Originally published at The Searcher Journal. You can comment here or there.

Just this past weekend, while on my way out of a party for a friend of mine, I was stopped by a lovely young woman.

“I know you,” she said.

“From where?” I was curious as I had noticed her a little while earlier and couldn’t shake the feeling that she seemed a little familiar.

“Probably from another lifetime,” she said, not the slightest bit unsure of herself.

“I’d accept that,” I said with a smile, wishing that I wasn’t already running a little late for the next place I had to be. Giving her my contact information I said, “Please be sure to find me again. I’d like that.”

And off I went to next stop for the night.

But that moment has stuck with me.

Those moments always stick with me.

And there have been a good number of them over the years.

I do most definitely believe in reincarnation of one flavor or another. I’ve had enough personal experiences to make that belief unshakable. As is the case with most metaphysical things, though, I don’t ever expect anyone else to buy into the idea. So it’s always something a little special when someone broaches the subject right off the top. Even more special when there’s a chance our paths have crossed before.

This sort of thing really came into focus for me when I hit college. Very quickly, as I met many new people, some resonated with me more than others. As we discovered more about each other, we found not only a number of common interests but some very unusual commonalities as well. Key among those strange overlaps were memories of things neither of us had done in this lifetime.

My first reaction is usually to write it off as overactive imagination–gleaned bits of insight from regular interaction percolating through the subconscious and presenting imagination dressed as memory. That got more difficult as the details got more specific. Even more so when we’d get together and compare notes we’d written before we knew each other and find the same striking similarities of vision.

The Universe does not waste anything. Everything changes, is taken apart, reformed, reused. Science tells us that matter and energy are at least somewhat interchangeable, that there is a conservation of mass, that matter (in the broadest sense) cannot be created or destroyed.

If we hold that to be true, than our physical bodies alone are made of bits that have been used before. All of our base material was once part of something–or someone–else. We are star stuff.

And if our physical bodies can lay claim to such a vast and impressive pedigree, why not the non-physical parts of us as well?

There is currently no reliable way to measure those ethereal bits that may or may not make us who we are–that whole that is greater than the sum of its parts. But for those of us who have been touched by insight into the cycles we all go through, lifetime after lifetime, the value of that quantity becomes clear.

Without a doubt, I can say we all go around and eventually come back again. Our paths cross the same people again and again, each time letting us play different parts for one another. Sometimes we’re lucky enough to realize those deep connections and work through to something greater. Sometimes its only long after the fact that we realize how far back a love or friendship can be traced.

I don’t know if the girl from the party will ever cross my path again in this lifetime, but I’d like it to happen. Not because she was attractive or because I think its a novel way to make new friends, but because exploring those possible connections brings all involved closer to being more complete.

Have you ever felt that kind of deja vu when meeting someone for the first time? Have you ever compared notes with a friend and discovered you share a secret history?

Friday night was a game night. As usual, it rocked. Lots of time spent having good discussions with good friends I don't do anywhere near enough with. That ran until about 4 a.m., when corpse_light mentioned that his brain was about melted and I realized that, having had a full day at work, mine was well on its way there, too. Headed home and finally got to sleep around 5:30 or 6 a.m.

Then the phone rang at 8:10 a.m. It was a wrong number. I surmise it was a collection agency, as they didn't respond right away when I picked up, asked for two different people, and never identified what the call was about. It took me another hour to really doze back off.

Next thing I knew it was nearly 3 p.m.

This severely cut into the time I had planned to do a lot of things. Like a handful of work on personal and freelance projects. Once subtracting showering and eating time and then removing the time spent fighting with the printer (and running out to get more paper for it and having to not let myself just buy a new printer), I had time to do next to nothing.

So, nothing checked off my To Do list, I made the trek out to bid farewell to enlightened77 who's heading off to the left coast. I'll miss her, even though I never worked quite hard enough to spend time with her. She holds the distinction of being one of the people I most certainly should have fallen for but never have. Always seen her as more of a sister. So, doubly good luck to her on her new adventure!

The party was good. I had a chance to reacquaint myself with some very spiritual people and meet some new ones. Hopefully our paths will cross again, even without B in the area.

This is especially true of the one lady who showed up shortly before I had to leave. She caught my attention as soon as she entered, but I was wrapped up in conversation with other people and watching the clock. On my way out, she caught me for a moment and told me she knew me. "From where?" I asked. "Not anywhere now," she said, "probably a past life." I affirmed that such a thing could very well be the case and that I very much would like it if she continued to find me again as I gave her my contact information and (now so much more reluctantly) rounded up the people who were heading to the next event with me and hit the road for Fairfax.

It was, of course, plans to see The Rock Horror Picture Show that pulled me away from a party I would have stayed at all night. (And if I hadn't committed to meeting people at the theater, I would have skipped the movie all together.) Things got off to a little bit of a late start, but I found the presentation and evening as a whole quite entertaining--again having good conversation with people I don't see anywhere near enough. Made for home earlier than I would have liked (though I don't know what other than standing in the parking lot talking would have happened otherwise) and finally dozed off at about 5 a.m.

Sunday was dedicated to D&D gaming, starting between noon and 1 p.m. I had made it a point to set my alarm before I went to sleep. I woke up wondering how long I had before the alarm was going to go off. Checking the time, I was annoyed to find that it should have gone off about thirty minutes earlier. Checking more, I discovered that the truth was actually that it was set to go off in about 11.5 hours. Stupid AM/PM setting....

Made it to the game on time. Kick much animated skin monster ass and avoided having to deal too much with the animated internal organs monster (ewww). Another bunch of hours of fun.

Of course, I managed to not be able to get to sleep Sunday until about 3 a.m. or so which made Monday's alarm (which did go off properly) so much more painful.

And now, here I am, up too late again. Mostly because I'm determined to get back into writing more. I've really let myself slide from most of my goals. (Granted, mostly for good reasons, but sliding none the less.)

The only thing that would have made the weekend better is if I had been able to coordinate plans with Cristina (she who I met randomly about a year ago and kind of accidentally asked on a date) so she could have been along for some of the ride. Haven't seen her in person in nearly a year now. Still kind of shooting for that third date... and doubting more each day that it'll happen before a full year of sporadic contact has elapsed.

Ah, well. Not dating just leaves that much more room in my schedule for other things. (And I'm very good at not dating.) :)

Originally published at Toob Talk. You can comment here or there.

Perhaps my favorite type of storytelling on the Internet. This one is only about three weeks and eight posts in. It’s suitably creepy and engaging enough to keep me wondering where it’s going… at least for now.

More to come… (when I finally have time  to write about things again…)

Last month I floated the idea of a Rocky Horror Picture Show excursion for Saturday, 11 July.

While I've had a whole lot come up in my calendar between then and now, I'm still trying to pull some more people in for what's sure to be an entertaining evening.

Of course, now I'm torn--originally the plan (or what passed for a plan) was to hit it at the E Street Theater in DC. But it looks like The Transylvania Concubines are running strong at the University Theater in Fairfax that night, too.

As it looks like there are already some people I know hitting the Fairfax event, I'd be inclined to head a bit further south and join up with them for some trashy fun.

Who else is in? Speak up!

(Been busy as hell these last few days, sorry for the late planning...)

The other week, I was looking for a singer and a pirate voice for a project we were putting together at the day job.

Well, that project is done and officially launched, so now I can share it. We did the Flash animation and the site design. I really didn't have much at all to do with this project except for the shout-out for talent (and thanks for the good response, by the way--all y'all rock).

Here you go: Traitor Joe's, a little bit of activism and info from Greenpeace.

(Also, I need a better icon than this for good or indifferent work stuff... will have to keep an eye out for something useful.)

Originally published at Toob Talk. You can comment here or there.

Fox just ran a two-hour TV movie that’s obviously a set up for a series. I think it would be a pretty good one.

Virtuality is set on board the first deep-space exploration vessel Phaeton. The crew has been picked for their various areas of expertise… and how interesting they’ll be on camera. See, part of the plan for their 10 year trip in search of a new place for humans to move to is to broadcast the day to day goings on of life aboard the ship.

Kind of like The Real World: Deep Space.

And that’s pretty much how the story plays out.

All the conflicts and interpersonal drama framed like your typical reality show. At first, I found it a bit annoying. But by the halfway point, I was kind of caught up in the actual sci-fi aspects of the story. See, the real hook is the virutal reality gear that the crew uses to alleviate the boredom of long-term close-quarters living. Of course, there’s also the ubiquitous ship computer (named Jean) with the erily calm demeanor, no matter what’s going on.

Oh, and then there’s the strange guy who keeps showing up in the crew’s VR sessions. He tends to do things like shoot them and push them off mountains during otherwise peaceful and relaxing happenings.

By the end–which really wasn’t a sutiable end for a stand-alone movie–there’s a whole lot of mystery and the crew is locked in to their long trip to another star.

The cast is pretty good: Nikolaj Coster-Waldau (New Amsterdam), Clea DuVall (Carnivale), Sienna Guillory (Eragon) all raise the quality far enough above “reality TV” level that the show is watchable. The mystery, though, is what makes it interesting.

That mystery is co-written by Battlestar Galactica’s Ronald D. Moore.

Here’s the official Fox Preview of the show:

Originally published at Durosia.com. You can comment here or there.

2009 DC Metro Accident: Originally from the AP (via Google)
District of Columbia Fire and Emergency workers remove a victim from the site of a rush-hour collision between two Metro transit trains in northeast Washington, D.C. Monday, June 22, 2009. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)
If you're in the DC area, this news has been unavoidable the last couple of days.

If you're a commuter in the DC area who uses the Red Line of the Metro system, you're struggling through one of the worst times the system's seen. At least the worst time that's not related to tourists and security scares.

I worked from home on Tuesday so I wouldn't have to deal with the crazy problems caused by this terribly accident. Getting home Monday night, just a few hours after it happened, was a challenge. Not as much a challenge as it was for people actually on the trains involved... and far from as bad as those nine who didn't make it out alive.

That's a bunch of bad stuff right there. People dead. Transit disrupted. Expensive bit of commuter equipment destroyed.

The worst thing is that it's starting to look like this could have all been prevented.

I've held off commenting on all this until there was some small amount of actual fact coming through in the news reports. Some bit of investigation that pointed toward an actual cause. There were suppositions and insinuations of mechanical problems and driver error all over the place Monday night. People all up in arms over all sorts of things that had little basis in any facts connected with this particular DC Metro accident.

Now there are some facts and I'm rightly pissed off.

From the LA Times:

Debbie Hersman of the National Transportation Safety Board said the emergency brake was depressed, and the steel rails showed evidence that the brakes were engaged. Investigators also said the moving train had been in automatic mode, which means onboard computers should have controlled its speed and stopped it before it got too close to the stationary train.

This is a system failure. This crash should not have happened.

Back in 2004, there was a similar accident at the Woodley Park metro station, also on the Red Line. One train rolled backward down the track, building up enough speed to end up sitting on top of the front of the train that had stopped at the platform. Thankfully, the trains weren't full of people. But the main train involved in that accident was also one of these 1000 series trains--some of the oldest equipment in use in the DC Metro system.

That 2004 accident prompted a lot of attention from the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB).

From The Roanoke Times:

Hersman told The Associated Press that the NTSB had warned in 2006 that the old fleet should be replaced or retrofitted to make it better able to survive a crash.

Neither was done, she said, which the NTSB considered "unacceptable."

"Unacceptable," indeed.

Metro (and the officials who fund it) knew this could happen--that it already had happened--and the major source of the problem wasn't dealt with.

From CNN.com:

There should be nine data recorders aboard the first train, which will aid the investigation a great deal if they aren't damaged, Hersman said. The recorders provide data on such things as speed, braking and emergency applications. She said there were no recorders on the rear train.

"We've recommended for years that WMATA either retrofit those cars or phase them out of the fleet. They have not been able to do that. And our recommendation was not addressed, so it has been closed in an unacceptable status," she said.

The facts, as they stand now, are these:

• The train was in auotmatic mode
• Auotmatic mode is supposed to keep trains a certain distance apart
• The driver tried to apply the brakes
• The structure of the old cars can not handle a collision without massive internal structural failure
• Nine people are dead

This is nothing short of some sort of negligent homicide.

Unfortunately, since there were no "black box" type recording devices in the 1000-Series cars, we may never know exactly what happened.

All we know for sure, right now, is that this a tragedy that could have been prevented--if Metro had listened to the NTSB, if funding had been there to upgrade the cars, if those upgrade happened in a timely manner, if... if... if...

Originally published at Durosia.com. You can comment here or there.

On 19 June, nearly two dozen of my classmates and I got together for a semi-informal Class of '93 reunion at Roark's Tavern in Monticello.

The above picture was a little early in the night and some people who were there, weren't when the flash went off.

More on all this later. The important thing is: It was pretty darn awesome.

Originally published at How to Crush Without Being Crushed. You can comment here or there.

High school is a tumultuous time for most people.

Hormones are doing nasty things to our insides and outsides. Social pressures are forcing us to make choices that seem so much bigger than they are. Our very minds consipire to cause us problems trying to reconcile new ideas, strange interactions and the pop culture “standards” we’ve been fed our entire lives.

It can really suck.

And for me, it did.

You couldn’t pay me to go back and re-live those four years. When I graduated, I was happier to be done with that place and time than I ever was for anything else.

It would be years before I put enough distance between the person I was then and the one I had grown in to and was able to even remember half the good stuff that had gone on.

I never had a Winnie Cooper or a Watts. I was more Cunningham than Fonzereli. I most certainly wasn’t as lucky as Lloyd Dobbler.

What I was, was some strange and confused embryonic form of who I am now. A lot has changed–so much that the “me” from back then wouldn’t even be able to imagine the person I am now as a possibility.

Anyone who’s still the same person they were in high school has serious problems. It means they haven’t grown, haven’t learned anything new about themselves, and are probably stuck in very unhealthy relationship patterns–both intrapersonally and interpersonally. High school, at best, helps set the baseline for who we were and plants the seeds for who we can become.

What we do with those seeds, how far we rise from that baseline (or sink below it), is up to us. It’s what happens when we really get out on our own, when we decide which influences we’re going to accept and which we’re going to shrug off as unimportant or detrimental.

At it’s worst, high school lets us know exactly what we don’t want to be part of. It stings us so badly and disgusts us so much that we seek to turn our backs on it as useless and horrid. Even at its most horrid, though, it serves as an inspiration–a motivator to ensure we never go back to anything resembling that state of development.

High school is part of the baggage we carry with us into every relationship. For some, it’s a small tote and for others it’s a steamer trunk or three. It’s part of what either held us back or spurred us forward along the path to who we are now. It’s part of the last bit of generally shared experience for most Americans… something that we can all talk about together and be able to compare notes.

Love it or hate it, high school is part of who we are.

And it’s one of the biggest reasons I write about what I do.

Originally published at How to Crush Without Being Crushed. You can comment here or there.

You’d think that with three years of a totally obsessive and self-destructive crush behind me, I’d have learned my lesson.

Especially with everything else that I started to learn in high school.

Well, you’d be wrong.

I still had a habit of fixating on people. Usually people I was interested in dating and horribly crushing on. Sometimes, those crushes would come and go–their intensity waxing and waning over time. Most of them never got intense enough one way or the other to overcome my personal anxiety barriers.

There were some, though, that did. For good or ill, I think I actually went on more dates in high school than I did in college or since. Almost none of them are what anyone would call “successful.” (Especially by high school-themed pop culture standards.)

One of those waxing and waning crushes had been in place for at least a year before it really hit me.

She was a year behind me, in the orchestra, a bit of an athlete, tall as anything and, as far as I was concerned, near perfection.

In my sophomore year, my courage peaked once or twice and I actually asked her out to dinner and a movie. (That was the standard thing to do back then, some days I wonder if it’s changed all that much in modern high school culture.)

Amazingly, every time I asked, she already had plans to go. Fantastic! We had the same taste in movies, too! What’s that? And I can come along with her? Well that’s a win-win situation… me surrounded by women! It doesn’t get any better than that!

Yes. Those are almost exactly the thoughts that ran through my teenage head back then. Totally oblivious to the reality of the situation.

To put it bluntly: she really wasn’t that in to me. But she was trying to be nice about it. Which was great.

Except for the fact that I was way too dense to get the hint. My wishful thinking and obsessive habits blinded me to the harsh truth, just as they had in prior years.

And so, more than a couple of times, I paid for dinner for three and bought three movie tickets.

Some of those nights were fun. One time, the friend she miraculously already had plans with was the older sister of a guy in my scout troop. I actually got along better with my troop members sister than I did with the girl I was supposedly on a date with. I can still remember that odd flutter when I ended up holding her hand and locking eyes with her (for oh! such a fleeting instant) at the McDonalds across the street from the movie theater.

(Being the proper sort of gentleman, I put that flutter right out of my mind. Because, after all, I was on a date with someone else. *sigh*)

Some of those nights were not much fun at all. Like the one where lobster was ordered and my supposed date and her friend sat in the row behind me during the movie.

Thankfully, she eventually started dating someone else and my attention shifted onward.

There were other, low-key crushes that were a near constant in my high school career. Being in band, my homeroom and first period class took place in the lower-floor rehearsal space of one wing of the school. That left me plenty of time to just hang out in the hallway after my bus got in. Dozens of people walked past me every day as I held that wall up. At least half of the girls I had, at one time or another, had a crush on.

Many of them were in the band or orchestra.A few were just passing through. Cora was one of the latter. Every morning I’d greet her with a smile and a kind word or two. We never spoke too much outside of those morning greetings, but I was modestly smitten. Never drawn enough to overcome my fears, I never did ask her out.

What I did do was invite her to my graduation party.

She was the only one who wasn’t family who showed up at the beginning and didn’t leave until the end.

And still, it seems, even at the end of my high school career, I was blind to obvious signs.

In conjunction with the last help wanted call, we're also looking for someone to pirate it up, voice-wise.

This is for a flash-based web project we're doing for one of our clients (an internationally known environmental activist organization).

If you think you've got what it takes to lend your voice to an animated pirate, drop me a line at my work e-mail (cconroy@4site.tv) and I'll pass your contact info on to my boss.

Yarr, this be a paid gig.

Here at the office, one of our clients (an internationally known environmental activist organization) has us working on a project that involves a parody of an Amy Winehouse song.

Seeing as we're web-designing folk and not singers, we're in need of some vocal talent to belt out some Winehouse-esque lyrics. The audio will be used in a little flash presentation we're building for the client's campaign.

If you're interested in this paying gig and can sound a bit like that tattooed trainwreck, drop me a line at my work e-mail (cconroy@4site.tv). If you know someone who may be interested and able, pass on the info.

Happy Tuesday, everyone. :)

Originally published at How to Crush Without Being Crushed. You can comment here or there.

Despite my best efforts, I never was able to fully overcome all those little anxieties that had settled into place over the yeas before high school. They were always at their worst, though, when I was surrounded by the same people who had been around when they first formed.

The odd thing was, anytime I removed myself from the ordinary and familiar, I felt much more alive. Much more myself. Much more at home.

Key Club was the most common escape route. Every year there was a district convention that,  while it happened more or less right in our own back yard, always felt like somewhere foreign. Also once a year there was an international convention that took place well beyond the confines of my home county. I made it to four district conventions and two international ones.

These were the places where I thrived.

At my very first district convention, I broke through a lot of personal issues and got to know someone who really did change my life.

Removed from my ordinary rut, I allowed myself to be more true to who I was. Without the worries of overcoming past impressions made, I was free to experiment a little, to try on who I wanted to be.

It worked quite well.

During that time, I managed to make a good number of friends, in the space of a weekend or so, that I felt closer to than people I had known for years. A few would surface again, when I was in college. Some of them I’m still in touch with–more frequently than most people I graduated high school with.

Fear follows us only where we let it. When I was within the walls of my high school and, most of the time, within the confines of my home county, I was steeped in fear and depression caused by years of emotional baggage. Traveling, being surrounded by a fresh batch of people, sharing a common “newness” of experience–those things let me leave my fear behind. For those brief weekends, I was free to discover who I actually was, deep down inside.

It wouldn’t be until years later–nearly half-way into my college career–that I would fully understand just how much I limited myself when I was on my “home turf”. The shock of returning to the normal grind after a convention inevitaby shot me into a depression that would block out most of what I should have learned.

But, during my darkest times, those bits of interaction–the quick crushes, the shared laughter, the adventurous exploration–would be beacons to keep me from falling too deeply too quickly.

With my descent slowed, I could always find a kind, local hand to reach out to.

Originally published at Durosia.com. You can comment here or there.

Because they look damn good when they're a little evil.

That's Vail holding a nicely wrapped package with a little origami demon head on the front. Inside? A book of Charles Addams' illustrations. Appropriate, in this case.

Vail and Jesse celebrated their 13th Anniversary the other weekend with an Addams Family themed party. They were, of course, the perfect Gomez and Morticia--virtually unrecognizable as their normal much more fair-haired selves.

The cake and creativity, combined with the obvious love they still have burning hot and deep after more than a decade, made the long drive on a Sunday more than worth it.

It would appear that my leather vest is nearing the end of its usefulness.

Looking down while wearing it, I can see straight through parts of the outside pockets. I know the inside ones aren't doing much better. With the outside pockets, it's kind of a race between weather the seams at the bottom of the pockets or the ones holding the pockets to the vest will completely give up first.

I'd thought about just getting the lining (and pockets) replaced, but pictures of me in the vest point out another fact: when I first bought it years ago, there were a few more inches of girth on me and I bought it a little big. That all means it hangs oddly on me now. (And we all know I look odd enough, thanks to the hat... which still works, thankyouverymuch.)

So... who knows where I can get a good replacement vest?

Requirements are: Leather, at least three pockets (two outside, one inside) but preferably four, dark brown or (preferably) black, with styling that can pass as something above casual when needed (I do wear the thing all the time).

Have at me! :)

Originally published at How to Crush Without Being Crushed. You can comment here or there.

With my nearly three year long destructive crush fading behind me, I discovered I had a whole lot more energy to dedicate toward thinking about relationships with other people.

High school, with the plethora of pop culture mythology I had firmly loaded in my head by the time I started, struck me as the perfect time to explore those thoughts.

Unfortunately, reality proved to be far removed from The Wonder Years, Happy Days, and Some Kind of Wonderful (as well as a whole lot of other TV shows and movies I’d been watching a whole lot). I most certainly wasn’t one of the popular kids. I didn’t have a group of “adventuring” buddies. In fact, I barely felt connected at all to the people around me. Most of the time, it was more like being on an away mission in Star Trek–observe, but interaction can be problematic.

Not that I was stopped by problematic things. Heck, I’d spent the previous three years punishing myself in that crush… I was bound and determined to have high school be different.

And in some ways, it was.

My status as a more or less invisible man let me see people from many angles. That gave me some insight into what was going on inside the heads of those around me. What it didn’t do was give me any kind of clue how to apply that to myself or my interactions with them.

So I floundered about just like any high school kid does. Except I think I may have kept more excruciating mental notes than most.

The first thing I realized was how quickly I’d fall for someone. Without the fixation on one person, my attention jumped like crazy. Each and every crush was different. In some, there was a promise of adventure (yes, I fell for the “bad girls”). In others, a personal challenge (yes, I fell for the “popular girls”). And in still others, something that I’d later figure out was a feeling of being around a kindred spirit–someone who was as lost as I was an as actively trying to find their own way.

Mostly, though, I found that as much as a crush inspired me to action, my fears and uncertainties rarely let that inspiration become reality. The mental blocks were too large to climb over or push through. I’d get caught in loops of planning and miss every chance to execute.

Eventually, I figured out two things: 1) The more I looked at my crushes, the more I learned about myself and 2) if you can’t go over or through your barriers, you have to find a way around them.

The first realization led me, eventually, to engage in this blog project. The second realization led me to change the way I looked at things to the point where I could manage to not get hung up on the idea of dating.

Instead, I focused on the little things–like saying “Hi” and engaging in some sort of conversation. At first, that was very difficult. But when I saw an opening for conversation–especially if it was on a topic I knew something about or could help with–I’d take it.

I never got quite aggressive enough to get a lot dates out of that method (which is probably for the best), but it did let me help a lot of people out… and gave me the distinction of spending a good deal of time with some of the most beautiful women in my class and the one ahead of mine.

If nothing else, it was a good solid ego booster, which would come in handy to offset a lot of the other things that went on in high school, relationship-wise.

Originally published at Durosia.com. You can comment here or there.

I'm not really a music person.

My taste is, at best, eclectic. Things catch my attention because they have an interesting beat or tune or sound in general. I like things that have interesting lyrics or, depending on whether I hear it on the radio or in a club or see it on YouTube or (rarely) some television channel, an interesting look.

Danish band Aqua falls into a number of these categories.

Best known for their Barbie Girl danceable tune a while back (which netted them a number of international fans and a lawsuit from Mattel), they seem to have a lot of fun with their videos. Of course, all of their music starts to blend together after a couple of songs (or so I discovered while picking through YouTube to check out some of their other videos), but maybe some of you out there will find something you like.

Start with this one, a nostalgic little tune that, apparently, marks the band's reunion tour (their official site is here.

I also really dig their Bumblebees video.

Originally published at How to Crush Without Being Crushed. You can comment here or there.

As muddled as my mind was for most of high school, some things began to become clear during those years.

First and foremost, the idea that, among my peers, I was actually a worthwhile person began to creep in. That was mostly due to finally shedding the destructive crush of years prior and finding the wonderful support of a small handful of people who let me have a positive impact on their lives.

Yes, it’s true that unlike a lot of other people I know, I had (and have) a very supportive family. But in those teen years, especially for someone like me, that doesn’t count for much inside one’s head. In fact, I still don’t think that, no matter how meticulously I try to explain things, my parents even come close to understanding where I’m coming from half the time. Back in high school, there was no way you could have convinced me they would. But they were always there and they did do a damn fine job of laying some positive groundwork for me to (eventually) build on.

What mattered most was the people I spent half my day surrounded by. My classmates. The same people I’d spent the previous three years with. The same people who were mostly indifferent toward me–which was an improvement over the previous years. That bit of indifference, while painful and confusing at the time, turned out to be a fantastic asset in the realm of self-discovery.

With no one to talk to most of the time, I had a lot of time for introspection. As an extra added bonus, because I was often ignored by those around me, I got to see sides of people they didn’t often bring out in public. Mostly because they had apparently just forgotten I was in the same room. Other times, because I stood mostly outside of any given social circle, people would confide in me, knowing that their secrets were safe.

These factors came together to give me a much more well-rounded picture of my peers than most others ever had. I could see the strange interplay among and within the different groups. I learned where people became boisterous or sullen to cover up self-doubt, how  they deflected attention from certain areas of their lives they didn’t want to share with the world.

I had a front row seat to the back-stage of high school life.

Try as I might, though, it was still difficult to apply that same point of view to my own issues.

As time went on, I did get better at it. Running through scenarios in my head, taking note of my own fears and hopes, trying to overcome my shortcomings. It was a rough process–and one that wouldn’t even be close to finished until my second year of college (and that just opened up a new level of things to work on).

There were crushes and clumsy attempts at relationships–romantic and platonic. More often than not, I just sat back and watched and learned.

The most important thing I learned was that, no matter what, I was most certainly no worse off than anyone else. I had things to offer–ideas, poetry, insight–that really could change people’s lives.

Even if it was only for an instant.

Floating a couple of ideas here because we all need something different every now and then.

Looking ahead to July:

July 11, E Street Theater in DC, Rocky Horror Picture Show, shadowcast by the Sonic Transducers. I've been meaning to do another Rocky Horror trip for ages now. Who else is in?

And then in August, something really different:

August 1, E Street Theater in DC, Flesh Gordon, a classic bit of porn. I saw this ages ago while flipping through cable channels one night in college. It was so ridiculously funny that I had to record it the next time it was on. Read about it here. You know you want to do something naughty. Especially after seeing Rocky Horror in July. This would be it. :)

So, yeah, something different. Expand your horizons... or put them on display... whatever. Let's just have some fun.

(Both of these are midnight showings on Saturdays.)

Originally published at How to Crush Without Being Crushed. You can comment here or there.

I tend to make a big deal out of my time in high school.

How I make a big deal out of it has slid into different territory over the years.

As I’ve gotten further away from it, the distance has allowed me to appreciate it more. Continued “personal archaeological expeditions” into that long-ago past have lead me to revise skewed bits of memory and revisit lessons I didn’t quite read correctly back then.

Mostly, I keep going on about it because it gave me some good stories that serve as the foundation of who I’ve grown into.

As we grow from kid to tween to teen and beyond, different seeds are constantly planted. It isn’t until that first decade or so of life is over, though, that we really begin to take an active role in how they grow. It isn’t until our teen years that the big-deal seeds (planted by our families from the day we were born onward) sprout enough for us to actually notice.

Heck, it isn’t until high school that we actually know enough to even accidentally sensibly prune what’s growing.

When I started high school, I had more or less just finished up the most destructive two and a half year crush I’ve ever had. I was at or near the bottom of the social pecking order. I really didn’t have much to lose at all.

Yeah, I was depressed a lot. So much so that, looking back, I probably would have benefited from… something. Medication. Therapy. I don’t know. But I’m often amazed I survived. But it was pushing through those rough times (even if they were mostly in my head) that made me realize not just who I was, but who I could be.

Most of the time, if felt detached from the rest of my peers. I didn’t think we had a lot in common. I know that to be an incorrect perception now. At least when it comes to some of them. They were all going through crazy stuff–be it family related or internal conflicts similar to my own.

We were all lost and confused (as teenagers always are), and all around us those seeds planted earlier in our lives were sprouting, tangling us in emotional vines and obscuring our vision with contradicting conglomerations of trees and bushes.

In high school, we begin to prune back bits here and there–at first out of necessity, then, as we gain more skill, knowledge and understanding, with determination. By the end of those four years, many of us had cultivated a nice little garden of sorts.

Mine was full of spooky trees, topiaries that moved on their own and man-eating Venus fly traps, but, hey, to each his own, right? Those are the kinds of things I embraced. A little dark, a little twisted, but beautiful in their own way.

The important thing was, all those sprouted seeds had roots that dug deep into the ground. It was that base–that network of experiences and values–that kept everything from washing away when life’s little deluges would hit.

They kept the ground beneath my feet and let everything I later chose to plant grow strong.