good times for a change
Over the course of this geotemporal journey, I've become increasingly drawn to exploring the mutability, diversity, and complexity of human experiences, as well as the nature of our relationships with our selves, each other, & the spaces which we inhabit (both off- and online). These interests inform my personal & social navigation, as well as my approach to self-expression.
Through discovering countless ways of interpreting and being in the world, I've come to embrace creative exploration and metamorphosis as vessels for greater wellbeing, intellectual nourishment, and personal contentment.
Chat with CJ Eller
My entry point for this way of being online was really just the general excitement which I originally felt about the web as a realm of discovery, creativity, and connection. I remember how magical web spaces felt during my earliest days online, and how empowering it was to learn that anyone could create or enter digital spaces freely as a means of exploring their identity and expressing their interests beyond the norms & limitations of offline society – and on top of that, connecting with other strange humans around the world who they would never otherwise never meet. For someone who has always been a social outsider, this felt especially revolutionary.
Listen
now these experiences have a digital presence, where they're not only preserved in a new form, but also reborn in some sense. if digital magic exists — and i believe it must, otherwise how do you explain the feeling of 'presence' in this screen? — then i am studying evocation through creative learning & self-reflection.
It's hard to overstate the role that this sort of calming music has played in providing me with immense relief from depression and anxiety over the course of my life. But beyond that, something that I've come to appreciate is the way in which sounds in the external environment become so easily woven into the fabric of the songs, renewing the experience each time. Rather than distractions to be drowned out by increasing the volume or putting on headphones, sounds of cooking, birds singing, distant voices, etc. become prominent features which add to the atmosphere, feeling, and meaning of these albums.
Sidney Spit Restoration Adventure
As we pulled our way through a sea of invasive and native grasses (grass identification is such an art), we were serenaded by a happy-looking song sparrow perched on a nearby tree and had an opportunity to do some #bird-noticing with a seasoned birder, whose scope gave us a closer look at congregating Brant geese and shoreline-scurrying sanderlings – both of which are currently making their way back up to their Arctic breeding grounds. We also spotted red-breasted mergansers, buffleheads, surf scoters, and, of course, lots of gulls & cormorants. At one point, an otter also came ambling onto the spit with its lunch (and left us some scat to examine later).
I. Prologue: A Seer's Dream
The etua and kuhane visited me again last night as I slept.
In the dream, I was alone in a small vaka filled with warm sand, rocking gently in the tide. Tana-oa sang to me, and his voice was the sound of a thousand distant roaring waves: 'Metani to ahu a / E tiu to ahu a.' His winds beckoned my vaka onward to the north, far away from the crumbling trees of my village.
re: Validation / Vibration
Sep 9, 02019
Raynchaser Says (7:54:09 PM): ok well at the end of 8th grade, we had a field day thing (half day) and me, brad, n joe thought it was stupid and a waste of time (no educational value), so we decided we'd skip (we were already at skool). so we started walking out to go to joe's house, and once we were like 25 feet from the skool an intercom went "ALL STUDENTS PLEASE REPORT BACK TO CAMPUS" and we started running hahaha, and we got to joes house and sayed there for a while. and then we got bored, so we were gonna go to brads house, which is about 10 mins from joes, so we left and were walking down klahanie drive and i we saw security so we tran in the bushes till he passed. after that i told joe and brad that we should jes go bak to skool before we get busted, i sed if we keep walkin we're gonna get caught by security. and they sed to keep walkin, so we did.. and WOULDNT YAH KNOW IT security was riiight Raynchaser Says (7:54:40 PM): around the corner of a neighborhood we were going to go through, and we were already walkin in his direction (he was jes parked there wactihn is) so we tried to play it off and walk past Raynchaser Says (7:54:41 PM): but ******** (7:55:40 PM): lol Raynchaser Says (7:56:20 PM): he called out to us and started askin questions.. he sed he had a report of 3 missing students and then he asked "is one of you guys named sean palmer" (-.- wow, HOW did they kno?? maybe because i was the minorest minority in beaver lake and i had sorta long curly hair at the time) and i sed i was cuz i didnt wanna get in more trouble, so what the stupid security guard did was make us walk bak to beaver lake while he "escorted us" (drove on the side of us) Raynchaser Says (7:56:41 PM): and wen we got bak we hadta wait til the end of the half day in the office wile mr obrien talked to us Raynchaser Says (7:57:19 PM): he sed "you guys hav two options.. you can either stay after skool for a couple of hours and help the janitors or you wont be graduating Raynchaser Says (7:57:21 PM): -.- ******** (7:57:50 PM): that is so stupid! Raynchaser Says (7:57:51 PM): so we hadta stay after and help clean up all the equipment and stuff Raynchaser Says (7:57:53 PM): i kno!! Raynchaser Says (7:58:04 PM): u cant make us not graduate jes because we skipped on a field day!! Raynchaser Says (7:58:06 PM): lol
On Unlearning Race & Dogmatism
I believe that the only sustainable path beyond continuing to reinforce these sorts of divisive social categories is to approach people with as few presumptions as possible beyond the consideration that they are at least as complicated, flawed, and nuanced as ourselves--unless they give us clear reasons to suspect otherwise. But even then, we must continue to remind ourselves that people are not only complicated, but also mutable. I have made it a practice to keep these considerations in mind for most of my life now, and they have proven both true and extremely useful time and time again as a means of building and crossing social bridges.
Ponder ↗
Autopsy The beaming assistant nodded rapidly and pulled on a red cord dangling from a hole in the summoning wall. Three flesh readers arrived with briefcases full of magnifying lenses, and swooped eagerly across the body's skinless terrain to interpret its contours. “Hmm... many of these life lines web out in unsettling directions, while others carry the unmistakable marks of contamination,” said one, with dismay. “Oh... but there is hope. Some of them intersect with True Pathways – perhaps they were just confused,” suggested another, optimistically. Read more...
mOSDEFinITLYSEaN (3:22:54 PM): wutis ur favorite kinda music? ************** (3:23:13 PM): ummm rap and punk roc ************** (3:23:18 PM): you mOSDEFinITLYSEaN (3:24:24 PM): im not reely shur... i used to jes lisen to hiphop n rap, but then like las yeer i started lisenin to punk, then 80s rock, then 60s and 70s funk, and nao all i lisen to mosly is 80s mOSDEFinITLYSEaN (3:24:28 PM): and some rap mOSDEFinITLYSEaN (3:24:36 PM): i lisen to alot of things..
Date: Nov 7, 2016, 5:14 PM Subject: Re: Interesting things My family has always been very, very close knit and we all live in the Seattle area (I have two siblings). Recently, my parents decided that, while they still love each other, they want to live separately. So they're both getting ready to move into new places (both in Seattle) and I'm living with them until this transition is over, at the end of which I'll also be moving to a new place. What's more, I have a grandmother who lives nearby, who has decided to move into an assisted living home. This is all happening after my other grandmother, whom we were all very close to but lived in Arizona, abruptly passed away - which has its own web of complications attached. And to make matters all the more stressful, we've still been dealing with the calamitous aftermath of my grandfather's passing from Alzheimer's last year - which is the most complicated situation of all. Add a tablespoon of disagreements, a teaspoon of my mom's delicate health, and a dash of my own series of strange health issues which suddenly sprung up on me this year, and our once warm, cozy family unit has become a delicate shell of its former self... the thing is, we were actually handling this all very well, and I was starting to get on top of my health issues, when all of the sudden, a decision was made a few days ago which could result in an actual family feud. Phew. :^| Read more...
First Dark Drama (2:57:21 PM): i went to the zoo today man ********** (2:57:27 PM): for real!!!! ********** (2:57:29 PM): was it filthy First Dark Drama (2:57:30 PM): yeah man First Dark Drama (2:57:31 PM): hahaha ********** (2:57:37 PM): hahahahaha First Dark Drama (2:57:47 PM): it was pretty crazy cuz the zoo up here has all endangered species basically ********** (2:57:52 PM): dang First Dark Drama (2:57:54 PM): all these weird animals ********** (2:57:56 PM): like wut animals ' First Dark Drama (2:58:57 PM): there was this one huge crane, like the biggest crane in the world, all these other weird cranes with gold puffs on the top of their heads, some cougars, all kinds of reindeer, lemurs First Dark Drama (2:59:11 PM): these one animals that looks like lamas First Dark Drama (2:59:19 PM): bunch of other stuff like that First Dark Drama (2:59:23 PM): all kinds of parrots First Dark Drama (2:59:43 PM): it was koo cuz it was pretty empty
A song for becca I find it extremely difficult to explain how this loss felt to me. There was shock and grief, but also a particular form of disbelief rooted in the fact that her digital presence, the only presence I had ever really encountered, still lingered. I knew that she was gone, and that she couldn’t answer me, but she still seemed to exist in all of the forms familiar to me, frozen in time (or simply away from her computer). I can only imagine how it felt for those who knew her offline, and I wish I would’ve had the chance to know her better beyond this screen. But I’m eternally grateful for the extent to which I was able to connect with her. Read more...
OKCupid Profile My eyes are a hypnotic blue-green and I have long golden curls which glow by sunlight and twinkle under starlight. I have been told that the curves of my body and texture of my skin are softer and smoother than butter. However I also exercise regularly and maintain a healthy diet to retain a well-chiseled, strong physique. When excited, my voice rings like a choir of 1,OOO angels; when calm, it soothes as the Sirens of lore. I was born into a prosperous family of royal descent. I enjoy horseback riding through the forest on my family's main estate and singing to the animals in the meadow. On more melancholy days, I stroll along the beach skipping stones. I love sunsets and standing nude in front of them as a dramatic silhouette. Read more...
Finding Your Escape Velocity ↗
Jun 25, 02014
Date: Jun 15, 2011, 8:14 PM Subject: Car + Serena Spent 4 days with family in Tucson, reuniting, eating good food, seeing old places, etc. It was about 100 degrees, which was actually a lot cooler than it had been apparently. There are huge wildfires burning down there right now which I could see from the Greyhound when I pulled in. My 2-day Greyhound trip back ended up basically taking 3 days because.. well, Greyhound service is ATROCIOUS. They overbooked my first scheduled trip out of Tucson and I was declined boarding (despite booking the tickets weeks in advance) with the option of either rescheduling or getting a refund.. I ended up catching the next bus which was the next morning. And the trip home... that's the longest story.. basically two of the buses I took broke down.. Read more...
Comment on This is the Internet, you type in what you want and hit enter.
First Dark Tue, Feb 23, 2010
(Recuperation complete)
Hmm.. okay, I've got issues with the special emphasis being placed on online learning as the *basis* for a project like this. I mean, I'm a child of the Internet and definitely appreciate the way it's revolutionized communication and access to information, but I think online learning should be viewed as an extension of physical, communal education, not the other way around. I'm of the general opinion that technology is best used to enhance, not replace. I think perhaps I'm more in line with Olena's thinking here than of TheUndying and dmitri's. The Internet may be vital to the ultimate success of alternative education, but it's the wrong place to begin as a foundation. Anyway, let me try to unravel my tangled mess of thoughts on this project..
We all begin developing and losing our interests before we become citizens of the online world (to whatever extent, if at all). And before we become citizens of the online world, we have to *learn* the ins and outs before we can use it effectively (or safely). Unfortunately, although most people have adapted quite well to general computer usage, a staggering portion of “seasoned” Internet users still know very little about how to really use it. Those of us who have managed to learn the ropes shouldn't forget about those who are limited or intimidated by this 'second life'. Furthermore, as has been mentioned here, people have different ways of learning, and that includes people who need/want to be physically engaged with others when learning. I'm really glad the “target audience” idea has been tossed out, because flexibility is crucial.
Eating pinenuts under a tree Mar 14, 2007
Sat Wonderful William, Father of three.
Date: Mar 2, 2006, 5:07 PM Subject: New Club
So, the name I've had in mind for the club is a bit strange but that's because the club is strange..
“Explores counter- and sub-culture through member-contributed lessons, presentations, and open discussion. Also focuses on raising awareness about humanitarian, environmental, and animal rights issues.”
September 02012
