This is a happy day indeed

The new Zao album leaked. I will let you know the exact degree of awesomeness it has attained after I wake up and listen to it 16 times in a row tomorrow.

Late night randomness

I needs some help! I realized earlier tonight that I have an irrational fear of haunted house rides at sleazy carnivals, but I can't find a word for that phobia! There's nothing even close to it. So, if you can find a word for it or something like it (Coulrophobia isn't close enough), I will give you something shiny.

Slow down this is slippin' through my mind,
this conversation has run out of time.
Honey I know you know what I mean,
and that's the one thing that you soon will find.
"F.C.P.R.E.M.I.X." by The Fall of Troy

On a completely random note, I guess there are songs/videos from Showbread, Staple, and Pillar in the new Lindsay Lohan movie, "Just My Luck". Or at least, there is a few seconds of Showbread's video for "Mouth Like A Magazine" in it, because it says so on Showbread's website. I read on Pillar's myspace or something that Pillar and Staple are in it somewhere too. Too bad Lindsay Lohan is still anorexic, because those bands might be almost enough to get me to rent the movie when it comes out to watch it with the director's commentary to see why they chose to use those bands in a lame romantic comedy for twelve year old girls. As it stands, however, I can't even look at Lindsay Lohan anymore without being horribly disappointed at how unattractive she is now.

And I don't understand why I sleep all day,
and I start to complain when there is no rain

I don't believe in miracles but I believe in you
Now I can't wait 'til I can sleep in late
Maybe I'll miss you then
With no garden to tend

I am your gardener!?! Oh no (what have I done)
"China White" by He Is Legend

On a closing note, my new job at Canterbury is pretty crappy. Tips and free Dr. Pepper are about the only good parts. I need another job really soon. Hopefully the Electric Fetus is hiring, because at the moment working there is my dream job. DiscLand or Know Name Records wouldn't be bad either. I'd even work at CD Warehouse... I just want to work in a friggin' record shop. That would make my life. Well, that, and being jumped by Christopher and Jenessa while fighting off zombies with a shotgun as Jeff Mangum plays "Two-Headed Boy" right next to me.

I am not a prophet or a teacher
I am a failure of God
Standing in a circle of my brothers
Their fangs out
Every thing I had I gave to you
Every time I tried I would lose
It's hard not to shake with a gun in your mouth
Every time I try I hear my mother's voice
And see my mother's eyes
But when hers close I'm scared so will mine
You are no brothers
Filing out the church of Cain
Like a thousand foot pious snake
Hiding its sins deep in its stomach
Digesting them one at a time
And your voice is a sounding trumpet
Announcing the mountains that you've moved
But love is the farthest thing from you
"It's Hard Not to Shake With a Gun in Your Mouth" by Zao

Urban life decays

Earlier today, I was enjoying some Zao, Demon Hunter, and Agony Scene music by headbanging and moshing with the air around my house like most normal people do. I was feeling 99% better beforehand, but afterwards, I felt dehydrated, nauseous, and a little dizzy. Assuming it was just because I was still a little sick, I drank some water, took some DayQuil caplets, and went off to my afternoon English class. The nausea and dizziness came and went until about 5:00, when I got back from taking my sister out to her Confirmation retreat. I sat down in front of my computer, and suddenly the back of my head started to hurt for no reason, and I almost passed out. I went upstairs, feeling dizzy and nauseous in an entirely different, non-dehydrated way, and told my mom what was going on. At this point, I was absolutely freaking out. I had no idea what was happening, and that scared the living daylights out of me.

I laid on the couch until my dad got home a few minutes later, and we debated as to whether or not I should go to urgent care. I started feeling better, but that hardly lasted before my body again threatened to pass out. At this point, I was convinced I was going to die. And no, that's not an exaggeration. I honestly thought that today was going to be my last day on earth. I figured the best-case scenario was that I'd fall into a coma until my body gave out. My parents decided urgent care probably wasn't a bad idea, so off we went. Over the next hour and a half or so, I deviated between being as calm as I could be under the circumstances, and believing that a blood vessel was going to burst in my brain at any second.

Finally, I got called back to see the doctor, and after asking me a few questions and doing a couple random tests, he told me I have Labyrinthitis. I've never heard of it either, but I am not making it up. You can look it up if you'd like. It turns out that my sinuses drained into my inner ear, which threw off my balance and caused the vertigo and nausea. The fluid probably drained in there because of my headbanging and whatnot. The doctor gave me some antibiotics that will help dry out the fluid, as well to help with the vertigo and nausea.

When I got home, I decided to look up my new found disease on Wikipedia, where I discovered that the first effect most people feel from Labyrithitis is, get this: panic attacks. I also discovered that patients who are able to deal with and/or defeat the panic attacks recover faster than those who don't. Thank God my parents and I decided to go out there tonight, or else I probably would have spent the rest of the night thinking I was going to die, which is one of the worst things I've ever felt. Vertigo + Panic Attacks + Random Headaches = Not Good Times. So, the moral of the story is... don't headbang when you have a cold... or something. You figure it out.

On a semi-related note, I found out today that Zao is posting a song from their new album each week until it comes out on June 13th. This week's song is called Physician Heal Thyself, which in retrospect, is rather fitting. www.zaoonline.com to download it and watch a video of Dan talking about what the song means. The song itself is, after 15 or so listens, looking like it might end up being one of my favorite Zao songs.

Physician heal thyself
Can you cut yourself precise and deep
As to reach in and remove whats dying inside of you

A colossus of irony

Physician heal thyself
With great intelligence and experience
Can you prescribe a way not to die alone

We are not what we are

The structure deconstructing
Arrogance and blasphemy
There are no controls
Like the unfornuate patient
The physician dies sick and alone
~"Physician Heal Thyself" by Zao

Slow motion, see me let go

I started writing a post last night, when for no reason at all my Internet crapped out and refused to work. I will post what I had written, and then probably write something entirely different and unrelated. I just didn't want a good paragraph go to waste. The stuff in between the next two lyric quotes will be what I wrote last night.

Now my nights consist of two toothpicks and eyelids, a crucifix and vitamins, music that is pirated, new flavored food made of mutated hybrids
~"Slow Down Gandhi" by Sage Francis

I will kick this off by letting you know that my face hurts, which I think has something to do with the fact that I've been sick since Saturday night. It might also have something to do with me sleeping 17 out of the last 24 hours. These past few days have been kind of weird. The majority of the time, I feel like I'm in some state between being awake and dreaming, which I'm sure is due to some combination of me being sick, taking NyQuil and like two different sinus pills, running on caffeine, and subsequently having the caffeine wear off. This time of year always puts me in a weird state of mind, even more so now, I think, because I'll be done with high school in about two and a half weeks, and I just have a feeling I'll end up screwing myself over with college somehow. I'll also get really depressed, and then the next minute will be absolutely ecstatic, both for really no reason. I spend a lot of time aimlessly driving around, between like 11 PM and 1 or 2 AM, usually while listening to one of my depressing mixtapes.

After years with their crown on my head,
I’ve grown overfed, unconcerned and comfortably numb
Kept busy indulging in the pleasures of the wealthy.
(Oh, someone make me afraid of what I’ve become!)
At the first sign of possible sorrow I’ll turn my heel and run.
(Oh, I’ll never learn!)
My life's a cup of sugar I borrowed before time began and forgot to return.
~"January 1979" by mewithoutYou

So anyway, that was that. Yes, this time of year does crazy things to me. I think way too much about stupid crap. Mostly emo stuff, death and whatnot. I almost thought, "Man, I need a girlfriend" but managed to catch it before it was too late. But seriously, sometimes I think a girlfriend would be a pretty sweet deal. I hung out with Molly last weekend, but nothing's going to come of that for a while, since she has that boyfriend she doesn't even like but won't break up with. Bah. Retarted.

i need the kind of girl that knows a girl that
likes to wear my clothes somone who always
buys me coke someone who laughs at all my
jokes that's the girl that i want to see fall in love
with me that's the girl that i long to know oh
how i love her so i'm looking for a girl who
writes me songs and talks to Jesus all day long
and the way she does her hair no one else
can compare i'll probably meet her at a show
when i look at her i'll know that she's the
perfect one for me and with her i will always
be the one for me
~"Want Ad" by MxPx

See what I mean? I've also been thinking a lot about how I'm going to pay for college and what I want to do with my life and when and where I'm going to work and a million other things pertaining to life after school. So, the same things I was thinking about the last time I wrote a real entry. I've also been straying from God again (big surprise there, no?), and of course my life is a bajillion times worse when I'm not spending time each and every day with God. And really, it's almost amazing how quickly I've gotten to the point where I can talk about that with about as much interest as I would tell someone the time of day. Good old apathy, back again to convince me that just about anything is more interesting than that devotional book and my Bible. I waste countless hours a day reading and re-reading stuff about music and movies, but I can't take 30 or 45 minutes out of my day to read a devotional and my Bible and write a little bit about it, even though doing so will benefit me more than pretty much anything else I could do. I'd almost say I hate my laziness and my severe lack of committment to my faith, if I wasn't so apathetic about the whole thing. I would say I hated so much of the way I live, so many of the things I do, so many of the words I say, the things I watch, the things I laugh at, the things I think about, the things I listen to, if only... if only I could bring myself to care, even a little. Writing is supposed to be cathartic, at least, it's always been a form of catharsis for me, and yet I feel pretty much nothing as I sit here and write what I feel (or really, what I don't feel) for anyone who stumbles on this thing to read.

"Oh, doubters, let's go down, let's go down
won't you come on down, oh doubters, let's go down , down to the river to pray?
'But I'm so small I can barely be seen
How can this great love be inside of me?'
Look at your eyes - they're small in size, but they see enormous things."
~"Four Word Letter (Part Two)" by mewithoutYou

Everything seems so trivial and unimportant unless it directly pertains to me and what will make me happy, which makes me selfish, and once again, I can say that with little sense of remorse. I know that should be sad or something, but I have a hard time feeling like it is. God, this is so frustrating... and now I might be getting somewhere. Frustration is more than I've been feeling about the sinful sides of me recently, and that has to be a start of some sort. Feeling frustrated that I don't feel anything about my sin seems to be a small start, though. I still have a long, long ways to go, I think.

But in all of Israel, father did you see someone who seeks himself so perfectly,
The Pharisees would be content at the sight of me,
The snakes would wrap around me and we’d dance across the sea,
To ridicule you there and to spit upon your face,
Unsheathe this wicked tongue, and invite disgrace,
Isn’t that the goal that I’ve always pursued?
While I beg you, lord to be used for you

Under a light in Bethlehem I was sifting through the sand,
The saline burned my eyes, I was looking for your hand,
I gave up on myself, and left this pride disarmed,
I cried out “I’m alone!” and found myself in your arms

Rest in me oh my love,
I have loved you before the world began,
Rest in me oh my love,
You will never to wander too far to reach my hand,
Did they not murder you?
Did they not see you die?
Hanging on a tree as the life had left your eyes,
Did we not torture you?
Smiling as you died,
Or is it that you killed death itself, and now you are alive?
~"And the Smokers and Children Shall Be Cast Down" by Showbread

Once again, writing and music have proven themselves amazing forms of catharsis. Within the last few minutes, through writing and searching for some good lyrics to post, I've started to feel some regret for the way I've been living. Now I pray that this will last, not the regret so much as the awareness of what is wrong in my life and my amazingly infinite need for God's infinite love... which I just realized. That my need is basically infinite, since on my own there is no way I can live my life the way God intended, which is why I need his infinite love to be able to live a life that is even worth living. That probably made zero sense to anyone else, but it made total sense to me, and that's what I needed. I think I'll end this here and go spend some much-needed time with God. As a little end note, since I haven't mentioned this anywhere else, I am not, in fact, going to the graduation commencement, just to verify what anyone may have told you or to let you know in case you didn't already.

Convinced of my deception
I've always been a fool
I fear this love reaction
Just like you said I would

A rose could never lie
About the love it brings
And I could never promise
To be any of those things

If I was not so weak
If I was not so cold
If I was not so scared of being broken
Growing old
I would be...
I would be...
I would be...

Blessed are the shallow
Depth they'll never find
Seemed to be some comfort
In rooms I try to hide

Exposed beyond the shadows
You take the cup from me
Your dirt removes my blindness
Your pain becomes my peace
~"Frail" by Jars of Clay