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Me:
Can you resend in the proper format? Thanks.
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Streeter:
I do not concern myself with cataloging the "proper" or "correct" way to file away thoughts. I am no mental custodian, busied not with the content of dreams but rather where to find them within the vast collection of human utterance. Rather, I am a free thinker, by which I mean I think and speak without care to the proper way. For what is the proper way, but what one decided many generations ago was the proper way. Where is it written in the stars that my way is not the proper way? Where in our holy books does it say to organize by surname? Two men can to a fork in the road, and you, Sam, you asked permission to even make a choice while I bounded ahead blindly. Lo, I have encountered problems many. Embarrassing punctuation mishaps, ill-formed sentences, why this very email contains no less than 15 "errors," if you choose to call them that. But at least I dare to dream! Of faster than light travel, of a pill that makes you skinny but doesn't give you heart attacks, of cigarettes that contain no tar and of free-form grammar. While you, Sam, you dream of getting the good-boy award for following the rules. Of being lauded and singled out for pointing at the shortcomings of others and declaring, "I, Sam Reich, have discovered an error!" Of being the smugliest man I know. And yet, though you embarrass me in front of our colleagues, I cannot help but respect your iron grip on the rules. Your encyclopaedic knowledge of the proper way. I am but a barbarian and you a learned Roman, though we all know how that ended. There will be a day my hordes breach your sturdy walls and swarm over your people like so many ants on a discarded candy bar. And as we set torch to your temples, take your women and ransack your treasury, look upon me from atop the Palatine Hill as you flee and watch me laugh in the flickering light of your life's work burning. For the rules, Sam, are meant to be broken.
// Awake.//
If I had known the present person I am many years ago, I would have been able to tell myself that it does get better. “Your life will change.” It would have saved me so much energy. My soul would feel younger. But I don’t care, it all has been gained not lost. Life has become something I know I want. I wake up eager everyday for everything. My love for music, food and writing. I wake up from dreams that are becoming reality. I wake up to myself. I wake up to my family. I wake up for him.
Climate Ride Update - The Jorts Challenge
Donations are coming in strong and I thank everyone who donated so far. However, an interesting offer has arisen. Adam Frucci, founder of Splitsider, pledged to double his donation if I ride the entire length in jorts. UCBer Justin Purnell has seconded the offer.
While riding 300 miles in jorts is not ideal, bike advocacy and clean energy are causes worth suffering for. So here is what I am prepared to do…
If my team, Big Oil, can double it’s $2,400 goal, I will do the ride in jorts. That’s $4,800, in case you are a mathematical idiot. All 300 chafing, burning miles in a pair of dope jorts. If we crack $5,000 I’ll wear a chain wallet the whole time, too.
We’re almost at $1,000 now so it’s not unattainable. If you’d like to see me suffer for the greater good while looking like a total asshole, then donate now!
// Let me be happy. //
I am so tired of this!! I’m so tired of you. Quit trying to bring me down. I don’t need to be brought down. I’m just happy and in love. High up there, so happy for the future I am creating. Have you just never heard of it? It is real you know. This life I want is possible, even for me. And I am not going to let you take that away from me. So just let me be.
// Scared Of Love.//
I arrived home, to a mansion I don’t recognize. It was beautiful and perfect all around. I remember not walking fast enough. I expected to see you any second now, but I couldn’t find you. Then I went upstairs to what felt a normal place. I think it’s where we would spend most of our times. You and your sister were there, waiting confused. So confused, I could feel it too. You’re sister kept saying, “I can’t believe I’m dead, just like that.” I demanded to know what it all meant, but I couldn’t speak. I didn’t want to hear it, let alone actually listen. And you, you were more distant. I wasn’t sure if I could see pain in you anymore, or anything else for that matter. Then I heard it. You two had died in a fire and I was seeing your ghost, just a soul no longer tied to me. How could you be? You weren’t real anymore. I couldn’t spend a life with you anymore. You were just dead and I was talking alone. Maybe I was dead too and I was in complete denial which is why I was able to see you. I know in that moment at least it’s all I wanted to be. I couldn’t think or imagine anything anymore because nothing was worth my time anymore. I couldn’t make myself believe what you were telling me was true. I just wanted you back. I needed you back, you are the love of my life. Staring at your beautiful face was all that eased my pain. How was all this possible anyway? I felt I had begun living this way for months. For some reason I just couldn’t remember the past very well anymore. I just knew the only thing I was looking for everyday was for you to appear to me. That was my life now. I was so crazy since I had lost you I forgot I even knew you were dead. I would ask you if I could hold your hand, hug you, simply just talk to you. “Can I kiss you?” You would tell me every time, “Only if it’ll make my heart start beating again enough for you to feel it.” I could never feel it. I was just so crazy, I had been left alone to go crazy. Why would you leave me? I would follow you everywhere I would see you, trying to change what had happened to you. You and your sister never deserved to have died in any fire. You were meant to be with only me and grow old with me. We were meant to have died together. “Can you please help me find him? Please let me find you again in this lifetime, alive!” I always begged crying hysterically. “I want to love you even more and feel that you love me again.” You wouldn’t say much as if there was anything to say for my pleas. I just couldn’t let you go, I can’t ever let you go. And I wanted any way of keeping you. Even if it was sickening as it had gotten. There were times I would see you in my balcony shirtless and so fit, tanned and shaped to perfection. I would see you so perfect, just like you were before you claimed you were dead. But you would never help me be as natural as before again. You knew what it would all mean if we accepted this wasn’t sane anymore. You would still look at me with those charming eyes and whisper everything so close to me I almost thought I felt the heat of your voice flowing through me. You would comfort me by speaking to me of the past as we sat on our couch. You kept letting me fall more in love with you. I was so attentive to you, I never ever wanted to blink so you could never disappear. I wanted to keep you this way, because I didn’t know any other way. Was it absurd, death itself couldn’t even separate us?
Then it began. I was experiencing the fire this time, for the first time. I saw where it began and then it felt as if I’d seen it before. Your sister was running from it towards me closing the door behind her to keep the fire out. Everything was happening so slow for me and I couldn’t comprehend more again. What was happening to my mind? She made me run with her. We were running so fast upstairs away from the doors, she didn’t realize that would be our only way out after we’d find you and her. That’s when I saw her. I don’t know her name. I didn’t know about her. I don’t know why I didn’t know about her. She was a baby girl running and panicking with you. I was frozen in time and I just stared at her. Her small figure that could melt anyone. I was looking at her and falling in love with her like I had never with any other kid. She was like honey and so beautiful. And then those magical words came out her mouth. She kept calling out to you, “Daddy! Daddy! I’m scared!” She was then what made this whole situation more unbearable than ever before. She was our little girl. I never thought there was anything worse than just losing you. Now, there was my daughter too. But what else can I do than to just stare at her and imagine how our lives could’ve been. This seemed like the end for all of us. She reminded me so much of myself. She was so smart and determined to help. She kept trying to help you figure out how we could escape. It almost felt like this was real, like it was actually happening and we were getting a second chance to survive. But I could’ t believe anything anymore. I was barely accepting that you had died. But, maybe everything before was all a dream. Maybe I had a premonition of what would become of me after this actual fire. But how can anything positive come out of this messed up situation?! It was probably just my imagination remembering everything. Then I returned to “reality.” We were jumping everything trying to survive. And I began to notice just you again. You were shirtless. And you looked exactly the same as when I would see your apparitions. You were glowing and you were alive. I could see in your eyes how much you wanted to survive. I could see that your emotion was handed back to you and you loved me again more than ever! You loved me and our daughter. I was a confused person, more than I have ever felt in my life. So I let go of all my thoughts and opinions and had one goal. And I was determined to make it happen worth it or not. It was to survive. To save us all.
This is an actual dream I had. I consider myself a writer so I tend to change up the way I tell stories. It’s a story I hold close to my heart because I dram this the night of the day that changed my life and which I am still trying to decide what to do about. I’d like to think it makes sense. I really am in love, and it hurts to know there can be things that can separate us; not necessarily speaking of fire. That is pretty much a metaphor. This dream was just a perfect metaphor….
My mountainous desert valley during the winter evenings.
MY future tattoo. My incorporation of life, nature and space. The tree will represent nature which I see as the only acceptable life on earth; riding blindly towards nowhere. Just growing and advancing with no purpose but beauty. The ship will represent something much greater than the tree as it’s holder, as earth. Also going nowhere in the vast galaxy, which in this case would be foggy thick clouds.
—// I have failed to finish…//
I began to feel my heart racing faster than I want my legs to run. Run away from the horrifying creature standing just feet away from me. But as much as I want to leave it behind, it stares down at me, laughing, and I can’t move or figure out its face. It is something like I’ve never seen before. And as I lay there looking up at it, I begin to cry. Feeling such sympathy for myself because I’m not even trying. As if I didn’t care at all for my life. And I begin to think. Why am I such a mess? Why can’t I help be what I want? I know I’m sure this isn’t what I want. Something I never intended to let happen. I don’t want to keep losing. I’ve shut down and unintentionally blocked myself from all my surroundings, everything I’ve always known. And that’s what’s wrong. That’s it. And when I think of her, it hurts me the most. And I realize I’ve put her through hell for me. But I can’t put the right words together and tell her everything. Tell her that I’m not playing a game with her. That I am tired of trying when I’ve lost myself. That I love her and there’s so much more to us. But what’s the best approach to being true? And it happens. The creature who was just feets away from me, disappears.
''Come into my life, regress into a dream...we will hide and build
a new reality.''
