Why oh why must I write cover letter?

I hate writing cover letters.

Period.

I just want people to call me and ask me whats the deal if they can't get it all from my resume. I mean, isn't that what the phone and face to face interviews are for. A writing sample I can understand, but cover letters just wear me out.

silly and free

I spent most of the day today watching clips from Tyler Perry's Medea movies. It was funny.
I also looked at some clips of president Bush. It's like watching a 50's cartoon or something where the antagonist gets to spend to much time trying to prove he's not the antagonist.

However, I did go to a birthday party at a skating rink the other day and it was really nice. I haven't been so silly and free since high school.

Stomach Ache

Why is it that my stomach is always in some kind of turmoil?
I'm having trouble digesting something, I have gas, I have a fupa for a few days, it's just a mess! I'm going to have to see someone about this. My guess right now is that it's my diet. I need to incorporate more green vegetables and less meat and high fructose corn syrup. (which I am horribly addicted to)

I want a stomach that's tight and shrunken. I want my stomach and intestine to only be used to snatch nutrients from the lonely morsels of carefully selected food products meant only to keep my body from dying. As a matter of fact, I don't even want a stomach. I want a bio-material distribution unit. Yeah thats it.

Well, I'm off to the gym / physiological improvement facility.

Heavy.com vid test

One is not the loneliest number

Hey,

So, I'm still single and moderately bored out of my mind. But that's ok because I have a lot of other things that are going on that are more important. So important, in fact, that I'm doing them right now and so have no time to write about them in this blog!!.... So stop asking me about it!!

P.S.

I'm going to start a tshirt line called P.S.T.S. , which stands for Post Script T-shirts. they're going to be very interesting. I won't reveal the entire concept but basically, the wearer will, at certain times, be able to subtly communicate such heartwarming sentiments as " p.s. My friends never liked you anyways... " and so forth. Don't wet your pants just yet, they're only going to be available through me at first and they're going to cost a relative fortune. So be on the lookout!!

Spirituality TV

Hey,

So, I watched Oprah today and really started to get where her craziness is taking America. She was dealing with these mothers who were having trouble with their extremely young daughters' neuroses. But instead of just allowing the conversation to trail off into psychobable regarding modern consumerist images etc., she forced the mothers to look into their pasts and at their own feelings and internal selves. It made sense in a very "cum-by-yah" kind of way.

As a non-denominational Christian, I was very impressed with the passionate, yet inviting way in which Oprah spoke about self-love and personal inventor and all that jazz. She made it, for lack of a better word and with the fear of foolishness in my heart, consumable. Yes, I know the danger in boiling down something as awesome as the realization of a higher power and the human experience of love, salvation etc., but you have to start somewhere. I can't help but think that in some way, Oprah is bringing people closer to God.? Or, at the very least, showing them that this world is not all about them and that there is more to the world than what they can taste, touch, smell, hear and see.

So, I'm going to lay off Oprah and her empire for a while. It's going to be a part of my desire to be more positive and to bring more "positive energy" into my life. (an idea I probably got from Oprah)

Sleepy

The majority of any vacation time I come across is spent sleeping. And not the restful, quiet angelic sleep like in the movies, but the random, fitfull unwieldy sleep of a person exhausted and unorganized. Maybe there is some kind of sleeping class I can take at the learning annex or something so that I can try to maximize my sleeping time.

My dreams are ok though. Not too good to be true, not so bad that they could be called nightmares. They seem much more like visions than dreams. I don't care to discuss them because they're somewhat personal. I'm usually aggravated and scared when dreams feel so real you wake up thinking that it really happened, but recently I've just enjoyed the ride. Hopefully, this is a sign of maturity on my part.

I'm looking forward to going to the gym today. I haven't been in approximately two days and i'm starting to get that big feeling again. That feeling where everything I eat feels like its just being tied onto my personal mass and is not really being processed. Certainly, this feeling must be connected to some mild form of an eating disorder, but I think I can handle it, as I have in the past.

Lastly, there are going to be a lot of pictures from my best friend's visit posted as soon as I get my hands on them. I'm looking forward to seeing how I've changed in the past year. I know I see myself in the mirror and stuff, but only a candid shot of yourself can really tell you how others see you. So wish me and my frail sense of reality luck.

Simple Fun

I've had such a wonderful beginning to my vacation. My best friend came up from DC along with his cousin and another friend from North Carolina. We went out dancing, to the beach, dinner and so on. It was really lovely, I can't remember when I've laughed or smiled more. It's good to know that I still had a good time left in me.

I've been invited to go to Atlanta this upcoming week and I'm contemplating that. I feel so relaxed already it's kind of unsettling. I'm usually in such a state of stress and aggravation because of the work that I do. It's nice not to have deal with problem after problem after problem for a change.

The picture above is some kind of African orchid. I'm thinking about having it cut into my hair as a fun summer design. Write me and let me know what you think about it.

Aww, when I still had hair and self esteem...

OUCH!

I'm not one for too much vanity. However, I am a proponent of this newfangled "healthy living". As part of our fairly extensive benefits package, my employer pays for a New York Sports Club membership for all full time employees. At first I thought it was a waist of money, now I feel incomplete if I haven't pumped some iron at least 3-4 nights a week. I didn't go tonight and I feel awful about it, even though I'm supposed to be recuperating from a minor injury to my leg.

I'm fully aware of the "man-titty" craze and I'm not bashfull about the mini-cleavage I've begun to sport since taking advantage of my sport club membership. Yet, I can't help think that some part of lifting a dumbell instead of building a hut or something like that is really vain and wastefull. Obviously, it's practically impossible to take up truly strenuous hobbies in a city like New York. While growing up in North Carolina there were all too many farms to work on and nearby undeveloped land to trek through. Here in the city, most of my "treks" land me at a shopping district or a watering hole that serves everything but water. I've become so into working out and gaining that beat-up, built-up feeling that I've actually injured myself. And for what?.... So a few more people will take notice of my useless mass on the train or at a dimly lit society event?....... YES!!

If there is one thing that I've learned in this city, it's that time is of the essence and it may even be necessary to make quick judgements about how a person lives their life in certain instances. I don't always have the time to break the ice with conversation and shared interests, common goals blah blah blah, sometimes a hot body and a clear and concise invitation says more about a persons desire, drive and understanding of "how things work" than an impromptu dissertation spilled out over a coffee date.

So, I'll continue work out at the gym and become even more mindful of my own version of "healthy living". I'll just be sure to put the same effort into exercising, improving and sprucing up my mind that goes into my body.

Renewed

At one point in my life, I was very much interested in music. Writing, singing, playing piano, performing, the whole bit. When I went to college, I pursued it in the beginning with an extremely short stint as a bass in the Duke University Chapel Choir. All of this was put onto the back burner when I became a student leader and activist. Of course, I still felt drawn to it, but there was little time or energy left to dedicate to it. Now that approximately 6 years have passed, I'm finally ready to look at my past dream and either discard it as unrealistic and unworthy, or tack it onto my new view of life.

So, for the next few months or so, I will be looking for singing gigs in NY to get my feet wet again with performing and to work some of the cobwebs off of my voice. The thing about my writing and my voice is that it doesn't have a strong hold in any one genre, so its a hard pitch. I've trained "classically" and I'm very well steeped in the black southern baptist gospel traditions, but i'm also extremely fond of experimental vocals and abstraction such as Bjork and some of the more daring alternative artists. So I have my work cut out for me. I mean, who wants to hear a cross between Luther Vandross and Bjork?

I have to give the credit for this new found faith in my own talent and drive to my good coworker who shall remain nameless. Wish me luck

Re-Rihanna

Why do we do this to ourselves?

Why do we dance around and feel it to these little bitches who all sound the same and work under the same motives, style and attitude. Cause we're not brave enough to listen to and accept the audible art of the more "mass-aesthetically" challenged entertainers, i.e. men, trannies, full figured women. I know I'm not the only one who is only mildly titilated by these omni-ethnic pop, pornacustic products. Once the video is off and the beat is gone, i'm not thinking about anything that i wasn't thinking of before I listened to "their" electronic wizardry.

I'm not saying that I won't continue to listen to artists like Rihanna. I'm saying that I'm not really wowed by the reissuing of past entertainment success, Janet, Madonna, Whitney, Mariah etc. We know how their brand of "diva-tion" goes. Give me some something else. Really, something so different, I don't even recognize it as music initially!

Back to the Middle

India Arie has this song called Back to the Middle, that I've used as a kind of meditation tool for some time now. Even though I could never be exactly sure of what she meant by the lyrics of this song unless I personally asked her, I feel my interpretation is pretty close.
I believe that it is her plea to the world to exercise moderation in some things and to not go so far to one side of an experience to miss something in it. In my youth, I can say that I've done some things in the extreme without even knowing what they were about or why I was doing it. Now, I'm more apt to really take my time and think things over, sometimes a little too much, sometimes not enough, but at least I'm thinking more.

Take this blog for instance. I use it as a personal journal. I write these little nuggets to myself and put them on the world wide web for easy retrieval knowing full well that anyone else could see it if they wanted to. Yet, I keep it pretty tame and vague so as not to have all of my business out there. If someone were to read my blog beginning to end, they would only get a sense of my general mood from month to month nothing more.

TMI

You know, sometimes you just don't need to know some things. It's funny, because as children, we're taught by Schoolhouse Rock that knowledge is power. But knowledge is not wisdom and understanding and if you know something but don't understand it, it can drive you mad.

Yesterday, someone was sick on the train, I inched closer and closer to see if I could figure out what was all the hubbub. When the crowd surround the person finally cleared a little I saw one of the most disturbing sites I had ever seen. The sounds, the colors the, movement, it was all so other worldy, I actually thought this person may be possessed! So I said a little prayer for him and turned away, becuase there was honestly nothing more that I believed I could do, and the paramedics were already on the scene. Did I need to see all that? NO! Have I learned something from it? Not anything that I didn't already know, which is to mind your own business.
I'm certainly going to be more careful to only seek out the info that I can process.

Not so perfect Day

I had one of those days today. Where you look around at the unforgivable mess that is your life and say I give up. Whatever all of you F#@!^&G people want from me, you can have it. Today, I was very Cartman "...Screw you guys...I'm going home..."

Here's the thing: I work for a non-profit contractor that works directly under a very large government institution (that shall remain nameless) Needless to say, there is always a great deal of beaurocracy involved in all of my reporting to said institution, but today I just couldn't deal with it. I had tissues and issues. Then, I realized that life will go on whether or not all of my i's are crossed and my t's dotted so long as I stay true to my own personal goals and mission to give to the community i've unofficially pledged to serve by working in the non-profit sector. Look, is that a bird singing in that tree? is there a rainbow arching accross the cotton flecked sky? No, its probably a pigeon being attacked by a rat in gutter and a skittles billboard.... but thats ok cause I know what's really important about today, the fact that I've made it through!

Little Bits of Anger, Big Bits of Hope

Well, I'm back

I have a new computer and lots of time to play on it due to my new single status. As for all of those other things that I was supposed to have been working on. I have been working on them, but they're all still in the beginning phases right now. Lets call this the "research" phase. I've posted an ad on craigslist that will hopefully help me to get back into styling again. I need to keep focus. I don't want to be one of those guys who turns into that middle aged monster that gave up on himself years ago. I'm only 24, why do I feel like such an old loser.

UPDATE:

Due to my lack of funds and refusal to compromise, I will not be taking the GRE or applying for graduate school until the end of 08 or something like that I suppose. I'm not upset, I'm just disappointed.
I have found a possible jewelry making class that will take my mind of of things as well as get me back into designing and such again. I have been writing poetry lately but I don't really trust my skills in that regard.
After a very small amount of reseach on the internet, I have discovered a few fairly cheap recording studios where I can get some songs down on disc for the perusal of nightclub owners and other extremely brave people.

I want to talk about my relationship with my family and how I believe that it has improved along with my desire to be more involved and less distant with them, but I don't think its appropriate right now. Plus, I don't know how to communicate it properly

Well,.....

My computer is kind of working again so I will be posting more often than what I have in the past obviously. And no, I'm not delusional, I know that I'm the only one who's like to read this. I use this blog as a signpost to mark progress etc.

I'm going to be either taking a sewing class or using books to teach myself to cut patterns, drape and put together marketable garments instead of just editing things and doing stylings here and there for free. I want to have a very very very small like of items that I can put together rather quickly to sell to specialty boutiques and shops that I like and actually shop in. This energy that seems to be building up inside of me has to go somewhere.

On another note, I'm also going to honestly and truly begin to look at graduat programs.
MSW at Hunter
Masters in Anth at Columbia or NYU
whatever I can get into that looks good to me.

and last but certainly not least... I'm going to get these chops together and either join a band or do some low rent lounge singing somewhere in NYC, come hell or high water!!!

Stretchy

Hey World,

I'm pooped! 05 was such a long year for me and I have so much shit to do this year that I'm already fading out. I have to find a way to do all of the things I have planned without stretching myself too much. I have this whole vogueing thing i want to pursue, but I also have GRE and grad school to forge ahead into as well as my writing, singing and extraordinarily taxing job as a social worker and activist in New York City. I keep hearing a lyric from Lauryn Hill's Everything in my head "...change comes slow or not at all..." How do I take it sloww like John Legend, when my own ambition and fleeting opportunity come at me at a thousand miles per hour?

His Royal Highness, Nathanael LyCurtis Duncan Holley

edited

Birthday Boy! ... I mean Man!

So, want to know what a super fab creature like myself does for his birthday?
Here goes, (not in chronological order mind you)


1. Get up
2. Listen to Margaret Cho on Itunes, smoke two Camel ultralights for breakfast.
3. Lay on couch
4. Pop a diet pill and an ant-acid.
5. Speak to Mother on phone for about an hour about Edenton family issues
6. Drift in and out of conscienceness to the soothing sounds of Popeye, Brutus and Olive Oil on television
7. Don plaid scarf, patchwork black leather trench, pants and shoes to troll over to McDonalds for nuggets and fries.
8. Inhale fries and nuggets
9.Take various calls from friends wishing me a Happy Bday etc.
10. Watch Disney's Anastasia on television with teary eyes, (Identify a little too much with the dramatic heroine Anastasia)
11. Drift on the net, searching for Christmas gifts, IM etc.
12. Blog, all the while thinking of specific errands that have been deftly neglected