Well, what can one say except....

Poetic Justice.

A kind of sadness I've not known before...

"There he goes. One of God's own prototypes. Some kind of high powered mutant never even considered for mass production. Too weird to live, and too rare to die."



Hunter S. Thompson has killed himself. I have never experienced a death so closely. I am nearly twenty-three years old, and I've never even been to a funeral. All my relatives that were alive when I was born (except for a pair of great-grandmothers I never met) are still alive.

Thompson was the first person from whom I learned something, and for whom I had great respect, to die in such a way. That is to say, both suddenly, and before his time. Although, perhaps in Hunter's case, he was already well past his time.

I know that he was no Christian. And I know that he lived his live in excess of drugs and alcohol, and I mourne him. I've not been sad like this since Mr. Rogers died. At least he was a Christian, and a good man. I cannot say either of those things of Hunter S. Thompson, except that in his case the goodness or badness of him is not obvious enough to judge (for a simpleton like me). He was a fearless rebel. A rebel against what? Apathy I think. His greatest enemy was stupidity, and those who preyed on it, and those who reveled in it.

He did many horrible things, and he hurt many people, but he was also a fierce voice of discontent when it was very much needed. I grieve for his widow and his son, and I grieve for him, for he surely lacked Orthodoxy in his life.

I cannot bring myself to say Rest in Peace, because I fear that he may not.

But I will ask the Lord, to have mercy on his Soul.


Alexey the Sinner

Ya ever know someone who....

....just could not, for the life of them, catch a break? Such is Jessica, a co-worker of mine. She has, quite possibly, the hardest struggle for day to day life of anyone I know, at least anyone not homeless. She's poor, and I mean poor, not like me. I'm a student with parents who help out with the bills and only myself to care for. She's supporting herself, her otherwise helpless druggie ex-boyfriend, whom (if I understand correctly) might well starve on the street without her to at least give him a place to stay.

I give her rides home from work sometimes. I asked God for opportunities to do good works for people. It occured to me after she asked me for another ride, litterally the day after I prayed that prayer, that I was getting exactly what I asked for. And even if I hadn't asked for it, it was something I desperately needed. So it would seem that the poorest girl I know, with the hardest most desperate (yet somehow stable) situation I know, is rendering a service unto me. All I had to do was go get a cheese burger while she shopped for some supplies at Wal-Mart after work and then drive her home. The catch being that all this is going on after midnight, when we get out of the store after closing.

Now, I have no life. Astonishingly, when I got home, my gaming buddies were still online and I had some good games. On top of which I'm still riding the high of my (unexpected) acceptance letter from SUNY Buffalo. The drawback was that I didn't get to go home and hang out with my Dad. Now, I hadn't really wanted to go to my parents house tonight, but he had wanted me to. I think he doesn't like being alone in that house either. The thing being, it's a fairly big house (four bedrooms, and office, three bath, dining room, living room, family room, two storie), and being all alone with the animals, there, does feel wierd. The thing was, I didn't want to sleep there. I sleep a lot better in my own bed. My dad had work to do anyway, so I would have basically driven home (this is assuming I hadn't needed to help Jessica) watched TV while he worked, maybe watch it with him a bit after he got done, then crash there, then go back the next morning. I felt like a heel for not doing it, but damned if I could override the fear of bordome and just agree. We would have had minimal interaction, and I'd have just left in the morning at some point. Maybe he just wanted me there. I can understand that, just wanting someone arround.

I'd changed my mind about going home, but that was when I remembered I'd already prommised Jessie. To be fair, I had promised her a ride well before my dad asked me to come home for the night, so I couldn't have done it anyway, but I did feel like a jerk.

Anyway, I'm going to hang out with him tomorow. Dont' know what we'll do, but it hardly matters.

Alexey

Grad School!!

I GOT ACCEPTED TO GRAD SCHOOL!!!!! WHOOO HOOO!

I wasn't even thinking about the school that accepted me really. SUNY Buffalo was the first to say yes. They're still working on weather or not I can get finantial support from the university, but it sounds hopeful, and I do have resources to draw on even if, somehow, they say no.

Michigan State is still waiting in the wings for a yes or a no, but they did send me a flyer with finantial aid information and info on student housing and activities, so I hold out strong hope for them as well!!!

THANK YOU GOD ALMIGHTY!!!!

Too long since the last time....

I'm not sure what exactly the real reason is that I don't get up and go to church more often. Sure it's 120 miles from where I live but that's managable. If I had to guess I'd say it's that I'm tired. More than anything else, the idea of getting up at 6:30 AM after working untill midnight and not getting to bed untill 2:AM at the earliest (I've tried earlier it doesn't seem to work), and then driving for an hour and a half, standing up for two straight hours, and the driving another hour and a half home...ugh. It's an ordeal, not a hellish one, but a very tiring one, and most weeks Sunday is one of two non-consecutive days that I get off of work. This week is different, I get Friday, Saturday and Sunday off, so I'm definitly going. I'm supposed to get my brother to come along but coordinating between us has been difficult. I have to schedule him a week in advance, and I don't always remember to call him. Should I just buck up and call him and hound him into it? Or should I expect him to call me? ::shrug:: Fr. John has said he will come to Tucson to do the classes for his Cathecism now that there are two people (my brother and the wife of another parishoner), but there has been no communication between us either.

It's sad really. It's all I can do to manage my own life, and I have so little responsability it seems. Hell, I was better at it when I had school, because a simple little jaunt to Phoenix seemed like no big deal next to everything else on my plate. I guess I'm getting lazy. Or maybe not, I am, after all, working 40 hours a week now, it's not like I'm a slouch. But is that a good measurement? I get so damn bored that I stay up every night untill 6:AM practically, and the last coupld nights I've been spotty about evening prayers, just like the Devil wants.

I've been shoddy about morning prayers too, though in fairness, I only started doing them a few weeks ago.

I thin it's fair to say the waiting is...not good for me. I'm idle but theres not much else I can do. I do like having less to do, it's such a nice reprieve from five an a half years of school.

Or maybe, my laxity with prayer not withstanding, God has no objection to me having a lazy semester off to recouperate, a kind of sabbatical. He knows I can use it, and hopefully, I am doing so in a way not wholey unacceptable to Him.

But the bordome claws at me sometimes...It leads me down dark avenues, though typically what I find there has me running in terror, as opposed to embracing it, like I used to.

I found myself posessed of an almost gravitic need to know if my old porn haunts still existed or not. I was halfway convinced they simply wouldn't be there anymore. So I went and looked out over the clif that it took me so damn long to climb. I didn't jump, and honestly there wasn't a lot of tempation to jump, but for some reason, I had to take it all in. I had to stare at it for a while, like the junkie who knows somehow that he has to go back and look at the flophouse he used to shoot up in. There is no reason he can define, just an unfightable need to go and look.

I didn't look at any porn, and I didn't linger once I discovered that, indeed, the old access points I used were still there, I got very scared, and I left immediately. It satisfied whatever it was that made me want to do it. Pure curiosity I guess. I let porn rule me for long enough that my freedom from it (nearly a year now) is still a fraction of the time spent in servitude to it. And all it took was an oath. One that I've held to, thankfully, by His strength.

Realizing that there was no time like the present, and on the eve of the most difficult confession I ever had to make, I simply swore never to look at it again, nor use it for anything. It adds such a degree of seriousness, having made a vow, that it was infinitely easier to stay away from it. And something else happened, once I made the vow, the desire for it started dying in me.

You don't miss it when it's gone.

Thanks, Lord, for taking it from me.

Alexey

Along we plug...

Stasis. That's the word to describe the last few weeks. Nominal is another word. Don't get me wrong, the lack of excitement is something I really needed. I like to tell people that my stress levels are somewhere in the vicinity of Jimmy Buffett. I think I only slept for about six hours last night, but I feel really good. Refreshed even. I'd missed a lot of sleep before that as well. Cool that I caught up, however that works.

Wish I had more to add.

Alexey