NEW YEAR!

This year has been one of the best years I've ever had, and also one of the hardest.

I am thankful for so many things: Mallory, my family (Greg falls under this umbrella, he's my brother), the church, God. So many things. I really feel like I've grown a lot in this year because of these four catalysts in my life. They have combined to make me a more motivated and more driven person, who has higher expectations for himself. I truly feel like a more powerful individual, more capable of setting goals and making them. I know I have the ability to be successful as I keep myself engaged in the effort of being consistently productive.

I have been doing a lot more writing recently. I really want to outline a plan for a collection of short stories, and then bring them to pass. My favorite book has been Ray Bradbury's "Illustrated Man", and what this book is, is a collection of short, unrelated blips on how the human element reacts to a science fiction universe. It's infinitely intriguing, and was preceded by Ray Bradbury's work "The Martian Chronicles", which is once again a collection of short compositions, differing in that the stories tell the progressive story of how Mankind reaches, conquers and subdues the fourth planet from the sun. My goal would be to create a world and shoot at it with several different stories of varying length, each magnifying and bringing to light the subtleties and details of this fantasy.

I want to work on more art, but this really comes secondary to my goal of writing.

I am thankful for being able to have the new year to begin again and start with a fresh slate. To address problems and work towards fixing them. To go forward towards a better future.

Alma 38:12 "... See that ye bridle all your passions, that ye may be filled with love; see that ye refrain from idleness."

I Could Get Used to the Country

I was about to title this post "I could live in the country" but I quickly took it back. I could if I had to, but I would really rather not. Really.

Blackfoot is a nice little place. Probably just good enough for how long I'm here, though. They have a small lake that drains and ices over during the winter, refilling itself during the summer months. I walked around this one of the first nights that I was here, and enjoyed strolling past the Blackfoot airstrip.

Cozy little town. Went to a cafe today, wandered around walmart - all this without headphones. Just as much as I believe that modern man must subject themselves to the elements from time to time, I think it is good for us to hollow out our ears as well. Listen to the wind; listen to the ambience of people in a crowded grocery store; it's all good for the creative mind. I even took inspiration from the televised ads that Walmart has on the ends of their aisles. I don't know what it is that made my muse leap, perhaps that it's just so dystopian typical.

It's the production value of professional commercials that grabs me. Especially when you take that idealized, staged environment - edited to perfection - and place it in a completely human and imperfect setting like walmart. This perfect voice condescending to ordinary individuals, telling them how to live their lives and what they need in order to be more like the image placed on an lcd screen before them. I'm not bitter, I promise, I just think it says something about society. Good or bad? I'm not going to go there, I just find it interesting in a purely aesthetic sense.

So I bought some tea. I love how you can buy a nice, big drink that will last you five or ten minutes for the same price that you can buy a box of tea that comes with twenty tea bags. I think the thing I really love about tea is that you get a hot, relaxing beverage and you don't get any calories on the side. There's no sugar, there's none of that. It's just pure, natural flavor. And I love finding new tea flavors to keep on hand at home.

So today was a good day. I got to sit down on the side of this frozen lake and do some writing. I love just finding interesting sights and creating scenarios with my imagination and putting myself in them. Going to places all by myself and filling in the absence of people with the setting of a story. So therapeutic.

Oh life!

I want to go on a walk. Just take some headphones and go out and visit all the surrounding marshlands of issaquah. Head out in the rain and fog that we've had recently and just get lost in the sound and speechless trails. Inhale the mist like an organic sedative, risen up from the dew and the grasses.

I'll take my peacoat, so I can be like a mallard to the cold: drift through the chilly degrees unharmed; let it slick off the blanket sewn around my posture.

Oh what a day it will be.