i'm a headcase if i dont keep moving... and my head hurts if i don't sit still

this song has been haunting my mind like the ghosts it's meant to portray. it's catchy. i like it, but it mostly makes me recall another song by ben cooper that i adored as a teenager. there's something about wispy vocals combined with the staccato guitar and percussion that gets me. or maybe it's the lyrics:

there’s a light bulb dangling from string
it’s slowly swaying up over my head now
as i jot down the words that’ll never be sung
and wait for my headache to numb
and the wind sounds as if the world’s sighing
and the moon’s just a torn fingernail
as the tv flickers and hums by the wall
and i wait for my eyesight to fade

so, so, so
it’s so... slow
so, so, so
it’s so... slow

and the bright-eyed choke on ambition
and the old folks circle their graves
and the young ones are busy destroying their names
and you’re still just wasting away.
i sit and watch the screen for a message
some kinda sign that says we’re ok
but the screen stays blank till i turn the thing off
and wait for my conscience to break.

so, so, so
it’s so... slow
so, so, so
it’s so... slow

i hope [i'm] learning to listen
and i hope you’re learning to stay
and i hope you find what you’re missing
and i hope that you’re making you’re way
i’m a headcase if i don’t keep moving
and my head hurts if i don’t sit still
it’s an itch that i’ll never stop scratching
it’s a hole that i’ll never quite fill

so

swim until you can't see land

i swim like a barge. maybe it's my width, density, or just my lack of coordination, but whenever i want to go somewhere in the water it costs extreme amounts of effort. i kick, pull, breathe, and sweat but my progress from the deck always looks as slow as a steamboat headed up the mississippi. that's why whenever i need to travel and get some miles behind me, i use a vehicle. a lot of times it's a bicycle, but every once and a while i venture out in a car. at the end of this summer i drove myself, three bikes, two guitars, a banjo and just about everything else i own from my parents' home in minnesota to my apartment in provo, utah. stopping to visit my sister and brother in kansas the trip totaled about 1,600 miles. bored to tears after a few hundred miles i decided to try and entertain myself (and probably endanger the lives of all the nearby drivers) by taking little video shots along the way. the video gathered dust on my hard drive until this week when i again felt the urge to do some wandering. a lot of the urge was inspired by the featured song. when all i wanted to do was swim away from shore and never look back all i could think about was getting the car and swimming on down the interstate. travel presents an opportunity for repentance. if you're willing to make the effort you can arrive at a new home with a clean slate. if you go far enough, the once jagged coast disappears and all that's left is pure flat blue.

choices

at times the choices this experience presents overwhelm me. with an infinity of options, directions, plans, theories, and decisions i can't help but be afraid of choosing the wrong one. when all i want to do is stay in bed and avoid them, they come hunt me down and, pounding on my door, demand my attention. i can't avoid choosing, but i can avoid thinking about it too much. surely if we could view every alternate path that we could take, and the infinite permutations and combinations of events our lives could become we would be overwhelmed to see that... we'll be just fine. it will all be okay. just make the next choice and worry about the one that follows later.
i can't see the future, but i don't need to. i'm just going to try and make the next thing i touch as beautiful as possible.