer approached, and two men exited. I watched them for roughly 15 minutes, preparing and saddling their horses. They did not see me, and when they finally began riding, in my direction, it was very obvious when I was discovered. I really enjoy watching people who think they're alone, although it isn't quite the same if there are two of them. But there is only one of me, and this works to my advantage and disadvantage, depending on the perception.
Although I haven't spoken with anyone in over 24 hours, I'm not anxious to talk as I usually am in these situations. I still feel somewhat reserved, uneager to reveal my thoughts, for thoughts are precious, but only if they remain unstirred in the mind. My mind is unstirred, untroubled by the annoyances of background conversations and bad, floral wallpaper. The campers and RVs on the top of the hills near the Colorado River are quite possibly those of squatters, although I have no means of verifying this. I wish I could be a squatter. I think my life would be quite a bit easier if it lacked the hassle of land ownership or rental. It seems ridiculous to actually buy land in the desert, because I would never feel that I owned the land if I simply put a fence around it and signed some forms. I would need to live on every square foot, however briefly, in order to feel the land, to know its true character. Wild land is like any wild animal in that it always requires taming. Many people force it through construction and landscaping, but others simply rope it off and assume that it is their's; but it is not their's, it is no man's. I feel that, given the opportunity, I could tame a portion of land (something reasonable) not so that it would be "used" as it is said, but simply experienced and lived upon. Taming, yes, but also living in harmony with, which I believe is possible through understanding and clarity.
The most disappointing aspect of the trip has been my failure to acquire fresh dates. There are numerous date farms surrounding the the Colorado River near Bard, CA, but none of the wholesalers seemed to be open. I just wanted a pound, enough to tide me over. That would have made a much better breakfast than this damn Starbucks scone and coffee. Dates and water, that's what I really need. Something spurred off that tamed land, an unshaven hero in itself falling from tall palms sprung from man-made oases. I had heard of Bard before, but I can't remember where. It makes me think that it's some sort of hippie commune area, but I again do not have the means to verify this.
What I do know, for a good, solid fact, is that Yuma sucks, and I need to leave. I'm thinking of heading in the general direction of Mexico, and then go to the dunes, but I'll have to consult my map. The map has been very reliable thus far, and I do wish I had a California version. I have technically entered California, but don't really feel as though I have experienced any of it on this trip. The mileage signs to San Diego on the interstate made me want to go there, but I forgot my bathing suit, and it's just an expensive place to visit in general. I'll get there eventually, just not this time. This trip's purpose was to get out of stifling urbanness of the Sonora Contradiction and attempt to return to the natural world which I so dearly love and fear. All was appreciated, and I at least had that short time to myself.

7:01pm (Yuma) :: So it's Saturday night in Yuma, the mall is jumping (even though it actually closes at 7pm) and the streets are crawling incandescent shine of thousands of headlights. Yuma, to me, looks like Las Vegas, without the gambling, drinking and general fun. There are enormous RV parks and RV retailers here, and an seemingly endless ring of retirement communities surrounds the city. This is a true desert town; where people really come to die. Well, not everybody, at least not me. I'm just here for the sights, and the fast food (Burger King was the only place who seemed to have a plug available. There are two large families in here at the moment, both light-skinned bilingual Hispanics, and both missing the mother. I guess I knew there were this many Mexicans and Hispanics here, but I didn't realize there were this many. Scanning the radio, there must have been at least 6 Spanish language FM stations to choose from. How many stations can you have playing Tejano and Norteño?
I hope to stay out on this trip tomorrow night as well, since the girl at Hastings said that they should have a Sunday AZ Daily Star, and that they "totally" had more papers on Sunday (today they only had the local, the San Diego, the Phoenix and USA Today. Figure that out. No one in Arizona west of the Pima County line cares about Tucson I guess. Shameful.
I am upset that I didn't get to see the sand dunes today, but I guess I can tomorrow. Something very mystical about sand dunes, makes you want to eat a few peyote. But alas, I have none, and I am too far from the tribes who do have some.
The Tohono O'odham Nation, one of the largest reservations in the country, is not really much to look at. Absent are the roadside tourist stores which dot the main roads around the Navajo and Apache reservations. There are still the depressing and often abandoned pink government housing keeping the Papagos supposedly away from poverty. These houses, if occupied, have a very lively quality to them, but seemed to all have either a window or a door boarded up. I suppose there might be quite a few break-ins, or maybe shit just happens. Also, every reservation I've been to in the past offers a dramatic change in scenery and landscape as soon as you cross its boundaries. The Tohono O'odham does not have this. Ironically, once you enter the neighboring Barry Goldwater Range (which is run by the USAF I believe), the landscape is dotted by strikingly abrupt reddish rock formations, often cut through the middle by the highway, or by the fence line. The nation itself is mostly a barren landscape of chollas, palo verdes and rocks.

But enough of this trip's objective visual imagery. I'm no longer overly concerned by my problem. I have conjured a resolution, and feel confident of its success. Of course, its success is dependent on others, and this is never very good, and is actually part of what got me into this in the first place. If these things didn't occur though, we would fret over them much moreso than they really needed to be. Much of the drive time was spent thinking about the plausibility of this resolution, and once I determined it to be the best solution considering the full situation, I began thinking about trains. I'd like to sit next to the railroad track tomorrow and just read. Something very nice about a railroad in a small town. Maybe because out of all of that stillness and striking isolation, a fierce, noisy outsider approaches, beckoning a warning cry. It passes, rumbling the ground under you and startling you despite your best preparation for the shock, and seems like a giant. You feel strange that it does not acknowledge your presence despite the fact that you stand before it in awe. When it leaves just as quickly as it arrived, even though this was the same intense silence that filled the air prior to the event, you are struck by the absence of the loud noise that you had gotten used to. The distant sounds of civilization or simply the leaves on the tree above you rustling slightly in the wind are now comforts. This is the defect of civilized man: our constant need to fill our ears with our own noise. Not necessarily hear our own voices, but just hear the fabulous things that we are capable of: lawn mowers, cars, music, the buzz of electricity, the ticking of clocks, all is our way of asserting how much we love ourselves.
Damn, that's enough of that too. Well, I have a while to sit here, so I might as well ramble around on web pages.

8:13pm :: I read something in the don Juan book today that I think will stick with me for the rest of my life. It's not one of those life-changing passages that change my perception, but rather something that has completely and accurately articulated my perception. In "Donnie Darko" there is the almost cliché therapeutic teachings which separate life into love and fear - a purely black and white affair. Donnie was right in criticizing it for being overly objective, but the idea is correct in its intention. In the book, don Juan talks about becoming a man of knowledge, and how, on this path of becoming such a man, you must defeat four intangible enemies. The first, and very relevant to "Donnie Darko," is fear. Once you defeat fear, you have clarity, but clarity leads to arrogance, and you must also defeat it. Once defeated, you achieve power, but as everyone knows, power easily corrupts, so you must also defeat it. On any course, you will most likely be old and tired by the time you defeat power, so the final and most difficult enemy to defeat is old age, and very few people ever defeat this. My interpretation of this is that is not resigning yourself to old age, nor denying old age and continuing your life as a young man, but rather is it a true acceptance, where you realize your limitations and weaknesses and must continue to make the most of your life, but in a different way from when you were younger. As soon as I read the passage describing each separate enemy, I began to realize that it wasn't that I was cold or emotionless, but rather that I had conquered fear. It makes sense to me. I'm not afraid of being alone, of rejection, of the perception of others, of losing, of winning, of hate, of love, of kindness, of indifference, of sympathy, of pity, of pride, of shame, of reality, of insanity, and of being myself. I think too often this is interpreted as over-confidence coming out of me, but over-confident individuals are often ruled by emotion, and become reckless as a result. I think that this doesn't necessarily change my perception, as I said, but puts me on a much more clear path. I don't see myself defeating clarity (which has already driven me to arrogance I think) anytime soon, but I'm still young and very much ready for the show clarity has to offer me. Everything written on here is shit, and I realize this now. Much of it was written behind the mask of clarity, and therefore, although it may sound insightful and absolutely true, is just guesses and shots in the dark, aimed at what is really happening in life. I'd like to talk with someone who has also read this book and has taken it as seriously as I have, but I doubt that I will be able to find them. Whatever. I guess I can continue writing (not just this entry, but in general), but it just seems meaningless. Although, the original intention was to be able to revert back to this in the future and laugh about what I was thinking about everything. whatever.
The power in my situation is not only this perceived confidence, but also the ability to manipulate people and situations to my best advantage, which I often do. There is also the absence of the fear of being alone, which allows me to leave potentially detrimental and explosive situations such as the one I have been put (or have put myself) in, sacrificing the ties which almost always, unnecessary to future endeavours. I'll shut up

11:32pm :: After sex, there's this sort of absence of emotion in the wake of its preceding intensity. Silence is resonant, but does not convey the same sort of tension often associated with it. Conversation is idle, relaxed, and never dwells into anything which can be perceived as offensive. For the rest of the day, your eyes have a glazed quality, and seem to smile contently to themselves, never intently focused. Your mind is equally dissonant, never resolving anything too serious, and the emotions produced, normally vibrant and over-powering, are now faded, all merged into a grayness unreflective, but just as beautiful.
I have a craving for a burger at the moment. One of those fabulous Wendy's burgers that used to be only 99 cents. The type where the taste of onions remains at the back of your tongue for the rest of the day, despite your best efforts. My best efforts are wasted arguing with myself over the finer points of my state of consciousness. Ask me anything, especially about the 20% off red tag sale.

1:27am :: No burgers, but I did conjure up some cornbread. It doesn't fill that void though, but I guess nothing can. There's only one Super Wal-Mart in Tucson, and it's only a few miles from my apartment. I was going to buy a marker, but I thought this was stupid and I'm just going to wait until morning.
??

12:17am :: Should I really promise to write more? No. I don't make promises that I can't keep, as I really don't like to lie, at least, not to myself.
Should a video or song be dark and disturbing like Aphex Twin, or cute and campy like Squarepusher? I suppose that it depends on the intention of the respective artist. I think the intention of Richard D. James is to disturb, to darken the respective worlds of others around him into a tint similar to his own. There seems to be a need for the torturously depressed to bring others around them into their personal hell, as if trying to prove something. We all have our demons, but I don't think that their faces are universally frightening, let alone universally recognizable. Our concerns seem to sometimes represent our individuality: we don't like to be worried about the exact same thing as others. Or maybe that's bullshit, maybe we do. I don't know.
I'm thinking about the Tucson dog track right now, how odd it looks. Everything here has this striking quality in an abstract sense. Taking the negative space of the tackiness of it all into context and you have a theme that can be made beautiful. I think photographers should focus more on Tucson, or maybe they already have. I remember the old bass player had those beautiful, abstract shots of Corpus Christi that made me want to see the town again, through renewed, and much more analytical eyes. But Corpus is gone, and I have this desert to view through the human goggles strapped around the mind's eye.
You and me, and Hercules in between. What does that mean? Together we are strong? Those guys are strange, but maybe we all are.
Brian Wilson recorded Charles Manson's music. It is now off-limits to the public. If it were released, it would sell, no doubt, millions upon millions of copies using that same sick fixation which attracts us to car crashes and murders. I'm shocked that the epitome of capitalistic endeavours has not yet folded under the pressure from the masses. I think I should start a letter-writing campaign, demanding that the sealed demo tapes be released on one complete compact disc and sold on late-night tv alongside automatic slicers and real estate schemes. It would be sold in stores, marketed with a 4-foot cardboard cut-out of the unshaven hero, giving some wicked smile that makes the children run. It would play on stereos in suburban America, and be blamed for teenage angst, school shootings and a rise in general juvenile violence. Christians and conservatives would swear at it, states would ban it, and it would gain media attention on sensationalist news programs viewed by helpless families strung out on the edge of society. It would eventually be again retired, but this time into obscurity. Fifteen minutes does not just apply to people, it applies to everything, and our attention towards the shocking quickly shifts in an effort to find an even brighter and more luminous light, flickering in our eyes.
I'm thinking of your wide-open eyes.