I'm Kevin and this is my life. I'm 22 years old, I'm trying to figure out what the hell to do with my life while working a dead end job, and I'm gay.
Email is in my profile for MSN or whatever.
Now, I'm sure some of you know that I'm not a very religious person. I went to church as a kid, but only because my parents made me. I got confirmed, for my mom. I don't have a problem with religion, it's just not really for me. I'm more of a spiritual person, than a religious one.
'My' church is one of the more liberal ones. They let you interpret things as you want, not how some 70 year old white man does. I've met the ministers, and they are very loving, caring, and accepting people. One of them is a lesbian, another gay, and for a time there was a trans-gender as well. For the most part they were welcomed with open arms. Of course, the religious media had a few things to say, but fuck them.
Anyways, my mom was telling me about a sermon from the 10th, by one of the gay ministers. She said it was really heartfelt and emotional. And according to my grandfather, the first time he remembers a minister getting a standing ovation after a sermon.
So obviously I was intrigued. I was able to read it online, and I must say, I am blown away. I can't believe these words are coming from a man of God, spoken at a church. Granted, there is some bible content thrown in, but still, I am truly amazed.
So I ask of you, religious or not, to give it a read. It will only take 10-20 minutes of your time, but the impact will last forever.
I listened while I read, which I would recommend, because not only does he phrase things slightly different, it allows you to get a deeper impact of what is being said. You can hear the emotion in his voice.
Do as you wish, but I would highly suggest checking it out.
So today was the 'wear purple to remember the young souls who committed suicide' day. I forgot about it originally, and then remembered about halfway through the day. I got my hair cut about midday, and when I was in the shower getting the hair off myself, I remembered. So when I got out, I grabbed my 'Start Wearing Purple' t-shirt. It's for the band Gogol Bordello, but I thought it was the perfect shirt for today. Not only is it a vibrant purple, it tells people to wear purple too.
I'm not sure if my mom knew about the purple day, but when she saw me come out of my room with the shirt on, a small smile popped onto her face for a few seconds. Could have been nothing, or the fact that she thinks the shirt (and song) is funny, or maybe she knew what it was for, and was proud. Either way, I thought it was cool.
A while later, I was hanging out with Aaron at the BP, and a younger lady, probably 23 or so, came in to prepay some gas. She saw my shirt, and the first thing she said was, 'high five for wearing purple!' and gave me a high five. Thought that was pretty sweet. I'm pretty sure Aaron didn't know about the day, so he just laughed when he noticed it was a Gogol shirt. Oh well.
I hope today has had some effect on society, and people will finally start to realize that something needs to be done about the bullying. Not just against gay kids, but bullying in general. To quote a Bad Religion song:
'You might not think there's any wisdom in a fucked up punk rock song. But the way it is cannot persist for long, a brutal sun is rising on our sick horizon. It's in the way we live our lives, exactly like the double edge of a cold familiar knife.'
Anyways, I don't want to rant at you guys. You all know things need to change, so why tell you what you already know?
I hope everyone is well.
143
_Kevin
What else?
Oh, and Rowan, you're a bastard for stealing my song!
There is hardly anything going on in my life right now worth mentioning, which kinda sucks.
I had a migraine earlier tonight, so I took some Excedrin for it. Got rid of the migraine, but the problem is that the caffeine keeps me up. So here I am at 5:30 in the morning, and not tired. So what am I to do? Make music.
I decided to be more like DJ this time, and do it all myself, instead of with the band. So I checked out the free demo of Fruitly Loops, spent some time figuring it out, and make a beat. Then decided it would sound better with some guitar, and it kind of escalated from there. Not my best work, but it was fun doing it differently. Hope you guys enjoy!
So the funeral was last week, but I decided not to go. Just wasn't feeling up to it. But I'm starting to do better with the whole situation, which is good.
Anyways. Last Friday Aaron and I went to go buy him another car. He thought it would be nice to have a winter car, so his current car will last longer. Whatever, it's his money. So he found a Honda CRX down in Kiester, MN, which is about 120 miles from where we live. The car looked great in the ad, so off we went.
Since we were going to the middle of nowhere, we were smart and told our parents where we were going, what we were doing, and when we thought we would be back, just in case something bad happened. There have been a fair amount of stories in the paper about people being killed when they meet people on Craigslist.
The farther we drove, the more worried we got, because everything just disappeared. We were about 5 miles north of the Iowa border. Finally we pulled into a small, little town with a sign saying "Welcome To Kiester" (And yes, it is pronounced like keister.) So we knew we were there. After having a few laughs over the name, we called up the guy to tell him we were there.
A couple minutes later he pulled up, and we followed him to his house. He seemed like a decent guy, but I was still a little on edge. We pull onto this random dirt road off of the highway and start driving through corn fields. At this point, I actually started to get a little scared, not knowing where the hell we were going. I had my knife in my pocket, but didn't think it would do much. But it's always nice to have some sort of protection.
As we came over a hill, we saw his house and pulled over. He and his friend went and pulled the CRX out of the garage, and then we started the business of looking/buying a car. Aaron and I both have a good amount of experience in this field, since we are always buying and selling cars.
So we went to town looking the car over, and asking questions. The car wasn't as nice as it appeared in the ad, but still nice enough. So Aaron decided to buy it. They haggled on the price a bit, and then we drove off into the sunset (actually, into the rain that was headed our way). Aaron drove his Civic while I drove the CRX back to the cities. Pretty boring drive, since the radio in the car didn't work, but we got home without any problems.
After saying goodbye to Aaron, I jumped into my truck and drove home. I went up to the BP the next day to see him, and he had driven the Civic to work. I was a little confused, but figured it was because he hadn't changed the title yet. So I went inside to see what was up, and he told me he wanted to sell the CRX already. My jaw dropped, and I just looked at him with a 'what the fuck?' expression on my face. He said he didn't really need two cars, and it was a mistake to buy it. I was a little annoyed because of everything we had gone through the day before, so I told him to give it a week and then see how he feels. So far he still wants to sell it, but we'll see.
That's about all the exciting stuff going on right now. Tomorrow Aaron and I are going to take our dogs down to the river to play around for a while, which will be fun. Erik is off to the cabin for the weekend, and my mom is going out of town with some friends, so it'll just be me and my dad for the weekend. On Monday I'm going to the cabin with my mom, for the official last time of the year, since they close it up next weekend.
Been spending a lot of time lately writing and working on new songs. It's been helping me deal with everything that's going on lately. I brought the song 'Dixie' to the band today and they liked it, so we're going to work that into a song. Now I just have to come up with some good music to go with it. I have a couple of ideas, but I'm not happy with them yet. I just need some inspiration.
Well I've rambled on long enough for one night. Hope you all are well!
Hi all. I got back from the cabin last night. Was a pretty relaxing week, which was nice.
I woke up today with a call from Kaija informing me that our friend Cindy committed suicide on Monday. She was one of Kaija's mom's friends, and was living in an apartment above their garage. Monday morning, Deb (Kaija's mom) went in and found her dead. Apparently she took a bunch of Deb's anti-depressants. Deb said there are about 100 missing.
I met Cindy earlier this year at one of my BBQs, but she became one of the family almost instantly. She was a wonderful, easy going kind of person with a heart of gold. None of us thought she was suicidal, let alone depressed. So it came as a big shock to all of us. She will truly be missed. After my chiro today I'm going to go hang out with Kaija, Ian, and Garrett. But it will be a sad day I'm sure. Not exactly how I wanted to wake up.
I'm still having trouble believing she is gone. I don't know when the funeral will be, but hopefully I'll find out today.
Not a lot happening right now. I've been sick all week, so just lying low, trying to get better. I'm finally getting back to normal, so hopefully things will become less boring. I just thought I'd let you guys know what's up, and that I'm alive. Hopefully going up to the cabin this weekend, possibly the last time for the year. If I go, it'll probably be next week when I make a new post, assuming I have something to say.
I hope everyone out there is doing well.
143
_Kevin
Billy Howerdel, the guitar player and major song writer for A Perfect Circle, started a side project called Ashes Divide. I think it's pretty good, and it's interesting to hear him sing.
First off, I would like to say thank you to Brian, Mind of Mine, DJ, Paul, and Tman for your comments, and R.Jimlad for his email. Your words of understanding and courage meant a lot to me, and I thank you from the bottom of my heart.
I feel almost bi-polar the last couple of days. Some days I feel great, and I love every minute of it. Then the next day, everything sucks, and I want out. But I try to think of the good times, and surround myself with people I love. Almost all last week I spent every day with Kaija, Ian, the baby, and Garrett. Not really doing anything, just being together. It's been nice to get me out of my head, and not dwell on the negatives. They don't know what's been going on with me, but just being with them has helped.
On Wednesday I went to the state fair again with Erik and D, as well as some people I didn't know, to see Trampled By Turtles. They are a bluegrass band from Duluth, MN, and if you haven't heard of them yet, you will. They are blowing up. I've never been a fan of bluegrass, but there is something about them that I just love. And I respect anyone that can do amazing things with their instrument. I have their newest album and loved it, so I jumped at a chance to see them live. I can honestly say, it's the first time I've even heard of crowd surfing at a bluegrass show. Their energy is unbelievable. So that was a huge distraction. Everything in the world was perfect for that hour and a half.
Oh yeah, as a side note, my friend Aaron who works at the BP, went to high school with the banjo player. I thought that was pretty cool.
Thursday, went to band practice, wrote a new song on the spot, and everything fell into place almost instantly. The whole band was surprised. After, I drove up to the cabin for the long weekend. My mom went up Wednesday, and my grandparents were already up there. I got there around 3 AM and crashed instantly. The only bad thing, was I had a long, lonely 3 hour drive up there by myself. So my mind wandered, and some not great things came into my head. But I did my best to drown them out with music, and made it there alright.
Friday afternoon my aunt, uncle, and 2 out of three cousins came up (Ryan had to work). It was pretty rainy, so we just hung out inside playing gin. A little after dinner my dad showed up and we had a huge gin tournament, guys verses girls. As always, the guys won. I went to bed pretty early, since I was so tired from the night before.
Saturday we all went to play golf, but because my back is still giving me problems, I didn't play. So instead I drove my grandpa in the cart. The rain had cleared, but it was still rather cold, but nice to be outside nonetheless. Went back to the cabin and had a huge fish fry (my mom and grandpa had gone fishing on Wednesday, fresh walleye). After dinner we all watched a movie and hung out.
Sunday, rain. Some people went into town to go shopping, and the rest of us hung around the cabin. Late in the afternoon the rain stopped so my mom, dad, and I went out for a boat ride. We spent a good two hours lazily putting around the lake looking at the wonderful scenery. Went back, had dinner, and another movie.
Monday was nice. Lynn, Doug, and the kids had to leave right after lunch, so afterwards my parents and I went on another boat ride. It was nice, since most people were packing to go home, so the lake was almost empty, except for the die-hard fishermen. After a few hours on the lake we went back and slowly started to pack. We left around 6, and got home around 9. I went to bed pretty early again since I was tired from driving.
Although hardly anything exciting happened, it was a wonderful weekend full of relaxation. I think that did a lot for me. But now I'm starting to struggle again. My parents are going out of town this weekend, as well as Erik, so I think I'm going to have Kaija, Ian, and Garrett over for a bonfire. Hopefully that will help pull me out of my funk some more.
I ended up emailing a link to my last post to my cousin Roger, the one who I came out to. I figured it would be good for someone I actually know in person to know what's going on. But I never got a response from him, so I'm not entirely sure what to think. Oh well. I tried.
Well I guess that's about it for now. I'll keep you guys posted. Hope everyone is well.
143
_Kevin
Here is the video for one of the singles off of Trampled's new album. For some reason, I really like this song. It starts so mellow and sad, and then turns into a fire that can't be controlled. You can't see it too well, but their fiddle player is a beast, and does incredible things. Wait So Long
