If I could recapture
all of the memories
and bring them to life
surely I would

hear the distant laughter
wasn’t it you and me
survivng the night
you’re fading out of my sight
swiftly

you’re vanishing
drifting away
you’re vanishing a-a-a-a-o-oo-o

I was so enraptured
no sensibility
to open my eyes
I misunderstood

Now you’re fading faster
it’s suddenly hard to see
you’re taking the light
letting the shadows inside
swiftly

you’re vanishing
drifting away
you’re vanishing away

reaching out into the distance
searching for spirits of that past
just a trace of your existance to grasp

and if somehow I could recapture
all of the memories
and bring them to life
lord knows I would

but now you’re fading faster
getting so hard to see
you’re taking the light
letting the darkness inside
swiftly

you’re vanishing
drifting so far away
you’re vanishing
a-a-a-a-a-a- yeah
away

you’re vanishing…how far will you go?

i was talking to a friend of mine today and all of a sudden i was overcome by a moment of sadness. i think that this summer is going to be very different from summers past. why? i think that a large part of my summer world has forever been altered.

things changes. it’s a natural progression of life. life is never meant to stay stationary and it’s just a matter of whether or not we can keep up with the jones. it sort of makes me sad that that chapter of my life seems to have been ended.

i guess i realized tonight that some things will never be the same again. i guess i should just let go of my pipe dreams that we could all get along and that everything will be ok. sometimes things aren’t ok and they won’t be ok. just gotta deal with it.

—–

i’m alive.

but that isn’t to say that jimmy didn’t try to kill me. no, no, make no mistake about it. he tried to kill me…with a mountain.

there’s something about mountain biking that has really been bothering me as of late. i’ve been pretty hard core lately and i’ve been biking about 3 or 4 times a week. now, i don’t consider myself to be super athletic or anything, but i used to think that i’m at least sort of reasonable ok. biking, however, has changed my opinion about this. i am now under the firm belief that i’m a weak ass wuss.

now, some may ask…why would you feel like that? why? well, it seems that EVERY single person that i’ve gone biking with can zoom zoom past me without breaking a sweat. but here i am huffing, puffing, and dying trying to make it up a little hill. it’s just insane.

oh well, that’s ok, i still had a lot of fun despite the fact that quicksilver has intimidated me for a long, long time. i had a great feeling of accomplishment after finishing the climb and reaping the rewards of the easy downhill on the back side.

this was the first serious uphill climb i went on with the new bike and i’m pretty happy with its performance. still though, i thought that something must have been wrong with me because i was dying climbing the hills while jimmy didn’t seem to break a sweat. dammit.

no pictures this trip, i couldn’t bear the extra weight of my gigantic camera.

—–

[url=http://jimmy.ocliw.com]jimmy[/url] and i are going to go biking today at almaden quicksilver park. i’m nervous about it. it’s been a few years since i last went there, but my last outing nearly killed me and i’m dreading the climb up the mountain.

the last time i went there, i recall having to make many, many stops because i just couldn’t go on. i was out of breath, dying, and just trying to gather up the will to go on.

then on the way back down, the brakes on my bike weren’t working well and i was braking with full power, but the bike wasn’t slowing down. pretty freaky. i swore never to come back again, but here i am, waiting for jimmy to pick me up so we can kill ourselves. why am i doing this?

i think part of it is because i need to face this challenge and take the mountain out. no more intimidation by this big rock, yo. it’s time for me to take it out.

if only it were that easy.

maybe i should write a will in case i don’t make it back.

i will admit it. i do not like confrontation. i don’t like it because it’s usually difficult and painful and not fun. but i do recognize the necessity of confronting other people and communicating effectively to get resolution to problems. i can apply this principle in the work place just fine, but when it comes down to my personal life, it begins to get a little muddier.

i think intellectually i know that if something is bothering me, it may not necessarily be obvious to the other person that i’m hot and bothered. in fact, they are probably thinking that everything is just fine. who would blame them?

though it has been more of a struggle to confront people and tell them what i thought, i think that in the end it has worked out much better because then there aren’t these long periods of resentment held against each other.

the problem i have is that i think that i am generally pretty oversensitive about things, particularly when it comes to my friends. i remember a friend of mine made an off-hand comment about me and i was deeply hurt by what they said. maybe it’s my reputation that precedes me and maybe they believe the reputation instead of getting to know the truth. but when i realized what they really thought of me, it was pretty devastating. i was sad that they thought so little of me and i was even more sad that they didn’t know me better than that.

it’s not so much that i want to try and convince them that they are wrong or that i want to try and defend myself or anything. people can think whatever they want, and if some people decide to look farther than whatever’s skin deep then they may realize more of the truth. i used to find it really saddening to hear that so many of my friends misunderstand me so much…but it’s not my place to try and change people’s opinions.

i think about the people who i consider to be my closest friends and i think that why it is that i think they are my closest friends. some of them i don’t get to see much of at all. maybe once a year, if i’m lucky. and others i see on an almost daily basis. and i wonder what it is that has made them become one of my closer friends and i realize that there is a common thread amongst all of them. honesty.

there was a time a while ago where i had told some friends some lies about my whereabouts because i guess i didn’t really want them to know who it was that i was spending my time with. so instead, i made up excuses or other reasons when i was spending time with them. one of my friends had called me on it after they had found out the truth and it really shook me up. i never realized that these little lies of mine would undermine my integrity or my friendships. i just never thought about it.

but from that moment on, i swore that i wouldn’t lie to my friends. even if i was doing something that they may not approve of, i figured that they would eventually find out anyway, so i should be honest about it and just tell them instead of lying about it. it’s definitely helped me get out of situations where i feel very uncomfortable because of lies that i told or lies that i have to keep track of…and it’s made my life a lot simpler too. some of my friends surprised me because they didn’t react how i thought they would and were supportive of me instead of being critical and judgemental.

if you can’t be at your weakest with your friends…who can you be your weakest with?

—–

with my recent interest in biking, i haven’t had much of an opportunity to watch tv. as a result, i think that i’ve probably got something like 10 hours of tv queued up waiting to be watched. at this rate, i’m not sure if i will ever have the time to catch up on my tv. so sad. how will i know what happened with amy and ephram? what happened to angel, buffy, spike, and the immortal?

it’s weird that i’m doing all of these things outside of tv these days. it used to be that tv was my rock. it was what everything else revolved around. well…maybe not that bad, but i did watch a lot of tv. a few hours a day.

at night, i’ve been opting to read the da vinci code instead of watching tv. i’m not sure if i should be concerned, but i really do like the book so far. it’s just taking me forever to read it. i wonder sometimes if i have some kind of reading disorder that makes me sleepy whenever i try to read a book because within 10 minutes of reading my book i fall asleep.

yesterday after work, on a whim, i asked paul if he wanted to go biking. he agreed and we decided to meet up at the [url=http://www.los-gatos.ca.us/los_gatos/residents/events/creek_trail/map.html]los gatos creek trailhead[/url] in campbell.

we stopped over at nelson’s workplace where we indulged in a cold beverage and i got to check out his company’s product. pretty cool.

we biked the length of the trail and we were getting to the very end of it where it meets up with the lexington reservoir when on the very last big incline i started to hear this hissing.

i stopped to check out what the noise was coming from, and lo and behold it was coming from my back tire!

i called paul who had biked ahead of me to inform him of the situation. i decided to walk my bike up the last incline and then we would decide what to do. when i got to the top of the incline, paul noted that there was still a lot of air in the tire and if we hurry, we might be able to make it back.

so we jammed.

for about 3 minutes.

then i started to feel the bike getting heavier and i looked at my back tire and the sidewall was starting to give. paul also noticed that the tire was rapidly getting deflated and suggested that i should stop riding. so we started walking.

we were about 11 miles out away from our cars and we were walking about 3 miles an hour. it took us about an hour to get that far, but the prospect of walking all the way back would mean it’d take me nearly 4 hours to walk back to my car. it was not looking good.

paul informed me that he had a spare tube and patch kit so we could just stop over at the side of the trail and replace the tube and borrow someone’s pump. it sounded like a good idea to me. we decided to see if we could find a gas station in downtown los gatos and we walked a few blocks only to find no gas station in sight.

dejected, we decided to switch out the tubes at a park we were at and then just fill up the tube whenever we came across a gas station. at the park, i was beginning to take off the tire from the bike when paul goes:

“uh oh.”

“what?”

“well, i have the tube box…but there’s no tube in it! i guess i must have used it.”

“…”

“it’s ok, i guess we’ll just have to patch the tube then.”

“ok, sure.”

“uh oh…”

“uh oh?”

“i don’t have a patch kit.”

hahaha. at this point, i’m thinking, great, i’m going to have to either walk all the way back or maybe walk to nelson’s work and maybe he could help me out or something. or, worst case scenario is that paul goes and bikes back and picks me up.

so dejected, i’m about ready to turn around and walk my bike when paul says to me, “hey, there’s a bike shop across the street!”

i look over and i see the bike shop and laugh. how fortuitous! so we bought a patch kit and they let us use their pump and we fixed up the flat and rode home.

we did 20 miles in two hours (some of which was spent walking. =P) not bad and a lot of fun. i definitely think that i want to get a few spare tubes now, though.

biking: everyday is an adventure.