I Am Teeg

Hi everyone,
I am a bit late on this update… I actually have a few posts prepared which have not been published yet, but look for them in the upcoming week. I might combine them, actually. But my current post has to do with a novel I have begun writing, entitled “How To Do Ransom ‘Right’ the First Time.” Here is an excerpt from the introduction that I have written.

Introduction
As I followed his eyes across the ransom note, I thought about how I’d fashioned it from cut-out letters from newsprint: newspapers, magazines, and, for added effect, Hallmark sympathy cards, purchased from that 24-hour convenience store at the corner of 34th and Hillcrest Street. … The purchases were spread out over the past 5 years, even before I knew who my next victim would be. … That is, until about 2 years ago, when I met the Shirls. Ryan, Clinton, and their parents, Nancy and Jacob.
… … … … …
Frankly, it’s never been about the money. It’s more about the art and the thrill of watching a family tear apart. I always pick a family that can, in the long run, handle it. Nobody gets hurt, I get a few extra spending bucks, and frequently, family bonds become a bit stronger. It’s like a glamorous hobby.
I’ve been on several news programs as a call-in, anonymously, of course, … Everyone wants to get a glimpse into the mind of a female ransom artist. It’s far superior to the teenage corner-store robberies, and much more glamorous than the now-cliché white-collar crime. The news stations love it; it’s fairly unusual, so when I pitch it (again, through burn phones), they eat up the opportunity. And I love the publicity.
…You can’t make mistakes during the operation, and you certainly cannot hit the same area twice, nor hit two separate victims too closely in time to one another. Everyone knows that’s when crimes get sloppy, and keeps the cops hotter on your trail. But I’m careful about my publicity. If I wasn’t, do you think I’d be in my right mind to be publishing this book?
Anyway, I’ll outline some rules and tips in the first part of each chapter, and in the second part of each chapter, guide you through the pertinent, finer nuances of this particular (fictional) ransom performance. Obviously, I cannot give specifics on a ransom performance I have actually delivered, since that may partially or fully compromise my identity. Not even my publisher knows whether or not I have even committed a crime. I ask you: have I?
————————————

Hopefully you like the premise. It’ll probably take me quite a while to finish, but … I’ll keep updates posted, and at some point, post a tentative table of contents!

Love as always,
Teeg

So, I wrote another song tonight… took about an hour. It’s about how much I miss my girlfriend, Kelly, over winter break, and if you look inside, you can find out that looking to the future is how I cope with it. That and texting, of course.
I then video-performed it, and it’s up on youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GwFu0TdTDzc

Lyrics below:
There’s a feeling I get when I’m thinking of you
Hoping that maybe you think of me too
and somehow I sense you possibly are
and drawing us nearer in thought and in mind
is this power we draw from all of mankind
Kelly

I long for your touch and I miss you so much
I ache like a tiger with no food for a month
and still keep on living, grasping that hope
that maybe a deer’s at the end of my rope
and it’s barely enough to see and to feel…
you when i close my eyes

There’s a longing I feel when I think of the past
a longing to travel in time
Back to the days when we were together
or forward to days when we are once again
but all i can do is count down the days
till we embrace again.

I seek out the day when I hold you again
I look like a doper looks for his stash
and though he knows that he’s smoked it to res
The Seeker still smokes till he finds some new green
and it’s mem’rees i hold at night when i sleep
all alone

There’s a dream that I know when we reunite
a happiness unknown to all
we run to each other and hug and we kiss
no longer feeling the miss
and I stroke your hair as you grab mine and we’re fine
finally together.

My Christmas present to you all is … well, I decided to read The Night Before Christmas on video. So that’s it. Don’t expect anything else unless you’re close to me.

Video is up on youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0UOmc2_SpN0

Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good night!

Tonight, I had a quite random chat with a person on AIM. They IMmed me, apparently with a “wrong number” … it was interesting though.

(otherperson)
hi (:
eddie right?

tomjoyce89
no, i’m Tom
who is this?
in case i actually do know you
in fact, why the hell would i be eddie if my screen name is tomjoyce89?

(otherperson)
excuse me.
i was off a number…

tomjoyce89
okay
lol
the whole eddie = tomjoyce thing doesn’t quite make sense

(otherperson)
i dont pay attention to the fine line details for this shit

tomjoyce89
lol, okay … have a good night then, m’kay?

(otherperson)
u live in pa

tomjoyce89
yes

…We wound up having like a 30 minute conversation, and it seems I’ve made another internet friend. I love random people.

So, a few nights ago, I had my second Emergency Room experience at Evangelical Hospital. Around 8:30pm, I skateboarded over to Kelly’s room. I went down a hill that I usually do not go down, and picked up speed quickly. Before I knew it, my board got the wobbles, and rather than immediately bailing, I stayed on for another two seconds, picking up more speed. By then, I was still unable to correct the wobbles, and decided to bail. Basic physics tells us that, if I land with my feet still, my body will fly forward. So in mid-air, I began running as fast as I could to keep my feet in motion. However, I could not run fast enough, and upon hitting the ground, bounced back up in the air, this time falling forward, propelling my head towards the asphalt. I decided that I would rather land on my chest than my head, and threw my chest out. I hit the ground with my chest first, knocking the wind out of me for a little bit. My body had enough momentum that I was lying flat and slid forward a good 3 feet, and then rolled onto my head and side. I took about a 90 second break sitting on the curb, grabbed my board, walked a few feet, and got back on, still headed to Kelly’s. As far as pain went, I was just winded.

In fact, when it came time to head back to my dorm building around 10:30, I got back on the skateboard and skated back to North. About an hour after getting back, the pain set in. My lower back felt like something wasn’t right, and my neck began to become more rigid. My upper back also hurt a bit. Now, as far as I was concerned, I could wait till morning to seek medical assistance, but decided to call the Nurse-On-Call for SU, to see if I could schedule an appointment for tomorrow. I described the incident and after a good deal of conversation, we agreed that it would be easiest to get me to the Emergency Room, so that they could check it out there, and I would be essentially free to go to class and do work the following day.

I went to the Emergency Room, around 1am this time, and had no wait. I got full back/spinal x-rays and neck x-rays, both of which had nothing significant on them. I was discharged with “blunt trauma (yeah, I guess asphalt to the chest would be considered not-sharp)” and four vicodins, taking one or two as often as every 4-6 hours. I decided to wait until the pain was worse, which was, as expected, the following morning. I took one that morning, and one in the evening, having woken up feeling as though I was hit by a truck in my upper chest, and my neck ricocheted around the room (of which there was neither; i was outside alone and not in a room).

I had a follow-up scheduled, the second day after the accident, with the school health center, and went, where they checked me out and gave me flexeril, a muscle relaxant, as I was having muscle spasms. So now I’m taking one flexeril and 4 ibuprofens twice a day, for five days.

So, no insults present here (other than the fact that your mom is actually a gypsy from Italy, but that doesn’t count since it’s a fact, not a random insult), so it’s just pain in this issue of my life’s story. (btw, right now, I prefer magazines to books, so it’s an issue of my life’s story, not a chapter of it…although I am enjoying Heart of Darkness)

I don’t have too much else to say… have a great weekend, and stay safe!

At 2AM this morning, I decided to begin filming the first I Am Teeg: Video Edition weblog (or vlog). It’s pretty unpolished and not all that interesting, but hey you gotta start somewhere, right? I talk about black friday a little, and then get tired. Anyway, it’s up on youtube…

I Am Teeg: Video Edition (2009-Nov-29).

Feel free to comment here or on YouTube. I’ll answer questions next episode.

Lyrics for my second song… look for youtube and facebook later this week hopefully.

My Lighthouse
by Tom Joyce

I’m singing you this song again
Cuz I don’t think you heard it right the first time

And I’m singing cause I need you
And I love you
But I don’t know how to make this work

So guide me
And teach me
The things that drive you wild
And crazy
About me
Cuz girl you know
You got me
goin’ crazy
About you.

And I’m singing cause I need you
And I love you
But I don’t know how to make this work

Are you listening?
I’m asking
For you to light my way.
You’re a lighthouse
A TomTom
So G-P-S us through
And show me
Or Turn-By-Turn me
And get me in your arms- tonight.

And I’m singing cause I need you
And I love you
But I don’t know how to make this work
Please get me in your arms- tonight.

Since the opening of Facebook up to the High School community, I have been an avid lover of Facebook, and likewise an avid hater of MySpace. While I still saw MySpace as a good thing for musicians, I felt no attraction toward maintaining my personal profile. In fact, I have not accessed the MySpace web site in years, save for to check a couple friends’ photos who refused to use Facebook. Despite my hatred towards MySpace personal edition, I have decided to create a MySpace for myself as a musician, now that I have written a song. So, my MySpace musican profile can be accessed here: http://www.myspace.com/iamteeg. I still have to record State of mind, and am working on writing a few others…Feel free to friend request me and keep checking for new music!

Here’s a little blurb I put together for a homework assignment regarding racial issues on campus, and the way diversity affects us.

—– —– —– —– —–

Racial problems are present everywhere, around the world. While we do have a diversity council and various groups like the Brotherhood on campus, I am not sure that they are all that effective in eliminating racism. In fact, I would argue that groups that acknowledge a difference between people due to skin colour is promoting racism.
In order to eliminate racism and ethnic prejudice anywhere, the given society/group must together realize that people are all equal in significant matters, and frankly, skin colour should have no place in our mind.
People are people; “black” people are not inherently different from “white” people nor “yellow” people. A gun or a knife hurts everyone just as much, as do hurtful words. A gift or a complement are just as nice to a European or as to an African or as to an Indian.
Yes, there is a “skin color” that is inherited from one’s parents, but there is also eye color or hair color. When has anyone ever said “eww you’re gross, you have blue eyes”? And yes, there are some “inherited” (or at least enhanced/emphasized) traits from “nurture” such as one’s manners or work ethic, but I will tell you that I know lots of “white” kids who work a lot harder than myself (an asian kid), and I know lots of “white” kids who are ruder than “black” kids. (I hate to have to use racial generalizations as a point, but I need to use them to disprove them. Really, I’m saying that skin color is a characteristic by birth just like eye color, and is not at all significant to the way anyone should be treated).
So really, I’m not sure how to help the issue as a college campus or a local community, and much less on a national level, or a worldwide level, but as individuals, we can eliminate our own outward racism. And one day, we may be able to stand together as human beings, rather than as a diverse group. For the instant we call ourselves a diverse group, we call ourselves different, with an implied racial connotation.

Here’s a poem written over about 3 weeks … one stanza per day (although not done every day)… I’d send her a piece of the poem through text messaging.  It’s not my best work, since the flow isn’t perfect and all, and because i suck at life… but I thought it was a fun concept, and in terms of the love put into it, I think it’s pretty good.  It covers approximately 24 hours at Ocean City, NJ …

Poem to Kelly

The sky shimmers with a whitish glow, like the lake of 2am.  The wild ducks quack serenely, if I ever heard such a noise.
I see in the sky, a broken reflection of my life, and I sigh.  Even through ripples, beauty seeps through to my eyes.

She sleeps, silent, calm and peaceful.  Cares fade in twilight, the world but both she and I, and I and she, sleep peacefully.
The stars greet us once again as heaven’s secret sense of time, confess another day gone by.  Clouds miss tonight’s night sky.

Tomorrow grows farther yet, and only now have sleepers set.  Daylight draws from far behind and we’re carelessly moving back in time.
To what we aim, a lack of time, its larger-growing bull’s eye sets the rhyme.  When we’re together, has no bounds, hours pass as seconds drown.

Floating up off the ground, high above this dreamer’s town.  Soaring through the sky dark blue, leaning toward ecstasy, pressed to you.
Looking down at nighttime lights, city sleeps and all’s all right.  The world’s our castle and you’re my queen, together now we silent dream.

I breathe in the cold morning air, refreshed.  I glimpse at the dew on the grass, and the smile that decorates your face, and I think to myself, “this is as close to heaven as I’ll ever get, I’m sure.”
My heart beats with yours, as we lay holding each other.  The waves break below us on the sandy beach, and I feel energized, but calm and stress-free.

The sun rises above the ocean deep green, seagulls clamor over the portable TV.  The dark orange sky shifts to morning, and not a monster could move us, no face give us warning.
Cyclists race the boardwalk, water bottle in hand, while shopkeepers open gates, and kids to the sand.  Still, nothing else matters but our hands in our hands.

The waves get bigger and the sand gets smaller, and surfers cut across the crystal clear water.  Mothers keep sons from going too deep, and piles of sand cover our feet.
The sand between our toes, and the rays of sun on our faces, nothing feels wrong–not a thing out of places.  Tanning and reading, your smile continues gleaming.

I watch the clouds across the sky, white and light, are not threatening.  The sound of the waves lulls us to sleep and we sink deeper in our sandy bed.
Afternoon dreams of krispy kremes and cappuccinno put smiles on our faces, as our hearts drift to happy places.  The angels sing around us in peaceful harmony.

We can see the reflection from the Wonderland pier in the sea; funnel cakes beckon like a lighthouse, “come to me.”  We listen, buy funnel cakes as gulls grab fries for free.
Occupy a bench, scanning, a single ship miles away, your hand on my thigh. My arm around your back, sit synergetic, thoughtless but full of emotion, content in bliss.

Our mouths were locked, hands feeling faces, passion on fire, hearts go in blazes.  Our breath getting shorter, and breathing together, our hearts hit the races.
The lights from the shops went out with the masses, the taste on my tongue-sweet as molasses.  Still on our bench at 11:59, I’d say today was sure a great time.