I'm literally drowning in amazing music right now. Every week brings another two or three great CDs to my mailbox, I just can't keep up and I feel like I'm not giving some of these albums the attention they deserve. Check it out:

What happens now?

A few months ago I decided (as I often do) that I needed some prefabricated 'authentic' ethnic food to rot away my insides. Inside the Taco Bell I made my order: one nacho supreme - no beans, one chicken quesadilla and a small drink. The short, overweight black woman behind the cash register began to read me back my order. She paused momentarily, looked up and smiled at me. She said, "You have very pretty eyes," in such an honest and spontaneous way that it left me shocked. I had been digging in my pockets for change, but I looked up at this. I didn't quite know what to say. I looked in her eyes, trying to find some kind of reciprocating compliment. Nope, dead brown. I thought about her life for a second. Was she older than me? What had led her to spend her days behind the counter of a place that served the culinary equivalent of a Britney Spears song? Was this how she saw herself when she was a child? Was she happy? And selfishly, that led me back to myself: Was I? I broke the moment of silence with an awkward, forced smile and stuttered out an embarrassed 'thank you.' She looked down at the register and continued as if nothing at all had happened. "That'll be $4.14."

Lit by my computer screen are: stacks of CD jewel cases around me, the edge of my stereo where francis the teddy bear sits, the edge of my map (with a slightly illuminated South America) and the bottomg edge of my frodus poster. I've decided my current girlfriend is a much better person than my last. It's funny the things you think of when you should be asleep. There are nights when you wonder if you would be a different person by now if you had always gone to sleep when you should have -- if you never stayed up long enough to rethink some things.

It's amazing the way something can just shatter your existence. The way one sight can force you to examine life or the way a single word from well-known lips can forever change your thought processes. These are forced epiphanies, not the kind of realizations or radical reorganizations that you would have chosen for yourself but they're there all the same. It's just a question of how much you let it affect you and in what direction. For example, one of these "forced epiphanies" occurred just the other night. It was a Wednesday night in Gainesville, Florida and I was driving Adam Kell home from practice. My fingertips were sore. My rear right turn signal was burnt out. The gaslight burned orange into the dashboard. The conversation was lax. It was one of those not-completely-awkward silences where you can feel your car struggling through the night. Running on a dollars worth of gas for a week will do that. So we're driving home, eager for our bed and books when it strikes. Out of the night we see an enormous monster truck parked on someone's lawn. Fifteen feet tall at least, wheels that could crush me in a heartbeat, a confederate flag on the front license plate and completely ludicrous. Around the underside of the truck a purple neon light was attached and it illuminated not only the truck but also the ground beneath it and the house behind it. It was as though this purple, ethereal vision had leaped crystal clear out of the blur that was our Wednesday night. Softly illuminated, this monster truck stood and held us at complete attention. When it was finally ripped from our vision by the moving car, Adam turned to me and said "Was that real?" I had no response for him.

You wake up one morning and everything's different. You're alone, staring at an unfamiliar ceiling with a pain in your head and an ache in your stomach. The walls are closer than they used to be, the sheets are rougher. There's no naked, sleeping form to your right where you're used to seeing one. You pull your feet over the side of the bed and touch them to an old hardwood floor that you only saw for the first time yesterday. The people you knew are gone without a word, those you trusted have betrayed you with a smile. This room that is so foreign is filled with 20 years of your useless shit but something's still missing; not an object though, it isn't something you could ever own. New calluses are forming on fingers (among other places) and old conversations take on menacing undertones. A few long-held ideas are left tattered and forgotten along with all the other garbage in your closet. Even your reflection looks a bit different, older and somewhat silent. The only thing that's familiar is the season because they never change around here, it's always oppressively hot. That and the apathy, but even that's different. It never used to dominate things this way. You climb back into the new and empty bed with the rough sheets. There's not much of a reason for you to get up today. You don't work in the same place, study the same people or even eat the same things that you did yesterday. "It's all a part of growing up," you tell yourself. You turn off the alarm and shut your eyes.

"Give me a break, it's what any ordinary 21-year-old does to celebrate their birthday."

My hair drips down into my eyes as I stare defiantely at the burning light. I rock slowly back and forth, in time to the beat. My hand slides lightly over the steering wheel before me. My mind reals, trying to examine all the information I've recently dumped into it. I'm grateful for all the past behind me. Pages turned slowly for weeks, letters constructing themselves into words, words building into the sentences that were the support of the paragraphs that gradually formed each and every chapter, cover to cover. I swim with confidence, I could just be crazy. I watch the people in the cars around me and I smile, thinking to myself how wonderful it is to not be them. The people outside, the music speeding forward with a dread confidence born of youth and/or ignorance, my palm edging back and forth over the wheel; it all adds up. My smile grows as I think of all the chaotic and glorious possibilites that come with being me. My eyes stare through the strands of hair hanging in front of them until that fucking light changes.
And I go.

I was worried I wouldn't have a job this summer. No job = no money = no nothing. But the second place I turned in an application I got hired on the spot. So, now I work at Chesapeake Bagel and I will be the man putting those delicious sandwichs between your bagels.
I gotta wake up 6:20 tommorow to go in for training. How absolutely tiring.

I haven't written anything in forever, most of my creative energy is taken up with bornbackwards and most of my freetime goes to More Hot Amber. I need to make a concerted effort to set aside some time today so I can write something.
Completely off-topic, I was thinking about what consitutes a perfect album. I couldn't really define any single qualities but I came up with a list of albums I think are absolute perfection:

Wow, I haven't touched this page in forever. To bring you up to date, I had a 15 hour macross marathon with guillermo (my dad thought I was playing lacrosse), turned 20 years old, went home for spring break (which means I drove amber back and forth from north miami beach and played a lot of paper mario), got a pretty nice digital camera (which I use to take pictures of random things [check out the new splash]), found out franklin is a recovering heroin addict or something, lost the Bornbackwards Nervecenter but found a new Compound, decided I'm staying in Gainesville for the summer, had a sleepless night that I filled by playing Final Fantasy X, decided I'm staying at Amber's place for the summer, and at the moment I am sitting in my underwear, smelling like shit and listening to Ian Mackaye play a beautiful melody on the piano. I hope to update this more frequently in the future, but don't be a jerk and act like I've been lazy because god damn it, bornbackwards is being updated a fuck of a lot lately. Plus, franklin deleted his page (got a livejournal instead) and brian never finished his new layout (got a livejournal instead) so it's not like I was alone. As much time as I used to spend sitting on my ass I now spend doing shit. Amber keeps me busy like slave labor.

I'm so content right now you wouldn't believe it.
Adam and I went to the post-office so I could mail a money-order to Canada for one of the Clash records I bought off eBay. Once we got to the post office there was a huge line so we just bought a book of 5 stamps and put them all on the envelope. I figure it'll get there eventually. Afterwards we picked up Amber and went apartment-hunting and she found us a really fucking nice two bedroom. It's cheap and close to campus and I love it. I hope we get it. Afterwards, Amber and I went back to her place and tried to nap, it didn't work out too well. We finished the day with a show, Now It's Overhead and Desaparecidos. It's the first time in a long while that I've been to show without knowing at least one of the bands. I'm glad I went, it was a fucking good time. Both bands were fucking great. We also met the most annoying girl in the world, she kept rubbing her boobs on me and then she shoved me and adam out of the way so she could get pictures of her 'favorite words'. She had the most annoying, horrible voice ever and she was saying the stupidest things. "Oh my god, Connor touched me!" If you were the annoying girl in the green shirt at the Desaparecidos show, please fuck yourself in a corner somewhere ... fast, hard and forever. Also, we saw The Eyebrowring and The Drunk, they tried to call us 'elves' but I just laughed and laughed. They're so very witty.
Amber's keeping me busy, I have almost no free time. It's wonderful. I want to live in College Park already god damn it. This is a bit old but I hereby resign my commision in xVCx
Quotes of the night: "The assholes are fraternizing"
"I mean, there's two chicks in the band ... how can you expect them to rock?"

Exadore: my roommate is downloading linkin park
Exadore: so i put on the velvet underground and his girlfriend asked me how that was any more genius than the backstreet boys
Exadore: i didn't bother answering
Geekrockbaby: woah

I'm a filthy fucking pig. It's 6 and I havn't showered yet. I have no clean underwear and no intention of doing laundry anytime soon. Otherwise things are pretty good. I'm very content and optimistic. But I feel like I'm holding myself back somehow, like I'm not ready for the depth of emotion I used to feel pretty regularly. I'm afraid the capacity to love so deeply and quickly may have been permanently burnt out of me by consistent rejection. Perhaps I'm trying to save myself the pain. Not that I'm complaining at all, things are wonderful. I'm just wondering why I'm not head-over-heals already. It's probably much better this way, things are going nice and slow. I'm very comfortable and things are almost ... normal.
Oh and this Kinks record kicks way more ass than that Homegrown shit Guillermo's been listening too.

OK, it's official: Amber kicks ass. Major serious amounts of sumo-wrestler ass. Just lots of it, and it's all being kicked by her. She's cute and wild and fun and just alive. She took care of me when I was sick. Definately a keeper. She has these amazingly blue eyes, they're so big i sometimes wish i could disappear into them.
In short, it's epic.

It was about 5am and my eyes were half-closed already, I desperately wished to be asleep. The road blurred before me and the music fades to a drone. As tired as I was, my mind worked hyperactively. The entire night replays before me in real-time, my brain making slight revisions every second. Suddenly, here in this car I think of the perfect responses to every single word you uttered, jokes guaranteed to make you laugh and observances designed to make you fall for me. Instead of a nervous, slightly embarrassed introvert, I make myself over into the person I think you'd want, loud and funny and outgoing. My mind changes the entire night but it doesn't have to. The shy introverted me was enough, more than enough. For once. My eyes slip closed as I pull up to my house. I pull out the keys, walk inside and fall asleep content.

Everything has a meaning, even if you can't understand or appreciate it. Every letter in every word has a thought, a force or an idea behind it, even if it's just a typo. Deal with it. I apologize if my life isn't the stuff of epic literature. I'm sorry if my mundanities fail to stimulate. At least it's better than the cliche tripe most people spew out.
Writing bad plays about girls won't win their hearts, you fool.

The site actually went live today. Congratulations me.

Expect to see asians in an asian restaurant, ignorant slut. Oh, and your friend needs to quit making fun of blind people.

PRIVATE.

GTA3 had taken over my life before I went home. Day and night I would simply sit and play, skipping class and avoiding the shower. When I came Home all that changed, I had a real life again. It's a shame that you never appreciate people until you realize their absence.
This is Home. Where I can steal someone's shoes in WalMart and watch them get trapped in a garbage can. Where I can spend a night making fun of Ozzy videos ('he needs that cane to walk', 'that's the power of the dark one', 'that's not makeup, he really is a walking corpse'). It's driving around for hours trying to a find record store because there's nothing else to do, and that's fine. Home is seeing Erica, or at least trying.
Next time I come home, it's going down. I don't care if you just cleaned your bathroom or what, excuses don't cut my hair.

PRIVATE.

PRIVATE.

Spending Halloween with The Clash. This time last year I would have been depressed as hell to be by myself while everyone else was having fun. But I'm ok this year. I'm just hanging out in my underwear, rocking out and eating my roommate's food. I'm all alone so I guess there's no one to complain if I crank up the stereo two notches ... or four. Ah, solitude.

My parents sent me some Marvel superhero fruitsnacks in the mail. I love my family. I just ate the hulk's head, he ain't so tough.

My roommate went to sleep at 9:30 tonight cause he's sick. That spells bad news for me (I'll probably catch his disease sometime in the near future). But it's late, late at night and i'm enjoying some quality online time and rocking out to some good tunes. How you ask? The miracle of headphones! You see ... while my roommate is fast asleep, headphones allow me to partake of my musical delights without disturbing his slumber. Headphones truly are magical.

I finished Lord of the Rings today. It made me pretty happy, gave me a smile. It's been a while since I've read anything with a happy ending. Sad, but happy. It's also been a while since I read a fantasy novel or even a book that is that long. I bought the series all in one volume and tore through it. Reading is fun.
The first time I ever read the Lord of the Rings was in fifth grade. I didn't actually read it, my dad read it to me. I'm quite suprised I managed to sit through the whole thing, being as young as I was. I can vaguely remember laying on the couch, listening to my father slowly read, chapter by chapter. I lay on my back, listening and staring at the cieling, watching the characters and events of book play out in my little mind. I think rereading it brought me back in time quite a bit (especially since I started it while I was at my Grandparent's house during the summer in Pittsburgh, where I hadn't been since I was about nine). I hope the movies turn out good.

Complexity has swept to righteous victory in the wake of a tremendous destruction labelled 'progress'. Through the midst of this turmoil, Exadore continues survive. It has not been left unscathed however; once-vital parts have withered and died, cast off and forgotten in the dust. One of those pieces, scribble, died during the early stages of the forced metamorphosis, it's remains can be viewed below in a casket marked 'archive'. Exiled from the places it once called home, Exadore has found a new place to rest for a time. In order to ensure survival, the hated Complexity has been embraced and only fragments of the past remain.