January 5, 2011\u202f
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 its 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
January 11, 2011\u202f
East Austin Blues<\/p>\n
I\u2019m not in control. Could the Universe have made her lesson any more clear to me? I was incarcerated. My stubbornness, my unwillingness to acquiesce demanded this bitter medicine to realize I am not in control. We are not in control. Our purpose is to discover our purpose, commit to it, then relinquish ourselves to this higher power. Then yield. Let it be. Stop fucking tripping. However you want to put it it all means the same thing.<\/p>\n
\u202f
Ua mau<\/p>\n
It\u2019s not like July 4th is that big in Hawaii; not like New Year\u2019s Eve. Except for the military. Something about celebrating freedom on the graves of the indigenous people feels disingenuous. I tried explaining it to the rednecks but they just don\u2019t get it.<\/p>\n
\u202f
The lightness of heaviness<\/p>\n
We got to know each other on a deep level\u2013which is good-but we live our lives in the shallow end. (For the most part.) The little annoyances swallowed over time have a way of being vomited up at the most inopportune moments. These words have a purpose to be the lightness amidst the heaviness of our lives.<\/p>\n
\u202f
Patience<\/p>\n
I\u2019ve once again re-read your letter that I received yesterday and was again and again filled with sweet affection for you. I know that each day brings me one day closer to you. The excitement of seeing you and holding you again makes time seem agonizingly slow. You are like Christmas and I\u2019m like a five-year old boy being told, \u201cPatience,\u201d as the presents under the tree pile higher. Patience? I have no use for the word.<\/p>\n
\u202f
Conflict makes energy<\/p>\n
I need to get out of myself. I\u2019m too much in my own head and I\u2019m sometimes overwhelmed by the power of my ability to feel. A blessing and a curse. My whole scattered life has been a blessing and a curse. Help me, Baby. I think I need you at the exact moment I realize I shouldn\u2019t tell you that.<\/p>\n
\u202f
Strange currency<\/p>\n
So what are we going to do when I get out there? Besides the obvious I mean. Our concerns have been so legal, so cerebral, so theoretical that the idea of you as a woman, with a woman\u2019s body, and a woman\u2019s kisses and a woman\u2019s loving touch have, unfortunately, taken a back seat to those other concerns. I\u2019m sure that will change the moment I melt into your arms, a sugar cube dissolving in your rain. And you as well will be sugar on my tongue dissolving.<\/p>\n
And in this desert of hatred you were an oasis of love and support; my tether to a world where the truth is believed and friends are forever and justice meant fairness. Your beautiful words reach across these thousands of miles to talk me off the ledge of this bilious, nauseous, ferocious anger.<\/p>\n
Three months apart and now three weeks. Do you still want me? I think you might. And I can hear your voice in response to that question a breathless treble of high-octave exhale, \u201cYeah!\u201d<\/p>\n
January 19, 2011\u202f
What would an angel say, the devil wants to know<\/p>\n
Solitude is difficult for a social animal. And though the argument can be made that much of this solitude is self-chosen, it\u2019s not like it was one big choice. But rather, the cumulative effect of a thousand smaller choices, many of them bad. But as I was reminded by a dear friend yesterday, bad choices do not make a bad person. Hopefully she is correct and I can somehow extricate myself from this situation to be with her on more than one level.<\/p>\n
The book is troubling me. I haven\u2019t written lately because it hurts to remember. Bad choices may not make a bad person, but hell if they don\u2019t make some bad situations. I want my life back. No, I take that back. I had the life you\u2019re supposed to want and I didn\u2019t want it. That\u2019s what preempted this whole mess. A realization that what everyone is supposed to want is not what I wanted. But instead of delicately removing myself from the situation I chose to dramatically tear the walls down. Then I did it again, this time in even more spectacular fashion.<\/p>\n
Bad choices do not make a bad person. Maybe a temporarily stupid or insane person. I need to repeat my positive affirmations. I deserve good things. And though it may be unrequited, for now, there is someone out there who I love very much and would do anything for. (You know who you are, my love.) Surrender to the Universe. I don\u2019t think it\u2019s a coincidence that the number one song in the world the day I was born was\u202fLet It Be.\u202fIt\u2019s as if the Universe knew that I would need the reminder from day one, and I\u2019ve been resisting the direction the whole forty plus years I\u2019ve been here now.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen I find myself in times of trouble, Mother Mary comes to me, speaking words of wisdom \u2018Let it be.\u2019\u201d Maybe I should start listening, huh? Clearly my trying to control everything hasn\u2019t exactly resulted in the gold standard of results. Still a bunch of potential out there. I love my kids, I love my family and friends, I love she who prefers to remain nameless here. What is there to lose except everything?<\/p>\n
Let it be.<\/p>\n
January 21, 2011\u202f
Days full of rain, the sky\u2019s coming down again, I get so tired of these same old blues<\/p>\n
It\u2019s another cold, dark day here in the corner of this apartment complex in east Austin, Texas. Though I\u2019m sure the situation has as much an effect on the perceived brightness of the noon-day sun as anything else.<\/p>\n
It got down to 29 degrees last night and as an experiment I left the heater off. Wasn\u2019t so bad, probably 45 degrees in the house when I woke up. It was nice to snuggle in bed, even if I was snuggling myself.<\/p>\n
I\u2019ve been reading a lot about the Buddha and Buddhist teachings in general, and though I understand on an intellectual level that the root cause of suffering is attachment, on a visceral and emotional level it\u2019s hard as shit not to feel attached to certain people, places and things. Mainly people. Again, mostly you.<\/p>\n
\u202f
What are we except the stories we tell about ourselves?<\/p>\n
I find myself doing the same thing so I can hardly blame people for\u202fcreating myths and replacing what may have really happened\u202fwith versions of the truth that cause the least amount of cognitive dissonance.<\/p>\n
As I take a break from my memory, it occurred to me that your version of what happened might be completely different. And with over a year now to percolate with little, if any, interference, I wonder how the myth has grown. Do you recognize the truth in the words set in digital stone here? Do you remember the situations, the omissions, commissions and obfuscations?<\/p>\n
What\u202fare\u202fwe except the stories we tell about ourselves? And it\u2019s the rare storyteller among us that has the insight to align the painful choices s\/he has made in the name of making things easier or diminishing that aforementioned dissonance.<\/p>\n
But what about the truth? Like quantum theory is every possible outcome and every possible prequel as true as another? Does something have to be observed to manifest? And does my observation manifest a different truth than yours? I can only write what I remember.<\/p>\n
And some days all I can do is remember.<\/p>\n
January 22, 2011\u202f
The ever-living ghost of what once was<\/p>\n
I remember the moment I realized things were over with my first wife. I put my hand on her knee as she drove to a pumpkin patch, our two children in the backseat giggling. Some CD or other I had made for her, Band of Horses playing beautiful, romantic. And she shook my hand off her leg.<\/p>\n
I can be so slow to recognize the truth of situations. The maxim that \u201ca man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest,\u201d is, I believe, a little more true for me than most. I have a tendency of explaining away the truth, even truth explicitly stated (\u201cI don\u2019t love you anymore\u201d), with hopes of what might be, or \u201cwhat she really meant was.\u201d<\/p>\n
So you can imagine my confusion when the messages are positive, but don\u2019t align with action. Why does everything I love want to kill me a little bit? Why the Siren\u2019s call to melancholy when, in general, I\u2019m not melancholic? Why do I so often allow everything in the spectrum from suffering to rapture to be controlled externally? Again, tortured by an impotent self-awareness.<\/p>\n
When will the intellectual become the visceral? Will there ever be a healthy emotional detachment? Is it possible? Is it optimal? Maybe the burden of\u202ffeeling\u202feverything is a gift in some way and its benefits need just be discovered. Overturned under some unexplored rock or other.<\/p>\n
The sun moves to the west and leaves this corner in premature, early afternoon darkness. Yet for all this the lightness is never spent. My sober heart bursts with the possibilities.<\/p>\n
Give me your hand, or better yet, please take my hand in yours.<\/p>\n
January 23, 2011\u202f
Castaway<\/p>\n
I think I\u2019m losing my mind. A little bit. This experiment in solitary confinement and sensory deprivation is wholly unpleasant and, contrary to my original hypothesis, is actually\u202fnot\u202fconducive to productivity. In this environment, things actually shut down.<\/p>\n
Mornings start later. Days are slow, but, paradoxically, go by quickly. All of a sudden it\u2019s night. Then the middle of the night. I\u2019m almost done with my books that I\u2019ve unpacked, recently purchased, or borrowed, and I\u2019ve gone through 158 pages of lamebook.com (which is actually pretty funny). And if it weren\u2019t for my neighbors upstairs alternately having sex and fighting (with, I might add, equal passion, volume, and vigor), I might as well be on another planet. Or unchartered island. I feel like Tom Hanks in\u202fCastaway,\u202fexcept I have Facebook, canned goods, and coffee. I\u2019m glad I don\u2019t have a volleyball or I might have drawn a disembodied face on one side and begun speaking to it by now.<\/p>\n
Saying I\u2019m lonely is redundant and tantamount to admitting weakness. And for unrelated reasons I am not allowed to admit any sort of weakness. Certainly not in this context. So I focus on the end game and that makes some of the more difficult moments dissipate. Or at least possible to bear. But what if the end game is an illusion? That\u2019s my greatest fear is that I\u2019ve been propping myself up on text messages of seeming grandeur that turn out to be platitudes, only the false hopes of false promises put to digital effect, and false words whispered in times of real need.<\/p>\n
The turmoil reflected in the shouting matches from upstairs notwithstanding, they do seem to be quite real in their, um, passion. I\u2019m not sure which I would choose at the moment, if given the choice, tumult or isolation? They mostly\u202fsound\u202flike they\u2019re suffering. At least they\u2019re suffering together. And out loud. While mine seems to be in my heart, in my head, and in silence.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m worried that I\u2019ve built a house of cards; will I be shocked when I see them fall? I probably shouldn\u2019t be. Over and over and over. The cards always fall. And what if, like in the movie, my volleyball floats away and I just break down because it was my last tether to sanity?<\/p>\n
Which is another reason I\u2019m glad I don\u2019t really have a volleyball.<\/p>\n
January 25, 2011\u202f
Desperation makes the worst cologne<\/p>\n
I don\u2019t feel desperate. Yet I find myself acting in ways that might be construed as such. And if you walk like a duck and quack like a duck, you can hardly blame people for thinking you\u2019re a duck. Even if you feel like a lion. Historically, when I\u2019ve been at my strongest, I\u2019ve lived by a few simple principles. Or rather, my actions naturally aligned with a few precepts without a need for cognition.<\/p>\n
Never ask a question you don\u2019t already know the answer to. Never want something more than it wants you back. Desperation makes the worst cologne. And though these seem to be romantic in nature they work in almost every situation that involves human beings.<\/p>\n
The problem is, the older I get, the harder this list and similar truisms become to live out. The more I learn the more I realize I don\u2019t know the answer to a lot of questions. The choice then becomes stay silent and safe, or ask and be vulnerable. And over these decades, there have been people and situations too difficult to gauge, and the measurement of something as abstract as \u201cwant\u201d is almost impossible.<\/p>\n
So lately I\u2019ve been asking for what I want. And though I still intend to get it all, it sounds sometimes like desperation. And I don\u2019t care. I don\u2019t know the answers. And I don\u2019t care.<\/p>\n
Quack, quack. Roar.<\/p>\n
January 26, 2011\u202f
It\u2019s complicated<\/p>\n
We\u2019d moved together from Keller to Austin in May, an apparent couple, with divorce proceedings in full-swing. That was when the split was still somewhat pending, at least to me, and we still threw out words like, \u201camicable,\u201d and, \u201ccivilized.\u201d I should have known things were worse than they seemed when she was so eager to get rid of the house that we had built to her specific specifications. We rented it to a younger, somewhat odd couple\u2013he was 30, she was 20, they were bartenders at Main Event, they didn\u2019t have kids. Why two bartenders wanted a house with two stories, five bedrooms and three bathrooms (more than one each!) was a mystery\u2013I joked about them using it as a clandestine meth lab, hidden in plain sight in the suburbs of Dallas\/Fort Worth\u2013but they paid on time, enough to cover the mortgage and then some. So we signed a two-year lease and moved four hours south.<\/p>\n
I didn\u2019t want to leave, but she dangled the reward of reconciliation, so I almost immediately acquiesced. I didn\u2019t notice when she morphed into Machiavelli sometime in January, or I would have recognized the move as one aspect of an emotionless pragmatism intended to secure her independence (at my expense, of course) and eventually extricate herself from our relationship. The process took about ten months and had officially ended the first week of October when she changed her status on Facebook from \u201cIt\u2019s complicated,\u201d to \u201cSingle.\u201d It\u2019s not like I hadn\u2019t given her reason; several, in fact.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo you\u2019re single now?\u201d
\u201cI\u2019ve been single since July.\u201d
\u201cOnly in court.\u201d Our divorce was finalized on July 11.
\u201cNo, everywhere.\u201d
\u201cDidn\u2019t look that way to me.\u201d
\u201cYou weren\u2019t looking close enough.\u201d
\u201cYou could have given me a heads-up.\u201d
\u201cI don\u2019t see why you even care. No one\u2019s even going to notice.\u201d
\u201cYou\u2019re kidding right?\u201d
\u201cNo. Why?\u201d
\u201cBecause I\u2019ve already gotten three phone calls asking when we finally broke up for good.\u201d
\u201cTell them, \u2018July.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
The shit would really hit the fan when on Christmas day, an hour after we watched our son and daughter open their presents, she changed her status again to, \u201cIn a relationship,\u201d and again the following May when my own status would change from \u201cSingle\u201d to \u201cMarried.\u201d She hasn\u2019t spoken to me since.<\/p>\n
\u202f
The soundtrack of our lives<\/p>\n
Watching the landscape, or cityscape, pass by in the windows as music is playing too loudly in the background, and I sometimes feel like I\u2019ve warped into a music-video world. It helps if the music is fast enough to keep time with the view, is catchy, but more obscure than pop (this isn\u2019t about a sing-a-long), and bonus points for esoteric lyrics that require some level of reflection.<\/p>\n
Today\u2019s candidate for perfect music-video song came on just after noon when the iPod carefully selected the Cure\u2019s\u202fCharlotte Sometimes.\u202fAnd Robert Smith\u2019s repeated cries of \u201cSometimes I dream!\u201d seemed to fit the ride, and the day, perfectly.<\/p>\n
These songs, so full of memories for such different reasons, suggest the silent soundtrack of our lives played out without music but in our thoughts and memories, both conscious and subconscious.<\/p>\n
Events of the day, had otherwise triggered thoughts of the past, my past. And, of course, as we all do when triggered, I drifted back to the recent and more distant history and contemplated life and the decisions that I\u2019ve made. There are some things I\u2019ve done that look really bad on paper, but given identical situations, I\u2019m quite sure I would repeat most of my actions, even the one\u2019s with difficult ramifications, even knowing what I know now.\u202fOuspensky\u2019s wheel once again revisited.<\/p>\n
The inconvenience comes from the judgments of those removed from the situation. \u201cIf only I could explain.\u201d I\u2019ve learned it\u2019s best not to try. Explanations are often interpreted as excuses. And I don\u2019t have any good ones. I just have to trust that I\u2019m trying to do the right thing and for the most part succeeding. Then let people fall into place where they will. Because they will anyway.<\/p>\n
None of us are so different as we like to believe we are, myself included. The human condition does not produce many truly unique situations. More than one person\u2019s walked on the moon. And whatever you\u2019re feeling, a million other people are feeling at the exact same time. I try to remember that when I get too much in my head. Especially about regrets, if onlys and what ifs.<\/p>\n
Some of us are just not as good at hiding our true selves. Growing up Catholic I was trained at an early age to be confessional. I blurt. But, I\u2019ve learned that not everyone wants to hear your true confessions. Some don\u2019t care. Some can\u2019t empathize. Some understand, but keep it to themselves. Some just don\u2019t like the act of blurting.<\/p>\n
I am what I am, and I\u2019ve done what I\u2019ve done. And there\u2019s no changing any of that. I really don\u2019t think I\u2019d want to.<\/p>\n
But, sometimes I dream.<\/p>\n
January 28, 2011\u202f
A man you don\u2019t meet every day<\/p>\n
This site has become so self-centered lately. When I get a new client the first thing I do is audit their assets (that\u2019s what\u202fshe\u202fsaid). Invariably, I tell them one variation or another of \u201cYou talk too much about your capabilities and experiences. Your customers and potential customers don\u2019t care about you. They care about themselves. When you only talk about your company, you lose your chance to engage at your first impression.\u201d<\/p>\n
And yet, here I speak almost entirely out of my own experience which, though lacking in extremes like murder or lottery winnings, does not seem to align with the more common experiences of the people I know. But perhaps this is because I\u2019ve been more willing to share these experiences. One could argue that I\u2019ve not only shared them but pushed them out unrequested to the world. And clearly I don\u2019t have a monopoly on misery or ecstasy, no matter how miserable or ecstatic I have been.<\/p>\n
Then again, what I do know of the lives of the people that I\u2019m close to suggests that perhaps my experience is not at all unique. And that the shit, however it manifests, manages to find its way into all of our lives, even those that from the outside seem like a fairy tale. No matter how bad it gets, there\u2019s always someone whose suffering is greater. Incrementally to exponentially, the category of people that are worse off seems almost infinite on a planet of more than six billion individual lives. I wonder if there is actually someone that is objectively the worst-off human being in existence, or is that state fluid and constantly changing as one person\u2019s destiny becomes more and more horrible, then recedes.<\/p>\n
The converse idea to glean from this, then, is actually quite hopeful. That there is always something to be thankful for. I may be unemployed, but I\u2019ve got two arms and two legs, a sound mind and virtually healthy body to not work with. I may have a broken heart, but I have the insight to know this and the capacity to attract more love. I may have some blemishes on my permanent record (always a threat I never took so seriously in intermediate school), but I do have the experience and education to outshine any past personal failures or proclivities.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m a man you don\u2019t meet everyday, that I know for sure. I\u2019ve had a weird life.\u202fWhat to most people would be an absurd set of circumstances is the only possible outcome for you.\u202fA variation of that idea was expressed to me by an ancient lover many years ago. I didn\u2019t like hearing it at the time, but I\u2019ve come to recognize its veracity. I\u202ffeel\u202fspecial. And I don\u2019t mean that in the megalomaniacal sense; I\u2019m not believing or feigning any sort of grandiose fantasies of importance. But in the sense that we are all unique touching points in the time-space continuum of existence, and I am beginning to understand how I touch.<\/p>\n
Perhaps as a marketing strategist it is ideal to suggest that one not talk about oneself as a means of engagement. But on this metaphysical level, the only person I even have a chance at truly understanding is myself, and the only way to connect with anyone that rakes across the path of this site is by finding commonality in experience, even if the specifics of this experience are vastly different.<\/p>\n
For all the activity, I actually get very little feedback; in fact, I\u2019d prefer to hear what people think more often. Mostly readers choose different channels to address the ideas I\u2019ve played with here. I use this communication as a means to understanding, but to be quite honest that understanding comes in fits and is mostly fleeting, if it comes at all.<\/p>\n
January 30, 2011\u202f
Making sure we get this straight<\/p>\n
Before I had even met you, before I had even known you, I had the idea of you. A beautiful idea. An idea which I thought I needed, even though I was pretty sure I would never know it beyond the imaginary. And when you manifest in my experience of the Universe? I was shocked and quite amazed that the idea actually existed. You were perfect. Beautiful, confident and everything all the time. You even had the correct flaws ones that you needed me to \u201csave\u201d you from, or so it seemed at the time. More likely? I was celebrating those perceived flaws, hoping your problems would prove necessary to my ideas. And by proxy would make me necessary because you would need me around to think them. Unlike what I\u2019ve implied in the past, however, you saved yourself.<\/p>\n
I was there through it all. Who started it? What was the catalyst? I don\u2019t know. But you finished it. And then? You became bigger than that original idea of you. And so now? The roles have become reversed. Because with the roles of responsibility we both have assumed, with age and with circumstance, I\u2019ve ignored this obvious aphorism a beautiful fuck up is still a fuck up. You have still retained the beautiful (and I don\u2019t just mean physical, you\u2019ve always been that). But I, as we had in our youth, have sometimes found myself being both, not always consciously, but pursuing each with equal abandon.<\/p>\n
Earlier this year you called me selfish because the magnitude of my personal problems made me seem dismissive of yours. You were absolutely right. And you were wrong. I always appreciated your struggles, especially with regard to raising, caring, and nurturing other lives. Especially in the conditions you found yourself in. I was self-centered. Yuck. But I did recognize the woman you had become. I should have been better at letting you know how much I recognized things. And how much I appreciated everything. And why I told you I thought you were more beautiful than when I first met you so many years ago.\u202fThat\u202fwas the reason.<\/p>\n
Where are we now? I\u2019m still that same guy you knew and loved, know and love. Still funny, still crazy on the inside if not in action, still the smartest boy in the room. A few dings to the exterior. Nothing a fresh coat of paint won\u2019t cover.<\/p>\n
I want you to think about things. And by things I mean the future. And remember, the path of least resistance quickly becomes the only way we know and that, for both of us, will be the end of our pursuit of the divine.<\/p>\n
January 31, 2011\u202f
All you need is love; well, maybe not all you need<\/p>\n
I posted that recently as a Facebook status with a link back to\u202fan open love letter\u202fof sorts. The feedback I got was rather pessimistic in the overall view of love as something not to be trusted, entered into quickly, or whose very existence ought to be questioned as some rehashed Cinderella story or other.<\/p>\n
As many times as I\u2019ve been hurt, or hurt another, in the name of love, I can understand the reaction. But for some reason, the giddy pronouncements between two lovers in the throes of an early-relationship hormone-fest, the butterflies-in-the-stomach anticipation of love delayed, then rekindled, the sense of well-being brought on by years of affection; a hand on the knee, a smile across a room, or a knowing glance all still rank highly in my personal Google search using \u201cmeaning\u201d and \u201clife\u201d as its main keywords.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m a sucker for light touches and lighter looks. Warm beds on weekend mornings and physical contact while drifting off to nod. I want to believe and so I will. And here was my response<\/p>\n
\u201cAs with most aphorisms, it is an oversimplification, but the gist of the thought\u2013that human interaction would benefit if the primary motivation, rule set and post-exchange analysis of our relationships was love\u2013is a valid, if somewhat optimistic, argument. Which is why I, being a person that leans toward optimism, but whose experience has often provoked skepticism, included part two of that title.\u201d<\/p>\n
I\u2019m pretty sure we all want the same things. But so much depends upon the outcome that we end up constantly hedging our bets, closing our shells, and protecting ourselves, rather than being vulnerable. There\u2019s so much at risk. Our very sense of self, maybe even our lives as we know them.<\/p>\n
I\u2019ve learned the hard way that living in fear often makes real the very thing you\u2019re afraid of. Jealousy brings other lovers. Paranoia brings attack. And it\u2019s no secret that a liar won\u2019t believe anyone else.<\/p>\n
February 5, 2011\u202f
An early valentine<\/p>\n
Full disclosure this entry is specifically for one person, though I still want to share it with the world. I want to share the ever-long head-rush into effusive sweet nothings, the redemptive experience of affection, given back to me in reciprocity from a love lost and rekindled, lost again, and now forever found. Grant me these indulgences.<\/p>\n
And to inspire and capture the mood of this open missive, a collection of giddy pronouncements in song, beginning here, to be played as you hear my voice reading to you from 1,100 miles away.<\/p>\n
For much of the last fifteen months I\u2019ve allowed myself to slide down the slippery slope of bitterness and righteous indignation including, at times, toward you. I know, I know. I wasn\u2019t there. There were doubts and, eventually, omissions by both of us. I\u2019ve put that to rest, and the past abandoned now. I\u2019m not there. I will be. The time is short.<\/p>\n
I want us to be open to the possibilities that for one reason or another have eluded us over the decades of our acquaintance, friendship and love. I want you. Surely, I\u2019m repeating myself with that sentiment.<\/p>\n
But on this occasion, the celebration of the martyrdom of the patron saint of lovers, now turned saccharine sweet by Hallmark and its co-conspirators at Hershey\u2019s and proflowers.com, let us look back upon our lives and look forward to the not-so-distant future when I will lay back with you laughing in my arms.<\/p>\n
There are these months in our way, less obstacles to me, than to you. Your eyes give you away. Still, you have given me a new-found optimism. I\u2019ve always believed in you, but now I believe you. And, yes, there is a difference. The waiting is hard, but less and less so as hours morph into days and into weeks then months, and the clock turns from torturous to taunting, from expectation to inevitable, and finally to bliss.<\/p>\n
You\u2019ve asked me in the past why I love you, and though the reasons may seem selfish, you have made me feel selfless in a way I cannot remember feeling. At least not recently. You make me feel like I\u2019m more than what I am. You make me feel special. You make me see the possibilities. You make me feel like a rock star. You gave me back my swagger.<\/p>\n
And so now all I\u2019m asking for is everything. To open up your life and heart in a way you rarely do, like a flower opens petal by petal in early Spring, and to let me in. Our experiences have sometimes made us cynical, how could they not? But you\u2019ve brought the opposite experience back to me.<\/p>\n
I love you. My sweet valentine.<\/p>\n
February 7, 2011\u202f
Could it be magic?<\/p>\n
Riding home today and the song, seemingly chosen at random, completed a perfect storm of factors it is the week before Valentine\u2019s Day and I am far removed from the one I might choose to spend it with, yet somehow feel as close to her as I ever have; I\u2019ve had two hours of sleep and fifteen cups of coffee and only a day-old bran muffin to stem the caffeine\u2019s tide; I\u2019ve been spoiled with the unexpected mid-day lilt of her voice, longer than usual because she has locked her keys in the car and needs to remain onsite to wait for the locksmith; and<\/p>\n
\u202f<\/p>\n
I know something in my life has changed when I hit repeat on the iPod because I want to glean some insight into the ways of life and love from a pop song first made popular in the middle years of my childhood.<\/p>\n
I literally caught myself texting the lyrics to her when, in a rare moment of restraint, I grabbed me by the imaginary lapels, smacked myself upside the face and head, and with a stern rebuke gave the the order to, \u201cGet a hold of yourself, man. Put on the Cro-Mags or early 7 Seconds, for god\u2019s sake.\u201d But I would have none of it. I made a compromise. I erased the text message. But I played\u202fCould It be Magic\u202fon repeat until I removed the headphones from my ears upon entering my apartment.<\/p>\n
I\u2019ve always had a weakness for syrup and a melody.<\/p>\n
March 7, 2011\u202f
The scared and the sacred<\/p>\n
Everything I thought was holy, everything sacred, was actually impious, sad and scared. Part of me hates you for destroying that brief moment of faith. Part of me thanks you for reminding me to always know your enemy. Part of me yearns for what I thought was real. Part of me misses you terribly. Like the song goes, \u201cI\u2019m a million different people from one day to the next.\u201d I sit here, though, in the ruins that I\u2019m not quite sure I created alone.<\/p>\n
Why am I paying the total price for our self-immolation?<\/p>\n
March 14, 2011\u202f
March madness<\/p>\n
Which, of course, has nothing to do with basketball. I\u2019m having a crisis of faith. I don\u2019t believe. I know things may be said to spare feelings or avoid confrontation, but I\u2019d just rather know because the truth always comes out. It\u2019s like a bubble that rises to the surface. Undeniable. Indefatigable. We say we lie to save another person from the hurtful truth, but in reality we do it to save ourselves.<\/p>\n
March 22, 2011\u202f
I was feeling cold and tired<\/p>\n
These things, this life, is so hard to negotiate sometimes. We all love, we all win, we all lose. And yet it\u2019s so personal, it\u2019s so complicated. We become difficult with the people that matter most, probably because they are the ones that will tolerate it. Let me tell you the truth I get sad, I get scared, and right now, I\u2019m alone. And I don\u2019t have a consistent strategy to alter these conditions. I don\u2019t know where to start, except to keep writing. I want to lash out, but at what? I want someone to come wrap her arms around me. But who? I want to soar. But to what end?<\/p>\n
\u202f
To the outside<\/p>\n
The dead leaves. The clutter. The things that seem to matter so much at the moment. Why do I have this self-awareness, but I cannot step out of myself? Why the impatience? Why the impotence? I am the only obstacle in my path to self-actualization.<\/p>\n
\u202f
A deadline<\/p>\n
Life, obviously, is finite. Death, though frightening, gives us a deadline. This silliness that we sometimes go through needs the final shake of mortality perhaps to make us right. There\u2019s so much I want to do, there\u2019s still so much love, that every second wasted becomes a lost opportunity. Let us then resolve to waste no more. To live and love and eat ice cream and rub our children\u2019s hair and tell them we love them. Because this next moment, any next moment, eventually some next moment will be your last.<\/p>\n
March 23, 2011\u202f
The term \u201clove\u201d<\/p>\n
Or any of these other huge emotional factors that matter so much in our lives often involve a chosen, shared cognitive dissonance that manifests in dysfunction, sadness, and pain. Why do we do this? Why do we spend so much energy in one direction when we\u2019re running in the other?<\/p>\n
April 13, 2011\u202f
Coming clean then moving forward<\/p>\n
It had been an interesting twenty-four hours. A reality that I had been holding for over a year was shattered with a few sentences and, surprisingly, I\u2019m not traumatized like I thought I might be. What\u2019s the point really? I\u2019ve come to that conclusion.<\/p>\n
Two disparate events have brought similar perspective, yet the only things they actually share are the date and city of their occurrence.<\/p>\n
A bunny died in my arms. Frantically searching for a vet that treated rabbits, the life slowly drained from this fragile creature and on my lap, in real time, a life lesson unfurled. It\u2019s not happening as quickly or dramatically as a mad rush to find medical aid, but in a very real way some of us are slowly fading. Words without tone can often be misinterpreted, but I am not being sarcastic nor flippant. The bunny\u2019s death helped stem the flow of what might have been a righteous anger. I had known the rabbit for only a day, but I mourned its passing.<\/p>\n
The second was a snippet of a conversation, whispered in the dark. I promised that I would keep the specific dialogue private but, trust me, it was exactly what I needed to hear. And provided the only road I could see to get me back to life.<\/p>\n
April 16, 2011\u202f
About a girl<\/p>\n
You will never fully know if you ever loved someone until you actually lose them. In other cases, some people never imagine how life would be without them or even imagine losing that one person. Because in that exact moment you know that you will never say \u201cI love you\u201d again, you often actually begin to do just that.<\/p>\n
April 17, 2011\u202f
And no one ever has to know that inside we are broken<\/p>\n
What is the point of giving your life to another person if you can\u2019t give your whole self and be your real self? I\u2019ve come to believe that you cannot love another person for who they have the potential to be, or worse, what you want them to be. The only way to truly love someone is to love exactly who they are. The one I love isn\u2019t perfect. She, like every other human being, is flawed. And some of those flaws, over the years, have been a source of great pain and disappointment to me. I\u2019ve been asked by friends and family, I\u2019ve been asked by her, why I keep going back. It\u2019s represented to me as weakness or some kind of failure on my part. I disagree. I know who she is. I\u2019m not stupid. And I love her for who she is, not who I wish she would be. We may not end up together, but I will never stop loving her. I don\u2019t know if it\u2019s normal, but I\u2019ve never stopped loving anyone just because they hurt me. If you wait around long enough, everyone will eventually hurt you.<\/p>\n
\u202f
I\u2019m going to share a little secret with you about her<\/p>\n
You\u2019re not going to win. I can tell by your pallor that you don\u2019t have the pain threshold. That kind of love is not a 5k charity walk. It is a triathlon. And you have to be willing to sacrifice everything\u2013everything\u2013to even have a chance and making all the way to the end.<\/p>\n
\u202f
A \u201cParable of the Lion\u201d<\/p>\n
Being mad at her for the eternal, insecure quest for male attention is like being mad at a lion for saying \u201cRoar,\u201d because you told it to be quiet. Lions roar. They\u2019re not doing it to bother you; it\u2019s just what they do. She is who she is and I love her for what is, not what I hope she will be.<\/p>\n
April 18, 2011\u202f
Memories of him<\/p>\n
Walking from the pool with my wife and the kids. My daughter ran ahead and in chasing her I almost tumbled over my son who had abruptly stopped and kneeled down on the sidewalk. I was just about to hurry him along because my daughter was now almost out of sight when my wife said, \u201cWait. He has literally stopped to smell the flowers. This is an iconic moment. I think we can wait until he\u2019s four to discourage him and crush his spirit.\u201d So we waited. And after a few long draws from the petals he got up and continued toward the house, singing to himself, \u201cThey smell good. They smell good.\u201d<\/p>\n
They do, son, they really do.<\/p>\n
\u202f
I miss someone<\/p>\n
A few days ago I made a selfish, unnecessarily punitive mistake directed toward someone that didn\u2019t deserve it because I had convinced myself he was standing in my path. It\u2019s probably more accurate to say that I was standing in his, he\u2019d been there almost as long and used it much more often. I was flailing and was destructively apathetic about collateral damage. If I was in pain, then I didn\u2019t care if everyone involved, and anyone standing too close was as well. Which, of course, is such an immature attitude that I\u2019m embarrassed to admit that for several hours I acted within that context. The result has been the silence of a voice that has been a daily constant in my life for several years. It\u2019s made me realize the truth of several clich\u00e9s about what things are important, and which ones just feel that way during our most self-centered moments.<\/p>\n
\u202f
Four days in April<\/p>\n
Last week was beautiful and terrible and everything in between. It was strange, then celebratory, then sad. Attachments were made then disconnected. Lives were broken and repaired; some were just left broken. Lies were revealed and intimacies disclosed, followed quickly by grief and outrage, then acceptance and back again. Transcendent highs were cruelly displaced by excruciating lows. Exultation and disappointment often overlapped each other. There was tenderness and there was casual cruelty. Assertions of intent were made and confirmed repeatedly, then almost immediately renounced. Overnight, conversation and contact was quieted, the penalty for an episode of impulse and bad behavior. The silence endures.<\/p>\n
And it all happened in just four days. A high-speed train wreck that in less than 100 hours, covered the distance between sublime and suffering, and materially altered three lives.<\/p>\n
The recurring presence of drama in my life recently is evidence of my complicity in its creation. And when it already exists I\u2019m just as likely to aggravate it as I am to defuse it. Whatever is actually happening, I\u2019m too close to have developed a meaningful insight yet. But on a visceral level I can tell you that whatever the cause, the symptoms are painful, and that I hate the way it feels.<\/p>\n
April 19, 2011\u202f
Another story from the \u201cParable of the Lion\u201d series<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s not your decision-making ability in general that\u2019s flawed. It\u2019s when you make impulsive decisions that bad things sometimes result. Slow down and breathe.\u201d<\/p>\n
That\u2019s like telling a lion to remember to eat his vegetables. On a rational level he will agree that the roughage would probably be better for his colon than a steady diet of zebra. But he rationalizes his life choices by telling you he\u2019s getting all the vegetables he needs from the vital organs of the herbivores he eats. Your persistent appeals and lion life expectancy powerpoint persuade him to give it a try, however, and he grudgingly orders the African Wild Greens salad off the daily specials menu. But when you turn away he eats the waiter and spits the salad into his napkin.<\/p>\n
\u202f
The Facebook iPhone app blues<\/p>\n
It serves me right to suffer some, I suppose. That doesn\u2019t mean I have to\u202fLike \u2022 Comment \u2022 Share\u202fthat fact with everyone. Still, I do. But as the hours turn into days, and the days will soon be a week, I\u2019ve stopped feeling hopeful when a text message chirps, or my customized ring buzzes with a call. The phone is easier to ignore, because it\u2019s never the ring I\u2019ve assigned to her. I\u2019ve stopped grabbing the iPhone to immediately scroll through my new messages because deep down I know none of them will be from her. Sometimes I won\u2019t even check for 10 minutes after getting one. I can\u2019t even follow what\u2019s happening with her life on Facebook because she\u2019s either blocked me, or deactivated the account. The optimist in me truly hopes it\u2019s the latter.<\/p>\n
A total Facebook block of a single individual is probably the most effective way to tell someone online that, \u201cYou are no longer welcome in my inner circle, and probably not in my life at all.\u201d I find the fact that this inner circle doesn\u2019t include me but does include more than 100,000 of her\u202fFriends of Friends\u202fparticularly depressing.<\/p>\n
I used to know her password. The level of trust that represents is superhuman. The spare key to your apartment and all of your pin numbers put together would still not come even close. A password is a key to the intimacies of hundreds of Facebook friends, but more importantly it allows access to the birthing canal of your online identity. In a Google world where everything is stored forever, your reputation online is more important than it is in your circle of real life friends. Like herpes, anything that happens online never goes away once the search engines find it, and unlike Vegas it doesn\u2019t stay anywhere but often propagates at the exponential speed of viral communication.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m getting off message. The point is it was one hell of a fall from shared passwords to virtual blockade. And for someone like me who lives online, it\u2019s not hyperbole to liken it to a little death.<\/p>\n
\u201cOh god, K, you\u2019re so dramatic. I had to cut you off. You kept posting weird shit on my wall. My family reads that you know?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI was going to tell you that it\u2019s probably not a good idea to friend your kids. You\u2019re 16-year old doesn\u2019t need to know what you look like dancing on the bar at Coyote Ugly.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWell, if it makes you feel better I deactivated my account completely.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt actually does. Singling out one person out of 500,000,000 users is quite a statement don\u2019t you think? At least now I blend in with the rest of the planet.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI wanted my privacy back. And I felt like I had to respond to everyone that contacted me. I don\u2019t need that. I actually feel free.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cHippie.\u201d<\/p>\n
I miss you. Even though\u202fIt\u2019s complicated.<\/p>\n
April 22, 2011\u202f
Two ships passing at the mall<\/p>\n
Isn\u2019t it weird the kind of changes that occur between two parties in an intimate relationship? I find it interesting sometimes to reflect on the fact that though I\u2019ve had countless lovers, there are four or five people walking around planet Earth who know, up close and personal, about my predilections for certain styles of fantasy, dress, or action. That is a very intimate knowledge. And running into these people when access to their relief of these desires is no longer appropriate nor attainable sometimes borders on the surreal. You speak about the shallow end, talk about the weather, the new job, maybe even the kids, knowing all the time she knows something about you that the world passing around you doesn\u2019t.<\/p>\n
Part of the reason that my site is so transparent is an attempt to take away some of the power of that knowledge. But the main reason, related but far deeper, was to be so honest, sometimes embarrassingly so, that people had no choice but to know I must be telling the truth about everything.<\/p>\n
April 26, 2011\u202f
Fourteen months<\/p>\n
I\u2019ve walked through hell. I\u2019ve made mistakes. I was vindictive. I\u2019ve done stupid things. I was looking at old pictures of us, then I found a new one of you online. Roads back. Highways back. Speedways back. I destroyed everything on this side, I can only assume you\u2019ve done the same on yours. But, god, what a starburst magic we made so many moons ago. I was so excited. I was so scared. I couldn\u2019t believe you were happening to me. And what I wouldn\u2019t give to get that feeling back. If a place like Chili\u2019s could host the genesis and another like Friday\u2019s could define the background, then I suppose that anything is possible. But this is like stretching one arm to Round Rock and the other to Gaines Ranch without pulling your arms in no matter how much they burn, no matter how ridiculous it seems, no matter what we\u2019ve said. Bearing truths and false witness, it doesn\u2019t matter. There was a love for you that I cannot anger away, or explain away, or rationalize away. You were there. You felt it. And at least for me, it was as real as anything I have ever known.<\/p>\n
I saw your picture on my computer. And the ugliness, for a moment, replaced with how much I do miss you. Everything in that moment is forgiven, forgotten, healed, fixed. I can\u2019t look for you for at least a minute or so. Find me.<\/p>\n
April 29, 2011\u202f
The Tao of Scrabble<\/p>\n
Let go. You don\u2019t control your circumstance. The tiles come like water flows, with neither malice nor affection. They just come. To blame the score on a preponderance of vowels is to miss the lesson. In Scrabble, like life, you get what you get. The Master knows this without knowing it\u2019s not the tiles you end up with, but how you choose to use them that makes the difference.<\/p>\n
My friend turned me on to it last week. But like the rest of the junkies, once I started I couldn\u2019t stop. I rationalized. It\u2019s just a harmless pastime. I do it for a couple of hours and then I go to bed. The second time I did it? I quit in the middle. I don\u2019t have a problem. The last two days, though, I\u2019m letting the phone ring and skipping meals. I still do it with friends mostly, but now I\u2019m doing it with people I don\u2019t even know.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s damaged my moral compass. I got caught using\u202fScrabble Cheat. \u201cYou\u2019re saying, with a straight face, that you were hoarding the two blanks because you knew that a zyzzyva was a South American weevil? There\u2019s something wrong with you.\u201d<\/p>\n
And, no, I wasn\u2019t sorry. Clearly, there\u2019s a glitch in the Matrix if some nine-year old from Bulgaria who can\u2019t speak English beats me four games in a row. That doesn\u2019t happen. Not on my watch. Not in my mother tongue, Igor. And if that takes using an MIT algorithm to determine the best score possible given a pool of seven letters? Then that\u2019s what it takes. You go ahead and phonetically memorize every two-letter word in the English language, because when there\u2019s four tiles left and nothing but Serbo-Croat consonants exposed, I will still call, \u201cBullshit,\u201d that you can use xu, but I can\u2019t use zu.<\/p>\n
So now every night this week I\u2019ve been up past 4 a.m.<\/p>\n
\u201cHand me that dictionary. I don\u2019t think the online version reflects the latest edition.\u201d
\u201cNo.\u201d
\u201cOkay, you look it up.\u201d
\u201cI\u2019m not looking it up.\u201d
\u201cWhat\u2019s the big deal?\u201d
\u201cI\u2019m not checking again. Uiuiui is not a word. I need to go to bed.\u201d
\u201cCan you check iuiuiu?\u201d
\u201cNo. Either make a play or skip your turn, I\u2019m tired.\u201d
\u201cOh. So, because you\u2019re a quitter, I\u2019m supposed to dump my rack without stacking at least one triple-letter and one double-word score? Go to bed, you fucking sell out. The game will be waiting for you in the morning.\u201d
\u201cYou know, you really should think about cutting back a little, you\u2019ve been on the computer a lot. Maybe get outside or something.\u201d
\u201cYou\u2019d like that wouldn\u2019t you?\u201d<\/p>\n
May 18, 2011\u202f
Old friends<\/p>\n
I recently became reacquainted with an old friend from high school. Of course it was Facebook that facilitated the reunion. That kind of reconnection is so common nowadays it\u2019s not even a story anymore. But this one should be. I\u2019m going to play by my self-imposed rules and not name names; I hate to out people as my friends.<\/p>\n
In a short time this woman has come back into my life and infused it with a joy and optimism that regular readers of this site must recognize has been lacking of late. There have been more rants than literature I must confess. The irony is that I\u2019ve written more satire in this state of mind than when I thought I was happy. I\u2019ve always recognized that humor doesn\u2019t come from a happy place and every comedian I know is miserable. Something about getting to the truth of the matter.<\/p>\n
So my friend, as many of my friends do, especially in my recent life, and by recent I mean since my famous moment of existential angst that walloped me circa July 2007, worries about me. I didn\u2019t always provoke this kind of concern. It may be hard to believe but from 1992, there was a 15-year win streak I was enjoying, and the bad times, though they existed, don\u2019t rise in my memories like the piss and vinegar.<\/p>\n
I think it all changed when my daughter was born and I stopped being the only one in the universe. Now I was a distant second. She gave me what I had always lacked something bigger than myself. Something that without any question mattered more than me. But with that realization came an understanding of my denouement.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m being dramatic, always dramatic, it\u2019s one of my seven defining characteristics. (The other six dwarves being intense, kind, lovesick, smart, obstinate and contrary, if you were wondering.) But anyone that knows me, really knows me, will not argue long, if at all, if you propose to them that something fundamental has changed. Life is about change, and it\u2019s human nature to interpret that process through the myopic lens of short-term results, i.e., she broke up with me and that sucks, rather than the 50,000-foot view that knows if she was still here this book would never be finished and the love of my life left ignored. Still, it\u2019s hard down here on the ground. Where everything is venom and everything is love.<\/p>\n
I promised my friend I would try not to be pessimistic. So like her I am going to accentuate the positive. There really is so much love in my life that I sometimes feel selfish for complaining. And yet sometimes I cannot stop the urge to weep. I\u2019ve seen a lot of things in this life, and have done things you wouldn\u2019t believe if I told you. I write everything down so that I don\u2019t forget. It\u2019s different in words than inside yourself. Pictures help.<\/p>\n
May 19, 2011\u202f
If less is more, then how do you keep score?<\/p>\n
An anniversary of thirty-plus years draws nigh, then one from two years ago follows two days later. The second marked only by a gravestone that reads, \u201cAbsolute Appreciation,\u201d and words mailed to a dead letter office. Pontius Pilate washes her hands. I grieve. And my thoughts return to a time when my worried mind was still.<\/p>\n
But like the poem says, \u201cThings fall apart.\u201d It\u2019s funny the ways that truth manifests.<\/p>\n
My status on Facebook, written not four months later, on September 11, 2009, represented one of the worst days I\u2019ve ever known. It was raining and I was having an argument that started in person, continued on the phone, then for eight hours at work over instant message insisted on a painful obstinacy that began the night before and lasted until the rain became a deluge 20 hours later. It was madness. But mostly it was so sad. White lies exaggerated into deal breakers, trust eroded both ways and washed away, quite literally, in that rain. On this occasion, I\u2019m not just pointing a finger. I\u202fknow\u202fI didn\u2019t stop. It was the most important adult relationship in my life at the time and I couldn\u2019t stop tearing it down. I could see the damage being done. And still, I couldn\u2019t stop.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s weird to read Facebook interactions from then. They\u2019re like a horror movie where you want to yell at the screen, \u201cDon\u2019t go down there,\u201d but can only watch as the killer makes a methodical pursuit in which all attempts at escape are futile. If you re-read my profile chronologically, you can almost see it happening our dual descent into mercenary selfishness. And, of course, less than one month later my life as I knew it had ended.<\/p>\n
May 21, 2011\u202f
The burden of dreams<\/p>\n
Sometimes they paralyze me. In my dreams you\u2019re not just a memory. In those moments you\u2019re real again. You come to me. You speak in your voice. I can feel your skin. We kiss. And it is, as it is for everyone, as real as real seems to be.<\/p>\n
May 24, 2011\u202f
All this time it got left behind<\/p>\n
Because it felt like home. I was washed away in you. \u201cLet\u2019s move forward,\u201d you say. So many things to back down from though, it\u2019s almost unfair to ask of someone. I promise. Give it three months. And what is low shall be made high, and what is high shall fall low. It is as it always is. And shall be what it\u2019s always been.<\/p>\n
\u202f
My paralyzing fear of death<\/p>\n
Or maybe it\u2019s just the ends of things. I\u2019m so good at the beginning. But at the end my spectrum ranges from melancholy to madness. I remember the day of my grandfather\u2019s funeral. I was 10. I was home alone. WatchingTijuana Toad\u202fand the specter of the end washed over me. I haven\u2019t really been much of a sleeper since. I still sleep with the lights on if I\u2019m alone. And sometimes even if I\u2019m not.<\/p>\n
I was asked once by a school counselor if I believed in heaven or hell. And I guess both to me seemed like much the same thing. An eternity of long white rooms. Heaven with other people. Hell alone. Still not able to sleep.<\/p>\n
May 26, 2011\u202f
Almost two years ago<\/p>\n
You\u2019ve broken me in a way that I might never be made whole again. I wasn\u2019t trying to do anything to you or, sadly, in my defense. I didn\u2019t know you were so broken. That you would fight back so hard at any perceived offense. I really was on your side.<\/p>\n
May 27, 2011\u202f
Better<\/p>\n
Open your eyes, little boy. There\u2019s these things. There\u2019s this life. Sometimes it gets bigger and bigger. And sometimes it gets smaller.<\/p>\n
I know things. I\u2019ve seen a lot of things you can\u2019t un-see. Am I bragging? No. Maybe twenty years ago I might have. No one ever told me back then. They just thought I\u2019d know better. I look down and all I can see are the dead leaves and the dirty ground. I look up and it\u2019s like a tunnel. And the light is so very distant. It could be oncoming. I can\u2019t tell. The tears don\u2019t help my vision. And the memories sometimes can be stronger than what I really see.<\/p>\n
May 28, 2011\u202f
There\u2019s no we anymore<\/p>\n
Do you remember May 5, 2009? Cinco de Mayo. I stood next to you. We watched him dance. That\u2019s the last time I took a breath. It was the last time I felt like I was living. The last time I was alive.<\/p>\n
I made a mistake. Perhaps several depending on who\u2019s counting. Shall I pay forever?<\/p>\n
May 31, 2011\u202f
English works<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m scared to say the wrong words to you. I never felt that way with you.\u201d
\u201cReally?\u201d
\u201cAnd now. A sentence might make you go away.\u201d
\u201cNo.\u201d
\u201cI miss what we had.\u201d
\u201cMe too.\u201d
\u201cCome back to me. Shall I say it in French or Hawaiian?\u201d
\u201cEnglish works.\u201d
\u201cNe me quitte pas. Ho\u2019i mai.\u201d<\/p>\n
June 1, 2011\u202f
Still<\/p>\n
Of course I still want you. My eyes burn staring at the sun that is you. My feet blister walking over the desert sand that is you. I close my eyes and cover my feet. And it still washes over me. It\u2019s been a few years now. And it may be a few more. For some of us? Love is a long road.<\/p>\n
June 2, 2011\u202f
Just so you know<\/p>\n
When I talk about anyone else? I\u2019m talking about you.<\/p>\n
June 3, 2011\u202f
Mistakes<\/p>\n
I know I made a mistake. I know you have a new boyfriend. You had one when I met you.<\/p>\n
June 5, 2011\u202f
We all fall down<\/p>\n
\u201cYou made a mistake.\u201d
\u201cPerhaps.\u201d
\u201cNo one\u2019s ever gonna love you like I do.\u201d
\u201cRight now? I don\u2019t need love.\u201d
\u201cYou will.\u201d
\u201cAnd then what?\u201d
\u201cAnd then everything has fallen down. It feels like you made a business decision.\u201d
\u201cHoney? Life is a business decision.\u201d
\u201cNot for me.\u201d
\u201cI know, Honey. That\u2019s why, sometimes, you fall down.\u201d<\/p>\n
June 7, 2011\u202f
Just an observation<\/p>\n
If I\u2019m going to put up with this bullshit? I\u2019m going to do it with someone way hotter than you.<\/p>\n
June 8, 2011\u202f
I still love you<\/p>\n
\u201cYou need to grow up.\u201d
\u201cReally? Should I grow up and be just like you? Should I do what you do? Shall I do what you\u2019ve done?\u201d
\u201cReally.\u201d
\u201cWhy are you picking on me?\u201d
\u201cI\u2019m not.\u201d
\u201cIt feels like you are.\u201d
\u201cWhy?\u201d
\u201cI don\u2019t feel your love like I used to. I\u2019m not talking about a relationship. I\u2019m talking about the genuine love I used to feel from you when you spoke.\u201d
\u201cSorry. I\u2019ll leave you alone.\u201d
\u201cI never asked for that.\u201d
\u201cYou are now.\u201d
\u201cNever. Honey, you will be important to me until I draw my last breath. With or without you.\u201d
\u201cSince when do you call me Honey?\u201d
\u201cThat\u2019s the word you use. I wanted to show you I listen.\u201d
\u201cDo I really?\u201d
\u201cYes.\u201d
\u201cWe don\u2019t have to be friends.\u201d
\u201cWhat else is there?\u201d<\/p>\n
June 9, 2011\u202f
Throat cancer<\/p>\n
\u201cMy throat has been hurting for awhile now. It\u2019s hard to swallow.\u201d
\u201cMaybe it\u2019s throat cancer.\u201d
\u201cReally? That\u2019s the first probability you\u2019re going to throw at me, Dr. Feelgood?\u201d
\u201cI\u2019m just saying.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u202f
We spoke yesterday<\/p>\n
\u201cI see. So how\u2019s your new girl doing?\u201d
\u201cShe serves needs.\u201d
\u201cThat\u2019s not nice. Anyone I know?\u201d
\u201cI think you\u2019ve seen pictures.\u201d
\u201cKay?\u201d
\u201cWhat do you care? Honey?\u201d
\u201cYou can\u2019t push anymore.\u201d
\u201cI will never not want to be with you. You are the road map. You are what I think of when I think of a woman.\u201d<\/p>\n
June 10, 2011\u202f
The bell curve of \u201cC\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYou let a scrub of mediocrity put it inside of you instead of someone that might change the world? I don\u2019t like that.\u201d
\u201cI don\u2019t like\u202fthat.\u201d
\u201cYou bring out the best and worst in me.\u201d
\u201cI see that.\u201d
\u201cShall we call it even, then?\u201d
\u201cYeah.\u201d
\u201cFuck you.\u201d<\/p>\n
June 12, 2011\u202f
Port Arthur<\/p>\n
I feel you more than feelings feel. I look at you more than looking looks. You are the thing to see. I have to show you the hard part. So I can believe in the easy part.<\/p>\n
\u202f
Math<\/p>\n
\u201cTodos los besos? Estan aqui para ti? Todos los besos. No tu? No besos.\u201d
\u201cIt\u2019s like everything you say is arithmetic.\u201d
\u201c1+1=3.\u201d<\/p>\n
June 14, 2011\u202f
Looking from above<\/p>\n
I swear. My words, though sad, are ones of an inveterate optimist. I have no joy in frailty. Or madness. The fire burns where it wants to. We can only just try to put it out.<\/p>\n
\u202f
Stuff<\/p>\n
My knees and elbows are scabbed. My feet are black and swollen from walking on the hot concrete. You don\u2019t know what it\u2019s like. If I ain\u2019t got you.<\/p>\n
June 15, 2011\u202f
I hope you\u2019re having the time of your life<\/p>\n
How can you live a full, real life with somebody \u201cthat doesn\u2019t really love\u201d you? How can anything be whole? How can you feel as special as you are if someone is not tearing the world down to show you how much you matter?<\/p>\n
\u202f
The affirmative<\/p>\n
\u201cYes.\u201d It\u2019s not always a position of weakness.<\/p>\n
June 17, 2011\u202f
What is real?<\/p>\n
\u201cI haven\u2019t eaten in a few days. And haven\u2019t slept in a couple more.\u201d
\u201cBaby.\u201d
\u201cI don\u2019t want to ruin your life. I don\u2019t want things to change for you.\u201d
\u201cI love you. I love you too much.\u201d
\u201cReally? I didn\u2019t know there was such a thing. You and me? We\u2019re from the same place. I\u2019ve known you since you were just a girl. Not quite a woman. Like the song says, \u2018A thousand miles from the place I was born.\u2019 We are who we are. We feel what we feel. And it is what is.\u201d<\/p>\n
June 18, 2011\u202f
Everything<\/p>\n
\u201cThe whole story is going to get heard this time.\u201d
\u201cBig downside.\u201d
\u201cBigger upside.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u202f
Huh?<\/p>\n
\u201cIt would have been so perfect without all this jealous bullshit.\u201d
\u201cSeriously? You used to get jealous when I danced with another girl. And now you\u2019ve been with another man. Most likely several.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u202f
That sort of moment<\/p>\n
Remember when I called you by your first initial initially? And then by the first two syllables of your name? But then you said, \u201cNo. That\u2019s my Daddy\u2019s name.\u201d That\u2019s when it happened. That\u2019s when I fell. I think I still might be falling.<\/p>\n
June 19, 2011\u202f
Rascal<\/p>\n
He\u2019s a little boy. He acts like a little boy. He\u2019s a rascal. But that\u2019s who he is.<\/p>\n
June 20, 2011\u202f
Closer<\/p>\n
\u201cYou sent me that because you could see that I\u2019m dying.\u201d
\u201cI sent it because I love you.\u201d
\u201cIt\u2019s hard to feel right now.\u201d
\u201cI know, Baby. Stay strong. I promise you we\u2019ll be together. The one you love is closer than you think.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u202f
All I want<\/p>\n
I just want love. The problem is, I\u2019m not good at getting it. And, it turns out, I\u2019m terrible at keeping it. Who the cap fit? Let them where it.<\/p>\n
\u202f
A conversation with a person I adore<\/p>\n
\u201cHow\u2019s the NYC? I didn\u2019t know you were leaving.\u201d
\u201cI just got here 2 weeks ago.\u201d
\u201cHow are you?\u201d
\u201cGood. I wish I saw you before I left.\u201d
\u201cI love the city. You\u2019re in the Brook right?\u201d
\u201cYeah.\u201d
\u201cI got a couple a bars for you.\u201d
\u201cFantastic.\u201d
\u201cListening to Tchaikovsky. Just finished watching a movie in Italian. It made me think of you. That moment, um, in Threadgill\u2019s.\u201d
\u201cOh, you. What was the movie?\u201d
\u201cCaos Calmo. I\u2019m making a movie. Can you play something close to yourself.\u201d
\u201cI would imagine so. It would be fun to give it a shot at least.\u201d
\u201cOtherwise I gotta find another pretty girl.\u201d
\u201cGood luck on that in Austin. Shouldn\u2019t be a problem.\u201d
\u201cThere\u2019s a couple of \u2018em.\u201d
\u201cYeah.\u201d<\/p>\n
June 21, 2011\u202f
Near Pittsburgh<\/p>\n
\u201cYou gotta stop posting stuff about vaginas.\u201d
\u201cOk. Fourscore and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation. Conceived in liberty.\u201d
\u201cFind a middle ground, Shithead. And for the record? You say, \u2018Conceived\u2019 way too carnally for the\u202fGettysburg Address.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u202f
Kailua<\/p>\n
\u201cWhy\u2019d you go to Hawaii? Why not Mexico. It\u2019s much closer?\u201d
\u201cI don\u2019t know.\u201d
\u201cI\u2019ll tell you why.\u201d
\u201cWhy?\u201d
\u201cAs much as you hate me?\u201d
\u201cYes.\u201d
\u201cWe\u2019re still connected. You took my babies to where I\u2019m from.\u201d
\u201cI don\u2019t know.\u201d
\u201cYou don\u2019t know the word mana. But that\u2019s what brought you back.\u201d<\/p>\n
June 22, 2011\u202f
She gives sometimes<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat\u2019s wrong with you? Why can\u2019t you shut up?\u201d
\u201cGod gave me many things but the first two she did were the strongest. Words. And audacity.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u202f
Clearly<\/p>\n
I\u2019m better in hindsight than I am in the present.<\/p>\n
\u202f
Rules<\/p>\n
\u201cDon\u2019t you want to be here? Don\u2019t you wanna come back?\u201d
\u201cThere\u2019s less rules on this side of the fence.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u202f
This little boy<\/p>\n
So sad. So scared. Walks around like he rules the world.<\/p>\n
\u202f
The cold?<\/p>\n
You do everything. You bring your hands in. You grab a blanket. Sometimes? You can\u2019t make it go away.<\/p>\n
\u202f
Is something happening?<\/p>\n
It\u2019s not like I hear voices. I speak to myself a lot. Does that count?<\/p>\n
\u202f
Your voice<\/p>\n
It\u2019s strong. It\u2019s like a soldier. It\u2019s like a warrior. Oh, but when it\u2019s gone.<\/p>\n
\u202f
Courage<\/p>\n
My bathroom smells like a piss house. I have\u202fThe Red Badge of Courage\u202fon my toilet. I read it a lot. You know why? Because it\u2019s about being afraid.<\/p>\n
June 23, 2011\u202f
Watch me<\/p>\n
Die one more death.<\/p>\n
\u202f
It was a giraffe<\/p>\n
One of my favorite moments of all time Daddy, Daddy, Daddy, Daddy, Daddy, Daddy, Daddy, Daddy, I just saw something tall. It was a juwafe.<\/p>\n
\u202f
Anything good?<\/p>\n
It all feels like cold comfort.<\/p>\n
\u202f
I didn\u2019t have an advocate<\/p>\n
\u201cI swear. I will see you again.\u201d
\u201cWhere might that be?\u201d
\u201cIn Hell.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u202f
I know it\u2019s late<\/p>\n
But sometimes? In the middle of the night? You need somebody to take your call.<\/p>\n
\u202f
I\u2019ve been bruised<\/p>\n
Hard bruises. Deep-tissue bruises. But, somehow? I\u2019ve never been broken.<\/p>\n
\u202f
Take warning<\/p>\n
\u201cDo not make trouble here.\u201d
\u201cUnless?\u201d
\u201cUnless you would like trouble.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u202f
I\u2019m paying this bill<\/p>\n
Honey? All so that one day I can see you again.<\/p>\n
June 24, 2011\u202f
Cwazy<\/p>\n
\u201cDaddy, are you cwazy?\u201d
\u201cNo.\u201d
\u201cMommy said you\u2019re cwazy.\u201d
\u201cMommy has lots of opinions.\u201d
\u201cI love you, Daddy.\u201d
\u201cI love you too, little boy.\u201d<\/p>\n
June 25, 2011\u202f
Words<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m desiccating.\u201d
\u201cWho talks like that? How do you even know that word? What the fuck does that even mean?\u201d
\u201cWell, the technical definition means the removal of moisture from a substance, but figuratively it means losing something important. Like your passion. Or interest.\u201d
\u201cAnd so now you\u2019ve lost interest?\u201d
\u201cHoney? All I know is that I\u2019m lost.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u202f
Ease<\/p>\n
I\u2019m determined to resurrect the best aspects of our love affair as its legacy, to pay forward the myths that you and I created then lived. Here now placed into a centrifuge to isolate the truth from all the devices we put in place to protect our versions of whatever happened.<\/p>\n
But there was a time when we spoke with ease and comfort, with lust and tenderness, with joy and intelligence. I refuse to let that die because at the moment things mattered most we both chose, in one way or another, to save ourselves.<\/p>\n
June 26, 2011\u202f
I\u2019ve learned something about you<\/p>\n
I can\u2019t believe it took so long to figure out. You speak in backwards. \u201cHe doesn\u2019t really love me,\u201d means you don\u2019t really love him.<\/p>\n
\u202f
Give me your hand<\/p>\n
Give me your hand. Can you feel my ribs? Can you feel my hip? I\u2019m losing everything because I\u2019ve lost you. Feel my hip bones, not my hand bones.<\/p>\n
\u202f
Don\u2019t you see?<\/p>\n
We all need advocacy or we fall.<\/p>\n
\u202f
$200<\/p>\n
\u201cDo you have $200?\u201d
\u201cNo.\u201d
\u201cIt\u2019s okay. I won\u2019t eat this week.\u201d
\u201cWhat?\u201d
\u201cI like the way pain feels. And I\u2019m prettier skinny.\u201d<\/p>\n
June 27, 2011\u202f
What is hollow is not shallow<\/p>\n
\u201cWhy are you going back to a relationship with someone you don\u2019t love? You told me at least thirty times the week we were together that you didn\u2019t want to be with him. With thirty times twenty reasons why. Was that for my benefit?\u201d
\u201cI never said that.\u201d
\u201cOh, my fucking god, are you kidding? Seriously? You said it so many times I don\u2019t have an accurate count. You started with the ride back from the airport and didn\u2019t stop until after we had sex the morning I left.\u201d
\u201cWe never had sex.\u201d
\u201cI can\u2019t tell if you\u2019re joking.\u201d
\u201cWhat?\u201d
\u201cUnbelievable. You\u2019re like a crazy person, you do it so well. You know I was there too right? You\u2019re like a sociopath. Do you still feel feelings? Do you believe what you\u2019re saying or is this just practice for when you have to retell the lie?\u201d
\u201cI\u2019m not talking to you anymore.\u201d
\u201cWhy, what did I say?\u201d
\u201cYou\u2019re badgering me.\u201d
\u201cI am.\u201d
\u201cYou say you want to be friends but you don\u2019t.\u201d
\u201cYou\u2019re right, I don\u2019t.\u201d
\u201cSee? You\u2019re a liar too.\u201d
\u201cSooner or later everyone is a liar.\u201d
\u201cWell now you know the truth. Happy?\u201d
\u201cNot really, no.\u201d
\u201cYou brought this on yourself. On both of us.\u201d
\u201cDoes it make it easier when there\u2019s someone else to blame?\u201d<\/p>\n
I am getting tired of correctly predicting bad news. My ability to forecast future disappointments at your hands is near infallible. Though in this past year anyone would have done well by guessing the exact opposite of what you claimed would be your course of action. How many times in the five days I was there did you say that you just \u201cwanted to be alone for awhile.\u201d We were together on Monday morning for the last time. How long do you wait after I leave town to begin your slow, steady drift away from every plan or promise that you and I have made? Did you make it to 48 hours? With the exception of your job and your kids, you are a million different people from one day to the next. Scattershot and unpredictable, you are dangerous to people that bother to care.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m not sure what it is about you that keeps me coming back. Maybe it\u2019s not you, maybe it\u2019s something in me. I don\u2019t know why I get angry and hurt, but I do. Upon reflection it seems pointless to get mad at you for acting within your nature. This is how you\u2019ve been since I\u2019ve known you. Ever since we were 20 it\u2019s been the same eventual outcome. We\u2019re 40 now, and it\u2019s still the same. The settings have changed, but it feels the same as it always has. What is it about you that makes me willing to ignore countless examples to the contrary, and believe that change is even possible? You pick what is easiest, and when what\u2019s easiest changes, you change what you pick. Every. Single. Time. It is the only constant that I can recognize in your life.<\/p>\n
What makes you send sweet messages about being in love with me again, then three or four times reversing yourself not a week later? Why the constant urge to zig just when I\u2019ve begun to zag? I played dumb for the last year using our geographic remove and a willful ignorance to sidestep the awful truth. I wanted so badly to believe in you. What did\u202fyou\u202fwant?<\/p>\n
I don\u2019t understand your motivation. I thought I knew you as well as one person could know another, but there are clearly blind spots in my perception. Are you incapable of complete honesty with a lover, not just me but anyone? Are you lying to yourself, too? Is it a defense mechanism of some kind? But then who protects you from yourself?<\/p>\n
Don\u2019t you realize that even though other people may be the ones hurt in the short run, in the long run this is actually self-destructive behavior, and will eventually bring you a sort of isolation? Even if you\u2019re with someone you\u2019ll always be alone, not because there will ever be a shortage of people willing to try, but because you won\u2019t know how to make that connection, no matter how much someone loves you.<\/p>\n
We talked about this when I was out there and the realization that you have betrayed every major relationship you have ever had was unnerving. Real love is so fragile, so rare, and your willingness to toss it aside so readily is something I will never get used to. And I\u2019m not even talking about you and me. If you really don\u2019t care, don\u2019t you at least feel a twinge of guilt for the lives you have broken so casually, the pain you cause and are causing, the irreparable damage you\u2019ve inflicted on trust and truth?<\/p>\n
What you\u2019ve done can\u2019t be fixed with, \u201cI\u2019m sorry,\u201d or, \u201cI\u2019m a bad person,\u201d or even, \u201cI wouldn\u2019t blame you if you never talked to me again.\u201d You know that\u2019s not going to happen. Though I\u2019m absolutely positive that you will do it again, if not to me then to someone else. Beauty has given you so many options in your history that you have become sociopathic in your relationships, sometimes to the point of cruelty. You act as if there will be no consequences. None that matter anyway.<\/p>\n
Yesterday I decided to stop beating myself up. Because I believe that my interaction with you, occasional bad behavior notwithstanding, was always coming from a place of friendship and love. I try not to live with the expectation of disappointment, and if that makes me vulnerable to dishonesty and disrespect then so be it. All I\u2019ve ever done is love you. I tried to help your self-actualization in any way that I could. But I tolerated being taken for granted for so long, that we became stuck in that dynamic.<\/p>\n
I do believe your love for me and your affection is genuine, I really do. But it\u2019s also true that you lied to me for over a year about something that was fundamental in my life and my pursuit of happiness. You did it with a straight face, a voice that never broke, looking into my eyes, in hundreds of conversations on the phone, on Skype, and in person. You lied to my friends and to my mother, and you did it repeatedly. Only caught red-handed by a Facebook status update did you even consider speaking the truth to anyone involved in this bizarre love triangle. And you waited until the very last minute to do it, literally hours before my arrival in Tampa.<\/p>\n
Yours was a strange combination of remorse and righteous anger. I couldn\u2019t immediately shake my disappointment, and I felt like I was sucker punched in the gut. You may not realize you were doing it, but freed from the tangles of historical lies, you used the truth as a bludgeon, and you continue to do so, smashing my fragility like it was glass.<\/p>\n
I was\u2013I still am\u2013overwhelmed and numb from the revelations of the past week. It was my birthday and I didn\u2019t want it ruined by last-minute confessions, and all that I really cared about was that I spend it with you. It was more difficult than I thought it would be because when I let my mind wander, I would always return to feeling completely betrayed. And I was more than a little nervous about your tolerance for the constant text messages you received when we were together. I was unprepared for the scope of your deception. Your assurances of \u201care you going to dwell on the past or are we going to move forward?\u201d eventually won me over, however, and moving forward with you seemed like such a pretty idea.<\/p>\n
And yet for\u202fall\u202fthis, my love for you is never spent. My feelings of warm affection for you never stop, no matter what the trespass, though I wonder what it is about relationships\u2013this relationship\u2013that sometimes brings out the very worst in you. You complained about a perceived weakness when I was trying to be vulnerable with you, something you were never able to sustain, or maybe never even attempted. And more than once you\u2019ve scolded me for lacking confidence. I may be lacking in several areas but confidence is not one of them. I wonder what other misperceptions have eroded the connection between you and me. You\u2019ve seen me at my lowest points because I let you see me that way, not because that\u2019s who I am.<\/p>\n
Now what? Where does it go from here? The roads are impenetrable and the city lies in ruins. What am I supposed to believe in when everything I thought was true was to you just a casual duplicity? My faith has been lost, regained, and lost again, tethered as it is to your ever-changing words (and I blame myself for that). I\u2019m cold and sad and alone and I can\u2019t even come to you for warmth or comfort. You\u2019ve ignored me for days now, and categorized my attempts at communication as something sinister. Shame on you.<\/p>\n
Very recently you referred to me as your best friend and that you felt like you couldn\u2019t live without me in your life. And I reciprocate that love unconditionally. I\u2019ve never given you reason to doubt that. My last day there I feel like I finally had a chance, unfortunately so late in my visit, to connect with you and I think we did. I have four days with you every four months. Of course, we were having trouble in areas that require more than four days to learn, build, and sustain. Just as we start to get comfortable, the visit ends.<\/p>\n
But there are a few things that I always know, that I never forget no matter how long it is between our times together, that I know in every cell of my body long before I have even stepped on or off the plane. You calm me in a way that no one else does. In you I find the extremes of my feelings and passion, both good and bad. In you I find that fleeting, indescribable sensation of this being a life worth living. You are the personification of love to me. I\u2019m happier when I\u2019m with you than when I\u2019m not. It\u2019s really that simple.<\/p>\n
\u202f
That eternal<\/p>\n
There\u2019s the thing. There really is nothing. Everything. Everything matters in the now. Nothing matters in the forever. Nothing will matter forever. So, kiss your daughter on the head. Make her feel warm and complete. Tell her how pretty she is. Tell her how smart she is. Tell her how special she is. That\u2019s your job and it\u2019s so important. She\u2019s too young to look into the abyss.<\/p>\n
\u202f
Rent<\/p>\n
\u201cYou cook burritos like you make love to a woman. You take it slow.\u201d
\u201cHow long do you torture that chicken?\u201d
\u201cReally? Until the red peppers are satisfied and the onion has climaxed. They, like women, caramelize.\u201d
\u201cI thought you were broke.\u201d
\u201cThis morning I decided, fuck it. If I can\u2019t make rent anyway? I\u2019m not going to starve.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u202f
My new philosophy<\/p>\n
Take two steps back when you want to step forward. I promise, it almost always works out better.<\/p>\n
June 28, 2011\u202f
When?<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen is the past ever the past?\u201d
\u201cNot yet.\u201d<\/p>\n
June 29, 2011\u202f
That look<\/p>\n
\u201cI am what I am. Lot of good qualities. Some difficult.\u201d
\u201cI\u2019ll accept some, not others.\u201d
\u201cI told you. I only know how to love unconditionally. I\u2019m just looking for the same. I will fail you. But I\u2019ll never betray you.\u201d
\u201cI can take failure, but not betrayal. I\u2019ll fail you too.\u201d
\u201cI did it once in my life. And the look of pain was something I will never cause again.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u202f
Throw<\/p>\n
Real friends? When they fall down? You help pick them up, not throw them away. Who has always stood by you?<\/p>\n
\u202f
I didn\u2019t do anything wrong<\/p>\n
You stupid, hurtful, vindictive woman. You ruined it all. There was actually a dream. Of beauty, and madness. But mostly gladness.<\/p>\n
July 1, 2011\u202f
My eyes burn<\/p>\n
And then I wake up. And somehow it\u2019s become morning.<\/p>\n
\u202f
Dictionary<\/p>\n
\u201cYou fucked up my self esteem.\u201d
\u201cHow can I fuck up\u202fself\u202festeem? Do you need a dictionary?\u201d<\/p>\n
July 2, 2011\u202f
The universe<\/p>\n
It has a way of letting you know.<\/p>\n
July 3, 2011\u202f
There is nothing left to lose<\/p>\n
I went through two years of hell. You told me, \u201cWait. It might take a while.\u201d I want you back.<\/p>\n
\u202f
Knock, knock<\/p>\n
\u201cWhy don\u2019t we knock on the door?
\u201cWhy don\u2019t we tear the house down?\u201d<\/p>\n
July 4, 2011\u202f
The cycle of violence<\/p>\n
It ends here. My children will not be subjugated to what I was. I guarantee you. I will do anything. Anything I have to do. Including violence.<\/p>\n
\u202f
Good evening<\/p>\n
We are vibrations in the mind of the one true God. Which is love.<\/p>\n
July 6, 2011\u202f
Mahina<\/p>\n
In Hawaiian\u202fka poli\u202fmeans the heart. But in a spiritual way. Of the the heart. You, for me, have become of the heart.\u202fKu\u2019u. Mine. Voice is so important in the Hawaiian tradition, that I feel like I need to say this all to you.Mana\u2019o.\u202fThe thought. The thinking. I am thinking of you. My heart.<\/p>\n
\u202f
Lanikai<\/p>\n
After Fast Eddie\u2019s closes we go to the beach. The phosphorescent moss. I draw hearts on your body. Your face. As I enter you all I can see is love.<\/p>\n
\u202f
Isn\u2019t that weird<\/p>\n
You are the magnificent obsession of mine. As a result all my girlfriends, who have never met you, hate you.<\/p>\n
\u202f
Sin<\/p>\n
\u201cGod will hear you too.\u201d
\u201cNo. God doesn\u2019t listen to me.\u201d
\u201cGod listens to everybody.\u201d
\u201cNo, there\u2019s too much sin behind me.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u202f
I hate my body<\/p>\n
But it can be made to do things.<\/p>\n
\u202f
What if?<\/p>\n
What if I punched you in the face every time you made me mad? That would be wrong, wouldn\u2019t it? So why is it okay for us to hit our kids? Answer? It\u2019s not.<\/p>\n
\u202f
Scars<\/p>\n
\u201cWhy are there scars on your arm?\u201d
\u201cBecause the girl I used to fuck fell through my window. And when she got up, she had a piece of glass. I said, \u2018I dare you to cut me.\u2019 And she did. Twice. Um, we were drunk.\u201d<\/p>\n
July 7, 2011\u202f
Prayer<\/p>\n
What kind of a God lets children die? You can pray to him. But it certainly won\u2019t be me.<\/p>\n
\u202f
It\u2019s okay<\/p>\n
\u201cI hate you. But it\u2019s okay. The way you live? You\u2019ll be dead soon.\u201d
\u201cI will never die.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u202f
History<\/p>\n
How can I make it with you on my back?<\/p>\n
\u202f
Toothbrush<\/p>\n
\u201cMy toothbrush tastes funny. Hey, did anyone touch my toothbrush?\u201d
\u201cI used it to clean the sink, Daddy.\u201d
\u201cOh, Honey, you gotta tell me when you do that shit.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u202f
The four musketeers<\/p>\n
\u201cThe four musketeers. We were all together. Now, you are a partner in a law firm. He is an account supervisor. And he is something classified that he can\u2019t talk about. And me? I am nothing.\u201d
\u201cI think you were the smartest one out of all of us.\u201d
\u201cApparently not.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u202f
Everything<\/p>\n
\u201cIsn\u2019t that weird?\u201d
\u201cEverything you say and do is weird.\u201d
\u201cDon\u2019t you remember? That\u2019s why you fell in love with me.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u202f
70,080<\/p>\n
\u201cDaddy, guess how many hours I\u2019ve been alive?\u201d
\u201cI have no idea.\u201d
\u201c70,080 and counting.\u201d
\u201c70,080 hours of my pure joy. I love you, little princess.\u201d<\/p>\n
July 8, 2011\u202f
Great<\/p>\n
The man that you married? Has great gifts. And great flaws.<\/p>\n
\u202f
Love<\/p>\n
For a minute, not much longer, I lost myself. But I have always been me.<\/p>\n
\u202f
Some advice?<\/p>\n
Don\u2019t put cologne on your balls even if you can smell them from here. It sorta stings. Let me take this one for the team.<\/p>\n
\u202f
Body dysmorphia<\/p>\n
\u201cAre you going to eat?\u201d
\u201cYou know me.\u201d
\u201cWhat?\u201d
\u201cI don\u2019t want to eat. I just wanted to cook. I told you. I\u2019m prettier when I\u2019m skinny.\u201d
\u201cYou are fucking losing your mind.\u201d
\u201cBaby, you just noticed?\u201d<\/p>\n
July 9, 2011\u202f
Crest<\/p>\n
I woke up this morning and my mouth tasted like an asshole\u2019s asshole.<\/p>\n
\u202f
Change<\/p>\n
This is going to turn around, I promise. And you\u2019re going to be sorry that you left.<\/p>\n
\u202f
Speed<\/p>\n
I only know how to do everything at maximum speed. I don\u2019t know how to do it halfway. It\u2019s all or nothing. I\u2019m sorry. I shouldn\u2019t have hurt you just because you hurt me.<\/p>\n
\u202f
Haba\u00f1eros<\/p>\n
I\u2019ve got to stop eating raw haba\u00f1eros just because I like hot food. My mouth is burning, my nose is running, and I can\u2019t stop sweating. That sweat, that pain, that umm. There are so many metaphors here. And jokes. But not right now.<\/p>\n
July 10, 2011\u202f
How are we going to get be old?<\/p>\n
My heart beats too fast and your legs close too slow.<\/p>\n
\u202f
Life<\/p>\n
\u201cThese violent delights have violent ends. And in their triumphs die. Like fire and powder which as they kiss consume.\u201d
\u201cStop quoting Shakespeare to me.\u201d
\u201cStop being a bitch to me.\u201d
\u201cYou torture me.\u201d
\u201cLife is torture, Princess.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u202f
Again, life<\/p>\n
You can take it both ways. Either you get it. Or You don\u2019t.<\/p>\n
\u202f
Punishment<\/p>\n
I think if you look at the punishment. To take away my job, my life, my home. With no real violence except to subdue. It\u2019s because there is something about us that makes us hate people that don\u2019t fit the mold. Clearly, I don\u2019t fit the mold.<\/p>\n
July 11, 2011\u202f
I can\u2019t<\/p>\n
I can\u2019t get skinny enough. I can\u2019t pretty enough. I can\u2019t get tall enough. Sorry.<\/p>\n
\u202f
Our father<\/p>\n
\u201cPay attention to your own trespasses.\u201d
\u201cAnd then?\u201d
\u201cStop committing them.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u202f
It\u2019s difficult<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s difficult to change your perceptions of me.\u201d
\u201cWhy?\u201d
\u201cBecause they\u2019re correct.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u202f
Nothing<\/p>\n
\u201cThis? Is the way to die. But, unfortunately, nothing seems to want to kill me.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u202f
Death<\/p>\n
\u201cI feel like I\u2019m dying.\u201d
\u201cFrom the second we\u2019re born we all start dying.\u201d
\u201cYeah, nice bedside manner, Miss Congeniality.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u202f
Punahou<\/p>\n
\u201c\u2018When he shall die take him out and cut him in little stars. And he shall make the face of heaven so fine, that all the world will be in love with night and pay no worship to the garish sun.\u2019 It\u2019s from Romeo and Juliet.\u201d
\u201cYou\u2019re so fucking weird. How do you know that stuff?\u201d
\u201cPunahou.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u202f
Look<\/p>\n
\u201cLook at your watch.\u201d
\u201cI don\u2019t wear a watch.\u201d
\u201cThen look at the clock.\u201d
\u201cWhy?\u201d
\u201cBecause I want you to know the exact moment that this shit ends.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u202f
Kisses<\/p>\n
\u201cCan I kiss you?\u201d
\u201cI sorta have a boyfriend.\u201d
\u201cWell, you sorta had one the last time we fucked.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u202f
Heat<\/p>\n
I eat hot foods? Because I like it to hurt.<\/p>\n
July 12, 2011\u202f
Your hands<\/p>\n
\u201cYour hands.They\u2019re shaking.\u201d
\u201cI stopped drinking.\u201d
\u201cYou started again?\u201d
\u201cHey, everything we put in our mouth eventually kills us.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u202f
Sad<\/p>\n
I wish I could wake up dead tomorrow and not just sad. Then? Everyone could stop worrying.<\/p>\n
\u202f
South<\/p>\n
It\u2019s going south. It\u2019s coming to a close.<\/p>\n
\u202f
It\u2019s hard<\/p>\n
To be dead when you\u2019re still alive.<\/p>\n
\u202f
You chose<\/p>\n
A man you met twenty years after me. And seemingly abandoned even our friendship for this man. When it all comes crashing down, because with you? It always does. Remember your choice.<\/p>\n
\u202f
Lengua<\/p>\n
How did I learn three languages but I fucking can\u2019t do anything else right? Why is it just words for me? Why are they the only thing I can master? Why not myself?<\/p>\n
\u202f
We<\/p>\n
We used to speak every day. Now? I don\u2019t even remember you. The wind washes away a lot of things, I guess.<\/p>\n
July 13, 2011\u202f
Emptiness<\/p>\n
I know this. You will not return to me empty. And I don\u2019t mean that in a sexual context. You\u2019ve grown. I\u2019ve grown. I mean you are filled with spirit.<\/p>\n
\u202f
That<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s how we lose everything.\u201d
\u201cHow is that?\u201d
\u201cA little at a time.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u202f
Ramifications<\/p>\n
\u201cYou gotta stop putting that shit on Facebook.\u201d
\u201cWhy?\u201d
\u201cBecause anyone can read it.\u201d
\u201cSo.\u201d
\u201cSo? There might be consequences.\u201d
\u201cThe ramifications from my postings on Facebook are actually very low on my list of concerns.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u202f
Divine<\/p>\n
I see a divinity. But I don\u2019t see your God.<\/p>\n
\u202f
Touch<\/p>\n
\u201cTouch me. No, not like that. Touch my shoulder. Touch my hips. Touch my lips. Touch my closed eyes. Come lay with me tonight. Not as a lover, but as comfort.\u201d
\u201cThat\u2019s not fair to put me in that position. I worry about you so much.\u201d
\u201cWho ever said life was fair?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u202f
What happened<\/p>\n
We tried. But we failed.<\/p>\n
\u202f
Kissing<\/p>\n
\u201cWho was last the girl you kissed?\u201d
\u201cWho? Kay.\u201d
\u201cWho was the last girl you fucked?\u201d
\u201cHer name was Bella. \u201d
\u201cWho?\u201d
\u201cYou don\u2019t know her. I didn\u2019t either. We met at a party and one night she knocked at like 3. She knocked on my door.\u201d
\u201cI hate you.\u201d
\u201cI hate you back.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u202f
Tides<\/p>\n
When the water is only waist high? And the tide starts to recede? Don\u2019t look at the flopping fish. Run. Some shit\u2019s about to go down. And if you don\u2019t get out of the way? Most likely it will be you. I promise. Water is a lot faster than you are.<\/p>\n
July 14, 2011\u202f
Kids<\/p>\n
I love my kids as if they were my own.<\/p>\n
\u202f
Circles<\/p>\n
What comes around? It tends to go around.<\/p>\n
\u202f
Fate<\/p>\n
You cannot escape your fate. And your fate? Is what you created.<\/p>\n
\u202f
Happy birthday<\/p>\n
\u201cYou didn\u2019t call me.\u201d
\u201cYes, I did.\u201d
\u201cWhy didn\u2019t you call back?\u201d
\u201cYou chose someone else over me because it was convenient? I\u2019ll ring you once.\u201d<\/p>\n
July 15, 2011\u202f
Mere words<\/p>\n
I ran out of ways to say, \u201cI love you.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u202f
Surprise<\/p>\n
\u201cWith the Internet there are no more surprises anymore.\u201d
\u201cI bet the way a person dies is still a pretty big surprise.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u202f
Your boyfriend<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m having money troubles.\u201d
\u201cWhy don\u2019t you go live with your boyfriend? You\u2019ve been going out for almost two years.\u201d
\u201cI don\u2019t want to live with him and he doesn\u2019t want to live with four kids.\u201d
\u201cThen why is he your boyfriend?\u201d<\/p>\n
July 16, 2011\u202f
Numbers<\/p>\n
Everything is a numbers game. So you have to pick a number and modify your strategy accordingly. Dating? Business? It\u2019s all the same.<\/p>\n
\u202f
Sex<\/p>\n
What I feel in sex? The woman doesn\u2019t. We will never truly understand the act. I won\u2019t know the sensation of being filled. And she will never know the sensation of being enveloped. Yet? We both have a role in the play.<\/p>\n
\u202f
Ferocity and passion<\/p>\n
I\u2019ve lost every woman I\u2019ve ever really loved, so clearly I make mistakes. But each one, I promise you, would tell you that I loved them with a ferocity and passion. In fact? That may be the reason, I haven\u2019t been able to hold it together with them. I\u2019m very good at woo, and apparently, very bad at keep.<\/p>\n
\u202f
Sleep<\/p>\n
\u201cYour eyes are bloodshot. They\u2019re swollen. You look like shit.\u201d
\u201cOnly because I haven\u2019t slept for a couple days. I think in this context I\u2019m doing pretty well.\u201d<\/p>\n
July 17, 2011\u202f
Ernest<\/p>\n
I wanted to be as good as Hemingway. And when I found out I was? I wanted to be better.<\/p>\n
\u202f
Stop<\/p>\n
I\u2019m not your responsibility. If I choose to believe in you, I know it\u2019s at my own risk. Sometimes I think I\u2019m just hanging on to see what happens, to see how this ends. I\u2019ve been rehearsing versions of the speech all night, but instead say, \u201cI just can\u2019t make it stop.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u202f
Your love?<\/p>\n
Is an empty promise of what might be.<\/p>\n
\u202f
Hawaii \u201978<\/p>\n
In 1991, when I was in Seattle, and the grunge thing was going. Andy Wood died and they replaced him with a man named Eddie Vedder. They were Mother Love Bone with Andy and then Mookie Blaylock with Eddie and they opened for bands like Alice in Chains. Then they became Pearl Jam and blew up. If you would have told me back then that they would do a cover song of the Makaha Sons of Ni\u2019ihau, I would have called you crazy. Turns out? It ends up happening.<\/p>\n
\u202f
Look<\/p>\n
I am looking. I am seeking. Something with no name. And it has eluded me now for over 40 years.<\/p>\n
July 19, 2011\u202f
Learn your Shakespeare<\/p>\n
And tempt not a desperate man.<\/p>\n
\u202f
Moments<\/p>\n
Every moment of your life? Is an opportunity. Stop wasting them. Because eventually they will end.<\/p>\n
\u202f
Beauty<\/p>\n
But guess what? Beauty doesn\u2019t last forever. And yours? The way you live? Is fading. And really? That\u2019s all you have.<\/p>\n
July 20, 2011\u202f
Punk<\/p>\n
\u201cDaddy, why do you have my name and my brother\u2019s name written on your back?\u201d
\u201cSo you\u2019re always with me.\u201d
\u201cWhy does it say PUNK on your neck?\u201d
\u201cThat one\u2019s for me.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u202f
The mirror<\/p>\n
My daughter just told me something very disturbing. She went to the bathroom and said, \u201cI don\u2019t like to look at mirrors in the dark.\u201d And I had to turn on the bathroom lights. I don\u2019t know what to think about that or how to interpret it.<\/p>\n
\u202f
Certainty<\/p>\n
It takes more certainty than talent to accomplish almost anything.<\/p>\n
\u202f
You win<\/p>\n
And now you know what? Everything is in play. I contact who I want to. I can say what I want to. You made your choice. Now I make mine. And it\u2019s not you.<\/p>\n
You win. I give up. Take a bow. But now it\u2019s over. Goodbye.<\/p>\n
\u202f
Angels<\/p>\n
I\u2019m watching the kids sleep. Finally. Because? Sometimes? Even angels need to rest their wings.<\/p>\n
July 26, 2011\u202f
We all fall down<\/p>\n
We remained an unhappy, on-again, off-again couple for about three months while trying to reconcile my desire to reconcile, and me mostly trying to fall into the bottom of a bottle. Mostly succeeding. But, at times, at that time, there was still a sweetness. The day we were officially divorced, she kissed me and said, \u201cAnd you complain how I\u2019m never affectionate.\u201d At one point near the end, during the death throes of us, she told me, \u201cYou\u2019re my best friend.\u201d<\/p>\n
I remarried early the next year; way too soon. Disrespectful. But I thought it was love. And I was sad. I worked with my second wife. Beautiful, extremely talented, but very troubled. Lots of drugs, I would come to find, and a nasty drunk, though, she rarely got drunk. When she did there was always a scene. The first time I saw it I was searching for her, unable to find her until there she was crying at the base of the toilet in the back room of her sister\u2019s house.<\/p>\n
Or the night she came home after her happy hour with her, \u201cjust a friend,\u201d to our apartment. And lost it. Kicked me, pulled things off shelves, nastiness. I grabbed her elbows to restrain her. I told her, \u201cThat is it.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m going to my sister\u2019s\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cGood. Go. Get the fuck out of here.\u201d But when she passed I was filled with regret about the whole situation, \u201cWait. Don\u2019t go. Please, don\u2019t go like this.\u201d I grabbed her hand. She yanked. Hard. So I let go. She stumbled back into the wall. And then she left.<\/p>\n
One hour later the door knocks. Two policemen are there. First thing I think there\u2019s been a crash or she got a DWI. Then they asked me what happened here? And it suddenly dawns on me that they\u2019re here for me. She had used them to spite me. Still, not knowing the consequences of doing so, I remained relatively silent and tried to protect her, \u201cI restrained her when she was losing her temper. Then begged her not to go.\u201d But it\u2019s clear they\u2019re asking out of lip service. Pretty, little blonde girl, macho police attitude. I probably would have made the same choice in their shoes. My fate was pretty much sealed before they even knocked.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re arresting you with a charge of family violence.\u201d They\u2019re not even looking for anything else. They don\u2019t even notice her mayonnaise-sized jar of pot five feet away. I tried to protect her and she sold me out.<\/p>\n
Fast forward two months and I try an email intervention with her family. \u201cDo you notice how much weight she\u2019s lost, and how she never runs or goes to the gym? How do you suppose that happens?\u201d<\/p>\n
The next day she files a restraining order. Probably to silence me with her family. She and I have met at least 25 times since the incident, never threatening, so she can\u2019t possibly feel threatened.<\/p>\n
So now we have an\u202fex-parte\u202frestraining order. And here\u2019s where I do something stupid. I excoriate her. Not in person. But drunk and filled with melancholy for the halcyon days of mere months ago, I send a text message of I love you and miss you and hate you. And an email saying roughly the same. The police somehow get a hold of these. Somehow. Nothing threatening, nothing menacing, but the passionate intensity of the communication will, months later, come back to bite me on the ass. Straight lines, i.e., most people, have a hard time understanding undulations.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s a civil trial, which means although she gets an advocate, I would need to hire a lawyer if I want to fight it. Hardly anyone ever fights it. I do it\u202fpro se. If only to get my side of the story across. And so I prepare for five days in the law library downtown, gather ATM, prescription, email and phone records, and mark off dates on the calendar. I cross examine her for over two hours and uncover at least 50 provable lies.<\/p>\n
During a recess not one, but two defense lawyers tell me that I\u2019m clearly winning, beating the D.A., but in domestic violence cases, no judge wants to be the one that let a husband out so he can get close and kill his wife. This is a rubber stamp. I watch the trials all morning and the judge acts like he\u2019s tough, but he basically makes the same decision over and over. No reflection, just the decision with the least amount of risk to himself. Still, it\u2019s electrifying and gratifying that at least this roomful of people know the truth.<\/p>\n
In a move so vindictive it is hard to comprehend, old communications are represented as current and I am rearrested. I spend almost 70 days in jail, because bail has been set so high. Hopefully you never know this personally, but at this point? Any deal looks good. And the dirty little secret is unless you\u2019re wealthy and can pay to take up your attorney\u2019s time and attention in preparation for trial, and pay for his expert friends (they always use the same ones), most criminal attorney law is about making deals. Court-appointed is synonymous with a license to lose. The state gives them no incentive to do their best. So unless you win the lottery of the \u201ctrue believer,\u201d you\u2019re probably going to plead, lose, or go on probation. (Another topic for another rant, but probation is a joke designed to feed the beast. 70% of people on it? Have it revoked. It is set up for failure. But, I digress.)<\/p>\n
Indigent defendants are at such an extreme disadvantage, i.e., the state has unlimited resources to vilify, while the defendant has some half-ass watching the meter (there\u2019s a cap on the fee allowed), only because the judge has compelled them to do so.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut they\u2019ve taken an oath.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd? I\u2019ve promised lots of things.\u201d<\/p>\n
July 28, 2011\u202f
Idea factories<\/p>\n
Ideas are cheap and most are worthless. The original idea? It means almost nothing in terms of accomplishment. What matters is how you execute on the good ones.<\/p>\n
\u202f
Belief systems<\/p>\n
Most people tend to start with a belief then bend available data to support it while ignoring that which refutes it. True disinterest is practically non-existent unless it is coupled with true non-interest.<\/p>\n
July 30, 2011\u202f
The rhythm of a place<\/p>\n
I enter the cavernous warehouse and quickly discover that it must be extremely well insulated. Just outside the door it was silent. Two steps in and I can feel the bass of the beat pulsing against my chest. It feels like an arrhythmia.<\/p>\n
The room stutters. The strobe lights are flashing like hyperactive polaroids. A thousand people bounce along to the percussive chant of a repeated phrase that invokes visions of Jonestown and Waco more so than Studio 54 or the Limelight. Everyone smiles or laughs, leaving tracers with various glow-in-the-dark sticks and orbs, as they twist and crawl in place.<\/p>\n
Scattered about the crowd, on pedestals of various heights, are near-naked women and men leading the dance and every so often getting a little closer to naked.<\/p>\n
My first question is, \u201cWho the fuck are these people?\u201d And, of course, my second question is, \u201cWho the fuck am I?\u201d<\/p>\n
July 31, 2011\u202f
Arlington? The one in Texas?<\/p>\n
To the editors of\u202fMaxim<\/p>\n
Frankly, I\u2019m confused by your inclusion of Arlington, Texas as a city that might have appeal for\u202fMaxim\u202freaders. I\u2019m also surprised that the one thing that Arlington does have going for it, sports, was actually named as a reason it didn\u2019t score higher. I used to live about twenty miles north of Arlington, and used to visit quite a bit because of the sports. The teams don\u2019t have Arlington in their names, but the former Ballpark, now Ameriquest Field, is right across the street from the new Cowboys eighth-wonder-of-the-world stadium. Dallas proper has the Mavericks and Stars, good teams most years, but not exactly burning down the house. You included that city as a sports Mecca. It\u2019s not anymore.<\/p>\n
The Dallas Cowboys, the largest franchise in the world this side of Manchester United, and the reigning AL champion Texas Rangers both reside in the heart of Arlington. Unfortunately, they are also both across the street from the original Six Flags, which with all the bloated parents dragging their whining brats around, sticky with cotton candy and 85% humidity on a 105-degree day, is maybe half a step above Carnie-town or at least the Texas State Fair. Think Chuck E. Cheese, outside, with no escape.<\/p>\n
The rest of the city is terrible. Six Flags, water parks, miniature golf, strip malls, cheap motels, and bowling alleys and skating rinks that haven\u2019t been renovated (or even cleaned) since 1979. They all beckon the multitude to a place where desperation pans out as far as the eye can see in every direction from Interstate-20. Even the strip clubs are gross. I don\u2019t know what algorithm you used to determine your best cities. But someone needs to go back to Arlington and re-score by hand.<\/p>\n
\u202f
Elements of revenge<\/p>\n
\u201cRegardless, you need to be there for them.\u201d
\u201cShe won\u2019t let me be there.\u201d
\u201cShe doesn\u2019t trust you.\u201d
\u201cAnd, with regard to her, she shouldn\u2019t. But we\u2019re not what this is about.\u201d
\u201cWhat is it about?\u201d
\u201cIt should be about them.\u201d
\u201cAnd you think it\u2019s not?\u201d
\u201cThey\u2019re just an excuse.\u201d
\u201cWhat do you mean?\u201d
\u201cI never hurt them. I hurt\u202fher.\u201d
\u201cAnd?\u201d
\u201cAnd this is the only way she has left to hurt me back.\u201d
\u201cYou really think that\u2019s what this is?\u201d
\u201cI think it\u2019s a big part of it. She\u2019d deny it, and I don\u2019t even think she knows she\u2019s lying. Self-awareness is difficult when you\u2019re lying to yourself.\u201d
\u201cNow your a counselor?\u201d
\u201cI prefer philosopher. She probably wouldn\u2019t respond well to my counsel.\u201d
\u201cYou never know.\u201d
\u201cI know. With me? She\u2019s gone beyond rational.\u201d
\u201cYou never know.\u201d
\u201cRemember when she called the police and said I was DWI with the kids in the car? That was incomprehensibly irresponsible. Not just to my reputation, but to my liberty. That incident shows that when she is angry or feels hurt, she just doesn\u2019t care about the consequences. She complained about\u202fmy\u202ftemper, but she lashed out just as dangerously, if not more so. She just did it at a lower volume.\u201d
\u201cYou\u202fare\u202fpretty loud.\u201d
\u201cDo you know that\u2019s a second-degree felony? Technically, driving drunk with kids in the car is\u202fFelony Endangerment of a Child, punishable by two to twenty years in a state prison. And with two kids, I would have faced two counts. I used to live half a mile away from her; it took me less than three minutes to cover the distance. When I returned home from her house that day, the police were waiting for me. Which means she called immediately after I left, probably dialed as I pulled away without even an attempt to confirm her suspicions.\u201d
\u201cWell, if she believed that it was true.\u201d
\u201cThere\u2019s more to it then that.\u201d
\u201cLike what?\u201d
\u201cThe whole day we had been arguing. I received our laptop in the divorce decree. I said she could take it on a business trip. We started arguing and I told her I changed my mind.\u201d
\u201cTypical. You\u2019re such a brat sometimes.\u201d
\u201cI\u2019m not arguing that with you.\u201d
\u201cWhat does this have to do with anything?\u201d
\u201cThat whole day she threatened to call the police and have me arrested if I came to get the laptop. I told her, \u2018Call \u2018em, I\u2019ll have our decree in hand.\u2019 All day she threatened to call the police. And she found a way to do it. She needed a way to punish me.\u201d
\u201cFor what?\u201d
\u201cI don\u2019t know. We weren\u2019t that close by then. I think she was embarrassed because she had offered it as a backup for the conference she was going to and then had to retract the offer.\u201d
\u201cThat doesn\u2019t seem like her.\u201d
\u201cWell, like I said, I\u2019m not sure what her actual motivations were. I\u2019m not even sure she does. The fact of the matter is she did what she did.\u201d
\u201cAnd? What was that?\u201d
\u201cShe swore she heard their voices and crying from the back seat, even though the windows were up and I was parked 25 yards away. To 911, and then to my mother, to her family and to their school, and who knows who else she repeated that story to. Totally false.\u201d
\u201cWhere were they?\u201d
\u201cAt my next door neighbors\u2019. CPS did an investigation.\u201d
\u201cNo.\u201d
\u201cYes. I was exonerated. But it\u2019s like trying to get toothpaste back in the tube. Once it\u2019s out, it\u2019s almost impossible. The looks I would get in their school never went away. At first, even my mom didn\u2019t believe me. If my daughter wasn\u2019t a precocious five-year old I might be in prison right now. No one bothered to ask her if she was in the car until two days after the fact and a restraining order had been filed preventing my access to them.\u201d
\u201cReally?\u201d
\u201cReally.\u201d
\u201cShe tells herself she\u2019s doing everything she does for the kids. But if you\u2019re objective, and I admit it\u2019s hard for me to be objective when she is being so punitive, clearly there was\u2013and is\u2013an element of revenge.\u201d
\u201cI don\u2019t know what to think. 911?\u201d
\u201c911.\u201d
\u201cThat sucks. It\u2019s hard to believe she would lie like that.\u201d
\u201cI don\u2019t think she was lying.\u201d
\u201cWhat?\u201d
\u201cNo. I believe that at the time she\u202fbelieved\u202fshe was telling the truth. But I\u2019ve been dealing with that kind of reckless anger for almost three years now. And this is just indicative of her knee-jerk reaction to incidents in the context of our past relationship. This has nothing to do with my relationship with the kids. All they ever get from me is love. And somewhere under the callouses, I know she knows that.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u202f
The eye of a needle<\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019re crazy.\u201d
\u201cSo?\u201d
\u201cSo? Don\u2019t you want to fix that? Don\u2019t you want to be there for your kids?\u201d
\u201cDon\u2019t bring them into this.\u201d
\u201cWell, don\u2019t you?\u201d
\u201cFrankly, I think it\u2019s a good thing for them to be exposed to something other than the margarine life of despicable mediocrity being forced upon them. I expose them to a way of thinking that doesn\u2019t exist for them day to day.\u201d
\u201cYou\u202fdo\u202flove them.\u201d
\u201cMore than anything.\u201d
\u201cBut you\u2019re not normal.\u201d
\u201cI don\u2019t want to be. You go be normal if that\u2019s what you want. I had that life. It\u2019s not what I want.\u201d
\u201cIt\u2019s not just about you anymore.\u201d
\u201cYou think I don\u2019t know that? You think I don\u2019t feel the pangs of loss? You think I don\u2019t turn around and look back and see what my choices have taken away from me?\u201d
\u201cThen go back.\u201d
\u201cNever. Who I am is related to standing out, not fitting in. I don\u2019t feel comfortable when I\u2019m acclimated. If everyone is special, then nobody is. I want to be the needle in the haystack, not part of the haystack.\u201d
\u201cEveryone\u202fis\u202fspecial\u2026\u201d
\u201cNo. No they\u2019re not.\u201d
\u201cAnd you are?\u201d
\u201cYes.\u201d<\/p>\n
August 2, 2011\u202f
I know, right?<\/p>\n
\u201cYou need to slow down.\u201d
\u201cOr what?\u201d
\u201cOr you\u2019re not going to make it.\u201d
\u201cMake it where? I\u2019m not going anywhere.\u201d
\u201cWith me, Honey, with me.\u201d
\u201cI\u2019m doing you a favor. Trust me.\u201d
\u201cI love you.\u201d
\u201cI love you back. I only have the capacity to hurt you.\u201d
\u201cThen hurt me.\u201d
\u201cI\u2019m so tired.\u201d
\u201cFall into my arms.\u201d
\u201cI just know I\u2019m falling.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u202f
Help<\/p>\n
\u201cAre you gay?\u201d
\u201cNo.\u201d
\u201cThen why are you here?\u201d
\u201cHe\u2019s my friend.\u201d
\u201cWhat do you get out of it?\u201d
\u201cHopefully no one gets nothing out of anything. I\u2019ll help my friend go home.\u201d
\u201cHero? Martyr?\u201d
\u201cNeither, hopefully. But I will rip your throat out if you\u2019re so inclined.\u201d
\u201cTell him he can get his stuff.\u201d
\u201cOh, he can get his stuff. And you\u2019ll stand right there.\u201d<\/p>\n
August 3, 2011\u202f
My eyes<\/p>\n
\u201cYou know your eyes give away everything.\u201d
\u201cAnd what does that mean?\u201d
\u201cYour orbital sense.\u201d
\u201cI forget what orbital means.\u201d
\u201cJust look.\u201d
\u201cAnd what do I see?\u201d
\u201cJust look.\u201d<\/p>\n
August 4, 2011\u202f
You<\/p>\n
\u201cI love your body. My cheek on the nape of your neck. On your ass. It is transcendent.\u201d
\u201cBaby, the feeling is reciprocal.\u201d
\u201cI was hoping you were going to say that. Or something like it.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u202f
Don\u2019t you understand?<\/p>\n
\u201cTake a break.\u201d
\u201cWe don\u2019t take a break.\u201d
\u201cDon\u2019t you understand?\u201d
\u201cDon\u2019t you. It\u2019s never over. It\u2019s never finished.\u201d
\u201cYou\u2019re killing yourself. You\u2019re dying.\u201d
\u201cLet it come as it comes.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u202f
What is he showing you<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s just this.\u201d
\u201cSometimes I can\u2019t work on something just because it\u2019s needed.\u201d
\u201cAt least it\u2019s not binge drinking and strip clubs.\u201d
\u201cI guess that\u2019s true.\u201d<\/p>\n
August 5, 2011\u202f
I\u2019m different than the other boys<\/p>\n
I don\u2019t have an on\/off switch. It mediates, but it never goes away. I know you look. We have 138 days. Until what? Isn\u2019t this when you tell me to go to one knee?<\/p>\n
August 6, 2011\u202f
The ropes<\/p>\n
They\u2019re a bad place to be.<\/p>\n
August 7, 2011\u202f
Things we think about<\/p>\n
The day after my birthday is not my birthday. You all forgot.<\/p>\n
\u202f
Bring it hard<\/p>\n
No, bring it harder.<\/p>\n
\u202f
We can\u2019t cure viral infections<\/p>\n
Yes, but we have strategies.<\/p>\n
\u202f
I guess I see you<\/p>\n
So I guess I must be alive. Goodbye. This is how I write it. Goodbye.<\/p>\n
\u202f
Spread your arms wider little girl<\/p>\n
\u201cWhy daddy?\u201d
\u201cTo show how much you love.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u202f
I\u2019m pretty good<\/p>\n
At making love. Sometimes? my partners. They get the benefit of that.<\/p>\n
\u202f
Violence<\/p>\n
\u201cIt isn\u2019t the only answer to conflict.\u201d
\u201cYeah, but it seems to be the most popular one.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u202f
Needs<\/p>\n
I need to scratch when I\u2019m itchy.<\/p>\n
August 8, 2011\u202f
You scare me sometimes<\/p>\n
\u201cI love you.\u201d
\u201cYou have a husband.\u201d
\u201cI get scared sometimes.\u201d
\u201cWe all get scared.\u201d
\u201cI love you and I don\u2019t know what to do.\u201d
\u201cLeave.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u202f
I only know what I know now<\/p>\n
And I know I love you. And I know I\u2019ll be back. And I know some day I\u2019ll make you proud. I\u201dm going to make this fucking movie. And then all bad things go away.<\/p>\n
\u202f
I never learned to share<\/p>\n
And because of this every woman I\u2019ve ever \u201chad\u201d has grown to hate me.<\/p>\n
\u202f
Don\u2019t you get it?<\/p>\n
I need to check it out in person.<\/p>\n
\u202f
What did you do wrong this time?<\/p>\n
What did you do wrong last time?<\/p>\n
\u202f
Brace<\/p>\n
\u201cBrace your feet against the wall. I\u2019m sorry for what\u2019s about to happen.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u202f
You<\/p>\n
You don\u2019t pull these things away. They become a part of you and that\u2019s what you are. You can\u2019t run from this. Don\u2019t be afraid. This is who you are.<\/p>\n
August 9, 2011\u202f
Again, you<\/p>\n
You have to be who you are. That\u2019s the trick.<\/p>\n
\u202f
Your eyes burn<\/p>\n
That doesn\u2019t mean anything anymore. Really? It never did.<\/p>\n
\u202f
I am a wayfaring stranger<\/p>\n
I am just going home. I\u2019m just going home. There is no sin in that. I know my path has made it harder.<\/p>\n
\u202f
Seriously<\/p>\n
Why would you love me back? I wouldn\u2019t love me back if I were you.<\/p>\n
\u202f
You only proved<\/p>\n
That you were a drunk.<\/p>\n
\u202f
Sorry<\/p>\n
That makes it challenging not impossible.<\/p>\n
\u202f
Why are you sad?<\/p>\n
\u201cI found out today. They lived together in Mexico.\u201d
\u201cSo kill them.\u201d
\u201cI\u2019ve done a lot more for a lot less.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u202f
Funky<\/p>\n
\u201cI have girl funk.\u201d
\u201cThat is totally my favorite kind of funk.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u202f
I know<\/p>\n
\u201cHer face changes when she talks about you.\u201d
\u201cI hurt her.\u201d
\u201cThe thing is? I\u2019ve never been so sorry.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u202f
I don\u2019t like the fact<\/p>\n
that I love you. It only brings badness. It never brings gladness.<\/p>\n
\u202f
I\u2019ve looked everywhere<\/p>\n
And I don\u2019t see anything. I don\u2019t see anything.<\/p>\n
\u202f
Well<\/p>\n
\u201cFrankly, I\u2019m not scared of you. I\u2019m scared of the past.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u202f
The truth<\/p>\n
Is that the question? It\u2019s meaningless. Ask another question.<\/p>\n
\u202f
The lake<\/p>\n
\u201cI had a beautiful day at the lake today.\u201d
\u201cWe have such different lives. I spent the day trying not to piss in the sink.\u201d<\/p>\n
August 10, 2011\u202f
Go<\/p>\n
\u201cGo to sleep.\u201d
\u201cI don\u2019t want to die of it.\u201d
\u201cThey\u2019ll wake you up.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u202f
Elements<\/p>\n
There is some element of chance here. I may just be getting lucky.<\/p>\n
August 11, 2011\u202f
Water?<\/p>\n
\u201cYou were just drinking a glass of water.\u201d
\u201cSorry it wasn\u2019t wine or vodka. Don\u2019t you remember? We were trying to be healthy.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u202f
We<\/p>\n
You and I need both of us to be real.
And then you know what? I\u2019ll meet you on the other side.<\/p>\n
\u202f
I\u2019m not mad<\/p>\n
But I don\u2019t want to love anybody. I don\u2019t want to hurt your feelings. I\u2019m just saying.<\/p>\n
\u202f
A certainty<\/p>\n
We all die in the end so revenge is fucked.<\/p>\n
\u202f
Both feet on the floor<\/p>\n
You know you\u2019re really not alone?<\/p>\n
August 12, 2011\u202f
The enemy of happiness<\/p>\n
I am getting tired of correctly predicting bad news. My ability to forecast future disappointments at your hands is near infallible. Though in this past year anyone would have done well by guessing the exact opposite of what you claimed would be your course of action. How many times in the five days I was there did you say that you just \u201cwanted to be alone for awhile.\u201d We were together on Monday morning for the last time. How long do you wait after I leave town to begin your slow, steady drift away from every plan or promise that you and I have made? Did you make it to 48 hours? With the exception of your job and your kids, you are a million different people from one day to the next. Scattershot and unpredictable, you are dangerous to people that bother to care.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m not sure what it is about you that keeps me coming back. Maybe it\u2019s not you, maybe it\u2019s something in me. I don\u2019t know why I get angry and hurt, but I do. Upon reflection it seems pointless to get mad at you for acting within your nature. This is how you\u2019ve been since I\u2019ve known you. Ever since we were 20 it\u2019s been the same eventual outcome. We\u2019re 40 now, and it\u2019s still the same. The settings have changed, but it feels the same as it always has. What is it about you that makes me willing to ignore countless examples to the contrary, and believe that change is even possible? You pick what is easiest, and when what\u2019s easiest changes, you change what you pick. Every. Single. Time. It is the only constant that I can recognize in your life.<\/p>\n
What makes you send sweet messages about being in love with me again, then three or four times reversing yourself not a week later? Why the constant urge to zig just when I\u2019ve begun to zag? I played dumb for the last year using our geographic remove and a willful ignorance to sidestep the awful truth. I wanted so badly to believe in you. What did you want?<\/p>\n
I don\u2019t understand your motivation. I thought I knew you as well as one person could know another, but there are clearly blind spots in my perception. Are you incapable of complete honesty with a lover, not just me but anyone? Are you lying to yourself, too? Is it a defense mechanism of some kind? But then who protects you from yourself?<\/p>\n
Don\u2019t you realize that even though other people may be the ones hurt in the short run, in the long run this is actually self-destructive behavior, and will eventually bring you a sort of isolation? Even if you\u2019re with someone you\u2019ll always be alone, not because there will ever be a shortage of people willing to try, but because you won\u2019t know how to make that connection, no matter how much someone loves you.<\/p>\n
We talked about this when I was out there and the realization that you have betrayed every major relationship you have ever had was unnerving. Real love is so fragile, so rare, and your willingness to toss it aside so readily is something I will never get used to. And I\u2019m not even talking about you and me. If you really don\u2019t care, don\u2019t you at least feel a twinge of guilt for the lives you have broken so casually, the pain you cause and are causing, the irreparable damage you\u2019ve inflicted on trust and truth?<\/p>\n
What you\u2019ve done can\u2019t be fixed with, \u201cI\u2019m sorry,\u201d or, \u201cI\u2019m a bad person,\u201d or even, \u201cI wouldn\u2019t blame you if you never talked to me again.\u201d You know that\u2019s not going to happen. Though I\u2019m absolutely positive that you will do it again, if not to me then to someone else. Beauty has given you so many options in your history that you have become sociopathic in your relationships, sometimes to the point of cruelty. You act as if there will be no consequences. None that matter anyway.<\/p>\n
Yesterday I decided to stop beating myself up. Because I believe that my interaction with you, occasional bad behavior notwithstanding, was always coming from a place of friendship and love. I try not to live with the expectation of disappointment, and if that makes me vulnerable to dishonesty and disrespect then so be it. All I\u2019ve ever done is love you. I tried to help your self-actualization in any way that I could. But I tolerated being taken for granted for so long, that we became stuck in that dynamic.<\/p>\n
I do believe your love for me and your affection is genuine, I really do. But it\u2019s also true that you lied to me for over a year about something that was fundamental in my life and my pursuit of happiness. You did it with a straight face, a voice that never broke, looking into my eyes, in hundreds of conversations on the phone, on Skype, and in person. You lied to my friends and to my mother, and you did it repeatedly. Only caught red-handed by a Facebook status update did you even consider speaking the truth to anyone involved in this bizarre love triangle. And you waited until the very last minute to do it, literally hours before my arrival in Tampa.<\/p>\n
Yours was a strange combination of remorse and righteous anger. I couldn\u2019t immediately shake my disappointment, and I felt like I was sucker punched in the gut. You may not realize you were doing it, but freed from the tangles of historical lies, you used the truth as a bludgeon, and you continue to do so, smashing my fragility like it was glass.<\/p>\n
I was\u2013I still am\u2013overwhelmed and numb from the revelations of the past week. It was my birthday and I didn\u2019t want it ruined by last-minute confessions, and all that I really cared about was that I spend it with you. It was more difficult than I thought it would be because when I let my mind wander, I would always return to feeling completely betrayed. And I was more than a little nervous about your tolerance for the constant text messages you received when we were together. I was unprepared for the scope of your deception. Your assurances of \u201care you going to dwell on the past or are we going to move forward?\u201d eventually won me over, however, and moving forward with you seemed like such a pretty idea.<\/p>\n
And yet for all this, my love for you is never spent. My feelings of warm affection for you never stop, no matter what the trespass, though I wonder what it is about relationships\u2013this relationship\u2013that sometimes brings out the very worst in you. You complained about a perceived weakness when I was trying to be vulnerable with you, something you were never able to sustain, or maybe never even attempted. And more than once you\u2019ve scolded me for lacking confidence. I may be lacking in several areas but confidence is not one of them. I wonder what other misperceptions have eroded the connection between you and me. You\u2019ve seen me at my lowest points because I let you see me that way, not because that\u2019s who I am.<\/p>\n
Now what? Where does it go from here? The roads are impenetrable and the city lies in ruins. What am I supposed to believe in when everything I thought was true was to you just a casual duplicity? My faith has been lost, regained, and lost again, tethered as it is to your ever-changing words (and I blame myself for that). I\u2019m cold and sad and alone and I can\u2019t even come to you for warmth or comfort. You\u2019ve ignored me for days now, and categorized my attempts at communication as something sinister. Shame on you.<\/p>\n
Very recently you referred to me as your best friend and that you felt like you couldn\u2019t live without me in your life. And I reciprocate that love unconditionally. I\u2019ve never given you reason to doubt that. My last day there I feel like I finally had a chance, unfortunately so late in my visit, to connect with you and I think we did. I have four days with you every four months. Of course, we were having trouble in areas that require more than four days to learn, build, and sustain. Just as we start to get comfortable, the visit ends.<\/p>\n
But there are a few things that I always know, that I never forget no matter how long it is between our times together, that I know in every cell of my body long before I have even stepped on or off the plane. You calm me in a way that no one else does. In you I find the extremes of my feelings and passion, both good and bad. In you I find that fleeting, indescribable sensation of this being a life worth living. You are the personification of love to me. I\u2019m happier when I\u2019m with you than when I\u2019m not. It\u2019s really that simple.<\/p>\n
\u202f
Don\u2019t<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t need you\u201d
\u201cThen don\u2019t talk to me. I got other fucking problems. And most of them? They\u2019re bigger than you.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u202f
You like<\/p>\n
To be bigger than smaller. And this about you hasn\u2019t changed.<\/p>\n
August 13, 2011\u202f
What?<\/p>\n
The hounds will come back after you, and the jury is still out.<\/p>\n
\u202f
Do overs<\/p>\n
I killed myself when I was young. You want to do it again?<\/p>\n
\u202f
You are<\/p>\n
I think about you sometimes. You? You are a beautiful disaster.<\/p>\n
\u202f
Again<\/p>\n
You remind my mind that I don\u2019t like my mind.<\/p>\n
\u202f
What you don\u2019t understand<\/p>\n
It\u2019s not my fault I was born this way.<\/p>\n
\u202f
Here\u2019s the question<\/p>\n
Do you want to first? Or do you want to second ?<\/p>\n
August 14, 2011\u202f
I sometimes<\/p>\n
I cry asleep mad sometimes.<\/p>\n
August 15, 2011\u202f
Truth<\/p>\n
Look around you. Truth is not about invention, it\u2019s about discovery. And it surrounds us everywhere.<\/p>\n
\u202f
Coincidence<\/p>\n
It sometimes seems to be a reality. Just look at the creation of our universe, of our solar system, of our planet. The fact that Venus spins backwards from any other planet. Yet? I don\u2019t believe in coincidence.<\/p>\n
\u202f
You compromised my entire future<\/p>\n
You compromised the rest of my life. You were under the influence when you did what you did. When you made that call. And now I pay for the rest of my life. Honestly, I loved you. And I really believed you loved me. So much failure. So much disappointment in the human condition. It was in our hands. And we dropped it.<\/p>\n
\u202f
My love and you are my love<\/p>\n
I don\u2019t want to watch you kill yourself over me. You have more of me than you know.<\/p>\n
August 16, 2011\u202f
I hear<\/p>\n
the voice of god coming through me as if it were dictation.<\/p>\n
\u202f
There is blood in your cuticles<\/p>\n
Seriously. I\u2019m not mad at you. I love you. But there is a problem here.<\/p>\n
\u202f
Now you hear voices?<\/p>\n
Maybe they\u2019re not voices.<\/p>\n
\u202f
See?<\/p>\n
The thing is? Nobody gets to escape.<\/p>\n
August 17, 2011\u202f
There\u2019s no way<\/p>\n
\u201cNot this time.\u201d
\u201cThere is always a way\u201d<\/p>\n
\u202f
Time<\/p>\n
It only goes in one way. And it never stops.<\/p>\n
August 18, 2011\u202f
Don\u2019t you realize?<\/p>\n
I\u2019m your only hope.<\/p>\n
\u202f
Check your eyes<\/p>\n
Check your mouth. Emotions are not rational. And revenge is just another emotion.<\/p>\n
\u202f
The path<\/p>\n
to closure is not always the easiest path.<\/p>\n
\u202f
Wisdom and genius<\/p>\n
They rarely hold hands.<\/p>\n
\u202f
I didn\u2019t<\/p>\n
I really didn\u2019t think it was going to be easy. I didn\u2019t know it was going to be this hard.<\/p>\n
\u202f
What we find?<\/p>\n
Is almost rarely what we find. I mean, if you look.<\/p>\n
\u202f
There\u2019s so much<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat do you think we should concentrate on?\u201d
\u201cPersonally? I say we work on the blood. It smells like iron and old cucumbers in here.\u201d
\u201cWhat do old cucumbers smell like?\u201d
\u201cTake a sniff.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u202f
I gave<\/p>\n
\u201cI gave you everything that I thought was everything.\u201d
\u201cYou couldn\u2019t give me the fact that you weren\u2019t crazy.\u201d
\u201cI couldn\u2019t give it to myself.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u202f
Bullets<\/p>\n
They\u2019re individual. None of them are the same. Have you ever had one inside you? They don\u2019t play nice.<\/p>\n
August 19, 2011\u202f
The truth?<\/p>\n
It has been scavenged. And now I can only search for hope.<\/p>\n
\u202f
Let\u2019s say the words<\/p>\n
Let\u2019s say the words. Let\u2019s say the words. Let\u2019s say the words. And make us feel whole.<\/p>\n
\u202f
We<\/p>\n
can all do what we try to do. It\u2019s only you weaklings that can\u2019t fight the power.<\/p>\n
August 20, 2011\u202f
All my ships?<\/p>\n
They\u2019ve washed away. I\u2019m going to wash my soul. There\u2019s this myth that there\u2019s plenty of time to waste. There\u2019s none.<\/p>\n
\u202f
Two yellow-haired girls<\/p>\n
They stand together near the bar. They\u2019re beautiful. But, for some reason, these two think they\u2019re the only ones in the world that are. Good for them, but bad for anyone that crosses their paths in love.<\/p>\n
\u202f
Blow wind<\/p>\n
We can die with you at our back.<\/p>\n
\u202f
My terribility<\/p>\n
Aspires me to ask to want all use? And then what? It needs to be everything all the time. Or nothing. I\u2019ll accept both.<\/p>\n
\u202f
My mom<\/p>\n
She grew up in insanity. And she broke the cycle. She gave me everything I ever wanted from Atari to college. She had to crawl, get beaten. For everything. She is my hero. And I want the world to know.<\/p>\n
\u202f
I can feel<\/p>\n
I can feel the blood pulsing. And? I can watch everything changing. The sights. Mostly the smell.<\/p>\n
\u202f
The night<\/p>\n
She is long. And almost never finds the day.<\/p>\n
\u202f
Sepsis<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat does that mean?\u201d
\u201cIn laymen\u2019s terms? It sort of means my arm is spoiling.\u201d
\u201cYeah, it looks terrible.
\u201cAnd it smells too.\u201d
\u201cSmells? Like what?
\u201cShort answer? Is bad.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u202f
Again, you ridiculous infant<\/p>\n
\u201cYou let yourself get septic?\u201d
\u201cYou don\u2019t understand.\u201d
\u201cWhat don\u2019t I understand?\u201d
\u201cI live like a child. I don\u2019t eat most days.\u201d
\u201cWhat happened?
\u201cOne big lie changed my whole life.\u201d<\/p>\n
August 21, 2011\u202f
The mop and the broom<\/p>\n
\u201cWhy are they still in the corner where I left them when I left?\u201d
\u201cThat\u2019s because you have to use something if they\u2019re going to move.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u202f
There are are times<\/p>\n
When we meet a person who defines us. Most times it\u2019s a lover. Sometimes, if you\u2019re lucky, it can also be somebody else. You have become that beautiful ghost to me.<\/p>\n
August 22, 2011\u202f
Makapu\u2019u, 1985 aka \u201cNear death experience #5 \u2013 East Oahu Division.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWhere are you going?\u201d
\u201cBack in.\u201d
\u201cWhy?\u201d
\u201cI can\u2019t feel my lungs, and I\u2019m pretty sure I can\u2019t hold my breath that long without some neurological damage.\u201d
\u201cDon\u2019t be so dramatic, panty. I told you, you needed fins today. But no, Mr. Hawaiian Soul Surfer only needs his body.\u201d
\u201cA blowhole might have helped, too.\u201d
\u201cGo get your fins, and get back out. Drink some water or something.\u201d
\u201cI think I drank enough water under that last wave.\u201d
\u201cGood, then you\u2019ll be out here that much faster.\u201d
\u201cNah, you guys can go out. I\u2019m going in.
\u201cGimme a break, it\u2019s not that big. Choppy, maybe.\u201d
\u201cNo time between sets right now.\u201d
\u201cThen rest in the channel.\u201d
\u201cChannel? There\u2019s no channel today. Maybe the Moloka\u2019i Channel.\u201d
\u201cStick close to the rocks, there\u2019s a small one.\u201d
\u201cSwept out to sea or get smashed in the rocks? Nice menu.\u201d
\u201cYou\u2019re starting to get on my nerves.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u202f
Sunday blues<\/p>\n
I hate waking after nightfall in a quiet room. Exacerbated by it being Sunday. The darkness is a painful reminder of my current condition. Solitude. Most of my days I spend alone. My main coping strategy has been movies and music, sometimes for days at a time. Not quite the productive activity schedule previously created and speciously titled, \u201cTo do list.\u201d<\/p>\n
August 27, 2011\u202f
This place is a total disaster<\/p>\n
\u201cHow do you get so many good looking girls?\u201d
\u201cBecause I\u2019m so good looking?\u201d
\u201cPlease.\u201d
\u201cI got you.\u201d
\u201cDon\u2019t tell him we were lovers.\u201d
\u201cYou mean what happened a few minutes ago?\u201d
\u201cDon\u2019t be a smartass or it\u2019s not going to happen again.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u202f
Mea culpa<\/p>\n
Cleaning out my email boxes, now that they\u2019ve reached over 15,000, I came across a few that I am embarrassed to have sent. Frustration and contempt sometimes have combined to make ridiculous outreach, sometimes inappropriately angry, sometimes just inappropriate. I don\u2019t think it\u2019s fair to put the burden of this apology directly to anyone that it might apply to, so I decided to put it here, because I know it will be read. I\u2019m sorry. And no matter what my perception of trespass against me might be in the future, the nonsense from my side is over. So many regrets. But, you have to start somewhere. Here seems as good a place as any.<\/p>\n
August 29, 2011\u202f
If you\u2019re the judge?<\/p>\n
Then I\u2019m already hanged.<\/p>\n
August 30, 2011\u202f
A simple truth<\/p>\n
To me, obscurity is a greater threat than controversy.<\/p>\n
September 3, 2011\u202f
Pr\u00eat-\u00e0-Porter<\/p>\n
I like that shirt a lot, but I think I vomited on it.<\/p>\n
\u202f
Labored Day<\/p>\n
I find myself trying to mask my disgust when you call me. In fact, more often than not, I don\u2019t answer when I see it\u2019s you on caller ID. I un-friended you on Facebook and it felt like a weight had been lifted because I didn\u2019t have to know about your life anymore. We could go into the details of your shameless lies and disrespect in late April and May but I don\u2019t care enough to think about it anymore. Nothing was real. The only certainty is that I was a fool. Well meaning, but, really, that\u2019s no excuse. I\u2019m more angry at myself than at you. Still, I\u2019m glad I\u2019ve gotten to this place of take it or leave it, though the path here came closer to killing me than I realized while traversing it. That\u2019s more than a little uncomfortable.<\/p>\n
As I have for the twenty years of our acquaintance, save for the moments of my ridiculous denial, I hold these truths to be self evident you cannot, have not and will not ever tell the whole truth about anything, you have always and will always say whatever it takes to get out of a situation, and you have mastered the art of telling people exactly what they want to hear. Though culpability is as much with the desperately credulous\u2013if not more so\u2013as with the sociopath and borderline personality.<\/p>\n
I think about all I was willing to sacrifice as recently as five months ago, and then how low I let myself fall when those sacrifices were forsaken. And now nothing. Nothing. My gaze, like yours, has grown pitiless. And my face is as blank as an unsullied sheet of clean white paper.<\/p>\n
September 4, 2011\u202f
Three hours<\/p>\n
Centro-matic + Drive-By Truckers = Damn that was good.
All Night Long\u202f(Yes, it\u2019s a cover of the Lionel Richie song).<\/p>\n
September 12, 2011\u202f
Probation<\/p>\n
Like most institutions perpetrated on its subjects by our government, probation is a spectacular failure. This is the means by which we reincorporate real lives back into society. Were that it were so. If anyone actually cared, there would be Congressional investigations into the lack of accountability or result. About 70% of people on probation will have it revoked before it is complete. In what other program funded by the government\u2013and by the government I mean we the people\u2013would we tolerate a success rate so slow and low? The truth? Probation is not about reintegration. It exists to feed the beast.<\/p>\n
If I were a lawyer, and 70 days in Del Valle may in ways be as revelatory as three years toward a JD\u2013I would advise my clients to avoid probation by almost any means necessary. They want you back. How else to pay for all those bodies in all those uniforms, and all those doors that slam shut and tight with only five voices over spoken to walkie-talkie to open them?<\/p>\n
Most are here for ridiculous violations of child support or marijuana, but judging by the complexion of its constituents, jail exists to populate brown people. America hates brown people. It pays lip service to equality and \u201cby the people\u201d platitudes, but all you have to do to shatter this illusion is look at your boss. I\u2019m generalizing, of course, but he\u2019s probably a white man, perhaps, an approved minority\u2013Asian in the medical field, Indian in computers, etc. And still you grudgingly invite Haj to Friday happy hour after work.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m sick of it. I\u2019m sick of assistant DA\u2019s in off-the-rack Neiman Marcus suits and skirts with predetermined ideas and with the complicit, pussilanimous judiciary shaking fists over predetermined outcomes. Justice is a joke. Justice is an ideal that held up to the light only makes me laugh as it casts shadows in mocking relief of what actually is. What is is. Maybe President Clinton had it right and fucked, and then fucked had the powers that be. If I only had his resources. Ahhhh!<\/p>\n
September 19, 2011\u202f
This door ain\u2019t opening on its own<\/p>\n
\u201cSo what are you saying?\u201d
\u201cKick the motherfucker down.\u201d<\/p>\n
September 20, 2011\u202f
What, really?<\/p>\n
\u201cWhere the fuck have you been?\u201d
\u201cI am a human being you know? I do require sleep.\u201d
\u201cWell get up.\u201d<\/p>\n
September 21, 2011\u202f
Stay wet<\/p>\n
They won\u2019t kick the door in until the blood dries. They\u2019re fags like that.<\/p>\n
\u202f
Yeah<\/p>\n
Ain\u2019t no fall. I was pushed.<\/p>\n
\u202f
Love or something like it<\/p>\n
Unfortunately? We go were the asshole, the heart, we go where it leads us.<\/p>\n
September 23, 2011\u202f
Truth or dare? Are those the only two choices?<\/p>\n
Feel the ghost behind you?
The growls and susurrous moans?
The acrid smell of fire and dust,
Of fetid wounds and bloody rust?
The guttural whispers in the wind
Will soon be known to you.
The jury has come back.
No escape.
No escape.
Not even from yourself.
But I know you;
You\u202flike\u202fthe roller coaster.
As much as a word though? It\u2019s just a word.
There\u2019s always a word.
And there is the need to be or to die.
There are those of us,
And we are lost.
And there are those of us that make 1+1=2.
We are all dying of something, but it moves the world that we make.
Other people sad.
But it\u2019s so.<\/p>\n
September 24, 2011\u202f
Right-wing crazies<\/p>\n
A friend recently asked me what I meant by that. I posted on his Facebook comments this (and Facebook is becoming the new whatever).<\/p>\n
\u201cSomeone that wants to testify in the break room at lunch. Hates gays, brown people (but can\u2019t admit it anymore), and wants everyone to live the Ozzie and Harriet lie yet still has gin-stained tears running down their cheeks when Jesus makes them cry.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u202f
Rip tides<\/p>\n
Just because you go against the flow? Trust me. Don\u2019t expect the flow to follow you. By definition, almost obviously, that would mean you were going with the flow. Something that some of us can\u2019t quite seem to do.<\/p>\n
\u202f
Epiphanies come strangely<\/p>\n
I was recently robbed of everything I owned with material value. I was literally left with the clothes on my back. And, of course, at first I was angry. I cursed the arbitrary idea of victimhood. But I had a moment. I saw how I was incorrect in my determinations. Someone very special, new to my life, and someone old in my life but new again, helped me see how I was wrong. How our position needs to be to help people find their light no matter what the cost to ourselves.<\/p>\n
The natural order of things is peace and love. People lose this harmony for a variety of reasons. But it is. I know it is, and it took me almost 42 years to understand the truth of this. The murderer, the molester, the guy that hits you on the head and takes your wallet, or breaks into your house. They\u2019ve lost the light and require your reflection and absolution, not your enmity, hard as that may be. Our purpose is to get back to the light. Not to hate those still in the dark.<\/p>\n
My things were just things. I need to be grateful to the Universe that I, or especially anyone that I love (which sorta should be everyone), incurred no injury in any of the processes of loss, like they very well could have been.<\/p>\n
We hurt ourselves more than any external force could hurt us. We live and die by our choices.<\/p>\n
Those \u201cevil\u201d people require compassion. And it\u2019s not easy to give. The natural state of things is love, compassion, and complete empathy. This is what is meant by wisdom. And I have been so unwise.<\/p>\n
But the Universe, sometimes she grants me a glimpse of the truth of that reality. We need to find that center. It\u2019s hard, too. There are so many things to tempt or tear you outward. But the goal for us remains. We don\u2019t have much time; in the scope of forever we have none. We are mortal. But we are mortal for a reason it\u2019s so we don\u2019t waste time.<\/p>\n
Find the center. And help as many people as you can to do the same.<\/p>\n
\u202f
Didacticism gone awry<\/p>\n
\u201cOut of sight, out of mind.\u201d
\u201cYeah, thanks, Aristotle. If you want to inflict your aphorisms on me, can you indulge me and make sure they\u2019re not platitudes or stereotypes? Especially one so easily refuted with, \u2018Absence makes the heart grow fonder.\u2019 Which, for the record, also would make me want to puke if someone said it to me in the context of advice.\u201d<\/p>\n
September 25, 2011\u202f
I try not to feel this way<\/p>\n
\u201cHey, man, you got change?\u201d
\u201cYeah?\u201d
\u201cCan I have it?\u201d
\u201cNo.\u201d
\u201cWhy?\u201d
\u201cWhat keeps me from being you is my change.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u202f
Ha<\/p>\n
You party a little harder? You have to leave a little earlier. I\u2019m an organ donor. That\u2019s sort of an inside joke.<\/p>\n
\u202f
Sleeping arrangements<\/p>\n
I have a California king-sized bed. I haven\u2019t slept in it since she left. Most nights? I sleep on the futon couch. Other nights the floor. Depends which one I can reach before I fall.<\/p>\n
\u202f
Vicodin<\/p>\n
Some advice? When someone gives you some of their Vicodin and says, \u201cThese are 750 mg, I normally only take 250 when I need it.\u201d Don\u2019t subsequently ignore her and take two of them just because your arm hurts. Oh wait, ignore that if you like to live in 12-hour fogs.<\/p>\n
\u202f
Some kind of something<\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019re mad at me?\u201d
\u201cYeah.\u201d
\u201cWhy again?\u201d
\u201cYou didn\u2019t answer when I called.\u201d
\u201cYou know we\u2019re like in different time zones now right?\u201d
\u201cAnd?\u201d
\u201cContrary to popular belief, I\u2019m not always awake at 4am.\u201d
\u201cPassed out?\u201d
\u201cSometimes. What? Now you\u2019re going to give a fuck.\u201d
\u201cI always gave at least a fuck.\u201d
\u201cMy love? I don\u2019t mean that kind of fuck.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u202f
Willpower<\/p>\n
Temptation? You can resist right? But if he\u2019s calling you? Fuck. You gotta answer.<\/p>\n
\u202f
This might be a little weird<\/p>\n
I don\u2019t know if you remember the \u201970s? But the vaginas were, um, hairy.\u202fHustler\u202fscared me. Now they\u2019re all bald. Believe me, I\u2019m not complaining. Did god make a mistake? Should the stock model have been smooth? My libido would say (a resounding), \u201cYes.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u202f
Vitamin K<\/p>\n
I made breakfast this morning. A white-egg omelette with salmon and fresh tomatoes. Then I had a cocktail of vitamins a through e. And glutamine (just in case). It\u2019s funny. Perhaps not in a haha way, but in a reflective one. We build ourselves strong. So we can tear ourselves down. And by we I mean me.<\/p>\n
\u202f
I promise<\/p>\n
It\u2019s a little irritating when your thumb is numb because you severed your ulnar nerve in a drunken accident. But when that motherfucker comes to life? You\u2019ll wish you severed it better.<\/p>\n
September 26, 2011\u202f
Re Your voicemail?<\/p>\n
\u201cYour message was so hot, I need new panties.\u201d
Seriously. How hot is that?<\/p>\n
September 27, 2011\u202f
C\u2019mon<\/p>\n
You think I won\u2019t be back? Watch your cross-streets.<\/p>\n
\u202f
Roar<\/p>\n
\u201cYou were a bad lay.\u201d
\u201cReally?\u201d
\u201cYeah.\u201d
\u201cThat\u2019s just \u2019cause I didn\u2019t want to fuck you. I had to imagine to make it hard. So fuck you back.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u202f
You and me? Babygirl we\u2019re different.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut, Daddy, I\u2026.\u201d
\u201cAbsolutely not. Don\u2019t even finish your sentence.\u201d
\u201cBut, Dad you don\u2019t\u2026\u201d
\u201cI swear to God, not one more fucking word.\u201d<\/p>\n
September 28, 2011\u202f
It\u2019s hard to understand<\/p>\n
Your comment about 4 mile. I\u2019m sad that I know that place. O\u2019ahu is home for me. Kailua. Ewa. Nanakuli. Still the words of Hilo go, \u201cPow!\u201d<\/p>\n
September 29, 2011\u202f
Why are you emailing me?<\/p>\n
I keep missing them. Use your goddamned voice-sending machine.<\/p>\n
\u202f
Rock the free world<\/p>\n
And the elite will tremble.<\/p>\n
September 30, 2011\u202f
I\u2019m afraid to ask<\/p>\n
\u201cWhy are you here, hospital or jail?\u201d
\u201cHospital.\u201d
\u201cWhy?
\u201cYou\u2019re bleeding. Badly.\u201d
\u201cOh yeah, I guess so.\u201d
\u201cCome with me.\u201d
\u201cOkay.\u201d<\/p>\n
October 1, 2011\u202f
Life<\/p>\n
\u201cI got everything figured out.\u201d
\u201cReally? You do? Then throw some figured out this way.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u202f
I ran<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd I ran and I ran and I ran and I ran.\u201d
\u201cSometimes you\u2019re supposed to run.\u201d
\u201cI felt like a coward. I was so scared. I was so scared, Baby.\u201d
\u201cI know. Come back. Back into my arms.\u201d<\/p>\n
October 2, 2011\u202f
Wherefore?<\/p>\n
We glorify life and deify death. Why? Scared to die.<\/p>\n
\u202f
Never<\/p>\n
\u201cI thought I had you.\u201d
\u201cI thought you had me, too.\u201d
\u201cWell, do I?\u201d
\u201cI don\u2019t know, do you?\u201d
\u201cI\u2019m not going in this stupid circle all day.\u201d
\u201cWhy not? I think it\u2019s fun.\u201d
\u201cYou thought I was fun.\u201d
\u201cNot any more.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u202f
You\u2019re right<\/p>\n
\u201cAre you left-handed?\u201d
\u201cNo, but my brother is.\u201d
\u201cYou act left-handed.\u201d
\u201cIt\u2019s \u2019cause I fucked up my right hand.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u202f
Huh?<\/p>\n
\u201cThat was a good move,\u201d she says to her partner.
\u201cYeah\u201d
\u201cThat does feel better,\u201d I pipe up.
\u201cIt should,\u201d the first medic says, \u201cthere were other consequences.\u201d
\u201cOh yeah? Like what?\u201d
\u201cLike us having to stop your heart and restart it.\u201d
\u201cFuuuck,\u201d I draw it out. \u201cCan you do that without asking?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u202f
Weird<\/p>\n
I\u2019m going to be ugly. I\u2019m going to be fat. I\u2019m going to have failed. Can you love me thus?<\/p>\n
\u202f
What the?<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s all right. It\u2019s all right.\u201d
\u201cYou just had a seizure.\u201d
\u201cThis time it\u2019ll teach me.\u201d
\u201cYou\u2019ve had enough, Baby, you\u2019ve had enough.
\u201cNobody ever has enough.\u201d<\/p>\n
October 3, 2011\u202f
Learn to spell<\/p>\n
I am in love with someone that I cannot have. It\u2019s okay. Brush your teeth. Pee when you have to. Stop crying. Everything\u2019s going to be okay.<\/p>\n
\u202f
What does that even mean?<\/p>\n
Always with the interpretation of the semiotics. Can\u2019t you just get it?<\/p>\n
\u202f
Again<\/p>\n
It\u2019s so broken? I don\u2019t know how to get it fixed.<\/p>\n
\u202f
Weird<\/p>\n
\u201cHand me your glasses.\u2019
\u201cNo, I\u2019m going to sleep.\u201d
\u201cTrust me. And see what the consequences are.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u202f
You gotta watch out<\/p>\n
\u201cWe only got two hours.\u201d
\u201cSometimes? Bad things happen in two hours.\u201d<\/p>\n
October 4, 2011\u202f
You don\u2019t realize how much<\/p>\n
I\u2019ve got to go home.<\/p>\n
\u202f
Bleach<\/p>\n
I just poisoned the fucking sink. Now my hair feels bad.<\/p>\n
\u202f
Why?<\/p>\n
The bad things I did are finished. You want to love me? Then you have to forgive me. Because I\u2019m still trying to forgive myself.<\/p>\n
October 5, 2011\u202f
What did you just say?<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m trying to ween myself from being an alcoholic.\u201d
\u201cWhat?\u201d
\u201cFuck. I said that out loud.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u202f
My nose<\/p>\n
I thought it was running. But it\u2019s actually bleeding.<\/p>\n
\u202f
Going through it all<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m making some progress.\u201d
\u201cYeah, finishing your ice cream doesn\u2019t count.\u201d<\/p>\n
October 7, 2011\u202f
Body of work<\/p>\n
Here it is. What is it? Am I standing for it, or I am I splayed face down? Will holes puncture the walls? Will scratches mark the door? Will they\u2019re be blood on the floor? Is this how I end it this time? Will these be the only things left behind, here in this empty room? Is this my body of work? How many lives, if any, did I reach eventually? Have I reached my own? Did I reach yours?<\/p>\n
October 9, 2011\u202f
Trivial Pursuit<\/p>\n
Remember when the Internet was the bastard chid of the encyclopaedia and the World Almanac? You could only solve arguments about things two-years old or older. Which, of course, led to a lot more, um, \u201cdiscussions.\u201d Especially during disputed answers in the new version of Trivial Pursuit.<\/p>\n
\u201cNo. You\u2019re wrong.\u201d
\u201cIt\u2019s on the back of the card.\u201d
\u201cI don\u2019t care if it\u2019s in the back of the Bible, it\u2019s wrong. Now go get the almanac. What year do you have?\u201d
\u201c1986.\u201d
\u201cI think you do that on purpose.\u201d
\u201cDo what?\u201d
\u201cKeep that ancient copy so you can give wrong answers and we can\u2019t look them up.\u201d
\u201cYou can\u2019t be serious.\u201d
\u201cI am serious. I\u2019m playing this game under protest.\u201d
\u201cProtest to who? It\u2019s because your losing.\u201d
\u201cNo, I\u2019m actually winning.\u201d
\u201cWell you\u2019re going to lose.\u201d<\/p>\n
October 11, 2011\u202f
To whom it may concern<\/p>\n
This site is not intended to be an historical register, but rather a fictional exploration into the human condition, and therefore must be viewed as such. No names are ever used because the characters and voices found here do no represent any real person(s) or dialogue, but rather an amalgam of people, ideas and situations. The conversations are, more often then not, invented and represent imaginations of parallel-world interactions. Stop reading this as if you have somehow been magically granted access into my private journal. Trust me. You have not.<\/p>\n
October 14, 2011\u202f
That\u2019s why I don\u2019t like talking to you<\/p>\n
\u201cYou remember everything.\u201d
\u201cSo?\u201d
\u201cAnd then you put it on the site.\u201d
\u201cSo? I don\u2019t name names.\u201d
\u201cEverybody knows it\u2019s me.\u201d
\u201cEverybody? Or him?\u201d
\u201cHim.\u201d
\u201cFuck him.\u201d
\u201cYou know I could have you back.\u201d
\u201cNope. Not anymore.\u201d
\u201cI just have to say the word.\u201d
\u201cNot enough.\u201d
\u201cYour memory is too good. Remember? Feel the feelings.\u201d
\u201cNo.\u201d
\u201cI still love you.\u201d
\u201cI know.\u201d<\/p>\n
October 15, 2011\u202f
She is<\/p>\n
\u201cI think that\u2019s part of the problem.\u201d
\u201cWhat?\u201d
\u201cShe\u2019s way better looking than you are.\u201d
\u201cNice.\u201d
\u201cI\u2019m not trying to be rude.\u201d
\u201cReally, you don\u2019t have to try.\u201d
\u201cShe is. And I\u2019m pretty sure it bothers you.\u201d
\u201cYou bother me.\u201d
\u201cI knew that already. I loved you once.\u201d
\u201cOnce?\u201d
\u201cOnce.\u201d
\u201cFuck.\u201d
\u201cI know, right? If I thought I could trust you, I might love you again.\u201d<\/p>\n
October 16, 2011\u202f
Feet<\/p>\n
Pick up your feet, little boy. It helps you pass things. God, how I do love you.<\/p>\n
October 17, 2011\u202f
Mad<\/p>\n
\u201cHey? Are you mad? Are you mad at me?\u201d
\u201cNo, I\u2019m disappointed. I\u2019m disappointed in the situation.\u201d
\u201cMe too. I love you.\u201d
\u201cI know.\u201d<\/p>\n
October 18, 2011\u202f
The cut<\/p>\n
\u201cThe slice on your wrist.\u201d
\u201cYes.\u201d
\u201cTell me the truth.\u201d
\u201cOK. Anything.\u201d
\u201cWas it on purpose?\u201d
\u201cNo.\u201d
\u201cPromise?\u201d
\u201cI swear.\u201d
\u201cIt looks like it was on purpose.\u201d
\u201cI\u2019m depressed, not suicidal.\u201d
\u201cWe\u2019ll see.\u201d<\/p>\n
October 19, 2011\u202f
And you wonder why I lie<\/p>\n
It\u2019s easier. It\u2019s prettier. It makes more sense at the time.<\/p>\n
\u202f
I\u2019m lonely (but I ain\u2019t that lonely yet)<\/p>\n
Hawaii. November. 45 degrees here. It\u2019s finally not summer. I roll over in bed looking for someone to touch. I hate that song.<\/p>\n
\u202f
Nice to see<\/p>\n
I traced my fingers down the muscle of her abdomen. It was pronounced. The prettiest thing I\u2019ve ever actually touched.<\/p>\n
\u202f
Tremble<\/p>\n
Lots of things are not good for me. That doesn\u2019t mean I\u2019m going to stop doing them.<\/p>\n
October 20, 2011\u202f
I saw the way you move<\/p>\n
So casual. Your t-shirt. The way you smiled. It was so light. Amidst our heaviness. I will love you until the day I die. You threw it away when it got hard.<\/p>\n
October 21, 2011\u202f
Sobriety<\/p>\n
\u201cYou were never totally hard except that one time we did Viagra.\u201d
\u201cReally I can\u2019t take the blame for that. I don\u2019t think I ever fucked you sober. It was tequila or coke or X or something. And you were the one getting us high.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u202f
Issues<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat\u2019s the matter with you?\u201d
\u201cWhat do you mean?\u201d
\u201cYou don\u2019t wear pants.\u201d
\u201cThat\u2019s not true, they just fall off.\u201d
\u201cAnd you smell like a homeless person.\u201d
\u201cThat might be true. But in my defense it\u2019s not on purpose.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u202f
5 o\u2019clock<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat the fuck is wrong with you?\u201d
\u201cWhat do you mean?\u201d
\u201cIt\u2019s five o\u2019clock on a Friday.\u201d
\u201cAnd?\u201d
\u201cWhat are you doing at home?\u201d
\u201cWhat I always do.\u201d
\u201cYou\u2019re not going to get a girlfriend that way. She\u2019s not going to just come to your door.\u201d
\u201cYou\u2019d be surprised what\u2019s come to my door.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u202f
Hardness<\/p>\n
\u201cYou and me can\u2019t talk anymore.\u201d
\u201cWhy?\u201d
\u201cI can\u2019t do this.\u201d
\u201cWhat?\u201d
\u201cYou can be in love with more than one person, but I can\u2019t. I love one person. Usually too much.\u201d
\u201cSo? What? Goodbye?\u201d
\u201cI have a feeling between you and me? It\u2019s never going to be goodbye.\u201d<\/p>\n
October 22, 2011\u202f
A little too much<\/p>\n
She was a special girl. She did special things. She wasn\u2019t magic really, but her soul was magical. She had this kind of smile, and beautiful blue eyes. She was missing a couple of teeth, but I promise you they\u2019ll come back. \u201cYou only have 20 right now, but eventually you\u2019ll have 32.\u201d Such a sweet girl; she oozed love out of her pores. I told her mama I\u2019d write a story about her, but, you know, the story writes itself.<\/p>\n
So, her name was Mahina. And you know she\u2019s so special that she\u2019s the password to all my computer accounts. Login Mahina. The first time I met her, she reminded me of my daughter and made me smile ear to ear. So smart, so precious. I\u2019m sure she and my daughter might make best friends. Kehau and Mahina. It kind of goes well together.<\/p>\n
A few months ago she sent me a feather, and I\u2019m not quite sure where she found it, so I decided to write a story about it. Because I wanted to give her something. From her uncle. And to show her, and her mom and dad, how much I love them, because I do. So let\u2019s imagine.<\/p>\n
This is not just any feather. Someone like Mahina, someone so special, wouldn\u2019t just find any feather. Of course it had to be magic. With the spirit of all the birds that had ever flown. If you put it to your ear? It would go whoosh, with the sound of the wind through a bird\u2019s wings. And the freedom of flight, and the happiness of the chirp as a sparrow made his swoop down near your head. Of course it wasn\u2019t human, but the joy was unmistakable.<\/p>\n
So as he swooped, I love that word\u2013use that word, swoop\u2013so as he swooped, a magic feather fell from his majestic shoulders and lilted to the ground. And waited. Because this feather couldn\u2019t just be found by anyone.<\/p>\n
It had a purpose.<\/p>\n
She was very sensitive. A lot of her was internal. She understood things that other people didn\u2019t necessarily understand. She was sort of an old soul dressed up as a pretty little girl. So when she saw the feather she knew it was bigger than what it appeared to be. It was a smile giver. And the person who needed it hadn\u2019t smiled in a while.<\/p>\n
So she put it an envelope. And mama helped her mail it. And everything special about her went with that feather. And the envelope almost exploded with love. Her love, of course. Mommy\u2019s love. But the reciprocity was not just virtual. It manifest. Something so simple. A feather. Represented so much love. Sometimes it\u2019s not what you expect. So you always have to look for the unexpected. To fly over your head and go, \u201cSwoop.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u202f
Hands<\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019re just saying that because I can\u2019t feel my hand.\u201d
\u201cYou can\u2019t feel your hand?\u201d
\u201cIt\u2019s kind of damaged.\u201d
\u201cYou can\u2019t feel your hand. What the is the matter with you?\u201d
\u201cIs that like a rhetorical question?\u201d
\u201cNo. What is wrong with you?\u201d
\u201cYou know, there\u2019s really so many answers to that question.\u201d
\u201cI hate you.\u201d
\u201cAnd I love you back.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u202f
Problems<\/p>\n
\u201cYou know what you\u2019re problem is?\u201d
\u201cI only have one problem?\u201d
\u201cWell amongst your several.\u201d
\u201cI try my best.\u201d
\u201cSometimes your best isn\u2019t good enough.\u201d
\u201cFuck. Okay, bye.\u201d
\u201cYou always do that.\u201d
\u201cI\u2019m sorry. I don\u2019t know how to do any better.\u201d
\u201cYou know how to do better with me.\u201d
\u201cYou would think I would, right?\u201d<\/p>\n
October 23, 2011\u202f
Death<\/p>\n
\u201cMy penis smells like death right now, you wouldn\u2019t want to put it in your mouth.\u201d
\u201cWho said I was going to put your penis in my mouth?\u201d
\u201cIt was just, I guess, sorta, the look in your. Nevermind.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u202f
Two<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s like two.\u201d
\u201cThat means it\u2019s like four here.\u201d
\u201cWell, then it\u2019s four.\u201d
\u201cYou know, for having a pussy you can be kind of a dick.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u202f
Ears<\/p>\n
\u201cIn that picture. It\u2019s sort of a caricature. You made my ears really big. Do I have big ears?\u201d
\u201cThey\u2019re not small.\u201d
\u201cYou\u2019re an asshole. I rarely point that out. And almost never with a picture.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u202f
Normality<\/p>\n
\u201cYou don\u2019t talk like a normal person.\u201d
\u201cI\u2019m not a normal person.\u201d
\u201cYeah.\u201d
\u201cWhat is normal, anyway?\u201d
\u201cSort of not you.\u201d
\u201cSort of.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u202f
The other<\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019re the kind of girl I like to take away from her boyfriend.\u201d
\u201cThat\u2019s not very nice.\u201d
\u201cOr husband if she\u2019s married.\u201d
\u201cAgain.\u201d
\u201cYou should take it as a compliment.\u201d
\u201cHow so?\u201d
\u201cIn a way I\u2019m liberating you.\u201d
\u201cWhat if I don\u2019t want to be liberated?\u201d
\u201cI can tell by the way you\u2019ve answered. You do.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u202f
I sit around<\/p>\n
And I read poems. 200 years ago you sorta could do that. Now someone has to pay the rent.<\/p>\n
\u202f
Crazy<\/p>\n
\u201cHow are you getting so many girls?\u201d
\u201cWhat do you mean?\u201d
\u201cYou know, I have a lot of crazy friends.\u201d
\u201cAnd?\u201d
\u201cAnd you\u2019re the craziest.\u201d
\u201cWhat do you mean?\u201d
\u201cYou don\u2019t even try to hide the crazy.\u201d<\/p>\n
October 24, 2011\u202f
Scars<\/p>\n
\u201cYou have a five-inch scar on your wrist.\u201d
\u201cThat was an accident.\u201d
\u201cNothing about you is accidental.\u201d
\u201cTechnically, I didn\u2019t mean to do it.\u201d
\u201cIt just happened?\u201d
\u201cSorta, yeah\u201d
\u201cWell. With you? A lot of things just seem to happen.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u202f
Proof<\/p>\n
\u201cYou have been wearing the same underwear for seven days.\u201d
\u201cYou can\u2019t prove that.\u201d
\u201cYou\u2019re going to argue?\u201d
\u201cMaybe I washed them in the interim.\u201d
\u201cYou\u2019re sad.\u201d
\u201cBecause I have dirty underwear?\u201d
\u201cThere are other reasons.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u202f
What?<\/p>\n
We don\u2019t even need her vagina. But I bet it would be fun.<\/p>\n
\u202f
13<\/p>\n
\u201cYou called me 13 times yesterday.\u201d
\u201cI\u2019ll never call you again.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u202f
You gotta stop<\/p>\n
You really have to stop writing about vaginas or you\u2019re never going to have another vagina.<\/p>\n
\u202f
Regular sodomy<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat website is it?\u201d
\u201cYou Porn.\u201d
\u201cHow do I make it work?\u201d
\u201cYou\u2019re kidding right?\u201d
\u201cNo.\u201d
\u201cJust press any thumbnail on the first page. But that\u2019s usually just regular sodomy.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u202f
Speech<\/p>\n
Cock is kinda the new vernacular, but I prefer dick. Call it my dick.<\/p>\n
\u202f
Yeah<\/p>\n
\u201cI love you. I want to hold you.\u201d
\u201cYou can\u2019t even take care of yourself.\u201d
\u201cI\u2019m still alive. Amy Winehouse couldn\u2019t manage that. And she had more money than me.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u202f
Piss<\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019re piss smells terrible.\u201d
\u201cTerrible or terribly?\u201d
\u201cWhat?\u201d
\u201cI think it\u2019s \u2018Your piss smells terribly.\u2019\u201d
\u201cJesus, are you correcting that sentence?\u201d
\u201cOnly because it was incorrect.\u201d
\u201cWhatever.\u201d
\u201cYou started it.\u201d
\u201cI guess.\u201d
\u201cIn my defense, it\u2019s because I like asparagus and eat a lot of vitamin B-12.\u201d
\u201cThat\u2019s your defense?\u201d
\u201cAnd I eat a lot of ice cream.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u202f
Reflections<\/p>\n
\u201cDaddy, I don\u2019t like looking at mirrors in the dark.\u201d
\u201cBaby, you know if there was a way, I would take away everything that makes you scared.\u201d
\u201cDaddy, you\u2019re not superman.\u201d
\u201cI can try.\u201d
\u201cI know you do. I love you, Daddy.\u201d<\/p>\n
October 25, 2011\u202f
Shhhhsssssss<\/p>\n
How long can you stay quiet? You\u2019d be surprised.<\/p>\n
\u202f
Motrin<\/p>\n
\u201cYou have, like, a thousand Motrin in your house?\u201d
\u201cActually, they\u2019re all in one drawer. I could explain why they\u2019re there, but it\u2019s really not even a good story.\u201d
\u201cYou\u2019re the weirdest person I\u2019ve ever known.\u201d
\u201cI\u2019m not going to argue that with you.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u202f
An ugliness<\/p>\n
Somehow in a short time we had deteriorated into an ugliness when once there was an epic beauty. We were an ugliness in ugly confrontation of our ugly selves. So much like the beautiful people we used to be, but quickly deteriorating.<\/p>\n
I tried not to think of the worst. Six months earlier when we began the flirtation that led to the furtive grasps and stolen kisses she, technically, still had a boyfriend. The haunting echo of her calls to him saying she had to work late while she sat across the table, our fingers interlocked. Me? Mesmerized. The images came flooding back. The stolen afternoons at Shady Grove or making love in my apartment were explained as visits to her sister. Hearing the same explanations and my doubts had grown legion.<\/p>\n
Don\u2019t get me wrong, I loved her. I believed I did. And I believed at the time that she loved me. But given this distance from that moment of impulse, it was more likely a confluence of factors, not the least of which were alcohol, fear and lust. The dissolution of our marriage was such a slow-motion, year-long train wreck that I didn\u2019t quite have the respect for the institution I once had, though given the marriages, including my own, that I had been a close-up witness to, I didn\u2019t think much of it to begin with. Our de facto announcement was a change in status on Facebook, another whim done without much consideration, that unintentionally hurt several people with the notice of our nuptials coming worldwide instead of intimately.<\/p>\n
\u202f
Brushes<\/p>\n
\u201cI think you\u2019re teeth are bleeding.\u201d
\u201cYeah, that\u2019s because I don\u2019t brush them.\u201d<\/p>\n
October 26, 2011\u202f
The cramps<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m starting to like you.\u201d
\u201cYeah, but can your pussy do the dog? And if you don\u2019t get that reference? We\u2019ll never get along.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u202f
Whoa, you are frickin\u2019 dumb<\/p>\n
\u201cThe ice cream is kinda hard. I\u2019m having trouble eating it.\u201d
\u201cUm, it melts? Take it out of the freezer, dumbass.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u202f
Weird<\/p>\n
I haven\u2019t even thanked god for saving me.<\/p>\n
\u202f
Arms<\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019re wrist.\u201d
\u201cWe all go through things in life. Some hurt more than others. This one sort of hurt.\u201d
\u201cCome back to us, K. Come back to us. We sorta love you.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u202f
Isn\u2019t it fucked up?<\/p>\n
It\u2019s like watch what I can take.<\/p>\n
\u202f
Maurice and Barry are left<\/p>\n
Yeah, I\u2019m listening to the Bee Gees.<\/p>\n
\u202f
Light<\/p>\n
Somebody actually stole my outside light bulb. What the fuck is wrong with people? Seriously? Light bulbs are like 39 cents.<\/p>\n
\u202f
I\u2019m sorry<\/p>\n
I fucking love punk rock. Rancid is totally raging my machine right now.<\/p>\n
\u202f
I don\u2019t get it<\/p>\n
\u201cAll I wanted in this world was to save him.\u201d
\u201cFrom what?\u201d
\u201cFrom himself.\u201d
\u201cYou did.\u201d
\u201cLook at him.\u201d
\u201cYou don\u2019t get it do you?\u201d<\/p>\n
October 27, 2011\u202f
Don\u2019t you see?<\/p>\n
\u201cThe problem is so clear.\u201d
\u201cThe problem?\u201d
\u201cYour problem.\u201d
\u201cWhat\u2019s my problem?\u201d
\u201cYou love everybody around you, but you don\u2019t love yourself.\u201d
\u201cWhy is that a problem?\u201d
\u201cMy sweet, sweet boy.\u201d
\u201cYes?\u201d
\u201cLove is not possible without love of yourself.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u202f
Espa\u00f1ol<\/p>\n
Los queremos los terribles. Nada con gracia. Nadie. Todo el mundo queremos los malos. Weird. I\u2019ve been thinking in Spanish today. Hoy.<\/p>\n
\u202f
Really, it\u2019s not everyything<\/p>\n
\u201cAlmost nothing you say makes sense to me.\u201d
\u201cThat\u2019s because I don\u2019t try to make sense.\u201d
\u201cAnd you put, like, everything on the Web.\u201d
\u201cNot everything.\u201d
\u201cEverything I\u2019ve told you. Well, there\u2019s no video of us having sex, but I\u2019m sure that\u2019s in you\u2019re back pocket.\u201d
\u201cC\u2019mon, I have some discretion.\u201d
\u201cThat\u2019s a strong word for what you have.\u201d
\u201cI can keep, like, life and death secrets. But, you\u2019re right. I talk about everything else.\u201d
\u201cThis I know.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u202f
You Porn<\/p>\n
\u201cPlease don\u2019t put our sex tape on You Porn.\u201d
\u201cWhy? You should be proud of that. That\u2019s like one of your defining moments.\u201d
\u201cI\u2019m pretty sure my dad\u2019s not going to be proud of that.\u201d
\u201cYour dad goes to You Porn?\u201d
\u201cEverybody goes to You Porn.\u201d
\u201cI\u2019m the one that should be embarrassed. I look like a shaved polar bear.\u201d
\u201cYou don\u2019t look like a shaved polar bear. They\u2019re whiter than you are, and I don\u2019t think you shaved you\u2019re back this week.\u201d
\u201cNice. I could change your name. But I\u2019m pretty sure they\u2019ll figure out who it is.\u201d
\u201cPlease don\u2019t.\u201d
\u201cOnly because I think I love you.\u201d
\u201cWhatever. And you were mean to me.\u201d
\u201cI\u2019m just playing. You know I like fucking you.\u201d
\u201cOnly because I\u2019m good at it.\u201d
\u201cYou sorta are.\u201d
\u201cGet your ass over here right now.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u202f
Wooly<\/p>\n
\u201cMen are always surprised. When they do the right thing, they want congratulations for it. Yeah, you took out the garbage. Big deal.\u201d
\u201cNo, no, no, no, no you\u2019ve got this wrong. It\u2019s in our DNA.\u201d
\u201cI don\u2019t want to hear this.\u201d
\u201cThat\u2019s because the truth stands in contrast to your statement.\u201d
\u201cI guess I don\u2019t have a choice.\u201d
\u201cYour job is the kids and to be soft and nice. That\u2019s just the way god made it. That\u2019s why you always get custody and don\u2019t go to jail as much. Men are not nurturers. We\u2019re not gatherers. We don\u2019t naturally gravitate to keeping the place clean. Our job is to kill wooly mammoths. And you can\u2019t get pissed at me just because they\u2019re extinct.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u202f
You know you\u2019re saying that out loud?<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m a little bit embarrassed to say this out loud, but fuck it. So I\u2019m watching this porn.\u201d
\u201cLike Internet porn so it doesn\u2019t really count as pornography.\u201d
\u201cAnd this girl starts fingering herself.\u201d
\u201cWhy are you telling me this?\u201d
\u201cBecause I don\u2019t even make it to the penis in the vagina part.\u201d
\u201cWeak.\u201d<\/p>\n
October 28, 2011\u202f
Gross<\/p>\n
\u201cI think that was from last night.\u201d
\u201cBaby, we ain\u2019t wasting no wine. Or ice cream.\u201d
\u201cUck.
\u201cOkay. I can lick you when you\u2019ve been sweating in those nasty panties in your tight ass jeans all day? But I can\u2019t have an old glass of wine?\u201d
\u201cYou can do what ever you want to do.\u201d
\u201cI want you.\u201d
\u201cYes.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u202f
Halloween<\/p>\n
\u201cI hate to cut you off, but I have a Halloween party to go to.\u201d
\u201cWhat are you dressed as?\u201d
\u201cI\u2019m not dressed yet.\u201d
\u201cWell, what are you going to dress as?\u201d
\u201cA black cat.\u201d
\u201cI hope it\u2019s a slutty black cat.\u201d
\u201cYeah, it is kinda slutty.\u201d
\u201cYou better send me a picture.\u201d
\u201cI will.\u201d<\/p>\n
October 29, 2011\u202f
Divorce<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat\u2019s going on with you?
\u201cI\u2019m not quite sure.\u201d
\u201cAre you happy?\u201d
\u201cDo I look happy?\u201d
\u201cIn fact? No, you don\u2019t.\u201d
\u201cDo I sound happy?\u201d
\u201cNo, you don\u2019t.\u201d
\u201cWell. If it quacks like a duck.\u201d
\u201cDo you need a divorce attorney? I have two.\u201d
\u201cEmail me their numbers.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u202f
Choice<\/p>\n
You know what\u2019s weird? I can\u2019t sleep. I\u2019m an insomniac. But every girl I\u2019ve ever loved doesn\u2019t even open her eyes until 1145am. Even while we\u2019re having sex at 6. Weird choices, huh?<\/p>\n
\u202f
Skunk<\/p>\n
It\u2019s 44 degrees and there\u2019s a fermenting dead skunk 15 feet outside of my door. So here\u2019s the rundown. Temperature? Awesome. Smell? Evil death.<\/p>\n
\u202f
Blood<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat are you doing?
\u201cWhat do you mean?\u201d
\u201cYou\u2019re biting your lips.\u201d
\u201cIt\u2019s a nervous habit.\u201d
\u201cThey\u2019re bleeding. That\u2019s more than nervous.\u201d
\u201cTechnically? I\u2019m not really nervous.\u201d
\u201cI\u2019m not kissing you with bleeding lips.\u201d
\u201cWho said I wanted to kiss you?\u201d
\u201cThen what are we doing?\u201d
\u201cWe don\u2019t have to kiss to fuck.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u202f
I just don\u2019t give a \u2026<\/p>\n
She walked down the block, hardly dressed, and she didn\u2019t give a fuck. And that\u2019s what I liked about her.<\/p>\n
October 30, 2011\u202f
Again, words<\/p>\n
People don\u2019t understand about writing. Everybody writes, right? But when you want to put something into every word? It can be harder than you might realize. Every word has to mean something. And sometimes? When it doesn\u2019t? It\u2019s like death.<\/p>\n
\u202f
My love, my lovah<\/p>\n
\u201cHey. You\u2019re talking to my wife.\u201d
\u201cI\u2019m pretty sure she\u2019s not you\u2019re wife anymore.\u201d<\/p>\n
October 31, 2011\u202f
The needle and the damage done<\/p>\n
\u201cI love you. Without condition. I swear. But I don\u2019t care what you\u2019ve made it into in your head. My childhood was being alone, fear of violence, sexual abuse, and being fat. Change it in your mind if you want. But that\u2019s how it was. I can play nice, but I\u2019ll just be playing. \u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWalk past it. Put it behind you.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI will never put it behind me. It\u2019s one of the reasons no one puts their hands on my kids. Or her. Who even has rejected me, will not be touched on my watch. I will not tolerate violence. I don\u2019t know if you comprehend the depth of the damage done. I don\u2019t blame you. But it was still done.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u202f
I\u2019m the once to decide?<\/p>\n
\u201cThis isn\u2019t going to be easy is it?\u201d
\u201cMost things that matter aren\u2019t.\u201d
\u201cDoes this matter?\u201d
\u201cDoes it feel like it does?\u201d
\u201cIt\u2019s all I can feel.\u201d
\u201cDo what you think is right.\u201d
\u201cWhat I want is not the same as what is right.\u201d
\u201cIt\u2019s up to you.\u201d
\u201cI know. That\u2019s the problem.\u201d<\/p>\n
November 1, 2011\u202f
iPhone<\/p>\n
\u201cSo, here\u2019s my new phone.\u201d
\u201cIt\u2019s bigger than I thought it was going to be.\u201d
\u201cThat\u2019s what she said.\u201d
\u201cNice. Do you have to make everything sexual?\u201d
\u201cNot this week. I pulled my salacious muscle.\u201d
\u201cI pulled your cock muscle last night.\u201d
\u201cYou\u2019re worse than I am.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u202f
Meth<\/p>\n
\u201cSweetie, you have to go.\u201d
\u201cWhat? Why?\u201d
\u201cI\u2019m very fond of you, obviously.\u201d
\u201cSo why do you want me to go?\u201d
\u201cBecause if you\u2019re actively using, that means you\u2019re holding. And I can\u2019t have that shit here.\u201d
\u201cBut? I love you.\u201d
\u201cLove? Don\u2019t make me laugh. That does not ever cross my door step.\u201d
\u201cHow do you know I\u2019m high?\u201d
\u201cThe same way I know one and one is two.\u201d<\/p>\n
November 2, 2011\u202f
The truth?<\/p>\n
\u201cThe truth will set you free.\u201d
\u201cThe truth? The truth? Don\u2019t be ridiculous. Nobody tells the truth.\u201d
\u201cThat is an exaggeration.\u201d
\u201cI know the pieces fit, only because? I put them in.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u202f
Kind of<\/p>\n
\u201cI always thought I would grow up to be something special.\u201d
\u201cIt\u2019s too late now.\u201d
\u201cWhy would you say that?\u201d
\u201cYou\u2019re kind of grown up already.\u201d
\u201cAnd you\u2019re kind of a bitch, but I didn\u2019t say that.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u202f
High school<\/p>\n
\u201cAll of your friends were good looking. You guys ran the school. You guys were the it crowd.\u201d
\u201cWhat are you talking about?\u201d
\u201cGive me a break.\u201d
\u201cAre you talking about high school?\u201d
\u201cOf course, stupid.\u201d
\u201cI wasn\u2019t good looking.\u201d
\u201cYes. You were.\u201d
\u201cWell, I didn\u2019t feel good looking.\u201d
\u201cThat\u2019s your kuleana.\u201d<\/p>\n
November 3, 2011\u202f
Your mouth? Is not quite a sacred place<\/p>\n
\u201cYou just put that thing in my mouth.\u201d
\u201cYou asked me to. You asked me to put it other places too. If you\u2019re that drunk, we should stop.\u201d
\u201cI was just being coy. Put it back.\u201d
\u201cNo. We\u2019re done.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u202f
Beatty<\/p>\n
Bonnie, Clyde. Yes, they get shot and die in the end. But, man what a magic love.<\/p>\n
\u202f
Swim<\/p>\n
\u201cI was swimming before I could walk.\u201d
\u201cFor real?\u201d
\u201cFor real.\u201d
\u201cThen what are you doing on the ground?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u202f
Help?<\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019re crazy.\u201d
\u201cWhat?\u201d
\u201cNo, I\u2019m being literal. You are crazy. You need help.\u201d
\u201cHelp doesn\u2019t help.\u201d
\u201cYou\u2019re in trouble.\u201d
\u201cI know.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u202f
Disgusting<\/p>\n
Catfish. Tilapia. Bass. Yuck. I will never eat another fish that didn\u2019t come from the ocean, preferably the Pacific, or for which I don\u2019t know the Hawaiian name. Opakapaka, ono, ahi, aku, ulua, papio, mahi, he\u2018e, and a\u2018a. Maybe an occasional salmon. That\u2019s pretty much it for me.<\/p>\n
November 4, 2011\u202f
Tool<\/p>\n
You need to listen to Tool. They move the world.<\/p>\n
November 5, 2011\u202f
Hands<\/p>\n
You\u2019re holding my hands. But are you feeling me?<\/p>\n
\u202f
How?<\/p>\n
I\u2019m not quite sure how to do this anymore. How does this planet work?<\/p>\n
\u202f
Wrong<\/p>\n
We\u2019ve all done some thing\u2019s wrong. I\u2019m sorry for that. And I\u2019m sorry for the wrong I\u2019m going to do.<\/p>\n
November 6, 2011\u202f
Fat<\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019re getting too skinny.\u201d
\u201cAnd, you\u2019re getting too fat. I think my lifeline is longer then yours.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u202f
I promise you<\/p>\n
You can get cheaper. But you won\u2019t get better.<\/p>\n
November 10, 2011\u202f
An oldie but goodie<\/p>\n
I totally stole this from Heather Armstrong (@Dooce on Twitter), but I feel the\u202fexact\u202fsame way<\/p>\n
Some of you, and you know exactly who you are, you can go right ahead and suck it.<\/p>\n
Because it has nothing to do with me. They have this idea of who I am and it is based entirely on assumptions. Bad, completely untrue assumptions that they so\u202fdesperately\u202fwant to believe because my success somehow diminishes their own.<\/p>\n
The truth? The truth is that I work my ass off. I hit the ground running at 6am every morning and I do not stop until I hit the pillow at night. And understand that this is not a pity party, I am not complaining.<\/p>\n
Also, if I don\u2019t publish, people think I have died. (I appreciate those emails, actually.)<\/p>\n
I embrace the knowledge that there are tens if not hundreds of people who despise me. Hundreds of people who have a bad opinion of me and can talk about that opinion. And then go on to say, well, [he] opened [him]self up to this, he better take it!<\/p>\n
And oh, I do. I take it. And I want to thank you for it. Because it has forced me to take a look at myself and how I treat other people. Because all the shit and misinformed waah-waah-waahing that is aimed at my head has made it so that I will first, before anything else, give someone the benefit of the doubt, and second, never treat anyone the way I have been treated. Never speak about someone the way people speak about me. Especially in a public forum.<\/p>\n
Sure, you can probably find me jealously criticizing someone in my archives, but I like to think that I\u2019ve come a long way since then. Because the hate mail and the hate sites and the bickering twitters about [me], all the crazy assumptions about me that I see being tangled and weaved in ways that are specifically made to make someone feel better about their own insecurities, all of this has made me so much more human.<\/p>\n
Thank you, those of you who need to suck it.<\/p>\n
\u202f
Music<\/p>\n
Music has always been important to me. Often when I can\u2019t find the words to exactly express how I feel, I\u2019ll come across lyrics or a video that does more perfectly than I ever could. I send people links to YouTube with this intent, often with no explanation.<\/p>\n
Turns out this is a mistake. It can get you in criminal trouble. Trust me on that one. Let me give you some examples.<\/p>\n
The Funeral\u202f\u2013 Band of Horses
This was actually interpreted as a threat as if I was a person that would cause someone (not naming names) to have a funeral. I guess I gave the audience too much credit, because the song is a metaphor. It\u2019s a lament. Waiting for morning to wake the ones you love is all you\u2019ve got left. It\u2019s too late to call, so you trust that in the morning that the people you care for will still be alive (in the sense of alive for you). But at every occasion, and at any time you\u2019re prepared for a funeral (again the funeral of the relationship), prepared for the age when your loved ones leave. Clearly, or maybe not for the tunnel-vision imbecile, the person in the video is drinkinghimself\u202fto death. And in my version, he kills\u202fhimself\u202fat the end. I really didn\u2019t think that explanation was necessary.<\/p>\n
Black Hole Sun\u202f\u2013 Soundgarden
The video does depict the apocalypse, but do you also notice the faces and expressions of the people? It looks like they are either high themselves or the person looking at them is high. They are all trying to escape from something. Addiction? The distorted images imply that. But the black hole that pulls them in really could represent anything that pulls any of us. Sadness. Fear. Loneliness. Finally, the scene where the barbie doll is being burned on the grill is not suggesting that anyone should be grilled, but rather symbolizes\u202fthe end of innocence. Again, clearly not a threat, but an insightful observation into loss. This is really not that difficult.<\/p>\n
and, finally<\/p>\n
No Such Thing\u202f\u2013 Chris Cornell
In the lyrics there is a trigger mentioned and he talks about \u201cending the world.\u201d That does not imply a threat to literally shoot anyone. Again, this is a m-e-t-a-p-h-o-r. The chorus and the concept of the song seem to deal with the absence of love and happiness. He is saying that there is no such thing as feeling nothing. Since there is no such thing as nothing, there needs to be a feeling in life that replaces happiness when happiness is gone. For him, these were feelings of depression and anguish. He has now reached the resolution that to save yourself in the absence of happiness you need to make the choice of how you \u201cfill the hole.\u201d<\/p>\n
Really, this is like Metaphor 101. There is a theory that once a person decides they know something, they will find any fact and bend it to what they already believe. It is the rare individual, that can keep disinterest in an adversarial situation. I haven\u2019t seen it. They decide what happened, ignore anything that points to the contrary, and make the pieces fit.<\/p>\n
Do people need to take lessons in metaphor or abstract thinking or individuals that aren\u2019t like everyone else? Because I\u2019ll be glad to teach them. Or is there a conscious effort to demonize a person at any cost, by any means necessary, once an internal decision has been made? The cynical part of me believes the latter.<\/p>\n
\u202f
Disclaimer addendum<\/p>\n
I can\u2019t believe I have to say this again, but, I\u2019m getting so many comments from people, that I feel like I have to.<\/p>\n
No names are named because they\u2019re are none (public figures not included). Not even the nice stories. If you see yourself in any of these characters, then search your own soul. Because I promise you, once again, it is not you. It is my testing board for op-ed pieces, and longer fictional works. If you don\u2019t like it, stay away. I have never sent anyone an unsolicited invitation here.<\/p>\n
So if you\u2019re reading this, it is 100% completely your choice. And 100% completely my right, to compose words in this manner.<\/p>\n
One final note, this is not intended for minors, so parents do your job. I wouldn\u2019t let\u202fmy\u202fkids look at this. The same way you keep them away from porn, keep them away from adult-themed prose. That is your responsibility to monitor them, not to censor me.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m retiring from writing for a few days until every regular and new reader gets a chance to read this manifesto. Then? I\u2019m going to start up exactly where I left off.<\/p>\n
November 11, 2011\u202f
Melancholia<\/p>\n
I\u2019m filled with gross sadness. The future looks brighter than it has in a long time, but I find myself having staccato bursts of five-second weeping. My friend says \u201cYou can\u2019t look at yesterday, there\u2019s only today and maybe not even tomorrow.\u201d She\u2019s right, of course. But my kids live in yesterday, today seems so ineffectual, and tomorrow scares the shit out of me. I don\u2019t want what I had and I hate what I have. I\u2019m on my knees with hope and humility that the sun decides to rise tomorrow, and whether I deserve it or not, takes a shine to me. God, please help me. Faith can help. But I\u2019m still human. Of course, I\u2019m going to be scared.<\/p>\n
\u202f
11\/11\/11 111111<\/p>\n
It\u2019s all about the timing. You\u2019ve got another chance tonight. Which is a good metaphor I think for life. You\u2019ve always got another chance. You just have to put yourself in place to take it.<\/p>\n
November 12, 2011\u202f
3\/45\/6789 101010<\/p>\n
Isn\u2019t it funny how caught up in the hype of the whole 11\/11\/11 111111 thing every one got? I was guilty of it too. But every single part of that equation is a man-made construct. We could have had 4 91-day months. And why did we start counting the years from the moment we did? (Don\u2019t say Jesus, because he was killed three years later. Well, two actually, because there probably wasn\u2019t a year 0.) And by \u201cwe\u201d I mean this society, because this isn\u2019t year 2011 for most people on the planet. I guess the clock is sort of ruled by the Earth\u2019s rotation, but why did we carve it up into two 12-set pieces and not 10? So today, I think we should celebrate again, but this time at precisely 3\/45\/6789, ten minutes after midnight at 101010.<\/p>\n
\u202f
A different kind of love<\/p>\n
Whatever I\u2019ve done, right, wrong, or indifferent, I did out of a kind of hopelessness. For 20 months now, I\u2019ve endured a cruel isolation from the two that matter most to me, that I love above all else. And in that silence, that I liken to a sensory deprivation chamber, I have sometimes gone mad. And like the ramblings of a madman, the incendiary rhetoric that has occasionally been spat, spastic as Tourette\u2019s, should be considered that only. Any attempt to vilify that not-so-quiet desperation makes hypocrites out of those whose motto alleges, \u201cLet justice be done or the heavens fall.\u201d<\/p>\n
November 13, 2011\u202f
The same kind of different as me<\/p>\n
I\u2019m not like most people. I often ignore this fact at my own peril. I get so wrapped up in myself sometimes that I forget my communication style\u2013words, images, even shared Internet links\u2013does not align with most. And this dissonance has brought misery that I had never even considered as a consequence of my actions. I rarely think about a filter, and what I think represents profundity, is often interpreted by others as threatening; what I see as sacred often reviled as profane. When I am able to step out of this shell, and look at myself as others must see me, I\u2019m sometimes mortified with a particular choice I\u2019ve made. But, as I\u2019ve said before, we are who we are, and it is what it is. And I swear, even when I\u2019m being hurtful, I\u2019m not trying to hurt you.<\/p>\n
\u202f
Power, corruption, and lies<\/p>\n
What is it about even a tincture of perceived power, or the temporary state of having the upper hand, that makes you behave so poorly, so selfishly? Do you really think you\u2019re in control of anything?<\/p>\n
November 15, 2011\u202f
I ain\u2019t no fortunate son<\/p>\n
Today\u2019s least favorite sight? A six year-old and her four-ish brother sitting with a seat between them in first class, while the cattle (i.e., me) trudge toward our pens in coach.<\/p>\n
\u202f
Meditative ADHD<\/p>\n
I am a vigorous, 75-page intellectual. I think very deeply, but am usually bored before chapter four. What appears scattered externally is actually the engine that drives my eclectic understanding of the world. It may not always be a deep understanding, but I kick ass at Jeopardy.<\/p>\n
\u202f
Olomana said it best<\/p>\n
I\u2019ll recuse myself from capturing the moment and defer to Olomana, circa 1980 \u201cMy dreams fill of the sound of the ocean. Hawai\u2018i is calling.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u202f
Two hours prior to departure<\/p>\n
I didn\u2019t start to panic until the sun had risen above the line of the horizon, high enough to illuminate the plastic-coated bus schedule adhered to the bus stop pole. The earlier darkness had given me a sort of bliss, aphoristically granted by my ignorance. But in the soft light of the Austin sunrise, it was now clear to me that my best-case scenario was an arrival at the airport at 732 am. Worst-case? 802 am. My flight time? 810 am. On my boarding pass, the words \u201cBOARDING 730 AM.\u201d I think this is when the hyperventilation began.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat time is it,\u201d I ask a passerby.
\u201c641.\u201d<\/p>\n
Fuck. I\u2019m starting to see spots. I\u2019m at least 20 minutes from where I got on the wrong bus. (Whichever route planner decided that north- and south-bound 350 should stop at the same stop, delineated only by a lower-case n 0r s following the yellow 350 AIRPORT BLVD scrolling on the front and side of the bus, has risen to the head of my faceless, shit list.) And I\u2019ve been waiting for 25 minutes. So I\u2019ve pissed away at least 65 minutes. An hour and a half early has become \u201cI might not make it.\u201d<\/p>\n
The fifth bus to pass is, thankfully, mine and after some complicated bus route calculus, I determine that I\u2019m on the bus scheduled to arrive at the airport at 732. I allow myself a breath. If we leave the transfer point on time (715), I\u2019ll have 38 minutes to make it to the gate. Austin\u2019s airport is not large, so I\u2019ve got that in my favor, but I\u2019m not carrying a picture ID (long story), and that is always a wild-card when traveling in a post-9\/11 world. I\u2019ve done it several times already, but when you get a TSA vigilante, it can sometimes make for delays that on this current trip I don\u2019t have time for.<\/p>\n
At 712 I look out the bus window and see the driver not half way through the biggest fucking sandwich I have ever seen. There is no way he is finishing that brontosaurus burger in three minutes. 713. He\u2019s talking and laughing with a passenger that has stepped outside to smoke. I can feel my heartbeat in my ears. 714. He takes another bite and slowly chews. I try to telepathically send him the message, \u201cI\u2019ve got a plane to catch, get your ass back in here.\u201d Another passenger addresses my concerned look.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat\u2019s a matter?\u201d
\u201cI\u2019ve got a plane to catch.\u201d
\u201cHe\u2019s still got a minute.\u201d
\u201cHe\u2019s not going to eat that whole sandwich in one minute. Jesus, does he have to wait until exactly 715?\u201d
\u201cWell, maybe if he\u2019s a minute early, someone else misses their flight.\u201d<\/p>\n
Thanks for the lesson in the butterfly effect, I think to myself. Frankly, I don\u2019t care if everyone else for the rest of the day misses their flight, I need to make mine. Something that I refuse to be without is waiting for me at the end of the next 13 hours in the air. 715. I am seconds away from going Sandra Bullock and taking this fucking bus to the airport, never going below 50 mph. 716. The driver meanders back to the bus. 717. I am ready to spit on him. 718. Painfully, slowly, we begin to move. And of course, we catch every light on the way to Highway 183, aka Airport Blvd. 722. I\u2019m looking around, hoping there\u2019s a defibrillator on board. 726. The driver finally seems to realize there is a clock above him, and that there is some relationship between its data output and his current location. A look of realization seems to come over his expression. 728. He pulls on to 183. We\u2019re still miles away, but I\u2019m the only person on the bus. I\u2019m carrying luggage and pacing so my destination should be obvious and my mannerisms telling. He floors it. And I\u2019ll be damned if he doesn\u2019t pull up to the stop at ticketing\/check-in at 733. I can deal with being one minute late.<\/p>\n
I walk off the bus and the driver smiles and says, \u201cHave a nice flight.\u201d All I can do is smile back. Then make like OJ through Austin-Bergstrom.<\/p>\n
P.S. I\u2019m writing this on the plane, so, yes, I made it. Hawai\u2018i calls, after all.<\/p>\n
November 23, 2011\u202f
The devil\u2019s advocate<\/p>\n
I am a natural-born agitator and contrarian. No matter what the argument being presented\u2013even when I agree\u2013my first reaction is, at least internally, to develop a list of counterpoints. And in so doing, create a set of consequences both good and bad, mostly bad. Depending on the context, the response to my purposeful agitation runs the gamut from a spirited, good-natured debate to ugliness, and unmitigated anger.<\/p>\n
\u202f
Ten years<\/p>\n
If I were still married, this would have been my tenth anniversary. And through the generosity of others I find myself in the geographic vicinity of where those vows were exchanged ten years ago today. Of course, geography is the only thing that I might still be able to replicate. The vows long broken, the promises denied, and the only thing that remains are the two beautiful lives created between us.<\/p>\n
\u202f
Narcissus<\/p>\n
It amuses me when others think my actions are defined by an instinctual narcissism, that somehow I\u2019m not aware of exactly what I am doing, but rather am stuck in a sort of auto-pilot, a slave to my unknown psychological pathologies. In some ways, I guess, this is true, but no more so than for any other sentient being with DNA for a blueprint.<\/p>\n
I can understand how my actions may not look like choices. This is most likely the result of my lack of a filter, or any visible attempts (at least in real time) to exert emotional control. Steadfast is not my defining characteristic. Lack of control, however, does not preclude insight. Long ago, I dubbed this personal phenomenon my \u201cimpotent self-awareness.\u201d But to my knowledge, they don\u2019t make Viagra or Cialis for lability.<\/p>\n
\u202f
Comfortably numb<\/p>\n
Since severing the tendons and nerves in my right hand, I\u2019ve noticed a significant decline in my quality of penmanship. And after writing that line it struck me as strange that\u202fthat\u202fis the consequence of my first concern. Unresponsive joints, three numb fingers, and the constant sensation of gentle needles whenever I employ a grip? Those I can deal with. But this chicken scratch that has replaced what was once a quite elegant set of glyphs? I\u2019m finding quite troublesome.<\/p>\n
November 25, 2011\u202f
I\u2019ve stopped being mad at her<\/p>\n
Nabakov wrote, \u201cDon\u2019t be angry with the rain. It simply doesn\u2019t know how to fall up.\u201d She is who she is, and she\u2019s not always who she shows herself to be. We are all flawed and she is no different. Her flaws are much quieter than mine. But they exist. Trust someone that lived six inches away for almost ten years. I\u2019ve seen her puke tequila shots through her legs sitting on the toilet, then excoriate alcohol abuse two days later. I\u2019m not telling you this to vilify her. I honestly believe she is a good woman. But I don\u2019t care about her anymore, except in the role of a loving mother. All that matters to me, especially in the context of her, is them. They are all that matter.<\/p>\n
\u202f
Poetic license and free speech<\/p>\n
These still haven\u2019t been take away, as far as I know, and I watch CNN everyday. This entry is dedicated to everyone who has visited this site and whose home page at work ends in .us\/. I know what you\u2019re thinking, \u201cDamn that pesky\u202fBill of Rights.\u201d Huh? Did I nail it? Unfortunately, there is no amendment that precludes you from fucking with me, and that is a loophole which has been enthusiastically taken advantage of in my recent past.<\/p>\n
\u201cCongress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or\u202fabridging the freedom of speech\u202f[my emphasis], or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.\u201d<\/p>\n
I know there are those who prefer the truncheon and handcuffs to words, but clearly the protection of expression was important enough to our white, anglo-saxon, protestant, slave-owning forefathers to list it first in the unintentionally ironic amendments to our Constitution. They sort of\u202fhave\u202fto be there for us to ignore them.<\/p>\n
November 26, 2011\u202f
Nietzsche revisited<\/p>\n
Can you tell I\u2019m re-reading\u202fPhilosophy and Truth? I don\u2019t recommend it for those prone to depression, or who naturally lean in the direction of a hopeless nihilism. (Let me clear my throat.) To me, Nietzsche is the philosophical equivalent of watching a horror movie, vicariously experiencing the terror and gore, knowing you can return to normal (whatever that is) in a few short hours, or by simply walking away from the stimulus.<\/p>\n
December 1, 2011\u202f
Save yourself<\/p>\n
I\u2019m going home. It may take a few months. Maybe longer. But for 17 days now I\u2019ve been back where I belong. Out from under the thumb of the suffocating, conservative, nationalist, racist, anti-intellectual, religio-fascist, homophobic, conformist, hypocritical, elite worshipping, boot kissing multitude that pervades the territory below the Mason-Dixon. Don\u2019t get me wrong, I\u2019ve met wonderful individuals, like-minded and not, but the non-silent majority of ignorance is winning by a landslide.<\/p>\n
Were it not for the islands of rational secularism (hello, South Austin), Voodoo fun (all my best, N\u2019awlins), or the urban decay of the modern cities (Atlanta, Houston, Dallas, San Antonio, etc.), this last decade would have been wasted. I\u2019m not running away. I\u2019ve had my eyes opened these last three weeks, by love of people, love of a person, and the overwhelming love of place (aloha \u2018\u0101ina), and I\u2019ve been saved. Now before some new, cataclysmic disaster (thank you, Katrina) comes and washes the garbage into the Gulf of Mexico, I can only advise you to save yourself.<\/p>\n
December 2, 2011\u202f
Deseret<\/p>\n
Sitting in the belly of the beast. Well, the beast\u2019s international airport anyway. The mountains are snow-covered and beautiful. And, of course, the Department of Metaphors, located in my head, immediately sullies the beauty of the almost-winter, desert landscape with this thought isn\u2019t it appropriate that rising above the heart of one of the newest, strangest, whitest belief systems ever concocted by man, are the harsh conditions of the Wasatch mountains, also now covered, hiding the ground-level impurities and imperfections with a smooth blanket of pure, white snow.<\/p>\n
Everything is in its place, buried under that which seems to fall from the heavens.<\/p>\n
December 3, 2011\u202f
Townes<\/p>\n
There\u2019s the \u201cblues.\u201d There\u2019s dark. There\u2019s depressing. And then there\u2019s hopelessness. That\u2019s Townes Van Zandt.<\/p>\n
\u202f
Round and round<\/p>\n
For a liberal libertarian, I\u2019m almost ashamed at how biased I am. It is correct that we liberals are often hypocritical. I can\u2019t help it. I hate religiosity, ignorance, racism, sexism, nationalism, and on and on and on. And I can\u2019t help my prejudices against certain groups. Christian makes my spidey sense tingle. Scientology? I have to grope my conscience not to guffaw. If conservative means, \u201cDon\u2019t tread on me?\u201d Sign me up. If it means my gay friends can\u2019t marry, a woman cannot choose her reproductive destiny, the state can kill (ostensibly because killing is wrong), or tell me I can\u2019t put my fist in the air and say, \u201cFuck the police\u201d when it\u2019s deserved? Then pepper spray me. I\u2019d rather be aligned with the idiot 99% than the 1% assholes that know better.<\/p>\n
\u202f
I like obvious lies<\/p>\n
I like the way words can mean whatever the fuck you want them to mean. Asshole. Liar. I guess they\u2019re your\u2019s too. Cunt. Fuck. They\u2019re comforting. Like the sunrise. You\u2019re pretty sure that no matter what is said, it\u2019s still going to happen.<\/p>\n
December 9, 2011\u202f
Nothing, no one, never<\/p>\n
Comes without consequence.<\/p>\n
\u202f
Huh?<\/p>\n
When you want to create something out of nothing? That\u2019s when a problem exists.<\/p>\n
December 10, 2011\u202f
That which cannot be named<\/p>\n
She tells me to eat something. She worries about me in a way that I\u2019m not used to. I love her. She tells me, \u201cGet your shit together.\u201d And she scares me. Love is fear. Or the fear of the loss of it. That passionate intensity is almost impossible to maintain. But, man, what a fucking glorious ride.<\/p>\n
She walks. And I watch her. The lithe body. The movements. I ache for her. I\u2019m hard. She naturally brings out the truth in me. I refuse to be ashamed. This is who I am. And we are what we are.<\/p>\n
December 16, 2011\u202f
Get ready<\/p>\n
\u201cI haven\u2019t used the hair gel, the lotion, or eaten spinach. Two of the three, I guess, assume you\u2019re going outside. I stay in a tight, little box.\u201d
\u201cPlease be all normalized before we get there.\u201d
\u201cWhat do you mean?\u201d
\u201cYou know exactly what I mean.\u201d
\u201cWhy don\u2019t you just say, \u2018Sober?\u2019\u201d
\u201cOkay, sober.\u201d
\u201cUh, I fucking hate you.\u201d
\u201cNo, you fucking love me. Now get ready.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u202f
Similarities and such<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s not going to be the same this time.\u201d
\u201cIt\u2019s always the same.\u201d<\/p>\n
December 20, 2011\u202f
Pre-excuse to the excuse<\/p>\n
When I used to meet with the marketing heads from the various lines of business within my former company, I always used to end meetings with the caveat that, and I\u2019m paraphrasing, \u201cOur plan, though aggressive, is manageable, but will require significant and consistent engagement by both Marcom and fill-in-the-LOB.\u201d In Marketing-speak this is alternatively known as \u201cproactive management of expectations\u201d (pre-fuckup) or \u201ccovering your ass\u201d (post-). These go by various names in various departments (to\u2022MAY\u2022to, to\u2022MAH\u2022to), but anyone that has ever worked in an organization larger than one individual knows exactly what I\u2019m talking about.<\/p>\n
I\u2019ll cut to the chase. Circumstance, history, and choices (mostly choices) have tangled, with the resulting fabric being the irregular and, now, somewhat condensed tapestry of my life. This, as with most other circumstances one might find oneself in, contains elements that are both good and bad.<\/p>\n
Less time should compel me to light the proverbial fire under my proverbial ass (fingers be crossed, and history be damned). But it also, obviously, means I have less time.<\/p>\n
So, here comes the vision thing. I will trade prolificacy for obstinacy and resolve that everything I do from here on out be great. Nothing less is acceptable.<\/p>\n
\u202f
Midnight last<\/p>\n
About seventeen and one half hours ago, midnight CST, \u201ctwo years\u201d became \u201cright now.\u201d And so once again my mouth may open, and my voice may flow, in any direction I feel to be appropriate. I\u2019ve learned the hard way\u2013meandering, expanding, retracting\u2013and I believe, just to be safe, I may stay silent when facing even in your direction (if I know it). Here\u2019s the deal, though. You promise to stop lying about me? And I\u2019ll stop telling the truth about you.<\/p>\n
December 22, 2011\u202f
That\u2019s hard to swallow<\/p>\n
\u201cNo, for real. It\u2019s like grain. There\u2019s too many grains.\u201d
\u201cIt\u2019s good for you.\u201d
\u201cMy colon is fine.\u201d
\u201cNo, really.\u201d
\u201cReally.\u202fLeave my colon alone.\u201d
\u201cThat\u2019s what she said.\u201d
\u201cThat\u2019s not funny.\u201d
\u201cI\u2019m not trying to be.\u201d
\u201cStop the fucking lecture.\u201d
\u201cIf you want to die.\u201d
\u201cThe colostomy bag. I understand. Don\u2019t be a tongue in a cheek, be a fucking person. I know. I already know.\u201d
\u201cIf you want to die that way.\u201d
\u201cMy friend?\u201d
\u201cYes?\u201d
\u201cTrust me. I\u2019m already dead.\u201d<\/p>\n
December 23, 2011\u202f
Pretty noose<\/p>\n
\u201cMy wife.\u201d
\u201cYour wife. I was yours?\u201d
\u201cDon\u2019t be like that. I never treated you that way.\u201d
\u201cI know.\u201d
\u201cI know.\u201d
\u201cYet.\u201d
\u201cYet.\u202fMy wife?\u202fI miss you.\u201d
\u201cFuck. Fuck. What do I miss? I miss you.\u201d
\u201cThis is hard.\u201d
\u201cYeah, I know.\u201d
\u201cThis is harder than I thought it was going to be.\u201d
\u201cI know.\u201d
\u201cYeah.\u201d
\u201cI know you know.\u201d
\u201cI miss you.\u201d
\u201cI miss being your wife.\u201d
\u201cI know.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u202f
The holidays<\/p>\n
\u201cYour friends are smart.\u201d
\u201cI\u2019m smart. Sorta.\u201d
\u201cYeah. I guess. But you\u2019re kinda fucked up.\u201d
\u201cI guess smart and stupid aren\u2019t mutually exclusive.\u201d
\u201cI guess.\u201d
\u201cI super love you right now.\u201d
\u201cThat\u2019s \u2019cause you\u2019re stupid.\u201d
\u201cMaybe.\u201d
\u201cYeah, maybe.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u202f
Pearl jamming your way through life<\/p>\n
You\u2019re nasty. You have this built-in belief that women are these soft characters that need extra protection. And so they can hit and not be hit back. You hit. And you hit and you hit and you hit. Sometimes, baby? They hit back.<\/p>\n
Nothing\u2019s changed but the surrounding bullshit. You\u2019re cruel. Sometimes. You\u2019re like the road runner. Sometimes. You want to see her get cracked.<\/p>\n
\u202f
Apartment<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is how you live?\u201d
\u201cThis is how I live. This is who I am.\u201d
\u201cThis is how you live?\u201d
\u201cYeah.\u201d
\u201cI don\u2019t want to live here.\u201d
\u201cI don\u2019t want you to live here.\u201d
\u201cYeah.\u201d
\u201cIt went where you went.\u201d
\u201cWhere is that?\u201d
\u201cAway.\u201d
\u201cYeah.\u201d
\u201cEverything goes away.\u201d
\u201cHmm, but sometimes.\u201d
\u201cSometimes?\u201d
\u201cSometimes it comes back.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u202f
In the skull of vertebrates<\/p>\n
The brain. It tends to adapt. And almost immediately experiences lament. It\u2019s novelty. The brain craves new.<\/p>\n
\u202f
Superman<\/p>\n
You? You were a mythical symbol of hope. And now it hurts to laugh at that. As angry as I am? I cannot stop loving you.<\/p>\n
December 24, 2011\u202f
Dicks hate the police<\/p>\n
Nuff said.<\/p>\n
\u202f
We\u2019re going to bring Hawai\u2018i to Texas<\/p>\n
And, thusly, we\u2019re going to make this a better place. E holoholo kahakahi e.<\/p>\n
\u202f
Hawaiian<\/p>\n
\u201cYeah, its sort of a language. An ethnicity. Um, we don\u2019t like you calling yourself Hawaiian just because you live here.\u201d
\u201cReally?\u201d
\u201cIn fact we, fuck, I. I hate it.\u201d
\u201cSo, then we should stop?\u201d
\u201cIf you want to work with me.\u201d
\u201cWe want to work with you.\u201d
\u201cThen stop.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u202f
Why go home?<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019d rather go.\u201d
\u201cYou\u2019d rather go then stay?\u201d
\u201cI\u2019d rather go.\u201d
\u201cI\u2019ll miss you.\u201d
\u201cI miss you already.\u201d
\u201cStay.\u201d
\u201cI\u2019d rather.\u201d
\u201cGo.\u201d
\u201cGo.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u202f
Natural mystic<\/p>\n
There\u2019s a natural mystic blowing through the air.<\/p>\n
December 25, 2011\u202f
Creative people<\/p>\n
We sorta need this duality. The \u201cI am I see everything but know I am nothing.\u201d God, how I love that hip. Or, maybe that smile. That tongue inside my mouth. God.<\/p>\n
December 26, 2011\u202f
I like to come<\/p>\n
\u201cWe just caught you jerking off.\u201d
\u201cI like to jerk off. I like to come.\u201d
\u201cOh, sweet Jesus.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u202f
For real<\/p>\n
\u201cThe feel. The touch. The smell.\u201d
\u201cChristmas?\u201d
\u201cIt was yesterday.\u201d
\u201cHow do I celebrate your body and not be the rest of these assholes. Of course I can see it. But I worship in a different way.\u201d
\u201cAm I her?\u201d
\u201cNo.\u201d
\u201cI will always be her.\u201d
\u201cIn a way sorta.\u201d
\u201cIn a way.\u201d
\u201cYou love her?\u201d
\u201cIn a way I\u2019ll always love her.\u201d
\u201cDo you love me?\u201d
\u201cI will always love you.\u201d<\/p>\n
December 28, 2011\u202f
Once a day<\/p>\n
I guess that\u2019s so hard to believe. I think about you once a day. At least. You\u2019re like terrorism. Shitty but with a sometimes good cause. You\u2019re like The Shining Path. Oh, baby you shine fuck, how you shine.<\/p>\n
\u202f
Changes<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ll be skinnier, but I can\u2019t be taller.\u201d
\u201cI don\u2019t want you to change, necessarily.\u201d
\u201cI can be different.\u201d
\u201cNo, I want you to be you.\u201d
\u201cI can be something else.\u201d
\u201cHoney, I don\u2019t want you.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u202f
Silly goose<\/p>\n
Everything I write, I write for you. Everything I am, I am for you. You are the perfect mixture of perfection. In you I see always. In you I see a run-on sentence. You go on and on. And I love it.<\/p>\n
\u202f
I try my best<\/p>\n
\u201cI think about you when I think about love. I ruminate. That\u2019s a good word. I ruminate.\u201d
\u201cWhat do you think about.\u201d
\u201cI think about us.\u201d
\u201cUs? Yuck.\u201d
\u201cUs.\u201d
\u201cThis isn\u2019t going to happen is it.\u201d
\u201cIt depends what you mean by us.\u201d
\u201cUs?\u201d
\u201cThere is no us.\u201d
\u201cNo.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u202f
Ouch<\/p>\n
\u201cHow do you walk around? How do you carry that pain?\u201d
\u201cYou gave it to me.\u201d
\u201cI\u2019m sorry.\u201d
\u201cDon\u2019t be.\u201d
\u201cI loved you, I just couldn\u2019t love you.\u201d
\u201cSo.\u201d
\u201cFuck. So.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u202f
Hard<\/p>\n
\u201cEvery scene cannot be a drama like this. Every scene can\u2019t be hard like this.\u201d
\u201cTry living my life.\u201d
\u201cI don\u2019t want to.\u201d
\u201cI don\u2019t want you to.
\u201cHow do you make a movie like that? How do you survive?\u201d
\u201cDid you see Apocalypse Now?
\u201cYes, of course.\u201d
\u201cI did.\u201d
\u201cDid you see him?\u201d
\u201cHe almost died. I don\u2019t want you to be him.\u201d
\u201cI\u2019m doing my best.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u202f
Red wine<\/p>\n
\u201cI think I can make it.\u201d
\u201cYou only have, like, two bottles of wine.\u201d
\u201cI think I can make it.\u201d
\u201cNo one\u2019s driving anywhere.\u201d
\u201cI can make it.\u201d
\u201cYou\u2019re not making it.\u201d
\u201cI can make it.\u201d
\u201cYou have a problem.\u201d
\u201cI have lots of problems.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u202f
This hole<\/p>\n
This hole that I dig. That I\u2019m digging. I lay in it sometimes. Sometimes I can\u2019t see the outside. Am I digging my own grave?<\/p>\n
December 29, 2011\u202f
Feelings that feeling feel<\/p>\n
I saw what you felt. But I didn\u2019t feel it. I didn\u2019t feel a thing. I didn\u2019t feel anything at all.<\/p>\n
\u202f
Sangre mio<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s blood on the floor.\u201d
\u201cAnd?\u201d
\u201cAnd there\u2019s blood on your floor.\u201d
\u201cI bled.\u201d
\u201cNormal people don\u2019t bleed.\u201d
\u201cWhen they\u2019re cut they do.\u201d
\u201cNormal people don\u2019t get cut like that.\u201d
\u201cI\u2019m normal. I did.\u201d
\u201cNo, you\u2019re not.\u201d
\u201cWhat? I can show you the scar.\u201d
\u201cNo. You\u2019re not normal.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u202f
Differences<\/p>\n
\u201cSome girl hit on me when I was walking downtown.\u201d
\u201cI don\u2019t tell you about when that happens to me.\u201d
\u201cDo you even care?\u201d
\u201cWhat do you mean?\u201d
\u201cWhat do you care? You get jealous of things I do?\u201d
\u201cOf course.\u201d
\u201cI\u2019ve sort of written you off. You\u2019re too good looking for me.\u201d
\u201cNice.\u201d
\u201cThat\u2019s kind of a compliment.\u201d
\u201cNo, it\u2019s not.\u201d
\u201cI didn\u2019t mean it badly.\u201d
\u201cYou never do. You hit with a cotton fist.\u201d
\u201cI\u2019ve never hit anything in my life.\u201d
\u201cTrust me. Your punches ache.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u202f
The phone<\/p>\n
\u201cHe said you called.\u201d
\u201cI did. What did he tell you?
\u201cThat you\u2019re an asshole.\u201d
\u201cPerhaps.\u201d
\u201cWhy do you do this fucking shit?\u201d
\u201cHe called me.\u201d
\u201cNo, he didn\u2019t.\u201d
\u201cHe facebooked me.\u201d
\u201cYou\u2019re such a child.\u201d
\u201cI\u2019m not arguing that with you.\u201d
\u201cI love you.\u201d
\u201cI know.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u202f
Same, sometimes<\/p>\n
\u201cYou and me. We\u2019re not the same.\u201d
\u201cStarting at the?\u201d
\u201cNo. Starting at your ass.\u201d
\u201cMean.\u201d
\u201cYou and me. We\u2019re not the same.\u201d
\u201cWe\u2019re different.\u201d
\u201cI wish we weren\u2019t.\u201d
\u201cI wish.\u201d<\/p>\n
December 30, 2011\u202f
Vomitous<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m going to throw up.\u201d
\u201cThat\u2019s. No.\u201d
\u201cNo, really I\u2019m going to throw up.\u201d
\u201cYou drink too much.\u201d
\u201cYou talk too much.\u201d
\u201cYou need. Shut up.\u201d
\u201cI will if you do.\u201d
\u201cI hate loving you.\u201d
\u201cI hate hating you.\u201d
\u201cFuck.\u201d
\u201cFuck.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u202f
Stop<\/p>\n
\u201cStop the movie.\u201d
\u201cI know. It\u2019s killing me.\u201d
\u201cYou\u2019re killing yourself.\u201d
\u201cI can\u2019t help, but.\u201d
\u201cYou can help.\u201d
\u201cIt\u2019s the only thing I can do anymore.\u201d
\u201cAre you kidding? You can\u2019t do anything.\u201d
\u201cIt\u2019s all that I am.\u201d
\u201cThat\u2019s the sad part. It\u2019s all that you are.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u202f
The drinks<\/p>\n
\u201cPlease, stop drinking.\u201d
\u201cThat\u2019s not how drinking works.\u201d
\u201cWe don\u2019t like the effects.\u201d
\u201cI don\u2019t like the effects.\u201d
\u201cStop.\u201d
\u201cStop asking.\u201d<\/p>\n
December 31, 2011\u202f
Lying<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t like looking at the mirrors in the dark.\u201d
\u201cThere\u2019s nothing to be scared of.\u201d
\u201cThere\u2019s nothing to be scared of in the dark? You\u2019re lying.\u201d
\u201cThere\u2019s nothing for you to be scared of.\u201d
\u201cYou\u2019re lying.\u201d
\u201cDaddy doesn\u2019t lie.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u202f
So, what?<\/p>\n
\u201cI guess I have to get up every day. I have to breathe. Sort of. I have to wipe my ass when I shit.\u201d
\u201cThe last part you don\u2019t really need to do.\u201d
\u201cThat one I do for me.\u201d
\u201cThere\u2019s a lot of other things you could do for you.\u201d
\u201cI could stop loving you?\u201d
\u201cNo.\u201d
\u201cI can never stop loving you.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u202f
Why aren\u2019t you?<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s always a warmth.\u201d
\u201cNot always.\u201d
\u201cStandards. Unfortunately they make them now.\u201d
\u201cWhat happened to your married one?\u201d
\u201cStill happily married.\u201d
\u201cI\u2019d be happily masturbating in another none-the-wiser-girl, if I were you.\u201d
\u201cThat\u2019s sort of a good plan. This? It\u2019s sort of our none the wiser.\u201d
\u201cThat\u2019s why she loved you, sir.\u201d
\u201cNo. That\u2019s why I love her.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
January 5, 2011\u202f Don\u2019t tell them you\u2019re bigger than Jesus 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 … <\/p>\n