Sunday, November 28, 2004 -- 8:40 AM

You can live in your own fantasy world for so long, just assuming that the fantasy will never go away, but it will and when it does you see the world in all of it's raw nakedness and finally then you realize that you will never have what you want, you will just have to try and make the best of it all even though it will sting maybe for ever because now you know that life is real and the pain is just as real, but we have to let things go sometimes I guess.

Wednesday, November 24, 2004 -- 9:13 PM

During my stay in Tacoma, I spent some time with Aaron, the friend with whom I shared my Thailand adventures with, and we had a good talk about how it really affected us, and how difficult it is to talk to people about it. You can't make people understand how it really was, the beauty of the children, and despondency of Burma, or the apprehension and anticipation of Pu Men, it just isn't possible.

That being said, here are a few of the hundreds of pictures that we took there.

Grooving to the Beatles on the final leg in from Bangkok to Chiang Mai

Sarah. Her mother is an alchoholic whose father died of aids. She's about six years old, but her small stature is due to FAS.

Sarah again. Word.

Timothy, one of my students, helping with the corn harvest.

Tuesday, November 23, 2004 -- 11:43 AM

I've returned. I didn't do as much stuff as I hoped I would be able to. As one wise man said, "It isn't summer any more, dude, we can't just hang out whenever we want." I kept busy though, helping drywall a new office in the church. It was great to work with my hands again, in a place that I was proud to be a part of. I also kept busy by watching The Big Lebowski, which, if you haven't seen it, see it.

It all seems a little surreal now that I'm back, like I just woke up from a dream. Good thing I aquired this awesome flask to remind me that it was all quite real.

Tuesday, November 02, 2004 -- 1:57 PM

This past year has been really quite a growth spurt for me in some ways (and in others quite perhaps the opposite). I know this is the sort of reflection that is mainly reserved for the new year, but to hell with that for now.

Last year around this time was when I began to understand Hemingway. What I realize now is that I began reading him knowing it was good, then only gradually realizing why. I have since been applying my discoveries (or these have been applying themselves) to the literature that I read, everything that I write, and the way that I live. It transformed the way in which I read and why, and I would even say it taught me to read. In a way you could say that I discovered the "Meaning of Life" (In Technicolour) this past year, and, at the risk of sounding like a pompous ass, found that there really wasn't much to it at all. Living is easy, even contentment is easy.

It was at this time of the year last year also that I found myself without an older brother, roommate, and constant companion. It may have been a result of this vacuum that I filled my life with literature, though I would never say that I was depressed. I think if I was depressed, I could never have learned from Hemingway.

I began listening to Ben Lee the Fall of last year, and now that Fall is back, so is Ben Lee. The music and musings of Ben Lee are especially connected in my mind with the discovery of Hemingway on those cold fall days of last year, and the hours I spent pondering Hemingway's prose mingled with Ben Lee's verse.

Now here I am, a year later and in some ways a year older. I've discovered more this year than I have in probably all of my teenage years. Alcohol, nicotine, loneliness, Hemingway, love. I don't feel eighteen at all, but only because I wasn't expecting it to feel like this.