What It Feels Like To Be Alive

Why yes, yes that is my foot

"Every night when I'm trying to rest my head on the floor half-stoned thinking 'damn, this shit gets old'"

Dear Everyone,

Well friends, family, people I don't know- this is me posting a blog in order to attempt to not disappear for forever again (which is a month in matthew time) so hello.

Lately I've been going through a lot of changes (cha-cha-cha-changing) with my new realization of my own mortality, Somethin in your head just starts clickin differently when a doctor tells you that you aren’t healthy (among other things) anymore. I honestly didn't know how to react when I got outta the hospital- it was surreal to look at everything again haha it felt like my eyes had a sepia lens on them or something and everything around me (metaphorically of course) resembled glass, I had to be careful of everything including how I treated myself. My life began to consist of 5 pill bottles, daily check ins, channel surfing, body aches, and an overwhelming appetite attached to a very small stomach that had been shrinking over the past 2 weeks due to my not eating before going into the hospital.

I spent most of that time just sitting around pondering life, I went through all the fun stages of grieving as if the doctor told me that I had a week to live or something basically because I didn’t know what else to do not to mention I had seen it on enough movies that it made sense to try it. Surprisingly it turned out for the best, I ended up "bettering myself" (being the only way I know how to describe it). I kinda just threw myself into art and friends, I think it was the fact that I decided I didn’t want to waste anything anymore. It was hard at first, not dwelling I mean, but thanks to a few people (Dez, Laura, Mel, Stefunny and my parents mainly) I kinda did the whole bounce back thing.

It's nice; I feel less bitter and less like I'm holding on to frivolous things that I can't control. I feel like I'm happier- not feeling 100% but I'm happier with things and the things I'm not happy with I'm not afraid to try to fix anymore. I've already begun the process of re-building bridges and sifting through the riff raff of people and things in my life, making up my mind on who really wants to be there and who I want to be there. I'm over all the half ass bullshit.

But onto the artsy stuff (!)
-I'm currently designing a book cover for my friend Mary who is getting published (congrats to her). It's still very much in the works but I will keep you updated on it (the cover and the book) as things progress.
- I'm thinking about picking up painting because I've always wanted to and what better time than now? I mean shit it’s not like I'm gonna live forever
- I'm FINALLY contemplating starting the comic again (this is the back burner of the art projects because I'm less of a story telling mood and more of a just creating shit mood)
- And lastly of course as always the BAND UPDATE:
Well... me and nick never talked but from what I know (this is what he said he was thinking about doing when we last talked on this phone) he took the material he wrote on the guitar while in SWK and took it all to his new band so who knows what’s gonna happen or what already happened to SWK I'll keep you all updated if me and him get a chance to talk.

But never the less my side-project-turned-band is moving along quite nicely, the band name is still up in the air but I think that’s kinda the last thing we're worrying about haha. Currently I've been doing most of the writing 7 songs are on the table. 7 have lyrics, 5 have guitar, a couple have drum and bass parts but I'm not sure if those are going to get changed by the new talent haha I've recently found a bassist and drummer who are hopefuls for being in the band but I'm still holding off on announcing it till we have a few practices and see how well it works out between us. I can say I very much enjoy this project I'm working on, I especially like how the writing process is going with this band, it makes me look back at SWK and wish I had done things differently- I love being able to work on all aspects of the band and not just lyrics while someone else does all the music, in my opinion it makes the songs flow better together because then it’s not like getting two ideas and squishing them together till they fit it’s more like starting with something and adding to it until its finished. The downfall to the new project for you who care to hear it is that I'm going out of my way not to rush it; I don't want it to be all hype and pass arounds without a backbone so nothing will be getting posted on FB or various other sites till things are solid. For example I won’t be making a band page for it until we have at least 3 songs recorded. But don't expect that to take too long, I already have a decent amount of people who want to help with getting a couple songs recorded and keep tuned for the dates of some smaller shows that should be happening soon :] oh and thank you everyone who has been supporting me through all of this- You deserve a lifetime of cookies.

Oh and happy birthday shoutouts to Chelsea Epic and Mel Baca
Congrats on graduating to my cousin chris, cousin nick, and to my molly girl angie

But yeah I think that’s all for now...
Until later, bye

Dear World

This is what my life sounds like

"Why do you build me up buttercup, baby just to let me down and mess me around."

Dear Everyone,

This is going to be a three part blog;
-Part one is a writing exercise that i saw in Meg from Meg and Dia's blog.
-Part two is going to be a slight update on life, very brief.
-Part three is going to be a letter.



1) This first part is a way to recollect on your previous week or just on that day in particular, I'm going to start doing one every friday in my journal and I'll more than likely re-post all of them together eventually in a blog. This one will be for last week.

Seeing: Too many people obsessed with forcing themselves into others lives.
Tasting: The bitterness of having to force myself to catch myself.
Hearing: The same songs on repeat.
Smelling: Everything that makes me want to vomit.
Feeling: Sick and tired of feeling like you're only my friend because you need something.


2) I lost some and won some, then picked myself up and began the walk that I know all too well without answers from the people who needed to provide them- I even asked some of them without any form of result. Honestly I have no clue what happened to SWK, we never talked about it until i was too sick and tired to be able to make a decision. I have continued to write music without nick for the band, I'm suppose to meet with him soon to figure things out. I've also been sick since May 12th, I could barely leave bed and the doctor basically told me he had no clue what was wrong. I dont blame him the illness eventually proved to be out of his means to find due to the restrictions of his office and his lack of focus on the problem. I was admitted into the hospital friday and have been since diegnosed or as I like to refer to it as "tagged and bagged". I finally was able to start eating solid food today and the doctor said that i should be out of here tomorrow at which time i will basically straighten out some things and finish the songs I was in the middle of writing not to mention the songs I've written since. Sorry for being MIA for such a long time


3) Dear World,
I'm trying not to be bitter anymore. I'm tired of wasting away everything i have to put out the fires everyone keeps setting to every bridge I ever built. I'm done, I don't want to spend my life holding up the card castle that I let everyone turn my life into- I shouldn't have let this go on as long as I did. These moments are too short and I'm already too old to be clenching on to the past and the mistakes that I've convinced myself that I made when I know that I'm not the one that set this world on fire. I don't need sham friends, I don't need promises, I don't need words and paraphrases and I don't need tomorrows and todays because none of it can sit in the palm of my hand, none of it will ever be 100% and none of it can be a sure thing. I'm tired of being fed the same lies my whole life and I'm tired of being so dumb and naive that I think that everyone is different. 21 years and I am so concerned with everyone else and everything else that I literally gave myself a disease and the only things I have to show for it can be counted on both my hands, I'm ok with that now... It took more than I thought I had but I'm ok with it now and I'm ok with who I am and who I will be and to everyone else fuck you and thank you, pick which ever you honestly think you deserve.
Sincerely and honestly,
Matt
  
4) Until later, bye.

This Is A Rant

The Forgotten Power Ranger

"Lay me down, and tell me everything will be alright, things will be alright"

Dear Everyone,

I've given up.

I've given up on trying to understand and on trying to wrap my head around everything. I'm done hiding what i truly feel and what i honestly think. It's never gotten anyone anywhere waiting, wishing and hoping and I'm done fitting myself into a box so the rest of the people I'm around can conserve there ideals of me and so that people can feel "okay" about the things. I don’t see a point anymore in thinking about doing things or trying to decipher the code that is life in order to make the perfect decision, if you spend your whole life planning you'll never do a damn thing and that my readers and friends is a waste of life.

I also have recently realized that I miss the world through the eyes of kids or even just the youth, like when you basically shat yourself and laid in bed just day dreaming when you got a girls (or "guys" for the female readers) number or even when you held hands for the first time- now it’s all about living your life through your proverbial dick all the time and constantly looking for answers between sheets and sweet nothings that are whispered in ears like promises that "everything will be alright. "The problem with sex is self-respect, calibration- the orgasm services your validation". The world has lost its innocence in the back ally where the internet and uggs were born.

My life has turned into what i can only describe as an all nighter with too much fast times and flashy lights, nothing slows down anymore. My body and sleep schedule have already basically given me the finger and I'm at a loss for words when in the back of my mind my sarcastic asshole voice begins to laugh at me and says, "this is growing up".

And honestly i don’t know if i believe it or not, is there something more to life than that? Parties and staying up late, sing-a-longs and street lights- these are the things my life sounds like. And the trade over is what? Having kids? Buying a suburban track home in a carpool wonderland? I'm not knocking on it, I mean I want kids and to be a dad someday I think it would be a blast but what’s the point behind all this? Am I grown up when I grow up or when my life has aged and matured like some kind of fine wine?

I don’t know, these are the reason's I've given up on understanding.
I can say through giving up I've learned a lot and I’ve taken on a new way of thinking things through in life. It's nice :]

But I'll take a band update here at the end of the blog before I end it abruptly after the rant so...
BAND UPDATE: We've basically gone into hiding and have begun the reemerging process in recent days. We have been practicing our asses off and we can now confidently say that we have 4 of our own original songs done and done and we have begun to get them ready for performances. We're currently working on 2 other songs but we're trying to stay focused on practicing so we can start to play some shows. We're also hoping to record some of our own stuff soon so we can post it for all of our lovely fans to listen to, currently we haven’t because nick wants to use an M-mod to record so we gotta wait till we get one to start the recording process. But begin to expect a lot of stuff from Secrets Worth Keeping in the near future because we are ready to get out there and show you all that you are supporting us for a good reason :]

Oh and for the record DISCLAIMER: I'm not referencing anyone in particular even though I'm sure certain people will think I'm talking about them but I'm not, this is jus the things I've observed throughout the past couple weeks.
But that’s all for now so,
Until later, bye.

They Smell Like Vitamins And Death

I Got Friends In Low Places

"They say that love is forever, Well forever is all that i need. Please stay as long as you need."

Dear Everyone,

 

I know I've been slacking in recent weeks, life's been hectic... I've been dealing with a lot of inner and outer demons. To make the most sense of it, I've become my own worst critic in life and I'm doing my best not to fall back into old habits of giving up when things seem too good to be true. On top of that I'm having problems with just certain things in my life and I'm trying to stop myself from letting my emotions get the best of me and just stay calm and think things through... I guess as the phrase should go, I'm my own worst enemy and my own biggest downfall even though on my own I built these walls.

But in the time I've been gone I obviously haven’t just been sitting in a room meditating, these past couple weeks have proven to wear on me as a person a lot more than I had ever expected. Between heavy decisions, exhausting conversations, ridiculous yet fun times and scary as fuck nights I'm pretty sure I just took a couple weeks off my life expectancy. A lot of heart felt conversations took place which was nice, mended a lot of friendships that I was starting to have major worries about, still a couple more to go though.

The scary part of course was the GHOST HUNTING. So last night I'm pretty sure I made more dumb decisions than I have in like 2 years or so? Just a guesstamate. So the story begins with the night before (monday) me, dez, nick, ashley, chelsea, and chris all decided that we're gonna go ghost hunting on Tuesday night. The next night we all sat down and talked about it and decided to have one last go at haunted hill. Well we were driving up there and noticed the full moon... which I'm not gonna lie made me a little concerned but I decided to brush it off. So have any of you ever heard of skin walkers? 

A little run down on skin walkers is that they're demons/dead witches that killed a family member back in the old days to gain the power of shape shifting into whatever being they want to change into, also its said that if you make eye contact they can posses you and or take your shape/form. Rumor also is that they only come out in desert areas or route 66 mainly on nights of the full moon. Hah, yeah i know right? fun shit. 

So we head up there all gearin to do some ghost hunting, and there's this one little place where a gazebo used to be (it burnt down a couple weeks ago) that we always have a communal cig at before we wander into the hills. We were all sitting, conversating and smoking then all of a sudden a coyote starts to howl. We look at each other and laugh and say something along the lines of "guess it caught a rabbit". Well you know how when that sort of thing happens one howls then another one from far away howls and then they just kinda use that to get back to each other? Well that wasn’t the case this time. Apparently these "coyote’s" were traveling in a pack and within seconds roughly 15 start howling about 20 feet from us. So we decided not to find out if they were in fact skin walkers and just bailed. 

BUT! Of course that wasn’t enough excitement for us! Never! Ashley begins to tell us about a place called "Chilili" where two families have basically started their own town through in-breeding with each other repeatedly for generations. No pictures are allowed, you're not allowed to stop, and there is a super creepy water tower, a giant glowing red cross hung above the town on the hill and on occasion if you get caught slowing down and such a car will chase you that will try to run you off the road. So we drove into the mountains through all the windy roads and such to go and check it out of course. We get there and its effin creepy as all hell, the red cross is eerie and we all have just a bad feeling when getting in and driving through the town. But we slow down and look around without stopping and such then leave the town and turn around, ya know the normal stuff for stupid kids to do. But as we go back through the town to go back the way we came we slow down and look and then eventually just start on our way back but the thing is apparently the families don’t take too kindly to slowing down so as we're calmly driving away a car pulls out and starts to speed after us. This is about the point that all of us start to freak. So we're racing through the windy roads through the mountains with the fuggin hills have eyes right on our tail all of us cursing and screaming like little girls. Chris wass in the back with blankets over his head so he has no clue what’s going on aside from the fact that he knows we're being chased and of course as we're taking the turns the wheels are lifting off the ground due to the speed and the weight. It was fucking scary is all I have to say. I will give major props to ashley and the toaster (her scion) for getting us the hell outta there though; she was driving like a crazy lady. That was basically the last of the excitement for us that night. We went down to los lunas to try and find stuff but it was a bust then we all went home and slept. 

But I guess I should get into the band stuff before this post gets too long so yeah BAND UPDATE:

We have been practicing our butts off to say the least. We have some major plans and we officially have 3 of our songs completely done and ready to be recorded which should be taking place next week, we plan to have at least 2 more ready by the time we start recording our own songs. Also we've been getting our name and sound out there lately by playing at small get togethers and such which has surprisingly been going really well! Also I'm sorry to all of our fans but we decided to scrap the cover of "I'm In Love With A Stripper" But! Do not fear, we have already picked a new cover that we have been practicing to replace it that I think all of our fans will enjoy. :] Aside from all of that I guess just keep your ears and eyes open for updates and thank you all so very much for all the continuous support you give us :] We love you and such.

But that's just about all the time and stories i have for today...so I guess

Until later, bye.

They've Got It Out For Me

In regards to missing people dear to me

"I don't want to know where I plan to go or where I'm going, I just need to know I'm running, I'm running."

Dear Everyone,

I've decided that I'm going to go get my bike from my parents house and start riding it like I used to when I was young, I will ride it hopefully at least once a day. My reasoning behind this is that I want to be in better shape and I've come to the conclusion that life moves too fast and cars are simply making that problem worse and worse. I also hope that riding a bike around could help me sort out my head I've been deep in thought a lot lately. I've just been wondering on such broad subjects which I think I subconsciously do in order to keep myself from finding an actual answer to them.

Like sometimes I wonder what it all means. I look around and watch the world flying by at such rapid pace where everyone lets every stress consume there life’s to the point that they no longer even realize that they’re living in the first place. I couldn’t tell you that I remember the first time I caught myself doing the very same thing, I wish I could.

I lose my mind sometimes, letting emotions get the very best of me to extents that even I don’t fully grasp. I get shaky or paranoid or overly happy and likewise overly sad, but all of it makes me feel more alive so is it a bad thing or a good thing? Living through emotion to feel a buzzing exhilarating feeling is better than some things but just like most things it could be considered an addiction...

I read an article on addiction and how to tell if someone you know is an addict and I basically fit the bill to a "T" as some would say, so all morning long I've been analyzing myself trying to find out exactly what this article is saying I'm addicted to. Currently I can’t find anything aside from emotional things... nothing physical.

Sadly, we cancelled the ghost hunting project. It turned out that we were all too broke drive up to Santa Fe on a whim that it may be open and it was too windy to try for the other two, if you live in abq you understand- it was really windy this weekend. So we laid around and drank and watched the snow (snow in April?!?! yes. snow in April.) and just enjoyed each other’s company. Mostly this week was focused on the band, all the hype behind the covers getting posted finally kinda paved a way for a lot of "oh ma god"'s and "holy shiv"'s on mine and nicks part.

(BAND UPDATE) We did get everything up and running (well most everything) as I posted in the last blog the band pages are up. We kinda just gave up on the myspace page because it’s so hard to get it to load. But the FB page and the Reverb page definitely have taken to a good running start. On Reverb there's a top 75 of whatever city you’re in chart and through the last couple days we've somehow jumped to #17 on the chart. Also we had our first kinda practice with our maybe probably bassist on saturday which went refreshingly well, we all get along which is nice. This week is to be the real test of things, this week will be (as nick refers to it) "Hell Week" for us. Hell week is where we spend the whole week indoors practicing our own songs and perfecting and changing and so on so forth. We have 6 songs that we hope to have finished and about at the point where they’re ready for recording by the end of the week, but to keep from getting overly serious and hating everything at some point in the week we will be making and posting a cover video for you all to watch (details will be released later on). So this week I don’t know how much I'll be keeping updated with things, if any of you have anything you need to let me just go ahead and Facebook me or text me.

Again I have to say thank you all for all the support and for giving us a chance to take a crack at a dream that’s been mine and nicks since we were rather young, words cannot express how thankful we both are. :]

But I guess for now, that'll do it. so
Until later, bye

It's A Long Story

Right After First Nicks Tattoo (Credits to Electric Church Tattoo)

"When it's all said and done will you still love me?"


Dear Everyone,



So when it's all said and done this week has definitely kicked the crap outta me.

I've had probably one of the longest weeks I've had in a long time, I learned a lot though- about myself, about my friends, and about just life in general. On saturday we decided to get a slightly larger group together and try to go for up to haunted hill for round 2 with Jack, the ripper of abq... See the thing is though that when four hills catches on fire the fire dept. arent huge fans of kids running through the hills looking for ghosts so we had to do a rain check on hitting up haunted hill. But! We are basically professional ghost hunters so a slight change in plans couldn’t stop us! Needless to say, we work fast; We grabbed all our gear and headed for old town because we heard it's haunted.

It wasnt the scariest thing that we've done before, but it kept us entertained for the couple hours we wandered around. We took some pictures and got some unexplainable spots in some of the pictures, we heard some noises, and just some plain old creepy things happened like we laid down on the ground where some people are supposedly buried and dez all of a sudden felt like someone kicked her in the back- Ya know, weird stuff like that.

But for the record, we will still be visiting haunted hill at dead hour so do not give up on hearing the crazy hijinks of our ghost hunting actually expect quite the opposite! We are currently planning on either going to haunted hill, the insane asylum, or the santa fe prison this saturday. And yes of course there will be pictures, funny stories and a blog post for it all to fit in.

Also in a nut shell (referring to my life) I beat pokemon white, my Xbox 360 killed my Marvel Vs. Capcom 3, 2 of my favorite bands released new music (Taking Back Sunday and Meg and Dia) so check that out. Also nicks tattoo is itching currently so if any of you run into him in person slap him in the chest :]

and in order to attempt to not let this thing go on forever BAND UPDATE:
Well loyal fans that actually read this thing just for the band updates you will be thrilled to hear that we have made some gargantuan strides in our music. This week was a very hard week for us, You could say we came to a cross road and are rather bad with decisions but never the less from what I can tell we came out on top! We finally made the bands Face Book page, My Space(or because myspace is so cool now "My_____" page), and a page on reverbnation. Saturday we're gonna be having a big band practice day where our possible bassist may be joining us. And tonight we'll be taking some pictures to post on the pages! Also! We finally recorded the 3 covers we promised and they will be posted soon. We were suppose to have them posted today but Satellite Cafe wouldnt let us so we must now find alternate means of uploading them somewhere :] but I promise, they will be posted by the end of saturday at the latest. SO BE EXCITED.... or whatever... :]


Oh and I suppose I should post all the links to all the stuff now huh?
FB- http://www.facebook.com/pages/Secrets-Worth-Keeping/200609703303083
MS- http://myspace.com/565734820
RD- www.reverbnation.com/secretsworthkeeping

But for now, that is all- More to come for sure though so keep checking back
(ps. I have a plan to possibly upload the songs tonight after work! hopes it works)
But for now
Until later, bye

I Never Really Did Think Things Through

I'm convinced the dots around me are ghost orbs.

"I've got a twenty dollar bill that says no-ones ever seen you without make-up, you're always made up."

Dear Everyone,

So last night me, dez, and nick decided that it would be a brilliant idea to go ghost hunting. We went online and looked up local haunted areas, houses, anything that we could go check out so we could get the bajesus sacred outta us. After roughly 30 mins of tirelessly searching for something to scare us we found the legend of abq's very own Jack the Ripper. Allegedly some dude way back in the 1800's used to take prostitutes to his cave in the mountains on the weekends and kill them there and there have been reports of people hearing screaming, bodies being dragged, footsteps, and seeing a lamp being carried down one of the paths (also one site reported people being chased by "Jack" as they refer to him). So needless to say, we had to go check this one out- After a trip to walmart to make pop sickle stick crosses, get us some sea salt and some flashlights we were basically official ghost hunters.

I will admit I'm pretty sure I was the most spooked outta all of us going up there, without explaining background I'll just say I've had my fair share of brushes with ghosts and such.

To make things basic, we spent about 2 hours up there and did receive results surprisingly. Aside from the pictures we took with floating orbs in them we heard body dragging, and a couple other random noises like wheezing and I personally heard footsteps. OH! And all of us on separate occasions saw a lamp go over the top of the hill at the same spot.

Of course, we're all a glutton for punishment sooooo we're planning to go back soon. We'll be scouting it out during the day and next time the changes we'll be making will be the following

- Chris is suppose to be tagging along and i believe we need to bring one other to make it a prime #.

- We'll be going at dead time (3-5)

I'll keep you all updated on our ghost hunting in abq escapades hahah

But aside from all of that stuff I've recently decided that I'm too bitter and stressed for my age. Mainly I'm just a whole buncha stressed but I find myself being bitter more and more often lately, I wish I could control that more in myself. But never the less I am not perfect nor do I think I ever will be, so I'll have to settle for all the messes and stress induced situation I get myself into all the time, and probably use my escape of pokemon to balance them all out :]

But on a new note, I have started doing some of the drawings- expect results probably mid next week because I have so much planned for the next few days. I'm drawing Chelea and Mary currently and I'm doing a special side project with chelsea's picture. I'm also (inspired by birdy) contemplating trying my hand in painting again haha.

And for the people who read this only for this segment, BAND UPDATE:

So we've made a lot of changes recently; Me and nick have decided that we're going to make 2 covers there is talk of a 3rd but it’s not for sure yet but the 2 covers (that we plan, plan being the key word, to record tonight) will both be posted online for the fans to devour and use to crush our dreams and tell us to just give up while we're behind. Also we officially (and nick will probably get mad at me for telling you this) have finished 2 songs and are currently practicing them because we want them to be perfect and comfortable before we record the online post-able versions of them. We have 2 songs we need to finish, each one of us is lacking on one of them. And we have an idea for 2 more songs that we have done our best not to try to start because we need to finish stuff first. Also, I'll talk to nick and if he's ok with it the next time I post it will either be with the names of the songs we're going to be covering or with the covers we're suppose to record today.

Until later, bye