stumblestoprepeat

gah, i feel like i've barely written anything of value in the past six months. life keeps getting in the way, and by life i mean work because, well, shit, there's not a hell of a lot goin' on between work, weed, and the web. the three Ws. some of the other connections i was trying to foster have begun to slip. it's frustrating.

i had a train dream, again. they share a lot of similarities - the train is usually only one passenger car and a locomotive, the ride is always shockingly fast and takes us quite a long way, and my fellow riders are always people i've known in my life but presented at ages i never saw. schoolteachers as teenagers, school friends as older men and women than i am now. the ride is always enjoyable, scenic, and at the end i'm always in such a hurry i forget my bags. someone grabs my backpack, but the train inevitably pulls away with my camera still on board. "so be it," i think, and i turn to the surrounding wilderness. i usually find myself at some isolated train station in the woods, with mountains and rivers visible around. no roads, no villages, and it isn't long before i've set off in some random direction and forgotten all about my companions.

c'est la vie, c'est la vie, c'est la vie...

deteriorate

rather than deliberate self-destruction, i seem rather set on letting my body go to shit naturally, without doing much to stand in it's way. me being the clumsy type, there've been enough wounds, injuries, and accidents through the years that, without any of them being particularly major (by my standards), their combined effects are starting to make themselves felt, particularly in the winter. hands, knees, teeth, and eyes, all slowly deteriorating. my writing and cooking days are numbered, as are my days of walking miles back and forth across the city to get to work, and i imagine photography won't be as enjoyable when i can barely see...

c'est la vie. all things are temporary, everything withers and dies. this is not meant to be depressing, or defeatist; it's simple truth. perhaps it feels only right to view and interact with a dying world/culture/civilization via a deteriorating medium.

charlatan

i got a new job. a second job, really; in the winter, a guy like me needs to have two part-time jobs, because when the tourists leave town and the snow rolls in, business drops and hours evaporate. this one is different, though; i'm not serving tourists. suddenly, i'm working directly for the upper class.

charlie trotter was a chef, and he started a restaurant in chicago twenty five years ago which got pretty famous. about six years ago, he opened a fine dining take-out and catering store just around the corner. i sent them my resume off a craigslist ad, they had me come in for an interview, then come back for a few hours of on-the-job work - a stint they have a word for which sounds an awful lot like "stoogin'," which is what sticks in my head and makes me giggle. they had me make what amounted to a potato lasagna, and it turned out looking pretty good. good enough for them to hire me.

by midway through day one, it had become apparent to me (if no one else), that they may have made a mistake. perhaps my resume wasn't examined closely enough - maybe they missed that i never went to cooking school, or that the restaurant i work at is on navy pier. by day three, i was in full-on panic mode; little seizing moments of terror in the midst of things that had me thinking run, run... before someone turns a corner and finds you out, realizes you barely have a handle on what's going on around you, discovers you in the middle of cleaning up some coincidental mishap or another and throws you out on the street. having trotter's on the resume could be a huge deal; what if it worked the other way around? what if they called around, told them how much i suck, polaroid of me next to a giant batch of soup, pile of salt sitting on top, salt shaker still held out, extended, open-ended, screw-off top clearly visible just beneath the hill of salt... "DO NOT HIRE" written beneath in sharpie...

i'm getting better, though. serving rich people is easy - for one thing, there's a hell of a lot fewer of them. a busy day there consists of maybe 30, 40 purchases all day. usually it's more like twenty. it's hard to adjust to not making food to order, though; there are a few things i've had to make consistently, but i have a lot of freedom to make what i want. it's almost a crippling amount of freedom, actually; the first time someone looked at me and said, "okay, go back in the cooler, look around, and figure out a cold salad to make," i was a bit intimidated. but i've started nosing out recipes here and there, and i've had a decent set of people around me to help me out in the right directions.

i'm running out of talkin-steam. point being, i'm aware of a rather large vacuum of confidence inside me as i walk in each day, which fades a bit more with each passing hour. if i keep up this act long enough, keep pretending like i know exactly what i'm doing, i might get away with it - wind up with an awesome job, all because i'm awesome.

hurricanes

i think i once told you what i believed, but we both forgot, so, no harm no foul.

there have been some hurricanes in town tonight. one of them was named mike. the other i might name ralph. or, fuck.

tunnels

i was walking the dog through the woods, trusting him without the leash, vaguely exploring the area surrounding a town i thought my true love might be from. i expected to find her there, for sure, not knowing her name or anything seemed trivial.

we came across a series of peculiar foundations stacked atop one another like a pyramid, seven- or eight-foot-tall concrete walls filled in with dirt, overgrown with kudzu. jasper sniffed around the outskirts while i climbed up, found that there really was no visibility added from the height i reached, then began climbing down. when i reached the bottom i found him frantically sniffing about a particular piece of the wall, and when i approached i realized there was a wooden door, barely visible behind the vines. after a few moments of tearing the plantlife away, the old rotting wood swung aside on hinges that could've been oiled earlier that morning, if not replaced altogether.

there were stairs leading down, and as i entered i realized jasper was following along obediently, not leading the way in a frantic snuffling rush as would normally be the case. below, we found it well-lit despite the cracked cement and the occasional centimeter-deep puddles of water slowly being fed by groundwater seeping through the walls. it looked like any other empty basement, except for the tunnel leading out one side of it. we followed it for a long while, eventually coming to another wide-open room, with stairs leading up and other tunnels stretching off in other directions, though this one was clearly inhabited - like any good party basement, there was a bar, a pool table, a few couches, freezer, and a wide-screen television with two very stoned guys playing video games. "hello?" i said.

"hey!" came the response, in an expectant tone with only a touch of the shock i expected. "you're early!" one of them raised a hand and jabbed a thumb towards the bar. "grab a beer, man! snacks and music upstairs, pizza should be here in an hour."

"uh, thanks!" i said, then retrieved a beer. it was unlabelled, dark, and surprisingly delicious. the dog had finished his inspection of the room and climbed the stairs, where he patiently waited for me to come up and open the door for him. i obliged. above was a fairly standard house, with all the promised amenities.

not wanting to linger and have to potentially answer questions that would reveal me as an uninvited explorer, i allowed myself a handful of chips and searched for the front door. when i opened it, i found a group of seven or eight laughing twenty-somethings on the other side, who immediately poured inside without so much as a glance in my direction. the last one through pulled the door closed behind them as they all split up, taking up well-rehearsed positions around the kitchen or just disappearing back downstairs. i heard someone say they were glad these parties had restarted, and somewhere else i gathered that all the houses in town were connected by the tunnels i'd traveled through; why, then, anyone would come through the front door, mystified me.

jasper rejoined me, looking about as confused as i was (though plenty happy to be around new people), and after scratching him behind the ears a minute, i reopened the door. more people poured in. this happened four or five more times, before finally i decided against leaving out the front door at all. i wandered downstairs, where i replaced my empty beer for a full one, and had about decided which direction to leave in when i realized jasper hadn't followed me into the basement.

back upstairs, i found him laying happily on the corner of a couch, surrounded by already-buzzed people loudly cooing and petting him. he looked too happy to move, so i found a bathroom, took care of my business, and returned to find their attention spans depleted, a lone grinning puppy still panting on the couch. i sat down next to him, paying only moderate attention to the still-growing party crowd. i didn't particularly want to be there, though by now i was anonymously concealed by the sheer number of people present. i glanced out the window at the nighttime sky, dominated by a full, beautiful view of the planet earth. i tried to ask someone why exactly we could see earth in the sky, and the only response i could get was, "yeah, it's beautiful, isn't it?"

minutes passed, or days, or hours, and as things began to wind down a bit, a girl came and sat down next to me, dropping into the cushions so heavily that it woke up my napping puppy for just a moment. she looked at me, prismatic eyes glowing beneath a light wave of dirty blonde hair, then began sliding down in her seat until her feet were comfortably stretched out across the coffee table. her eyelids fluttered closed, and her breathing changed pace, and i found myself inexplicably knowing that it had been days since she'd slept. maybe a week. i began considering leaving again, but just then her arms came up, wrapped around my neck and shoulders, and pulled me down to her, eyes still closed. she turned a bit, as i had to, to effectively curl up with me, and i obliged by holding her just as closely, feeling the same unyielding sleep begin to creep up on me. perhaps it had been a week since i had slept, as well. her breath was warm, and her leg soon draped itself over mine.

i am not sure when we started kissing, but i felt i had found what i'd been looking for, and drew over me a comfort i had not felt for years. it covered us both like a blanket, and we were soon asleep.

i awoke at home, alone except for jasper sleeping at my side. when he noticed i was awake, he slapped at my hand with a paw, as if to say, thanks for the adventure. now i need to go pee.

considerations

my dreams have been getting strange. well, they've always been strange. but memorably so. last night, i brought back two main images. one was of our car getting stuck on a tiny island a few dozen yards from shore, hood propped up, occasionally obscured by fog and night but otherwise visible, just out of reach. i considered finding someone with a boat, or raft; i considered waiting for the tide to go out, as surely that's how the car had gotten there in the first place, but as the days passed, the water level stayed constant. i guess i haven't spent enough of my life along shorelines to really hold tidal patterns as an inexhorable constant. the other was a strange interlude involving a woman i identified as a grandmother, some drunken friends, and a strange, very loud engine we'd built.

i regret bailing the way i did yesterday, but sometimes these things just need to be done.

sometimes there just isn't enough silence to fill the day.

professional

oh you would love to devour this
this flame i hold
this light i bear
it keeps me warm
it holds me here
this is no place to call home
at least not of my own

i am not powerful
but i see what i lack
i do not know the way
stuck in a cul de sac
i will not tell you lies
though i never know the truth
i would not strike you down
but when it burns i'll soothe

i missed the final bell
and then they locked me in
i have nothing left but time
and that is getting slim
do not think i am an answer
when your questions lead you here
for if i've learned one thing since i've been lost
it's that even the incapable can thrive
if only they take the wheel
and steer

nevermind

too many birds flew over my capital city; i must surrender.

we never smell quite as good as we think we do,
and our voices never roll as sexily as we think,
but that's never stopped us.

we demand to choose our own finish lines,
we'll never rest until it is time to,
each of us saving one last long distance collect call
to finish dousing old flames
when we feel their heat too strongly from memory.
that's right,
a thousand mile ring
just to say,
"i hate you,
now pay for this call."
careful, now, not to say love by accident.

the morning finds our bodies washed up thirty miles west.
but truly this is no portrait of gloom i wish to paint,
only another strange picture;
the hope, you see, lies in the very act of creating it -
the light in all this rests in the fact
that i cared enough to speak at all.

true despair is silent.
i, conversely, cannot shut up.
never picture me writing without a smile.

nevermind.

motion

beelog

shhh...

machine

hook me up to a great contraption
let it move my hands and listen to my murmur
oil the pieces then leave us alone
we have great, great work to do
these pages will fill themselves
but only if i teach them how

crash

autumn has come
and caught us astray
unfamiliar leaves turning gold
or maybe that's just the fires
burning in every direction
maybe that's just the glow
telling me all is not peaceful
out over the cold horizon

will you miss your crash pad
when the snow has concealed it
will you forget where i stand
when the ice steals your footing
would you write letters home to me
if you knew where i lived
oh you will, and you will, and you wouldn't

thinking

...the true disciple of philosophy is likely to be misunderstood by other men; they do not perceive that he is ever pursuing death and dying; and if this is true, why, having had the desire of death all his life long, should he repine at that which he has always been pursuing and desiring?

i'd argue we are all pursuing death and dying, whether it be via philosophy, addiction, or heedless ambition. some of us just fool ourselves into thinking it's in pursuit of a full and rich life, but what is a full and rich life but a comfortable death without regrets?

revive

i often wonder,
when you are the last one left,
and rebuilding is not an option,
how will you rule your world of dead?

with an iron fist,
crushing all resistance?
or will you be merciful,
easing the plight of the poor?

the dead look to you for guidance

feedback

ooooh, baby,
there are fires we can never walk through together,
and there'll never be an end we can agree on completely;
but the beginnings are just so lovely,
and i've got an itchy trigger finger
when it comes to the reset button.

and oooo, darlin',
i can't promise not to climb so high you cannot follow,
and won't beg a vow not to dig so deep i'm left behind,
we both have demons to run from
but it's nice to be the angel on the shoulder
of the angel on your shoulder.

together we will tend strange wounds

exhale

ive been having a bout of not so much writer's block as writer's apathy. it comes and goes. i expect it to fade shortly.

unfortunately this leaves me more at the mercy of the real world, which has been... frustrating.

it's all sunshine

i find i grow closest
to those most prone
toward walking away;
only able to connect
with a set of legs
already set on leaving.
fall in love with this hurricane,
but do it quickly, now,
she'll be clouds over iowa soon -
passing curiosity for bored hicks,
not the fully-formed beauty she was,
raging through the major cities of her youth.

and that's all fine,
i'll take a hundred cyclones in stride,
and treasure all the long summer showers too,
and when winter comes
and i'm buried in snow
i'll bitch, but try to enjoy that as well.

just don't be surprised
when my policy of top speed every day
leaves me half-dead on your doorstep

but it's all sunshine with me, darlin'

worst case scenario

earthquakes and hurricanes and volcanoes, oh my!

names

so, what's up with people randomly changing their facebook names recently? premature midlife crises, or did they just now learn that you can change your name to anything you want (as long as it isn't lucifer)? i'm not talking about nicknames, i'm talking about someone who is not a newlywed just having a completely different last name. i have to go looking at our mutual friends to figure out who the fuck this apparently random person is, showing up and being all up in mah shee-it.

i've also found myself randomly friended to a few groups which i did not click a 'like' button for. i'm not sure how this has occured, that MMAFan.com and the Cowboy Lifestyle Network (i shit you not) have both wormed their way into my newsfeed. perhaps it is related to the strange phenomenon of all my black friends being constantly tagged in pictures of fly-ass sneakers. i don't get it. i don't get it. i unfriended both of them.

i considered that maybe someone got my password, so i changed it to something i haven't used since i was 8. then i immediately changed it again to something completely different. take that, phantom hacker.

stigmata

i've got some pretty serious jesus marks goin' right now, courtesy of road construction on north avenue. the bike is fine. my palms are not. but what's a little nerve damage, between friends? or, 'friends'? or, paychecks?

one thing

i would just like to say...

different

riots in london. looks like 'maybe rising tides' might just come true. i asked myself, "what's this story called?", and after a moment, replied, "maybe rising tides." so that's what i saved the txt file as. i originally shared it as 'rising tides', but realized today that i've still been referring to it as 'maybe' in my head. so i just now ran around and changed it all, because i like 'maybe' more.

tumblr

i started a tumblr today. i am quite fond of how it handles pictures, so it will be a companion blog to this one. you can find it here.

i have already put up a decent batch of my photos, and have in the process discovered just how much of my own catalogue of photos is missing. i need to keep better track of this kind of thing.

you've got some nerve having hope in this ghost town port of call

there is nothing to see here, and that nothing looks back at us.

friday 7 hrs work, 2 hrs asleep, sat 10 hrs work, 5 hrs sleep, sunday 9 hours work. got home at 10ish. well, 11:30 i get a call, suddenly Mxxxxx is on her way over from the last night of lollapalooza. by this point i barely had the energy to walk, emergency energy reserves mostly tapped out by the weekend; i'm down to about 10%. okay. shower. i need a bedroom. Sxxxx is at work, but is due back around 1am.

she arrives looking like a complete mess. she's been drinking for two or three weeks straight, caught in both torrential downpours that happened yesterday, clothes all soaked, legs and feet bruised all to hell. she wraps herself around me the moment i open the door, and it's full minutes before we even make it upstairs into the apartment.

we curl up in his room, she tells me all about how she made fake death from above 1979 band passes, eventually just reverting to quietly laying in each others' arms. some time passes, during which i can't relax because i know we're going to have to vacate the bedroom soon enough. she's kissing my neck and all i can think about is the day i bought us rum and laid on the beach waiting for her only for her to call and say she's not coming, or fourth of july weekend when i told her she was all i had to look forward to and then she left town without a word to me, or when i did my reading and she said the night before that she'd swing by because she was going to be in the neighborhood all day anyway, and didn't.

she reads my mind, says, "i'm sorry if you hate me." the kissing stops, the arms wrap around me tighter.

"it happens," i reply, and hold her close. my shoulder starts getting wet. it's five minutes before Sxxxx comes home. she gets up, wipes her eyes, grabs her beer. i can still hear noise from the living room. "okay," i say; "i think i have a solution to this problem. go have a sit for a minute or two." she does, and i proceed to drag the mattress onto the back porch after throwing down some folded up cardboard boxes to keep things dry. it's warm, humid, mid-80s, reminds me of getting off the plane in florida close to midnight. the clouds are moving the wrong way. i retrieve her from the living room, where she's trying to talk to people who aren't particularly interested in talking back. she's hammered.

we retreat to the porch, which is surprisingly comfortable. her leg is resting across my lap, her fingers exploring my stomach. then fucking Sxxxx comes out, first to share a spliff, then winds up staying for a solid hour to tell us a small mountain of stories which i've heard before. she hasn't, shows interest, makes it worse. he won't shut up. or leave. my fucking god, was it not obvious when i pulled the mattress out to the porch that i was looking for fucking privacy? the one god-damned thing i'm guarenteed not to have in the house? instead i get regaled by the same stories about pierced dicks that i've been listening to for a year.

finally he leaves. she's exhausted. so am i, but i find the energy to give her a massage anyway. it's not the longest one i've ever given. she tries to give me one back, but i'm so tired my back is sensitive as hell. every touch tickles, makes my muscles spasm, seize, lock up. at one point i tense up so badly that i briefly pop a rib out of place. she stops before i have an aneurism.

sleep was surprisingly comfortable. i drifted awake to find her fingers unconsciously playing with my hair, then dropped back to sleep. the temperature stayed relaxed until the sun started coming up; by 9am we were both sweating, uncomfortable. i drag the mattress back inside, onto the couch i sleep on normally. of course, no sooner do we lay down than the rest of the house wakes up. the last of the house's weed gets smoked without me. she laments her apparently rain-destroyed phone, wanders youtube a while on my computer until, predictably, it overheats and dies. then she leaves, promising to be back later this week.

"so, see you in three months, right?" i reply.

she laughs. "yeah, probably more like ten."

"so next june?"

"maybe not 'til next lollapalooza."

i hold her until i can't anymore, and then she's gone.

expected

she wanted a nice planet to orbit from a distance, no crash landing;
if our relationship were a war, there would be no casualties.
if it were a friendly neighbor, his house would have no roof.

he wanted to find the perfect note to go out on, pen and gun in hands;
mother nature will make suicide cases of us all, i said,
just wait and see. and then i said goodnight and left.

there was a lot of quiet, and for the most part nobody bothered me.
i talked to five strangers on the busride home,
and brought one old friend back into the stew.

i am often surprised to find things not exactly the way i expected them.

love

i believe i will give you one more chance to make me fall in love with you, as awful an idea as it sounds. i've been advised against the whole scenario quite heavily, but i guess i'm hoping to be forgiven. it's hard to walk away from a decent thing, just to go back to no thing at all.

i hear that i have not left you in a better place than when i found you, and that to continue it might just further ruin us both. this is par for the course for me, apparently. my attempts to help people often leave them far worse off than if i'd kept to myself. or so i'm told. half of me believes it. the other half still believes i'm a god-damned angel sent here to do a few decades of good before returning to the source. and in the middle, the observer, decision-maker, i do not know if there are angels, or devils, or a source, or a point. i simply keep deciding to breathe, often at moments when i have not done so for a while.

fireworks

someone somehow convinced me at one point to stick around and watch the fireworks. i wanted to leave, quite badly, but somehow something got through. i wanted to leave. i still want to leave. but apparently i made a promise to stay put and see the show. so here i am, upright and breathing still, not so much leaving my own mark as influencing the so many marks being made around me. oh, who am i kidding, i am leaving a mark, i am leaving a blazing trail of destruction. fire and fury, all the way back to my parents' doorstep, framed and hung on their walls and scattered about the garages and storage lockers of my youth, the bedrooms, the yards, the schools, ad nauseum.

i believe it is no well of strength that keeps me alive, but a forgotten promise. i refuse to call it a curse.

we are okay, because we have been raised to believe we are okay.

quiet

that man has a problem
that i know how to handle
all's i'll need is a gun
and a quiet place

(quiet...)





(...broken:)
can't you smell that i'm drained
that there's so little remaining
i've tripled my age in three scant years
silently for your cause but not martyred for it
now it's my bloody new year's
and my bloody easter sunday too
all loveless, shallow looming touches
and occasional cold warnings for strangers -
look not to the past for insight to this madness,
but forward, to all possible futures,
and also sideways, to all the could-be-happenings
and almost-happeneds
and might've-beens.

the problem is me,
though it never used to be.

(headphones.)
(quiet.)

amok

july has, apparently run amok. "look to the sky!" i laughed, pointing southwest. "do you see?" nobody saw, because some could not see and some did not need to - they knew. blue, blue skies, blue skies and thunderstorms, grave digging and home surgery. no potential energy, just kinetic, decelerating to sleep. im sitting on the porch more, smoking more, more heavily. the years weigh on me, and my legs are paying the price. but i'm fighting for grins, struggling to laugh, even if it wears me out faster.

this is sinbad's house. and you my bitch.

smiles

i walked through the fire
to the tune of a beloved hound
compassion and indifference
harmonizing well today
ignore the aches and pains
and get me more ingredients
the recipe is not complete
nor will it ever be -
an infinite number of cooks
and an infinite pot of soup
i think i can still make it good.

yeah, i can hear you talking,
the snide comments
you lack the bravery to breathe
in front of their intended targets
that's okay, i do the same,
to you, and others; myself, mostly
too in love with your passive aggression,
you built a hill of stones to stand on
but just keep throwing them at us
when our backs are turned -
your stack is growing short, friend.

i thought things would be different
when the flames grew high in the west
but apparently we'll all just
work through the apocalypse,
and the end will find us
hunched over computer desks
stoves cash registers and dashboards,
as we all die tired, lonely, far from home.

but, smiles.
here is a new day,
and the morning looks bright.

or not

sometimes sleep is neither oblivious nor peaceful.

real talk

seriously, dude? i don't even fuckin' know anymore.

sleep is oblivion, blissful, goodbye for now.

xodarap

i'm a hunter who prefers the city.
i'm a liar who prefers an honest life.
i'm an addict who prefers sobriety.
i'm a rager with a head full of peace.

i can't win.

night has fallen, so the storms have returned...

adjusting

watched the adjustment bureau this afternoon. damn good movie. believe too much of it. doesn't hurt the love interest is named elyse.

im turning into my dad more and more. sometimes i hear his voice coming out of my mouth. it's creepy.

addendum: the movie's using a framework i like to tell a different version an old story of mine could have turned out. could still turn out. though i'm not going to be the president.

wow

mind officially blown:

watching a thing about the balkans. they're talking about birds, showing how different birds nest in the same areas. then, there we have the black crowned night heron.

i took this picture of a black crowned night heron in golden gate park a few years ago:


apparently these birds are all over the damn world. here i thought i had a stalker from the balkans. thing was freakin' huge, though; when i was approaching it carefully, keeping it calm seemed important for the shot and for my life. it could've taken an eye then come back for the other one, then come back some more for my companion's eyes.

sigh

no, girl, you kinda failed tonight by not showing up. i said, "it'd be nice to have a friendly face in the crowd," especially since you were gonna be in the neighborhood all day anyway. i wasn't looking for just a piece of ass tonight, i wanted a companion. you can't call me after it's over just because you need a place to crash.

i need to go to sleep. i'm kinda irritated about this.

ps: spectacular! it appears this is the first post entitled 'sigh' i've put in here. coming up with original one-word titles for each entry is bound to push the limits of my vocabulary... in a year or two, ha!

storytime

i did my reading tonight. it wasn't really a reading.

a while back i started writing a new story, specifically for this run. i got 2/3 through and was called away by life. when i came back to it, i wasn't particularly impressed with what i saw. so i sat on it, being mostly tied up by work all week. at some point i decided to read a finished story ('maybe rising tides', or possibly 'rising tides', i don't remember what form it reached here in), and spent most of the afternoon looking it over and tweaking it.

it was at around 6:00pm that i realized my thumb hurt too much to write it out longhand for the reading, as had been my plan, and i had no time to go anywhere to print it out. i considered using a laptop on stage, but then i would just be reading from a computer. (the others were reading from paper, or in one case a cell phone, so a laptop wouldn't have been particularly out of place - i might use this in a while.) so i decided to wing it. after another minute of looking through 'maybe rising tides', i realized i'd likely get too hung up on trying to remember the exact wording of it. so i said, fuck it, go with a half-written story and wing the whole things. so i told the spectrum story.

i stumbled a bit at the end. i felt good about it, though, as a 'closing act' or 'headliner', which i didn't particularly expect.

i also pulled a piece of dried noodle out of my finger today. i'm a good surgeon.

i should've bought food on the way home. no matter.

quote

our new manager came in at about 3 today. i was due in at noon, but overslept, waking up at about 11:45. wake up roommate get ready etc, i walked in at 12:30. which isn't bad. general manager ambushed me in the cooler with a tirade about my temper, which is wildly hypocritical, a fact she brought up the last time she yelled at me about this - amy's 29, and fucking gorgeous, little 5'6" bundle of italian spitfire authority. it's come to my attention that my store is essentially run by kids, as the gm is 29, the next down is 28, new girl is 26... bringing us back around to the new girl, who came in during the one lull of an insanely busy day. as she's prepping paperwork and checking the line, she comes across me, cutting chicken, looking (i imagine) rather downtrodden, and possibly beaten.

i say, "i'm gonna tell you this now, before we get into the rest of the night. i'm not in a bad mood," as she was probably afraid of, "and i'm not gonna be; i have a hurt thumb, my hip is locking up, my other knee is going from supporting the extra weight, my stomach's bothering me, and i'm really trying not to talk about it because to me it all sounds like 'bitch bitch bitch, i don't wanna work today.' and that's not the case; i just want to work, keep to myself, and go enjoy my day off tomorrow." she sorta smiled, and with the words, "okay... thanks," i could feel a lot of unspoken relief. "but really," i added at the end, as i walked past her to go back to what id been doing, "it sounded like, 'bitch bitch bitch, i don't wanna work today,' right? because that's still how it sounds to me."

she laughed, and we moved on with our day, and i worked my ass off for nearly ten solid hours. my legs hurt, and i keep forgetting not to use my thumb to hit the space bar (which hurts every time), and i should probably eat something, but for now, the computer and this weed are enough. sometimes i wish there were a lover beside me, but for those times i have cigarettes, which is why i am always smoking. like right now.

oh, they're over there. i'm not moving.

i hear amy winehouse died today. imagine that.

dang

my thumb hurts. im not typing with it, which is weird. i might have to get it looked at tomorrow, though i work 12-10. im off sunday; if i wake up and it aint bad, i might try to wait. i want it to clear up, though. dammit.

storming. s'nice.

godspeed

this hurts.

i can see the storm rolling past to the north of us. i can even hear it, on occasion, roaring in over gy!be. here's what we've been doing this morning:



godspeed has definitely accompanied me through some low points, but f#a#oo specifically drags my memory back to late november/early december 2006, racine, laying in a room and feeling the cold outside seep in through the ill-insulated window in my bedroom, really a closet, a closet they emptied and we painted (shoddily) in an effort to make me a place to call mine. it was a deep blue, walls and ceiling. i used it exclusively to sleep, or to lie there. i think my clothes were there. for some reason i recall there being wine, cheap red wine, though i had no job and little money and this seems unlikely.

elyse had just called off the wedding. my first acid experience, and the wild charge into chicago that followed it, wouldn't happen for weeks. soon i would buy my first pack of non-clove cigarettes - a pack of winstons i would ultimately give half of away - on a solitary drive back to my parents' house in the country for christmas, a trip that ultimately felt like running home with my tail between my legs, spurned by the woman i would have (and had) thrown away everything for. school, job (two jobs, really), friends, girlfriend, family - one night, before she called it quits, i mentioned how much i was looking forward to christmases, to the two of us alternating which family we spent the holiday with, or the day when we'd be able to bring both families to us. she said she's always want to spend the holidays with her parents, and i said, okay. that's fine.

ready to give up my family. damn. that's one of those things i consider when i look back and realize that, really, we weren't ready for marriage. but i am eternally impatient; if i hadn't asked for her hand that summer, it would've been the next, or the next, or some despondent winter inbetween.

it's raining. pouring, really. the temp dropped to like 70. left the windows open, wind isn't too bad, cool air feels good.

i used to have a livejournal. it fills in some of the gaps in the earlier years, and there's some interesting photography and bits of writing mixed in there. you can see it by clicking here. much like this blog, it went mostly unread. much like this blog, that didn't stop me. granted, much of it was directed at elyse, since she was one of the only other people i knew with a livejournal, and while i've moved on from a lot of that pain i guess it's still interesting from a historical standpoint.

she messaged me a few months ago, when i should've been breaking up with the 19 year old i wasn't really dating, wasn't really in love with, certainly wasn't fucking. we traded one or two e-mails, then she said her computer was shot and i got a lot of radio silence after that. since then, there hasn't been so much a breaking-up as a general-stopping. radio silence still. perhaps i will say something this morning.

people seem to like waking up and immediately talking to/at me for long stretches. they do the same thing right after i wake up. is my purpose in life to be spoken to? sometimes it feels that way. i've played shrink to all manner of friends and coworkers throughout the years, heard too many secrets, diffused plenty of tempers, chilled all kinds of disputes and spats. i am the duct which allows you to vent.

and so on.

emo

i have become quite lonely of late.

i mean, i've always felt somewhat lonely, but it's been more intense recently. it grabbed hold of me near the end of my work shift tonight and would not be shaken. still won't be. aimless searching through craigslist, frustration at the new facebook chat setup, solitary smoking on the back porch watching a somewhat past-it's-prime lightning storm fade to the east and north-east. chicago misses the rain; it pours to the north and south. i have seen this before, recently and not-so-recently.

tomorrow, the heat wave breaks a bit, and a bit more the next day. there is a fascinating trail of storms stretching from baja california to chicago, a straight southwest->northeast line across the country. there are large pulses moving up the line; they do not flow, rather grow and fade in one place before reappearing further along, growing and fading, growing and fading. the string remains unbroken until chicago, where the line breaks, sending one small cell northeast and another due east.

there is quite a pattern being drawn here.

subterfuge

i ran into today with a host of mental tricks up my sleeve for staying chill and just dealing with the day. i had to use some of them. not all.

it's... too damn hot.

is this what we have to look forward to, from now on?

we slept through our trials and made fun of the aftermaths

we fail our final exams but walk into the next grade anyway come fall

we will remember that in 2011 the sun sterilized the streets

we cannot regret our worst decisions once karma has taken its full toll





we will never forget the things that made us forget

vision

i can see again. it's fantastic. apparently my eyes have barely changed in three years, and i hit 100% accuracy on their little glaucoma/cataracts/stroke/diabetes/etc peripheral vision exam. i thought i had some false positives, which i said to the eye doctor (the real one, not the one who gave me the exam), and he just said, nope, 100% accuracy. to me, that means that there are problem spots starting to develop, just not so far along to make them completely invisible.

/pessimism

i can see again. it's fantastic.

another

i'm clearly feeling restless, and dualistic. maybe it's the one good eye. bring me the disco king...

in the back of my head i hear the screamed word "stop", often, loudly, sometimes repeatedly. it could refer to the actions of others, the actions of me, the summer, the winter, my general lifestyle, or the direction of the entire world. it is insistent.

it is also often ignored.

names

i've heard that people with similar names will share certain characteristics, or tendancies. similarities. for instance, i've never met a quinn i could stand. they irritate the shit out of me. it's nothing against anyone named quinn; they've just all got that little something extra that makes my blood boil. people named chris seem to be a little off the wall. you know how you look at someone and you hear their name and you're like, "yeah, you look like a _____"? now we're on the same page.

suppose you were born with a given name, but from an early age you went by a different one, the same different one, from then on out. suppose you developed in ways that made you look and act like the qualities of the name you went by.

what happens to the real person? the name unused, the name that should have been? it goes on developing in the background, i think, coming to the surface in fits and starts, in moments of extreme emotion, feeding ideas and notions unhindered into that back of your mind. it's not so much a split personality, where one takes over entirely while the other "goes to sleep", more of a dual personality, with a main force as well as a 'path less traveled'. everything you push away and try to forget gets fed to it, creating a sort of stunted mutant siamese twin attached to a much hungrier, healthier, and popular counterpart.

that might be going on in my head, if any of it's true. it'd explain some things. i'm trying to find ways to reconcile the two, to allow the background one to come forward in settings where he won't immediately get furious - because that's where he seems to get the most time, high-stress situations where the "face" either doesn't want to deal, or can't deal, or is just too tired and exhausted to resist.

or maybe i'm just trying to over-dramatize my own life. we all want to believe we're special, unique, like we have something totally new to offer the world, like the stupid shit going on in our lives hasn't been experienced in some way shape or form by uncountable people throughout history. there's nothing new, everything's been done, and you can put that on my tombstone, when my pair of personalities are finished running my poor weak physical body into the fucking ground. if there's an afterlife, god help it; my first words in heaven, hell, or wherever, will be: "The party just got weird, folks." i will try to deliver, because while there is nothing new, there are always new ways to put together old things.

but at least i have perhaps put a name to my muse.

<3

broken people

we're all a little broken.

my left contact got torn, and i can't replace it until monday, because i get paid on monday. i might actually have to wait until tuesday, because i start work at 4 monday afternoon. tuesday i'm off. i'm also trying to get the cool people i work with together to get drunk with the irish on tuesday, but that's a different story.

one of our dishwashers missed work today because his new medication (for his two new ulcers) is making him shit constantly. one of my prep cooks didn't miss work today, despite his five ulcers, bad ankles, and occasional heart murmur. one of my waiters is blind in one eye, and has barely missed a day of work in the four months he's been there. one of my pantry cooks is a princess bitch and won't quit no matter how hard we all pray for it. one of my pasta cooks is 30, and has two kids.

and my roommate, who has no job, can't be bothered to do the dishes unless it's his turn, and won't keep the house clean (thus our current fruit fly / ant situation), and won't cook dinner when the other two of us work all night, and won't take the dog out in the morning or at night until his barking has woken me up.

there is also one more roommate, who has recently fallen off the wagon, who works long days doing very little, who shows up late at night or not at all but pays his rent and buys food for the dog. thus we are four people, in a three bedroom apartment, which is why i sleep in the "living room" (indistinguishable from the actual living room just next door, separated by nothing at all) now. i wake up angry almost every day due to this fact, this fact which has me awake right now, actually, despite the fact that it is 3am and i have to be back at work at noon. instead here i sit, as they watch and loudly comment on some shitty saturday morning cartoon they've been watching off netflix for four or five days straight. at least it's not all those other shitty saturday morning cartoons they've watched the full runs of on netflix.

i might need privacy more than sleep at this point. sometimes i would like to say fuck off and leave me alone to everyone at once, with an exemption for a woman who could love me at least as much as i love her.

c'est la vie.

just over a week until my reading, and while i'm almost finished with the story about the two who fall in love then have a kid after their foresight reveals that the world is about to end, i'm losing interest in it. rapidly. it feels trite, i don't know why. it's too simple? i don't know. i'm probably going to read it anyway, though i've had a daydream or two of getting halfway through, just telling the rest of the story to the audience freestyle, then spending some time discussing the 'none of my fantasies come true' bit and leave them thinking i'm some sort of delusional madman convinced he's saving the world by constantly envisioning the worst.

it'd make em come back for more, i think.

one more time

"i wish you hadn't disappeared from my life."
thats pretty accurate for a couple of people.
but only pretty accurate,
because they all haunt my dreams.
my subconscious only thinks about
the people who aren't there,
who can't be there,
who wouldn't.
it thinks about,
what if they could be there,
or if they would,
how nothing would change,
i'd be just as distant
and absent
nonetheless.
i think i want someone
who can accept my physical presence
knowing that "you're not always
going to get me mentally,
but i need you here
when i get back."
i'll never sleep again,
i cried,
upon waking,
every day.

forty

POST FORTY. i think i have more posts than pageviews. i am the new internet underground, and if anyone joins me it'd be ruined. i don't think i'd mind.

i said, i kinda wish you hadn't disappeared from my life. there hasn't been a response. it's true, and worded as accurately as i could muster. 'kinda wish', because as much as i miss her, she was never really here, and i'm smart enough to recognize an initial problem like that as a definite long-term red flag. i want to give her the freedom she needs, i'm trying to, but occasionally i can't help it. i'll always reach out from time to time, and if you happen to be reading this, "natalie", i'd like to apologize in advance. you'll never be truly rid of me, if that was even your intention. it probably wasn't.

so how to drive this lingering flame from my head? i lightly reached out to one long-time crush, considering being a little less subtle. accidentally saw the bus ticket confirmation for the trip i was supposed to take to toronto in feb, spent a while kicking myself over that. (it didn't happen because my house got robbed, including our whole month's rent, so all at once i couldn't afford to miss a week of work. fucking fate.) spent an hour this morning fantasizing about elyse coming to chicago, how she'd call me and ask if we could meet up, how i'd say only if you're alone, how she'd say that she wouldn't be, how i'd say, well, maybe you guys could just come see me at work. and then they'd come, and see me through the window which lets customers see us cooking on the line, and she'd knock on the glass and wave, and i'd look up, and my heart would stop, and then when her boyfriend walked into the frame it'd break, but i'd have to go out there and small talk anyway, and i'd put on the mask for a while until she left then go out back for a cigarette and either keep myself from crying or just sit there and cry.

sometimes i hate my personal fantasies. they're too realistic. for a long time, it seemed like any fantasy i fleshed out too specifically became guaranteed to never happen, no matter how sure a thing it might seem. i still think that, sometimes. it hurts. my dreams literally never come true. i was okay with this back when i first noticed it, when i was a child, and couldn't imagine wanting anything to happen other than whatever it is that happens. all my make-believe was wild and fantastic anyway, and it didn't matter if none of it came true, because it was all pretty impossible anyway. a lot of it, i didn't want to come true. i still hold on to a little piece of that, which might be why i write so many stories about the end of the world. if i imagine it, if i write about it, if i sketch it out all detailed and perfect... it won't happen. it won't come true.

it's like i can tell you the future, but only if you listen to all the things i say will happen, and figure out what i didn't say. because that will be what actually happens.

i should've stayed in the realm of fiction. no, i mean, literally, i should've remained a fictional character in a fictional land full of fictional beasts and fictional conflicts. i should never have become non-fiction. your 'real world' fucking sucks. (i think this was a message from my muse.)

whitewashed

i let slip a wisp of dream today,
pulled free and observed but a moment
when the wind whisked it from my fingers,
fluttered straight into the canyon,
crashing down, a million tons in the water.
a thousand feet below the river leapt up
to wash pure my face, never to fall back,
so it was my tears that refilled the river.

the silt was still damp
when my grief restored the river rushing,
no singular agony or specifiable torment
but a lifetime of repressed catastrophe
no longer doped clean by poppy sounds
and all the whitewashed propaganda
conjured up by a threatened ego.

this summer snowfall
was not the blanket i requested.

decisions

overall, really, i'd just like to say, i would've chosen life.

you just made it so damn boring here.

so it goes.

traditionology

as in, the study of traditions.

its important to keep track of the things we create rituals out of. they're the things that define us, not just as individuals but as a species. we all share rituals, whether it's church or driving or sex or sports events or sunday blunts, and it's the consequences of the rituals - the traditions - that reflect in our overall impact on the world. it's not what you're doing on your own; it's what you're doing that everyone else out there is doing too. the driving ritual is helping to destroy the environment. the sex ritual is leading to overpopulation, though it so happens the destroyed environment (and thus the driving ritual) is helping cure that. in a sense.

traditions are hard to change, or break. just watch fiddler on the roof.

if you google traditionology, you only get things related to me until page three, at which point you get into some other stuff. i hadn't seen it until just now. end result, i'm not as creative as i thought i was. dammit.

a true story

when i was five i had a dream. i say five, but i don't know how old i was; just that i was young. it was the last real nightmare i ever had; i'm fairly certain i've never woken up screaming like that ever since. few dreams since have compared in terms of sheer realism.

i was at a concert. i remember saying it was a led zeppelin concert; i didn't have much else to go on, though. music was still kinda new to me. anyway. the music was loud, until it ended. everything was dark, and all the people were gone, but i heard a noise behind me. i turned, and it was a demon (looking, i've since realized, much like this, a picture i didn't see until at least four or five years later). it said something, and breathed fire, and for a moment, i was the fire.

that wasn't the part that woke me up. as the fire faded, i found myself in a field. there were trees, and birds, and the sun was as warm as the wind was cool. it was pleasant, but soon i noticed the color draining from everything. as it all went black and white, black cracks slowly began to spread across the image - imposed over land and sky alike - until the whole scene shattered. when there was nothing left, that's when i woke up screaming.

i've come to find it paints a pretty good picture of the world since i was born. rock concert, hellfire, and then nature goes grey and the world dies. dang.

those last three links are from chile this week. they're not color altered. that's ash.

today

today i wanted to punch a girl in the face. today i wanted to ask my best friend to move the fuck out. today i found out that more people think i have a temper problem than i'd previously been aware of. somewhere in the back of my head, i'm starting to take notice.

dammit.

livin' the dream

i only use that term in the most ironic of ways. for instance, while carting immense trash cans down the street along navy pier, in the rain, with cars honking at you to move faster. that didn't happen today. today was its own monster. fuck it though. i just have to survive a minute longer, then see a girl on thursday. im gonna be broke for two weeks, because we got paid so close to rent, and barely had enough to cover it. food stamps are awol too, until the reapplication moves through the city sewer far enough to spark some action. mid-july we'll be golden, but until then... yech. i want to fast-forward.

thursday. thursday the next day off, when i should be sleeping and relaxing when instead i'll probably be slumming with a girl who i... probably won't sleep with. upside i won't have money to drink, so it's still on the table. i'm sure the world will get in the way somehow.

so be it.

oof.

exhausted. got out a page of the spectrum story. i might go both ways; the spectrum becomes a religion, and also slowly fogs the world so everyone ends up blind. so there you go; i ruined the end for you, and i haven't even written it yet. that's what you get for... whatever. i don't know. how dare you.

kids

i had another idea.

two people have the ability to make out the future, in their own unique ways. they meet, fall in love, and are soon wed. after their marriage, they each begin receiving bits, facets, moments that tell them that the apocalypse is nigh. they give it 25, maybe 30 years. soon, they begin hearing similar things from the few other honest prognosticators they know.

they have a kid anyway. the kid is raised with the knowledge that the world will end, abruptly and with great fanfare, around his 28th birthday. he is home schooled early in life, taught not only of the imminent apocalypse but of how important it is not to let on that you know, or really even to bring it up at all. sort of the last remaining conversational taboo.

eventually he goes off into the wild. he grows up, moves out, lives like he's homeless. why bother? only a few years left now. he finds a lot of other people who, oblivious (or expectant without really knowing), act the same anyway.

and then the world ends.

it's important that the story begin with 'once upon a time'.

spectrum

dammit, and here's another one.

have you heard of the wireless space problem? there's a spectrum of airspace through which all kinds of things travel - tv, radio, internet - and the amount of space set aside for wireless internet has become way inadequate as smartphones and ipods and laptops have come to power. microsoft is looking for more space, and turning to the white space set aside between analog tv channels to keep old stations from interfering with each other.

that's all the real stuff. the story involves a religion based on the spectrum, and its possible sentience. i had an idea related to the eventual need to tap into the visible spectrum in order to transmit all the crap we feel the need to put on the internet (see this, this, and this (that's what's called a meta-joke)), that we'd start seeing wisps of internet followed by eventual eternal fog... yeah, there's a story buried in here somewhere.

what's that make? four stories now? five? someone loan me a cottage in the woods for two months, so i can go away with a smile and come back with a smile, a beard, and a stack of books for the world.

muse

also, mental note to self here, i gotta remember to write my muse's biography. she's been getting pretty insistent about it lately, what with her claim of contact with/influence over the likes of vonnegut, rushdie, f scott fitzgerald, etcetera. she says it's been an achronistic life, that she's pretty young right now and won't be rubbing shoulders with the greats until she's much older and wiser, and wants me to pay particular attention to how strange it must be/is to know your future yet be unable to access that level of talent aside from through my own occasional contact with her future projects. she's a bit temporally confused; i've caught her calling me by other names (men's and women's names alike), caught her beginning stories with me in the middle ("oh, sorry, i thought we'd already discussed and started this one"), caught her insisting on an idea's greatness only for us to later realize, together, that she's already covered that ground with someone else.

she also claims to have had a hand in the creation of some of the world's more elaborate true stories, but i haven't gotten details on that yet.

i need a month to myself in the woods to get all this out of my system...

another idea for me

we've been writing and thinking a lot about what would happen if robots took over the world. but what if we created something else that could take over the world?

working on wording - see this, as well as post-mortem auctions of MJ's thriller outfit, tom landry's hat, etc. but the notion is that it is the future, and modern society believes that once we die our ghosts linger amongst our most cherished possessions, and that to honor the memory of those ghosts, those in close proximity to those items are obligated to live according to the ideas and morals of the dead. so if you walk into a club and a guy there is wearing the thriller jacket, you are expected to join in when inevitably he starts the zombie dance, even if you don't know the steps.

it sounds like a commentary on materialism, materialism interwoven (by time and human weirdness) with spiritualism. i guess.

i don't know what'll grow out of these seeds. i'll be as interested to watch them grow as you.

gap

here's the pitch, the whole thing condensed into storytime for children in the future. there may be discrepencies, and it just sorta trails off at the end, but that is because i wrote it very, very late at night, while very high. i could barely see the screen by the end, and when i went back to read it the next morning, i was amazed that it wasn't pure gibberish.

it's called 'maybe rising tides', and you can read it by clicking here.

now, here's the research material, gathered both before and since writing that. my research material, as you can see, is about half pictures, one quarter news, and one quarter adventure. plus music.

Piece about the tiny island of Nauru
Piece about island nations worried about rising water levels
Photo essay about a Mexican ghost town
Photo essay about extreme weather in the past year
Indie journalist recounts Vancouver riots, with pictures
Wiki entry for the album 'At The Soundless Dawn', by Red Sparowes
Youtube link for the first song off said album

so go ahead and check all that shit out, and come back in a month or four to see how it distills... though i've got some other shit on backburner that might happen first.

related note: i've been asked to do a reading at the Liquid Burning of Apocalyptic Bard Letters sometime in july. i was actually asked to do it for june, but with only a few days notice i couldn't get off work. i might do a slight rewrite of rising tides for it. so if somehow you have that magic combination of 'reading this' and 'live in chicago', maybe i'll see you there.

moment

there was a moment last night, after we'd stripped off clothes and finally crawled into bed sometime after 3am, when we looked at each other, and each opened our mouths to speak. there was the feeling that we were both about to say something meaningful, something to tie us together a little stronger.

though nothing was said, i felt closer to her anyway.

something is...

...different. and not just the haircut.

this storm felt different. it felt angry.

change

how can you ever expect to change things unless you begin changing things? says the prodding, here at the end of the night; the nag, the itch in the back of my skull, he says such things often, in unguarded moments, the last muscle to relax. tonight i respond: i believe i change an appropriate amount. one must at least keep pace with the world around oneself, but this is an unwinnable race, a speed i can never match. what direction to turn from the meadow at dusk? where to turn, when you have fallen into a crossroads in which you have seen all things occur? where could further interest possibly lie? it is the death of curiosity, the final playing out of original sin.

promise

tomorrow, i promise that i will most likely greet you with the same growl and snarl that i did today. do not take it personally. i direct my anger mostly towards circumstance.

bed

and this is my last night in a bed for a while. people: do not underestimate the importance of having your own bedroom.

waiting

"i felt like i spent today waiting for something," i posted briefly on facebook, before i took it down. "i guess not," that was the second line i backspaced through. no; too direct, even with just the first sentence. then i threw up some ellipses, which i came back to erase an hour later. or maybe less.

i got stood up. again. last night was an accident, i could understand your mom showing up uninvited to take you home from work. i was only sitting on the beach, cracking into the first of two pepsi bottles i'd carefully but expertly partially filled with rum in the navy pier bathroom, trying to figure out the coolest position to be in when you came up from behind me - would it be if i was laying down, sunglasses off, eyes closed, hands behind my head, smiling aimlessly up at the sun? or if i was sitting upright, letting all the normally-unseen bits of my tattoos glare in the light, drinking from the rum i'd promised her, knowing it'd draw her like a fly to honey? but suddenly it didn't matter, and you were heading home, and i was still sitting on the beach, the solitude no longer comfortably temporary, now slightly menacing. paranoias creeping in; i am drinking in public, after all. time to move, time to walk, walking and looking for maybe any cute girls walking or sitting alone, formulating the conversation in my head as i walked: "hey," as i'd sit down heavily, the smile not altogether fake, following up with some combination of the words "lonely," "bored," and/or "drunk." of course, it didn't happen. it rarely does. instead, i think i gave a girl wrong directions, and i met a small dog which climbed unbidden into my lap and began nibbling at my fingers.

but none of that, of course, bothered me that much. whatever; drinking alone on the beach suits me. it was the promise, later that night to meet up with me the next night. which is tonight. right now, actually. you might notice that i am on the computer, not enjoying the comfort of beauty.

i even saved some rum.

mistaken

i thought i might have one more thing to say tonight.
but i don't.

re: off-topic dammit: "dammit."

oh, Mxxxx, how could we let this happen? i'm sorry, sorry belatedly and in advance. i could've said this so long ago, but i listened to everyone else, and decided that in this one case i'd let societal norms (specifically, the god-damned "bro code") dictate my actions, or i guess the lack thereof.

i'd like to start by saying, "somehow, somewhere in the last few years, i fell wildly, uncontrollably in love with you," but it'd be kinda a lie, because i know when, and how, and where. it was the basement, where we hid from the brutish realities of the city, thick walls and no windows between us and that vicious summer sun yet plenty of drug-dealer echoes bouncing their way into our sanctuary, rubbing around in our ears and leaving permanent markers, little ingrained twitches to accompany shouts of "lights! lights!" even though we had no worries, nothing to hide... well, some worries, some things to hide. i'm drifting again, so let's get to the point in the next two sentences.

we'd decided to let Sxxxx live with us, which he did quietly until one day he brought you home with him. you came in, took a hit from our blunt, sat down, and joined in on mario kart.

i remember looking to the side, squinting a bit through the smoke (illuminated by the light from the television, there were no other lights on - at least that's how i remember it, because i barely remember lights ever being on down there), and wondering where exactly you had come from. Sxxxx hadn't told us he even had a girlfriend, not your name or what you did or anything; as far as i could tell, stoned as i was (and by this point i'd finished with most of my hard drugs, all the acid, all the speed and coke, that was all in the past already), you'd fallen from the ether, pulled in by nothing more than my desire for a gorgeous female presence.

oh, christ, how i'd have fallen all over myself if i'd met you in any other circumstance! i'd have lost my shit, all that stereotypical name-forgetting and grammar-mangling, "what job have you?" and so on. if i'd been using a knife, i'd have lost a finger. if i'd been driving, i'd have crashed. i know i forgot to breathe for a minute, probably didn't introduce myself for a full ten minutes.

or maybe not. i might've been suave as hell, as suave as one can be when playing an 8-year-old video game and smoking weed in the basement one calls home. at least my parents didn't live upstairs. but my memory reconstructs things as it will; i'm not sure our first meeting even occurred like this. it might've been different. but it's how i remember it.

but time went on, and i hated how he treated you, said as much quietly, to myself, in neutral zones to unnamed parties (such as: facebook, blogs, this right here, etc.). i don't know what exactly i could've said about why you and him being together was wrong, specifically, but that's because i was just jealous. i wanted you.

then the space started growing, and he started drinking again, and the space grew more, and it was months between sightings of you.

whatever. this is starting to feel emo as hell, so i'm gonna bail. i love you, in a way i haven't felt for years. i think i love you enough not to subject you to that whole experience, though. i can be a little overwhelming. i can be a little vacant. but maybe, one night, i'll get drunk and forget about all that.

and, Mxxxxx... i could love you still, if only you'd give me a chance to do so. it's not gone yet; it flares back up a little, every time our eyes meet. but it's like a concentrated effort has been made to prevent there being any history there. there is so little shared feeding whatever fire is there.

*bail*

shrug

i don't know what to say to you anymore. i guess i'd like to just stop talking all together, have a silent relationship, let all the dirty foolish words be reserved for others. complicate their lives, for a change; let ours' be a little simpler. can we not communicate all we need to via touch, via the songs we choose, via shared love for the dog? i understand you best when you sleep, all the little needs and worries voiced and solved in the space of a caress. arms around me, now, for no more worries will haunt you tonight. if i can help it. (i can't. i just talk a big game.)

ah, but those wings i so love have carried you far off again, far from the beach we didn't relax on, far from the love we couldn't admit, far from this city and its stifling summer ceiling, dropping lower and lower each day, surely infinite to our eyes but constrained and...

(...running out of steam in that direction...)

...i worry: perhaps i do have within me the capacity to control the minutiae of our lives, but i just can't bring myself to care enough, most of the time... let the world run itself into the ground, but let it leave me alone, yeah? that's what i always say, and that's how it always seems to go, so remember that the next time i bitch about being lonely... god, i'm a one-trick pony with a one-track mind, a one-truck redneck with a one-treck daily limit.

yeah, i misspelled trek. fuck off, imaginary friends. (i love you.)

and here is an off-topic dammit: "dammit."

...right

yeah, you're too nice to everyone. THAT'S the problem, here.

if only sobriety were a little more acceptable... we'd all be rich, we'd all be fed, we could mostly stop working and maybe even find some time for love... yeah... yeah...

...yeah, right.

instead, let's regress. let's go back, let's travel the roads we swore we'd never travel again. yeah, let's go make all the same mistakes we made before, relive that stunning aftermath, swim through the wreckage when everything shatters and goes to hell. yeah, let's, let's...

...until the wind blows back in our faces, and the sails invert.

may all roads crumble and fall to dust.

well

uh well i didnt really expect the pieces to fall like this, though you can't build a tower like this one and not assume it'll eventually shatter. theres enough foundation left that i can't really see the need for panic, though i might burn it down anyway. the tower was unsteady; why rebuild on the same foundations? but i will anyway; blame ocd. i do. the funny thing though is that im no longer restricted to my own soundtrack; others have their say, and i find myself outvoted on occasion.

...i kinda wish you were here more.

instead im talking to you at the same time as the girl i couldnt have. i just made you both laugh at the same time.

time

i want her to find more than one or two nights a month to spend with me. is that so wrong? and if not, can i be forgiven for a day of fucking fury? no? too god damn bad. i have enough to be angry about that i'd feel justified in stalking about for months straight in a cold rage. but i don't. i choose today. happy fucking memorial day.

mix

so i've been spending some time at a website. people play music at each other in chatrooms, from a database or easily and quickly uploaded from your computer. it might not last long, but it's fun.

someone just played the stranglers' "golden brown", which i haven't heard in... some years. "remember snatch?" says someone, as everyone erupts into nostalgia, "with brad pitt?" yeah, dammit, that's how i know the song too. the first time i saw the movie, it was with my head in ( )'s lap. it was the first thing we did together, after we knew each other for however many damn years.

and then, earlier, right? as my longtime friend (who i've never met) is talking about all his online crushes over the internet and how none of them have ever amounted to anything, which is kinda the point, my own online crush - the first one, actually - gets fed some absinthe and takes to facebook for comfort, which i'm vicariously able to provide. from a thousand miles away.

what's my point, tonight? the internet has made the world into a very, very strange place.

nothing new for you to glean today

wishes

(preface: written last night, 6AMish. right now, i am barely functional.)

what can i say? she snores like a steamboat. still, all things considered, not a bad way to start armageddeon. the sky is still above us, and i see nothing on fire. she seems content to sink beneath the waves, tanned and smiling, and i can't fault her for that. i'd be a hypocrite if i did; i expect the same for myself, except the tan will be from fire and the waves will be of earth. nonetheless, i too will sink. so will you.

i stood, leaning against the wall, drawing stories and conclusions. he's gay. she's not into him. he wants to bang, and doesn't care who - there are plenty of good candidates (as long as he keeps his eyes off my little unsexed prize - which he did). she's not into anyone here. she, though, is. he's bored of beer pong. she's a fag hag. whatever. i've seen these stories before, in similar settings. they have nothing to offer me but youth, which i take willingly.

when she was about to enter high school, i was roaming the west coast, drunk and stoned and lost without willing to admit it. when she was a dancer, freshman year of high school, i was bartending. when she was referring to the early 2000s as 'early millenium', i was shaking my head and being stunned by a phrase i had never heard before. is this the part where i'm supposed to feel too old, too disconnected, too out of place? because it didn't work. i'm still dedicated to this trainwreck. can you stop me? because nobody else seems to be able to, myself included.

i keep telling myself it'll last a year, tops. but what if it doesn't? what if she convinces me to move to california with her (despite my inability to swim; that'll be a real hazard when our neighborhood is just another square mile of arizona bay)? or, dog forbid ('dog' instead of 'god' wasn't just a drunken typo, i guess), what if she gets too attached, decides not to go, decides to stay here? oh christ, what next?

i guess i'll need to learn to love again. but that'll take time, dedication, consistency, not this 'a few times every couple months' bullshit. i need tutoring to get back into this game. drunk or not, i'm not even sure fucking is an option right now.

it's not. she's asleep. not snoring as bad as she was. i still haven't told her i love her. i haven't said other things either, things i swore i'd say next time we were alone. a few times considered saying it in passing; "i love you, darlin', but etcetera," etcetera. it is hard to type etcetera when drunk - observations. i'm still somewhat functional. though not enough so to put my dick in her, even if she were awake. what about tomorrow, though? who knows; we'll see then.

i worry too much. i don't know what i worry about. angels and devils, matching drink for drink as we all smoke too many cigarettes. sometimes i'm the angel, sometimes the devil, usually just the poor hapless human watching the whole thing. (i'm really just killing time here until that bread i ate soaks up enough of the alcohol in my stomach to let me close my eyes without getting the spins.) i'm okay with that, though. it's important to be okay with your lot in life. aldous huxley taught me that, though maybe his intention was the opposite, that none of us should be okay with their destiny. or maybe. maybe. destiny is fickle fuckle.

i wish i were the same as other people, that a night like this weren't spent writing and writing. i'd like to sleep. i work in too few hours, for too many hours, for accolades and recognition i might never receive. i don't care enough about my job. it's a stepping stone, though to what i don't know. i don't want to be working in a kitchen when i'm 40, but i might be anyway. you can't always get what you want... i think i heard that in a song, once. i also heard other things.

she's stirring. i wish she'd stir back onto me. but it'd just start the snoring again. i lack mattress space. i lack dedication. i lack dilligence. i lack patience. i lack, i lack. what about what i have? a gorgeous girl asleep (she's snoring again anyway) right next to me, a dog laying guard in the door i wish could be closed.

she's talking in her sleep. it's adorable. i wish i could be happy, i wish, i wish....

(postlude: the final bit is radiohead, and the cut off end of the lyric is 'i wish that something would happen." as i was typing the last two words, she stirred awake, then inexplicably went into the closet for a few minutes. i'm not being metaphorical; she got up, opened the closet door, and went inside. when i went over to ask if she was okay, she said "yeah, i'm good; get out of my closet, i'll be out in twenty, thirty minutes." i went back and laid down, and about two minutes later she came out and curled back up on my shoulder. i told her i'd ask her to explain in the morning, and when the morning came, i asked her, and she had no idea what i was talking about. my point? something happened. i guess i wished hard enough. i guess i should've been more specific.)

irony

i dreamt i watched the world slowly burning

there was fire everywhere, so i started running until i could find someplace where there was no more fire, i ran through both american coasts and zigzagged across the heartlands until i wound up in my grandparents' house

except it wasn't their's anymore, it was my parents', and the woods were gone and the hills were all rocky and jagged because my grandfather's dying act had been to sign the whole chunk of land over to paper companies and coal miners

now it seemed like incredible foresight, and as i came up the weirdly exposed hills the smoke on the distance seemed less threatening, and after i got there and hugged my parents, you came in, because you had followed me all along those same coasts and heartlands and hills; i was dreaming, remember, and i wanted you with me so bad in any world that you had no choice but to appear

that night my parents were in the living room, mom was watching tv with her back to the big glass doors leading onto the porch which looked out over a few dozen miles of countryside and towns, but her chair had been dragged over to that side of the room; she was holding hands with my dad, who was standing, watching determinedly out the window as the fires approached; you were somewhere in the back, lounging, tired from all the travel

i stood next to dad for a while watching the fire, watching it collect in heaps and roll off the sides of other hills like lavaflows, watching it gather behind silhouetted trees, then fewer silhouetted trees, then even fewer, until it was just a pulsating red glow around a single burning tree, which then too would fall

then, i said, "i should be out there taking pictures," and nobody stopped me (because this was a dream and i didn't want anyone to stop me), so i went and grabbed my camera, and asked if you wanted to come with, and when you said yes (still a dream, i wanted you there with me) i was surprised (didn't know i was dreaming) but happy

woke up smiling about the irony of taking a photo of the apocalypse

rapture

i don't tell people this blog exists. if you found it, good job - you either did a google search or got lucky some other way. your reward for whatever sleuthing you did is a regularly unrepressed me, and all the things i don't otherwise say. some of it will be pretty gritty, but they won't always be particularly shocking.

for instance, i hate how sometimes i go to use the microwave, and i see the numbers on it and i think, oh, the last person who used it pulled their shit out before it was over and didn't reset the time. then i hit reset a few times and nothing happens, and then it's like, shit, it's late.

i think macho man randy savage was just trying to beat the rush. i'm thinking about writing a short story about how he convinced god to put off the rapture. i gotta wait a few days, though, because what if i stay up all night writing it, then the rapture happens? egg on my face, damn. that's a joke that i can only make tonight. tonight, when i'm sitting here thinking, damn, what if the rapture happens? would anyone notice unless it was televised? would it be covered by the mainstream media? or will i see it popping up on the fringe for months, scattered reports of persons missing, presumed raptured? i mean, i don't think anyone i know would be. i hope my parents would be, because as their only son i want to think the best of them, which means they're good enough people to go to heaven and get the hell out of my life without the whole horror of their natural deaths. but i don't think they were, they're probably sinners like me and everyone i know, so i'll have them here to help me ride out armageddon. it's probably for the best.

talking about my parents' sins, and weighing the pros and cons of their persistance in a post-rapture world. heavy shit, right? just as promised. sorta.

i wrote a book. actually i've now written something like five, or six. actually, i'd only call it a book of it's over 100 pages, so maybe four? i don't think anyone has read them. one of my roommates claims to, but he'll claim anything. i wonder how much is true, sometimes; i let it be a silent faith, for the most part. maybe some other people have; god knows i've sent them out enough times, both by request and otherwise, but i never get feedback. people don't read, and when they do their first reaction is so rarely, "oh, shit, i gotta go talk to the author now." it's the sort of fame that allows you to stay the fuck away from people, but it's the sort of fame where you're not sure if you're famous until your books are lining the shelf and you've got an episode of Family GUy saved to the TiVo where they reference you or one of your stories. but if you're that guy then you're probably out doing book signings and readings and shit like that... i wouldn't want to do that, wouldn't know what to do, never been to one, never wanted to go to one. i don't understand that sort of reader, really. i don't understand any sort of reader, or any sort of person. i pretend to. but i don't. i want everyone to be perfect, i want everyone to be pure evil, i want everyone to aspire to more, i want everyone to relax more. contradictions, contradictions, but it's an okay sort of paradox, because none of it's true. fictional paradox.

what are we doing here? i think i was complaining about nobody reading the stories i spend so many sleepless nights transcribing from the muse whispering frantically (i think she's a coke addict now) in my ear. i was also mourning the loss of a childhood hero, and thinking about my parents. i hope they're doing okay, my parents, randy savage, my unread stories. they're all aging, but none of them are wine, their birth dates may as well be predicted expiration dates. macho man's was yesterday.

sigh. one last thought: if tomorrow were my last day on earth as i know it, my only regret is that i will not wake up that morning next to something beautiful. i'd consider it a betrayal, almost, if she were capable of hurting me that badly, if she didn't have such a damn good excuse (as always), if i weren't so damned congested and shitty right now in the first place. maybe i'll get to wake up to an angel in armageddon's first dawn, though. that'd be nice.

preparing

everybody is quietly preparing in their own ways. drinking, fucking, saying i'm sorry, or i love you. if there's one good thing about these constant end-of-the-world scares, it is that each one forces a certain level of genuine honesty out of all the people willing to believe... and each time, there are more believers. the internet has helped with that, little 19-year-old flirt that she is.

perhaps the end will come when we all believe it will come.

perhaps, then, the end will never come, because too many of us can't believe in anything.

i don't believe in you, for starters...

sorry

i didn't mean to ruin your entire fucking day, by saying something you already knew, which barely effects you. if the rapture is coming, maybe i'd like to wake up that morning in the arms of something beautiful. you know? nevermind. you don't.

normally when my brain and vocal cords slowly turn into crap and escape via throat and nose, its winter. it didnt happen this winter, or last. its happening now, though maybe a little accelerated - feelin' better, as they say. doesn't sound like i'm speaking out of a cave anymore.

lord, please grant me the strength to make her cry your name.

2am

its a my bloody valentine kinda night. not feeling exactly loveless, but close enough.

there was fog on the lake today. you couldn't see more than a quarter mile in any direction. mist rising up so suddenly that it looked like the water was on fire. i worked for six hours in a little bubble, and if anything happened in the world outside of my little quarter-mile radius, i don't know about it.

i'm a little more sick than i'd like to be. maybe it's the indecision. cough, sneeze.

it's true, i do, take care, take care

if you attack the village, the soldiers will be forced to meet you there, leaving the castle unguarded.
if you are so minded, this is your opportunity to strike.