Why am I bringing this up? I used to write a political site and since I am Libertarian, I had to research a lot of things, unlike the other parties it seems. I got burnt out very quickly. The sheer amount of bills that come up in the house and senate is staggering. And the amount of non-needed bills is even more amazing. Recently there was a bill, S. 1864 (National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2012) that would label our own citizens as enemy combatants, luckily Rand Paul fought to get a vote to strike this from the bill and won. I noticed BOTH of my senators were on the list of those voting Yea. And it got me thinking about how I want to write them but they would sent back their prepossessed drivel and they wouldn’t give two shits on what some little nobody in their state said.

How to fix it? Well, I can’t claim to be a political scientist and know the answers because I’ve studied it forever. But I think there’s some simple ways to fix some of the bills. Basically, you’d have a bill that only focused on the issue at hand, nothing else, if they want something else, separate bill. This prevents people from burying what they want in a big bill so people who vote against it can be made out to seem like they don’t want the original bill, this was done with the Protect the Children or whatever stupid fucking bill they had recently about child pornography with a dash of 1984 style monitoring of everything you ever did on the web to be tracked by your ISP. What that has to do with protecting children, I have no idea. More government control hidden away while making people who vote against it pedophiles. Stupid shit like this needs to go. Bills should have to sit unaltered for up to 1 month after it is finalized before it’s voted on in the house or senate. This allows a process to not be pushed through any house without the people knowing about it. They should also have CSPAN cover what’s waiting to be voted on and there should be a site discussing the bills and whats in it so the people can review them and then be able to contact their representative. Hell, throw voting buttons on them, but make sure those people are registered to vote so when they do vote yes or no, their rep will know how someone they represent feels on an issue. After a vote passes, and both sides agree on the bill, it goes to the president, where it has to wait two more weeks. Here people can vote against it again, and more coverage talking about it. Then the president can sign it or veto it depending on what the people say.

It’s 2011, we should be interacting more with the people who represent us and they should take into account how we feel about what they’re doing. Anyway, I’m done ranting early in the morning about politics and I don’t even think the original thing I came to write here is really addressed, but I don’t care. I just hate how things are done now and have complacent WE ALL ARE in how things operate. Occupy Congress and get them to change how they operate. Might as well throw in term limits for our reps as well to keep things fresh. But what the hell do I know?

Many times when people work their way back into my life, they always tell me how much they miss me, which is odd since I don’t feel the same way most of the time. That’s when I began to ask myself, am I broken? I do miss certain aspects of different people, but to long for that connection again, I don’t have the fire within to try to repair the damage I did or rekindle that flame I let go out. I guess that’s more of my laziness coming out, but I let things go for a reason, they serve no purpose for me as I grow and mature, or so I like to tell myself that. While all this is going on, I want full and meaningful relationships with people, but at the same time I don’t want to put forth the effort to maintain them.

So maybe it’s a bit of selfishness as well, but I never claimed I was a perfect friend. Maybe I just want someone to come in and be there for me like I was there for so many before, but I haven’t really found that and so I just let those friendships dry up that don’t serve any purpose for myself benefit.

I think I am broken. I’m an awful friend. I lack empathy, emotions, caring, and all that stuff. I don’t know why people like being my friend and are gravitated towards what little I have to offer. It doesn’t change the fact that I’m a selfish, boring and broken man.

I wanted a good camera to document the new travels I wanted to accomplish. I wanted to take two major trips a year and up to six small short weekend trips. So far, I’ve taken zero trips. Technically, driving up at Blood Mountain was kind of a photography trip, although I screwed up most of those pictures. I’d really been fighting vacations for years and since venturing out on my own I’ve really only ever taken two total. That’s pretty sad since I haven’t lived at home since I was 23 and I’m now 29. I tried to correct that path, but I’ve failed miserably.

I’d hope photography would help me realign myself and find some sort of peace with everything that happened. I grabbed my antidepressants, my camera, and stared at online photos. My anxiety had essentially rendered me helpless on achieving my goals. The drugs for my General Anxiety Disorder didn’t seem to do much besides making me care less about the world. I even tried pot, and that still didn’t make me feel like accomplishing anything, although I’m sure that just made me more lazy and fatter.

So now I sit staring at the latest 7 days of interesting photos on Flickr and I want to drop kick my nice and expensive Nikon D300 off the top of a very tall building. Just looking at those amazing shots makes me wish I had never bought a camera in the first place, at least not one so expensive. And I know damn well that you can’t take a good photo without taking a ton of bad ones. That’s my problem, the GAD keeps me from going out. I’ve tried going out and I make excuses and stay at home and blame laziness. I mean, that’s part of it, but it’s a lot of my GAD. I’d lived with it for so long that I just assumed it was laziness, but it’s kept me down and away from many things I’ve wanted to try.

So, three years later, I’m still searching for my inspiration, my muse or even a kick in the ass to get me going and doing more. Alone I wish to remain in my cocoon where I have a false sense of safety instead of enjoying what little time I have on this hurtling rock.

Years ago I was on a trip to my grandmother’s house and for my trip back I wanted to stop and get a new CD to help pass the time away on an eight-hour trip. I went to the Base Exchange (BX) and rifled through the CDs in hopes something I wanted was there and for cheap. I looked forever and being in North Carolina didn’t seem to help my predicament. Time was fast approaching and I needed to pick something and get out of there.

I came upon this CD, Psyence Fiction by a collaborative group known as UNKLE (James Lavelle and DJ Shadow). The name and the artwork on the album caught my attention, but I was skeptical simply because I’d never heard of anyone on this album (later to find out I would know Mike D of Beastie Boys and Thom York of Radiohead).

So, I bit the bullet and bought the CD. As we pulled away from my grandmother’s house, I popped the CD in to my trusty Disc man (which I probably had 4-5 of them because they sucked so bad) and hit play. UNKLE was like nothing I had ever heard before. I was primarily as grunge/rock/NIN fan back then and wasn’t really exposed to much else. This was the moment when I felt my musical limitations buckled, only to break completely after graduating high school.

Songs like Bloodstain, Lonely Soul, the Knock and Rabbit in Your Headlights stuck with me for a long time. I would eventually use Bloodstain in a short film I created in 2000.

I can’t remember if I listened to that album the whole trip or if it was most of it, but back then my attention span allowed me to listen to a whole album without skipping, even with the advent of CDs, since I owned many cassettes.

Psyence Fiction definitely changed my life when it comes to music, it might not be one of my favorites, but it’s one of my most memorable.

Yeah, maybe.

Things falls into place so tightly you’d think an engineer was planning my life.

Just maybe.

Or maybe I’ll just pull the covers over my head and get that quick 15 minutes of sleep and quick dream before the alarm goes off again.

I’d rather just dream.

From the time the cold hits the ground to celebrating another year of hopes and dreams coming true, I watch Love Actually a few times, but that ritual has gone from a viewing a week 6 years ago to maybe one single viewing. It became my holiday movie years ago, due to numerous viewings and along with A Christmas Story, will always be watched, even if Love Actually is far more depressing as a whole.

It took me a couple of years to finally replace a copy that was taken from me and I’ve barely watched it. I ripped a copy for my XBMC machine and a copy for my iPhone.

Soon I’ll pass the first day in the trifecta of loneliness, and quickly the 2nd will pass. The third day takes over a month to finish, but once that’s over I’ll be in my new place. I’ll have started new and one of these days I’ll get back into the game but for now I’m just casually sitting on the sidelines. [I wrote while in the process of buying a new house, which I'm currently living in now.]

So what’s this post talking about? Nothing really, just that I get depressed this time of the year, and I watch a movie that makes me depressed. Oh well.

Since wrapping up High School and getting into the “real world,” I’ve taken a loss on many fronts, now I understand it’s all a part of life, but in 11 years, maybe a lot of losing friends has to do with myself. I’d like to say I’m easy to get along with, but looking over things, maybe I’m a bit critical on things I shouldn’t be. Ever since reading Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff years ago, I thought I’d never let little things bother me, but in fact, they have. I might have shifted what small stuff I let go, but other things I just can’t seem to let go of on a daily basis. Maybe it’s just my crazy personality, but it bothers me, and in 11 years, I haven’t made much headway in changing things I don’t like about myself. I guess it’s come down to a love me or get out at this point, and I wish it wasn’t, because that philosophy has left me and more broken and empty shell of a person.

I’ve forgiven many people from my past and they’re included in my present, but others I can’t seem to just forgive. Maybe it’s because I’m so headstrong about certain things, and some people view that as a good characteristic of me, but sometimes I wonder why I stand my ground when it just leads me to be miserable. I can’t change so easily because then I feel like I’ve let myself down.