Rambling Lunacy

2011-01-03T21:47:00.000-08:00

A drawing
that showed windows, just a sampling
but there's nearly infinite ones in other spots,
if you know where to look
and they all had different views
the one with the hand, reaching to let go
the one with the shadow of wings, didn't touch the falling figure
cubes of improbably faceted shadings
the dancer's arms spread tall
spheres that, stark and bold, obscure the blank space
tree limb just there, in the frame
and it said
all of it, together
turn from the door, turn in
turn away from that light, stare through a window--
any window, no two the same
forever, forever and ever the view
that is not the same as any other view
and they said
pick your poison,
love,
but i smudged until that part was gone.

A Sealed Sketch

2010-12-30T16:42:00.000-08:00

In the box I told the story that I thought you might not know, the story of how I found myself climbing to your door.

In the box there is a world-- it is a plane for the most part, with occasional mountains in the far right corner, and a tower in the fore-ground. It is a tall tower, all huge stone blocks like the ones used to make pyramids for to remember kings, and there is a window towards the top, worlds away from the flatly anchored ground, where in the box I stand, looking up.

And when I see you looking out there is a moment of despair, eternities of moments of the desperate longing of one who knows their heart is incomplete and must needs remain that way.

It is the longing of one whose heart's desire is impossible, unreal, and in the box it fills the sketchéd lines.

In the lines of ink, I twitch my ears and wag my tail and set out to climb your tower, for what else can I do? And my hands slip, and slide, and there is no purchase for coyote-fingers on the black lines and I fall, not very far, and am confused.

And on the paper, I look back up and cannot see the tower window from the ground.

In the box that I sealed and folded and hid away, on the plane of shadowed sketchéd lines, I turn for the mountains, and nearly vanish to a pinprick, to the distance and away. When the ink moves on I am returning with stones, stolen from the mountainside, and there is a hope in the silhouette once more.

And when the stone tower that I build on the plane by the tower in the box crumbles, it hides away the scene, leaving no trace of what may've gone before, until the dust should clear away, and I am left among the stones upon the ground, scattered and bemused and the cloud yet obscures the tower window where you may not e'en remain.

In desperation now, there is a silhouette, in pen and ink on an inked cliff, holding the scraps of feathers I suspected, in the box, would not suffice for wings. And from the cliff a not-quite-wingéd shape falls, forward at first and then abruptly down, straight down, like an unshaded and unsubtle sketch.

And like the simple line on which I'm based, I crash in distant clouds of disturbed dust, a tragicomedy that fills the space but poorly, and a silence follows, in the box where the mountains point so subtly to the tower where I saw your face.

In Defense Of Love

2010-08-27T23:51:00.000-07:00

Author's Note: I am kind of a shite writer sometimes. This is one of those times; I've had this flowing about my mind for a good few months/years now, but it always seemed like... like writing out the steps to an equation that you see complete in your head-- which is actually a lot harder than writing something complicated out-- it seems self-explanatory. But. All the same, here is the first bit; when I have a bit of time to breathe, think, and re-calibrate my head, I will write the second, which deals with "What God hath made clean call not thou unclean," and, if I were a philologist of absolutely any skill whatsoever, would also deal with the works of the Apostle Paul, and why I don't think what he is saying is what a lot of people think he is saying. As it stands I might try and touch on the point that he was writing to wayward churches with advice, not transcribing The Words of Jesus to all Christians everywhere at any point in the future. Or I might leave it-- sometimes it's better to have three decent points than three decent... and one weak.

In Defense Of Love

Let me begin with a disclaimer. I am not the best person to write this—nor anywhere near the top of the list. I am not as wise, nor as eloquent, nor as learned a writer as it takes to do this subject justice. Furthermore, it has been said before, I’m sure, and will be said again, more eloquently – and again, and again, and again, I hope, until it is no longer necessary to repeat; until we are, as the poet says, too old to need such crutches. In the meantime-- here goes nothing.

With the disclaimer out of the way, a more… traditional introduction is in order. This is a hard essay for me to write, simply because the final conclusion is something I reached a long, long time ago; it’s something I find self-explanatory, and I don’t know how to convey that simplicity.

Put succinctly – expect rewrites.

To the Christians the world over—every church deacon and pastor and preacher and priest and bishop, and every authority who’s made the claim that God Hates X. Unless that blank is filled with a word like ‘bigotry,’ ‘hatred,’ ‘hypocrisy,’ and especially if it is filled with a specific group of people, consider this essay directed almost entirely at you. I am a Christian, and it’s taken me a while to be able to say that again without wincing at all the implications – after seeing what this religion can be capable of, it’s hard to then take a deep breath and go back, and say to myself that it’s the institution, the people in charge – that I have no beef with God (at least, most of the time – I will admit to a fair amount of skyward-fist-shaking, and furious profanities shouted in quiet dark spaces), that I have never disbelieved in Christ.

That I believe in Love.

For that is the greatest commandment, is it not? Love the Lord thy God, with all thy heart, and all with thy soul, and with all thy mind. No side-stepping, no hemming or hawing; that’s straight out of the KJV, the Bible the more strict churches believe is The One And Only Word, right down to the punctuation. Love thy God; love thy neighbor. These, Jesus says, are the greatest – there are no commandments greater than these. But what does that mean? Love thy God – how, exactly, are we to do that? Besides an internal belief, and surely that isn’t all, what are we to do?

Peter doesn’t ask this at the time – I can’t recall if any of the disciples do. It’s a lawyer who originally asks him what the greatest commandment is – what he must do to inherit eternal life, depending on which gospel you’re reading. But at the end of the gospels, Jesus asks Peter. I’ll just… I can’t paraphrase this.

“So when they had dined, Jesus saith to Simon Peter, Simon, [son] of Jonas, lovest thou me more than these? He saith unto him, Yea, Lord; thou knowest that I love thee. He saith unto him, Feed my lambs.

“He saith to him again the second time, Simon, [son] of Jonas, lovest thou me? He saith unto him, Yea, Lord; thou knowest that I love thee. He saith unto him, Feed my sheep.

“He saith unto him the third time, Simon, [son] of Jonas, lovest thou me? Peter was grieved because he said unto him the third time, Lovest thou me? And he said unto him, Lord, thou knowest all things; thou knowest that I love thee. Jesus saith unto him, Feed my sheep.” (John 21:15-17)

Unless there’s an entire lost gospel kicking around somewhere about Jesus’ time as a shepherd, those are metaphorical sheep there he’s talking about. The message is clear: If you love me, take care of your brethren—your neighbors. Everyone you can. My sheep. My flock. You. How do you uphold the first commandment? Follow the second.

God is Love. Over, and over, and over again, this crops up in Christianity. So why is it that apparently, in order to worship Him, we need to wear nice clothes to church every Sunday, marry a nice boy/girl (depending, obviously, on gender) in our own social group, always support our country first, and spend much of our life shaking our heads in disapproval at those who don’t follow our set of rules? All of our rules are meaningless – yes, everything even The Apostle Paul wrote, everything that does not uphold those two commandments. Love thy God; love thy neighbor. If it’s not supporting that, what is the point?

So there’s my first proof. But that doesn’t quite hit the heart of the matter; there are plenty of people who preach the doctrine ‘Love the sinner, hate the sin,’ and in this manner avoid outright acts of violence towards any subgroup they disagree with, while at the same time telling them, basically, that their love is something God hates. That they are condemned as sinners – oh, of course we all are – but… they are, moreso, for something they didn’t choose.

Here, I will pause the sermon-type bits to make a short point that I find very difficult to talk about LGBTQ without mentioning. Often, the argument or debate or discussion quickly disintegrates into a snit-fight over whether homosexuality/bisexuality, etc. is something natural, or something chosen. I have one quick question to every single person who’s about to rush me with one finger upheld, pointing, condemning, or, most infuriatingly, holding up invented 'studies'. Look at your Significant Other. Your Better Half; your fiancé, fiancée, your wife, your husband, your lover, the one person who you want to spend your life with. Look at everything that makes you love them – if you will, an itemized list. (Note: Do not actually try to make an itemized list. It’ll take you a good few eternities, I assure you.)

Did you choose that? Did you choose her eyes that make you smile? Did you choose to have that little flutter in your chest every time he looks at you? Did you make a conscious choice, at some point, to first be attracted to that person, and then to fall in love with them? (...Or to fall in love with them and then find yourself blown away when you actually meet them face to face?) Somehow, I doubt it. So unless you’re about to tell me that you made the conscious decision to be attracted to girls with red hair, to really tall guys, to girls with dark eyes, to guys with green eyes, or to guys or girls at all, I don’t want to hear it. Nobody chooses who they fall in love with, okay? Moving on, now.

I'll pick this up later with a Part Two. But I'll summarize that Part Two now by saying that it is unbelievably hypocritical to blather on about homosexuality being a huge, incredible, horrible sin, to persecute and attack and marginalize the very humanity of couples, two people whose major crime seems to be loving one another, while ignoring the rest of Leviticus. And before you go on and point out that shrimp and unclean animals are allowed by Peter's vision, I will quote that passage: "What God hath made clean, call not thou unclean." God seems to have scattered people in all different molds. I'm pretty sure His intention was not to make some automatically more powerful than others, simply by dint of being born out of the majority. And before you put on airs about that passage applying to food, not people, and who do I think I am anyway, I will roll my eyes in advance, and point out that the same passage of Leviticus forbids women to leave their rooms while on their period, forbids men from touching them, or sitting where they have sat, and declares that if a man rapes a woman who is not betrothed, they must be married. (If she is betrothed, her family/fiance gets to kill the rapist! Fun times.) That passage was never specifically refuted either! (Unclean, unclean!)

Now I'm going to go beat my head against the wall until the overtired crazy goes away, and write that rest thingy later.

I should also add, as an aside... this is not meant to be patronizing. As I said, it's a letter to Christendom, explaining... well, why I think they're wrong. It could be argued that everything I've said here is heresy-- so be it. But I don't want anyone thinking this is a "Hey, gay dudes, lesbians, trans people! It's okay, you have my religion's permission to love, now!" It's more... a statement of belief-- I don't think love is condemned by my religion, or ever has been. I think we got something wrong, somewhere a long ways back.

Of Cities, and Unfolding Minds

2010-08-07T10:43:00.000-07:00

So I’m sitting in the top bunk of a nifty little bed in a hostel room, second floor, first living floor, and typing up a summary of… well. Honestly, I just wanted to write something. I’ve been missing it.

To my left, there’s a lovely view of a rooftop, and a wall. On the rooftop, there’s some kind of dark brown vent-pipe, and, if you lean, a gray lighter, a beer can, assorted seagull feathers and cigarettes and the like. The wall’s got some sort of triangle on it in black spray-paint, and if you lean far enough out, you can see a brick building, maybe four, five stories, and beyond it, sky and skyscrapers. In the hostel room itself, there’s two bunk-beds. Mine’s the top of the one on the far side of the wall, next to the window, and the other one is against the side wall, long from the door. There’s a longish mirror, and four plywood lockers, big enough for a duffle bag, which is all I really need. Oh, and a towel hook. That’s rather important.

My first roommate is an older woman named Kendra who travels the world doing… something. She doesn’t have a home, she says, and seems to enjoy it. My other roommate, who only arrived two nights ago, is a bit younger, maybe a few years older than me, named Kim, from Australia. She’s very cool, seems to spend most of her time traveling. I guess that’s what hostels are for, and when Rebecca finally goes traveling next summer (she’d better, anyway), she will enjoy the company, I think.

I was wondering if there was something wrong with me, as I did not seem to be completely overwhelmed by this city. I was expecting, what with the mountains, and the hills, and the trees, and the fountains, and the architecture (so crazy! so, so crazy!), to be just staring goggle-eyed all about, but somehow it just feels… comfortable. I like this city. I am not overwhelmed, I do not feel like a tiny, insignificant prawn lost in the shuffle of bigger, more important lives. Dwarfed by the mountains, and the trees, yes, but the streets are wide and the skies are big and there is water. I could spend some time here.

…I could spend a lot of time here.

Quite honestly, I would not mind living here for a while. And that is partly the awesome geography, and the topography, and the architecture, and… well, it’s also largely the fact that these streets I have wandered down, I have been wandering down them in very excellent company. A beautiful city is nice, but it is infinitely nicer to have someone who… well. Someone to appreciate it with?

We’ve passed the stage where we both mutter apologies when our hands brush up against each other. I’m rather glad for that. For all the mockery of Those Puritans who freak out about holding hands, it is actually rather a big step for someone who just isn’t a physical contact sort (though hugging? hugging is awesome). And last night we talked about mental illnesses, and minds, and… mine. And I kind of just talked and talked and talked, and told him all (well, summarized) the stuff in my head that I cringe from, and some of the stuff I’ve embraced, and the stuff that’s a blessing and the stuff that’s a curse and the voices of doubt and the voices of hate and the voices I love and the voices I’ve run from and all the things in my past I have bled over and bled myself over and been terrified to face for so, so long and he listened, and commented occasionally, and we walked through rapidly darkening streets and below bright lights very quickly up very steep hills and it was dark and a bit chilly and the breezes and my mind opening up to someone who I’ve known for five years and less than a week, simultaneously, and it felt…

Really, I don’t know.

Maybe that’s okay?

Dance

2010-06-23T19:56:00.000-07:00

It's an unscripted thing, something you've never seen before, and you want to possess it... to take it into your body, your mind, to bring it into your soul and get drunk on the rhythms therein. You're already body-drunk on the over-effects of the livingness of it, of the wild actions and the breathless spaces of perfect calm-- for no longer than a beat at a time. It almost hurts, the perfection.

You've been searching your whole life for something like it; you've climbed mountains and watched the rocks go tumbling past you, to a doom for any man. You've gone diving, seen the depths and the shallows alike, and all the wonders that play there, and you've seen the herons bowing over ponds, and the cranes in their rituals, and you've seen the eagles dive together, interlocked.

You've searched your whole life, and been everywhere, it seems. You've met, you've-- heard. It all makes sense, everything is made clear, and you are-- transcended.

It's over, just like that. And the man sitting next to you, lounging with one arm thrown carelessly over the desk, nods indifferently. He glances at his clipboard, the checklist, and makes a bit of a face.

"Yeah... I just don't think it's what we're looking for. Thanks anyway-- next!"

And just like that. Just like that, the lights go back on in your head, and the next dancer heads on up to the stage, tossing her hair coquettishly. You don't see where her predecessor went, in the darkness out of the spotlight, and the brief sound of her footsteps is lost almost immediately to the opening piano chords. The dance is trite, simple, but it's got a hypnotic sort of effect. The director nods approvingly, tapping his pen against the clipboard.

The dream is over, and the morning that life bestows you has stolen the last shreds from your mind, like a bead of dew, there and gone before the sun has risen from the haze in the East. The dream is over, and you return without a thought of reluctance or relish to the waking life.

Wordcloud from Wordle

2010-05-23T17:21:00.000-07:00

Unknown Caller and the Unknown Future

2010-04-20T20:54:00.000-07:00

Laying here, under this bridge, maybe it used to be a road, I've lost the capacity to understand these things, wondering, thinking, didn't I used to be able to follow a train to its conclusion, the railways didn't change, maybe I did,

Hear me, cease to speak that I may speak-- shush, now

Oh, it doesn't make sense, how did I get here, though? Not here, I remember finding this place in case it rains maybe I won't get as wet as if the streets weren't up there, above me with the cars going over them to places, other places, they go too fast, too loud, or they used to be but at night it's easier to hear and there aren't as many, but so things are quieter and the sky is brighter. No, wait. that's not right.

You know your name, so punch it in

Sold my soul for self-control, pushing for the devil's goal, not much more to reach for anymore. That was a stupid thought though, now there is less to reach for, just that broken bottle over there, but it won't look so good if I take it out of the light from the over over the bridge into the shades here even though I look better out of the light they said back then. No, not back then. Now. Near now. Yesterday or one of those days.

Hear me, cease to speak that I may speak

There was a reason why not to do this, except now it's just that I have no money and so it's been too long and I can feel things getting worse and is this what they warned me about? The plane ticket was supposed to not be me except it wasn't the plane ticket they warned me about it was the needle, I wasn't supposed to use the needle ever ever ever ever because things would be bad and I would be bad and friends would all go away or stop being friends or friendly or shewing himself themself itselves friendly

Password, you-- enter here; you know your name, so punch it in
Password-- you. Enter here
Password, you, enter here
password
you
enter here

This was originally about depth perception

2010-03-31T13:26:00.001-07:00

The skky is so three-dimensional, it's more complex than anything humans could make, except that it would probably be difficult to sculpt the sky anyway-- sculpt the sky, should be the goal of every philosophy, ever artist's dream: to sculpt the sky. It's a statement that could mean The Sky-- you change every aspect of life, to the extent that you have sculpted the way people look at everything, no one even looks at the sky the same way anymore, or you could take the easy way out and just sculpt the sky itself, or sculpt a copy of the sky, which makes more sense, potentially.

What you kind of have to wonder is what's up there in the sky, in all three dimensions and even the fourth, but the thing is there's so much to really contemplate even in the three dimensions we can perceive as humans that it's difficult to understan why people are always trying to find a fourth; what, is what we've got not good enough? I really think if you open your eyes to the world around you, to the absolutely limitless potential for shapes, static, kinetic, it's impossible not to be overwhelmed, and, perhaps, impossible to retain sanity-- which is probably why we can't, or don't, do it. Like whatever-it's-called, the eternity code or the eternity paradox or virus or the reality bug maybe? that essay that was all about how people would read this code-- and, of course, it's been confronted by literature of all kinds, in all methods-- and their minds would just shut down, because the sheer eternity of the thing would overload them. The debate, I believe, the major debate was over whether they had transcended reality into a state of pure bliss and omniscience, or whether they had just lost their mind completely, sanity wiped out-- but some people hypothesized that it all amounted to the same thing. Like the paradoxes which shut down computers, but the human brain... instead. The closest thing the author had said came was a sentence written in which a word was deleted, but the author let both the word and the deltion stand. Personally, I think if that's the best we can do, we might as well hand over the keys of reality to the birds-- ah, if only we had them.

If you sold the keys of reality, what price would they fetch, and what price would you want, and who exactly would want to buy such a thing, as though our own perceptions of reality were not enough, as if our own perceptions were too much, which, of course, they are, and that's why we can't even take those and we step out of them and we step into other perceptions either with drugs or omniscience which is shut off by sheer willpower or lack thereof because to know eternity is simply frightening as the lunatics know from their experiences with the great wonderful world of wild wonder eternity or something like that, it's like when you contemplate the sky and not just how far it goes-- limits and eternal stretching is the easy part, even when you think about the fact that the universe is (supposedly) expanding constantly, and perhaps even exponentially, but then you think about every shape that could be contained in that-- the abstract, the cubist, the natural, the sheer impossibility of it blows your mind simply because it is actually possible after all, the shapes are there-- we just don't see them because they're all the same, like if you connected every molecule of nitrogen with opaque or translucent lines and made them not transparent (except that they probably aren't, it's just that the atoms are mostly empty space, especially since the cloud of electrons is spread out and the molecules are so far apart because it's the nature of a gas-- if you compressed it to a state of solidity would it still be transparent? I think liquid nitrogen is opaque), and the shapes would utterly blow your mind, just as the shapes of clouds, except if we could perceive them in three dimensions, rather than the two which come with the lack of depth perception induced by seeing them from such a great distance, as is the natural state or so they tell us.

Maybe that's why we watch sunsets, because we can't bear the daylight sky, and it gives us such great pleasure to see it finally ending, and the imagination of our overworked minds can finally take a rest on the night sky and start contemplating stars, which are infinitely more complex than clouds unless you take eternity into account, at which point everything is equally simple and complex, and you spend hours just staring at a rock, because the rock is so interesting, infinitely more interesting than some strange philosophical doctrine (that sentence, by the way, was written that way partly because I tried to write it while Born In The USA started playing and the lyrics just carried over), even if that philosophy is about how everything is equally complex, because at some point every philosophy starts talking about actual people, and how you or they are supposed to behave, and after a while it just gets depressing-- you've got the idealists, the cynics, the Christians, the atheists, the existentialists and the nihilists (who claim, or are claimed by their critics, which makes it probably more true than the former, at least according to someone (possibly Gilbert Keith Chesterton) that they are merely the logical end of the existentialist philosophy-- though I must protest that existentialism only turns to nihilism if you're utterly cynical, which, of course, is half the point) and the optimists and the Marxists and the modernists and the postmodernists and now, you've got the pretentious sort of artists who look back at postmodernism as, somehow, not postmodern enough (or maybe just too postmodern, depending on the day of the week and trend), and turn out making things that are, honestly, just strange, which I always thought was part of the point of postmodernism (to be fair, that's only part of it-- strangeness in and of itself must be more than simply itself, or less, or only just, because if you are being strange for the sake of strange it's post-postmodernism, or maybe post-post-post-neomodernism, or neopostmodernism or something, but if you're being strange to prove that, say, life is strange, or life is not strange, or people are strange, or people are not strange but society is, then it's postmodernism, or sometimes just modernism, depending on your overall point, point of view, and whatever critic happens to be talking about your work), but I guess that's only if you really don't care what the critics think, unless you do.

Philosophy, Dualism, unlikely but interesting people

2010-03-22T23:48:00.000-07:00

Today, it seems, is a day for dualism. Well, yesterday was, I guess; it's now almost three in the morning of this new day, which I'll probably miss the first few hours of, sleeping. At least I won't miss much-- it's pouring rain right now, and will continue to do so until well after sunrise, I think. The only real hope is that it lets off before I have to go to work, and in enough time for me to get to the bank, too. That's another thing! When I can drive, I won't have to worry about scrambling up steep, muddy banks on high-speed roads with sharp curves and no sidewalks so I don't get run over! That, and I won't have to drag my work uniform around in that huge backpack anymore, which will be nice. I'm sick of that stupid thing. I look like a little kid, and I feel like one, and when my shift seems to always start at the same time all the little kids are getting out of school... Well.

Anyway, dualism. A friend was telling me today about a book of Bruce Lee's he picked up (it should be noted that, although many people see Bruce Lee as a great martial artist, or a great philosopher, he saw himself as a philosopher first-- at this point in the conversation I pointed out that a great martial artist must needs also be a philosopher, or at least that's always been my perception, and my friend agreed), and how he was talking about the Western and Eastern philosophies. The main point was that Bruce Lee took the same approach to philosophy that he always had with martial arts-- an approach he could take, having seen both sides of the coin-- which was that both had their merits, and rather than standing around arguing about which was better, you'd be better off studying both and taking what looked right.

And then I ran into this blog post/speech by Stephen Fry:

[After a long bit on self-help books, and sugar, and enterprise, which I almost entirely agreed with*]

Well, I count myself one of those suckers for at least 50% of the time. I love dumb action movies, and sentimental weepies. I love hamburgers smothered in sweet tangy sauce. I love toys and games and theme parks and RVs and spectacle and simple solutions. I love having my vulgar glands and cheap sensation receptors tweaked and tickled. I love believing in promises of a brighter future. I love the idea that training myself to breathe only through my nose or to chew my food 48 times before swallowing will make me thinner, less stressed and sleep better or whatever the latest fad might be. I love the idea that five simple mantras chanted twice a day might help me concentrate, make love more satisfyingly and become richer or that by following Jesus or Anthony Robbins will make me rich and happy.

But for the rest of the time I want the truth. I want it unsweetened. I want to wash my mouth free of all sweeteners. I want to test all claims and statements on the anvil of experience or by empirical double blind randomised cohorts according to best scientific practice. I want to doubt, to experience, to think, to challenge and to scoff. I want art and literature and cinema and music that rejects easy pappy, poppy formulae and which reflects the truth of experience and all the ambiguities and complexities of existence. I want not sweet but bitter and sour and salt. I want realism not idealism. I want facts not fancies. I want imagination not wishing upon a star. I want learning, language and literature not philistinism, fantasy and infantilism.

First GK Chesterton, then Bruce Lee, now Stephen Fry. Maybe instead of going to school, I'll just spend the next ten years hiding out in a library, occasionally coming out to climb trees once a week or something.

*I don't know what it is that bothers me so much about books like How To Win Friends And Influence People. Maybe it's pride-- the idea that I somehow need -help- to "win friends" No! No, the idea that friends are something to be won! and "influence people." You see, I damn well -know- how to make friends. I just don't care enough about most people to make the effort. ~~Ye gods, that sounds awful.~~ What I mean is, if someone needs help, I will by all means help them out if it is in my power to do so. I will not go party with them, nor will I make small talk, nor will I giggle at their stupid jokes, nor will I spare them long rambling verbal essays on philosophy if we are in proximity. I don't want to win friends. I want to be friends with the people who I care about, and the rest of the world can go fuck off.

DISCLAIMER: It's three in the morning. If I made this speech to the above-mentioned Bruce Lee fan, musician, and close friend, he would probably smack me upside the head and point out all the problems with this footnote and all it implies and outright states. But it is late/early, and my aqueous humor hurts, and I don't care.

Talkin' 'Bout My (nameless) Generation

2010-03-14T23:15:00.000-07:00

Friend: You’re from Generation X, right?
Me: No, that’s my older sister’s generation. My generation… my generation has no name.
Friend: That is an excellent song title. You should write that song.
Me: Heh. I’ve been thinking about it for a while – it is, isn’t it?
Friend: Yes. And you are going to write it.
Me: …I am?
Friend: Yes. Tonight.
Me: …Okay.

I didn’t finish the song in one night; I started writing concepts in a bookstore café, and when I picked up my guitar that night the chords felt right, and the notes came easy, and the melody and harmony just clicked, which it never has before, but the lyrics were absolute shit, and I knew it as I was writing them, and didn’t let it bother me because I needed the songwriting practice, musically speaking. I’ve begun again this night, sans guitar (though I believe a guitar would help, I’ve no desire to wake my family, as it is currently two o’clock in the morning), and it’s… better. It’s a rough draft, instead of, well, shit.

Here’s what I’d written ahead of time; I’m typing it up here to get me past the block I’m on right now.

I’m supposed to be writing a song, My Generation Has No Name. I’ve thought about that concept so many times, it’s strange to be thinking the actual… song. And… it’s true, you know. Our generation is undefined, the unknown value that could shape the equation and, consequently, the world. Heh. We’ve got rap, and synth-pop, and death/metal/gore/scream (etc)-core, and a bit of rock, even. We’ve got a pretty strong Indie crowd. We’ve got punks, and grinning cynics, and too many of us have come onto the scene pre-destined, defined to our last little trait – our personality as good as owned by the media. When will culture start charging by the soul?

~~Destiny in our control / when will you begin to charge us / by the soul?~~ (Idea tho’)
These frozen clocks all look the same
my generation has no name

CONCEPTS
culture (moves on)
potential (infinite)
implied in the name [of the song] is a certain formlessness; we are allowing the world to shape us, while our voices become hollow(s) to echo, despite their boundless range – our generation has no name.

Aha, I can be as patriotic as I damn well want to be, and that includes toward my generation. I do believe in potential, and I do believe that every generation gets a chance to change the world, and we are wasting ours.

Stories, etc.

2010-03-09T19:12:00.000-08:00

To date, I have begun stories about a man, an old general who tried to conquer the world and was sentenced, by those who stopped him – after much bloodshed, pain, heartache, and loss – to be eternally imprisoned in a stone tower, which would move every day from place to place, at random, throughout that world, so that his followers (for even after all that he had done, there were those who wanted to go on) could never find and rescue him, and he created a companion in his mind, out of regret for all the life he’d lost and wasted and spilled on barren wasteland, a wraith of the innocence left in him, a hallucination; an old god who keeps watch over a tiny eldritch monster which lives in the bottom of a bottomless pot of soup; a guitarist who accidentally goes wandering into another world, where dreams are watched by the servants of the king there, to keep them from the daemons who seek to conquer all; a man who is cursed to die a thousand thousand deaths, and each time he wakes there is some new horror he must face, for all of eternity. I have finished none of the above, and I don’t know why.

I’m angry, and lonely, and hurt, and mostly I don’t know why. I used to really like my job, but lately work in general bothers me – I don’t mind working. I don’t mind coming home tired, and sore, late, I don’t mind dealing with people (mostly), I don’t mind doing dirty work. What gets to me is when there’s politics. When it’s tough to do my job because the boss needs to keep this or that person happy, when I can’t get things done because they need to be done by this person only, for some stupid obscure reason, when things need to be super-professional because we’re trying to impress someone higher-up-the-chain, and I want to say “Are you fucking kidding me? I just dug through three different garbage cans looking for a catalogue I threw out too early, the both of us swear like sailors when we’re working on something particularly hard, when it’s raining I come into work soaked and when it’s snowing I come into work frosted over, you barely ever wear a uniform because it’s so cold in here three layers of fleece isn’t even enough (for you, anyway, personally I couldn’t care less about the cold), there’s three different handwritings on the smaller bags because we all take turns making them up, and this business works fine because everyone who works here cares about it (I think…), and because you’re damned good at what you do, and everything works, even if it isn’t clean enough to eat off of (which, mostly, it is). Who gives a shit if my hair is frizzy as hell? I wear a hat when you tell me to… why does it matter that everything I did last night besides the drawer was off the clock? Nobody was around. The drawer comes out even nine times out of ten, or more, and customers rarely leave unsatisfied. When I tell people stuff about birds, I’m helping them. I like doing that. I… just don’t. Get it.

I don’t really care about money. This, I’ve been told, is a failing. I don’t need a lot of stuff in my life, most of the stuff I like best is beat-up and old, and as long as I have clothes on my back and enough to eat, I’m fine. Most people either don’t understand that or don’t believe it. I don’t understand them. I don’t understand why it’s okay to lie, cheat, fuck people over, as long as you’re getting paid enough, but if you’re playing guitar in the street you damn well better be collecting. I don’t understand why it’s good form to put change in your hat so it looks like you’re making money already. Will people only give to someone they think others have given to? I don’t understand why crack whores are despicable, but Artists doing crack at Parties are glorious.

I hate this life, and I think one of these days I’ll just disappear, and in retrospect, my deepest apologies to any of you whom I abandoned in the doing thereof. I hope you understand.

The Untouched, Untouchable, Intangible HORIZON

2010-03-01T18:36:00.000-08:00

I had to take the dove feather out of my notebook to paint it.

This is what the back looks like now:

What I'm Looking For

2010-02-24T14:03:00.000-08:00

I can’t help but feel that if I just ran the hell away from here, my life would be okay. If I buy a plane ticket tomorrow for Death Valley, and just walk, take nothing with me, just… go. I feel like my life’s been building up to this. I feel like somewhere behind this padlocked skull, there’s momentum building, there’s a coiled spring, waiting to launch me into another life, another reality, I can’t help but realize that it’s probably all a symptom, but at the same time…

What if I did?

Tomorrow. If I got off work tomorrow, bought a plane ticket, and mailed my phone and a letter of thanks and apology to the three people keeping me sane right now, if I disappeared like a puff of smoke into the wind, if I never came back…

I keep trying to work on these stories. They’re all half-finished, they all look bleaker and bleaker the harder I try to fix them. Nothing seems to fit, nothing seems to matter, I can’t think straight and my brain is twisted into knots, nothing fits or works or sounds right and just… I don’t know whether it’s me, or my environment, or just… I don’t know. I haven’t mailed my college application off yet. I don’t know why. I finished it a week ago.

I’m not stupid, or naïve, I like to think. I like to think I’ve washed all the romanticism out of my head with cynicism, and then replaced the cynicism with idealism, and then watered that down with reality and beautifully gray skies. The thing is, it’s a Romantic’s dream, running away. Buying a spontaneous plane ticket to Death Valley? That’s a castle in the air, man. But, oh, God, I want it.

I want to get the hell out of here, to pack my guitar and my laptop and a bunch of notebooks, and just go. And to wander, across deserts, and through old, deserted towns, and bustling cities, and grasslands, and fields, and forests, to just wander, to fast and meditate and find what I’m looking for, to hear more than the voices in my head, to meet people with odd and strange viewpoints, and learn from people who had no teachers, to sing in places where the sky touches the ground, to find the soft places between the worlds, to live.

And someday, I want to stumble back into town, and see my friends again, and share adventures, and hear all about how they took their potential and their grand dreams and spirits and souls and lives and did something amazing, about how they realized all of their dreams, and all of their potential, and how they changed the world, and how they’re big, real, more awesome than ever now, and how they fill the world around them. And I’ll tell them stories about how I saw the eagles freefalling with their talons locked, and I climbed down the Grand Canyon wall, and crossed whitewater rapids on foot, and where I finally met Coyote and here’s the scar I got from where he tricked me into picking up a hot coal, and what it looks like to see the sun set over the Edge of the Very World, and being in places where it rains all the time and where it never rains, and just, just and then… and then I can settle down, maybe, and things will be easier to understand, or maybe I’ll just turn back around and go out again, and and and I don’t even know.

Castles in the air. If you jump for them, you more often than not fall back to Earth and break your spine, but there’s always the off chance you’ll catch onto something on the way.

To A Friend,

2010-02-23T22:52:00.000-08:00

I keep seeing your picture on Facebook, and it makes me think, and remember, and smile a little, but mostly just think. And miss you. We didn’t even really know each other all that well, we were from two separate years and mostly just had Band and insanity in common, and by insanity… well, you kind of outstrip me there, which is probably something you’d be proud of. Maybe. I don’t know. I just remember you telling me about your girlfriend of a very long time, and a bunch of stuff that I probably shouldn’t say here. I didn’t know what to say. It’s probably a good thing you never knew I had kind of a crush on you for a while, there. But then, I basically had a crush on every guy who stood out, for at least a week. I blame public schools for that. At least those stupid things went away.

But I still miss you. There was also the time we tried to break into the locked piano in the auditorium so you could satisfy the craving you had to play piano that day, and it was pitch black in there, so I held my cellphone like a light so you could try and pick the lock on the cover, but we never got anywhere. And when we came out of the auditorium, we were both laughing because we’d just realized how sketchy it looked that we were sneaking into a dark auditorium alone together during lunch, and because that was after (or before? it’s all pretty cloudy now) the whole stupid fucking hormone thing, it was pretty hilarious. There are not a lot of guys who I would enjoy trying to break into a piano with, probably because most guys wouldn’t try to break into a piano, at least not with the sole intention of playing it. Shock—horror.

The more I think about you, the more I miss you, and this is a really bad habit to get into, especially since it’s almost two in the morning and I have to work tomorrow. It’s been a really long time since we saw each other – more than two years, at a guess. Or at least more than one year. Anyway. I miss you. I hope your life is going really well, because as a person, and whether you believe this or not, you deserve it. Rock on, man.

What Power Struggle?

2010-02-20T20:44:00.001-08:00

really though i never really had a reason to enter the fray, things just seemed to work this way, and i am just about as unchanging as Coyote hisdamnself. man, you might bring out the wild howling, or the manic laughter, or the omnivorous glutton, or the hunted predator, you might be able to twist the image a little, but it's still the same tufted tail, the same wild eyes, the same twisted soul. unlike Coyote, i could apologize, but i don't think i will. because i wasn't made to fit a bastion of order. man was not made for the Sabbath, but vice versa. (sentences like that are part of why i love my language so much. geez, only you, English. only you.) i am crazy because that's what i am. yes, i will try to handle it, i will try to keep things a little bit safe, and i will damn well apologize with every ounce of sincerity in my heart when the fucked-up parts of me go too far and i hurt someone, but... this is what it is, man. i am what i am.

Disclaimer:

2010-02-17T13:30:00.000-08:00

Now, I may have a messiah complex as big as Bono's.

but.

But I believe, somewhere between skin and soul, I believe that I have a calling, that God put me here to do something. I believe that I am supposed to be out there helping fix this world. I believe that I can change the world.

Someday, slavery will be gone from every continent. Someday, no one will die of mosquito bites, of a disease we cured over a century ago. Someday, people will not starve in a world of plenty, someday children will not be murdered for the color of their skin, someday enough people will care, someday this kind of shit won't happen anymore.

I believe that I was given this life for a reason, and if I don't work on that I will have wasted this gift. I believe, somewhere inside of me, that I was given the dreams and visions that come to me for a reason, and that through Christ I can do all things, and also that it is distinctly possible that Coyote was sent to help me, or decided to help me, and I have faith that this is not blasphemy, that my ancestors believed it for a reason, and that there is behind me a Trickster who will lend me his strength if I ask him.

As I thought this on the way home, my mind immediately spiraled off into the mythic dimension, and before more than a few seconds had passed I had to shut off the train of thought concerning Coyote, because it would lead me to... well, vision over visibility. An illusion, a trick. But mark my words.

This will not stand. There is a day coming when this world will be at peace, when love will triumph hate and bitterness, when despair will be washed away. This world will change.

Whatever is not an expression of apathy, it's the eye of the storm.

2010-02-16T19:49:00.000-08:00

To Whom It May Concern, and with all due respect,

My attitude is not defined by the speech-pattern of apathetic dismissal, "Whatever."

My attitude is defined by the final word with which I choose to leave your company, and most people's-- that is to say, "Peace." Which is, in case you didn't know, a shortened form of the full farewell, which is to say, "Peace be with you."

Peace be with you. Peace unto you, and your loved ones, and peace be unto this world, this torn and scarred world, this home of our fragile human race, which is within our power to make a heaven or a hell.

My attitude is in the songs I sing along roads and under echoing bridges and to the open night sky, songs like Sunday Bloody Sunday, songs that fan the flames of my soul, lyrics that grip my heart in a vise. My attitude is in the lines "Where you live should not decide / Whether you live or whether you die" because that is where my passion lies.

I say things like "Whatever," I shrug, I grin and laugh it off often, because my mind is occupied with stories, with dreams, with love and hope and fire and pain and longing, and whether it's the date or the initials that come first on an invoice doesn't even scratch the surface of any of those things. I won't say I couldn't care less, because on some level I do care-- I shrug it off because the mistake's been made, and file away the information for next time. Whether I remember it or not depends on other factors.

Someday, I won't have to walk into a store, pick up an object, and wonder if it was made by hired workers or forced slavery. Someday, enough people will care, enough people will care and think and speak and work, and slavery will be eradicated. Someday, children will stop dying from diseases cured centuries in the past, and people will care as much for the starving continents away as the starving in the slums of the next city over. Someday, this world will cease to be a hell for most of the people in it.

I repeat this to myself at least once a day. I have to. I force myself to believe it as I speak it, to see it in my mind, a world without a hell that could so easily be prevented, because if I start to believe that it won't happen, it hurts, so bad I want to cry.

When I put the earbuds back in my pocket, and I shake the snow or the dust or the rainwater off of my shoes and jacket and walk in, I shake off the passion and fury and sorrow that wars within me, because if I didn't have walls to put it up behind, it would consume me. I'd be impossible to put up with-- more than I already am, that is. But it doesn't go away. Know that. It doesn't go away ever, and I never stop caring, and I am never, ever apathetic. I'm just distant.

Peace, dude.

It's Devoid of Feel

2010-02-03T20:25:00.000-08:00

"What do you see out your window today?"

Byron frowns pensively and twitches the curtain back. "There's a flock of birds," he said. "They're all huge, built like albatrosses, smoke-blue. Like a flock, they're squabbling over motes of light in the air around them."

Damien smiled. "Is that all?"

"No -- the sky is dusky red, like the end of a sunset, around them. They're flying all around, without stopping, like hummingbirds, because there's no ground to land on."

"How many are there, Byron?"

He shrugs, watching them. "I don't know -- hundreds, it looks like. I wonder where we are."

"Look down, then -- can you see the ground?"

"It looks like we're up too high for a ground or a horizon to be visible."

Then Byron closes the window curtain again, and sits back in his chair. He looks over at Damien, who lies on his back on the thick rug. If there'd been a fireplace at the front of the scene, rather than a blank stone wall, it would've looked cozy. He was youngish, unsure of his exact age, and had a shock of black hair, which he kept in a ponytail. Sometimes, Byron wondered if he'd ever been young like that. It didn't seem likely.

"Byron, I'm not hungry." Byron glances at him. "I really wish I was."

The older man snorts. "All the physical sensations in the world to choose from, and you wish for hunger?"

Breaking A Pattern

2010-02-01T10:38:00.000-08:00

The other day I was looking back over this blog, and I realized that it is a very strange juxtaposition, between ramblings about friends, whining about life, and complete insanity. Or partial insanity, anyway. I have these moments – moments that last weeks – where I wonder if I’m really insane, if I’m just normal and milking the quirks, if that twitch in my neck is something I could control if I really wanted to (and I know I could, it’s just difficult and requires a lot of concentration), if I’m really insane or just a little weird. It’s not normal to have the sudden desire to leap into traffic, every time you walk down a busy street; it’s not normal to go wandering the streets at night, because you get restless; it’s not normal to think or act or speak the way I do. But I wonder, I wonder if I’m really insane or just a little odd. My friends… well, I don’t know.

I have to remind myself every so often that the hallucinations were there. I have to remind myself that there have been times when I’ve broken into a run on the street, unable to look back because there was Something there behind me. I have to remind myself that hearing cats behind me all the time when there are, in fact, no cats in the vicinity, is insane. I have to try and remember that it’s not just abnormal to always be warding off suspicions that your friends are spying on you, it’s paranoia. Insanity. I have paranoid schizophrenia, and I need to remember that just because I have good days, just because it’s a mild thing right now, doesn’t mean it’s not there.

The worst thing might actually be the periods of depression that come along. I have to remember that this is a symptom of the illness, and to fight it. Lying in bed without the motivation to get up is not just being lazy, it’s allowing myself to be that way. I have to fight to find the inspiration to write, and draw, and think, and not just lay about, which I’m afraid that I’ll do without the push, inner or outer. I still remember my mother holing up in her room for days, not eating or talking to any of us, just laying around praying and crying, and she had five kids and it didn’t matter because she couldn’t see past the haze. I have a life to live – I have a job, two jobs now if this works out, and stories to write, and school to go to, even if it is community. I can’t afford to let the haze of insanity hold me down here.

And, on that note, I’m off to my first day!

Coyote's Wings

2010-01-27T11:06:00.000-08:00

Long ago, when all the spirits that we know as animal spoke, and were brothers, Coyote and Eagle were friends, and they would hunt together, Coyote running over the ground and Eagle sighting prey from far up on the winds. Now, Eagle soared over the mountains, and because he was so closed to the Sun, he could be warm even in the winter, because in those days the Sun was very close, and even slept in the mountains at night. But Eagle felt bad for his brother Coyote, who ran over the ground, even in the winter, where the Sun could not reach down through the trees, because of their thick needles and leaves – back then, even the leafy trees grew all year round.

So Eagle said to Coyote, “Brother, aren’t you cold down there, where the Sun cannot reach? You’d better come up here with me, and fly over the trees.”

But Coyote is very proud and stubborn, and he only laughed at Eagle. “I feel just fine, brother! I have thick fur and the cold does not bother me at all.”

Eagle continued to ask his brother, each time they went out hunting, if he would not feel better up on the wind, where it was warm under the Sun. And each time, Coyote would laugh and tell Eagle to focus on his own tasks, and let Coyote worry about the ground – he was not cold, under his thick fur.

One day, Eagle and Coyote were out hunting, and they came across the Heron, who was weeping in his home by the lake, which had not yet frozen over.

“Why are you weeping, Heron?” asked Eagle, as he landed on the tree above. “It is a beautiful day, and there are plenty of fish for both of us.” It was only them, for that moment, as Coyote could not run as fast as Eagle could fly, and he was still catching up.

Heron looked up at Eagle sadly, and said “Oh, Eagle, I am weeping because I cannot catch any fish with these wings!” Back then, Heron had very dark, heavy wings, which could carry him very high but looked out of place against his light body. “They are so heavy and dark that the fish always see my silhouette and scatter before I can get to them! I cannot catch fish anymore, and I am afraid that my family will starve.”

Eagle pondered this for a moment, because he was very wise, and he saw a solution. “Heron,” he said, “What if someone were to take your wings? You could catch fish as the men do, by stabbing with your beak from the shores, and the fish would not see your wings.”

“That is a great idea, Eagle!” Heron was overjoyed, and he did a dance with his wings – the dance that all herons do, now. “But who will you give them to? They are very big and dark, and very powerful.”

“I will give them to Coyote, so that he does not have to run over the cold ground when we are hunting together,” said Eagle.

Heron clapped his beak. “Eagle, are you sure that is a good idea? Coyote can be very foolish, and he might do something stupid with these wings and hurt himself, or you.” But Eagle did not believe him, and as soon as Heron had shrugged off his wings and waded away, Coyote came running up.

“Brother!” he cried, his ears perked. “Why are we all here so still, when the day is beautiful and there is hunting to be done?” He saw the wings then, floating in the water, and stopped short. “What are those there for? Aren’t those Heron’s wings?”

Eagle stretched his own wings and smiled. “Heron doesn’t want his wings anymore,” he said. “They are yours, if you want them.” For he knew that for all Coyote’s pride in his legs and his own warm fur, he was very curious.

Coyote pretended to be disinterested in the wings, but secretly, he was immediately filled with joy at the thought of flying high, and being able to soar with Eagle above the trees. He sniffed at the big, dark wings, and then said “Oh, well, I may as well take them – I wouldn’t want them to go to waste!”

As he put them on, Eagle said from his tree branch, “Just be careful, Coyote. They are very powerful wings, and dangerous if you are not careful with them.”

“I am always careful!” Coyote was never careful, but he thought he was. He immediately took off, flying in circles over the lake and laughing for joy. Eagle was pleased at his brother’s happiness, and they went back to hunting together.

But it had not been very long when Coyote began to try to do tricks, as he had seen Eagle do with his mate. He flew straight downwards, and then straight upwards, and he began to fly with his eyes closed, despite all of Eagle’s warnings. “I am Coyote!” he cried. “I will do tricks that no bird has ever done!” And he continued to fly with his eyes closed, turning around and around.

Eagle cried warnings after him, trying to slow him down, but Coyote continued to fly until he flew straight into the Sun, knocking her out of her path. The bright heat of the Sun singed the wings to the white color they are today, and Sun fled, for she was afraid of Coyote pulling her down to the Earth. As she fled, the trees turned yellow, and then red, as the heat left them, and all their leaves dropped off. Eagle came and pulled Coyote away from the Sun by his wings, almost detaching them, and carried his brother back to land in his claws.

Coyote was still unconscious when Eagle took the wings back off of him and brought them over to Heron, who was happily stabbing his meals in the lake. “Heron,” he said, “You were right. Coyote flew into the Sun with your wings, and damaged them. Do you want them back? They are not so dark anymore, and you will be able to catch fish without scaring them.

And so Heron did his dance with his wings, as all Herons do now, and Eagle went back to hunting on the wind alone, while Coyote went back to running over land. To this day they share their kills, and Coyote runs over the ground, warm in his thick fur, while Eagle soars over the wind, and Eagle does the wise thing and does not offer Coyote power anymore, and Coyote is crazy and cheers Eagle up with his tricks.

2010-01-24T01:20:00.001-08:00

It feels too cold to walk outside right now. I don’t know why – it’s only seventeen degrees, I’ve walked in colder. Maybe I don’t want it bad enough, maybe I’ve been sitting here, inert, for too long, maybe it doesn’t matter. It’s cold, and I’m lonely, and Mohan hasn’t talked to me in ages and I haven’t talked to him, but I’ve been hearing the kittens, for whatever that’s worth. Ever heard a cat meow from a few feet behind you, looked around, and seen your own cat sleeping peacefully right under your chair? Or vice versa, sometimes. It’s a little unnerving. It helps that the kittens (I know they must be full grown by now, but I still think of them as The Kittens) have a deeper pitch, and aren’t as vibrato in voice.

Walking home from work today, I had this craving for someone I haven’t seen in a while. I wanted to talk to him, hold his hand, walk together and talk and understand him. I wanted company. Want. I want company. I want someone to hug, and I want someone to talk to and care about and kiss in the dark when we’re alone and it’s the magic of the night that lights up your soul and I want adventure and love, and love, and it… just… hurts.

Damn, I’m whiny this fine evening. That’s why I go walk, when things get lonely. I find things to focus on that aren’t life, and it’s a little easier to take. Ah, well. Took some pictures, and now I’m just going to read Sandman and fall asleep. Maybe things will be better in the morning.

The -real- reason to run away.

2010-01-17T09:54:00.000-08:00

I think I need to run away and find the part of me that makes up stories again. Just leave, leave this whole town, house, state, region, life, find some place that’s going to be new and fresh and what I’m looking for. I want to be a storyteller again. Where did my soul go? The sky is grey, featureless, unshining, unshadowed, unsmiling like a blank slate, but I’ve had enough, I’m ready to soar, I’m ready to leave contrails of fire and a comet’s trail and make you think so hard your head explodes. Hell yes.

My best friend gave me an endless scene for Christmas/New Year’s/whatever we’re calling it, she’s Jewish and I’m Christian and our other friend is Agnostic/indescribable, so I’m really unsure, but it hardly matters. I’m ready to dive into another world, make things stop making sense, start letting the world run away with me again. We’ll see.

I’ve been having dreams, by the way. Disturbing dreams. The night before last, I dreamed that my dad gave me a plate of eggs, and I got halfway through and he pointed out that I’d also consumed half a slice of ham, and I was horrified partly because that’s meat, I ate it, why did you give me a plate with meat on it, and partly because I hadn’t even noticed, or maybe my subconscious had and had kept eating anyway, and now I’m freaked out because I don’t know what my subconscious is trying to say, but I woke up with a really gross feeling, like… unclean, and now I want to go vegan more than ever. Last night I dreamed my dad and I had a huge fight about David – this came on the heels of a strange and beautiful dream in which I took this friend to prom, despite her not being bi or anything, and the fact that I not only am straight, but also have never had a crush on her. I drove a Bentley. I don’t know what that means. I also was about as masculine as I’ve ever been, and I don’t know what that means either.

Discovery, and a journey with no destination is still a journey worth making.

2010-01-12T17:26:00.000-08:00

Well, I started writing something full of self-pity, and anguish or angst, and this torn, hurt, lost feeling that’s been growing inside of me, like a little jagged sword-blade, slowly ripping the hole wider, little by little as the months pass. That’s a better description than listing the reasons and environmental stress, like the first post did. Why I’m here… well, it matters, but that’s not what it’s about, really. It’s about getting out, or at least living with the world I’m in.

The fact is… mostly, I want to leave. I want to take my guitar, my laptop, and my cat, and just go… away. Somewhere. I can’t – I have no car, no money (at least, not enough to get away), little momentum – just the urge to go. But there I am again, complaining. Basically, today I sang a song for a friend, and he seemed to like it, and he showed me a bunch of cool stuff on the guitar and now I’ve got even more to do to take my mind off of all this crap, so… yeah.

I wrote this walking to see a friend, when I stopped to have a drink at Starbucks: “The impossible things we see by the side of the road – ghosts of fallen leaves, shadows left on the pavement, like a footprint; bubbles rising from the solid ground beneath a puddle; your smile, on a bit of jagged glass, there and gone like a sunbeam’s flash;”

Later I made it into a song.

Impossible things
found by the roadside (wayside?)
starlight, trapped in frost,
all crystal, distant,
cold as the fire that sparked it,
bright as a hole in the sky,
impossible, oh, impossible things
glass, soft as a candle,
shifting in the winds
like a sea of cattails,
singing beneath the streetlights,
oh, impossible, oh—
and a smile in your eyes,
brighter than sun and star and hellfire,
like the rhythm in your voice,
oh, those long days
impossible,
impossible things
we find on our journeys,
impossible things
the gems in the coal mine,
rainclouds in the desert,
oh, impossible—
the songs you sing,
the broken wing of a soaring bird
oh, oh, oh…
impossible things, found by the wayside
impossible, ohhh… impossible

I dunno. Maybe it’s crap. I kinda like it, though, and if I can find a good guitar part, I’ll try and make it a song worth singing.

So I’m still here. There’s still roads I haven’t walked, there’s still trees I haven’t climbed, still trails to hike and paths to take and songs to sing and stories to write and so, so many things to discover. I’m tired of going nowhere. Maybe I’m not looking at this the right way. I can whine and cry about still being in this town, this state, this ugly little nowhere and this house all I want, but there’s so much that I haven’t done, it seems useless to just complain. I think I’ll start taking new roads, when I’m not working. Not really Going Somewhere doesn’t mean I have to be going nowhere.

Because this world is worth it.

2010-01-04T07:11:00.000-08:00

This feels ego-centric even as I start to write it, but I think I'll do it anyway.

I pray I never have the sense to bow my head against the wind; I pray for the strength to be able to laugh at myself; I pray that I never lose touch with idealism, and that I always stay grounded in reality.

Yeah, self-centered as hell. But ya know what? I mean it. It's not that I don't want to change, it's that I don't want to be anyone else. I don't want to turn into a bitter, angry person. Or even a bitter happy person, actually, or even a cheerful cynic. I've done that before, and it's not worth it. There's so much out there! There's so much emotion, so much love, so much beauty and art and potential, and I don't want to go through life ignoring it, or worse, mocking it. I -did- the whole "This world sucks, why bother" thing, and then I heard a song, and things changed.

One love, one blood
One life, you got to do what you should.

I was lonely, and angry, and torn up inside, I was laughing at the world and screaming at myself, I was lying awake at night dreaming of an end to all the pain, I couldn't stop moving and I wasn't going anywhere, and then one day I heard a song, and I let the words and the chords sink in, and I almost cried there on the street, walking home in the rain, and I started thinking. And searching, and trying, and caring and now... now I'm awake walking, at night, kneeling in woods and taking streets in the vague hope they won't be dead ends. I'm writing, I'm singing, I'm praying, I'm loving and learning and it still doesn't feel like enough, I still haven't found what I'm looking for--

but it's better than nothing.

Cynicism is worse than nothing. Cynicism is apathy, despair, and... well, apathy and despair under a guise of laughter. I think it's less painful than apathy and despair, but certainly not less destructive. I... rely on it too much, still. It's hard not to, in a way, because it's easier to just laugh at things, to say "I'm above that shit" and stop caring. You care, you open yourself up to hurt.

Anyway.

I want to be restless and wild and passionate, I don't want to settle, I don't want to stop caring, I don't want to stop wanting to fix this world. No, one person can't fix the world, yes, people are constantly trying and there's still tons of shit out there. But you know what? I'd rather go down fighting. I'd rather spend the rest of my life striving and pushing and shouting and caring and hurting than shrug it off, laugh it off, and sit back to watch things fail. I believe this world can be a better place, people can change, and with that in mind I would rather die than sit here and smirk.

This world sucks. Let's do something about it.

Of snow, forgiveness, new beginnings to eternal cycles.

2010-01-01T20:35:00.000-08:00

This night, I walked out into the air, clear and cold, and went to a quiet place, a clearing in a wood, covered in snow and quiet. And I knelt, there, and prayed for forgiveness for all I’ve done this year, all I’ve thought, all I’ve felt, all I’ve said with malice in my heart. There’s a lot of it. I prayed to be forgiven for all that I am, underneath the grin and laughter, all that I am instead of what I could, should be. And I said that this year, I will do better. And I meant it, and still do.

And then I stood beneath the lights, walking away from that quiet place, as snow began to fall from the sky in little, whirling, crystals, and I caught them on my sleeve and marveled at their beauty, their crystalline perfection, and I stood with my head thrown back to the sky and watched a dance older than any can say, a new thing each time it begins, and I laughed, and spun, and caught the sweetest of life’s moments one at a time on my tongue.

This is the same planet as it was yesterday, as it always has been, and this sky is the same as it has been, the stars still shine as they have always, the snow still falls the same way, but this is a new snow, it is a new night, it is a new year and a new life, and I am forgiven, and I will start anew.

New beats, repeats, endings and beginnings--

2009-12-31T15:46:00.000-08:00

So it's New Year's Eve, and I just went on facebook and friended a guy I met last night who I really wanted to get to know. Today and yesterday I looked at a handful of choices for food and chose vegan ones. Last night and the night before I was up until about two in the morning with friends... but that's less to the point, I guess.

Look, my point is this. It's a new year. I don't believe in living by the arbitrary lines of a calendar, but it's a new year, all the same. By the end of this year, I will be full-on vegan. I will be in college, one way or another. I will have finished at least one novel, and will be writing every single day, outside of college stuff. I will be able to sing and play guitar, and well. That's just... what's going to happen. Will I be happy? That remains to be seen. But I'm not going to sit around and let life just happen around me anymore.

2010 will be a year of grace, mercy, forgiveness; 2010 will be a year of faith, of confidence and spirituality; 2010 will be the year I stop existing and start living.

An Open Letter: it needed to be said (true or not).

2009-12-28T21:04:00.000-08:00

look, i'm never going to live up to your expectations. i'm sorry, really and truly i am, because i want to, so much. i want to be fucking perfect, and i'm never going to be and it's not worth your time to keep trying like this. it's just... not. give the fuck up. i'm sorry. i wish you had someone worthy of caring to hang out with, someone who you could teach and help and someone who would actually listen and work hard to fulfill dreams and someone with as much drive as potential. and i know it's a cop-out. everything i've said, everything i've written, every thought i've had for the past two years has been a cop-out, a reason why i can't, or think i can't. and i'm so, so sorry, because i let you down and let you down and let you down, and then i turn around and get upset when you're human, too. i expect my friends to be superhuman somehow, even though i'm the biggest fuckup in the tri-state area. and then... just... i don't know what. I'M FUCKING SORRY. and that's not good enough, it never will be, what i need to do is get off my ass and fix the mistakes, make it better, live up to the very least of my potential and i'm so sorry, because it doesn't look like i ever will. i can't even promise you i'll try, because i know i'll fall apart again when depression kicks in and this little spurt of motivation and inspiration goes away. you deserve better friends than i could be... a better friend, i guess? but plural. anyway. i'm sorry. i guess there's no way to end this thing without a... resolution, of some kind. so i will try. i honestly will try to be better, and i will listen to what you're saying and heed it, and not fuck up so much. that's what i want to do. listen, heed, follow-- all the other stuff is just what i'll work on in the meantime. but i want to be a better friend, someone who's reliable and not... shitty to be around. so yeah. i'll fix it. i can't promise you i'll ever be as good as any one of my friends deserves, but i'll get better. coyote or not, i can be a better human.

It made sense in my head.

2009-12-03T20:10:00.000-08:00

Good grief, is it really necessary to psycho-analyze every damn quirk in this twisted little brain? Because it's getting annoying. And a little disturbing. Things don't look right when you look at them closely.

I know I have some weird kind of approval complex. It probably, if I look for the most sensible (if Freudian) reason, is because:
-growing up with the idea of striving for unattainable perfection as the only way to live
-a lack of obvious pride/support of any kind from my father, for the most part
-a deep feeling of self-loathing, traceable to any number of sources
-impossible standards because... ? that one doesn't trace either...

Baaaasically, when there's someone I respect, I go way the hell out of my way to be... whatever the hell my brain has decided I'm supposed to be. And then when I (predictably) fail in the juiced-to-the-maxcore insane standards I've set for myself in that ...role, or whatever you want to call it, I go apeshit on my own brain, and go into full-on self-loathing/abuse/destructive mode. It's kind of a bad thing. I'm getting better at managing it (read: I'm getting better at hiding the evidence and shoving it the hell out of my conscious mind), but it's obviously been very blatant in the past, because it's led certain friends/bosses to be wary of telling me I've screwed up, because they're afraid FOR SOME STRANGE REASON that I'll take it way too hard and OH MY GOODNESS beat up on myself about it. Sigh. Which leads me, or at least my more rational parts, to be all "What is this about? Tell me what I screwed up, so I can... not screw it up next time! It is not a hard concept my friend! I am not a fragile butterfly! I am Coyote ~~and my medicine is stronger than yours!~~ and I can -take- it!" The bit I don't mention, often even to myself, is that I will feel like shit about it, but the honest truth is that if you don't give me a reason to feel like shit? MY BRAIN WILL MAKE ONE UP. I'd rather beat myself up about something that actually happened, which will lead to actual self-improvement in the long term (Don't argue, it will), than to beat myself up about things that aren't even real, and wind up depressed over nothing. t'ain't worth it.

Anyway, it leads to situations like this.
Me: *screws something up*
Other Person: Dude! What the fuck?
Me: Ohshitohshitohshit!
Other Person: ...relax, no big deal.
(some time past)
Me: *screws something up*
Other Person: *makes some odd and vaguely disparaging joke about it*
(rinse and repeat for about three hours)
Exit Other Person
Me: *angrygrumblemutter* Jerkfacealwaysalldownonmeyowhatthefuck*
Subconscious: Except that, hey, cares about you, right? Wants you to be a better person? Only has good intentions and would never jerk you around for no reason?
Me: *grumblemutter* Yeah, but knows I take shit too seriously.
Second-conscious: Except that you keep saying all "I'm not a fragile butterfly, I can take it, stop treating me like a puppy or something," so you have nothing to complain about. Either face up to the fact that you are apparently too thin-skinned to handle even the most gentle, joking of criticisms, or stop fucking whining about it and fix your fucking mistakes so there's no problem.

Of course, if I hadn't been such an idiot this morning, early morning, most of this could've been avoided.

Fuckin' coyotes. We never know when to quit.

Besides, the music made everything worth it, and I mean Everything.

We'll See.

2009-11-30T20:08:00.001-08:00

So I didn’t write a 50,000 word novel this month, again. It’s not the first time. I’d like to pull a Linus and close panel on the classic pose, shaking my fist at the sky – Just Wait ‘Til Next Year! But I think I’ll go one step wishy-washy on this one, and say instead, Just Wait ‘Til Some Time In The Future, Unspecified At The Moment But Definitely Inevitable In The Long Run! Because next year, I will be in school again, working my ass off to fulfill my potential as a student of journalism. And, with that in mind, I won’t just be doing homework and kind of working on studies, I will be throwing myself actively towards learning as much as I can, and, given the writing component of journalism, this means my writer’s-head will be getting plenty of exercise without novel-induced craziness.

But someday, and I don’t mean that vague “Someday,” as in, “Some Time In The Future, When I Make Time For It,” I mean someday as in “As Soon As I’m Done With College Even If It Kills Me,” I will write a novel. Fully, and working as hard as I can, and it will be a thing of beauty and I will make people laugh, and cry, the way I do reading about Harry Dresden. This is non-negotiable.

So I didn’t write a novel this year. A more cynical person than I might point out the fact that I’ve never finished a written work of any significant length. But I’m through being that person, and I’d rather dwell on the fact that I got farther into this thing than I ever have before. And if I can finish short stories (which I can, by the way), I can finish a novel. Just wait ‘til next time.

It Doesn't Have To BE This Way

2009-11-17T22:32:00.000-08:00

There’s a website which I often fool around on called TV Tropes, which analyzes common themes found in different media; some of you may be familiar with it. One of the tropes discussed at length there is the “Crapsack World,” which is… well, exactly what it sounds like. Here’s one of the descriptions in the summary: “An immutable Crapsack World has corruption and pain Inherent In The System, both physically and metaphysically. Trying to fight this corruption will always result in it winning.”

So basically, this describes a world that is inherently unfair, a world in which good is not only useless, but often counter-productive. This is a world where the evil overlord wins. This is a world where humanity really is reduced to numbers, where the Daleks succeed because the universe doesn’t care; this is a world where a sonic screwdriver and a brilliant smile will get you killed, regardless of how clever or powerful you are, how strongly you want to save the world. This is a universe where the more unfortunate people of the world are taken into slavery to serve the whims of the culture on the other side of the world who doesn’t know or care about their plight. This is a world where an entire population can be decimated on a whim, once more to benefit a class more useful to the people in power, and no one bats an eye. This is a world where those born into poverty and disease and starvation are, more or less, thought of as deserving of such a fate; this is a world where Scrooge was right.

This is our world.

And speaking against any of that makes you a bleeding heart, an emotion-driven basket-case, and it pits you straight up against the power-driven universe, in a world where greed and oppression are rewarded and selflessness is mercilessly stamped out.

I’m not exaggerating. This isn’t hyperbole.

I’ve said this before, and I’ll say it again, and I will keep on saying it until the day I die.

THIS IS NOT RIGHT. I don’t give a used fig as to what your personal beliefs concerning the semantics and wordplay of “ethics” versus “morality,” or which political party you support, or whether you’re an independent or a moderate or on the fringes or outside altogether.

If you are supporting slavery, genocide, if you have nothing to say to this world we’re living in, if you don’t believe that there is something very, very, wrong with what’s going on in this world, get the hell off of my friends list. I don’t care if you're a conservative who believes capitalism is the only thing that will save this world from itself, or you’re an anarchist who believes capitalism is what’s killing this world. You should be fighting for the same ends right now. There are people being driven into slavery, not only in Mali and Cote d’Ivoire, but on this continent, in the cities and the suburbs and all around us. There are people dying on the streets, of malaria. A disease that was cured over a century ago. Not a lot of people know that. Mosquito bites are killing more people in this world than any other animal. Mosquito bites. Death. By. Mosquito. Death by a disease we cured. A disease that’s become a joke in this country. That doesn’t even touch the disease we haven’t cured, AIDS, which people are also dying like flies from.

That’s the one that makes me sick – people believe, somehow people allow themselves to be convinced that it’s not that important. They deserve it, right? Just like the kids born into starvation deserve to die before they reach adulthood, and the people being laid off from their jobs in this very country deserved that, and they deserve to be homeless on the streets with their families, the filthy savages. But not on our streets, no, how about the darker part of town, tucked away somewhere we don’t have to see them? This country makes me sick sometimes. I’m an American, that much is true. I believe in freedom, and I mean that literally. I believe everyone should be free. I believe that freedom is a human right, not an American right. I believe in liberty, and I believe in justice. I believe that no one should die because of a damned bug bite. I believe women who are raped are never ‘asking for it,’ I believe that in a world where there is enough food to go around, no one should starve to death. I believe that it is twisted, sick, and downright evil to refuse homeless men the basement of a church to sleep in on winter nights -- to let them freeze to death in their sleep -- because it brings them too close to the business district.

To be fair, not many people know the reality of all of this. (That's why it's important to do this. Because people don't know.) It’s mentioned in passing, occasionally, but rarely expanded on. We’re very careful, this country is, of tucking things that make our viewers uncomfortable out of sight. We wouldn’t want to lose our viewers. We wouldn’t want to make them too uncomfortable, to make them turn aside to somewhere where the view is a little more pleasant.

Don’t forget this. There is nothing – nothing – that makes you somehow innately more worthy of life than someone else on this planet. I’m a Christian, infinitely more than I am an American. That’s what I believe. I believe in unconditional love, and unconditional forgiveness. You were born (for most of you, anyway) in a wealthy country, if not a wealthy home. Your parents were able to feed you, because they’d worked hard, but also because they’d been born to a land of opportunity. That is why you are here, and not starving to death, or dying of malaria or AIDS, or being beaten to death in the cacao fields on the Gold Coast. Because you were born here, and not there. It doesn’t make you a bad person – but it doesn’t make your life worth more than theirs, either. A life is a life is a life. Please, please remember that.

This world has become a horrible, horrible place -- we don't have to leave it that way. We don't have to submit silently to what this world has become. I mentioned earlier that in this universe, morality is punished and powerlust is rewarded. I don't believe that's Just The Way It Is, I believe it's the way the human race has made it. And we can change that. It's not idealistic to believe that conscience should overrule politics.

Politics are supposed to be a way to follow your conscience; they are not supposed to subvert it for the party values.

I'll say it once again.

We don't have to take this. If you have a conscience, if you want to see this world become something other than a prison, do it. Don't wait for a signal. You ARE the signal.

And I don't want to promise, because I don't want to lie.

2009-11-10T21:01:00.000-08:00

So I’m sitting here listening to If God Will Send His Angels, by U2 in Dunkin Donuts, after taking the written portion of my driver’s test. I can’t work on the novel I’m supposed to have done by December. I can’t think. I’m running over things in my mind, restless, upset, not understanding things. That’s how I roll. I worry, and I fret, and I think, and I pick things apart in my mind and analyze the pieces, and then I sit down and write about them. That’s why I want to be a journalist. That’s what makes sense to me. But that’s not what I wanted to say. That was this morning.

I deleted that little bit, this morning, because I wound up wandering off on life careening out of my control, of not understanding my own destiny.

My dad and I had this huge political argument. This time, it started with me telling him what my older sister, who had been in the Army, said about Fort Hood – that it reflected the state of the United States Military. My dad said it had to do with political correctness. I disagreed. We proceeded to argue from there about everything currently on the political plate; I scored a few points, he scored most of them, because he is good at verbal arguments, and I am not. I can write. I’m not good at talking. Anyway. The whole thing culminated with me saying something about universal health care, and him laying a pretty hefty guilt trip on me and then giving me a lecture about using analytical thought instead of following your heart, your emotions.

I cannot accept that. I cannot. I cannot sit here, at my desk at my laptop in this house in America, the United States of, and make imperious analytical judgments without conscience.

I have derided my conscience as neurotic. Maybe it is. But it’s still there. There is still a voice telling me that what I am doing with my life, most of the time, is wrong. I am doing almost nothing to improve the lot of the poor, the sick, the needy in this world. What am I doing to feed the fatherless, the widows? I cannot vote without my conscience. I cannot vote without my emotions. The two are tied, the two are more me than I am, and there’s a logic bomb for you. That is who I am supposed to be. Not who I am, no – I’m not happy with that person. I get angry when people talk about me being a kind or a conscientious person. If I was the person – half the person – who I should be, I would be vegan. I would be working my ass off, and then sending most of my paychecks off to Save Darfur or to pay for cures for malaria, or to combat the AIDS crisis. I don’t hold up to the standards. That’s fucked up. I am not a kind or conscientious person.

My dad gets angry when I talk about this stuff. I don’t phrase it like that – that would be trawling for pity. (I phrase it like that here because I don’t have anywhere else to talk about it. I have to get this off my chest somewhere, and this is the only blog nobody connects with me.) But when I talk about ONE, (Red), Save Darfur, Fair Trade, hell, if I mention the word ‘hybrid,’ I get a death stare. Those, you see, are causes Liberals use to make themselves feel good about themselves. (Sometimes I wonder if he knows that is almost exactly the same thing anarchists say about them.) Those Damn Liberals, they’re so smug about what they’re doing to help the world. That Bono, he’s so smug about trying to fix the world. Don’t they realize that they’re being led around by the nose because they listen to their emotions instead of their minds?

Fuck. That.

After he left, I sat here thinking, wondering, trying to make sense of it all. I have a conscience, you see. It’s neurotic, probably from not being listened to, but it’s there. And, thanks to Slacktivist, I’m starting to see more about the world, viewed through a Christian’s eyes. An evangelical, no less! And someone who’s disgusted by the evangelical scene today, someone who hasn’t forgotten that the greatest commandment is to love the Lord thy God, and the second commandment is to love thy neighbor as thyself. And someone who is consistently calling evangelicals out on it. But I bring any of these points up to my dad, and I get called out as a Liberal, smug in my own false sense of conscience.

I listened to If God Will Send His Angels, and I cried, and I shook my fist at the sky and begged for a sign, and I knelt and pleaded for a sign, and I despaired of there being any hope in this world, any true way to live for a Christian, anything to cling to. And I walked out and sat in the woods, and cried and stared at the sky and was accused by my conscience of praying to Bono, and defended my Not-A-Prayer by saying “at least he’s here, in this world, tangible and real,” and then had to admit that God is more real than anything tangible BUT ANYWAY. I don’t need a sign. I want a sign. I saw a cross, white and lit up, that I’d never seen before, on a hill, just visible behind some houses in the trees. Struck me as odd – I thought I knew that neighborhood backwards – but I desperately went to where it looked to be, and it turned out to be a flagpole.

Really, I should’ve seen that coming. I don’t need a sign. That, I guess, would make things too easy. But God, oh God do I want one. Something – anything – to make it just a little bit easier to believe that there IS a right way, always a right thing to do. I walked home. I sat down. I watched Jon Stewart, I listened to If God Will Send His Angels again, I cried a little more, and then I glanced at Twitter, saw Bono had just tweeted a few seconds ago (if it’s him; not a verified account, but I can be pretty naïve in my desperate hopes sometimes, and I’m willing to believe), and told him in a message he’ll probably never see that he’s a hero. My hero, anyway. Someone who actually gives a damn about this world, someone who’s working to do something about it, and someone who wrote a song pleading for a sign. A modern-day psalm. God, I want that sign. And it’s never given, you know?

There are all these stories, they tell them in Baptist churches, about the diver who’s been an atheist all his life, and one night he’s late at the pool, and he spreads his arms, about to dive into this pool, and perceives that the shape is like a cross, and he gets this spiritual moment of just… I don’t know what, and he walks down into the pool and discovers that there’s no water in it and he would’ve died, and he repents his sins and gives his life to God. It’s one of those posters you see in foyers, like the footprints poster… oh, the footprints poster. A friend of mine wrote on that:

“I guess what irks me about this, and other sentiments, which try to make life's hurts "better" is the implicit message hidden in them. They say, no matter what, there's comfort in knowing God is with you. No matter what, face life with the eternal hope and optimism of Christian life. God will protect you. God will make things better. Your life before Jesus: :-(. Your life after Jesus: :-).
…
So not only did I have issues, I suddenly had a religion that was smacking me across the face with, if you believe in God, it won't be as bad.

So it was bad, so what did that mean? It obviously meant I didn't believe in God enough.

A Good ChristianTM lives in the Grace of God. The reflect the Peace of Christ in everything they do. They walk with the joy of the Lord. They're happy and live happy lives. This was the positive side of religion presented me as a convert. I felt like, simply by being depressed, I was failing at being Christian. My unhappiness and troubles and self-hatred were because I just wasn't good enough.
…
Most importantly what happened was, by slow degrees, by example and prodding and (most important) just figuring it out for myself, I left the world of platitudes and inspirational posters and beaches at sunset and turned to the Cross.

Which, in most churches I frequent, features an emaciated man dying in agony. At some point in the process he, God and most beloved of God, looks up and says, "O God, O God! Why have you forsaken me?"

A man in abject helplessness, incapable of optimism (because optimism is thinking things will turn out okay) but still, in the depths of his despair, with the hope that this suffering will accomplish something. A man who carried his cross though in agony, but who--still--didn't soldier on, ignoring the pain; he fell, grew weak, needed help.

This, I recognized. This was me.

I think, sometimes, we are a little too afraid of pain. We are a little too anxious for everything to be over. We are a little too addicted to neat, clean, pat answers. I'm not advocating drawing things out unnecessarily, but honestly. Can we stop saying, "It's okay," when it isn't?”

So I guess that’s my point, after much rambling and whining and whatnot. It’s not okay. I’m not going to get a magical vision that shows me a clear path, gives me the willpower to follow it, and makes it impossible for me to fall from that path, whether into self-flagellation or apathy or wallowing or whatever the case may be. All I can do is follow what I perceive to be the right path, do what I think His plan for me is to do, and pray that if and when I delve into self-flagellation, apathy, or wallowing, He sends either a friend or a musician or a hero to slap me upside the head and put me back on track.

And that I always remember to write when things stop making sense, and maybe the words will bring me back to where I need to be.
…Amen.

2009-11-06T14:06:00.000-08:00

It’s pretty cold in my room; cold enough to make it significantly harder to type. I should, by all rights, be at the DMV right now, standing in line. I screwed up a la priorities again, and decided to wait on going out of town to get my license test because there was a chance I’d be needed for work. Part of this is because, yes, I need more hours. But part of it is because I have this idea that if I make myself really available, then when full time hours are available, it’ll make sense to put me in that spot. Selfish? Yeah, probably. But I think at some point it kind of becomes necessary to think of yourself.

Which is actually funny to see typed by myself, who has been barely even bothering to battle (like the alliteration? yeaaaah) with the voices lately on the point that I am a worthless waste of space. I don’t even know how to respond. Part of it is that this is coming from inside of me, it’s a thought that I had, so how do I respond to it? I can rationalize and enforce logic and reason and thought all day and night, but that doesn’t lessen the iron conviction of the thing. How do you reason like that? It’s like trying to rationalize a dream. Doesn’t work. (People run over with a giant tractor on a game board made of fallow land would not be thrown into pieces, like wood chips, they would ooze from underneath. But that is hardly the strangest thing out of that dream. Maybe I should start putting together a dream catcher.)

Anyway. This year I’m participating in NaNoWriMo, trying to write a novel of 50,000 words in thirty days. So far, it sucks. The novel, I mean, not the competition itself. It feels good to be writing again, I’ll admit that. But the book? Ugh. I kind of want to burn it and start over. I’m being just nitpicky enough to slow myself down and stay under the limit, and just careless enough to write complete and utter shit.

But at least it’s writing. And maybe, just maybe, if I get all the shit out of my system, when the month is over and I go to write something actually worth writing, it’ll come out better.

Good stuff and questionable stuff and symbolism in newspaper comics.

2009-10-25T12:57:00.000-07:00

Last night I wound up staying awake until one in the morning reading Frazz. I would say I’m not sure why (isn’t that standard procedure when you do something like stay up until one in the morning), but I love that comic, and the website changed so you can read back indefinitely (for now; I’m not sure exactly how far back it goes, but 2003 seemed like a good start), which was really fun until my back started getting sore. So my next move, at one in the morning, was to grab my sneakers and coat and take a walk, which was also fun, except that it’s way too light in the sky for a good night walk right now. I can’t wait for winter to hit, an things go properly dark. (Ye-ah, archaic grammar. I think.)

Anyway, I didn’t realize until I got home from the walk around three o’clock that Caulfield’s name (or maybe I realized on the way down the driveway and then forgot?) is Holden Caulfield’s last name. Oh my good golly gosh, symbolism? In a newspaper comic? …well, I like it. I liked Holden, I loved Catcher in the Rye, I like the characters of Caulfield and Frazz, and it was totally worth it to stay up for hours reading. Also, Caulfield reminds me of me at that age; I was constantly, constantly, getting in trouble for reading while I should have (I very nearly put those two words in quotes—shows how much I’ve grown up, ne?) been doing other things, most notably math. …Actually, scratch “that age,” I was getting in trouble for that through senior year.

The walk was good, by the way. Good in the sense that I mostly accomplished what I really wanted to; I walked into the woods, all the way down to the pond. I had to stop and gather my courage a few times, as I really do prefer the dark to a foggy twilight (it was also raining a little tiny bit) which confuses the eyes and twists perception. What I accomplished was to stand there, looking at the water running across the path, barely visible in the half-darkness, and assure myself that I was in hands larger than my own, that no harm would come to me save by a plan devised entirely by those hands, and also that if I couldn’t walk straight out of the woods which I know like the back of my hand and have been haunting on and off for five years in the dark, I would never be able to walk straight into the state forest, which I’ve never even seen, looking for… well, anything, really.

(Hey, let’s hear it for the very-nearly-run-on-sentence!)

So I got home around three o’clock, and was comfortably in bed before I realized I hadn’t prayed yet, and I am trying to do better. I think that’s happened to me every single night for the past week. This life is a lot more fun when you realize that God probably has a sense of humor, and most likely wants us to have one too. C. S. Lewis said something profound about being able to laugh at our own expense, especially knowing the one making the joke has nothing but our best interests at heart; I don’t remember it, but you get the point. I hope.

That’s life, leaving out the darker stuff about falling back into insanity again. I taped a poster over the mirror where my reflection usually is from the computer, to stave off the desire to stab myself in the eyeball. So far, it’s working pretty well. Life is not hopeless!

So much for that, then.

2009-10-19T19:28:00.000-07:00

For a very long time, I have been saying that I will not have a romantic relationship because I am afraid of hurting someone, which I see as inevitable ~~in the course of a relationship~~ in a relationship containing a schizophrenic. Guess what?

I lied. I am afraid of having a romantic relationship because:
I’m afraid of opening up to someone
I have serious self-esteem issues
I don’t trust most people that much at all
and countless other very normal and not-related-to-madness issues! (oh, but the madness issues are still there; they’re just not the whole truth)

I really thought that admitting that to myself was supposed to be a big huge step, a big huge relief, and taking a weight off my mind. The truth! Sets you free!

Yeah, except that that passage is consistently misused and taken out of context. (John, chapter 8) 31: Then said Jesus to those Jews which believed on him, If ye continue in my word, then are ye my disciples indeed;
32: And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.
33: They answered him, We be Abraham's seed, and were never in bondage to any man: how sayest thou, Ye shall be made free?
34: Jesus answered them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Whosoever committeth sin is the servant of sin.
35: And the servant abideth not in the house for ever: but the Son abideth ever.
36: If the Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed.

Anyway, my point was that, despite admitting to myself that truth, I am still just as lonely, and just as closed-off and unlikely to have a relationship. Bah! Bah, I say! Eh. Maybe someday I will meet someone who is as crazy as I am, and it will be beautiful and wonderful and love, but for now, I think that despite realizing that I’m not incapable of a relationship, just unwilling, I’d rather be lonely than dating someone who I don’t actually like or love.

Pointless post is pointless.

Introducing...

2009-10-12T20:03:00.001-07:00

My room is ice cold, or so it feels to my fingers as they try to type. Yet somehow, I haven't the will to close the window. There will not be many days or nights to come wherein I can leave it open; I savor the few left me. I should go to bed an hour ago, but I need to get this out and off of my mind first. Or at least cement it in my mind, so the shadow can take a form and I can start to figure it out.

I sat down to do a few things; the latter was a letter, a prayer, something like both. I want to throw the material bits of this life away and find a spiritual truth, and my spirit is... well, pathetically weak. I come up with a thousand excuses, vague as steam and not nearly so substantial, why I can't. The fact is, I think I'm afraid of what I'll find. To plunge oneself into the void... to throw oneself into the wave, even though the strength be so great that all your strength came to naught. Yeah. That fear. Unsurprising, really. But anyway.

Today, my friend jolted me out of the rut I'd fallen into, lit a fire under me, made me remember how I felt-- dear God, that was less than a month ago. Wow. Anyway, I remember, now, the purpose of all this striving. I will become a journalist; I will write the truth, and publish it, and expose the people who control this world to the reality of what it is, as compared to what it could, or should, be. Rephrased a bit, that's what I believe. That's what I want to do. No, that's a part of what I want to do. That's what conscience demands of me. I -want- to tell stories, to spin the worlds and characters in me into tales, to spellbind people with the craft I was born to an understanding of. The problem with this is two-fold. Firstly, I have little skill as of yet, and those tales, if I give them voice, deserve better. Secondly, it is exceedingly hard to turn a living on story-telling. I will have to wait.

And, as I said, conscience demands more of me than that. The truth of this world, the horrors that lurk beneath a glamorous surface, have been laid bare to me. What would I be if I ignored them? How can I ignore the murder and slavery and poverty and disease that are directly caused by the Western lifestyle?

I can't.

And, to that end, I will become a journalist, and I will force people to look this monster in the face until someone decides to DO SOMETHING about it.

there's other matters to talk about, mainly the affliction of my conscience still regarding anarchists and former-idealist-chefs and my own part in theft and betrayal. and also the return of nightmares. but that can wait a little longer.

When Love Comes To Town

2009-10-10T17:46:00.000-07:00

I was a sailor, I was lost at sea
I was under the waves
Before love rescued me
I was a fighter, I could turn on a thread
Now I stand accused of the things I've said

Love comes to town I'm gonna jump on that train
When love comes to town I'm gonna catch that flame
Maybe I was wrong to ever let you down
But I did what I did before love came to town

I used to make love under a red sunset
I was making promises I would soon forget
She was pale as the lace of her wedding gown
But I left her standing before love came to town

I ran into a juke joint when I heard a guitar scream
The notes were turning blue, I was dazing in a dream
As the music played I saw my life turn around
That was the day before love came to town

When love comes to town I'm gonna jump on that train
When love comes to town I'm gonna catch that flame
Maybe I was wrong to ever let you down
But I did what I did before love came to town

When love comes to town I'm gonna jump on that train
When love comes to town I'm gonna catch that flame
Maybe I was wrong to ever let you down
But I did what I did before love came to town

I was there when they crucified my Lord
I held the scabbard when the soldier drew his sword
I threw the dice when they pierced his side
But I've seen love conquer the great divide

When love comes to town I'm gonna catch that train
When love comes to town I'm gonna catch that flame
Maybe I was wrong to ever let you down
But I did what I did before love came to town

--U2 and BB King

2009-10-02T17:14:00.000-07:00

My laptop died as a result of a few things thrown together into one occurrence, that is, the event of a liquid coming into contact with certain parts of the laptop which were not meant to have such exposure, and consequently, the device no longer works in the way it was designed. Fortunately, to counteract this unfortunate chance happening, I have broken down the machine into as few parts as I could manage, to allow the remaining liquid to drain or evaporate, as necessary, which should in the best scenario I can imagine, result in the laptop working as it had prior to the accident.

I drink coffee every morning, which is a bad idea because it’s generally not all that healthy, because it has developed me into dependence, which I strongly dislike, because most coffee is not fair-trade certified and therefore, makes a hypocrite of me, and because it’s an expensive habit, because I really just shouldn’t. But I do. I have an addictive personality; aside from this (I dislike the phrase ‘addictive personality,’ because to my brain it implies that my personality is addicting, which is, I believe, not the case at all) being an excuse for poor willpower (yes, I am guilty of that use; I am sometimes a hypocrite, but will own up to that), it is also an actual thing. After less than a week drinking one mug of coffee per morning, I will get a headache without that cup. After one cigarette, I crave another for a week. Thus, every time I decide to quit coffee, I am shortly back on it after a few bad nights of sleeping, which I can expect more of now that I’ve run out of meds. Sigh. Not an excuse. But still.

So the morning before yesterday (haha, that is a doubled sort of meaning. Could it not mean the morning that began yesterday, since the morning did indeed come before the day?), I put a cup of coffee—a full cup of coffee—down about half an inch away from my keyboard, and reached over the laptop and desk to open the window. My cat, anticipating an open windowsill to sit on, leapt up to the desk, reached over the laptop, and put her paws on the sill, as is her wont. Unfortunately for me, she also lashed her tail once, and knocked the cup of coffee over. Or maybe her leap did that. I don’t know. Anyway, she knocked it straight onto the laptop keyboard. So now I am sitting at my dad’s desktop computer, which he doesn’t mind me using, fortunately.

I don’t understand why so many things in my life want to go wrong lately. First my mp3 player quit, the same evening that I mentioned in a conversation to my grandpa that I’d rather go without a cellphone than an mp3 player, since music is one of the closest things to my heart, and otherwise my walking soundtrack would be traffic. The replacement never worked at all. Then I ran out of medication, at the same time receiving a significant bill from the hospital which writes the prescription. In paying off the bills for contact lenses and driving school, respectively, I overdrew my account and was charged a subsequent fine… which made it crystal clear that I could not afford to renew the prescription for medication… which has no refills. Then I spilled coffee on my laptop, on which reside all of my stories, poetry, music, photos, drawings, ramblings that I have not posted online, et cetera. In between this all was the concert to which I had looked forward for about a year. That provided a week-long euphoria, and also a permanently changed outlook on life. Maybe that’s why, despite what the words of this blog might lead you to believe, they are spoken in a fairly cheery tone of voice—and if not that, at least a matter-of-fact voice. I’m not even mad at the cat (it’s my fault anyway). Strange.

At any rate, that’s life right now. The positive side of this is that 1) it is no longer convenient for me to spend that much time on the computer, 2) without my music, I am forced to use online radio, which brings cool music to my attention that I otherwise neglect, 3) I am hearing it through proper speakers, rather than laptop speakers. The negatives are fairly obvious. But I won’t dwell on them.

October

2009-10-02T09:27:00.000-07:00

October
and the trees are stripped bare
of all they wear
What do I care?

October
and kingdoms rise,
and kingdoms fall,
but You go on
and on.
You go on

2009-09-28T19:39:00.001-07:00

Today, things went wrong. I spent much of the day trying to write, and failing. I went to see my best friend; he was in a bad mood. I don’t know how to cheer him up. I’m very, very bad at comforting people. I left wishing I could have my life fall apart instead of him being unhappy. Then I called my sister and came to the realization that my life has already fallen apart. She told me I was just another hustler, and might as well be selling weed, when I started telling her about the business I’ve been trying to work on. We had a conversation about college and chosen majors, and then I told her I had to go before I broke down and started crying and screaming in public, because I was really close to that point. I got home, cried, and then decided that I didn’t care what she thought about the business. I got out my list of contacts, for the first time in a long time, and contacted three people. One hasn’t gotten back to me, one seemed interested so far, and one has been forgetting to give me her information but is probably interested. Then, because I want to do this right, I made myself sit down and watch the informational videos about the product so I can prove what I believe to be the truth about it.
Halfway through, I had a vivid hallucination that I was eating a spider. Eating. A spider. I thought I was eating a spider.

I’ve been on medication for about a month. It’s worked for about a year, prior to this month. It keeps me from hallucinating. It doesn’t make my life happy, but it makes me sane enough to function in life, most of the time. Right now, I am seeing things that are not there, in everyday life. I am seeing stacks of things through doorways when the doorways are empty. I am seeing flashes and darkness when I glance in certain directions. I am hearing things on the edge of perception that don’t make sense. I am having strange dreams that almost aren’t even nightmares, they’re so weird. And then they are again, when they suddenly come pounding down on me halfway through the next day. Morbid, self-destructive thoughts are pounding their way into my mind, relentlessly and constantly and painfully. And I am trying, very, very hard to maintain a positive outlook right now. I swear I am. I don’t want to be an unhappy person, I don’t want to make my friends miserable. But. But, but, this isn’t right. This medication isn’t working anymore. I’m hallucinating, visually and audibly, I’m having nightmares, I’m paranoid as hell, I cannot rely on my own perception and judgment. I’m taking medication. It’s not working. I can’t afford to get another prescription when this one runs out anyway, so… yeah. The main question right now is whether the medicine is keeping things at bay, and they’ll get hugely worse when I run out, or if the medicine is completely ineffectual. I’m terrified of the answer.

This blog was supposed to be about growth and personal… something, I don’t even fucking know. I don’t want to be this person. I’m tired of being crazy. Can I be something else now? Can I be normal? Can I be happy? Okay, fine. I don’t want to be happy anyway. Can my friends be happy? Can you make it so I never existed? I don’t want this. I don’t want this life, I don’t fucking want this life anymore and I can’t stop. I don’t want to live anymore. I was so happy for a few days, even though everything went wrong I was happy, it was like a high. I knew something would make it end. I didn’t know it would be this. I don’t want to be crazy anymore. Fuck. Fuck this. Fuck my mind, and what… I don’t even know. I wish writing this all out would make it okay, could get it out of my mind. I say that if I don’t write, I’ll go insane. Now I am insane, and still writing, and… uh, whatever. th

I don’t want to put this up, where people will see it. Especially not you, being the only person who reads this, and also, by some strange coincidence, the person who I least want to be worrying about me. Don’t. I’m still going to put it up, but don’t worry about it, please. I’ll get past this. I generally do. I’ve been off meds before, and I didn’t die or kill anyone or anything horribly crazy. Not that I remember, anyway, though you might think differently. Anyway.

Because I am tired of masks.

2009-09-27T09:47:00.000-07:00

Because I grow tired of addressing different parts of my soul when I find myself with a new set of people; because I wish to be who I am, and no other; because, as I have said in other places, the inner wordsmith, the writer in me, is the most honest part of my soul. For all these reasons, and others which I cannot name even to myself, in conscious thought, I will try now to say what I feel to be the truth. Would that I had the conviction of C. S. Lewis, the wit of Terry Pratchett, the lyrical flow of Guy Kay—but that is another point altogether.

I do not, cannot, and will never be able to believe that religion, Christianity, human belief in God, is predictable, or even convenient. Again, I wish very much that I had the skill of Lewis to explain myself, but it is not given to me to speak and debate eloquently on subjects which I hold so close to my heart. My point is simply, this: how can love, belief in perfect love, in forgiveness, in redemption, be an easy thing, a convenient thing—a predictable thing? I remember, ages ago, in a long and very, very drawn-out debate, someone claiming to believe in Christianity, but not being able to accept someone else paying her debts for her. In my self-centered, unsympathetic state, I scorned her, saying loftily that that was “the whole point” of Christianity, that there was no belief if you did not accept that sacrifice. In my defense, I was only saying what I had been taught. It is so easy to put down weakness in others—so much easier when you’re trying to hide the same weakness in yourself.

It was—and is—so, so hard for me to accept the very idea of unconditional love, let alone forgiveness, redemption. For a very, very long time I went through phases of horrible, horrible guilt that would not go away. Guilt for stupid, tiny things, things I didn’t always even have control over. Friends would tell me endlessly that repentance, true repentance, was final, ended it, should end the guilt and the self-blame. What was my answer? Obviously, I had not repented fully enough. (Hah. I was about to write about how this little phase ended when I found out that one of my best friends went through the same thing, but that would be a lie. It made things a bit easier, but end? Hah.) My point is that believing in eternal forgiveness, unconditional love, is most definitely not the first leap of human consciousness.

Even leaving out that which may be an oddity in me and many I have known, that lingering guilt and self-blame, even leaving that—what human would willingly say to their enemy, “Kill me now, and you are damned, but if you repent, thirty days hence, you will be forgiven and absolved”? What woman, what man, would so easily accept the concept of eternal forgiveness, seventy times seven, towards their brother, their killer, their enemy? I cannot speak for all religion—I would never claim that responsibility, or that right. But deny me that. Tell me that unconditional forgiveness, unconditional love—the preaching of this as extended to all fellows, to be more Christlike—is predictable of humanity. Tell me that it is convenient to forgive a brother each and every betrayal he levels against you—or a sister. That is the core of Christianity—love. That is what all the Church is built on, believe it or not.

We are human, we are corruptible and predictable and prone to every conceivable weakness at some point in our lives. But the spirit within us is not. No one in this world could ever make me believe that any part of that is wrong. Perhaps it makes more scientific sense to say that enough evil could damn anyone, in the end. But a repentance of that evil? Would that balance it out—the will, the will inside to balance out any evil done? I could not say; I do not claim to understand metaphysics. But never say to me that unconditional love and forgiveness is a predictable, convenient excuse for human evils. Can it be used for such? Of course. Anything can be used and twisted for evil; someone determined enough to hurt and harm will use any excuse and reason in their power to do so. But it taints them, in the end, not the good that they have ill used. A fire cannot be evil, even if it is used to burn down a house. That’s a poor example, but the point stands, I think.

It’s been a long time since I made such an argument as this. My original intent was to tie it back to my original point about masks, and anarchism, or whatever other facets of my heart which I had at some point taken up and hence found false, but continued to follow. To any belief I have held, any philosophy I have fallen from, I say this. When a belief, a philosophy tells me that all are equal and free, I will agree, whole-heartedly. When it tells me that truth to an inner self should come before law, I will rejoice. When I am told to be angry, to hate, to betray my conscience, I will refuse. When I am told that God is dead, that religion is useful insofar as it aids that philosophy, that morality or ethics are an excuse or a weakness, that conscience is a hindrance, I will take my leave.

Why did I write this? In part, to answer a discussion and debate with a friend. In part because, as I said, I am tired of masks. I am tired of putting on my carefree anarchist face when I go to Food Not Bombs, my detatched philosopher face when someone challenges something I believe in, my selfless Christian face when I'm talking to certain friends, or on certain subjects, and God only knows how many others. I'm sick of it. This is who I am. I'm a Christian. I'm not an Anarchist, or a Republican, or a Democrat, or a Liberal, or a Conservative, or whatever other political label it's possible to wear. It is not given me to be a philosopher, or a singer, or an orator, or a philanthropist, or whatever else. I am a Christian; I believe in charity, not in the common definition of giving money to those you feel deserve and need it, but in the old definition of feeling-- or believing in-- love for all humankind, Just Because; I believe in conscience over law, but I do not believe in lawlessness; I believe in order over chaos, but that order should be just. What more shall I say? I am tired of masks. I no longer believe that I need any worldly label or face or party to hide behind. I need no excuse to be who I am.

Talkin' to my Generation

2009-09-24T18:17:00.000-07:00

Right now, I am wondering why Mr. Kanye West – why anyone, actually – has felt the need to go on record calling themselves “the voice of a generation.” Why does this generation need a voice to speak for us? We all have minds, hearts, and voices, do we not? Why, then, are we so silent? How is it that we have opinions on fashion, on pop culture, even on petty national politics at times, yet we remain oblivious to the world outside of our lifestyles? We should not be depending on Kanye West, Barack Obama, or Rush Limbaugh to voice opinions for us. We have minds. We have hearts, we have voices. Why are we allowing ourselves to be led by the nose, like so many idle sheep? Educate yourselves! Listen to your conscience and speak out! There is slavery in Africa, upheld by the mainstream chocolate industry. There is genocide in the Sudan, upheld by the Chinese government. Peaceful protesters are being brutally put down in Iran. Aung San Suu Kyi has spent the greater part of the last twenty years under house arrest in Burma for speaking out. Here in America, there are entire families homeless and without food or shelter. In countries all over the globe, there are young children working endless hours in deplorable conditions without even enough money to live on. What are we doing about it? We depend on politicians to get things done; we elect them for their elegant promises, and then consider our duties to the world done. I am not targeting any one politician; they have all betrayed us the same. We cannot simply cast a vote on election day, and then walk home to go back to our lives as though the world had been changed. We cannot ignore the condition of this world.

You have a mind. You have a voice. You have the right to be free, to live and breathe and eat and drink and laugh; do you not have the responsibility to fight, to give that freedom to every other living person on this planet? We are born into our circumstances; we do not inherently deserve what we are given at birth any more than any other human born to any other parents in any other place. There is no reason why being born in America should give you more of a right to be free, just as being born in a village in Darfur does not mean you deserve to be raped and killed. But we’ve inherited this world, our generation has. We’ve inherited this world full of smooth-tongued, power-hungry politicians, and we’ve inherited some kind of system that tells us that on one side there are good guys, and the other side is not to be trusted. I tell you now that this is a lie. There is good and bad on both sides; both sides are labels. Stop listening to the fanatics on both sides of the system! Read the facts, from as many trustworthy places as you can, and then follow your own conscience. Stop letting others speak for you! You have a mind! You have a voice! Your voice is important, what is behind it is important; your mind, your conscience, your freedom is your birthright, as it is with every other human on this planet. Do not let it be taken from you!

Please. We’ve lain silent long enough—too long. It’s time to stop letting people speak for us, decide for us; we’re adults, or we soon will be. It’s time to start thinking about the world we’ve been born into, it’s time to step up. We’ve been born to this Earth, for better or worse—how will we leave it?

LAUGHTER, laughter is the best medicine! :D

2009-09-09T06:27:00.000-07:00

I guess the long and short of it, or at least somewhere between those two varying points, is that I envy The Comedian. In some of my more lucid moments, when things really do make sense, I can retreat into dark humor, somewhere between Kurt Vonnegut and Edward Blake, getting the joke and somehow it’s beyond horror. When you look at this entire fucking world, what can you do but laugh? It’s all a joke. Somehow, when I try to explain that to most people, most decent, thoughtful, right-minded people, they are horrified. They really should be. It’s a horrible joke. And yet, honestly, what else can you do but laugh? I laugh because it’s easier than crying and harder than jumping off a cliff, which is the only other solution to this world, when you start thinking about it. Just thinking about this country is a joke. I listen to Rush Limbaugh, Michael Savage, for that matter Larry King or whatever their liberal counterparts are, and I laugh. What else can you do? Everything they say sounds absurd to me. Politics, the study of how fucked up humanity really is. Either you laugh, or you cry. I wrote a poem starting with that once, but I didn’t even understand, back then. I only started to understand this my junior, and senior year, when I’d walk out of third period, with our control-freak math teacher having just tried to attack me again, unable to do anything but laugh. That was when my emotions started to shut down, and I started laughing instead of crying.

My saving grace, I guess, is that as much as I laugh, as hard, as wide as my smile is, it still hurts, underneath. It’s gotten to the point where laughter itself hurts, most of the time, there’s this squeezing pain around my chest when I laugh, often. The Comedian, I think, became so hard to the world that laughing was all he knew how to do, that suffering and pain never even touched his mind anymore, except as part of the joke. I still want to change things. I still hurt when I see others hurt, and I still hurt when I laugh. I just don’t think I’ll ever be able to stop laughing, and I’m not sure I want to. Like I said, laugh or cry in this world, and say what you will about the healing of tears, etc, but laughter, laughter doesn’t produce mucus in your body either.

Get it?

Maybe I should join the Army and go to Iraq so I can be the next Kurt Vonnegut if I don’t get killed.

Unabashed Human Crying

2009-09-08T09:36:00.000-07:00

I need a hug, so bad. And that sounds wicked corny and also kind of melodramatic, but right now I need someone Older And Wiser^TM to give me a hug and tell me that I’m not a horrible person, even if I don’t believe them. I need something, someone, solid and reassuring and trustworthy, and no such person exists in my life. My best friends are 1) as crazy, emotional, and unbalanced as I am, for the most part, and have their own hug and emotion needs, 2) miles and miles and miles away, almost to a one, or 3) not psychic and therefore unable to determine when I am torn up and hurt and lonely inside and really in need of a hug.

Gah. For all my wild and rampaging monster insides, I’m still part human girl, and I still need to curl up in a little ball and hide from the world sometimes. Maybe that’s part of the wild rampaging thing.

Oh Noes!

2009-09-02T08:11:00.000-07:00

what if my mother was right and i am, in fact, a demon? or a doppleganger inhabited by a demon? somehow led to believe that i am or was a real person, just waiting for the right moment to snap and become a bloodthirsty monster? oh, wait, i already am a bloodthirsty monster. right.

what if it IS all a conspiracy?

:O

Poking fun at my own delusional self, or actually quite worried? YOU decide. : D [with black buttons for eyes.]

Nothing to Say

2009-08-31T19:37:00.000-07:00

I don't know if it's wise to post this here. But I figure like I should post it somewhere, somewhere public, somewhere where I will see it whenever I look through the archives, and remember, this is why you fucking listen to your conscience, this is why anarchy is bullshit, for all it's a pretty picture on paper. Everything looks nice if you have the right people talking about it. I'm not falling for this philosophy bullshit again.

I feel used, betrayed, lied to. Rational or no, that’s how I feel. Now, that would be bad enough, really. But I also feel guilty, horrible, like scum of the earth. So it’s… hmmm.

A friend stole from her workplace. In her mind, I believe, because the owner was a jerk, because the store was a part of the hierarchy she rebels against and hates (as do I, as do most people in one way or another), because she wasn’t treated well there, it was justified. This, I would not judge her for, though it goes against my personal code. Part of my code of life is not judging others by my own morals, ethics, what have you. It’s hard, but I believe it’s right. But, but, but, things are never that simple. She took food that would’ve been thrown away and distributed it, through us, to needy and homeless people in the city, along with the donations the group collected from supermarkets. I suppose if I had paid attention to any sort of detail at all, I would’ve known that she had no authority to do so. But she eventually left, and was subsequently banned from the store, for whatever reason, I didn’t pry. She told us we could continue to take expired food; we did. Start to present, this was about a year.

Yesterday, a new woman stopped us, called the manager, who told us that the man in charge of deli food had said no “in the past” to expired food being taken. Knowing the man, knowing that he’s been taken advantage of in the past, and knowing that he and our friend had never gotten along, I rather understood. Also, I’d always been fairly certain that the owner of the store didn’t know about the whole situation. I figured the chef had a newborn baby to take care of, his job was on the line, I wouldn’t press the issue. The woman told me to take it up with him on Monday. We left without food, except what I’d brought from my garden, some green beans and some basil, as well as a melon from my friend's brother. It was fine, there was plenty of supermarket produce, and we helped cook up a meal and handed everything out at the park (except the green beans, which didn’t find a place). I type up an e-mail explaining the situation to the entire group, and then spend the entire night worrying about the chef, whether or not he will hate me, if he will understand, if he will think I’ve lied to him or used him or tried to deceive him. This is irrational, but I like the guy, a lot, and don’t want to hurt him, or for him to be angry at me, only partially because he is sometimes moody and the very idea of him angry scares the shit out of me, partly emotion-wise, partly just because.

Monday morning, I wake up significantly pre-dawn, continue worrying for a few more hours in bed, and eventually get up and get coffee and see my dad off. With my little brother in tow (the library was in the works for after I got everything sorted out), I headed off to the plaza in which he and I work and the friend formerly worked, worrying the entire way, of course. I head into the store, and run into (not literally) the grocery manager, a man who I don’t know very well, but has a reputation from plenty of friends for being a mellow, very nice, very generous guy. He tells me that the owner and manager are angry, the weekend was bad, they never condoned the food donations at all, and are contacting the group over it, and so on. I wince, tell him I am sorry but understand; he is not happy either. My little brother pipes up “But it’s expired food—” I tell him to shut up. The grocery manager tells me that the deli food was not, in fact, all expired, which shuts me the hell up, too. I am stunned, shell-shocked, apologize, and leave the store a very, very confused person indeed.

After talking to my very good friend who I work with, my brother takes off to the library, I am stricken with conscience and guilt (far too late, I fear), and return to the grocery store to apologize to the chef. He is behind the deli lunch counter, asks me what’s wrong, had no idea I was involved in any way with the goings-on. Tells me he does not blame me, that it is really the friend’s fault, she has an attitude problem, she should’ve told us, I swallow. I am still her friend. I will not judge her. He says not to worry, they will take care of the judging for me. She was banned, you know. …She was what? Oh. Oh, um. I’m really really really really sorry. He tells me not to worry. I tell him I promise I never would’ve taken food that wasn’t expired; he knows that, don’t worry. He doesn’t think the manager or owner know about my involvement, he definitely didn’t, I am still welcome, don’t worry, just don't mention it to either of them. I feel like shit.

Fuck anarchy, fuck anarchism, fuck the higher good and high ethics and the greater cause and all the bullshit that’s kept me all high and mighty all last year. Fuck it all. I let ideology blind me to my own conscience, and that’s a mistake I won’t make again. I can’t believe I was so stupid to ignore everyone in my life who warned me about idealism, and living outside of reality. The worst part is, I knew they were right. But I figured, maybe someday I’ll look back on this stage of my life and laugh at the foolish kid I was, or maybe I’ll figure out a way to live by my conscience and make it work. I didn’t think I’d wind up stealing from someone I care about, or, for that matter, stealing full stop.

I walked to the library, feeling hurt, angry, stupid, guilty. I found my little brother, laughing under his breath at Stephen Colbert’s book, and dug up a Terry Pratchett book for myself, and proceeded to get lost in the life of Samuel Vimes, Night Watch. Good book. It was five-thirty before I put it down, having seen my brother off some time ago. I called my best friend and told her as much of the story as I could, in as much detail as I could muster, having called my sister on the way to the library, seen my other best friend at the store where I work during the whole ordeal, and having decided (after all this) to e-mail my other best friend the story later on. Then I walked back to the plaza, buying a bottle of glue and applying for a job on the way there, and also stopping for a bite and writing this: Fuck anarchism, fuck the greater good, fuck higher ideals and all the bullshit that comes along. Whenever I get suicidal, I take two options. One, look around, decide the world, life, is too beautiful, amazing; two, it’s the easy way out and I’d let people down. But right now I’m finding it hard to care about either. I concluded that if life was about conscience, appreciating beauty, working hard and loving with all you’ve got and so on, I could take it. I could take heartbreak, pain, physical and emotional, but I can’t take all the moral-gray-area bullshit that comes along. I can’t take fucking philosophy.

Anyway, I got to the store where I currently work as my friend was closing up, accidentally scaring the shit out of him in the process, and went with him to both stores he needed to go to, me radiating apathy and depression, and him trying to cheer me up in various ways, in varying degrees of success. As we left the second grocery store, I got a call from my sister telling me that my brother, a drug dealer who my dad had kicked out at the start of the summer, had broken into the house, and she’d found lights on all over, and the black plastic hat that had held about four months’ worth of my pocket change (at least ten bucks, probably closer to twenty) empty on my dad’s bed. I thanked her for the news, hung up. Walked home laughing, about as painfully close to tears as I ever want to be, laughing and unable to stop. I stopped in the park for a while, saw a bat flying around, apologized to my God and for what I did to both the owner and the chef and God only knows who else, lied in a tree and wished for death, jumped out and walked home, where I found that my brother had also taken with him about two meals’ worth of food, and kicked in the basement door. My dad surmises that it is me he truly hates, and I do know this to be the case.

But all I could do was laugh, figuring how can I hate him? What I’ve done is so much worse.

And that is why I feel like shit right now.

Related Thoughts in the Stream of an Unfortunate Consciousness

2009-08-30T19:01:00.000-07:00

(On humanity: I’m not a fan. )

We just watched Watchmen, I’m a little tired of this all. How do you justify a liking to the Comedian when in all appearance experiences you are a femine-something? I don’t, don’t, don’t. Don’t understand; not myself, not this, not that, not you for sure. I always seem to like the psychos. Yeah, I liked Rorsach too, the book and movie version. I liked both. Maybe like’s not the right word. I liked the Joker, if that’s the word. I remember reading this thing about how “(I can’t put enough fucking quotes around this word)Gifted” children, after seeing a movie, say, Fiddler on the Roof, would not be ready to go out for ice cream; they would still be wrapped up in the characters, torn apart by their emotional immersion in the drama of it, in a way of sorts somehow; “Semi-“Gifted”” children would be ready to go out for ice cream but only if they could talk about the lighting and the stagecraft and the filming techniques and the so on and so forth and so on, so, so, so I kind of claimed the second category (even though I think there was a third before you get to the gosh-damned lucky normal kids), because in my experience that was a bad thing, when you cried when the character died because even though he was a villain you understood him? Or when you cheered or clapped or whatever the fuck.

I don’t understand why I’m here.
That’s not really true.
Yes it is, though. On the greater level of the question, heady philosophical question, etc.

Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear, oh dear,oh oh oh oh oh oh fuck this fuckfuckfuck.

Medication vs. LSD

2009-08-26T14:30:00.000-07:00

You know, I managed to be without meds for four weeks, with no serious problems.

...Yeah, because the sudden recurring manic laughter is completely normal. Someone is going to notice, even if 2/3 of the people who usually pick up on that are leaving.

Actually, taking meds doesn’t make the manic laughter go away. In some cases, it gets worse.

Oh, I know. I remember things like that, too. But you have to admit that having withdrawal-like symptoms for almost half a week isn’t normal.

I don’t have to admit shit.

Your chest is contracting.

You’re unable to externalize negative emotions.

You need your fucking meds. They’re in the cabinet. Take them.

Fuck you. Id rather see the world more clearly. I’m tired of all this distortion.

Oh, for the love of… You’re not seeing things more clearly. The insanity is the distortion, not the meds! You might be more interested in the world when you’re completely fucking batshit, but that’s because it’s not the real world. Take. Your. Meds.

Acid trips make the world more distorted too.

Acid is not Risperdal.

Shut up.

Maybe I should start taking meds again. For a while, nothing seemed different, I didn’t even hit withdrawal, that I remember, at least. And the week in Maine was amazing, unlike normal problems when I don’t take meds. But all the sudden I feel my brain slipping. Dreams are vivid and a little nightmarish again, I’m wondering about things that really shouldn’t… um, things that aren’t really open to discussion, if that makes sense. The rules of physics aren’t… um. Basically, I’m laughing again, instead of whatever emotion I want to express, my chest is acting like it did when I went through withdrawal three or four times before, and the world is strange.

So yeah.

Camping Journal

2009-08-21T09:27:00.000-07:00

(This is the uncut version of what I did for most of the week we were in Mt. Desert Island, camping. I'll post the edited version on Facebook. There's only one real difference, to keep my dad's wrath from pouring onto my head, other than that they're the same. Note to self: Not located in blog folder.)

August 12, 2009; morning

Well, this is day one. Full day one, at least. We got here yesterday afternoon/evening, and set about setting up camp. It’s a pretty small campsite, but not as small as it looked when we first got here; we fit both tents in alright, and the van in the driveway, without too much cramping. Right now Ruth is glaring at me across the picnic table for playing music on this thing (Everybody Always Leaves, by Matthew Ryan). I thought she might like it, but she refuses to give it a chance. It’s a pretty gray day, a little tiny bit of humid chill in the air, but that’s okay. I’m honestly so happy to be here I couldn’t care less what the weather does (within reason, of course). But it’s pretty, and it’s nice enough. We went over to Robin and Bob’s house last night, after dinner (spaghetti; Sheila kind of burned the sauce, for which we can blame the dogs). That was cool, I always know in the back of my mind how much I miss them, but it hits home when we actually get to see them. Hope we get to hang around more this week with them. Last night, we walk into the porch, we’re all standing around exchanging greetings, and I look over to see Peter looking at Aunty Robin with a strange sort of look. She’s like “Got a problem? What’s the matter, Pete?” And I looked down to see that she’s standing on one of his shoelaces (untied, as usual), grinning. He’s like “…Um. You’re… you’re standing on my shoelace…” She’s like “What? What, your shoelace? What’s the matter?” It made me smile.

So the dogwalk here is a tiny little fenced in place, but there’s tons of places to take them, so I’m not worried. (Listening to U2, now.) Dad is making pancakes, Ruth just took out her sketchbook, the dogs have finally settled down a little, RJ is setting the table, Peter is watching me type, Sheila is doing something in the tent. Well, their tent. We’re splitting one tent, and Dad and Sheila are splitting another one. (Hurr hurr hurr) Peter is now angry that I will put this up somewhere. Hurr hurr hurr. I probably won’t leave this on or out much longer, since the sky is so gray and threatening.

Little kids are running past our campground, afraid, because before we had tied up the dogs, Lucky chased some kid off when he walked past. Poor guy was like… three feet tall. He ran and ran, and when we finally got Lucky off, (s?)he started crying, just standing there in the middle of the road, crying. It was pretty bad. But I should wrap this thing up and put my laptop away. Peter wants to look up the location of some torture museum, but I refuse to use WiFi unless absolutely, completely necessary. I did not come to Mt. Desert Island to hang around online, or to look at torture museums. Perhaps after a few days, this weekend, I’ll do a quick Facebook update or something. Otherwise? NO. I refuse to be a technology-addicted symbol of teenage dependence. Ruth, Peter, and RJ fill that gap just fine (they deny this). And for crying out loud, Dad was more concerned about me bringing charging-apparatuses for various electronic devices than I was. But anyway.

So that’s pretty much it. Ruth is sketching something that looks like fur around an eye, the pancakes are (hey, it was a furry eye!) about ready, and I don’t want to run my battery down. More later!

August 13, 2009; afternoon

We just got back from a four/five hour hike. We set out around eleven, got back just now, plus maybe twenty, thirty minutes of waiting while someone gave Sheila a ride back to the car so she could come get us, and then driving. So maybe four and a half hours. It’s a little chilly today, and I forgot to pack a sweatshirt (predictably enough), but still pretty nice out. We’re going to Robin and Bob’s for dinner tonight, but we’ve got two hours to cool our heels and shower first, which is a good thing, because we’re all pretty sweaty and gross. Hiking for four hours will do that to you.
The whole time, I kept wanting to take pictures—literally there is unspeakable beauty in every single direction. But I settled for the especially scenic things. And the mushrooms, of course. Most of the hike I was up ahead of everyone. I’m not sure why; I’d just start walking, normally, and when I looked back I’d be alone. Not sure exactly how that works out, but it was pretty fun. We ate lunch at Valley Summit, and then hiked up to the summit of St. Saveur, and down to Echo Lake cliffs from there. A very nice hike; our original plan was to go along St. Saveur to Mt. Acadia, but in the end it turned out we were a little unprepared for that.

Last night I built a fire, it was cool. Everyone kept building it, I eventually just went to bed. But there’s the sky here. It’s so beautiful! The sky is so black, and there are stars, brighter than you would ever see them at home, everywhere. It’s amazing. I saw a shooting star in a clearing a way down the road, a veritable comet, I swear. It had a thick glowing trail, it was bright… amazing. Then I went to bed. My sleeping bag was damp though.

So it was a good day. I dunno how else to describe it. Beautiful mountain, nice hike, good weather so far. The dogs are dead tired. For that matter, so am I.

August 19, 2009; morning

Wow. So this journal was a good idea in theory, but honestly, I’m camping. Who the hell has time to sit around on a laptop typing in such a beautiful place? Not I, for sure. So, in order of things I remember, what’s been going on:

Last night, we had tacos for dinner. They were actually pretty good. I had guacamole, everyone else had ground beef. Before that, Dad and Sheila went out to Sand Beach, up in the Northeast corner of the island (we are in the Southwest corner), and then to Rubber-Rock Beach, which is actually called something else… but no one remembers it here. We played cards around the campground and stuff; before they left, Peter went with me up the street about a mile, to Ship’s Harbor, which is a cool little path to a muddy shore, which then goes to a rocky shore (infinitely cooler). It was ninety-five degrees out, but for some reason Peter was cold.

That morning/afternoon, Robin and Bob took us out (we are about to eat breakfast, scrambled eggs and bacon; Peter’s idea of setting the table is, quite literally, putting spoons out and then leaving someone else to do the rest. He’s very tired all the time, and we suspect dehydration, which makes pretty good sense.) to pull traps (now I am eating eggs with a spoon. They are good.) and we did a little fishing, too. That was mad fun. I can’t remember the last time I was out on a boat, plus it was pretty cool to watch Robin pulling the traps up. She’s definitely the coolest person I know. And it was just awesome being out on the water. Once you get out of the island a bit, things get really cool, but that’s the way I like it. I put sunscreen on my face, because I’m not always an idiot, but then I rolled my sleeves up to the seam and got my shoulders burned, so sometimes I am.

Also, I finished A Clockwork Orange yesterday. It’s a good book, really it is. Then I started on the Vonnegut short stories, and those are cool too. I think my favorite is the one about Bernie and Big Nick, the mafia guy. (Peter is urging me to eat the rest of the bacon. “You’re on vacation!”)

(We’re taking the dogs for a walk at Little Long Pond, since Carly has finally gotten over her exhaustion from playing with Zach. That dog is so freaking energetic, it’s crazy! But he was tired when I went over the other day, which leads into what we did the day before yesterday…)
So the day before yesterday, everyone wanted to go to the lobster hatchery, but I’ve seen it twice now, once as a little kid and once with Aunty Robin, the time I stayed up here with them for two weeks. I was trying to remember what the deal was last time I was there, and I remembered that foggy morning when I got in a fight with Grandpa (because he is a racist sometimes. I know he'd never act on it, and if he knows a person personally he doesn't judge them at all like that, but it does NOT excuse the kind of things he was saying that day.) and needed to get the hell out of the house before I punched him or something. So I mentioned that, and Dad got pretty pissed at me over that, which I didn’t realize at the time. But I knew I didn’t want to go to the lobster hatchery/museum, so I looked at the map for a good hike, and found Beech Mountain looking pretty good, figuring I’d go up the cliffs, down the West Ridge Trail, and then all the way around Long Pond to Robin and Bob’s house. So I took the sandwich Sheila had made for me the day before, and a cereal bar and a package of peanuts and two water bottles, a trail map (that’s really, really important), the bus schedule (just in case), and my dad dropped me off at the Echo Lake entrance to Beech Cliffs. We kind of had a fight on the way over. Like I said, I had no idea he was so pissed about the slight to his dad. He was. He told me I was hypersensitive to racial and class-like things, and needed to examine myself because he doesn't think my heart is in the right place. I was furious.

But we kind of got over it by the time we got to the cliffs, which was good. So from there, I went down and took a long drink from the water fountain at Echo Lake, and headed up the cliffs. Those were nice, that’s a beautiful trail, if strenuous, and I was panting pretty heavily when I hit the top of that trail, up towards the summit. (I have to hurry this up, I only have an hour of battery left and kind of want this for music on the way home) So I made it from there down to the parking lot, then up a less steep trail to the fire tower at the summit (but forgot to take a picture of the summit sign), and from there I took a bit of a wrong turn and wound up taking the South Ridge Trail. It wasn’t that much longer of a walk, and I still wound up on the shore of Long Pond (different, notably, from Little Long Pond. Robin says “Us Mainers really know how to give names, eh?”), so it wasn’t too bad. The walk around Long Pond was very nice, I wound up drinking a little from the far shore, the one at the base of Beech Mt., mainly because it was so rocky and clear. When I made it around to the pump station at the end of the pond (it really is long, not round; the station is at… the south end, I believe, I was coming from the eastern shore), there were people around, and the water looked muddier. On the western shore, there were people swimming, so I didn’t even think about drinking over there.

At some point, the Long Pond Trail cut up away from the pond, and my original plan was to just skip off the trail and follow the shore of the pond all the way up to the path that goes up to Bob and Robin’s house. So I left the trail, and at first I was worried, and then I noticed things that made me certain that someone, not all that recently, had done this. There was reindeer moss with a boot-print in it, and a few other clues, but nothing really concrete. So I made it down that trail for a while, maybe ten minutes, and I started getting thirstier and thirstier; at this point I’d been walking for a few hours and only had half a bottle of water left, and the pond was all muddy and had lily plants growing there. At some point, it occurred to me that if I cramped up from dehydration on the trail, someone was bound to find me, but if I got stuck out there, there was no guarantee. (this was right about the point at which I stopped taking pictures and concentrated on moving) With that in mind, I beat my way back through the bush to the trail, and on the way became convinced that someone had not quite made a path, per se, along the pond edge, but they’d definitely found a way through. I don’t know if I can say why I was so certain, because like I said, there was no real concrete evidence. But anyway, I made it back to the trail, and took the Long Pond Trail all the way uphill to where it forked with the Great Notch (called the ‘Western Trail’ on the trail map, which threw me for a second).

At that point, I was incredibly thirsty, praying under my breath that I’d make it up to the fire road, had one mouthful of water left, and really starting to worry. I made up my mind that the next people I met, I’d swallow my pride and ask if they had any water to spare. So I did, and a lovely Quebecois couple poured half a bottle of (heavily chlorinated, NOT that I am in any way complaining) water into my empty bottle, and I made it up the Great Notch to the Fire Road on that. I drank the last mouthful of clear water on the Long Pond Fire Road, and had a few swallows of the other stuff left. So I walked up the fire road, and eventually hit Hodgdon (pronounced HOJ-dun) Road, and drank the last of it. From there, it was straight up the road, except for one triangular fork. But I checked the map there, and made it all the way to Bob and Robin’s house, where Robin was outside making dinner. So I stayed there, they gave me water and some potato salad (honestly I think her potato salad is some of the best I’ve had, because usually I’m not a huge potato salad fan; every other one I’ve ever had is overpowering on the mayonnaise) and we talked for a while, and Zach was so tired he pretty much laid around, which was adorable. He kept putting his head in my lap, and it is so soft! Such a cute puppy; he’s only one. Other than that time, I have never seen him not energetic. Visla, they are an awesome breed.

ETA: (what i would've said had i the battery power then, in summary: I told Robin about the fight with my dad, and she said "Bullshit! He is too a racist!" (on my grandpa.) it made me pretty glad that at least i knew i wasn't crazy. when i was showing her my route on the trail map, she pointed out that I could've cut across the shore of Long Pond, and said that she'd actually done that before and I went "Ha! I knew someone'd done that." It made me pretty happy.)

(Just realized I only have twenty minutes of battery left, switched to Power Saver mode, which means ten extra minutes but also that I cannot but hardly see the screen at all. Apologies for spelling errors.)

So they dropped me off at the campsite, and I laid around for a little while, and then everyone else got home, we ate supper, and I went to bed. That concludes… Monday’s adventure. Now, what did we do Sunday?

Ah, right. On Sunday, Bobby took Ruth, Peter, and RJ out fishing. They caught quite a bit of fish, and were proud of themselves. Peter, predictably enough, had some serious trouble taking proper care of his line, but he was very good at filleting the fish later, and when he’d done that, we had them for supper the following night; they smelled, looked, and according to everyone else, tasted like something you’d have in a restaurant, owing partly to my dad’s excellent cooking skills, partly to Peter’s excellent fish-filleting skills, partly to everyone’s fishing skills, and very muchly to Bobby’s fishing-teaching skills and taking them out on the boat. So that was cool, while they were doing that, Dad, Sheila, Robin and I took all three dogs out to a walk around Little Long Pond, which is a nice spot on Rockefeller land, which means dogs can be unleashed and bikers are not allowed. (Lucky hates bikers, and on this island they are often rude, so that’s a good thing.) That was a lot of fun.

So after that, we took the fish to Robin and Bob’s house (which was where Peter filleted them), and only left to take the dogs home to feed (which we forgot to do while at home, but got laundry done and fed them with the food in the dashboard), then went back for hamburgers and hotdogs. (and veggie burgers. and turkey burger, for Robin)

I have to call Robin and let her know we’re set to go walk the dogs, and also I am almost out of batteries. I’ll do the rest of this later.

August 19, 2009; afternoon

It took so long to check e-mail while I was here charging my laptop that I forgot to finish the bloggish entry thing here. Oh well, now we’re going to Rubber-Rock Beach (also called Hunter Beach, which Robin remembered when we asked her on the walk today.)

August 20, 2009; late morning/early afternoon

Well, we just finished packing up, just about ten-thirty. We’re dropping by the dock to pick up lobsters and say goodbye to Robin and Bob. I am terribly sad, and really don’t want to leave. But life goes on, and I know we’ll be back. Soon, I hope.

Very little battery left, so I guess this is the end. Carly’s got her head on my leg; I think she’s as sad to leave as we are. Alas, alack, but life goes on.

See Pay angst. Angst, pay, Angst!

2009-08-10T17:12:00.000-07:00

There are three people in this world who I trust completely. I don’t trust people, normally, because that’s the fast-track to a whole mess of things, emotional, physical, and so on. But I trust them, more than anyone or anything or myself. Somehow, this doesn’t even enter my mind when they tell me things like to stop beating myself up about stuff. I don’t even consider being logical. In my mind, I am being logical, and they’re just blind to something, some important all-encompassing thing that makes me not really worth caring about. Bullshit? Yeah, probably. But that doesn’t make it easier to let go.

The thing is, for the most part, all the bullshit about schizophrenia and hearing voices in your head… I figure, I don’t hear more voices than normal people, unless you’re counting Mohan, and the kittens, and the kittens are not in my head. Well, they are, but I still hear them like normal sounds. The point is, there are times when I would make the most stereotypical schizoid seem normal, except that I try to avoid muttering to myself. The voices in my head aren’t part of me, or they are, but they’re

fuck it.

The point is, I will never be able to convince myself that I am not a shitty friend, or a shitty excuse for a human being. No matter how much good I do, and how much my friends tell me that it’s alright, and how much I escape, I will always feel like a horrible person who’s just managing to disguise the awful parts of her for now, and eventually they’ll come out and destroy everyone around her. And the worst part is? I’ve at least partially confirmed this. Without a certain part of me keeping myself in check, I could easily become a psychopath. I’ve nearly stabbed my best friend in the eye before, without it even really registering in my conscious mind until the fork was halfway there. The only conscious thought I had, in a feeling rather than words, was how satisfying stabbing an eyeball would be.

This is why I do not understand why anyone, at all, would ever want to be even in my direct vicinity, let alone actually friends. Yeah, I can pass for normal sometimes, or failing that, I can look and act like a nice person, or at least a friendly one, but the fact is, I know that there is something inside of me that is either not human, or a terrible human. I am, on the inside, a monstrosity. A wild thing, but not in the romanticized, glorified, dreaming-hippie wild way. A real wild thing, all claws and irrational ferocity and fear and rage and unthinking violence.

That’s the part that scares me the most, I think. Then there’s all the other parts, the part about not caring enough, and being a shitty friend because, secretly, truly, I care more for myself than anyone, and how would I ever know if that’s true or not? I claim I’d do anything for my friends, but doesn’t everyone?

Then there’s the part where all of those combine with the final fucking crown jewel of analytically criticizing every word and gesture and look that have crossed me in all of life in memory—and I have a long, long, detailed memory. And hating myself for every damned one. I know, and constantly review, almost every mistake I’ve ever made. It’s a habit. Sometimes I can keep myself from doing it, sometimes I can’t.

I think I hate my life, but in reality I hate myself so much more. And my friends don’t understand why, and the worst part is that I could explain everything in this blog post with a fucking powerpoint, and they’d still tell me to stop beating myself up. Why? What the fuck makes you think I deserve happiness?

(The logical part of my brain claims that it’s Baptist Guilt telling me all this. But I rarely know which part of my head to believe. They all lie. I don’t really trust myself anymore, either.)

Self-induced Nightmares

2009-08-07T22:23:00.000-07:00

Right now, it’s a quarter past one. I should be asleep, I have to be at work in less than eight hours, have to leave in less than seven and a half. And I was on my way to sleep, but self-induced nightmares took my mind, and now I can’t go back. Self-induced nightmares… God, what a scary concept. Your brain starts down a train of thought, horrifying, but you can’t look away. And it’s worse—it’s a story, it’s a drama, you know the characters, you are one of them, but that doesn’t make the cruelty easier. But because it’s a story—catch 22. You can’t leave, not until it’s finished somehow, but it’s so horrifying that the longer you stay, the worse it gets.

Welcome to my brain. Glad you dropped by? Yeah, didn’t think so.

Nightmares

2009-07-29T21:27:00.001-07:00

The first nightmare I ever had, that I remember, is something that happened when I was very, very young, probably just old enough to walk, talk, and read a little. (Reading came on the heels of talking for me, in a house with a lot of books and no television or computer.) I remember, very, very vaguely, more as feelings and general tones than actual memories, being warned about electricity, and about lights, and bulbs, and sockets. My dad knew enough—knows enough, even—to know exactly how dangerous that kind of thing is. Most people do, but he also knows how to do things with electricity without ever being in danger, or how to deal with danger. But to me, at that age, electricity was just one of those things, like cars, or lightning, or fire, that just… Were. Were forces of danger, things my parents gave dire warnings against, enforced by spankings and more dire warnings of a general, and, in order for this nightmare to have occurred, specific nature, I suppose.

Our house was very old, for an American building—over a hundred years old, inherited from my great-grandparents, two stories plus a basement and an attic. My sister and I shared an upstairs bedroom, the one in the front of the house, with two windows looking onto the street, through the branches of two evergreen trees—I could never tell you what kind. Through the hallway was the staircase; above the staircase, in that hallway somewhere, was a narrow staircase that led to the attic. But past the main staircase was my parents’ room, the master bedroom, past that was… a closet, I believe, on one hand, and on the other, a bathroom which led into what would’ve been my brothers’ room, farther on. My brother may have been sleeping in it even then; I don’t remember. He was very young. Down the stairs, there was the living room under our bedroom, and in the back of the house, the kitchen, very dark, I remember, for some reason. I have a vague impression of tan floor tiles, but that may be wrong. There was a pantry, and somewhere there were stairs to the basement. Where, exactly, I don’t remember.

In this dream, I remember, my little brother, David—then, he was my only brother—and I were sitting on the floor, in the attic, which was bare and dusty and lit well. There were piles of Christmas-tree lights on either side of us, bundled and coiled, and we each had a strand. We were unscrewing the light bulbs, checking them for something, to see if they lit up or something like that, and then screwing them back in. (It occurs to me that one important thing about the trigger of this nightmare may have been my mother’s hatred of Christmas decorations.) Someone, either my older sister, Serenity, or one of my parents, called from downstairs about hot chocolate. I put the strand of lights down, eagerly, and told David to come on, and stood up. And he said, “Just this last one,” and unscrewed a light bulb, and it shocked him somehow, and he collapsed, dead.

And that was the most horrifying thing that I have ever dreamed, to this day. I have dreams of demons, and horrible nightmares, and vivid, lucid brawls, and chases where I can’t get away, and dreams of betrayal, and dreams of cannibalism and pain. But that was the worst dream I ever had.

There was one, a few years later, where I was tied to the little tree out behind the fence, at the corner of our fence and our next-door-neighbors (to the right, the Andersons), and a man drove up in a green Model-T Ford, a man with white hair and a white beard and a top hat (I think, I may be misremembering the top hat), and he took me by the wrist and tried to get me to get into his car. I remember being in the backyard with David and a bunch of shouting, screaming twenty-ish people drove through the yard in screaming red sports-cars, and we were scared. He dreamed the same dream, the same night, I think. Or maybe I imagined that.

But the scariest, worst, most nightmarish dream I have ever had, or probably ever will have, is remembering sitting there on the attic floor, screaming, and him dead on the floor next to me.

Things in my life, literal and otherwise

2009-07-28T15:28:00.000-07:00

On my desk, which has finally been organized, I keep a handful of rocks. There is a dark gray rock that fits almost perfectly in my fist, which I kicked along the park once, and decided to keep; the feel of it, solid, cold, heavy in my palm reminded me that I was real. The second rock is a polished tiger-eye, very reddish in color, compared to most stones of that nature. It’s very pretty, and it reminds me of Mohan, my friend. Then there’s a little piece of clinker, very dark gray, like a shadow on the bottom of a river, it glistens in the right light; I found it in my favorite park, by the riverside, upstream. Two more rocks my best friend gave me, smooth and flat and elliptical, one more tawny and one more gray, a pencil-gray, both the right size to hold in my hand at night. The sixth rock is a small lump of pink granite, black-flecked, that I found at the beach; the seventh is a tan, white, dark rock that I picked up from the sidewalk on my way home, last night, after a friend told me everything that was in my own heart, poisoning me from the inside out. I’d known; before leaving, I’d written something along the same lines, bemoaning my inaction and resolving to get off my ass and do something. But hearing it from someone else was kind of painful, which I should have seen coming. Perceptive friends are a double-edged sword.

I loved the person I was on the road to becoming; I wanted to be that person, I want to be someone who lives life to the fullest, someone who cares and creates and loves. I hate the person I am, I hate the person I am becoming now, instead. I have no creative energy, I waste most of my days daydreaming without doing anything about it, I sit around and do nothing. I am, quite simply, a waste of space right now.

There is a lot of shit being thrown at me in life right now. I’d love to use that as a shield; in my own mind, I have been, have been excusing all my lackluster as an effect of the world around me. This is basically complete bullshit. There are so many things that could be worse in my life, I have been so lucky, and there really is no excuse for my situation right now. I’m not going to college because I fucked up my grades and then didn’t apply to enough schools. I’m not going to Sacramento because I didn’t get a second job soon enough, didn’t save carefully enough. I’m still living with my family—well, because I’m not going to college and don’t have enough money to move to Sacramento. This is no excuse to laze around and whine.

There’s a mirror on the dresser, to my right. I don’t hate the person looking back at me, most of the time. I used to. I hate the potential there, and I hate the lack of energy. I hate the potential because it forces me onward, because I don’t want to waste the few things I do have. I hate the lack of energy because it’s my own fault, because I could do better. I hate that people see more in me than is really there. I hate that my friends think I’m so damned smart, I hate that I can’t hide my faults from them, I hate making an idiot of myself so often. I hate the irresponsibility, and I love the foolhardiness. I try not to hate myself. That way lies madness; most ways, actually, lead to madness. I try not to think about that too hard, or I wind up curling up into a useless ball in a corner for hours. I wish I was joking. I wish I wasn’t crazy.

One of the things I hate about mental illness, one of the major things, is that it really is a life sentence. That’s one of the first things a friend told me, when I told everyone what the diagnosis was: she said, “It’s not a life sentence.” But it is. It changes the way people look at you, even your best friends, even the people who accept you. For the rest of your life, people will expect certain things from you; for the rest of your life, if you show some quirk in behavior, people will ask, “Have you been taking your meds?” And if you say yes, they will roll their eyes in semi-disbelief, or wry acceptance, and if you say no, they will sigh hopelessly and either give you a lecture, or simply be content with quiet disappointment, far worse than any lecture. And it will never go away. And you will never be normal, and you will never be accepted, and you will never be able to fit in.

But, for all that, there’s really no excuse for sitting around whining about it. The only way to get around something like that is to take the shit you have, and do something with it. So, even if this story is horseshit, I may as well write it, if for nothing better than to satisfy the characters.

Rain, life, it's actually quite simple.

2009-07-21T19:33:00.000-07:00

The rain is falling quite prettily now; the drops are so fine they’re almost mist, but it still soaks you if you stand in it long enough. It’s pretty, but it’s not my favorite kind of rain. I love the raging storms, gales that ravage the landscape, leaving leaves strewn across the sidewalk, hurling sheets of water into your face even under an overhang, deafening you with thunder and blinding streaks of lightning across the face of the sky. I feel so alive, with a storm so fierce in my face that they spawn tornados and hail and think nothing of it. It’s a rush of adrenaline; it’s the marrow of life and the core, and the lifeblood of my soul. Even as a child, I feared thunderstorms but was drawn in by them. Logically, I knew they could kill me, burn down the house, anything. But I loved that feeling. It’s something that hasn’t gone away; if anything, that’s grown stronger as I got older. I seek out that feeling now, the rush of life.

When it’s dark, and cold, and the air is thick with swirling snow, I slip out the back door, and only manage to keep my hood up for a few minutes before I need more. I love the silence, the breeze in the icy air, the snow in my hair, the flurry just visible in the orange light here and there, at just the right angle. On days in early winter, when the sleet comes and the ice pounds my windows, I rush out into the biting evening, and chase the twilight through the sidewalks, quiet but for the crackle of frozen leaves and the ongoing rattle of tiny droplets of ice hurtling onto the ground. There’s ice in my hair, and on my coat, and in my eyelashes, and I’m wind-burned by the time I get home, but it’s a good thing.

Someone wrote the newspaper to complain about those punk kids who lurk around at night, and I smiled, seeing their preemptive anger concerning preemptive vandalism, and register with amusement the annoyance at all those stupid fools who come out of the woodwork on summer nights. Yes, teenagers roam in the summer nights. But you haven’t lived until you’ve wandered the streets in the middle of a raging winter storm; when the summer thunderstorms come, it’s best to lie on the ground, or lean on a fence, and let the rain wash your worries away.

It’s a pretty, quiet rain tonight. That’s probably why I’m sitting here, listening to music and typing up a blog entry, instead of curled up against a rock in the park, watching the drops fall.

Again, on love, and life, and indifference.

2009-07-19T15:46:00.000-07:00

indifference, numbness, cold. things i want, desire, need. since the first day desire touched the heart of a man, since the first night a woman suffered dreams, since the first emotion in the first moment of the world, it has been as much a harm as a help, if not moreso. more, actually, definitely. Indifference is a wall, a shield, an insulator that we need so much, that never comes when we need it most; indifference is a thing that changes us, takes our most human parts and cloaks or steals or destroys them. unfair, perhaps, but true, nonetheless.

i do not want to be human, today. i do not want to love, i do not want to hurt.

there are times, when in despair or jest, i tell those i trust of my most beloved, terrifying dream, in sleep or awake. but, despite it all, i am human, whether i will or no.

And I feel, and love, and hurt. And I am powerless to stop that. I am powerless to deny platonic love, the empathetic pain that comes with it; I am powerless to deny romantic love, and all the desire and pain that comes with that; I am powerless to hold back emotion for my family, as much as that hurts me. As many times as friends may hurt me with a careless, or aimed, jest, as many times as I am betrayed, as many disagreements as we may have, I will love them. As many times as I am denied, or lied to, or used, I will fall in love, stupidly, helplessly, repeatedly. As many times as my family hurts me, denies me, turns from me, steals from me, lies to me, I will love them. Each and every one of them. Forever. And my God, it fucking hurts. Because love doesn't always mean turning the other cheek, especially when more than one life is at stake. Love doesn't always mean gentle kindness. So I'm not sorry. I'm sorry for the events that led up to this, and I'm sorry that it had to happen, and I'm sorry for the pain. But, it was not my decision, and, that aside, I would stand by it.

Friends that I grew up with, and friends I made later, might notice with disapproval that Agape I have left out of the above. And Charity. Both of those are as true, and as painful, in a way-- Charity, I have had less reason to fear; I suspect that I'm not doing it right. Agape? Painful. More personal, less for and to other people. Agape is a private thing, I think, especially for one without a church. I love God. It's true. I think, sometimes, that I have been given ample reason not to. But, nevertheless.

Dancing, or something a bit like it.

2009-07-15T08:40:00.000-07:00

One of my favorite things about life is the crazily silly dances I manage to get away with most of the time, alone. Anyone who knows me would be able to tell you that I Do Not Dance, mostly because I Cannot Dance. But the crazy bobbing-head and waving-arms gestures that pop up around my keyboard must surely count for something! Every so often I catch a glimpse of my reflection in the screen and have to suppress the embarrassed part of my brain, because a wince would interfere with the beat. And there is a beat, and I do carry it, in my own rather wild way. The other fun thing is the crazy leaping, twisting, capering-and-cavorting sort of dance that I only do when it is a truly joyful song on my mp3 player and I am on the part of the path by the pond that is completely hidden from the rest of the park. Or the crazy dance that came with Pride, by U2, which was performed in a series of leaps and twirls, and presented the major problem with this entire category of behavior.

As with so many of the things I do, there is no good explanation. There is no respectable way to explain a minor injury incurred while dancing wildly away from observers. Fortunately, the worst that ever happened was when I landed partly on a piece of furniture, on my ankle, in the living room in mid-leap and was limping for a day or two. With any luck at all, I’ll never have to explain a sprain in my shoulder or something this way. I might just have to make something up.

I have been wandering

2009-07-14T09:54:00.000-07:00

I have been wandering, as is my wont, at night, in the dark streets, under the orange streetlights, under the pale stars, the waning moon, down paths that have been mine for so long. Down into the woods I go, when dusk is beginning to scatter in the face of the darkness of night, and I find a place, and I sit, and think, and look, and wonder. In this place, these woods, this pond, I have found sanctuary, I have found reason, I have found peace. I have seen the great birds and the small birds soar, I have heard the song of the bullfrogs like living violins and teeming bass drums, I have seen beaver, and possum, and hawk, and heron. I have gone and watched the night glitter and shine in the light of thousands of fireflies, wherever you look a sparkling light, orange and yellow and green, a little different in each flash, which becomes apparent when they fly past your face, two inches away. I have been lost in the trails when it began to rain, in the dark—that was years ago, I could not be lost there now if I tried. I have found peace, and hope, and despair, and hurt, and love in that place, I have seen snow-covered trees lit by only the moon’s blue light, I have gone to the path for solace and been confronted by my own shadow and more. I have found myself on my knees in the mud, ice touching the bare skin of my legs as I cried aloud in a voice I did not know I had. I have sung, in the dark night, in the pitch between the trees and the dusk in the sky, I have whistled in the day, I have prayed for a thunderstorm, I have reveled in the mist; I have laid flat on my back, and seen the sky, framed by trees, gilt by the sunset, glorious.

Often, I have been convinced that such a place is all I need in this world. It is a place for peace, one of the few in my life. I am still convinced that I could spend the rest of my life wandering the wilderness, at peace, without seeing another office building ever. I am probably not alone in this view.

I do think that peace and restlessness are not incompatible. I think that true peace needs more than tranquility, I think that a balance is necessary. I remember running out of the house, down the driveway, angry and hurt and barefoot in the full moon, and walking far on sidewalks that seemed better than the alternative. I remember crying aloud, punching telephone poles bare-fisted, full force, in the dark, because I did not know where to turn. I remember standing for long, long moments on the street before a church, watching, wondering, wishing, more alone than anything. I remember nights of shadows, masks in the dark behind me, figures that haunted the corners of my eye, impossible, terrifying.

Restlessness is a part of me. Peace is a part of restlessness, something unattainable, something impossibly beautiful, a moment that surprises by being real, after all. Peace cannot be taken, it cannot be bought, it cannot be sought out. Restlessness is a part of me, and peace is a part of restlessness, and this does not strike me as impossible, because life is made up of paradoxes.

Stories

2009-07-12T18:11:00.000-07:00

the thing is, i don't know if i want a normal life. i don't think i even want a normal job. i don't want to get rich selling juice-- or even sharing juice. i don't want an excellent business opportunity, i don't want to have a LIFE, in any sense of the word. i don't. want. anything. at least, not anything like that. and yet, you people continue to tell me that it is Necessary, and that i should Compromise, or at least look beyond whatever stupid world i'm living in in my head (okay, you haven't said it like that, but i think you want to, at least a few of you, a few times), and try to get some kind of stability before i try to be an Artist. here's the thing though.

I don't WANT to be an Artist. Or, really, a Writer. (I want to meet a very specific writer sometimes, but that's different.)

I want to tell stories. That's all, in one way. In another way, I want to LIVE, to feel the salt on my face in every way possible, to climb mountains like a goat like i did when i was young, to see forever the dappled sunlight on the forest floor, to hear forever the brook singing over rocks, to lose myself in the thunderstorms, spontaneous and forever. but mostly, i want to tell stories. I want to take all the characters floating around in my head, and all the landscapes that exist a thousand worlds over, and all the meadows and flowers and faires and sprites and genies and gargoyles and assassins and thieves and shepherds and everything. i want to live, live all of it forever, and then come back and tell people.

and that's often why i don't mingle well, or why i can't be coaxed to dinners and parties and things, and why you meet me in the mist and the dark, with no good reason for being there, and why i might choose a notebook over a car. because mingling, gossip about folks who aren't there, laughter, light, takes me away from the Stories, mine or someone else's, and life as it should be pales in contrast with life i want to live.

there is a part of a book i read that says something like "The thing about stories is, they don't mean a damn if there's nobody listening," which sometimes i kind of agree with. I want to go to the edge of the world, the end of life, and then come back and tell the stories to people who want to hear them. And it seems like that's not an acceptable goal, these days. And that saddens me.

So it turns out Neil Gaiman really is that amazing.

2009-07-06T10:18:00.000-07:00

Sometimes, my life feels like something out of a nightmare. I came home from food-not-bombs yesterday to find three lawnmowers at random places in the backyard, the shed door open, and the light inside on. Sighing, I went into the house to find corn kernels drying to the floor and counter in the kitchen, living room, hallway, and bathroom—only, in the bathroom they were accompanied by a fist-sized ball of crushed up hotdog roll in the sink, also slowly drying to the surface. In the kitchen and parts of the living room, they were accompanied by sparse handfuls of cheerios. On the kitchen counter, where there were no dishes, there was a plastic bag of taco shells, a container of cheerios, an open bag of hotdog rolls, a nearly empty jug of iced tea, and other unidentified debris. In an attempt to clean some of this up, I started by taking out the over-full garbage under the sink, rescuing two glass bottles and an empty milk jug in the process, and found that, outside, there was a smashed glass all over the patch of pavement behind the steps. The irony to all this is that, that very morning, my brother, who is one-and-a-half years younger than me, had called telling me that my father had agreed to lend him twenty dollars through me if he mowed the lawn and did the dishes (which entails cleaning the kitchen to some extent). When I had left the house, the only messes were that the lawn was a bit shaggy, and the sink was full of dishes (with some overspill on the counter, I’ll admit).

It is scenes like this which make me chant under my breath, “I hate my life, I hate my life, I hate my life,” as though verbalizing it somehow makes it a little easier to bear. (When my brother came home, at seven-thirty, demanding twenty-five dollars, as he had mowed the lawn, he applied the very excellent method of asking me to babysit two eight-week-old kittens, smaller than my head, as a surprise for his girlfriend, so I really couldn’t say no, because they were SO CUTE.)

Anyway, I soon gave up on the mess, went into my room, and wrote something on my other journal about Neil Gaiman, and his super-inspiring powers which bring me back to the passion of writing that I had so many years ago. And, being a little curious about this amazing writer who pretty much is a huge part of why my life is bearable, I looked him up on TV Tropes, which told me that he is One Of Us, which is pretty obvious, and linked me to an interview with Stephen Colbert (which made me first smile, and then laugh aloud), and also told me that he has remained kind and very nice to his fans, which was… not surprising, but kind of surprising to read. Know what I mean? It wasn’t that he was nice that surprised me, but that he was so nice that it was a mentionable fact. Curious, I checked Wikipedia, and found that he had his own blog, which I immediately headed over to, and started poking through.

About six hours of reading through his blogs (after the first three entries or so, I went back to the start of the archives, where he’d begun it as a project for American Gods, and started reading chronologically, which is a bit of a hassle with the scrolling, but definitely worth it), Neil Gaiman has skyrocketed to the very head of my list of Awesome Dudes, about even with Bono/U2 (they’re awesome, but they’re not geeks; also, they’re awesome, but they’re rock stars. I will never be a rock star, lacking as I do any real skill in that area). Seriously. As though his amazing writing wasn’t enough (and, I’d bet my last dollar and a whole lot more than that), the guy is basically the sweetest, most personable, amazing person imaginable. And he feeds birds. And loves his kids, and his dog. I am now even more determined to go buy a copy of Sandman, or at least Coraline, or one other of his books or WHATEVER. He’s freaking amazing. I am determined to meet him one day, and after I found myself too tired to continue reading, laid in bed and wrote him a fan letter, which I may or may not be too embarrassed to send, written as it was at about three in the morning, and thus lacking any kind of self-censor. (Not in the area of crudeness, but… squeeing and generally rambling. And stuff.)

So yeah. Neil Gaiman? Awesome Dude.

Choices, Scenery, Guilt

2009-06-26T20:04:00.000-07:00

The window is open, before me. Outside, the rain is falling steadily down, and straight down, which is good, because otherwise I’d have to shut the glass, and I like the breeze. I’m just about eye-level with the bottom of the screen if I sit up, but from my slouched position, I can’t see the top of the shed—just that maple, I think it’s a sugar maple, and behind its fairly skimpy branches, a shorter, but thicker, red maple. There’s a tree larger than both of them, with four main trunks, to the left, and to the right, I can just see the tops of the trees on the other side of the block. There are maple keys sticking to the screen, wet and limp. They’ll probably be stuck there all summer, or until it rains again, possibly tomorrow. On the white part below the sill, there’s a picture of my sister with some girl I don’t know, and another shot of the park in Hartford, the ink washed strangely by rains long past. My desk is littered with objects: a red pen, a purple pen that writes black, two empty plastic bottles, a paycheck, a watch, several coins, broken headphones, a bead, half-filled coffee mugs from a week ago or so, a sketchpad… On an index card stuck to the wall, it says “And if you’re looking for the answer, and if you’re looking for the Light that leads the Way, take my hand and I will lead you where the torture and the pain will drift away.” At the end it gets all small and scrunched up, because I have problems with margining. There’s a vaguely demonic-looking picture on the jelly-cabinet-turned-bookcase, to my left, and above that, a sketch of a broken chain with six links. Actually, ‘sketch’ is being generous. My cat is sleeping underneath it, on a nest of plastic bags that I don’t have the heart to throw away. My sneakers are wet, as are the cuffs of my jeans; my t-shirt is dry, because I wore a sweatshirt when I went out to get some cash from the convenience store ATM at the bottom of the street. I remarked, amusedly, when I left, that I was turning into a human, doing crazy things like wearing layers in the rain. On the wall to my right, just before the corner, there’s an oil painting that my mother did: a red-haired woman walks a grey pony which pulls two warmly dressed children (this is unrealistic; I usually ran out into the snow in a T-shirt or somesuch; also we definitely never had a pony, and there were five of us) on a sled, through the snow. In the background is a hedge of holly bushes that turns into a stone wall and cuts away, back towards the right. There is a swing, hanging from one of the trees in the background. The snow is very realistic. In blue, it says smudgedly “Lo…” in the bottom right hand corner, where it would say “Love Mommy,” but the paint smudged in the rain when she gave it to me. Under that, on my dresser, is a plastic black hat which has a bunch of pennies in it.

The house is quiet. Everyone’s off, to one place or another. I don’t really mind, not today, and I’m getting used to it. I need to be here because I have to work tomorrow, and I suspect rather strongly that I won’t be on time if I go with my family, Friday nights.

I’m lonely, and angry, and I wanted to write a story about two crows who were given the choice of safety or freedom, and they made two different choices. And then I decided “Fuck the metaphor, why don’t I just write what I feel?” But I don’t know if I can. Besides, this is not a choice I made. All the important choices in my life have been made for me. Oh God, I’m sorry.

Life and Love

2009-06-22T21:31:00.000-07:00

Life, measured in summers, in moments of laughter, in breezes that fill the lungs and skin and hair, and leave you with memories of something beyond sight, touch, hearing, life fills your eyes and seeps into your bones and the days are full. Life, measured in scraps of poetry found in old, long-forgotten corners, in magazine pictures, glossy and over-edited and full of a longing for something that doesn’t quite exist, in the many smells of paper, of the powdery, reincarnated souls of numerous trees, life gets into your blood and lends your skin a glow that’s more than natural. Life steals, it takes of your heart like a poison, and before you can grasp it, you are addicted, and you need it, and you cannot ever be without it, and you will fight and struggle and kill to keep just a tiny drop, too little to taste or even see, just to know you have it still. It doesn’t register that you don’t have it anymore, if ever you did; life cannot be had; it has you.

Life is a lot like love, in that regard. You meet a person, and the next day you see them and you smile, and later, you are talking, laughing, and then before you know it you look forward to seeing them, and the image of their eyes—so unlike anyone else’s— settles, like dust, in the recesses of your memory, the places the wall of protection, the brush of indifference, cannot touch. And when the day comes when you will not see them again, and when you can never look forward to seeing them again, you reach hungrily, painfully, desperately for that brush of indifference to protect you, to make it so that their laughter, their voice, their way of talking and the things they say does not matter to you. But there are things that cannot be forgotten, and love does not care for your pain. Love does not need your consent to take root in your mind, in your heart, and is a force greater than anything, even than the ever-consuming need that is life.

Life flourishes in the most unlikely of places; in high places of rocky crags, where the winds tear anything loose away and the clouds freeze if they venture too close, there are small things growing, in the cracks and the crevasses. In the desert, where the sand is all and end and start and all, and heat rules the day without mercy, and cold rules the night without give, life survives.

And where there is life, there is love, and both are the most necessary thing, the one thing that makes you human, or more than human, or less, and neither are kind, and what can you do but give in?

Things about the very end of school.

2009-06-13T15:31:00.000-07:00

1) I had no idea I could get so attached to so many people so quickly. Where the hell did this come from? There are people I’ve known all four years, five, in some cases, who are so much a part of my life that it’s hard to imagine not seeing them every day… and then there are people who I met this year, or last year, and somehow they became a seriously important part of my life in… what was this, eight months or something?

2) For four years, I have felt imprisoned, like a wild animal in a cage, struggling and pushing and scratching at the bars, and then all the sudden, I’ve been released, and the outside world is actually kind of scary. But you know what? I’m glad for the challenge. I don’t need no steel bars—or white bricks—to keep me in, and I don’t need no boundaries between me and the real world, and I’m glad it’s over.

3) For the better part of four years, like… three and change… there’s been a pack of wolves at my back, ready to rip into me when I showed the slightest weakness. A crowd of girls—well, mostly girls—who were outright nasty to me, every chance they possibly got. To this day, I’m surprised there was no bloodshed; I almost got into a fistfight with one girl, but a teacher stepped in with a yardstick and talked us out of it. (Or me, at least; I don’t think her heart was in it to begin with, their strength seemed to lie in gossip and bitchy insults.) So, what’s the point to this?
Not a single one of them will admit to any of this. And I didn’t confront them, not even a little bit, actually. It’s really not that important. But, but, they’re all asking me to sign their damned yearbooks! Why? Why, why? I asked them. None of them had a real answer, and not a single fucking one of them remembered any bad blood between us. Oh, there was a little nastiness, but nothing really serious, right? I wanted to scream. And the worst part, on my part, is that I smiled and said that it was really both of our faults, I was pretty nasty to them back.
Bullshit.
I didn’t do a fucking thing to them. I’d fight back, every now and then, if I was in a bad mood and they pushed me too far, but at the rate things were going, one of them at least thought I was going to bring a fucking gun to school, three years ago. If I had significant cause to actually do something like that… eh. Whatever. The fact is, it doesn’t really matter, not anymore. It just boggles my mind how much of it was blocked out completely. Do they really not remember, or are they just lying to themselves, or me? Again, I don’t think I care. But, but, anyway, that’s something I needed to get off my chest.

4) I wrote the above three points before leaving for work. On the way to work, I was struck by a sudden burst of realization. I am FREE. I’m free! After graduation, there is no claim on my life whatsoever! I can go anywhere, do anything, be anyone! I can ride my bike to Cotton Hollow every single day if I want to! I can spend hours just playing guitar, I can do ANYTHING. Oh, I am so looking forward to this. Even more once I get out of Connecticut and have my own life—I’m free, and nothing in the world can take that away from me.

2009-06-01T17:16:00.000-07:00

I don't want to write this paper. I want this paper to be written, I want to just pour all the shit that I know is IN my brain out onto the paper and have it be done.

But I don't want to write this paper. I want to stare out the window at the pretty, shifting clouds being windswept over the trees, and read Brave New World again, and look through every one of these books about World War One in minute detail, especially the Illustrated History, and wander around the library, and think up new stuff to do with my character, and write on my hands, and basically do ANYTHING but write this paper. Including type up this blog.

It's back to that old thing, where my brain refuses to tie itself down, and finds every possible way to distract itself, including staring at the fucking screen for hours, typing one sentence every five minutes. [it probably doesn't help being off meds though]

What the fuck, brain.

Enough of this.

2009-05-28T23:36:00.000-07:00

After looking through this, I decided that there was altogether too much negativity, and it's growing like a tumor through the later entries. This isn't how this blog was supposed to turn out. And, as it happens, Mohan had something to say about it. He asked me. I answered.

"I don't know what to say anymore. It's like the microphone is melting in front of my face. You don't see it, but it's there. Or it's not. I don't know."

"You're ending every sentence-- paragraph-- lately like that. 'I don't know, I don't know.' What do you know? Don't say nothing. That's bullshit. What do you know?"

"I know about rocks. No, wait, that's not me. I know about the sky. You see faces in the clouds, sometimes. Some people take things to make them see the faces clearer. I know that some people eat fungus to play up their subconscious."

"Don't fall into self-pity, now. That's not what this is about, and I've had enough of your whining about seeing things. You see me, don't you?"

"Well, I hear you."

"Exactly. Is that so bad? Am I such a terrible friend?"

"No. You're the best friend I've ever had, for all your crazy ways. We should start writing again."

"Anytime, once we get this thing sorted out. You need to finish up school, you know. I wish you didn't, but like it or not, there's things you have to learn. People... you have to deal with people, that's more what this is about. You have to do this."

"Okay. I know that. I just wish I didn't. When are you going to start sending me lines again? I want to see more than just cliffs, I miss the skies and the mountains. I escape there, sometimes."

He smiles. "I know. When this is all finished, we'll start writing again. Drake has more maps, and David has been talking about his journey, and we have to get your anatomy straightened out, too. It'll be fun, this summer. You'll see."

2009-05-27T19:41:00.000-07:00

So after a long talk with a friend, and then a long night playing guitar and talking to another friend, I thought of something, in response to/answer to this exchange:
["Alright, we have six minutes to fix your life."
"I think I'm unfixable."
"Bullshit. That's a cop-out."]

What if.

Maybe it is a cop-out. Maybe I want the answer to be "You're fucking diseased, give up and kill yourself before you kill someone else," becuase that means I don't have to try anymore. If I'm so far gone that I can't come back, if I'm a lost cause, it means I don't have to keep pushing, pushing, trying. Trying to change, trying to make myself normal, trying to make myself sane, trying to make myself happy, trying to be the person everyone wants me to be.

...they are still trying to change themselves to someone normal, someone healthy, someone they deem worthy of love.

I want to stop trying. I want to give up, I want to stop giving a damn, I don't fucking deserve happiness and it hurts to keep trying. Maybe everyone does want to be happy, safe, secure. I am not everyone, and although I do want to be happy, oh God do I want to be happy, I am tired of laughing. It hurts. I want to cry. I want to cry and I can't, that part of me is sealed off and whenever I come close to allowing myself some vestiges of emotion, some valve kicks in and I start laughing, and whatever connection I had, to another human, to myself, to anything, is abruptly cut short. She was right, those four years past. I am sabotaging myself and I don't know why and I can't stop and I don't know how and I don't know know don't know don't know fucking anything.

Yeah, so I'm a fucking quitter. What I don't understand is why they won't give up. They want me to be happy so bad that it's not okay to be sad anymore, because I can't even allow myself to be miserable because I'm not just a fucking quitter, I'm a fucking disappointment. I want to be happy not even for myself anymore. I want to be happy because because because it's what I'm supposed to be. I'm sorry. I don't know. I don't know anything. I'm sorry.

Glue in place of stitches

2009-05-22T20:33:00.000-07:00

I want to destroy myself.

There's more, I guess, but that's the bottom line. That, and the point that it's not a random, abstract thought, and that I have reasons, and damned good ones, and the searing, slicing, stabbing pain in my heart whenever I am allowed to examine my mind and see, once again, what a monster I really am on the inside. Sometimes I wonder if I'm really even human.

I want to destroy myself, body and mind (and heart, just to escape the pain; and soul, just because I don't think I should even have one at this point.)

A strange and shitty night.

2009-05-21T20:21:00.000-07:00

Blood on my mouthpiece, still straining to hit those low notes, usually it’s the high notes that get me but that hasn’t been the case lately, and the lower register is really tough to reach. I’m sick of mellophone, which Microsoft Word corrects as “cellophane,” amusingly enough, and it’s only been two or three weeks now. Three days would be too long. I haven’t played horn in long enough, that’s the problem. I need to get back to caring, back to pouring my soul into the brass. Or at least forcing out a few tunes a night. I’m angry, though, angry and hurt and apathetic and I don’t know where to turn now.

This is a shitty blog post, I am fully aware. I’m in a shitty mood. I’m feeling like a shitty artist, with no vision, and I want to seek meaning but I forgot how to seek. And my hair is shitty, because I haven’t had a chance to wash it in about three days, possibly more. And my eyes are shitty, as usual, except that lately contacts keep falling out of them, and my nails are broken and jagged, and my lips are chapped and split and broken (thus the blood on my mouthpiece) despite the balm I put on them, which is gross and made with honey, and I just want life to be over.

Today, or this evening, I guess, it was well after sunset when I left the library, I took the roundabout way home, and when I passed by the highway there was a man doing something, sending up a huge fountain of yellow-orange sparks, wicked bright all over, and they cast his face into relief, even twenty feet away at the bottom of the bank, maybe further, I could see. And there was a huge white spotlight shining at the scene, it nearly blinded me. I watched the sparks for a while and then a car came, and I shook myself loose and kept walking.

Before that, turning onto that roundabout road, I saw a possum going to cross the road, but I came too close for comfort, and it bolted in the other direction, past the bank sign, into the woods. I say bolted, but it was really more of a rolling lumber.

And now I will go to sleep and hope that nightmares don’t haunt me too long.

I don't have so much a vendetta against dragons, these days.

2009-05-17T07:33:00.000-07:00

Sometimes it annoys me how much he’s right, that he sees so much. The thing is, I know what’s there, I just get really good at blocking it out of my mind, and he doesn’t bother with that. But I guess that’s what friends are for—they cut through the bullshit, and see past the fronts you’ve put up, against yourself or the outside world. The half-hearted excuses you use to keep yourself from trying for happiness don’t hold up in any amount of light, and a real friend is someone who won’t let you hide that kind of shit in the shadows. That’s something I’ve always thought of, when I see those stupid “A good friend… but a BEST friend…” stickers/pins/t-shirts/bumper stickers at those stupid stores.

A good friend will laugh with you. A best friend teaches you to laugh at yourself. A good friend will find you the right parties, a best friend will skip the parties with you. A good friend is someone you can talk to, but a best friend is someone you can be quiet with. All that good shit. I guess the point I'm trying to make is that it's not the physical things, even the physical actions, that define a friendship. It's not even, really, how much you can trust them (it is, though), it's something else, I don't know. A best friend is someone you can drop the mask to, or someone who forces you to drop the mask to yourself.

Honestly, I don't like the label 'best friend,' and am using it here out of convenience. In my mind, it conveys the image of cheap jewelry in the shape of a puzzle piece, of giggles and doing each other's hair, and I know that's a stupid prejudice. When I say 'best friend,' I mean just friend, someone who matters to you... more than most people? I don't know. Friends. You know what I mean. I think.

My closest friends don’t so much influence me as they free me from the influences of the rest of the world. I feel more myself around them, and that has good and bad consequences, pleasant and unpleasant both. I see faults, things I hate about myself, more when I’m talking to a best friend than when I’m alone, than when I’m with anyone else. I unveil more of myself, which means I’m more easily hurt. But the few close friends I have, I wouldn’t trade for anything.

It’s late, and I should probably go to sleep or something, especially since I kind of want to be rid of this lingering fever. But it’s not often I decide to listen to a U2 album, full through, and I’m on the third now, in descending order by year. (How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb) Something about an album isn’t complete unless it’s listened to full through, in order. I don’t know why. Certainly songs can be appreciated on their own, and in a different, more individual light, without the context of their album covers. Holistically, though, it’s like… Like looking at the pages of a sketchbook. They can be appreciated on their own, but if you look at them altogether, there’s a bigger image.

Anyway.

Happy Mother's Day, in a way.

2009-05-10T10:06:00.000-07:00

I left the house just to go to the park, the pond, just to think, because there is this place where an artificial cement slope dips off of the path, and it forms a little hollow next to the pipe that channels the pond from one side of the path, underneath to the lower pool where once I sat, transfixed, in a nearly full moon some time after midnight, and watched a beaver circle, displaying and splashing in the blue light and black darkness. I just wanted to be alone, to think, because Mother’s Day is a sad day for me, when I remember the woman who gave birth to me, who used to be able to pick up any musical instrument, any instrument at all, and ‘bang out a tune on it,’ in my father’s words, in a matter of minutes, who used to be able to cook the most amazing cakes, whose calligraphy was a near perfect art, who rescued me from the mulberry tree where I stranded myself when I was a child, whose pale skin and deep affinity for this Earth I inherited, whose mind is now a twisted wreck, which I also inherited.

On the way down, I blocked my cell phone number and left her a ten-second voicemail, just to tell her I loved her. I don’t know why. No good can come of that, I told myself as I continued walking, but it doesn’t really matter. So I walked down to the pond, slipped down into my little hollow, and sat for a long time, thinking, hurting. And then I smelled the two dandelions growing out of a hole in the cement, but they were far sweeter than the ones in our yard when I was little, and the scent brought back no memories. So, after a time, I sprung up out of the dip, and continued walking, down by the shore of the pond.

And accidentally started up a Great Blue Heron, which is a kind of bird which many people desperately wish to see, and not many do. It flew across the pond, and I sprinted alongside on the bank, on the other side of a line of white pines, obviously not matching its speed at all, but quick enough to see it alight on the opposite shore, where it strutted around in the water, eventually standing still. I knelt on the muddy bank, next to this huge oak tree on the point, watching and talking softly to it, as is my wont when it comes to animals, and waited to see it snap a fish. In vain, as it turned out; I stayed there on the bank for a long time, and when I finally got up and walked a little to the cement block a few yards from the shore to sit down, I turned just in time to see it shaking its head, sending a spray flying.

Then my sister texted me to come home, since my dad would soon be there. I got up and headed out of the park, taking the higher path this time, the one that cuts directly between the white pines and the deciduous trees, farther up. I was maybe twenty feet from the edge of the woods when an Oriole flew up and over my path. That’s another bird people strive to see, and I kind of understand why, now. It was the most vibrant orange you could possibly imagine; the thing all but glowed against the wild rosebushes. So, so beautiful. I was happy enough, on my way out.

And then a bullet-headed hawk flew out of one of the pines on my left, shot straight across my path, not two yards from my face, and soared up into another pine tree, a little farther, to my right. I was exceedingly startled, and swore, not angrily, more admiringly and surprisedly. It was pretty amazing. Not a red-tailed hawk, I definitely checked out the tail as it flew up, and not fast enough or red-eyed enough to be a Cooper’s. I’ll have to look it up.

So that’s what I did on Mother’s Day. Soon, we’ll head off to see my grandparents, down by the shore, to wish my grandmother a happy day, and then to my dad’s girlfriend’s house, where her mother is coming over. I used to be all jealous, but that’s fading as I get older.

Focus, Allegories, Subconscious rulings.

2009-05-04T19:07:00.000-07:00

I should be working on studying for the English exam—the one exam that you really can’t study for, at all, besides general preparation and looking at terms. And the terms won’t even really help you unless you can apply them. So I really should be studying for History (Spanish isn’t even worth studying for, at this point. I will get a two, and I am resigned to that fact and have moved on with the intent of passing the two classes I actually care about) right now. Especially since I left the house a few hours ago, walked to work, worked for a few hours, and then had dinner with a friend, and now am procrastinating by starting up a blog entry… and I only have two hours of library time left… and the exams are Thursday and Friday, respectively…

But instead, I find myself fascinated by the way in which these exams have completely overrun my consciousness. Seriously! And that got me started thinking about how my consciousness is in general often overrun by some obsession or other, and that I really am driven by my subconscious. These exams right here? I have been revolving around them for the past month. Everything I hear, after the initial processing, is processed in terms of English Literature and Composition, and then related to European History. And it is driving me crazy. We’re playing Peter and the Wolf, and I found myself noticing that the composer’s name is Russian, which made me pause and check the date at the bottom of the page, which was 1937, which made me start thinking about what the Deeper Meaning of the song could be. And I came up with this whole extended metaphor (which there is a term for that I don’t remember, and should) about how it Must Be! That the Wolf is Germany, and the Duck is Austria, and Peter is Russia, and the Hunters are Britain and America and probably France, and I don’t know who the Bird is, but now that I think of it, probably either Italy or the Underground, which means that whichever it is, the Cat would be the other one. (On further contemplation, I decided that the Bird was France, and the Cat was the Underground throughout Europe, or possibly Italy.) The Grandfather is probably the League of Nations, or possibly… the Grandfather is… well, let’s see here. The Bolsheviks had had to make some embarrassing concessions to get out of WWI, and the peace was never easy between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union. So possibly the Grandfather is Lenin, and Peter is Russia under Stalin. Or the Grandfather is that original ‘alliance’ between the Soviets and the Nazis.

And everything is like that right now. What is it, I wonder, that makes my mind so easily aligned with a single concept, or a certain set of ideas?

Normally, with a topic such as this, I would take a walk, and articulate it fully in my mind before presenting whatever I’d found to a close friend, and we would joke and discuss by turns, and then I would turn all that over in my head, and take a long walk or something to articulate that, and then write it up here. But instead, I wound up punching in with my friend to unload a bunch of hardware at work, and then we talked about money and power and freedom, and how those three are related, inter-dependent, opposed concepts. And although it was an excellent conversation! I have no long blog post, because alas! My mind is focused on European History and English Composition. And perhaps I could free it to talk of the subconscious mind, for a time, but maybe not, and I need the focus, as detrimental to others’ perception of me as it is.

So anyway, there you have it. With enough stretch, anything becomes a metaphor for anything else. This is what it’s like being in my brain, where I can break literally anything into symbolism, and if this really is a book someone’s writing, they seriously need to let up on the symbolism. Who do you think you are, James Joyce?

I would never cry out without a strip of duct tape safely in place.

2009-05-01T18:42:00.000-07:00

In long-belated response to a question half-jokingly asked by a friend, "So... how do I deal with a schizo?" Because sometimes I want to say this, but never would, not out loud, not to anyone, but for whatever reason I am blessed or cursed with being able to spill my emotions like blood all over a page in ways I never could to a person. From personal experience, because never could I speak for someone else.

The same way you deal with normal people, in all things except that you remember that they are not normal. Remember that they are acutely aware of how fucked-up they are, moreso than you can possibly imagine, and that chances are they hate themselves for it. Understand that every time they demonstrate some habit, some quirk, some slightly dangerous tendency, and it is pointed out, they kick themselves inside because they are still trying to change themselves to someone normal, someone healthy, someone they deem worthy of love. Know that sometimes they laugh when they want to scream, when things hurt the most, because it's easier. Know that if they knew that you knew that, they would suppress it whenever possible, because they don't want you to worry. They don't believe themselves worth worrying over, and nothing you tell them will change that, at least not permanently-- your state of mind is far more important than theirs. Sometimes they betray themselves by telling you something shocking about the state of their head, and are unsure whether they wish you would be upset or take it in stride. Know that sometimes they want nothing more than to pour their heart out, as vulnerable as can possibly be, but they swallow it for fear of looking weak, for fear of driving you away, for any number of reasons, they hide their vulnerability and make sure they're laughing if you ask what's wrong. Know that they're only half joking when they talk about seeing dragons, that they're not joking when they talk about voices in their mind, and remember that those things aren't as funny or fun as they're made out to be by pop culture.

Treat them like normal, but remember that they're acutely aware of how different they are, and they don't know whether it's worse to have the immense pain in them completely unacknowledged, or to have it pointed out at every turn.

On Organization

2009-04-21T09:32:00.000-07:00

When one is a crazy disorganized person, such as I am, it can make it hard to keep track of things like tags on blog posts, and my tags are usually named with a trace of whimsy, which makes it easier for me to keep track but keeps the whole 'thrown-together-with-some-leaves-and-a-few-strips-of-duct-tape' feeling, which is about as true to life as it gets, for me. Anyway! Here I present an explanation of my tags/labels so far, for the purposes of keeping track.

awesome dudes
Just what it says on the tin! This tag means that somewhere in the post, I am talking about awesome dudes, whether they be good friends, people who I look up to, or just generally awesome dudes. Although 'dude' is often a male term, it need not always be so, and that's not how I use it-- I greet just about everyone with "'Sup, dude!" So.

battling insanity
Again, pretty self-explanatory. I'll tag stuff with this when I'm talking about the twisted, broken bits of my mind, whether they be pretty and shimmery on the light, or whether I just slipped and cut my finger on one. Metaphorical writing aside, makes sense, ne?

becoming harlequin
This is for when I talk about masks-- whether it be masks that everyone adopts to everyone, or a mask I've put on for some theatre, to play a character or the like, or whether I'm talking about being trapped in my own identity.

the core and chord
Also known as the connection, the call, the caper... a tag designed to refer to the weakness of most sentient beings, whether platonic, amorous, charitable, erotic... basically, love.

dreams
I'll use this tag for dreams I've -had-, and I mean stuff like subconscious-- like the dreams you have asleep, for me sometimes awake.

dreams for real
This tag is for dreams in the sense of long-term goals, longings, things I want to do someday. The "for real" refers to the use of dreams as they apply to real life, which is what separates it from the "dreams" tag, which has a strained connection at best to the real world.

futility at best
Just what it looks like; this tag is about struggles that are futile, struggles against my own mind, against the world, things I've tried knowing that they won't get me anywhere. It can be something as insignificant as trying to repair a broken tool that I know is beyond help, or as personal as trying to force myself into another identity.

indie soul
This is a new tag, it refers to independence, the stage of my life coming on fast that I've had one foot in for a while, it means that whole Being On My Own horizon, with all its ups and downs.

internet
I might get rid of this tag, actually; it refers to the internet, which seems redundant on a blog.

life as it seems
Much like the "dreams" tag, this refers to life with slightly metaphysical connotations; life as perceived, life that isn't necessarily completely real, just because I don't always trust my senses, or my brain. It wouldn't be confusing, except...

life at the moment
This tag is different from the "life as it seems" tag in that it has more to do with life as I'm living it, the more physical, solid details of life, whether that be eventual goals of college, eating more healthfood, or monetary worries. Sometimes the two overlap, but they do have distinct meanings.

dust on glass
This tag refers to memories, of childhood, of another time, of things that may or may not have ever happened, things that I've buried in closets, and when you dig them out, there's gray and dulling layers of time over what once shone in the sunlight. Memories are tricky things.

music to listen
Exactly what it sounds like. This is music that I listen to, as opposed to...

music to play
Which is music that I play, be it on French horn, guitar, drumsticks, or vocal experiment. Again, these can overlap, but they're pretty different.

mirrorbox flies
Named from two off-kilter references to the same thing, this tag refers to the Zoo, the Goggles, the Tube, the alternate reality that is so much easier to believe in than our own. Basically, when I cave and talk about TV, this is what I shall call it.

politickin
BAH. I wish I could delete this, but it is important, it is something I will talk about in the future, and it's something I should have a filter for. So yeah, political nonsense and the like.

rebellion is now
This is like the 'politickin' tag, minus the politics. It's the changes I want, the acts I'll follow, how my code of belief and my core of morals/ethics/whatever apply to the world at large.

school
A prison now, maybe not so much in the next stage, but yeah. This is just what it looks like, too.

skin on bones
A tag referencing the real, physical body which I somewhat reluctantly inhabit.

the friends inside
For that other part of my brain which isn't necessarily me.

walkin' shoes
I love to walk, which is fortunate because I have no transportation besides biking. Once I fix the flat tire on my bike, though, biking stories will also go under this tag; this is just about... well, non-car transportation, where my feet are taking me and what skies I've been falling under.

webcomics
Another one I might delete, unless I wind up writing my own webcomic at some point.

what is inspired
Stuff like stream of consciousness, things that are more about the craft than the actual words behind it, or vice versa-- basically, me being all artsy and stuff.

Yahweh
No whimsy here; no whimsy possible, no subterfuge or lacy trimmings possible or necessary, in the end.

The Flip Side of Freedom

2009-04-21T07:34:00.000-07:00

The funny thing is that to most people, this is the regular side of things—the panic, the scary feeling in the pit of your stomach, that What If I Don’t Make It feeling, is the flip side. And I guess it is to me, too, because I was excited for this time for years before I was afraid of it. Kind of like an iceberg, in the distance—you see it far away, and it’s so pretty and so cool and you just want to explore it. As you get closer, you start to realize how big it is, and then you look down and realize that it’s even bigger, under the surface, and you wonder what, exactly, you’re in for, here. And then, if you’re like me, you panic, but that current that you were so glad for, before, carrying you in, is now even stronger, and you’re stuck. And, if you have good friends to talk to, then you start to realize that it’s a really good thing the iceberg is so big, because that gives you way more space to explore.

Of course, that’s all writing from the viewpoint of a young seal or something. If you’re approaching an iceberg in a large ship, well, you’re screwed. But it’s probably way more fun to live life as a Weddell Seal or something, than aboard a ship. When have you ever seen a seal acting all depressed? Nah, seals know what life’s about—like otters. I bet you’ve never seen a depressed otter, either. Man, those things know how to live. Floating around on their backs all the time, rolling around in the surf, barking up a storm… man, otters know what it’s all about. I wish I was an otter.

But hey, not being small and furry and able to swim like a fish and still breathe free air doesn’t mean I can’t have fun with my life. It really is just… a whole world out there, waiting to be explored, waiting—I can do anything. Anything! What can’t I do? Well, I can’t fly. I can’t turn into an otter, I can’t do magic. But outside of that… I could do anything! I could spend the rest of my life as a starving artist on the streets of New Haven! I could start growing a garden, a little bit at a time, selling whatever I could, and eventually wind up with my own farm. I could spend my life stealing apples from orchards at night and selling them on the black apple market! I could START the black market for apples! If there isn’t one already.

In all seriousness, though, there’s a lot out there, and I think I’ll be just fine in the end. My biggest fear is that I’ll get caught up into some rhythm, some cycle that I don’t like, or don’t agree with, and wind up doing that for the rest of my life. The daily grind—I don’t want to trap myself in something that’s going to grind my life down on me. My second biggest fear is that I’ll start living with money as an end, rather than a means. I already have to check myself on that thought process—it’s part of what attracted me to anarchy. If I could live without money for the rest of my life… I mean, I can. But I don’t know if that lifestyle is for me. I do know that I will not find happiness if I start thinking like a businessman, which is why I freaked out when my friend started talking about opening a business. If I had the option to make it as a business owner, eventually owning this huge company, this corporation, I would… probably turn it down. I hope I’d turn it down. That life is too easy—no matter how difficult it is to do the business thing or whatever, I would fall into it, the material comfort, the lifestyle, and I’m terrified I wouldn’t be able to let that go. I don’t want to be that person. I don’t want material comforts, I want a challenge. I want to live, I want to breathe air untainted by perfumes or chemicals or burning flesh, I want every day to push myself to the limit, body and soul, I want to sing my heart out, I want to fast in the desert, I want to live. Spending my days in an office on a tower, no matter how luxurious and big, and my nights in a luxurious apartment, with whatever material things I wanted at my beck and call, is not, in my opinion, living. It’s existence, yes, it’s technically being alive, but… it’s a life that I think epitomizes the verse “Gain the whole world and lose your own soul.”

So that’s what I’m afraid of, in a nutshell. I’m afraid of falling into the trap of a pattern; I’m afraid of becoming fat and happy; I’m afraid of not living a life that will fill my soul, or a life that fills my body, and not my soul. I’d rather die tomorrow than wind up in that board meeting thirty years from now.

But, what I’d forgotten is that I have that choice. No one’s really pressuring me into anything (unless you count a serious pressure from friends to do something that will make me happy), it’s not like I’m already on that path. I just have to… live. Which I will be more than happy to do.

Freedom is a scary thing

2009-04-19T09:05:00.000-07:00

I don’t know what I want to do with my life anymore. I’m starting to wonder if I ever did, if I wasn’t just fooling myself. I know that the only place I feel at peace is away from the world, but in this world that doesn’t mean too much. The more I try to figure things out, the less things seem to make any sense. I know I don’t really want to live anymore—not under this world’s rules. But what choice do I have? I’m a sorry excuse for an anarchist; I’m just kidding myself there, too. In the end, I really have no idea whatsoever.

No wonder kids my age make such easy targets for cults, the army, whatever. We literally have no idea what the hell to do with ourselves—we have all this youth, this energy, our passion hasn’t been killed off by the grind yet, and people are constantly telling us to use it, because it won’t last, etc. But we still aren’t set in our identities yet, we still don’t know. I don’t know ANYTHING. All this fire in my soul has no outlet—it’s just burning me, right now, consuming me from the inside out.

That, and every time I turn around, someone’s trying to push some huge choice on me. “Do you like going to school—would you rather spend every day working in a factory for sixteen hours?” I did not realize those were my only choices. “Work hard in school, or you’ll wind up breaking your back struggling for a living for the rest of your life!” Of course, that’s what you’ll do anyway, this just gives you more choice in how. And then there’s living on the fringe, refusing that whole ‘work for a living’ lifestyle. Which, in the end, is just as much of a prison, and it doesn’t last indefinitely anyway.

I don’t want to live like this. Part of me really wishes I could die before I get into college, so I don’t have to make these choices. Then I realize that that would mean that this would have been my whole life—misery, basically, with little cracks of light showing through here and there. If I don’t get out of this house, I’ll wish I died the day I was born.

So that leaves me right back where I started from, with a day of freedom looming over my head, but no idea what to do with it when it gets here. I have no plan, I have no idea, I’m left clinging to this island of stability that I’ve been trying to get off of since I was dumped here. I should just abandon myself to the current, I guess, and let life take me where it will, but that’s not an easy thing to comprehend. What, just let go? Let go of this life… it’s what I have to do, I guess. If I don’t have a plan now, I’ll just… figure something out. Take things day by day, I guess.

The thing is, no matter how hard I try to think rationally, there’s this seed of panic in me that will not go away, and it’s a pretty scary thing. The rational thing to do, or at least the emotionally rational thing, or at least the thing I would normally do, is talk to someone older and wiser, who’s been here, and ask for help. But I know what they’ll say, I think. Maybe not, but for the most part “Yeah, no one really knows what they want to do at your age.” Most kids switch majors halfway through—I used to have the statistic, but I no longer remember it. “Just take things one step at a time; you’ll be alright.” Depending on who I talk to, I’ll get variations of that, along with different advice and ideas and whatnot. My dad might be upset with me, he doesn’t know how much time I’ve wasted in school, and his reaction would be the most surprised, but he’d wind up saying the same thing.

And, once more, right back where I started from. Stuck in a panic, about to be set adrift, with no idea whatsoever what I’m going to do with my life.

A Narrow Escape

2009-04-17T18:15:00.000-07:00

Pretty much every attribute, physical behavior, and aspect of my identity has been commented on by those around me, at this point in my life. I’m serious here—people have been commenting for years, on little abnormalities they notice. My smile, my laugh, my eyes, my walk, my run (this was not to my face, and I did not find out for months afterward—but still), my manner of speech and the things I talked about, my tone of voice, my thought patterns, whenever they showed, my habit of walking at night, my taste in food, my hair, my clothing, my whistle, the way I hold my head—literally, everything. And, for a long time, I tried to fix that. I tried to hide whatever seemed abnormal, I tried to fit the standard, I tried, really hard, to fit in. I changed my laugh, I smiled as naturally as I thought I could, I only talked about what I thought other people would care about, I didn’t share my thoughts most of the time, for fear I’d scare people away, I seared my tongue with heated metal to keep myself from whistling. I tried to retrofit my personality, my identity, into a society that ultimately had refused me entry.

It didn’t work. To some extent, I gained a little more access to people, people talked to me more, but it didn’t last. In some ways, the harder I tried to be normal, the worse of a fit I was; in some ways, I simply couldn’t do it. This was also around the time of life that schizophrenia began to appear in my mind, so that didn’t help. But most of all, the effort it took to hide whatever wasn’t fitting in about myself was just too much—it hurt, in different ways, and I was lonelier behind my mask than I had been when people scorned my true face. I couldn’t do it. But I tried, for probably a year, maybe a year and a half, before that became apparent, and I gave up.

Now, this fringe life is hardly easy. I’m lonely, sometimes, when people avoid me or treat me as though I wasn’t really… the same. Which, I guess, I’m not. But honestly, I prefer this isolation, with a few close friends who accept me, to being widely accepted for trying to be someone I’m not. It gets lonely, yes, but like I said, the loneliness from forcing myself into a mold I did not fit was far, far worse.

Thus, this is what I chose. I chose to allow myself to grow into this person, this fidgety, manically grinning kid who wanders around at night, who carries a fist-sized rock in one pocket, whose smile creeps out so many. I get lonely sometimes; sometimes I really wish I had someone who understood this, someone who would talk to me, someone who would love me despite—or, more accurately, because of— the crazy, stupid, twisted parts of me—even the parts that I still hide. But the thing is, I have a few friends who understand, who accept and love me for who I am, and idealistic or not, there’s still a part of me that holds out hope that someday, someone else will do the same.

Anyway, it’s still better—perhaps because nothing could possibly be worse—than trying to go through life with my identity tucked safely behind a mask of normalcy, slowly atrophying, leaving me no more than the empty shell that I once pretended to be.

2009-04-11T17:37:00.000-07:00

We write to fill the holes in our lives
thus, I write of peace
of love
of faith, hope,
that which has forsaken my heart
and when I write what I know, it scares
because what I know
is lunacy

Counter-Pledge

2009-03-03T12:07:00.000-08:00

It's always bothered me that we are damn near required to stand up and pledge allegiance to a government which is widely known and mocked for its corruption. Also, that most kids start pledging allegiance before they even know what either of those words mean. So, I'll start this post off with those definitions, as they most relate here.
Pledging, to pledge:
a token, sign, or earnest of something else; the state of being held as a security or guaranty; a binding promise or agreement to do or forbear
Allegiance:
the obligation of a feudal vassal to his liege lord; the fidelity owed by a subject or citizen to a sovereign or government; devotion or loyalty to a person, group, or cause

So basically, you swear loyalty to this flag; to the American Republic, our government; to the idea of one nation, under God, indivisible, which claims "liberty and justice for all." I call bullshit on plenty of that. First off, our government is about as corrupt as they come, right about now. Second of all, liberty and justice-- for all? Tell me how many people pay taxes in this country. Yeah, a lot of them. But think about how many politicians have been caught without paying taxes that the rest of us constantly struggle under, and tell me that's fair. Tell me it's fair that the people who have the most to give away are the ones who get away with the most. Tell me it's fair, with a straight face, that if Congress signs a conscription act, seventeen-year-old kids who can't vote, drink, or call themselves adults, can get sent off to kill or be killed. Liberty? Justice?

Plus, I don't even know how solid I am with this nation at all anymore. So today, I wrote this.

I do not pledge allegiance to this nation which stands by and does nothing in the face of genocide. I do not pledge allegiance to this republic which would see men imprisoned for feeding the hungry. I do not pledge allegiance to this flag which so many believe entitles its bearers to the life which we deny others, based on their language or where they were born. I pledge my life to the starving, the dying, the poor, and the downtrodden across the world; and to a world without poverty, hunger, genocide, I pledge allegiance.

Light beneath our masks

2009-02-20T19:46:00.000-08:00

So, on trust and relationships, and the most basic thing connecting the two that I can think of—this begins with an anecdote, as do many such ideas. You see, today, I was talking to my friend and boss—and my other boss. I had a pocketful of pens, which had been my reason for going out, and my friend was ‘breaking them in,’ because he is a bit of an artist and, like many creative-minded people, cannot resist an assortment of artistic tools. And they are pretty nice pens, and there were a few different colors. Anyway, the conversation went in a few different directions, and stuff, and the manager wound up making some snide side comment about my friend having too much power over me.

So I was thinking about it. This conversation doesn't have too much to do with the post, but it has enough to get me thinking--and it sparked this chain of thought that I’ve had in the back of my mind for years.

All relationships—at least, all positive relationships—are founded on trust. You cannot be friends with someone without granting them a measure of trust. As your friendship grows and you grow closer, the measure of trust grows as well. Obviously, this is just as important with romantic relationships as it is with platonic, but I don’t think it’s more important with either, just as both are necessary. (Our society tends to place romantic relationships on a much higher level, concerning importance, than any platonic relationships, and this bothers me. But that’s another topic for another day.) But anyway, the point is that in order to have a relationship with someone, you must trust them, with something. To have a closer relationship with someone, you trust them with more.

As a friend grows closer, especially when you’re growing up together—but any age, really—you begin to tell them more. At first, it’s only small things. Common interests, hobbies, small things you share with many people. Then, as you find them worthy of this trust and you begin to care more for them, the relationship grows. You begin to talk about deeper things, things important to you—things that matter, things that you care about. They do the same, and the trust and bond grow stronger. As the friendship grows, so does the trust between you.

Here’s the tricky part. Trust grants power. When someone learns something about you, it grants them a measure of power over you. In my mind, this makes the point of trust even stronger, more fundamentally important. It is the trust you grant in people. When you tell your friend about that new crush you have on him or her, you’re not only trusting that they won’t tell anyone, but you’re trusting them with a measure of power over you. This is the key to my revelation: The more people know about you, the more power they have over you. Every piece of information about yourself, no matter how trivial, is a chink in your mask, something that makes you vulnerable. Friends can use this against you. They won’t, because you are friends—likely as not, you have that same power. But it’s not an alliance; it’s not about keeping the secrets, maintaining the friendship, because you have an edge on each other. That’s what makes it friendship. You trust them not to hurt you with the power you grant them. The more you trust them, the more power they have over you. But you don’t care, because you care about them, and you know that they are worthy of your trust.

The above conversation excerpt isn’t really an example of this theme. It’s just the spark that led to this train of thought. But it still stands. The more you trust someone—for instance, trusting a friend’s word without question—the more power they have over you. That’s a scary thought, if you think about it. Think how many friends you have whose word you trust. Every friend, every loved one, ever person who you’ve given access to the person behind your mask, has a measure of power over you, has a way to hurt you.

Then think about why you gave them that power, whether or not you meant to. The deeper example, the more true example, for me, is something that happened a while ago. Someone surprised me online with this quote: “And I also know how important it is in life not necessarily to be strong but to feel strong, to measure yourself at least once, to find yourself at least once in the most ancient of human conditions, facing blind, deaf stone alone, with nothing to help you but your own hands and your own head” And didn’t tell me who they were. We talked for a long time, about society, the wilderness, the way civilization has turned its back on the reality of life, etc.

Through that one conversation, without even knowing who he was, I gave him more power over me than many of my friends have. But sometimes, it’s necessary, to drop the mask as far as you can and bare your open, beating heart to the winds of the world, and the searing life around you.

I’ll close with this, my most well-worn quote, from C. S. Lewis, which sums this up pretty well.

“To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket- safe, dark, motionless, airless--it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable.”

A philosophy, shaken

2009-02-13T18:20:00.000-08:00

If anarchy doesn't work, and all systems of government are inevitably, irretrievably correupt, what options are left? It's always the idealists who wind up with their hands covered in innocent blood, in the end. Why is it that the only alternative to simply accepting a system so corrupt that we can do nothing to stop genocide, poverty, oppression... is rebellion-- and subsequently, violence, chaos, bloodshed...

Why must corruption and chaos be the only options? It defies logic, reason, human nature.

...maybe not. As it is, I don't think I can believe in pure anarchy. But what does that leave me with? Power corrupts. All governments must distribute power. The absence of government breeds chaos. And someone rises to the void, and the cycle begins again. So...

So we are forced to accept the rule of a clearly corrupt government? We swallow their lies, because the truth is open chaos -- riots, murder, rape, "shoot anyone you don't recognize after dark."

The fact is, you have to consider the past, and in the end, as much as it pains me to admit it, anarchy... doesn't work. All you really have to do is look at the French Revolution(s). When nobody's in charge, people jump for leads and leaderships, and it turns into "follow whoever is least likely to get you killed." And then you wind up even worse off then you were before, with more corrupt leaders, no equality save the equality of weapon availability, and so on.

What, then, do you do? Accept the rule of oil-tongued liars? Because they all are, every last one of those men behind the podiums, with their smooth words caressing the microphone and their eyes promising a better world, and their hearts lusting for power. (Anyone, I think, who wants power over an entire nation, is not to be trusted.)

That, or revolution, with the idea that it's possible to have a system that is not corrupt, and then bloodshed, and chaos, and war; it is the idealists who wind up with the most blood on their hands, in the end.

What is the answer to the problems we create by being human? When it's all said and done, what can you do but live your life, do what you can to fix what is in your reach... and leave the rest to the terribly naive, intoxicating, unshakeable belief that more people than not, in this world, are decent human beings-- and the conclusion that follows, that everyone in power, therefore, cannot be a powerhungry monster. Someone has to be out there trying to fix this.

And then there's the inescapable truth, that I am one eighteen-year-old punk in a world full to the brim of shouting voices, and therefore, in the end, none of this really matters because there is absolutely nothing I can do in the slightest about any of it.

An Introduction

2009-01-25T15:55:00.000-08:00

It occurred to me today that I could use this laptop, now it’s mine, to store all the information about Mohan and his world and Drake and whatnot that I have, and record more! It will be amazing. I will start to write little excerpts from his life as they come to me, too. But in the meantime I should introduce this mysterious friend of mine, and his world.

Mohan is about nine feet tall, and covered in light brown fur, very sleek (most of the time). He has a tail, about ¾ as long as the rest of his spine, the last few inches of which widen and flatten, resembling a hand made up of palm, but a little more flexible. His spine is a little more flexible than a human’s, possibly because it’s so long, but also because that’s how his species is designed. His arms are three-segmented, or nearly so—from the shoulder, they have an upper arm/bicep segment, proportionally the size of ours, and then a forearm, a little bit longer proportionally than ours, and then their wrists are little under one foot in length, and very flexible, almost tail-like until they turn into hands. Their hands only have four fingers, two with three joints, and two with two joints like ours, but they are in pairs of both, on either side of the palm, positioned a bit like ours but opposing each other.

Their heads are slightly more elongated, their foreheads a little more sloping back, their cheekbones a little higher, and their chins a little more pointed, most of the time. Their ears hang down almost to the base of the skull, and are shaped a little like elongated dogs’ ears. Their noses are very complex, consisting of tendrils which can be wriggled a bit, each of which has its own nostril. Their sense of smell isn’t as strong as a dog’s, but it’s as sophisticated—they can learn and identify more smells than we can, but are only a little better at picking them up. The nose design, I think, is less about smell, more about breathing. Their eyes are a little wider, the irises a bit larger and the pupils more narrow. They wear the fur on top of their heads longer, like we do; it resembles hair, a bit.

I think the gravity on their world is a little less than ours, which is why they’re so tall. A lot of things there are elongated.

Anyway, Mohan’s my friend; he found my mind more than a year ago when I was thinking about starting a comic strip entitled “Space Pirates!” The idea was a bust, mainly because one of the characters eased his way into my mind, showed me his name, and told me to write a story about his world instead. I obliged. I guess the ‘pirates’ thing is what attracted him. See, he left home to be a pirate with his cousin Drake, but the bloody life was too much for him, and he deserted after a dispute with the first mate, who was an exceedingly bloodthirsty jerk. My job is to write on his adventures, but the problem is that the nature of his world is just so that first, I have to figure out a way to tell that without… well, without too much of an infodump. I wonder, sometimes, if this is what happened to Professor Tolkien. Did something from that world just take root in his mind and demand to be written, and the stories followed? That’s what it seems like, only with him it was the language. And he was a much better writer than I am. Hopefully, I will do my friend’s tale justice, when someday I write it all down. In the meantime, he and Drake contact me through the haze of Risperidone when they can, giving me maps and charts and cultural notes and customs and traditions and religions.

They’re living at a house of their cousin’s (their family is a very extended clan from the mountains, so they’ve got a lot of cousins. They were raised together, they’re like brothers) now, and somehow that helps them contact me; I guess there’s a fair bit of arcane paraphernalia lying around for the use. Somehow, a few of the kittens that live there got through, too, but the Risperidone put a stop to that. I kind of miss them sometimes, but they’re probably big by now, anyway. I have a drawing of the house somewhere, and a bit of a map… kind of. It’s a little muddled, because I think it breaks the rules of physics in a few places.

Is this all real? I don’t know. Part of me wants so badly to believe it is, and part of me says that’s ridiculous, but the larger part of me says it doesn’t matter, in a way. I mean, it does. But not very much. The part that counts is the story, right? Mohan wants me to tell the story. Drake wants me to know the world. (Drake also wants me to learn the language, but I’m pretty certain that it can’t be fully communicated by the human tongue—we communicate by thoughts. I think our thoughts go through in pure thought form, and our respective brains translate them as best we can.)

Someday, I will do both.

But hopefully I'm not really a witch

2009-01-24T20:51:00.000-08:00

You know, if I ever found myself being accused of a witch, I think I would wait for a moment when I was alone, probably on Death Row, and sing either Leonard Cohen’s Hallelujah—and the whole thing, too, every single verse he wrote—or, or possibly and, U2’s Yahweh. They would both fit, though Hallelujah has a certain hopelessness to it… well, not a hopelessness. A futility. Like Johnny Cash singing Hurt, kind of, he’s run his course, “did my best – it wasn’t much,” and now it’s done, and what can you do but sing? Yahweh is more along the lines of “I walked this road, I know it was the wrong one, please show me where to go from here, I’m lost and all I can see is You now, and I’m scared but still full of love.” …or something.

Anyway. With any luck I’ll never be accused of witchcraft, which is just as well because my voice rather sucks. With any luck, I’ll figure out just what it is I want to do, pretty soon. I don’t have the drive or the inspiration that I used to. It’s strange, it seems almost like my heart has closed itself. I can’t touch that part of me, the deep well of something resembling sadness, something touching pain, and something a bit like ecstasy. It was where I reached for words, for the flow behind the words, and sometimes it gave me tears. Now I laugh, and laugh, and laugh, and the worse life gets the harder that laughter comes, the more it hurts, the more I need it. Like someone replaced a drug I needed with some other drug that I’m now addicted to.

The thing is, now I’ve got no direction. I don’t need a career, I don’t need money, I don’t need a nice home and a car. I did fairly well without them for a fair portion of my life, ne? But I do need a direction. I want to just take to the road, live every Anarchist’s dream and one of mine—spend the rest of my life in a cabin in the woods with no one bothering me ever (maybe decades later someone will find it and be really, really confused), or bike around the continent until I find a place to rest. But I also want to help people, in a major way; I also want to write, and to express in words what this life has taught me, because I need to; I also want to sing, but that’s something I can do anyway from a bike. It’s not easy, or at least not as easy as singing normally, but I can and have done it, for miles at a time. Gives your lungs quite the stretch.

And then there’s the song “Lemon,” also by U2. This song makes more sense if you know the back-story, but it’s beautiful even if you don’t. The first time I heard it, it touched my heartstrings in that way that only Bono really can—I mean the rest of the band too, but it’s his lyrics, the rawness beneath the words, kind of, and his voice singing them—and I nearly cried. Maybe I did. I don’t remember now. I remember the video, Mr. MacPhisto, the devil in a rock-star with a microphone, clinging to that last strand of humanity, he doesn’t know why anymore, drifting from the shore… I don’t know how to put it into words. Maybe only Bono can. Maybe death is an easier loss than insanity.

Remind me never to have a family.

Time takes the toll of unwanted bruises on my pride.

2009-01-21T19:03:00.000-08:00

So it’s late, too late, and it’s cold, and I’m shaking a little and so, so tired. The day plays over, scene by scene, in my head, what I remember of it. I wish I’d stayed in the mood I started the walk in, cheerful and invincible. Things dragged me down, as they always do—the tension that one out of three doesn’t feel, that helps, the lazy feeling pulls a little more gently, and next thing I’m wondering where my energy went. It’s just the way it is; I wish I had the energy to study for the Spanish exam tomorrow, but such is life. I will not force myself, possibly because I know that won’t end well. I might go through the English texts, but something tells me that the only way I can prepare for that exam is to pray for a miracle. English, of all things! So pathetic, so terrible, I should not be stressing over this.

But anyway the music plays, and it kneads the snarling masses of confusion in my head, leaving me with some kind of calm. My sister claims that I look high when I sing, in too good of a mood. Maybe I am, somehow. Maybe it’s enough, maybe it isn’t. I know there’s no options, sometimes—oh, how I envy the irresponsible in life. I mean, it’s not like I’m the best or the worst or what have you; I am very, very bad at being responsible most of the time, but that doesn’t change the fact that I have responsibilities, ones that I can’t shirk or drop or ignore. I wish I could be cool, relax, forget about it, have a few drinks and maybe a joint or two and let it all go. I wish I could just hang out, chill, have fun. But as hard as I’m laughing, there’s always a hard weight in the back of my mind; as much as I’m willing to let go, I can’t.

It’s why I’ve never punched a few people out, for things they’ve said to or about me; I’ve never gone to a party and gotten wasted; I’ve never hung out and gotten stoned. I can’t. I can’t afford to let go of this weight, it’s what ties me down, it’s what keeps me from falling out of this life. It’s made of a few different things; my past, the guilt that I shouldn’t really even have at this point, my family, things that I shouldn’t worry about anymore or at all, and constant worry about the future. The only place I’ve ever been able to let go is out, far away from this whole world, in the world I know best, between tree trunks and cliffs and mountainsides, and the sky that you can’t see from the streets.

[Who knows? Maybe I’m really not crazy. Maybe it’s all a lie, maybe I’m perfectly fine, but whether it’s real or not doesn’t make it any easier to deal with.]

What I really need is to get away. Not to Sacramento, to an unnamed forest somewhere far enough out that no one will bother looking for me. I’m so fucking sick of this whole thing! I’m sick of politics, I’m sick of anger, I’m sick of guilt! Why am I always so damned guilty about everything? I swear, I can’t fucking say a word about half the shit I want to because I’m afraid to hurt somebody’s fucking feelings, and then to the people I actually give a damn about, I don’t watch my mouth. I’m so sick of laughing when I want to curl up and get away, I’m so sick of wanting to curl up and get away! I’m sick of dealing with four hours of stress and friction in order to live half an hour of laughter. I’m sick of not having the words when I need them, and then they swirl around in my head and when I try to say what I mean, it’s the wrong words and nothing even makes sense.

I want to go somewhere where life is living, where I get by on doing what I need to make the day. I want to go somewhere where it doesn't matter what you think, what he said, what she did, why it's harder today than it was yesterday. I need to work with my hands, to throw half a day's worth of back-breaking labor and see not a paycheck, but something that I needed, a shelter, another wall on my cabin, enough firewood to get me through a few more weeks. I want to go somewhere where life is for the living, not for looking how you're supposed to look.

Shadows in my brain, part two.

2009-01-20T18:48:00.000-08:00

It’s dark, and I’m thinking nightmares under the covers, nightmares that spring unbidden to my mind, and nightmares that I brought upon myself, one way or another. It’s too warm, too dark, I’m suffocating—I was never, am not, afraid of the dark. At least, not any more than I am of the light, and what does it matter when they’re invisible? Shadows, strangling, shoving, grabbing, terrified I shrink and shrink, but it’s never far enough. Imagination is a terrible, terrible thing. When you say imagination, unless it’s in a very specific context, people think of rainbows and butterflies and castles in the air. No one thinks about the writers who came up with horror films, or the kids who grew up reading The Brothers Grimm and Jack Chick. I’m not kidding, and I’m not exaggerating—if anything, I’m not talking big enough, because I… because the nightmares don’t go away if you talk about them, and the worst feeling isn’t fear, it’s guilt, and because I thought maybe I couldn’t lose my soul, maybe I could, because Hell hath no fury like the demons your mind puts together. They’re not always big and scary, except when they are. They’re sly, and slinking, and they don’t bother trying to scare you, they tell you what they want you to hear, which is what a part of you wants to hear, and they screw with your dreams, and your daydreams aren’t gold-edged affairs with that cute boy from whatever. They’re shadowy, and dark, and you’re alone in the dark and so, so vulnerable, and you’re not alone.

This is the part that really sucks, the part I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy, the part that follows me through my dreams and nightmares and my waking days. And it doesn’t go away with medication. The medication helps, makes the nightmares less tangible, and light becomes my friend a little more, but they don’t go away.

Picture this. You’re curled up in a dark room, nondescript if it was light, probably, facing the wall because the shadows behind you might be taking shape. There are cold fingers stroking your back, like the epitome of a shadow on Midwinter’s night. You’re shivering uncontrollably, cold, so cold; you don’t feel it in your real body, because the part of you that’s real is toasty warm and suffocating, but most of you is cold, shaking. And you hate being cold, you’re never cold. The shadow is whispering now, things you don’t want to hear, don’t want to believe, things about yourself that may or may not be true, and you’re trying to tune it out but every time you close your eyes it’s the same thing.

It gets worse. There’s a part of your mind that is feeding off of this, not enjoying, per se, but… craving. And if you shut it off for long enough, it seeps through in your subconscious, and you dream things worse, and worse, and worse. When I was a little kid, I made a dreamcatcher with a circle of wood, and feathers I’d found in the land behind our house, and some twine, and it used to work, for a long time. But only for the nightmares. Things still happened when I was daydreaming, things still happened, if I let them.

Picture this. You’re standing in a corridor, awake and laughing, and suddenly behind the friend you’re talking to, there’s an immense, terrible shadow of something. You know what it is, but at least it’s not just the shadow—there’s a shape there, looming, for a split second everything blurs and melts in your vision and the one clear thing is a monstrous dragon. It looks at you, and then the moment passes, but you can feel it watching you now, and when the day is finally over, you find yourself racing, running as hard as you can through the park because it is Right Behind You, and no matter how fast you run, it always will be, and you’re terrified but you can’t turn around, because then it will be right On you. So you run, and run, and eventually force yourself to walk, and walk, and force yourself to stop thinking about it (impossible, of course), and you can’t see the shadow in the dark but you know it’s there, even if it’s not real, and that night, after you’ve gotten home and huddled down in the dark, you dream about it. And again, and again, and again, for weeks afterwards there’s a dragon chasing you through your dreams.

I hate dragons. Hate them, hate them, and if I ever write a novel with a dragon in it, the dragon will be the monster that chased me for so damn long I was afraid to sleep, not some pansy feathered lizard with telepathy and magic sparkles.

So anyway. “What’s it like being in your mind?” Now you know. This is how I write, this is where my words come from, they are forcibly wrenched from a mouth by the shadows behind it. And I laugh, when the imaginary cobra rears out of the pile of grain at my head, because I know it’s not real, because after spending the night hiding from my dreams, the blood that splatters across my mind’s eye, the explosions around my imaginary mind, are almost a breath of fresh air. Not quite, but you get the point.

I don’t want to post this, but it doesn’t feel right posting the other one, the happier bits of my brain, and leaving this out. So, yeah.

Safe enough in the shadows of my mind.

2009-01-19T21:29:00.000-08:00

or, "what it's like to be in my head"

There are snowflakes falling, it’s dark and they shine orange-yellow in the streetlight against the dark sky. I crane my head to look, crane my neck to catch them on my tongue. It is a little cool, some might say terribly cold, but the wind in my face makes me feel alive, and I’m actually warm, or at least, comfortable, as long as I keep moving—no one believes me when I tell them that, but it’s true. I prefer cold, I prefer chill, nothing makes me feel alive like ice. Anyway, the snowflakes are falling, and I twirl and stretch to catch them—it doesn’t cross my mind that I look quite the fool, until it does and I reign in my laughter and return my wandering gaze to the sidewalk. But before long I’m caught up in the sidewalk, the pretty crystals, catching the light like a field of diamonds—not like a field of diamonds, though, like a path of snowflakes and ice crystals. Every image is like itself, a little like every other image, but most like itself. That occurs to me, and I smile at the simple complexity of it. Simple complexity, simple complexity, com-plex-it-y, simple, simple plan, it’s a simple plan! Not like the band, though, like a simple plan, they never turn out to be as simple as you first thought, do they?

Sometimes my mind is a scary place to be—imagination isn’t as bright and fuzzy as some people seem to think—but moments like this I wouldn’t want to be anyone else. The beauty of the moment strikes me, the orange streetlights on the ice, the brown of that little clump of snow against the white, the snow on the trees, the cold air like a long drink of life, the moment is beautiful. It’s the night that brings it out in me. I’m never as calm and wild and content and restless as I am walking in the cold at night. It’s why I want to move somewhere far North, where I’ll always have a cold, dark night to walk in.

Back five minutes.

I’m laughing, laughing at the sheer craziness of it all. I know I locked the door, I know I locked it at least once, but I’m still bent on checking on my way home, though it’ll add five minutes to my walk. I remember locking it, but what if that was on the first trip? No, it wouldn’t make sense that I locked it on the first trip, I knew we were making two trips, wouldn’t he have reminded me? No, I definitely locked it. But what if, what if, what if I didn’t? Worst case scenario, someone breaks in and robs the place stone blind. Second worst case, the unlocked door is discovered in the morning and we are both fired; third worst case, I am fired. But this is all folly, because I locked the damn door.

Or did I? I laugh aloud again. Life would be simpler, I remark aloud to the empty air, if I just wasn’t so crazy. Laugh, laugh, it’s all you really can do—I am amused by the futility of my reasoning, amused by the inanity of my situation, amused by the cold and the walk and the idea. And I am walking to the store to check the door, which is, of course, firmly locked when I get there. The snow, which I assumed to be blowing out of the trees, begins to look more like a snowfall, and I laugh because of course it starts snowing as soon as I am resolved to walk the extra distance.

Back another several minutes.

Barnes & Noble is a pretty nice place to sit and read, even if it is cliché and whatnot. This coffee is a little too sweet, but that’s okay. I have a new book, and that makes everything better—it’s one I’ve heard about several times online, but not by name. I recognized the characters when I flipped it open to a random page and started reading. I only know the names, and that one is an angel and the other, a demon, but that’s enough and it’s by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett—do I need any further goads? It’s in my price range, and that was proof enough.

I’m sitting there, sipping the “tall” mocha and popping little balls of chocolate-mint-stuff and laughing to myself at Crowley, barely aware of my surroundings, except for the guy at the table across from mine. We’re facing each other, on opposite sides of our tables. He’s using a laptop, a Mac—we made brief eye-contact when I walked in, and he’s hovering in the back of my mind now. He’s tallish, wearing a white and blue plaid-type shirt, medium-length curly blond hair, and has shadows under his light blue eyes that suggest a lack of sleep all too familiar in this corner of the world, surrounded by bookshelves and quiet regulars who prowl the pages like hawks on the wind. He’s handsome, looks like late twenties, early thirties, and I kind of wish I wasn’t too shy to look up and smile at him. He smiles at me anyway, when I look up, and I smile back. When I get up to throw the coffee away and go, he asks me if I was popping coffee beans and I laugh and explain. I wish, I wish, I wish I could get to know him.

Back about half an hour.

I’m flashing you the peace sign over my shoulder as I take the crosswalk and he drives off. It’s a good night, it’s a good night, I’m laughing more sincerely than it’s been in a while, the deep snowbank that I sink right through doesn’t faze me, it’s a good night for a walk in the clear air and the soft snow. In my ears, it’s “Lemon,” and I ignore the deeper feelings that song pings in my heart and focus on the beat, a good beat to walk to.

Back several minutes.

He’s counting money, careful and generally organized and so on, and I’m leaning up against the counter, distracting him with mindless chatter. Eventually, I run out of words and fall silent, but not for long. I’m never silent for long, when I’m in these moods. It’s kind of a pain. But this was supposed to be the inner monologue, so yeah.

After all this time, I’m used to the store with the lights turned out. It’s not too dark to see, not up front, and I’m wondering if I could juggle if I tried. Of course, the answer is no. I knew that, I’ve known that for a long time, but it’s never stopped me before. As I go to pick up the nail files, I see my friend and boss mark down another number on the sheet and stop. The scenario plays out in my head, I mentally see the tired head-shake, and the exasperated sigh, and start laughing instead. He looks at me, looks like he might ask what I’m laughing over, and then shakes his head and goes back to counting. I grin. The rhythm starts playing in my head, and the inside of the first knuckles of my thumb, forefinger, and middle finger start drumming it out on the counter. It takes me a few moments to realize that he’s stopped counting and is glaring at me, and another moment to figure out why.

“You can stop that any time.”

And so I pull up short again, and turn from the counter. I pull a few bags of seed forward to fill gaps on the shelf. There’s something about the surface, the cool plastic bulging with seeds underneath, that invites drumming, or juggling, but I restrain myself. The intense mental image hits me, of the bag bursting, a force of seed bursting out like an explosion, and I grin, and then start laughing as the picture solidifies. He rolls his eyes; I don’t have to turn around to know that. I grin and turn back, and the inevitable follow-up image is a bullet exploding into the back of my neck, out of my forehead. Or some forehead, anyway. It’s a pretty awkward feeling, the imagined senses it drums up in my skin. I shiver a little bit, and stop thinking to watch him count. He eventually notices that I’ve stopped pacing and looks up, making a strange raised-eyebrow face at me watching him. I grin.

The next image is the little digital computer-register clock shattering. I can see it, fragments of bright turquoise numbers flying, and black glass all around, the little tinkling sound. I snicker again, picturing the fragments embedding themselves in the five and ten pound bags—somehow that amuses me. He shakes his head—I’m a lost cause, but I think we both accepted that a long time ago. At least, I did.

Back an hour or so.

We’re talking U2, both more excited than we’d probably care to admit to anyone else. He’s talking about his life and Bono’s, and I kind of see how the dovetail could be. I wish, I wish, there’s so much he could be. I hope more for him than for me, sometimes. Often, actually. If anyone deserves to make it out of this purgatory, it’s him. What I wouldn’t give to see his name in lights—my name, my name I would see on a PO box in a village somewhere on the edge of the wilderness, but that’s a dream I would do without to see his face on an album. Man, it’s crazy how life pulls us.

I’m trying to unscrew the whatever-it-is; this is a copy-and-paste situation; today, it was a pole and a bolt. He can’t find the right tool, I can’t find it either; the solution is to either leave the task undone, indefinitely or until the tool can be found, or to improvise. He’s for leaving it; I’m trying to patch together a solution with spare parts. He’s pointing out the fallacies in my logic; I’m ignoring him. He’s usually right, but it’s worth it for the sparkling moments in between where whatever half-baked crazy scheme I’ve come up with actually works.

Back another hour in time.

I’m sinking into the snowdrift, laughing because although it’s cold and wet, it still feels fluffy, and it makes me smile. An image flashes across my sight, blood splattered across the white and brown plow-snow in a pattern of bright red, turning dark. I shake my head to clear it and keep walking, smiling still. The images barely even bother me anymore, I turn up the music, it’s Bob Marley and the Wailers, which is nice after something like that. The cars whiz by, and the suggestion passes my mind to leap in front of one, and the sensation of my bones being crushed against a high-speed fender whispers. I ignore it as best as I can and keep walking.

It’s a good day for it, after all.

Another day of untried freedom

2009-01-19T08:59:00.000-08:00

So this morning I woke up and, as though my body had somehow sensed the urgency in the air, fell back asleep. Oh, how I love days off from school. The air is clean, the sky is pure, even in the clouds and patched fog, the ground is covered with enough snow deep and sparkling to get lost in; I have boots, I have a skin thick enough to hide me from the wind, I have a day with nothing in it yet. It is a feeling like no other, not quite endowed with the straight freedom feeling that comes of actually skipping school, but with many of the possibilities. Maybe it’s the lack of risk that changes it, I don’t know. I mean, yes, I could be called into work—that’s one of the things you don’t get with skipping—but also, I could take the dog down to the park and romp! I could spend two hours playing horn! I could watch Into the Wild! I could… could do pretty much anything. I probably won’t, besides playing horn, and/or guitar for as long a time as my chops and fingertips, respectively, can take. This will be after the music now wears off (it’s Radio Nowhere right now, New Year’s Day before that) and my fingers start itching worse than they are now. In the meantime, I write.

Yesterday, we got a new president. There are quite a few people freaking out, doomsayers, and the occasional orgasm of rhetoric. Personally, I couldn’t—well, I could probably care less if I tried. But I spent the year leading up to the election trying to figure out what the big deal was, and alternately trying to figure out which of the two evils was worse, because they’re both pretty damn bad. And at some point, it became not McCain vs. Obama, but the party who believed in Saint Wizard McSuperpants versus the party who believed in His Evilness the Doom-bringer. And that made me sick. It was absolutely insane, and at some point I was wondering exactly where the hell everybody’s sanity went? I mean, you guys aren’t all crazy! I wanted to take several people by the shoulders and shake them until they resembled my friends and family again. My dad was one of the worst, telling me over and over on the way to school how Obama was pretty bad, pretty bad, pretty awful, he did this and he believes that and he’ll do this and that and this, and one friend from US History was the other, going on and on and on about how wonderful this guy was, never with any reasons or back-up, only constant speeches about how damn awesome he was. Fortunately, two people I knew seemed to retain some sanity, and my friends on complete opposite sides helped me out—my friend the vegan, who wanted to vote for Ralph Nader, and my friend the vegetarian-hater, who wants to take over the country and remake it in the model of ancient Rome.

If I had to do the thing over again, well, I’d probably just say fuck it all and leave. Or I’d cast a blank ballot. But anyway, Obama’s in office, the country is torn between wildly celebrating and committing suicide, and I’m inclined to tell them the whole thing is absolutely ridiculous. He’s just another politician. When has a Harvard or Yale graduate in office done our country any good? What we really need is a revolution, but then I’m just a schizophrenic on a laptop on my day off from school spouting nonsense. Anyway, enough with the political gibberish. Long story much shorter, I have a day to do stuff, and do stuff I will!

On to the waiting horn.

Like a Caged Animal I Wander.

2009-01-12T17:28:00.000-08:00

This is my world, right now: the smooth, cool curve beneath my hand, I can almost feel the brass color against my skin. The world is the smooth circle that touches my lips, the narrow bell beneath it against my tongue, briefly, the buzz when I feel, rather than play, the tones that flow through, not from, my throat and down the mouthpiece. The silvered keys beneath my fingers are on the fringes of the world, making up the edges of the horizon and the parts of the universe that we feel and cannot see. The symbols I read before me show a way, the steps I take in the sound and the air, the time ticks on through the baton. My world is the cool brass, more than metal, the energy carried through the wind, I am an instrument in this world, and I carry life into this world, warm energy on the coolness of my horn.

The world is cold, and there is the noise of a thousand shattering plates of ice when my foot touches the ground, the dark spot for a moment against the shining white surface, before it breaks through and the snow is soft beneath. The shadows dance, deceiving; even in daylight, this world seeks to twist the mind and sight and it is easy to get lost. Even easier, now, with the only light the ambient blue from the nearly full moon that fills the gaps between the snow and the dark tree-trunks, turning the entire world into a maze of blinding shadows, black or blue or white in the moonlight…

These are my dreams, when my eyes close under the lights behind the bars. In the meantime, my heart beats to a time I don’t pretend to understand, something plays me like a harp, and I laugh under the raw pain beneath my ribcage. The people move around me, they wear the ropes for protection, the guards are there for protection, the walls keep them in for their own good and I keep the snarl beneath my face hidden. I am what you are protected from, I am one of the things in the daylight, all straight grins and playful shoves and punches to the gut, one of the things that glides through the night that you saw through your window, that rainy night.

You think my laughter frightening, you call me out for a lunatic—but you’ve never seen me in the full moon. Maybe if we met in the true world, far from these gray borders and lines, out and away from the walls of our respective prisons, you would understand. Perhaps you would not fear me, if you heard my song in the wild places; perhaps you would fear me all the more. You think I’m a fool, pacing and spinning on my heel, possibly because you have never seen a wild thing in a cage before. My howls resound as laughter, high and loud and insane, and you smile in that shifty way; you aren’t sure whether to be amused at the joke you didn’t get. The joke is the life, the collar tight around my neck, the joke is the escape of final leaving, a release from this far too tame body, the joke, when you heard it, you weren’t sure what to think, you told the wardens I scared you. The joke is these bars, with all that you’ve brainwashed yourself into seeing as escapes scrawled on the spaces. I am a fool, yes, for laughing, and I play the fool with wild abandon, and for a moment, the joke is on you.

Dudes Who Are Awesome

2009-01-03T17:45:00.000-08:00

So, after an episode of Mythbusters sparked an elaborate daydream where hiking met helicopter crash met abandoned government facility, complete with rusted fense, I wondered, who are the most awesome dudes I know of? Not know personally, but know -of-, and they'd probably be awesome to know personally. And it would be really cool to somehow save their lives, just so I could feel like I helped the world out a little today. Or something. So. In no particular order,

Jamie Hyneman (yeah, Adam's cool too, but Jamie is... awesome)
Paul Hewson
David Evans
Tom Waits
Eric Hutchinson
Cory Doctorow
Neil Gaiman
Randall Munroe
Ryan North
Jeffrey Rowland (this guy might just be on the top, except for Bono)

Actually, the whole bunch of webcomic artists that I know of (except for Tim Buckley) seem like pretty awesome dudes (and Jeffrey Rowland is awesome even by webcomic artist standards), and I should probably not be proud of the fact that I could probably quote more than many Dinosaur Comics verbatim, but I am because webcomics are perhaps the coolest, most alternative-but-not-in-a-bad-way (is there a Dark Side to the force that is subculture? yes, and its name is Hot Topic... when subculture goes Culture, or just... well, that's a whole 'nother subject, one I'll probably tackle when I get my brain organized [HAHAHAHA] or at least manage to gather enough interest and material on the problem), form of media that there IS, except maybe zines and mail art... or perhaps Indie music. Then again, who can compare them? Apples to mangoes, or oranges to strawberries. Or something.

And, on that note--

An empty book would be nice

2009-01-02T20:52:00.001-08:00

I’m beginning to wonder if I will ever be a competent storyteller. It’s who I am, what I’ve always done and always wanted to do, but… lately I find myself with nothing but rambling pages of… well, nothing. It makes for somewhat… interesting… reading, I guess, maybe, but even so, that’s not what I want. I can ramble on to my friends (until they get bored, or annoyed, or they want to ramble in which case I listen and am interested). Hell, I can ramble out loud, or for that matter, keep a blog. …Right, exactly.

What I want, like I said, is to tell stories—to tell A Story, something big, something that matters, but I’ll settle for amusing people with five-page drabbles. I just want to WRITE. Stories.

When I was maybe four or five, I made up the story of “The Wawa Penguins,” which was exactly the story you would expect from a five or six year old with a voracious appetite for literature, who could only access literature approved by her strictly Fundamental Baptist parents. (Also, “Wawa’s” was the name of a convenience store that was pretty much everywhere at the time, we had one two blocks from our house, and they sold the BEST ice cream, which was the focus of the story.) But my parents, as parents of five/six year olds are wont to be, were tickled pink, and proud, and whatnot. Once, in a long ride to Queens, New York, I amused the other three kids in the back of the car with a story about a gigantic red horse, whose farmer owner constantly entered in high-stakes races, until people got suspicious and started trying to catch the horse’s secret—he was chased to the top of a very, very tall tower, and it was discovered that the whole thing was an illusion, created by the use of magnifying lenses. (I remember that my throat was sore and I had run out of twists and just wanted the story to be over, and even then I was annoyed with myself for such a Deus ex Machina ending, and also, though this didn’t occur to me, how the magnifying lenses gave the animal super speed is anybody’s guess.)
Now, I have about six different short stories only four or five pages in (which are going to be way too long, when I finish them in the shadowy realm of Eventually), and a novel that I started for NaNoWriMo 2008, and, predictably enough, never finished, and a mind full of wanderings where I see stories and can’t transcribe them for reasons I’m not entirely sure about. And now, apparently, I write like an Pre-Revolutionary French Scientist (have you ever read their papers? Their sentences are longer than their paragraphs! Text blocks o’ Doom galore.). Man, I just can’t win these days. I should go pick up Sean and play until someday I’m Edge-quality, and then I’ll just hang around outside the recording studio panhandling until maybe… I don’t know.

Was I saying something? Oh, right, storytelling.

Yeah, anyway what this world needs is another Hans Christian Anderson, and everyone’s going to hate me but I Don’t Care neener-neener-neener, Freedom Of Speech1 and so on.
Anyway, I keep trying for stories but they don’t seem to go anywhere, I wind up with a paper to write… I don’t know. I don’t know, I don’t know, I should just find Jeffrey Rowland and demand that he tell me what the secret to his Awesomeness is, or just go panhandling in Northampton in disguise until I find him, and then kidnap him and… I don’t see this going anywhere good either. Damn. I can’t even come up with a good crazy plot of action! I could ask Serra for help or something, but her style and mine are critically different. She doesn’t need things to be story-shaped, or at least, her story-shaped things are shaped differently from other story-shaped things… I don’t know. I write like …nah, that doesn’t work either. Comparing Serra to Dali or Picasso is fair, but exactly whom do I compare my own writings to? DaVinci? The man was a genius! Escher? Again, a genius—same with anyone here really. I’d have to look up some crazy artist who tries to paint wildlife from a house in the suburbs but can never finish anything.
1Note: Freedom of Speech® is subject to change and adaptation and other possible improvements and can be removed at any time decided by USGOVT© or modified if content is determined to be of some possible non-beneficial consequences to the general public or USGOVT© itself.

A Long Night to Wonder

2009-01-01T20:17:00.000-08:00

So here I sit, with a glass of champagne and a half-empty mug of chai tea, listening to Panda and Child, typing at random because I’m still afraid to face the future. To my right, there’s a telescope on a tripod, my little brother’s, it looks pretty cool but isn’t calibrated yet. To my left, through the doorway without a door, there’s a beautiful little tabby cat trying to figure out how to open the dishwasher, or something—she’s acting a little weird, lately, actually, I don’t know what’s up. In front of me, occupying the rest of the table, there’s a huge stack of newspapers, and magazines, and stuff. I shoved it into a huge pile because it was in the way of a card game that came up earlier.

There are only two songs on this CD, ‘we must avoid these mistakes,’ that I just don’t like, and this is one of them—it’s called “twice is nice,” and… it’s something. It’s frantic, it’s a little too frantic for me, I guess. Shouting yourself hoarse at a world that just doesn’t want to listen, is what it feels like, and I’ve done too much of that already. I think. Well, not really. When I find a point that sticks, I’ll try again. I guess that’s just it, I don’t know. I used to spend hours wandering, in any direction, just… walking, looking for something that resembled an answer. Sometimes I came home at peace; sometimes, I don’t. The cold winds wake me up, the darkness clears my mind, and the stars call to my heart; when there’s a full moon, I revel in the pure light that coats the ground, brighter than the streetlights.

Yes, the verb tense confusion is fully intentional. [Oh, come on, you had to notice that.]

What I should’ve done is taken out my horn or my guitar (Sean, by name) and played until my muscles—lips and fingertips, respectively—were too sore to continue. But now it’s late enough that horn would be too loud (oh, how I hate living in proximity to people) and guitar… well, no excuses there, really. I should, probably I will before I go to bed. What I should’ve done is clean up, my room is such a mess it’s becoming hard to find things. I did clean up, the living room, partly, and the kitchen, mostly. My brother left the place a mess, and I didn’t want to clean up while my friends were here; we all came here for kind-of-lunch and hot chocolate after spending the afternoon hurling ourselves down a snowy hill on sleds. It is pretty cold in here, now, the furnace is off- oh, there it goes. What I should’ve done is finished applying to the rest of the universities, it’s really bad that I’ve left them this late and now I might not get in, but I’m doing this to avoid thinking about the future. Oh, oh, if I keep putting off these thoughts they will trap and kill me. Oh, but if there’s no way out why not bang your fists against the cage until the scars are enough to kill you? I’ve tried that, too.
In the end, I’ve no one to blame but myself.

First of all, I'm not crazy.

2008-12-30T19:35:00.000-08:00

Finding balance—I had a page on this, it was pretty good stuff, but my computer decided to automatically restart and I lost the whole damn thing. Now I’ve lost a CD—the Unforgettable Fire. It’s not my favorite album, but it’s U2, and I do love it. I have a definite idea of where it is though, in my boom-box inherited from my sister, who left for the army and left me a room small enough to be a walk-in closet, full of memories and bonsai dust and the creepy smiling stares of the Kewpie dolls our grandmother kept on a shelf opposite the bed—which was a small ship’s bunk, which my dad had slept in a generation ago—that room, and a spirit of rebellion, and a mothering job that I didn’t want and no one wanted me to have. When she lived in the room, I used to hang out there sometimes, on the floor by the chair, which you couldn’t sit on because it was covered with stuff: old boxes and toys and little keepsakes from friends, and papers, which she probably needed but forgot about, and we would talk and laugh and sometimes she would get annoyed and throw a shoe or whatever happened to be closest at me. Our grandmother always told her, was telling her to clean her room, and she never wanted to, and it was so messy; eventually she paid me five dollars to clean it for her, but my grandmother wouldn’t let me, and stood over me the entire time to make sure I did it the right way. We had a big fight, and I decided it wasn’t worth the five bucks and went outside to play. That was what I used to do, whenever I could. I’d go out the kitchen, open the porch door, leap down the stairs from the stone patio, and take the yard at a run, eating up the ground and enjoying the wind in my ears, until I hit the semi-circle of pines in the back, and, winded, slowed down to a walk. There was a space behind the pines—still is, that much hasn’t changed—about five to twelve feet wide, depending, a kind of path, unmarked, carpeted with moss and tiny grasses, more like a severely elongated, curving clearing, really, and behind that, a line of trees and brush. There were a few paths into there; the line was only five feet deep or so, but the thorns made it unpleasant enough that you really didn’t want to go around the paths. Once, my sister cut a piece out of a little maple tree growing out there—we all put our tongues to the open part, and it actually tasted pretty good. Most maples out in the woods aren’t Sugar Maples, which are the ones that yield syrup—and they taste pretty nasty, really.

There are two country CDs in my case (I found The Unforgettable Fire a little while ago and finished copying it), both more handed down from my sister. One’s Unleashed, by the infamous Toby Keith; my friend didn’t actually believe me when I told him. The other’s Come On Over by Shania Twain—again, not something you’d expect to find here. It’s not that I have anything against country; Johnny Cash is one of my favorite artists, in fact. It’s just… well, Toby Keith is… well. I don’t like him, suffice it to say. Shania Twain… eh, she just annoys me. There’s also a Dixie Chicks CD (I think), but that’s from a CD case a bunch of my friends and I found in sixth grade. I remember one friend, who had a reputation as a Good Charlotte fangirl and a punk, slipping the Britney Spears album into her binder and telling me not to tell anyone—she couldn’t risk her reputation. I still laugh at that. There’s two Good Charlotte CDs here, one from my dad, years and years ago, when he had no idea what to buy me for my birthday, except that he’d heard me mention them a few times, and the other one a copy from a CD I got for my brother, The Young and the Hopeless, which he liked for a long time and then lost. I like Good Charlotte despite myself, despite my usual tastes. Something about them really appeals to me, my tween side, the side of me that doesn’t actively hate them. I don’t know, really; my New Year’s Resolution is to not be ashamed of music anymore, because it’s cool or because it’s not cool (yes, both of those factor into shame; one, with my anarchist friends, and one, with… well, everyone else.)

It’s funny, life; living; people. Like I said, I had a long page on balance which was better than this, but it got tossed when my laptop updated. (Excuse? What’s a valid excuse?) It had a metaphor involving a bull and a goat! All this came from a bottle of Vault that I looked into as poison (which it is) and swallowed anyway. Balance, counter-balance. If my life was balanced properly, I would be out in the woods right now, doing what I should be doing. Instead… well, here I am. It’s not so bad, really; I should take a walk, there’s a friend I wanted to see today, but there’s no guarantee I’ll get to talk to him, and really I’d be better off waiting here for the clock to turn around enough. We’re going out ice-skating later, a few friends and I. I’m looking forward to it; I really don’t see them enough. I spent this past month working seven days a week, plus school, and that was… well, a mistake, to put it lightly. Balance, counter-balance, emotional equilibrium… HO. HO. HO. My spirit is twisted in knots, my emotions are all fouled up, my soul is kind of clouded… it was not a good month. Unavoidable, and I’m glad for the distractions, but I’m glad it’s over. Another week, I would’ve had to leave this whole place for a month, clear out my soul. I might be doing that anyway, soon—go out, find myself, discover some identity. I’ve needed it for a while now, once we get back to an honest winter, I think I will.