February 24, 2009\u202f
Simple, focal<\/p>\n
A feeling of dread washes over me. And suddenly I\u2019m afraid of everything. I\u2019m scared of the dark. I\u2019m scared of my shadow. I\u2019m scared of strange noises. I\u2019m scared of the silence. I\u2019m scared of dying. And all around I see death in everything. Something is whispering in my ear. Not the low, guttural growls of horror movies, but in a tinny, high-pitched, almost silent scream. \u201cBe afraid.\u201d<\/p>\n
March 26, 2009\u202f
I love you but you\u2019ve chosen darkness<\/p>\n
In times of trouble, we invent definitions of our desires as unique. We forget that somebody in this world, probably more than one, is sick of the person or situation we put on a pedestal.<\/p>\n
We incorrectly believe wants are needs. We exaggerate the importance and the value of what we desire and choose pain as a sort of martyrdom. We abandon reason as the means to achieve our goals, and instead bask in the self-centered nature of depression. No other emotion can achieve the all-encompassing preoccupation with \u201cthe self.\u201d It provides us with a state of almost complete self-absorption, a reward that is subconsciously so powerful it eclipses what our conscious minds want. It becomes our internal voice that repeats the myth of our lives we have created for ourselves. We believe this voice whether what it says is true or not, effective or not, self-destructive or not.<\/p>\n
When ruled by our feelings, we are incapable of making clear choices let alone rationally reflecting on their consequences. People trapped in this cycle repeat patterns of counter-productive and self-destructive behavior. The tortured artist is the prototypical example. But even the word tortured incorrectly implies an outside source that is somehow in control. That pain is self-chosen.<\/p>\n
April 13, 2009\u202f
Without it<\/p>\n
Because, you see, honesty is not enough. And good will isn\u2019t enough. And feeling. And kisses. And intention. And meaning. And, sadly, love is not enough. We get confused sometimes because all those things are present when the unnamed catalyst exists. But without it\u2014IT! \u2014these beautiful moments are just that furtive grasps at the divine, more bricks in the wall. All squares are rectangles. But not all rectangles are squares.<\/p>\n
\u202f
Easter eggs<\/p>\n
I spend the night eating chocolate Easter eggs. Crunching through the candy shell and letting the sweetness slowly dissolve on my tongue. It\u2019s comforting. The sweetness. I use it as a proxy for my longing. The gentle ache she represents. Understanding always that the presumption of any future is a slippery slope. And dangerous to delicacy. The chocolate dissolves before the shell and as I lay on my back with my eyes closed I smile at the metaphor.<\/p>\n
\u202f
The frailest of gestures<\/p>\n
I open the door and I can smell her before I see her, that unique amalgam of Camels, Maybelline, and chardonnay. I find myself sometimes grabbing the short hairs near the back of her head to pull her smell to me, perhaps being rougher than I initially intend, because the urgency to have her inside me some way has become so strong. Of course, she shrugs me away. And with the frailest of gestures makes light of the heaviness of my movements.<\/p>\n
May 1, 2009\u202f
Ridiculous and profane<\/p>\n
Did I have to go there? I did. But there\u2019s a good reason. You and I connect on such an intellectual level. I absolutely eat your brains. And I think you\u2019re so fucking funny and interesting that I could listen to you speak for days. The mythical, perfect filibuster. That I don\u2019t ever want to get too far off the road map to your being a woman. And a sensual being. And of the body. Corpus. Animus. Spiritus. So while this particular comment manifested in the profane, and perhaps ridiculous. It was rooted, and I do choose that word deliberately and carefully, in the fertile soil of absolute appreciation.<\/p>\n
August 3, 2009\u202f
The actual ten commandments<\/p>\n
The Ten Commandments
Exodus 3413-28<\/p>\n
I. Thou shalt worship no other god.<\/p>\n
II. Thou shalt make thee no molten gods.<\/p>\n
III. The feast of unleavened bread thou shalt keep.<\/p>\n
IV. Six days thou shalt work, but on the seventh day thou shalt rest.<\/p>\n
V. Thou shalt observe the feast of weeks, of the first fruits of wheat harvest, and the feast of in gathering at the year\u2019s end.<\/p>\n
VI. Thrice in the year shall all your men children appear before the Lord God.<\/p>\n
VII. Thou shalt not offer the blood of my sacrifice with leaven.<\/p>\n
VIII.Neither shall the sacrifice of the feast of the Passover be left unto the morning.<\/p>\n
IX. The first of the first fruits of thy land thou shalt bring unto the house of the Lord thy God.<\/p>\n
X. Thou shalt not seethe a kid [i.e., a young goat] in his mother\u2019s milk.<\/p>\n
August 29, 2009\u202f
Soliciting miracles from prostitutes<\/p>\n
The public humiliation of any oleaginous preacher is usually cause for joy, but the fall of Ted Haggard, the poster child for self-righteous, hypocritical bastards, was sublime in a way that is often fantasized but rarely experienced. It happened almost three years ago in November 2006, but I still get school-girl giddy when I think about it. For those of you who don\u2019t know the story, Ted Haggard was the founder of New Life Church in Colorado Springs and at the time was the president of the National Association of Evangelicals. He was also an active proponent of Colorado Amendment 43, the proposal to ban same-sex marriages in that state. The punch line, of course, is that days before the vote, it was revealed that for three years, Pastor Ted had been soliciting \u201cmassages\u201d (I wasn\u2019t there, but I believe that\u2019s a euphemism) from\u2026wait for it\u2026wait\u2026.a male prostitute.<\/p>\n
Unbelievably, it gets even better.<\/p>\n
Haggard also admitted to purchasing crystal methamphetamine for research purposes from the same guy.\u202fNot to use, but for research.\u202fWow. That may be the single worst lie in the history of lying. I think it would have been more believable if he said he was the reincarnation of Jesus and was taking a gay prostitute as his first disciple (having already represented the straight prostitute demographic with Mary Magdalene.) The press release practically writes itself. Jesus\u2019 first alleged miracle (John 21-11, for those that care) was at a wedding in Cana where he turned water into wine. So it\u2019s just a short leap in logic that the son of god would require a more modern psychoactive substance to reach today\u2019s audience. And what better venue than a \u201cmassage\u201d parlor in Denver to show the world that everyone was welcome? How better to bring glory to god? I think I missed my calling as a publicist.<\/p>\n
\u202f
The reformed apologist<\/p>\n
It\u2019s not out of place to read my opinions here. Some jokes. Mostly I enjoy inflicting\u202ftheories, predominantly my own. And when I say \u201ctheories\u201d in this context I mean unproven or unprovable hypotheses that are so consistent in correctly predicting an outcome that I regard them as true. The way evolution is true but still referred to as a theory. I guess I should qualify that last statement; when\u202frational\u202fpeople refer to evolution as a theory they do so in this manner. Abrahamic monotheists that believe their myths are verbatim transcripts to be read literally? Smirk.<\/p>\n
In fact, the recent public \u201cdebate\u201d about evolution (and the incomprehensible, but very real, need to refute creationist propaganda at school board meetings) was one of the key factors in my renewed rage against the religion. But, I\u2019m afraid I may have for too long been an unintended (mostly apathetic) apologist. I wasn\u2019t proactive, by any means, but in retrospect I feel a certain culpability in my silence. I treated so-called piety as a harmless form of denial. As long as they left me alone, l would do my best not to mock the ridiculous specifics of their belief system, or the fact that they had chosen to eschew thousands of years of human progress to instead embrace a violent, misogynistic, fear-based set of Semitic tribal fairy tales as the ultimate arbiter on questions of science, philosophy, morality, and ethics. But when their unsolicited involvement began to threaten private, independent lifestyle choices, i.e., porn, gambling, and booze\u2014you know, necessities\u2014I knew that I had been, in the parlance of the enemy, giving comfort to the wicked with my silence.<\/p>\n
I resolved then to be more proactive in my refutation of\u202ftheir\u202fchoices. They invent an unpredictable, omnipotent no-show for a supreme being, then take every opportunity to project their own blood lust, tribal bigotry, and neuroses on him, while simultaneously paying lip service to supposed ideals like faith, hope, love. The result? The deity character is so unrealistic that the early fiction writers who composed the poorly-edited anthology of testaments and gospels made a rare, wise choice to split him into three separate characters (father, son, and super ghost), and give each one a different part of the personality to represent.<\/p>\n
Otherwise, the capricious violence, hateful cruelty and jealous possessiveness god exhibits throughout both testaments would be a hard sell for the supposed king of the universe. Even with that use of creative license, god still seems more of an asshole than someone you\u2019d want to be with forever.\u202fYou will have no other gods before me?\u202fIf god were a person he would need a restraining order.<\/p>\n
September 4, 2009\u202f
You have free will because I said so<\/p>\n
My favorite example of god\u2019s love was his willingness to brutally torture and kill his own son as a symbol of sacrifice. That\u2019s a father-son story that really warms the heart. (Technically, it was the Romans with the literally dirty hands, but if you\u2019re the supreme being of the known universe, I would assume you\u2019d have some influence.) Sidebar isn\u2019t this really stretching the definition of sacrifice? Is it possible for an omnipotent, omniscient being to sacrifice anything? Anyway, this unsolicited\u202fsacrifice\u202fwas made under the pretense of saving mankind from its inherently sinful nature, and is used as a primary example of why you owe your obedience. If it is inherent, doesn\u2019t it mean that the creator put it there? The disingenuous rationalization for this ridiculous give-and-take is a circular argument called free will. The gist of which is that this supposedly perfect being with infinite power has ceded control of the sliver of infinity that is your life. By definition I don\u2019t believe free will is even possible within the context of a predetermined master plan. But for argument\u2019s sake let\u2019s make the huge concession, that in this situation, your choices are actually yours. To avoid damnation still requires unfaltering obedience, or any sort of reasonable doubt. The best explanation one can hope for in times of trouble? \u201cIt was god\u2019s will.\u201d Or my favorite, \u201cgod works in mysterious ways.\u201d Which, of course, is just a catch-all for \u201cI haven\u2019t the foggiest fuck.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u202f
Twenty, maybe thirty, commandments, each crazier than the last<\/p>\n
A large majority of people that describe themselves as religious literally do not know what they believe in. Let that sink in. It sounds oxymoronic, but it\u2019s true. I have a theory on this. Religious training is rarely a moment of epiphany. It is a patient, years-long inculcation. It is not a moment of conversion, but a life-long assimilation. For a person to self-identify as \u201creligious,\u201d therefore, means that his indoctrination was for the most part already successful. At this point\u202fwhat\u202fa person believes is no where near as important as\u202fwho. Any successful brainwashing program does not measure success by the comprehension of ideology, but by submission to its authority. Obedience, and willful self-ignorance are far more reliable than accurate recall. If a person never truly understands a concept, but has been taught to accept its veracity, not only are others less likely to change his view with fact-based arguments, but he is also less likely to question his own beliefs.<\/p>\n
Let me give you a real-world example. Most people that have gone to church their whole lives cannot name all ten commandments in order. In fact, if a person can name more than seven correctly, in any order, they are the rare exception. Rarer still is the person who knows that on three separate occasions Moses presents different versions of the\u202fDecalogue\u202fto the Israelites. The first set, and the one most people would recognize from the movie and Sunday school, are Moses\u2019 impromptu recollection of god\u2019s words after returning from Mt. Sinai. Humorously the version that relies on Moses\u2019 memory is not even close to the ones that eventually appear on stone. The contents of the second set are, technically, never shared in the Bible because Moses gets pissed at the Israelites for creating idols and smashes the tablets on which they are written (Moses can\u2019t take a piss without some asshole forging an idol and worshiping it). The third set, the only one specifically referred to as\u202fThe Ten Commandments, would be unrecognizable to most. #10 in this version? \u201cThou shalt not seeth a kid in his mother\u2019s milk.\u201d (And, yes, they\u2019re talking about a baby goat.) Timeless advice, isn\u2019t it? Yet this is the supposed basis for the entire system of morality and ethics on which our society is built.<\/p>\n
The depressing truth is that this is essentially the system that provides a large part of this country (and world) with some of its ugliest talking points. Given the deity\u2019s description in the Bible it is a reasonable conclusion to believe that god actually\u202fdoes\u202fhate fags. (Why he\u2019s been silent on more prevalent transgressions like ham, divorce, and multi-cloth garments, which are all unequivocally verboten, is anyone\u2019s guess.)<\/p>\n
With all this, believers are still not the only ones with culpability. Non-believers have been complacent. I am. It\u2019s a common platitude for polite agnostics to say when referring to the Bible that, \u201cIt\u2019s a beautiful book with bad interpretations.\u201d Wrong. The problem is not the interpretation of the material,\u202fbut the source material itself.\u202fYeah, I said it. I have a suggestion for those of you that disagree. Read it. Cover to cover. No skipping to Christmas and Easter. The book suffers from far more than lapses in logic, difficult syntax, and enormous continuity issues. Like its main character, it is usually self-serving and often morally repugnant. Taken as fact by too many people, the outdated tome is systematic superstition, obfuscated by numbing ritual, and received with blind acceptance. It is the primary source of ideology for countless hate crimes and atrocities. It has and continues to inspire apocalyptic fanaticism, nonexistent next-world dystopias, and repressive theocracies, that thrive on fear, intolerance, and the truncheon.<\/p>\n
Even if I have to do it myself, I\u2019m calling bullshit.<\/p>\n
In the past, my half-hearted attempts to be tolerant resulted in a disingenuous labeling protocol, i.e., the sheep were misguided rather than ignorant or malicious. Their brainwashing was so pervasive and their assimilation so greatly rewarded, that it hardly seemed fair to rage against the inevitable. No more. My new passive-aggressive strategy to defuse potential interference by this confederacy of dunces is to respond to their condescension in kind. To wit, when confronted with ignorance, I proceed to stare doe-eyed in the direction of the chosen one(s), slightly shake my head with quiet pity for their children; compliment their Orwellian ability to suspend disbelief; patronize the mantras they use in place of empirical evidence; act incredulous over their inevitable hypocrisy; and, take comfort in the fact that they don\u2019t practice what they preach. They don\u2019t even like it.<\/p>\n
Exhibit A pornographic movie sales and rentals earn more than the entire output of mainstream Hollywood movies. I didn\u2019t buy\u202fall\u202f32,987 copies of Pocahotass.<\/p>\n
September 13, 2009\u202f
The early favorite for best text of the year<\/p>\n
Him\u202fI smell like blood and come and too much wine.
Her\u202fOK. You win best text of the day.
Him\u202fIt\u2019s only 530 a.m.
Her\u202fTrust me. You win.<\/p>\n
September 20, 2009\u202f
Excuse me, I was choking on the irony<\/p>\n
I have spent the last six hours in a Kafka-esque blur. I am attending mandated training meant to facilitate the mandated change in our corporate culture. The irony, of course, is that the exercise is a perfect microcosm of the culture that created it, and is a painful example of how badly it does need to change. It is reactive, amateurish, half-assed, dogmatic, inflexible, and boring. And that was just breakfast. Don\u2019t get me started on the poorly defined non-sequiturs being touted as talking points of the cultural shift. Really, don\u2019t. I keep secretly hoping we\u2019re all being punk\u2019d because the alternative is depressing on more levels than I care to think about.<\/p>\n
\u202f
One from the vaults 7 April 1998<\/p>\n
I found this excerpt from my journal from 11 years ago. Can you feel the angst? And yes, all of my journal entries were written for a potential audience, with the explicit goal of being perceived as clever. To wit<\/p>\n
Love, or more precisely the feeling that one is in possession of this emotion, is the decisive factor in determining the failure of an erotic relationship. And by this, I do not mean that failure is the result of some absence or inadequacy, but rather it is the mere presence of love that prescribes failure. So many of our resources are used in the pursuit of love, and the success or failure of this pursuit is so intertwined with how we define ourselves, that the day-to-day dynamic of most relationships present an emotionally unacceptable risk.<\/p>\n
December 1, 2009\u202f
Buddha Lite<\/p>\n
To call my knowledge of Buddhism shallow would be generous. Here is my exposure in a nutshell<\/p>\n
1. I saw five minutes of the movie\u202fLittle Buddha\u202fand when I realized Ted \u201cTheodore\u201d Logan was going to be representing the title character, I cleaned up the rivulets of pee then watched Spinal Tap for the 8,657th time instead.\u202fYou should have seen what they wanted to use it wasn\u2019t a glove, believe me.\u202fMore rivulet cleaning. But I digress.<\/p>\n
2. I think I tried reading Hesse\u2019s\u202fSiddhartha\u202fafter having to read his\u202fSteppenwolf\u202ffor a class. I was surprised for as thin as that book is, it was literally impossible to finish. The word soporific was invented for\u202fSiddhartha. Or maybe it was for the movie,\u202fThe Piano. The opening credits start running on that and my eyelids begin a two-lid race to my cheeks. I remember asking whatever girl was making me watch, \u201cI heard Harvey Keitel shows his dick, wake me up for the that,\u201d and that sounds more gay than it was intended, but, full disclosure, it is true and I did say it. (At this point my memory fails me. In recounting, I vacillate between thinking,\u202fI could have got a few more minutes of sleep and a few less of this movie, but the more likely memory is,\u202fIf that was my dick I would have fired my agent for making me show it. And now I think\u202fIs it creepy that when Anna Paquin comes on screen I think about fucking her because of that scene in True Blood?\u202fThe true answer to that question actually depends on\u202fwhere you\u2019re reading this from.\u202fBack to the Buddha.)<\/p>\n
3. Dalai Lama. He seems pretty cool.<\/p>\n
4. I got another book called\u202fThe Buddhist Way\u202fand when I\u2019m all spiritual I imagine I can probably follow most of the rules contained therein with a few exceptions, of course. (Don\u2019t worry, only monks\u202fhave\u202fto abstain from alcohol and meat, and since I\u2019m too old to get Kwai Chang Caine kung fu skills the idea of meditating\u202fall\u202fday was also summarily dismissed.)<\/p>\n
So with apologies to the above here are my tenets
1. Suffering \u2013 This seems to be the main idea and sort of the most abstract to grasp. But it makes sense. Life is suffering. Fair enough. This suffering is cause by attachment to things. Because everything is impermanent it\u2019s inevitable that you will lose everything, including your life. I don\u2019t think I have the time or the inclination to get so Zen that I can self-immolate at a student protest and end up on Rage Against The Machine\u2019s comeback album. And frankly my attachment to certain vices ain\u2019t going to be meditated away. Paradoxically, taking the step of removing that middle-ground stuff actually makes it easier to do the small\u202fand\u202flarge stuff.<\/p>\n
Let\u2019s use Scott Baio as our real-life example in reverse. Someone asked him what was his secret to having sex with most of the Playboy centerfolds and certainly all of the second-tier ones on the back pages circa 1985-2000. I\u2019m sure he\u2019s cracked a few for old times sake since then, but those were his golden years. His answer? You treat them like you know that somewhere outside the walls of The Mansion, there\u2019s at least one guy that is so sick of her bullshit that he avoids her.<\/p>\n
Now for the wannabe pseudo-Buddha you reverse it. Your girlfriend or wife or whatever leaves you. To get over this you focus on lessening that attachment by remembering that you weren\u2019t the first one to plant a flag in her dirty bits so there\u2019s gotta be at least 3 guys that only remember all the bad parts about her that you are also familiar with. She was always late, liked Harvey Danger, smoked meth for 12 out of the first 15 days of the month and when you were holding her still so she didn\u2019t kick or scratch you again in her frenzy gets a tiny mark on her arm and you get arrested and she tells her friends your an abusive shit so she can fuck some other guy she\u2019s been eye-balling on Facebook for the last two months and looking for an excuse to make you the monster so she can move into the empty half of his house and not pay rent like she did for three years with the ex- before you.<\/p>\n
You know, whatever it was. Just concentrate on that. Still hurts don\u2019t get me wrong, but it\u2019s easier to see how many alternatives their really are.<\/p>\n
2. Karma \u2013 Colloquially, everyone uses it wrong. Karma\u2019s the next life, Baby! And since my pseudo-Buddhism rejects the supernatural aspects? No worries here.<\/p>\n
3. Don\u2019t hurt anybody or any animals except the ones you kill to eat.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s it. Next stop Nirvana.<\/p>\n
December 16, 2009\u202f
Correlation, not causation<\/p>\n
The tortured artist is one of the prototypical characters of modern pop culture, with examples across the spectrum of the creative process. And, it\u2019s hard to articulate why this particular subset of artists grabs the yoke of people who struggle with mood disorders, but there is an obvious and tangible correlation. It\u2019s not a coincidence that among my favorite artists are Kurt Cobain, Ian Curtis, Janis Joplin, and Hank Williams, all of whom were dead before age 30, by their own hands and choices. My favorite writers include Anne Sexton, Ernest Hemingway, and Sylvia Plath. Also dead by the ultimate self-medication. Radically different genres, but with a common thread of suffering; all singing in perfect pitch, but to the tune of\u202fThe Truth The Dead Know.<\/p>\n
Clearly, however, there is nothing inherent in the act of creation that causes the obsessive, all-consuming sadness, the hopeless, Sisyphean struggle between stillness and mania, the furtive grasps at integrity and other false nobilities, or the belief that darkness must be experienced to be communicated. These seem to be bad choices. More accurately, a series of choices that, paradoxically, become a self-fulfilling prophecy and are often at the root of suffering and despair.<\/p>\n
December 27, 2009\u202f
Condescending asshole disorder<\/p>\n
Intermittent explosive disorder is a behavioral pathology that manifests as anger, sometimes rage, disproportionate to the situation at hand, immediately followed by deep remorse. For something that sounds like an awesome excuse for every impulsive stupidity ever committed, I can\u2019t quite get behind a disorder that sounds so much like what it is.<\/p>\n
\u202f
Monica\u2019s gift to Hillary, and the worst part about everything<\/p>\n
My first instinct was to prolong my ignorance. I didn\u2019t want to know. Claims to the contrary are invented or imagined. Ignorance was lonely, but bearable, and lacked the inevitable apathy and casual cruelty that seemed to be the fate of knowing. The paradox, of course, is that the sheer audacity, once understood, brought calm rather than the anxiety or pain I was expecting. We say we lie to protect the other person\u2019s feelings, but really what we\u2019re doing is avoiding our own discomfort and withholding the only thing that can actually help the other person.<\/p>\n
I had the epiphany that so much of everything I thought was spontaneous was actually premeditated, and probably on a checklist. After all the cosmic promises there was no meaningful deliberation at the end. I looked, and hoped, but there was no sense of loss. No mourning. Just the calculated efficiency of a hired killer.<\/p>\n
Sadly, our conspicuous, public proclamations of affection given in May eventually became a threat to her freedom, and all but predicted the invocation of the worst-case scenario. I did not even consider the possibility of it being used as an exit strategy even as it was happening all around me.<\/p>\n
It was quick, it plausibly explained a change that couldn\u2019t have been predicted, it minimized culpability, mitigated embarrassment about a widely misunderstood decision, it allowed the denial of proclivities, represented rebuttal as retaliatory, and generated enough disgust to preclude concern about a quick abandonment, casual divorce, and certainly no questions would be raised out loud about the apparent overlapping timelines of the replacement. Having seen what that lie looks from both sides now, I\u2019m pretty confident I recognize it, coming or going.<\/p>\n
I liken this experience to Hillary Clinton\u2019s though admittedly without as large an audience and on a much smaller stage. At face value Monica Lewinsky is merely a material participant in a personal betrayal. But in so doing, gave Hillary something that no one else had been able to a situation that could not be denied and the opportunity to witness at close-range her husband\u2019s willingness to save himself at any cost.<\/p>\n
I expected a quick and merciless dispatch, and quicker rebound, having witnessed it in April. I expected duplicity in defense of reputation. I was shocked by all the lies. Others warned me of the possibility, but I disregarded them with the sincere belief that I wouldn\u2019t have to consider it in my defense. Ignoring several chances to recant, a disconnect was revealed, so vast that I no longer had any urgency to reconnect it. Or even understand it. Like Hillary, the scope of the act and the subsequent breach in ethics has actually given me clarity and calm. Now that I know she will do anything to save the myth she has created, there\u2019s nothing else to worry about. I have my first real consolation of the worst-case scenario<\/p>\n
And for all that, it\u2019s not even the worst part of everything. Individual sadness eventually subsides. But the irreparable damage to the collective belief in what is possible will probably never be made whole again. It\u2019s difficult to believe that it even exists. IT! The unnamed catalyst without which not there can be no love or true faith. Need is not quite belief.<\/p>\n
The fall of a person at every level, from an individual man to Man as we see ourselves when we are at our accomplished best, doesn\u2019t usually happen in one calamitous plunge from the heights of glory. But rather, it is the little things we choose to do, by ourselves, when we think there\u2019s no one watching, or when this one time doesn\u2019t matter. It\u2019s how the path of least resistance becomes the only way in or out, and the only way we know to go. We make small compromises, but in the most important places and the result is the slow-motion free-fall of our self-actualization. Eventually we end up lower than where we started. We look around, incredulous, as if being sprawled out on the floor required a fall from grace to get there.<\/p>\n
Don\u2019t tell them you\u2019re bigger than Jesus<\/p>\n
This is when you\u2019re supposed to be depressed. At 345 am on the Thursday morning before Christmas, listening to Amy Winehouse explain\u202fYou Know I\u2019m No Good\u202fand Peter Gabriel tell you to keep\u202fDigging in the Dirt. But even at that point, I\u2019m pretty sure the heavy stuff isn\u2019t quite at it\u2019s heaviest. You loved me and you\u2019re not allowed to write. And still I write. And you are not allowed to say a word.<\/p>\n
I spend Christmas day alternating. Vomiting blood, reading, writing. The guy blames the chick, the chick blames the snake. I\u2019ll just blame the fucking snake. She hates me when she says, \u201cI love Dylan.\u201d And I say, \u201cDylan who?\u201d<\/p>\n
I stay out super late, put something a little stronger in my 7-Up then most people probably have and take it with me. I can see my pulse in my hands. My nose runs and bleeds. I\u2019ve been seeing double. I\u2019ve been having trouble reading small print. This life may be killing me, but I don\u2019t know how else to live. Perhaps in a way everybody\u2019s life kills them. Some a bit more painfully than others. I\u2019d say my choices are about half way up that spectrum. No one is stabbing me or shooting me in the face. I still cry. I feel half awake most days. If you see me on my knees, I\u2019m begging. I really did try to get close to you. I say I hate these kind of stories and you say, \u201cBut I know they\u2019re true.\u201d<\/p>\n
Everything I was most scared of has manifest, with my complicity\u2013at least\u2013if not my outright choice. Is this place then an ultimate failure or a triumph of the will? I can endure what I was most afraid of? Something like a combination of both? I may never know the truth, but can\u2019t face it. Did I go too far this time? It\u2019s my own fault I\u2019ve been to Hell.<\/p>\n
I pray. That something watches and helps us be wise. Because I\u2019ve lost my way.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
February 24, 2009\u202f Simple, focal A feeling of dread washes over me. And suddenly I\u2019m afraid of everything. I\u2019m scared of the dark. I\u2019m scared of my shadow. I\u2019m scared of strange noises. I\u2019m scared of the silence. I\u2019m scared of dying. And all around I see death in everything. Something is whispering in my … <\/p>\n