A Place for My Head.

I have made up my mind, I am moving back to Austin. I am still working on the timeframe but it is time for me to come back home...

Yeah road trips! I enjoy seeing and learning about places i have never been before but i find the car rides very boring. It feels like being in time out for 14 hours. I ended up sleeping for about 3 hours and spending the rest of the time listening to my ipod and staring out the window at the flat landscape of northern Missouri, Iowa and and all of east South Dakota.
Soon as all that was over, i stepped out of the very large suv made for these sorts of things and looked around me at a part of the country i had never seen before. At first i was pretty disappointed the landscape was bare and ugly. I looked in all directions and could only see ankle-high grass covering every hill in sight and not one tree. It was less than 80 degrees outside and in combination with the low humidity, it made for a comfortable stay.
The first day we just waited for everyone to arrive, which did take most of the day. But we talked and played cards. The next day we drove 25 min west of Rapid City and entered the black hills of South Dakota. This is when the landscape started to get interesting, high rock outcroppings everywhere and objects that actually passed for mountains. We came around a bend in the road and on the side of the rock, were four faces. We pulled into the parking area at Mt. Rushmore. I have to admit 4 huge heads carved into the side of a mountain is pretty impressive.
The rest of the trip was fun but that was by far the highlight. Spent some time with family, that i dont really know all that well. And played cards alot...really alot. Climbed back into the undersized bus and drove back to the Springfield. I have been trying to get back into my normal sleep patterns for two days now.

Mt. Rushmore, who'd of thunk it.

01.Name: Gregory Van Meter
02.Starsign: Capricorn
03.Residence: Austin
04.What makes you Happy: DrPepper
05.Last Music Heard: Into the ocean by blue october
06.Do you read my Jounal: Yes
07.Why?: frinds are important
08.Fact About you: I like chick-flicks
09.Something Random: Washington Monument is 555ft and 5in tall.
10.Favorite Place: Behind the arboretum, facing the western hills
11.Favorite Lyrics:
Now fades the glimmering landscape on the sight,
And all the air a solemn stillness holds,...
Full many a gem of purest ray serene
The dark unfathom'd caves of ocean bear:
Full many a flower is born to blush unseen,
And waste its sweetness on the desert air.
12.Favorite Time of Year: Just before christmas
13.Right or Left Handed: Right handed
14.Favorite Food: Curry!!!
15.Coffe or Tea: Vietnamese Coffee with condensed milk
16.Last Dream: About work, it was really boring
17.Last Radio Station: Bob Fm
18.Last Swearword: other form of rooster-teeth
19.Best Music Decade: 90's (period)
20.Fun for everyone

Recommend
1.Movie: Crash
2.Book: Speaker for the Dead
3.Band: Blue October
4.Something Else: Tell people you love them (and mean it!)

Wow, i haven't made an entry in some time! Well, things are going...well, they're going. Signing up for classes has been fun but a little frustrating i cant seem to take all the classes i need to in the same semester. grrrrr. And i am looking at the prospect of taking out my first student loan. I have been listening to talk radio a lot and it has given me mixed feelings. In the morning i listen to Jerry Springer on Air America, and in the afternoon to Neal Boortz on 590 (cant remember the name of the station). The affect is hearing a lot of different opinions on the same subjects. It has proven to be most enlightening.
Other than that i have just been going to work a lot, when i dont manage to ignore the alarm clock and miss work, hehe.
Hope everyone is having a good year and hope to see everyone soon.

5 guilty pleasures:
hum
1. Chickflicks
2. Reading the comments people sent to each other on gift certificates..yeah that is pretty wierd but interesting
3. sleeping till noon on tuesdays and thursdays
4. watch movies when i should be studing
5. Watching the two deaf people on the 37 have a animated and wonderful conversation with the volume turned off (they were riding again today)

24 hours to live
What, who told you about our plan?
1. Go into work and on everysingle email i send out i would write "NO!!!!!!!! It is not our fault that you didnt read the instruction and are to stupid to own or operate a computer. And no, we will never, ever, over my dead body, offer the radio version of Elvis's Jail House Rock. Now go away or i will be forced to taunt you a second time!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"
2. Call, email or track down everperson i can remember ever having met in my life and tell them 3 wonderful things about themselves and that i was blessed to have had them in my life.
3. Marry Chrystina Nicole Shupak

All in all it would be a very good day.

i like the picture.





find your element
at mutedfaith.com.

I have had a wonderful Christmas and New Years. I am writing this just because this is the first time in about a year that i have been angry, disgusted and sad all at the same time about the same thing. Austin has this new years celebration thing and most of it was wonderful and i spent the time in the company of amazing people. Shortly after i arrived we ended up listening to a speak-out, i think that is what they are called. It was artistic poetry set to very little rhyme, the content was about this ladies frustration with the Bush administration. I have no problem with people having a problem with bush, i normally dont even care, but she ended the piece with "Where are the John Wilkes Booths or Lee Harvey Oswolds when we need them" at which point people began to cheer.
Someone made it very clear that they would be happy if a man was murdered because his political view differed from theirs and people started...cheering.
In a movie someone claimed that what separates man from animals is our ability to willingly kill another of our own species for matters that have nothing to do with survival. Maybe we would be better off animals.
For the next two hours i felt disconnected with the people around me. The masses of random people all living out a life that does not concern me and is not concerned with me, for once in my life i felt alone.
But then i remembered that i do have wonderful friends. People that give life purpose and hope. I felt better, Much Better.
But i think i will be attending less speak-outs.

Dewa Mata,
D

i have never really noticed the changing of time. But this year is has been crazy. Whole months have gone by and all i can remember is a few beautiful moments and then it is the next month. I do fear i will wake up and find myself to be an old man, one day that moment will come. But i think i will embrace it, because at only 18 i have lived a good life.
Well i am writing again to say thank you to all the people who have influenced my life. My friends, my family, the strange guy at work who thinks i am a serial killer. All of them. It still has not even caught up with me that some of the friends and family that started the journey with me are no longer here, the sting and regret will come later. For now all i have is the memories of the beautiful moments. And that is enough for now.

Merry Christmas
And in case i dont see you again
have a wonderful life. i know i will.

Dioscorides (your friend)

Yesterday for the first time in about a month i did not have to leave my house before 7 in the morning. Chrystina gave me a ride to work at about 10:30, on the ride there i noticed my eyes were hurting. I was so unfamiliar with being outside during the hours when the sun is high that my eyes were having trouble adapting. It made me laugh. The day was so beautiful and i have missed so many like it. But i also smile because so many are yet to come.

i sit at work witteling away the hours listenint to They May Be Giants and Weezer and many strange others, drinking an obsence amount of Hot Tea and trying as best i might to fix as many problems in a day as i can. its fun in weird kinda way.

i dont post much because in truth i am afraid of what people will think of what i write. But to be completely honest i want you to know the stange happening and conversations that up until now have only been available to me through the voices.

till next time.

My girlfriends cat has hated me for as long as i have known it. I have bleed for this cat, changed my actions and view of animals because of this cat. Still it has hated me and attacked me, bit me and launched at my defenseless face with a flurry of blows, only muted by the fact that it has no front claws. But i have discovered the great chink in its armor. Hedonism.
I have forbidden my girlfriend from feeding this soft, beautiful creature of death. Every morning and evening i feed it and force it to withstand my petting while it eats. Three years and it never warmed to me, in two weeks it will now sit in my lap while i study and purr. I have conquered the beast. Hahahahaha. Sociology gave me the simple formula. Hedonism; all creatures like feeling good as opposed to bad, all creatures form attachment to those who make them feel good, make something physically dependent of you and you can control it.

I have been feeling very odd lately. I have a sense of dread for the days to come. I feel like i am walking down a road not meant for me, I know it is not meant for me. I both fear the change and embrace it. I love my life. I dont want it to change but i know it will. I am stuck in this limbo of dis-ease and phantasmal half sights of tomorrow mixed with a lack of sleep and semi-madness. I feel like every minute I spend doing anything I am wasting time, time I should be useing to...I dont know. I feel trapped doing anything that takes more than thirty minutes to complete.
I dont live a stressful life, i dont do anything to make me feel uneasy. I just have the unexplainable urge to run out into the street and scream until I collapse short of breath into a red faced heap, smash something into a million pieces, or dive out infront of traffic blindfolded.
What the hell is going on!!!!! I fell trapped in my own skin like a its a hollow shell where emotions come through filters that only let me see the refined result of the options i may choose from. A friend told me i was emotionally unresponsive. I have taken time to think about this and found i only see the results of my actions not the action itself. I guess this makes me come across as robotic.

I hope this feeling ends soon.

Sunday was not as boring as most of my Sundays have become, infact, it was strange; I wake up early to go to work and work till my eyes hurt then I head home. I like my Sundays.
Everything was progressing as usual, I got off of work about six and for once caught a ride with a friend from work. We were driving down Braker and my friend asked if I saw the thing laying in the street. When I looked I saw a person sprawled on their side in the street. My friend parked the car to block traffic and we ran over to find a woman laying on the asphalt surrounded by pieces of broken headlight and glass and no obvious vehicle at the scene of the accident.
She just kept repeating “ooh, ooh”. She was still wearing a backpack and was trying to look around. I asked her what her name was but she just keep looking off. By this time another person had shown up and the police called. All the two of us could see were two small scrapes on her arm. I was more worried about her going into shock. Eventually she started answering questions and making eye contact. When the police made it there she lifted her head to look at them and there was a puddle of bright red blood under her head and he whole back of her head was matted with it.
I just keep thinking “oh my god she is going to die”. Eventually she said her name was Sally. That was the last thing I heard her say. She got quiet with so many people shouting and the paramedics swarming over her.
Sally. I do not even know if she is still alive. It is a strange to see a person on the verge of death and hear what may be the last thing they might ever say.
I hope that someday if I die the last person to see me before I pass will know my name. I know that that is silly but it is little to ask. Strange

This is my first entry into this wide and ever expanding virtual maze or ideals and emotions floating in a world less than material. It gives one pause to step back and see the world without the faces, just the hearts. It gives one hope that this is the way of the "future".
Life has blessed me more than I can even begin to understand. Every good thing that has every happened to me, was put into play but something terrible in my life. Over the years, as I have started to look back as much a forward, i have come to embrace the trials in life. Parts of me believe that it is a kind of balance life must strike with you, Good things can happen to you but first something Bad must happen.
I look at life and realize this must be true. First comes the darkness, then the light to scare away the shadows. Life is so wonderful. It changes and is unpredictable and bright and miserable and cold and fiery; all thrown together to make a life worth living. I hope one day I die. For with my life with come light as i strive to help those around me see the beauty of life, and when i die i know that by my passing i bring even more light into this world.
I'm hungry.
TTFN
Zao