Do you remember when we were just kids
And cardboard boxes took us miles from what we would miss?
School yard conversations taken to heart
And laughter took the place of everything we knew we were not

I want to break every clock
The hands of time could never move again
We could stay in this moment for the rest of our lives
Is it over now, hey, hey, is it over now?

-Anberlin, Inevitable

While I do mine the mornings to write these entries for I find its rubber hits the road characteristic to be practical, there is a dream-like quality to the night. Possibilities are out there, just beyond the headlights cutting through the night air. Time is not as relevant in this face; life is not as material. It is as though I breathe the air of many moments at once. I look down at these hands in the dim light: are they looking older?

In my mid-to-late 20s, I saw the change coming. An occasional white hair, an unexpected amount of hair lost in the shower. They were oddities, but I was so close to being young, I could always go back. It was something to joke about; there was no belief that it was a milemarker of any place, rather, I thought it was just a fluke.

Expanding on the topic from yesterday's post, this song by Brad Paisley, Last Time for Everything, captures the realization of lost eras. Undoubtedly, our inability to recognize all of our "last times" is a blessing. If we had, those steps beyond would be gut-wrenching.

The silence is deafening: how many times has something that was once ordinary in our lives now simply gone?

A voice.

A place.

They "Can't Be Really Gone..."

In the moment, I thought it would happen again—it always happened. "Of course, it'll happen again." I didn't see that it was the last time—how could I have?

What lies just beyond the street lamp, or drifts within the ocean's mist of a ship's nocturnal journey, tugs at my soul and imparts a mesmerizing touch of Linger.

While I did not attend Bartlett High School, so much of my time as a teen intersected with others from that school. I might even say my interactions with them rivaled my own high school peers. Whether it was from...

• Working (and flirting) at Kroger Bartlett at 16, Piggly Wiggly at 17, and the mall later
• Playing down in the low post the best a 163 lb, 5' 9¾" guy nicknamed Shaquille O'Bill can muster for pickup games at Bellevue and Singleton
• Participating in those weekly football games at Weaver's where I earned that Moose nickname
• Casting rebel calls as Wild Bill to stumbling over my feet in another Saturday night of line dancing at Casper Creek
• Salivating over the last bit of Melrose Place; catching the first half of Monday Night Football (it was a school night after all); and enduring a bag of steamed burgers from the Krystal's on Austin Peay Hwy
• Attoning at Sycamore View Church of Christ

Last night, I watched a video, Bartlett High School Class of 1996 Senior Video:

YouTube Link

As I looked on, there were the people of romance and friendship. I laugh as I see another: I rub the keepsake on my chin as I recall how it happened an hour before I asked her out to prom—that basketball scar that pushed me over the edge with a last shot of courage. Only later did I find that her need of a dress was actually that and not a gentle rejection of me. Just the actual dress. As if I was obsessing over that much sequin. Funny how we are so hyper-sensitive to every nuance to us in our teens yet we miss chunks of the big picture.

I saw the faces and they were every bit of who I remembered. Much more can be said of a cascading of memories...the smiles...the pangs. As I watched the video, a general nostalgia for 1995-1996 turned to something more personal, deeper:

And that REM song was playing in my mind
And three and a half minutes
Felt like a lifetime

-Better Than Ezra, A Lifetime

The faces feel like home while the names are largely forgotten. There are those in the video that will forever be there.

YouTube Link

It was a fun run. With some hesitancy, I login into a digital dystopia; I am back on Google. As much as I'd like to do my own thing, I recognize the value of sharing, version control and product integration. it's not about me; this is a bladerunner world.

Years ago, I set aside my IT aspirations; why am I spending so much time with tech? There's no application other than for my personal funzies. I've got a lot of projects in my head that never get off the ground because I'm working these wrenches. Again, I gotta spend less time with my tools and more time with my wizardry.

Along the way, I discovered a few streams on YouTube:

• The Best of Norway's Railway Cab Views - "oh my heart"
• Blade Runner Radio
• Softest Radio Stream - Chillout Playlist for Calm Productivity

I journey through a quiet landscape. I suppose I'm an outsider...

@ 277 Lbs & 277 Days

Wasn't it just the other day I was 269 lbs? Is July's 213 so long ago?

If I am like everybody else, I'm back to being that 336 lb guy in the workshop...

...if I was like everybody else, I'd hand over something shiny to the village's medicine man so that would work his voodoo for that vision quest.

However...I know the way out; after all, I am an outsider. Eat healthy: eat beef, bacon, butter and eggs.

However, it's more than that—there is a visualization that goes on for seeing the future requires a vision...

277 days remain at 45. At a BMI of 40.03, what shall be done with them?

It's funny how life turns out
The odds of faith in the face of doubt
Camera One closes in
The soundtrack starts
The scene begins
You're playing you now

-Josh Joplin