indefinite care unit

2009-08-24T19:36:00.001-07:00

Attention Please!

Rich Text Format has moved to
http://maxroderick.blogspot.com

The Disbelief Archives will remain here, for now, but have also been integrated into the archives at Rich Text Format. I plan on using this space for a future project, but I'll leave the old archives up until then.

the end

2009-08-11T15:33:00.000-07:00

well, here we are again, a day late and a dollar short. I thought about stripping down the number of days and making it a few days a week sort of thing, but that is a lie and also I don't think that would work. The thing is - I've only been talking about my life. Not really about truth, not really about anything at all. Even if what I say is insightful, that is beside the point of this project. near, but not the same.
So I could go through a laundry-list of the embarassing events of my past and hope that I came through them with something new and honest to write about, but why? that faded truth has no bearing on reality, and so is open to be accessed by anyone at any time.
That's the problem, really. I have nothing to say, nowhere to go with this project. The life I lead has become boring and hopeful, and I'm not going to write fiction about truth because let's face it every joe shmoe in the world does that.
No. This project has ended as a failure - that is, the original question of whether it was a good idea or not to live a completely honest life has gone unanswered. To be perfectly honest relies on perfect understanding, which is bullshit. And it's not honest to speculate on that which you don't understand, it's something else entirely. The bottom line is that no one cares about honesty, that it means nothing to them except in a vague optimistic way. Real honesty never has as much of an effect as real sympathy, which can be completely dishonest. Honesty in a vacuum doesn't exist. Anything in the social realm is taken by some as truth and by some as lies, just as a general course, and whether it's true or not has no bearing on whether they believe it. So the truth is assumed to be a lie, or the lie assumed to be truth, and what you come out with in the end is that they're almost exactly the same. The difference is, when a lie is ousted for the truth, that is based on humanity and their control issues, and when a truth becomes something different, when something changes and what used to be true is no longer, that is out of human control. So my conclusion? People lie because they want to feel in control. I wanted to be entirely honest because I wanted to give up control completely. But I couldn't do it.
so that's the end, and thanks for joining us. If we decide to take up the reigns again, it won't be with this project, but with something new. So this is not indefinite hiatus, this is the end of the line.

5.5/10

2009-08-09T22:39:00.000-07:00

apparently it's been 2 days again and I didn't even notice.
This is clearly not working out right now. And I'd like to figure out exactly why.

I've worked 27 hours in the past 4 days, which is more than I've slept, but offers only a convenient excuse, not a true explanation. It would be truer than true, if I had been on track before that short period, but we all know I wasn't. Maybe it's the heat. Maybe the caffeine. Maybe the rapid succession of devastating changes to my well-being and status quo.

The only solution is to wait, and see if this project can withstand. I'm going to level with you right now - I'm only about 40% confident that it can.

7/10

2009-08-07T16:22:00.000-07:00

Ok a basic rundown of the reason I haven't been updating the last few days. I've been going to sleep at 8 am, and thursday I had to go to work at 8 am. So tuesday I stayed up until wednesday night, and was incoherent for all of wednesday. then I worked through thursday, and was incoherent by the time I got off, worked all day friday (passed out as soon as I got home) and slept until today, and I worked today until about an hour ago. In theory I had some free time to update, but what with? Today I worked 8 hours, slept, and talked to no one and did nothing in the meantime? No.
But today I'm all refreshed! and sore. If I brought in a good boombox, I could do this job 9 or so hours a day for 5 or 6 days a week and be totally happy about it. Sadly, I've now made everything we sell at EZs, from basic ingredient phase to final form. Scratch that - I've never made the pizza dough. I couldn't really work a few positions, the grill for instance, but whenever anyone does anything in that place I have more or less an intimate understanding of what is going on. Why god, why?
No I don't capitalize the g in god. who does that?
I haven't heard from anyone I knew in Portland since I left. That's exactly the kind of behavior I expect from the people in that city, which is why I left anyway. But that's not fair to the people I spent my time with, because as you could probably guess, I haven't tried to talk to them either. We live across the country, there's nothing to connect us except the few months we spent together. There's no reason, I mean, to continue the farce of human interaction (which I will always view as a farce, even if it can be fun).
My job, working as a prep cook, is perfect for ignoring that farce completely. I don't have to talk to anyone (I can talk to the other cooks, and the person training me, but I don't have to) so it took me a record 8 hours today to be reminded of something I hate about the human race. I'm seriously excited about that! I have been being really critical of a lot of people lately, and it's so nice to live a simple life where what matters is just that the work is being done, there is almost no question of quality. I think art needs to be callously analyzed at every step, but I'm not sure why. Sometimes I should just stop talking.

5/10

2009-08-05T06:31:00.000-07:00

Well what is there to say? I have lived a thousand identical days.
no, that's not it. I've been chatting with strangers. I haven't heard from anyone I knew in portland, or some of the acquaintances I've barely kept track of here. Song lyrics are the only holy presence in my life, and they repeat as persistently as the strange dreams that make sleep almost too sweet to bear. I don't know whether I'm being patient or lazy. The easy answer is both, and in fact it's the only answer that won't cause pain.
People have been saying they want to draw comics, but they have no script. That is a fairly foolish problem. It's like saying you want to publish your writing, and yet being too lazy to go buy envelopes. There. That wasn't so hard. My idea: if you want to practice your pacing, and your layouts, I think the ideal thing is to transcribe a comedy sketch into comic form. Think about how difficult that would be. There are other challenges, perhaps more useful to the medium overall, but I think it would be a good exercise. I'm not an artist. But I think I could be an art teacher. Is that a stupid thing to say?
The strange thing is I think I want a life without responsibility, where no one relies on me, but I want people to feel like they can rely on me. In short, I want everything normal people want, but only if it comes without any obligations, which is perhaps the most selfish thing to wish for. I don't know. I'll solve math problems, for instance, I just don't want to show my work. I'll write an essay, but for god's sake don't tell me how many words it should be. I don't know. Sometimes I'm glad my presence can create happiness in any form, but the rest of the time all that means to me is that my absence reduces happiness. I can't live my life according to that kind of pessimism. Do I have a choice?
See. I updated.

6/10

2009-08-03T19:10:00.001-07:00

I finished my thoughts on yesterdays post. I completely forgot that the dawn of a new moon meant the dawn of a new regiment. I was going to tell you about some bullshit that occurred yesterday, but it can wait, I'm sure. In order to work my new schedule, I'll need to be up and awake by 8. Ok. What else?

1. watch less than an hour of TV
2. bathe and shave
3. write
4. spend no money
5. play no video games
6. read
7. do something nice
8. analyze 1 tarot spread
9. leave the house
10. keep a predictable schedule

keeping it short and sweet this month. I have been so lazy, so off track, that this is as specific and as difficult as I'm gonna make it. Not that there isn't a lot to do...
I know it seems like my entries are really short lately. On one hand I haven't wanted to write much with a broken keyboard, but on the other hand this is the length they were always really supposed to be. The subject, however, has been lacking even more. I'm trying to work on that, among other things.

2009-08-02T14:24:00.000-07:00

It occurred to me last night that my goal when arguing is not to convince the other person of my point of view. My goal, besides trying to define my own beliefs (which currently do not exist) is simply to make other people reconsider theirs'. I don't honestly see how anyone can firmly believe in anything. At all. Exponents of rational thought will say that it holds the key to all answers and growth. Those favoring subtle and spiritual paths will swear the opposite is true. Meditation, they say, empty your mind of all thought.
So I only argue when I'm drunk. And I can't argue coherently when I'm drunk, which I think is an ideal commentary in and of itself on the nature of argument. It's only a game. Intellectual masturbation. And any game, yes, even scrabble, is made 100 times more playable by the lubrication of libations. Well anyhow, anyone who seeks a broader understanding of the world must first understand the search itself, the reasons behind it, and the barriers involved. The first thing I learned: it is impossible to understand anything. second: understanding has no purpose. In theory the purpose is to act based on that understanding for the good of your fellow man. As if that made any sense - the people seeking this understanding are some of the most miserable people on the planet. You know what? I can't keep this going. I have these ideas and I'm trying to organize them and present them for you, but my mind is just dying right now.
I hope it gets better. You know it might not. What if this is it?

ok. The problem with arguing about something as mundane as artistic merit and rational thought, there are a few givens that I expect to be universally known. Rational thought is good. It can be used for great things. But, it has to work together with subconscious thought, too, because that is generally where the ideas come from. An overabundance of rational thought, furthermore, creates a somewhat bland personality, and one plagued constantly by the problems that logic can't solve.
My argument against the search for understanding is the same as my argument against all searching: there is no point. Wander, and pick up what you find, and store it in your fat skull. What good will it do to torture yourself with even the attainable things? I'm a firm believer that the major inventions of mankind were not simply worked through, but occurred to someone (as if from an outside source - so is the presentation of the subconscious) and was then worked towards. That work required rational thought, of course, but also ingenuity and more than anything else effort. Are we better for the works of our ancestors? Probably. Are we any happier? Well who could ever know? We assume we are, because that's the best assumption.

I like to empty my mind until an idea occurs to me, then to unravel that idea with rational thought, and then to give it concrete form with sort of a combined approach. Sometimes I write with feeling, sometimes with intelligence, and I strongly prefer to former, in terms of the output.
But the reason I'll never win an argument is simple: I believe in things being completely balanced, but I think in terms of absolute extremes. Those concepts are as opposite as anything can be, and I can't argue a balanced viewpoint in terms of singularities, it simply can't work. Oh well.

2009-08-01T02:22:00.000-07:00

Trying to update with a broken space bar is just not worth the effort.
Try the hippie burger at kerbey lane, it is basically a big felafel in burger form.
I wanted to get something done today, but this fucking space bar makes it impossible to write, and I couldn't bear to put the fucking computer down.
I'm a fucking weakling lately. chalk it up to the heat, the space bar, the atmosphere, whatever you want.
let's start a magazine called avant garden variety, an all-girl-drink bar called pussy liquor, and maybe a restaurant called bite me. have I gone too far? probably.

2009-07-30T18:44:00.000-07:00

My spacebar broke in half on my lappy tappy computer pal. I know, I know, I'm too hard on it. Always popping away, well, fuck it. I can't write with that frustrating tidbit. I'll have to get used to this big monster if I want to get any work done at all, until maybe I can afford a new laptop. What do I have that I could sell? that's a prime question, it is.
my old desktop really wouldn't sell for shit anymore. unless one of you guys wants it? Its main feature is about 60 gigs of extremely well organized music. Umm I have the tower and the monitor, so you'd need your own keyboard and mouse. Wait! this isn't craigslist!
See, here's the thing, I recently found out that stasis is an illusion. I was thinking about zeno's paradox, and I realized it is actually not a problem with space and time, but a problem of stasis. When you freeze time an arrow in mid-flight appears to be still. But, in reality, nothing is ever still. Stillness doesn't exist in nature. We're made up of tiny atoms spinning constantly, and we're on top of planets doing the same, whirling around explosions that are constantly exploding.
So while I sit inside, reading, playing video games, whatever the hell I do with all my time, time is in fact passing, and nothing will stop it. So we're always moving, towards something, away from something. But our position on the path cannot be described as a point, but as a motion from one point to another. Have fun with that. I'm out.

2009-07-30T01:25:00.001-07:00

I woke to find a tranquilizer dart in my forearm, just an inch off from the three freckles that I've bothered to take note of, but not to name. I was in a golden cage. There was some food, some water, and sawdust in case I needed to crap.
I was able to make a mixture of these strange things to, first of all, cultivate some yeast, and finally to brew my own disgusting kind of beer. My immediate necessities taken care of, I went about searching the cage for anything that might help me either live luxuriously in captivity or else to escape and live miserable and free. I found nothing; I found not a single thing growing or any sign of life.
With no escape I began pawing through the sawdust, looking for scraps of truth. That is something they often forget to feed you. It's addictive, and in the rain forest it's everywhere. Quite a painless detox, but I haven't slept well in weeks. I only managed to survive by digging the shrapnel from my eyes whenever he left the TV on. This is what I'm reduced to, like MockBock, eating the flies from his own eyes, I'm recycling my own truth in a bitter attempt to rebel.
In captivity, simply continuing to live is rebelling. He hasn't tortured me, or even talked to me, so it's safe to say he either doesn't know why I was a threat, or he knows I wasn't. Either way, this is what I'm reduced to. I have an escape planned on Sunday, but I don't know how well it will work. Even if I get out of the cage, it'll be a miracle if I survive the leap to the ground.

Sorry I've been missing days here and there, look what I'm reduced to. Reduced, reduced, like a thin sauce. There's a good chance I'll spend a couple days watching Evangelion and playing through Shadow of the Colossus. Long and lonely days, full of ramen pellets and stale water dripping from a giant plastic tube.

2009-07-29T17:19:00.000-07:00

yesterday I finished my revisions of the circular ruin, and today the plan was to move on to ocher eyes (whose second half really needs some work) but instead I'm fixing my ps2. 90% of the time when you get the 'disc read error' problem on the old, thick ps2s, it's a problem with the distance between the lens and the disc. I'm not sure why that should make so much of a difference, but I've fixed it before and I'll fix it again today.
It just takes 2 screwdrivers, some patience, and one of each kind of cd/dvd. see, the black and blue cds and dvds are the easiest to read, normal dvds are a bit harder, and playstation 2 dvds with the silver backs seem to be the most difficult. That's why they stop working first. So I'm setting the lens height, moving it two clicks to the left, testing it with shadow of the colossus, and moving it again, repeat a thousand times. I'm not afraid to open a game system and fix it, if I can find out how, and this particular problem is fixed all over the internet. And don't worry, I'm unplugging it before taking the shell off every time. Don't worry about me.
I did get shocked trying to fix a stove once, but that didn't turn out so well. Anyway there are few electrical appliances that are complicated enough that you can't fix them at home. As long as you look up how, and do it very carefully, you're golden. Why does it matter, though? It really doesn't. Entropy will get the best of you eventually anyway. I just don't want you to be afraid to try.
besides all that? Not much going on. But that's almost a lie. still, I can't tell the truth because it's not my call. I keep having dreams where I'm traveling. Usually I'm late for the plane and I've forgotten some important item or else I'm just somewhere else. That, on the whole, is not abnormal: all dreams take place somewhere else. But it's distressing that none of them seem to have people from this state, none of them seem to have places in austin, and all of them have as their basis the idea that I must keep moving.
I start back at EZs on Sunday, so... At least I'll make some money again. Whatever else I do, well, I'm not afraid to take a soldering iron to my own motherboard, either. Not that I've ever actually worked on a motherboard, but I would not hesitate, given the opportunity.

2009-07-27T22:17:00.000-07:00

Among other things, I gave three tarot readings today (there was a fourth but it didn't count) and they were all a little too simple. Maybe the fact is the cards, after I neglected them for so long, wanted to ease me back into things, to encourage me. This is a sentience I'm glad to allow them, though sentience is absolutely no sign of prophecy. I'm no crystal scryer to scrape from the current truth a weather-eaten pallet of future-things.
No I won't bore you with the details. Nor will I recount for you the words we swirled in their dainty porcelain cups, left sitting there until they became stale, and the cups stained. We were not the cups, though we could've been. They were more like a challenge laid on the table. The words are out there, as they always are. Who dares to sip first? A cloud passes over the sun, or else we fire when the clock strikes one, so the sound might be buried.
No, I won't bore you with the details, I'll only write vague and poetic analogues until you give up and go home. Go on, git. We don't like yer kind 'round here, nosir. Well I left a long time ago. And that's how we got here: A world without truth, with only empty words, decorating the room like smoke and steam. Like the smoke that rises from scented candles, like the steam that rises from her open mouth as she fingers herself in the bathtub. Who? It doesn't matter. They all do it.
I've recently acquired a book of portuguese poetry (with but 1 translator), a book of african poetry (with various translators from around the world) and a book of surrealist poetry (mostly written in english, with a few translations). I skipped out on more important books because I wish to look finally at some things that have completely avoided my noticing. Whatever they are.
I didn't have time to scour the racks (a sort of pun, if you'll humor me) for a body more worth torturing, for Anais Nin who I've been craving or for Verlaine's unseemly verse. I haven't read enough. Not nearly.
Here, drink this, it will help your fever. You say you're healthy, but there's a heat coming from you like nothing I've ever felt. See the sore on my right hand? You scalded the roof of my mouth, go, shower in ice. Bring the former planet down, let it melt in the heat, let it suffocate us with its cold, vibrant air. Let the hideous Texas summer end, and with it, all these immense depressions. After all, dents like these can't be explained by impact alone, there must be a constant weight creating them, logically it must be the summer grasses with their charcoal roots. Cast Pluto down. Down down down.

2009-07-26T02:46:00.000-07:00

It occurred to me that, in addition to losing all my time, I'm also losing all my motivation for this project. I can't remember why I originally started it, or what the exact purpose is. Of course I'm also too drunk right now to form coherent memories, much less conjure them. I feel really depressed not getting any work done, because I hear about people sleeping through their days and I know as long as I'm not writing I may as well do that, but I just can't. Yet I can't write either. Fuck.
This is ridiculous. I need to do something, I need to change my life. Not even that, I need to change the entire paradigm my life exists within... Did I already tell you this is a drunk update? well it is. Not that that changes anything.
Well I'm waiting for an answer, while I'm waiting to hear back from the thousand singing voices, I may as well tell you all a story. What story would you like to hear?

The story of jerry springer, who was a preternaturally good politician, who was shot down and ended up hosting a show he hated from day one? That's not played out. but it should be, it's a good one.
how about the story of watching a good movie with a few friends, drinking and playing a board game? there's a reason no one writes that. It's too normal. there's nothing at stake.
the story of the hundred billion dead who decorate our tall tall trees with their delicate atoms? I've told that one a hundred times myself. The sad thing is
there are no more stories to tell. The only things worth writing are the ones being written by someone else, in which you play a bit part, in which you tell your part as perfectly as you can despite the fact that you know nothing about the overarching themes.
Damn it all. why be a writer in this world? it's only even acceptable if you're an optimist, and you just want to create, even if you're replicating past constructions. Well I'm trying to be an optimist

I'm trying really really fucking hard to be a good person and an optimist but the people I love the people I fucking love

2009-07-25T13:27:00.000-07:00

So I forgot to update yesterday. just plain. Well here's the deal: I can't work, or write, with any kind of focus unless I have space of my own to do it in. Living in the same room as someone, sharing the living room, having someone in the house at all hours, yeah, I just can't keep this shit in order.
I'll try to do something, to set this petty crutch aside, but I'm not making any guarantees.

2009-07-24T01:12:00.000-07:00

I had such big plans for today, of course I got nothing done. I would really like to have something to say here that wasn't pathetic. So I'll say something pathetic.

I was scanning the craigslist personals and responded to a couple of them. Obviously a lot of people are doing this nowadays, it's not as desperate an act as it used to be. I don't know what I'm looking for, in a person or a lover or a friend, so I figure I can at least use the internet to meet some more people. I don't like many people, and obviously if I don't like these strangers I won't talk to them more than once.
I just need something to force me to get out of the house. If I start getting out of the house I can get my life back together, stop being so fucking lazy. Hopefully. God I am so tired, so lazy. I'm drinking too much coffee, that's part of it. A pot a night, roughly. That isn't a good thing.

well, fuck it, there's your update. bloggity blog blog blog.

2009-07-22T22:03:00.000-07:00

so join me, everyone, in a moment of total being-bummed-about-stuff. I know a lot of you are very bummed for very many reasons (ironically some of you are bummed because no one is bumming you, to mix colloquialisms)
but for this moment we unite to be bummed all for the same reason, the retiring of our favorite web-o-vision brand comic interlude distraction - the donjollilogues. I know I'm not the only one who enjoyed daily reading of the nonsense of another man's life. especially a man so richly living. A moment of silence, now, and then I'll continue.

...

I won't go too far into the many reasons this upsets me, nor will I (on this occasion) try to convince Don to publish his most honest musings despite the agonizing discomfort it gives him. Suffice to say, I don't really get why people get angry. Ever. See when you reveal something deep and hidden about someone, it forces them to face it, even if they're not ready. But if you're sitting on something for many years you should be ready, and if you're not, you should face it anyway because you are making no progress this way.
I don't get why people stagnate in their comfort. I've gotten over that. If someone asks I will answer honestly any question in the world because the people I love either will be happy to know or won't care. If they're upset by it generally that doesn't last too long. People I don't love? Fuck em. Who gives a shit what they think? And, really, even if you do care deeply what they think, the most important thing is to make them think you don't care what they think, so that lines up perfectly.

I'll reprint, now, a recipe from WindeGod RavenSturm's booke of Tinctures and Salves for the Low of Heart and High of Spirit; Muscled CowardFish and Earthegg/Earthorb sanctum:

Espy ye one pink CowardFish
several smallish EarthEggs in sizes relating roughly equally to that of said LunglessStalwart
one or more whole hearts of HeatGarden
a few or less half-pecks of pearlescent EarthOrb
myriad FireSeeds and GumSalves, including YellowCraw and RedCraw

Slice thinly, very thinly, very thin indeed, the diamonds of the earth, whilst cutting chunkily the Coward in the manner deserved of any Stalwart who might return home, and in returning, fight against the river's flow. The sanctum shall be first in all ways, having only brave components, and shall consist of bitten HeatGarden of an amount roughly thrice a king's thumb. Every kind that springs from the earth aforementioned in this passing page, place in an oiled KettleFlat and burn until burnt. Add GreenWaste, BlackRock and WhiteRock, and just before fruition plop forth the Multitudinal Craws in the amount of 1 tongueful red and 3 or 4 yellow, and mix until dehydrated or otherwise absorbe'd.
PorcelainBlood can be used in favour of the latter Craw, but we are not made of wizard's coins. Enlive also the CowardFish in his FirePit, dressed in his FireSeeds, at the healthiest heat you can in your life imagine, so that he is crisped on the outside and nearly as raw on the inside as when abandoned, his life of past well traveled and ruined by memory's heavy gait. He will well be set upon the finished sanctum and dressed with fresh BlueCreste or GreenWaste, if some remained. Stab and swallow, heartily my apprentice.

- - - - -
I assume he's talking about making a sort of slaw out of potatos, onions, spices, and thin hummus as a sort of sauce, with a nice piece of salmon cooked very tenderly with a kind of dry rub. Which is just what I did, though I added spinach, and it was very good. Yum.

2009-07-22T03:13:00.000-07:00

I've been looking at Asheville, NC. does anyone know anything? can't exactly trust wiki.

If I had remembered to update an hour or two ago maybe I could've had something for you. But I've been so lazy lately and I'm not sure why or how to stop it. I'm doing my best but there's a lot to be done, and I can't spread my focus out too much. I can't write if I'm focused on the real world, or at least on aspects of it that can't be communicated. Anyway I apologize, and promise to get back to real updates as soon as I have a day where I don't have to babysit Oliver or Marshall.

--

2009-07-20T18:00:00.000-07:00

well I guess this is the end of hiatus. I'm back in Austin now.
without anything to structure my time I've been getting essentially nothing done. I haven't been writing or applying for school or whatever the hell else I'm supposed to be doing. but that's cool, transitional periods and all.
I'm going to stick to more of a cursory reintroduction for now, as I'm still digesting every topic I was considering writing about. I haven't decided what I need for this month. I think I'll lay off that until August or so, since it will take me those 10 days (most likely) to regenerate that kind of normalcy I used to have here.

So to recap: this blog is about honesty. about telling the truth. it's not about the objective truth or the hidden truth, not necessarily, but usually the obvious truth that people attempt to obscure from themselves or from each other. We'll wipe away polite lies, lies of omission, and lies of generalization. It will create problems, of course. What else? I don't know.
expect the tags truth, half-truth, belief, and blind belief to show up often. half-truth indicates, usually, that I'm phoning it in, that I didn't take the time to prepare anything to say. Obviously updating daily I have to do this sometimes, I can't help it. belief is anything I believe to be true, that is, a subjective truth. blind belief is something I believe to be true despite objective proof that it isn't. This is kind of rare.

my lappy's internet is sporadic right now, but I'm sure we can overcome. Ideally I can get a new one. and a driver's license. and a car. and a place to live. and a better job. and about 100 college credits. and whatever else I need or think I need. I even kind of need a new bike, I've discovered. Shit. I miss having my own room.

chat log. still on hiatus.

2009-07-13T00:40:00.000-07:00

me: once upon a time there was a caterpillar who wanted to become a butterfly
and one day he had strange spasms in his hands and they started to do things he couldn't control
the doctors couldn't help and his brain ended up stroking, but he survived
and he built a caccoon, because his hands made him, but he wasn't sure how cacoons worked, and no one would tell him
so he was really scared
the doctor said dont be scared, it will make you die, but he couldn't help it
he got so scared he blacked out (even though it was black in the caccoon there was a noticable difference in the blackness)
and then he saw in that black landscape the caterpillar faerie!
and she said "hey dude, what's the chill factor here, 1 to 10?"

-----------: hahah

me: and he said "oh it is like negative five caterpillar faerie"
I'm going to die, faerie, he said
and she said "shit, that sucks. want a smoke?"
and he said no thanks I don't smoke
so they sat and hung out for a few hours and really not much happened
they talked about disney movies and kind of made out but it was obvious the dying guy wasn't that into it

----------: lol ;p

me: so the faerie decided that she would turn him into a butterfly
but she fucked up the spell and he turned into a human

----------: :O

me: and then he accidentally stepped on everyone he used to care about
and on his doctor, who he did not care about so much

----------: heheh

me: but not on the faerie because she could fly
and then he quickly determined what it was to live as a human, and found a family to adopt him (he was only twelve years old)
but could not shake the habit of collecting butterflies, the kind that are pinned under glass
eventually he graduated schools and even college, and found a place of his own
and he stayed there, all lonely, not sure what life meant, and trying to remember what it was like having more than 2 legs
but he couldn't stand to remember, and he thought he was going crazy, so he started drinking a lot

----------: lol

me: and he met a girl and they'd been fucking for a while but she kind of annoyed him, and she was always lying, he could tell, but he never knew what the truth was or why she would lie

----------: aww

me: so he decided that he would break up with her, and then she decided that she would throw out all of his stupid rare species of butterflies because that is not the kind of thing a grown man in the insurance business should spend his time on, and also she was upset, and ended up needing an abortion
and then, tortured by the plight of his little butterfly buddies, thinking they haunted him from the grave, every night he dreamed of being drowned in thousands of butterflies of different kinds

----------: :-\

me: and then out of the horrifying mist of butterflies he saw the face of his child who was aborted, and then he woke up, and broke out of the caccoon, and he was a butterfly and free to fly and be happy, the end.

----------: that's beautiful, you should post it on your blog

me: haha ok
whyyyyy not

hiatus

2009-07-07T21:55:00.001-07:00

come by late july, or august 1.

won't go into why this is necessary right now. but things will stay on course when I return, I believe.

2009-07-05T23:55:00.000-07:00

A toast to Molly and Aøena. here ye, no, I'm not doing that.
but seriously I am very thankful to them for getting me out of the house, and showing me such a good time. Seriously, if I hadn't gone in woefully depressed, it would've been awesome. Hell, it was still pretty awesome. In it's own way.
besides that I don't know what to say. An honest thanks is a pretty big deal for me, or at least it was a few years ago.
So we went to this blues festival and watched these fireworks. that's cool, right? there was a band playing with their guitar case out front, you know, some dollars in it. I got a cd from them for a suggested donation, unfortunately I don't think the violinist was there for the recording session. She was cute. Anyway, they had a banjo, and a stand up base, and harmonica, etc, and they were playing by the river. The recordings aren't especially well balanced, and the singing, though deliciously idiosyncratic, is not necessarily good. here, you can decide for yourselves: myspace.com/treefingersmusic

unfortunately, I'm still turning the idea of hiatus over and around in my head. I only keep updating in the meantime because it's a damn hard habit to break.

2009-07-04T12:59:00.000-07:00

obviously I've hit a depression

but what have I... what can you receive from me... only the friendship and the sympathy of one about to meet her journey's end... I will sit here, serving tea to friends...
to find a friend who has these qualities... who has, and gives, those qualities upon which friendship lives... you do not know what life is, you who hold it in your hands (slowly twisting the lilac stalk) you let it flow from you, you let it flow, and youth is cruel and has no remorse... and smiles at situations which it cannot see. I smile, of course, and go on drinking tea

how can I make a cowardly amends for what she's said to me?

no. A classic tale of tedious sympathy. You can be bored and still care deeply.

and that's not even it.

last night I drank. I walked through the streets, and the parks, drank a 6 pack and a bottle of wine. I don't know what happened to the wine bottle, actually. I passed through the garza girl's house, I'm not sure why or when. Then I passed out in a patch of dirt in front of a stranger's house. I must have puked, though I don't remember, because my sleeve was stained and I could smell it everywhere, when I was coherent enough to. I cleaned myself a little and got some bread at safeway before coming home. This was around 2 or 3 am, I think. I must've been sleeping for roughly 4 hours. It gets so cold here outside at night.

yes, I am proud of it. I like who I am when I'm drunk, better than when I'm sober. Not that drunk, at least not often, it's just too bad that it also drives me crazy. So Lauren's home and she keeps crying. This, evidently, is not the home she left so long ago. Well of course it's not. Jesus.

But I can't handle this. When people I care about are in pain, when they're crying, it hurts me. It really does. And I care about almost everyone I meet. I care about strangers, and people I hear coughing around corners who I don't even see. If I can't cry, if I can't smile, that's not my fault, that doesn't mean anything. but when just my presence - things I have absolutely no control over - make someone's life worse... well those are issues I've been fighting for a long time. I used to think by just being alive I made the entire world a worse place (if my perception does in fact create the world, then this is true, this world is worse than true oblivion - but I'm not a solipsist)

So I have to leave this house as soon as possible. Because I absolutely cannot handle causing pain. I just can't decide whether or not to stay in Portland. I've got less money than I did the first time I was looking for a place, but I've got more time. assuming I can make up my mind. I don't really have any place to stay in austin right now, I mean, obviously I have plenty of places to go, but my old room has a new occupant.

It's been 3 months, I have no right to say this yet, but frankly I don't like this city. Everyone I meet, the whole young professional gig, the twenty-somethings with their trends as sure as high school and all the pure unhindered bullshit. I'll quote Neruda this time: and the blood of children flows through the streets, without fuss, like children's blood.
Ironically the one place I like here is dairy queen, because even though it's mostly full of idiots, at least they're not proud of their idiocy. They don't even notice it. I'm tired of people running up to me with their stupidity, like children with crayon drawings, thinking how proud I should be.

well I'm not proud of it, but I think I need to come home. Or maybe not. I really can't make up my mind. I've made the decision firmly that I must stay and that I must go and I really have no idea. If I stay, maybe I never recover. Without the time to rebuild myself, either I will sustain, or I will deteriorate, is the risk worth knowing which? Or maybe I'll hit a spot of luck and actually be happy for a while.
If I go home I will definitely recover. It might be slow, or awful, or whatever, but at least I'll feel like I have a home again, and friends, and shit like that. I'll run home with the knowledge that I was conquered, not by the failing economy, not by anything within my control, but by my unfailing neuroses, my social awkwardness, my inability to control my outer facade, that skin by which all people judge you.
It's just so pathetic to come home after 3 months. Isn't it? But then, it's pathetic to stay in a city you don't like out of foolish pride. So it's only pathetic to leave if there's a place for me in this city. And I'll only know that if I stay.

Besides - the strength implicit in staying - the strength to carve out a world on my own, to believe when all men doubt you, to... to live. If I'm making a choice to come home, if I'm just deciding it's time, that doesn't show weakness. It's only pathetic, then, if I really failed, but I didn't. Did I?
fuck.

-/9

2009-07-02T21:49:00.000-07:00

I'm considering going on hiatus.

I think I made up my mind today. I've been striving to go deeper and deeper, concentrating on the depth itself that I didn't notice I've been clawing at bone. That the only difference I've been seeing are the marks I'm making myself, the damage I've done.
We are a superficial race. I thought there was more to us, but I was wrong. We are our seeming, we are our lies. The outside's transient beauty is equal, if not superior, to the inner beauty everyone keeps screaming about. The inside isn't beautiful most of the time. When it is, it's barely any more beautiful than the outside, and so I don't know why I ever insisted on honesty and depth.
I can't say I'm prepared to fully commit to this epiphany. I just know that pretty sounds are better than complex meanings, that sex is better than love, and that it's better to be nice than to be respectable.
So fuck all of you looking for inner growth, fuck all of you trying to make a difference in this world, fuck all of you who are trying to create something meaningful. you're all idiots, you're all in the wrong. It's all masturbation! most of it prolonged masturbation, culminated in a staff of red sores and no cum. So stick your dick in a sheep's asshole, in all your family members, in a microwaved bagel, and stop pretending you ever wanted anything else in your whole stupid fucking life than a good place to put your dick in.

You want the honest to god truth? Rick used to say it all the time: Life sucks and then you die. I realized that I couldn't reconcile the horror I see daily with the beauty I see just as often, but I've finally managed it. I hate myself, I hate myself for not crying or screaming or caring. I hate myself for not hating myself. The simple answer is, if 2 things can't coexist, then one of them must not exist. For a while I was trying to figure out which it was. It's both. It's not that good and bad fight each other over control of the earth, and their struggles even out to a basic goodness and contentment for man. That's not it. There is no struggle going on. There's no evening out, there's no basic goodness and no contentment.
The only things we've really got here are placebos and youtube. If you want to eat pussy, go kidnap someone. If the police try to arrest you, kill them. If there's too many of them, kill yourself. To all that is used up, to all the muffled and dumb creatures in the world's full reserve, the unsayable sums, (as Rilke said) add yourself, and cancel the count.

3/9

2009-07-01T22:07:00.000-07:00

happy july.
roommate came home from Guam yesterday.
let us just say that that was intense, and not at all what I expected. you know what Rilke said, in one of the sonnets to Orpheus: "here in the realm of decline, among momentary days / be the crystal cup that shattered even as it rang."
that's sonnet II 13, by the way, one of my favorite poems ever. the illusion, of course, was that this girl brought with her the intensity of her recent travel and broke all of us apart like panes of glass. Now the air blows through unhindered.

the reality is that one of the major forces that lubricate this world is called commiseration, and there is something truly peaceful about sharing pain, and about absorbing the trials of someone else and reflecting on what you yourself have overcome.
In this process I realized how much my notebook means to me. I've had it for about 3 years now, and when I began writing in it, that was a very volatile time in my life. anyway this notebook in some way characterizes the positive changes that've occurred in my life since it began, without showing anything negative throughout. It is a blessed book, and I'm glad to have it. But it won't last much longer. Maybe there are 30 pages left, maybe, but soon they'll be full, and I'll have to start again. The irony is that, while I'm dreading the end, I'm considering starting a new notebook now, instead of finishing this one, because I know that this 3 year journey is over and it's time to begin anew.
So fuck it. Whatever happens, happens. If you eat diamonds they cut up your intestines.

3/9

2009-07-01T00:30:00.000-07:00

This is going to be a difficult post. I'm sorry in advance.

I wanted to do this today, because for the past few days I've really liked Joe's comic. But I don't always. I'll try to make this about the creative output of everyone I know, to spread things out.
I recently read a short story of Don's which gave me an impression I've gotten from many short stories before, chiefly that this is a bad idea, constructed well by an interesting intellect, but essentially a bad idea is always a bad idea.
I'll preface this by saying merely the act (and so prodigiously!) of creation is admirable. Everyone claims to do it, but so few actually do. And I respect anyone who truly gives themselves to their art. But here is the crux of today's post: I find Joe's comics sophomoric and a lot of his assertions are naive and/or stilted. It's a very common problem with my generation these days: people taking the path towards betterment without actually working towards anything. People today love the DIY, cultivating everything themselves and shedding the poisons that have been so prevalent since, well, the first world war.
But none of these people are really concerned with the aims of these changes. For instance: in terms of environmentalism, all bikes are essentially equal. If that were the point of bike culture, not every 20-something would have the same kind of bike. Cultivating and DIY are cool right now. Self-reflection and growth are really big right now, too. It's a dire contradiction for people like me, who are striving to live truly insightful lives. It really distresses me.
So the problem with Joe's comic is not that he's disinginuous about his aims or anything like that. He's just too malleable. He's coming out of a bad time in his life, and he's realized he needs help, but he hasn't learned some important lessons. One of them is the sentiment of wise men everywhere: "all I know is that I know nothing" everyone can claim to know this, and can quote it with pride, but to truly know it, deep inside yourself, where your thoughts originate, that is a difficult attainment. I build structures out of words all the time and see them suddenly collapse when I realize that the foundation simply wasn't there. That's why I don't consciously allow myself even basic assumptions. Even the assumption that I know nothing, even that needs to be constantly reassessed. I lose a lot of comfort in this process, and it seems I gain nothing. Well, moving on.
Joe, on the other hand, when he takes up his pen (and with it that strange sense of anonymity a moment of creation engenders) becomes a preacher, a messiah. But his god is common culture, and his book of tenants is every book that passes through his hands. That's the other major lesson I see lacking in his work: self-confidence, and the ability to determine what is worthwhile. This is easily as broad in scope as the first, but not as difficult, I think, to master. So when I read a comic with a clear moral lesson, let us call it a parable comic, I read into the inspiration, the deductive process, and the final product, and I try to determine the flow of the idea. What it all comes back to is pride.
The fourteen year old poetess is proud of her cliched ravens and hearts and souls. to make as much of an antithetical point as I possibly can; Borges is not proud, he is overwhelmed. That's pretty much the feeling I want to get, reading something, that whatever the sentiment was, it overwhelmed the author. Joe's comic talks openly about being overwhelmed, but I don't see the actuality of it, I see pride.

Don's comic suffers surges of overwhelming energy. Each time it does, I think, he shies away from it. The problem I get from his comic is the same problem I get from his personality; he operates through too many filters. His comic originates in a human sentiment (as all art does) then must undergo his analytical process, then his creative process, then an intellectual interrogation, then it has to pass through a film of normalcy, which he rigidly applies to everything because he's afraid of being inaccessible and weird, but often this gives off more of an edge of oddity, and when it suddenly disappears (as it sometimes partially does) the comic seems more powerful to me.
I definitely admire both comics, though. I admire Don's intellectual capacity, his ability to make even a basic sketch of his day multifaceted and complete, even doing it every day. I admire the speed at which Joe's art progresses, his development of a personal style in a short amount of time, and his experimentation with the medium. I don't want this to sound like I'm dissing their creative output, because I know mine has many glaring flaws, and I know how difficult it is just living in this world, much less building something here... But I am, in fact, dissing them. Or, to be less blunt, critiquing them. I don't want to damage any fragile temperments (and I know I'm just starting to become friends with Joe and I certainly don't want to damage that) but they are both artists in the traditional sense: they both strive to spend their lives creating the best things they possibly can, and given that, it is absolutely necessary that someone tell them the thoughts their works produce, unfiltered by friendship or politeness. So here we are.

4/9

2009-06-29T16:53:00.000-07:00

Holly reminded me yesterday that I haven't talked about my first crush on this blog yet. So I thought I'd embarrass her by writing about our relationship, instead. I'll try to walk the line between breaking her privacy and boring you all, let's see how well I do.

I went to Garza for a while. It was the best school. Anyway - there was quite a time, then, listening to the music of the day, feeling lost and blunt. And one of the girls who was kind of a member of one of the social groups that I was kind of a member of - was you know who. I slowly developed a crush on her, out of the link of obvious depression between us, among other things. Least of which was seeing up her skirt one day, most of which was the day I sat in a corner almost crying listening to neutral milk hotel and she sat down behind me and made no sign or sound.

Nothing came of it for more than a few reasons. I was a coward, she was insecure, we didn't have much time to spend together, and I was about to graduate. I said goodbye, silently lamenting the lost connection (by that I don't mean not-getting-to-bone, but the possibility of getting to know someone who was, as clearly as I could see, interesting and unique) By then Danny had started going to said school, and one day after graduation I heard tales told that he had found himself a girl. I was to meet danny at garza, then, to pick up the last of my ceramics, and, happy coincidence, to meet this girl. I thought about it as I stood there, by his car, waiting. Who could it be? Someone I know, someone I don't, a little mixture of both? I decided that I hoped it was Holly, to regain in my life the one person who went to that school, who I'd lost all contact with, who seemed like a person worth knowing. It was a selfish wish. And those are the only kind that ever come true.

So on this discovery, that she was indeed the other half of the advent couple, I swear I felt only good will and happiness. I had no, let us say intentions, towards her, and I was glad for her return, and for the happiness of my dear friends. It was a long time before any change occurred. Given the before and after, it was nearly miraculous that there were no ill-thoughts, nor any awkwardness among the few of us. Nearly miraculous, I say, because I had plenty in my life (emotional and otherwise) to keep me more than on my toes.
Eventually, though (anything happening in the meanwhile is only tangentially related) they broke up. Also: my life got boring again. I don't know exactly how much time passed.

there was eye contact. someone playing with my hair. we went swimming. I acted playful as an excuse for physical contact. and once we watched a movie, and danny went home, and holly didn't. then we watched another movie. well not to state the obvious, or drag out an easy point, we kissed.
Neither of us knew exactly how moral the act was. What would danny say? they had gone out for quite a while. and I tried to be calm, tried not to really care. I tried really hard not to make mistakes I had made before. not to be jealous, or fatal, or cowardly, or needy... Of course I didn't succeed. But it wasn't even that - I was enthusiastic. One long story excluded, I'd never really been in a relationship before, and I wanted to be happy. No such luck for Holly, though, who'd been through this all too many times before. My heart and mind raced with possibilities. We shared some good times, talked an awful lot.

It was on our trip to the Tom Waits concert that I got the impression something was wrong, and whether this was her intended meaning or not, I understood finally that it wasn't going to last. It just plain hadn't worked. So, thinking I was only moving things to the inevitable conclusion a little sooner than nature would have it, I brought up that very fact. Now I'll never be sure if I was simply projecting jealousy and such, or if I was just being rational.
So we broke up. Having never really consumated the relationship, it was not so big a step down as it might seem, but it was, in its own way, a little tragedy. Then we continued to hang out, and she found a new guy, and I (of course) did not find a new girl. Then they broke up, if it can even be called a break after so short a time, or if you have to say simply that they parted, and I knew I'd made a mistake. Or contemplated the idea that I had made a mistake. I could think of more than a few good reasons why it hadn't been one.
So, one night I got drunk (she was not drunk, she thought I wasn't either) and I kissed her. And that set forth a giant surge of awkwardness, cleverly thwarted relatively quickly, just as the relationship had been. And actually that's about it.

but it really sucks in a weird way, you know? It could have been a real story. Now it's just an awkward dance.

4/9

2009-06-28T14:10:00.000-07:00

I don't like Edgar Allan Poe's work. Ok, that's not fair, since I haven't read his short stories, only his poems. But his poems generally lack substance. The Raven's a fair exception, and there are one or two others. But generally they are just not worth reading. they're as lyrical as seuss, sure, but they don't offer anything else.
So I had the raven stuck in my head, because someone placed an order at dairy queen, and his eyes had all the seeming of a demon's that was dreaming. So I read the raven today, and it was pretty great. vainly I had sought to borrow from my books surcease of sorrow, sorrow for the lost... Syngenor!
that was the best I could do and I apologize. anyway I was hoping that would lead me to some truthful epiphany, but it hasn't. it's just another false start. get it? puns, amiright?

so I'll tell you about Lauren. I'm renting a room in her house, technically. I've been here a few months and I've never met her. And this is her home and she's never met me. So, in a way, when she gets here we will be in each other's territory, as this is my only home, and her only home, and we're complete strangers.
Not that I'm really worried, or that I predict doom, it's just weird. For the first time in a while I haven't really known what to expect, or how I feel about this, and I have no precedent to help me out. So we'll just see how this turns out. Maybe I'll ask the cards, though they aren't usually much help unless I'm trying to write a story.
I'm just nervous, you know, and when I'm nervous up here in Portland it's really hard, because I don't have anything to hold onto except my little room. It's hard. But it's also easy in a weird way. god I'm grasping at straws here, I just want to go to sleep. see you guys tomorrow.

6/9

2009-06-27T23:00:00.000-07:00

As I said yesterday, I rewrote Emir's Last Stand... but I'm not too pleased with it. I mean it's better... Emir at least sounds a bit more like the asshole I suddenly remembered he was supposed to be.
But when I originally wrote Emir's Last Stand, it wasn't for the sake of the story. It was because I hated Emir, and I wanted to see if I could create a world for him where I actually liked him. My golden plan for that was to give him a new heart, so that he would actually become the kind of person I like. As most of you probably know, he's an amalgam of people in my life, not merely representative of any single person. The truth is, the people I know who are real assholes aren't as sexually aware as Emir is, even the ones who get laid all the time.
But Emir is often thought to be John Escue. I thought about this for a while. Everyone thinks: I'm Gabriel, Johannah is Isabel, and Emir is John Escue. Well let me tell you the origin story of Violet Eyes.

When I was writing poetry every day in high school, I occasionally wrote poems with a recurring cast of characters. Charlie was a mask for Owen, Mary Tepid started out as Kana, actually, and there were others, too:

569
for we are exact
there is nothing in us wrong
mary watches cars pass by, laying on the grass.
letting her cigarette burn down; not smoking it;
to the filter. She lets out the foreign song
that she's been keeping beneath her tongue. it comes
offkey; unprepared. for we are uncertain.
emily pokes her with a stick between her shoulderblades
mary tilts her head back until her whole body lifts off the ground
and we laugh at her upside down singing mouth. keep singing
and keep laughing for
we are tenacious, if nothing else.

emily; of course; hides behind the van to smoke a bowl
but this time mary doesn't join her. something about sickness.
something about. but even school has been tamed, everything
in the world that once bit us purrs instead. everything except
well... I am hesitant, while he is cruel.

This, as it turns out, wasn't just the first appearance of Tepid as she appears in VE, it's the first appearance of Gabriel, Emir, and Isabel. The name Emily was arbitrary at the time, I had no deeper character in mind. Isabel was named shortly after that, in a poem actually included in VE. But Emily here (Isabel's Aunt's name, now) is the object of the speaker's affections, and the ambiguous 'he' in the last line is, in fact, Emir.
I'm not sure how the character Charlie came to represent Daniel G (instead of Owen) to me. It seems odd. But he did, and until the story was fully developed all I had in mind for that character was the physical form of Daniel. Obviously he ended up a far cry from that origin, but it's still relevant, in some ways. Now, when I was writing, I consciously shied away from making any character too much like any real person. With that in mind, here are the people who most inspired the five main characters, in order of influence:

Gabriel in VE: me
Gabriel in the other 4 parts: no one. he was defined solely by his interactions with the other characters.
Isabel: Johannah, Beth, John, Athena (the goddess), and then myself in wounded mode towards the end.
Emir: Johannah, John, Leslie (a little bit) - also the entire idea of masculinity
Tepid: pretty much everyone I know with mental illnesses. Real or imagined. then Angel.
Angel: Daniel G, Danny Zigal, Jose Arcadio Segundo

a lot of other characters came in after the world was established, and any similarity to real people is purely subconscious. Esme inherited Melody's blank stare, Alyssa changes faces every day, and Cassie was supposed to be a perversion of the original Shaia Ralston. Lot was inspired by managers I've had, or interacted with. Ava, I think, was how I imagined Holly would be without her... well, you know. But she was also the color red, which has a defined meaning in VE.
One more thing: anyone who's read Violet Eyes and wants to know what the colors signify, tell me your best guess, and I'll find a private way to tell you the truth.

4/9

2009-06-26T18:26:00.000-07:00

Townes Van Zandt - St. John the Gambler
Fleet Foxes - Blue Ridge Mountains
Frank Black - Valentine and Geruda
Mirah - Apples in the Trees
Daniel Johnston - Spirit World Rising
Tom Waits - Take Care of All of My Children
Stars - In Our Bedroom after the War

what could be more honest than that? Well, without the ability to burn CDs, I can't have a true mix for you, but this'll do. If I seem to disdain human contact some days, it's because I would rather be listening to music. I can't be the only one who thinks that sometimes music is the only thing worth a damn in the world, and everything else in life is just distracting you from all the pure listening you could be doing. I finished my rewrite of ELS today, maybe I'll start on TCR if I have the time. Emir swears a lot more, now. That might be the only difference. No, actually, he also has a crazy dream.
today I enacted the realization that only through direct effort does anything actually get done, and I stopped thinking about rewriting, and actually did it. It doesn't work as well for plain old writing, but I'll give it a shot. After my Eniripsa gets a level or two.
Well, fuck, that's enough useless words. The only thing that matters today is music.

2/9

2009-06-25T21:47:00.000-07:00

so Michael Jackson is dead. That seems weird. Because, like a fictional character, it seemed he would live forever. It's hard to believe he was ever real, at any time, to anyone.
Whether you love him, hate him, or shifted violently from one to the other when he transformed from a black boy to a white woman, you have to admit there was nothing approaching reality in that enigma of fame.
It seems to me like he defined my generation. When his pop attitude was celebrated, we celebrated our own vain nature. Then we realized (on some subconscious level) that the beauty attracting us was too young to be taken seriously. We had become pedophilic by nature, in rare cases in the physical sense, but in every form of media in the philosophic sense. Models were fourteen year old boys, in pornography all genitals were shaved, and in our art simplicity and overt childishness were praised. Now, we've realized on some subconscious level that this is a terrible thing, and we're hiding and hurting ourselves trying to figure out what went wrong.
This created a rift in popular culture, or a number of rifts. Some embraced ugliness, futility, and youth, becoming drug addicts and starting dance-parties. Some realized what had happened and diverged unilaterally from everything that dominated the public stage. They craved hairy pussy, or dirty assholes, or coarse sounds, or depressing wisdom, or all at once. Some stopped caring about anything, to avoid their own consciences, and work amoral corporate jobs, raising amoral families, dying slowly, carelessly.
This rift was facilitated a great deal by the new Titan, the first one born since ancient Rome, the internet. Now we can create our own popular culture, hide from the universal TV, forgive and forget around every corner. We are anonymous and fickle and nothing holds us together or keeps us apart. We are, in essence, socially free-falling. We forgot about Micheal Jackson, and we could no longer agree on, or even remember, what was good and what was bad about him. Just in time for those most influenced by him in their youth to have children of their own.

I'm surrounded by young parents, and I realize fully that our generation died today with Micheal Jackson. We're the parents now, not the youth. Our tastes no longer matter, and our days are numbered. Will we remain shackled to popular culture through the thrift of our children's new sight? Or will we drift apart, each retaining our favorite shows, movies, and songs, in a jewelry box on a bedouir in our rooms?
but I'm one of those who diverged unilaterally from my own generation, so I'm predicting doom because I want doom. I don't want to think that a decision that seemed so rational to me, that seemed so inexpressibly righteous... was not only wrong, but so insane that few people in the world even considered it. Because either we, as a community, have lost our minds, or we are the first generation to get it right, and I, myself, am archaic and useless. So what is it, America? Is the energy of youth all that keeps us alive, are we only movement, afraid of the moment when stillness will overtake us? Or... does what we do, what we think, and what we create matter? This is how it seems to me: the young are afraid of entropy, because to them it is the same as boredom, which is not only the final sin, but also death itself. The old know entropy in and out, and cultivate inside of its fatal presence meaning, beauty, and joy. Are our bodies (made of dust and clay) clinging to our own consciousness out of fear, or out of joy?

3.5/9

2009-06-24T20:51:00.000-07:00

I overheard a conversation at the park. Not much of one. "keep following me, then, if you hate me so much!" and little more I'd rather not try to recover.
This man was walking, with a suitcase, and with a girl. Occasionally he'd stop, turn to her, and shout something. She looked like she was going to cry, but never said a word (at least that I could hear). Every time he shouted one thing, they would keep walking side by side, until he got the urge to turn and shout again. He made one good point, but I vilified him, most definitely.

This kind of thing pisses me off more than anything else. It is the nature of love as we know it, good people looking for someone who doesn't need them. Looking for someone who, for all the sentimentality they can muster, forge at least twice as much disdain and mistrust. What bothers me is that these seem to be the ideal relationships.
People who date people they really like, usually date for a few months and end up hating each other. But I see a lot of people who go out with someone they really can't stand - someone beneath them in every way, someone who mistreats them, never loves them, and speeds them onto their grave without turning a kind eye ever in their direction - and that relationship lasts for years. Apparently that's the true love everyone's been looking for, the famous pairing of an excitable sadist with a forgiving masochist.
Anyone who's the masochist in such a relationship, I have only this to say: there is nothing in the entire world of infinite possibilities that could justify what you've done and what you're doing. It hurts the good guys and it soothes the bad guys and it's fucked up and the world would be a better place if you lived alone and paid a dominatrix to get you off. I'm not kidding, and I'm not exaggerating.
Anyone who's the sadist in one, I'll be short with you; the jealousy with which you cling to these people who are in every way too good for you isn't the torture you deserve. The torture you deserve is to be broken on the wheel until you're converted into sniveling cowards and have earned the right to beg for fidelity.
Good sex isn't worth bitter tears, because regardless of what people tell you, good sex is everywhere for the taking. Anywhere there can be sex, there can be great sex. This applies even to masturbation. (More info on creating great sex can easily be found - if you're in Austin head for north loop, monkey wrench has a section devoted to sex, and next door is a little shop that sells the (not so) necessary tools). So if that's your justification, I won't offer any reprieve from my harsh words and thoughts. I'm willing to listen to any justifications anyone can offer, but I've yet to hear any that are even remotely satisfactory

I'm done with this subject for tonight. So goodnight Johanna, and Beth, and everyone else. You all know who you are, and whether or not you're guilty.

2/9

2009-06-23T20:28:00.000-07:00

today I made an effort to climb out of my hole. With a strange meeting preordained, it was simple extrapolation that lead to a day barely shrouded by the walls of my house.

What is the truth, what belief can I mete from this threadbare day? Georgia Swan was small and flighty, qualities one may expect in a family named after a bird, but she had a sense of stoicism, at least, which may be the quality that separates the swan from other birds. She's read some poetry, which is always a good quality from my perspective, and I happened to be carrying Rilke with me, and made her read the poem of her namesake. It is a good one - Rilke writes about animals beautifully. He doesn't make them beastly, and he doesn't make them human, he makes them altogether something else - the only other creator who does this, at least that I can think of now, is Miyazaki.

But I'm tired of all this nonsense. By which I mean, technically and literally, the lack of sense. Meeting new people is an exercise not in humanity, but in advertising. No matter how people act, the truth is, especially at this age, that out of sight is out of mind, and no one really cares. Maybe people have always been this self-obsessed, and it was only being kept daily in the same cage that created any sense of camaraderie between us.
I don't know how people ever meet or spend time together. In my experience it only happens when I call someone specifically for that purpose, with a definite time and plan in mind. In my experience no one else calls, no one else makes any plans. So how are people ever social when I'm not involved? and isn't that a strange paradox, and with me, such a solitary being?
Well I've been in my hole because I hate making that effort. I hate calling people and asking if they have time for me, whether they say yes or no, it's distressing enough that I'm always the one asking. So that I'm forced to assume I've made no impression at all on people I consider friends, or people I've only once met, and I must assume, after all, that their lives would be better if I weren't around.

How does it work? How is it supposed to work?
am I supposed to just keep making plans, and hope for the best? Or is the phone that never rings a sign that I need to abandon these, and find new people more enchanted by my idiosyncrasies? Or does it only work for other people because they don't really care, because they're self-obsessed?

4.5/9

2009-06-22T22:12:00.000-07:00

Is it a lie if everyone knows it's a lie?
The entire first paragraph of my last post was obviously and completely facetious. I did briefly consider writing said cookbook in its entirety, but I don't have the will to keep up a joke for so long. I know few people who could. I was going to spend this time writing about how I've begun reading the works of the Marquis deSade, and how so far they've been very illuminating for me, but I'll put this off briefly to chastise myself.

what the hell am I doing? This isn't right at all. This is completely wrong. You idiot. You're not telling the truth at all. All you're doing is keeping a vaguely insightful diary. When it related to your personal life, sure, those are things you wouldn't have said, but food? video games? You know very well that your guilty pleasures are common knowledge, and that you don't actually feel guilty for them. It's like saying 2+2=4, I could update every day with a new mathematical proof and still technically be telling the truth.
Well it's time to remove myself from this shit eating "comfortable territory" and get to the meat of an issue, whichever issue, it hardly matters right now.
done! ok, let's move on;

The Marquis deSade says himself, in the opening of his book the 120 days of sodom, "I advise the overmodest to lay my book aside at once if he would not be scandalized, for 'tis already clear there's not much of the chaste in our plan, and we dare hold ourselves answerable in advance that there'll be still less in the execution..." and how can you not find that admirable?
Those of you who read Violet Eyes know exactly how apologetic it was. None of the characters had true vices, because intrinsic in their characters was the contradictory need to balance any wrong-doing with repentance and self-examination. I think I've already learned a gigantic lesson from Marquis Marq (as I affectionately call him) on how exactly charming vice can be.

Without myself scandalizing anyone near to me(my own self being the nearest), I can still safely say at least that I find nothing distasteful in what I've so far read. Fair, I'm only twenty or so pages in, and the 120 days have not rightly begun, but nothing mentioned, the murder, the rape, the crushing of all hope, the madness, even concocted with such forethought and mastery, does not leave a bad taste in my mouth, and only the shadow of one in my heart. I don't have much good will towards men. Not much. This is balanced by the fact that it makes me happy to do things for others. I have a submissive and cooperative personality, and I find no joy is greater than making myself a martyr for a righteous cause. But that is, after all, masochism, which is paired ideologically with sadism for good reason.
If my enjoyment of this book remains unhindered as I meander through it until the end, it will culminate in my having a new book among my favorites. Not the favorite, by any means, but one that I hold in esteem above most. I can't safely say that's true, after so few pages, but I acknowledge the possibility.

Does that explain why I've chastised myself in the beginning of this post? and why my characters unfailingly do the same? If not, it does at least reinforce the fact of it. So let's return this blog to the right path, and make it less comfortable for everyone involved.

1/9

2009-06-21T23:35:00.000-07:00

I've been broadening my culinary horizons, ever slowly. I've recently acquired a cookbook called WindeGod RavenSturm's booke of Tinctures and Salves for the Low of Heart and High of Spirit. This is a man, I should mention, who calls normal items by any number of esoteric names that he may or may not have invented himself, measures everything in a similar fashion, and interjects all his recipes with chants and ritual gestures. If any dish has a number of variations numbering 3 or more, all similar enough to use the same recipe, he embellishes this section with a short poem telling of the multitudinal myriad forms of that particular Gumswat or Bellysalve. Supposedly handed down to a man named Orion through a process I couldn't quite grasp, the book has only recently been made available to the public, with his permission, on the agreement that certain chapters be removed for publication.
My two new favorite ingredients are potatoes and cabbages. I know everyone's familiar with these things, at least in America, but their virtues are indeed innumerable. Ravensturm said of the "Earthegg" that "wherewith it be cooked thoroughly and cleanly, it can in essence conjure its own Chordebouillion, granting maker and taster increase in satisfaction both of fullness and radiance" What I think he meant, if he was in fact talking about the potato, and this is actually a cookbook (which on second thought it may not be) is that a potato, properly cooked, and added properly to a dish, changes its essence completely and makes it something new. Mostly I use them for home fries in the morning, or else in stews, but the fact remains that potatoes are much more fun than I ever gave them credit for.
Cabbage, too, I never even listened to until recently. "Crestgreene", it is written, "lilts soft and squishy as a baby's skull and is called Headlunch by the cannibals of New Guinea, now reformed. It's firmness of texture being a malleable thing, its many and varied uses summon up a freshness for the heart or a stoicism of belly, respectively" It's really an ideal thing to have around the house, if you plan on cooking every day. Throw it into a stirfry, it's great, drop it in a stew, hell that's awesome too. I even added it raw to a veggie-sandwhich (consisting only of cucumbers, tomatoes, radishes, avocado, and condiments besides) and it did "exalt these flavours quite speciously".
The idea of stew was somewhat foreign to me until I discovered it one day quite by accident. I had been stirfrying many vegetables, the simple way, without a plan in mind, and after adding the tomato I saw it finally and clearly, that this was meant to be a stew. I added water and, wouldn't you know, that was the only key step. To make soup is just the easiest thing. Take the vegetables you want, and throw them in water and broth, or even just water, or just broth if you prefer, and then boil and simmer for a while. I can't imagine anything being easier. I just saw a myoclonic jerk in a kitten. huh.
anyway; the other thing I've been playing with is instant coffee, though that's another breath. It tastes just like bad coffee, which is great, because I feared it would taste like something absolutely different. Overall I'm satisfied with this chemical concoction, as it gives me fast and easy access to caffeine, in a cheap, sustainable, and necessarily harsh form. I can make the coffee strong enough to beat the shit out of a porkchop (to understand this reference, you may want to listen to Nighthawks at the Diner) but it has lead to an almost disturbing supposition: What if I were to add instant coffee to brewed coffee, instead of water? I assumed you could find a spurious study on the internet with little effort, but no such luck.

I'll end this little foray into food writing with a simple yet effective recipe to breathe new life into those eggs you may or may not cook every morning. I love doing this because it gives a unique flavor, and the effort required is completely minimal.

What you will need: salt, pepper, 2 eggs, about 1/4 of a tomato, and some cheddar.
notes: I like my cheddar sharp and shredded, but it's up to you.

Make your pan hot and slippery in your own fashion, scramble the eggs (I do this in the pan with the fork I later use to eat, but it's a matter of personal style)
cut off a slice of your tomato, and dice it roughly, the slice I use is generally about a centimeter thick, off those still-vined things.
When your eggs are almost done cooking (there should either be a shred of translucent goo left, or that goo may already be opaque, it matters little, except to account for personal taste) throw in the tomatoes and mix them up.
When your eggs are fully cooked, turn off the heat, throw in the cheese (properly shredded or sliced - this is also a great time to throw in some minced green onion, should you have it) and fold some egg on top of it. Let it sit in the pan for a second or ten, then plate it, garnishing with salt and pepper.
If properly performed, the cheese is melted, but not mixed into the eggs, which are not overcooked, and the tomato is just done enough to remain both acidic and sweet.
This is wonderful served with a few fried earthegg bits, some swinestrips, or lomticks of toast.

1/9

2009-06-20T17:01:00.000-07:00

In case you were going to do some experimenting today, let me save you some time;
Even though tofu barely tastes like anything, you should not use it to try to stretch tuna salad.
Even though you don't think of it as a very taxing game, dofus arena will not run on a computer over 5 years old.
Just because you were called into work last night doesn't mean you have to work tonight.
Instant coffee is acceptable for you poor and lazy people. It's fine, at least for iced coffee.
If you remember a movie as being ok, it is possible that it really sucked.

I'm on my own until Monday. At least at the house. Well. I've been taking it easy, clearly. But I fear the failure of dofus arena may be a mortal blow to my lazy streak. Not only is this a game I'd like to return to, but they've also recently added 2v2 battles - a prospect that is, to say the least, incredibly intriguing. The game is as close to pure strategy as I've seen since chess. 2v2 in such a game depends very much on whether you're teamed up with random people, or people you choose. The latter would be favorable, I think, if I could convince one of my friends to take up the game. As long as I can't play it, though, it doesn't really matter.
Besides, when it comes to strategy, I'm a control freak. Aside from my steadfast refusal to be 'dishonorable', I consider myself an expert at these things. I'd rather work together with a worse strategist, though, than play against one. I mean, if they're a friend of mine. Strangers, yeah, I'd rather be fighting them. What I mean is, video games are hard to enjoy if you don't have someone to share them with, and this is a game I've always enjoyed, but can't get anyone to play with me, because they all know (or think) that I'll win every battle. Of course I have a huge head start on the intricacies... Why am I even thinking about this? I can't even play this game right now.
But this is something intrinsic to being a dreamer; I'm imagining an ideal situation, with the given concession that dofus arena is involved. I do these things a lot.

It's easier than actually doing something positive to affect your life. I'm sitting in here wasting away, I know that, but I want to stay in and do something calming. Even if I'm already calm. I hate spending all my time putting forth that effort; looking for a new job, studying something, writing something, reading something, all the time concentrating and working and trying. It gets weary, and worse, it gets boring. So I want to meditate with some good multiplayer gaming. but that's too much to ask.
I can't even think of any good meals to make, which leaves me with almost nothing to do with my lovely time alone. I can watch more crap, listen to music, read, whatever. I just don't want to think right now. Is that too much to ask?

2/9

2009-06-19T16:04:00.000-07:00

another new link for you guys: http://www.thesecretknots.com/
this one I just found today. Haven't read the whole archives yet, but what I've read I like. The guy's Chilean. You love Chileans, right? they have chill right there in the name. He's been at it since 2005, apparently, and I just discovered him because he chose to advertise - on Shi Long Pang, of all places. Give em a read.

It rained today. it's supposed to rain every day. yesterday the high temperature in portland was the same as the low in austin. today the high's 10 degrees lower. Meaning as it approaches 100 there, it won't even get up to 70 here this week. How much of life is defined by heat?
cold-blooded, warm-blooded, getting hot, cooling down, chilling out, lighting up, blowing off some steam, putting it all on ice. Temperature affects pressure, it affects the nature of substance (water below 32 is not the same as water above 100, not even close) it affects taste, it affects movement.
Closer to the equator, the sun is obvious. It kills things. And that's why the moon has more power. That amount of heat lures people to escape into the night. They hide from the sun. The sun no longer knows them, what they do, or how they feel. The moon sees all. Further away from the equator, clouds obscure the sun fairly often. So he takes the chance, whenever he can, to check up, and see what's going on. He has the influence here. It's his daily changes that affect you, not the moon's.
So what does this have to do with truth, or with belief? It is a basic truth, it just has nothing to do with me. Except maybe it does.
There are a thousand things you can say about the isolation of deep space. Everyone always mentions the cold. There must be a reason. You could say the same thing about the atlantic ocean. But I wouldn't say I'm isolated completely. There are people here.
but it's raining. and with a dozen or so out of town, I only know a few people. Do the people at work count? I know their names. Their personalities. But no details - the same could be said, in fact, of everyone left. What do I know? About anyone?

Well jesus. I don't know anything about anyone, do I? This guy I've only just heard about - the guy who writes the comic I linked to - I've already finished judging him. He's clever, but the meaning he establishes in his work is overt. And that bothers me, I think it shows pride. So, with everyone I meet, I know them in and out from the first moment of contact, and everything past that is needless specificity. This is what I mean by the precognition of our senses: can you honestly say, when you first meet someone, that you don't know how close you can possibly get to them? Of course there are the exceptions, the silent people.
Everything, from word choice, cadence, and poise to ideas, intellectual and emotional depth, and overt sadism, is apparent in the first hour, at least. And all of this indicates everything you need to know. Personal life, sex life, political leanings, superficiality, patience, acceptance, these are all deduced at some base level from the person's speech, their demeanor, and their face. But I don't really know anything about anyone. Every day I spend with them they all become clearer to me, they all become easier to define. But a word, after all, is not its definition. The definition is the perversion of the word, hopeful, trying to spread the word (so to speak).
But the straightforward truth is that we can see the shape immediately - the rest is so complex that it's beyond our mind's capacity to even glimpse. Like the dark labyrinth, hidden underground, you can peruse it a thousand times and never grasp anything more than the wall in front of you, and perhaps the string you brought along. Stupid fucking metaphors. Remember this little thing I wrote:
that labyrinth within a labyrinth, whose exit is a hero's entrance,
whose surprise is simply that I
was the minotaur, and if I saw anyone else at all
I would be overwhelmed and immediately dead
because, surprise, surprise, he had my body
except for the incomprehensible head.

well what did you think I meant?

0.5/9

2009-06-18T12:30:00.001-07:00

I'm procrastinating right now. I have to do the dishes and the laundry, I have to shower and then I have to go to work. Somewhere in the middle I need food, and coffee would make it all simpler. So here I am on the computer, wasting time.
There's nothing I like more than wasting time. Not only do I calculate how much time I'll need to get everything done, but I also ignore those calculations. So the actions are wasted time, and even the measurements behind them are a waste. I wasted an entire day. I seriously, whole-heartedly fought against doing anything, and found one way after another to pass time without spending it.

First I listened to music so selectively that it took me the duration of one song to find the next song I wanted to listen to. I didn't even have to listen to it, that way.
Then I watched a show I didn't want to watch, on a website whose load times were insufferable - or would have been insufferable for someone who wasn't trying to waste time.
I made an elaborate meal, but that's no different from every other day.
I researched actresses (Jennifer Jason Leigh was Amy Archer?), video games, and ended up watching someone play through silent hill 2 on youtube. I only got about halfway through. Hopefully it gets less sophomoric. It was supposed to be a good game...

the truth is it made me really depressed. Not having the will to do anything that required effort on my part, just wanting time to pass, it really upset me. But I couldn't stop. Now, am I repeating the same mistake? Or, this time, am I legitimately procrastinating? I do intend to do the dishes. Do the laundry. And Cetera. All that glistens is not gold, and not all who wander are lost. But you know, some of them are. And every single person tries to just wander, and most of them end up lost. We sit here stranded, but we're all doing our best to deny it.

Stranded in time, I write a thousand little glistening words while someone in the other room burns sage. I don't know when I'll die, I just know every day brings me one day closer.

4/9

2009-06-17T22:07:00.000-07:00

so this E3 saw the trailer for The Last Guardian, the next big thing from Team Ico, who created, of course, the best game. I've been having a really strong urge to play Shadow of the Colossus lately, just don't have the means right now. This new game looks amazing - apparently they're using a full physics engine, acting on all of the great beast's feathers simultaneously. It is sort of a cross between their last two games as far as I can see - like Ico, you are leading someone around an enchanted space, except this creature is not a girl but a colossus. It does look like a predecessor to those stony things, though it clearly isn't one...
I'll let you google the video yourself, it's not hard... Too bad the game's only for ps3, at least I think it is, because that means I may never play it. That's ok. Team Ico is one of the few good arguements for games that can be entirely art and entirely game both at the same time. Shadow of the Colossus was the only game, (indeed the only experience in any medium, including real life) that ever made me really love a horse. I don't mean to go on about video games, I know no one likes to hear nerd-talk, especially not on the internet, but this is something important.
What these people are doing is important enough to be noticed by everyone, not just gamers. I'm not saying you have to play the game, or even see it, I'm just saying you should be aware. Like the comic Watchmen, these games transcend their medium and exist on their own as pure, shining, radiant brilliance. When I say that I don't mean to denounce their media, because I would also say only a few books transcend literature and become universal. Books being my go to example of what you can call either "high art" or "legitimate media" and not have to argue your point.

We should all be aware by now that anyone can play any video game they want. It's something actually very simple to learn the controls, though of course muscle-memory takes longer. People make it out to be more complicated than it is, and thus never learn. And what good is art if it requires learning, anyway? Is it worth the effort to create a method of control, to master a skill that can be used nowhere else, just for the sake of a story, or a view? Normally I'd say no. If I wasn't already a gamer, games could go fuck themselves for all I cared. But when I see what Team Ico has done, I don't think that's true anymore. They've made the first game where you really empathize with, or maybe even become, the person you control.
I've played a lot of games. There are few, I assure you, that are worth playing for the general population. That is to say: these are games that you should play through even if you hate playing games. If you enjoy playing games, well, these are still important, but so is anything that gives you enjoyment. For gamers, these are art to be taken out and observed every once in a while, not games to be played. For everyone else, they're the exact same thing. Don't kid yourselves.

3.5/9

2009-06-16T23:40:00.000-07:00

Before we begin, I wanted to point out that today's Buttercup Festival is fucking amazing.
I seriously thought I had something to say today. Maybe not. Here, maybe this was it: I keep feeling invisible. Often my roommates will ignore my presence, look and speak past me, and the girls, high, at their house, sometimes do the same. The cats' interest, of course, drifts in and out, and I haven't heard my name spoken (outside of work) in a long time.
I make calls and no one answers, or I send emails, or people do answer and it seems as if they're sleepily calling back to an echo they heard, but don't believe exists. Perhaps this goes back further.

In middle school I feel like I was invisible, but so was everyone else. I can't accurately picture anyone's face during that time in my life. I must have been faithless too, keeping it in storage as not to dirty it with the grime of adolescence... Well, often my family overlooked me, too. Or, no, they saw someone where I was, but it wasn't me. When we played basketball they saw a loafing form, when I was running at incredible speed the entire length of the court. When I was around the park, or on my bike, they saw a rabbit running from wolves, and there was only a child playing children's games. There were a lot of fights that those illusions started, a lot of crimes they commited, and I was left to fight for them, and to accept their punishments, because after all they weren't really there.
Later, around the time when most of my friends graduated high school, there were parties often at the house of one Max McDermott in south Austin. Occasionally, when depressed, I would still go to these parties and sit (or lie) alone and cry. It seemed as if no one noticed. No matter where I was or how much noise I was making, I never heard a voice acknowledge it, not even days after (not even to this day), and I never felt any physical proximity. This happened often enough that I came to believe either I really was invisible or no one really cared. The latter is what freed me, eventually, from part of my neurosis, because surprisingly it ended up as more of a relief than a burden.
But now I feel as if I did become invisible. And I still do sometimes. I even had the notion - since Carly is the one person here who has never not seen me - that she was someone I'd invented, a la Fight Club. That maybe the people I talk to on the internet are similar apparitions. There are actually people in my life that I can't be sure exist. That's nice. I guess I should become a solipsist, then it wouldn't even matter.

I don't feel as worn out as I think I am. I feel invigorated, but also dull, washed out, like a soda can that's been sitting in the sun since 1988. Still shining, I guess.

5/9

2009-06-15T22:46:00.000-07:00

I've come back to share some of my new insights into the people in my recent life. To begin, here's one about me: I found myself accidentally humming "Bat Macumba" except saying Akhmatova instead. she's a Russian poet, for those who don't know. Either my subconscious thinks esoteric joys are where it's at, or it loves wordplay and made a strange connection. I don't know what to think.

Robin made eye contact with me. Sustained past acknowledgment, and that (no it doesn't) settles that. She's evasive, but only around people who she's yet to form a solid opinion of. This is the idea I get, at least. As I said, she's evasive, which makes it hard to discover anything for certain.
Molly is exhausted. Or was. Or something. That's all I've got.
Athena has seemed very kind, to me, the last few times I've seen her. Maybe the same as always, but less stoned? That would make sense. I'm grasping at straws here, I've really got nothing new to say about these two.

I watched a movie with Carly. It was a good time. She was in my dream last night, along with Taylor, and also some asian family I could not identify. The black storm cloud approached amazingly quickly, but it never started raining.
I feel like I connected with Jessica over something, but I don't remember what.
I did have something I wanted to say about Dorian, though; she has an admirably quality that I neglected to notice until now. Which is that she's jewish, and I believe she keeps kosher, and knows the names of angels, but you wouldn't know it unless you lived with her. She doesn't throw it around, she doesn't bring it up. She just believes. And that's what faith is for, and I respect anyone with faith that true and pure.

Ok, that seemed like a lot more in my head. I guess I really don't have that much to say. The safeway near my house is 24 hours now and I am just fucking thrilled. Seriously. I mean really, seriously. grocery shopping at 2 am is one of my favorite things.

3/9

2009-06-14T22:39:00.000-07:00

I haven't seen the girls since Johanna left. That is to say in 7 or 8 days. That alone is reason to contact them, I think, but then perhaps there are reasons not to.

To tell you the truth, ever since I found out they know (and seem to like) Gavin, I've been unable to make up my mind. The truth is I don't think I want to create a friendship with anyone, no matter who they are, if it will create the possibility of Gavin continuing to be in my life. He scares me, worse than I've been scared since middle school.
Lord knows I've met my share of miserable people, people who might kill you, who will definitely steal from you, who have already stolen your girl and beaten the shit out of a friend of yours. But I can sympathize with all of them, I think, because of their mental defects or human problems, except for Gavin. He doesn't even actively do anything wrong, he is an endless void.
You can feel it the minute you set eyes on him - this is a man with absolutely no redeeming qualities, and not only does he not care, he doesn't know. He's incapable of knowing. He only likes bad music, bad TV, bad jokes, and smoking. He's not intelligent or kind or even empathetic. He has no spirit, no ambition, no humility, no conception of what any of these ideas even indicate. He scares me, in short, because he proves that everything I believe about humanity is wrong.
we're not all basically good, we're not all trying our best in a world comprised mainly of panic, and we're not destined for anything great or happy in a grand scheme or even in our own lives, and why? Because I've met Gavin, and now I know. Now I know the true meaning of the chaos that surrounds us, the lack of substance of the things we hold, the air we breathe, the words we speak. He's more than my antithesis, he's my captor.
I'm not exaggerating. He is one of roughly 3 people I wish were never born. Now that they are, I don't especially wish them dead, it's not ill-will that I'm feeling, it's a sincere wish that the world couldn't produce people like that. I've always felt a malignant presence in this great earth - I've never been able to reconcile the intentions of every good person and the reality in which we live, I never have been, maybe I never will be able to.

The only other reason is that I would like for them to call me, instead. I'm usually the one to call, so it makes sense that I will be again, but when I do I always get the sense that I'm imposing myself. I'd rather be alone than ruin someone else's happy loneliness, you know? But they are high most of the time, and that concern goes away after a week, I think, when it's no longer a matter of who wants what, but not allowing any flames to die out completely.
I think I'll go by their place when I go to the store. The truth is I hope they're still asleep. If I see them now I'll bring Gavin up almost immediately, and it'll only ruin my good mood.

5/9

2009-06-13T18:43:00.000-07:00

As I said, it's been about a month, and this experiment in betterness has been a failure. I didn't manage even to memorize the ten things I'm supposed to do every day. here, I'll try to list them from memory:
walk without music, go somewhere new, say something true, do something nice, exercise, read, write, revise, memorize, and wake up early. Ok, so I do know them, with a little effort.

But the effort, here, is definitely lacking. As we're all aware, what someone is in need of in their life can change from day to day, or even minute to minute. I think I'll use a monthly yardstick. So what do I need in my life this month?

I need to eat less and exercise more.
spend no money at all.
make new friends.
work on my reading and writing and publishing.

Now I need to translate these into a new list of daily tasks. You'll notice waking up early and telling the truth aren't on there anymore. I've determined I simply don't know enough people to have a truth to tell (in conversation) every day right now. Trying to wake up early created too much stress some nights, and it just wasn't worth it. Anyway... the new list:

-read for half an hour
-spend an hour working on Violet Eyes, 1000 years in the sun, or the fantasy story (prioritizing my projects should help)
-spend an hour compiling and revising poems, researching magazines, and/or sending poems in.
-spend no money (except for tips earned at DQ)
-strike up a conversation with a stranger
-shower and shave
-spend half an hour feeling hungry
-never fill my stomach completely, or at least don't eat anything with no nutritional value (chips, crackers, chocolate, ice cream)
-do 10 pushups and situps in addition to half an hour walking or riding my bike

I'd like to put something about community events, but I can't think of anything specific I could do daily. I can check the mercury, and craigslist, but I'm limited to things that are free and things that I'm interested in...
showering and shaving is on the list - I do those often enough, don't get me wrong, I just think doing it every day will give me a tiny boost in self confidence and energy, which will help the overall project.
I'd like to start trying to draw, too. But that's not so urgent, so escapes the list today. Well, that's it, I'm done - I've got nine things, now. Will I do better this month? Well, I guess we'll

--

2009-06-12T18:42:00.000-07:00

Well it's been a month or so, and I've taken my first days off, and fumbled with my first pattern.

Anyway you probably noticed my last post did not have a score out of ten. I wrote in its place --/--, which is not entirely meaningless. if I'd written --/10, that would indicate that I didn't keep track that day. --/-- indicates something entirely different. But we'll cover that tomorrow.

Today I just wanted to tell you what I believe the correlation between honesty and poetry is;
The last update was more, let's say poetic, than usual. This goes back to the idea that poetry is a search for truth beyond objective truth - that is, what happens in our lives happens on the emotional, on the physical, on the spiritual, and on the intellectual levels. These four coincide with the four suits of the Tarot. telling facts and feelings, I can effectively communicate what is happening on all four levels so that you can comprehend it on the intellectual level. With any luck (and empathy), you can also recognize it on the emotional level, but that's still incomplete.

I'll make clear right now that by "spiritual" I mean anything beyond our understanding Or consciousness. This includes subconscious, natural phenomenon, and what I've come to call the precognition of our senses. Poetry, hopefully, breaking the bounds of traditional language, can for lack of a better word, upset the reader and make them feel something on all four levels of their world. But it's too volatile and unpredictable to be used too often. So back to the regular language.
Poetry isn't unique in this property, I feel like most artistic mediums can accomplish it, music and comics being some of the most effective. But that's just talking about the honesty of the mediums - in terms of beauty, of course, they're all great.

--/--

2009-06-11T07:37:00.000-07:00

I laid on the floor thinking of nothing. This is how it went until I rose into sleep. people don't fall asleep - that's a common case of mixing up the physical with the real. There is no longer such a thing as life without a computer. When I turned sixteen I realized there was no longer such a thing as life without love.
But this is a matter of Epochs, not of growing up. This is a matter of troubles beyond us, insurmountable, insane. I am surrounded. The things around me refuse my looks, a lot of them decide to shatter to avoid my manhandling. Their corpses are warm to the touch.
And as these things shatter around me, I collapse. No, I don't collapse, I lay down. On the bed? No, there is no bed here. On the floor, where the fire is.

I can only fix a few things. I can break anything.

I awoke, fell into waking, 3 separate times to the sound of the same alarm. 10, 10, 11, here is your breakfast, here is your journey, we've arrived. Fold cheese and decorate cream-silk-chemicals until the school year dies, and with it, the childhood of every kid who comes and asks for a cone. It was spring, wasn't it, that preceded the summer? It dropped me here when it died. Now I listen to the yelling of the foreign children, squeaking their rubber tongues, and I know, I just know, that I will be a child when I die.
But I'm an old man now. I laid on the floor, thinking of nothing. Then the thought occurred: everything around you is breaking, maybe it's your fault she's having a bad trip. So I went for a walk. And I drank. And I laid on the ground. And then I would say I came home, but this isn't my home. I'm barely welcome here. All eyes see through me, all dialogue presupposes me, and I know beyond knowing that I am a ghost only visible to the enlightened and the insane.

I awoke and went to work and there I let their insults wash over me, their pride, their inferior superiority, their experience, their begging-for-respect. Like bathing in a sewer. Like vomiting blue dye. That sick and dirty feeling, that liquid filth, oh the blood that runs in my veins is bile, the bile in my stomach is semen, and the semen is not coming out at all.
I worked for five hours and came home. I came home and one was face down on the couch and no one else existed. The computer nodded off invariably every time I prodded it. In box mode, colorless mode, it told me of its bad dreams, and I swam through its unconscious wanderings, picking images like a hallucinating therapist. And even more like a therapist, I was unable to do any good. after half an hour I laid on the floor. Down for an hour, I went to bed in my clothes, and rose into sleep again. A fractured daytime-night followed, and finally at 1 am I decided I was done with it and stumbled to the white hall. Stumbled to the white hall, the white river, the hollow stone.

The computer I told to return to its latest paradigm, the one that got it here, and it obliged. Now at least it seems lucid. Tangible, maybe not. Maybe I'm still asleep. That would make more sense. I spent most of the nighttime-day reading. I haven't really written anything in months. Though I have been living about two weeks a day.
I've got no home in this world anymore. Sleep will come and go, and I have no say. And I have no say and no control and no home, and I lay on the floor thinking about nothing. I do not cry, and I do not smile. I laugh the same way I scream - reluctantly, only when I have to, only when there's nothing else left. And I did scream. It came and went into the night and I'm sure nobody noticed it. I'm sure nobody notices me. I'm not here. I'm not there. What is my name, anyway? I think in the first draft it started with an A. I remember Rosaline, and no one else.

3/10

2009-06-08T13:08:00.000-07:00

I burnt out my computer's adapter by letting it sit under a blanket because I'm an idiot. I didn't notice until it literally stopped working, and of course the battery doesn't hold a charge. Well I remembered to copy all the important files onto my flash drive while I still could, but I can't guarantee I'll be able to update this blog every day until I get the replacement.

It got so hot I could barely touch it and the spot of heat it left on the bed was still there when I passed out. Oh wellllllll. I forget how fragile technology is, don't you?

5/10

2009-06-07T12:02:00.000-07:00

Johannah's back in Austin today. Time for a return to normalcy, at least.
Distance in a relationship has fewer effects than you'd think. It doesn't change anything. Of course by relationship I mean any connection you have with anyone in the world. I don't want to come up with a new vocabulary just because people make inferences based on the current one.
Anyway - distance doesn't affect the emotional building or sustaining of a relationship. Sometimes it eases the burden, sometimes hinders growth, but these even out, basically. So here's how I would chart the distance of communication, on a range from physical contact to second hand information:
2nd hand info > social networking site > IM/chat > TXTing > email > mail > party atmosphere > telephone > small group of people > 1 on 1 > physical contact

notice that you can be in the same building as someone, and receive the most distant communication on my chart, but only the 3 closest forms of communication require real proximity. You may disagree with my organizing, especially putting telephone after hanging out with someone at a party, but I believe in it strongly enough not to feel like I even have to offer an explanation.

So what distance does, aside from prevent the closest possible connections, is to make the relationship less helpful. As I see it, there's nothing really cathartic about a phone call, or a chat, or anything like that, unless it happens once a month or less. A relationship consistently sustained at a distance, without the expectation of some kind of proximity is a pointless relationship, emotionally. It can be fine intellectually, it can relieve boredom with the best of them, but that's pretty much it.

I think living this far away from the people I care about doesn't change as much as it should... "it wouldn't change our history, it would only make it longer" ... Well where is that social network, out in limbo halfway across the country? Do I still exist within it, as a web or focal point, even though my physical presence is gone? Or am I outside of it, making contact with my electric words, letting it know I'm still around? blah. who knows.

6/10

2009-06-06T01:14:00.000-07:00

Today was spent mostly walking, then to work, then the bike, and then the kitchen. That's a lot of work, for those of you outside the know. But never once did I feel tired. My legs hurt, yes, and there was no time for rest, but it was ok.

But I'm not exactly skipping today because I have a little something to say:
It's a lot harder to reflect on your life, your reality, and your truth, when you're legitimately happy. Today I felt as if I had absolutely no need of improvement, and that being the case, I had nothing to think about aside from what was in front of me.

I was going to tell you the story of the drug-addict lovers on the train to the zoo. I was going to tell you how each of the mating animals reminded me of them, and they reminded me of how sweet, innocent, and terrible love can be. How human and how beastly it can be. But I'm not going to now. Now I'm going to tell you about my urge to smile and to laugh.

I even tried to joke at work, to no avail. I had an undeniable urge to hug the people I respect and care about - yes, of the 6 or 7 people I've met here, I do, in fact, care about and respect at least 2 of them, and, personally, I think that's a miracle. Not to mention Johanna. I wish she'd never leave. It's made me realize I'm missing something I used to really really need... and now, well, not sure what I need, but what I want... I want so much. So little and so much......

Thank you. I'm grateful. Thank you computer for giving me access to my world. Thank you bike for almost the same thing. Thank you Johanna and thank you housemates and thank you Robin and Molly and Athena. Thank you gin, thank you air and water. Thank you coffee, thank you rain, thank you sun, thank you moon and stars. Thank you animals, thank you plants, thank you streets and cars and smog. Thank you strangers, thank you books, thank you cards and dice and music. Thank you thank you thank you. I promise I'll never forget.

4/10

2009-06-05T20:19:00.000-07:00

went to the zoo today - I think my favorites were the lorikeets, though there were tons of great animlls. I just realized today that I really love birds and I'll never own them because I couldn't clip their wings or cage them, so I need to become rich and get a giant greenhouse terrarium thing and just fill it with those squawkin' things.

The duck tried to sink but his bones were hollow.
The tiger was sleeping
The bears were walking in a circle
and the elephant was in a cage only twice his size.

You ever have one of those days where you are just not concerned about anything? Everything is good, time never passes too slowly, and nothing is troublesome? That was today. My hangover/headache went away, I think, because of the middle-eastern veggieterran feast back on this side of the river.

time to drink some more. But before I do, I'd like you all to know - it's one thing to be appalled by the treatment of animals in a zoo, and quite another to hate how they treat plants. But if you'd seen the vegiation I did today, you'd know what I mean. It was sad. The animals were sad, too, granted, but they were also fed.

It rained a Texan storm and I saw a cockroach for the first time since moving here. I miss ya, Austin. I miss Texas and roadtrips and swimming pools on every corner. I miss ceiling fans and 24 hours of coffee. Now all I want is for Molly to call me back. I don't care how tired I am. I want to hang out over there with Johanna.

2/10

2009-06-04T11:15:00.000-07:00

Johanna got here today. I saw Super Size Me for the first time.
Yeah I got nothin'. I'm skipping the day.

Yeah ok, maybe tomorrow.

5/10

2009-06-03T10:35:00.000-07:00

drunk and drinking isn't as redundant as it seems. No, ok.
Last night I had 2 interesting run-ins with strangers, and I'm not sure what to think about either of them. Firstly:

I was riding my bike along 82nd, north towards hawthorne, and when I was stopped at a crosswalk, waiting for my light, this green SUV full of heavyset girls whose makeup looked like it had been applied through a kind of modified shotgun drove by, all leaning out the window, screaming something I simply could not identify. I flipped them off, thought better of it, and gave them a thumbs up, then, realizing that might send a confusing signal, gave them a big, exaggerated shrug. I don't think they noticed, the same way, you know, they didn't notice that their faces looked like kindergarten finger paintings. and that was around 6 or 7, so they really had no excuse.

The second incident was when I was riding my bike home from Robin, Molly, Athena, and Gabe's house. This was about midnight and I was singing very loudly whatever my mp3 player chose for me, because that is my wont. I went past a college-age kid at about the same time as a car passed me, so I'm not sure who did it, but someone threw something silver at me. I only realized because it hit - but looking back I wasn't sure what it was. I think it was a capri-sun. Ok, throwing things at strangers, I understand the impulse, if not the act itself. But a capri-sun? I have no idea. Maybe they thought it would work like a water balloon? That would justify it, I think.

The first one didn't bother me, because as far as I know they yelled "PURPLE IS MY FAVORITE COLOR" I didn't hear a word they said. The second bothered me because of its obvious maliciousness. And because as soon as it happened, instead of thinking immediately 'what jerks', I thought, oh I shouldn't be singing so loudly, or riding drunk in the street. My second thought was, 'hey, what jerks', but my first thought, after all these years, is still 'I've done something wrong'.

5/10

2009-06-02T12:23:00.000-07:00

It's the time of the season
when fun runs dry
in this time, would you like to meet me?
and let me trade
some pokemon

to take you and ash to trade
pokemon
until we have every one
it's the time of the season for fun

what's your name?
who's your daddy?
is your mommy nice?

have you taken
any time
to level up Alakazam?
let me see your gameboy
tell you what
I'll train your Pikachu
it's the time of the season for fun

have you taken
any time
to go and fight the elite four?
you can see my gameboy
tell you what
I wanna trade with you
it's the time of the season for fun

you heard it here first, guys. I rewrote time of the season by the kinks to be about pokemon. You can thank me later. By recording you singing it in a little's kids voice with at least a recorder accompaniment.

Yes, in truth, I'm still a little kid. I still chat 0nline with people I never met in real life, I still play video games, I still go to the park and eat ice cream.
Without going into too much detail, I've been talking on AIM with a certain girl that may or may not exist. It's a relationship I'd compare to the one I had with kate in ages past, with kat briefly after that, and with ana sporadically until I left austin.
If I were training to be a therapist, these relationships would be ideal for me. Listening to stories and complaints, offering advice and my own stories and jokes. I usually consider these relationships to be a strain, depending on how much fun the other party is.

Yet I continue to seek them out, it seems, or at least to accept them when they find me. It's nice to feel superior. Listening to the problems that people can barely deal with and realizing you've conquered, or are still bearing, worse problems without causing any commotion.
I hate feeling superior, because I'm not. It's exactly the same reason I hate people who act superior. God, now there's a list of names I could give you. The people I really dislike. But that's not what today's about. This tangent's gone on long enough - today is about

hanging out with old friends (emir, bel, person, and asta, a few of my real favorites, though, honestly, emir's become less apologetic about his... disgressions)
shooting hoops in the park with new friends (molly, athena, gabe, monk. I like them all more and more each day)
and drinking milkshakes made with coffee and ice cream and cinnamon (I just wanted ice cream, but it was not nearly as coffee-flavored as advertised. something had to be done)

and today's especially about rewriting songs so that they reference pokemon;

Oh Misty I'm not coming home too soon
Tell our pokemon that daddy is at Cerulean
My feet were sold to this lineless grid
My feet were sold when I's just a kid

Oh Misty I've left you a Gyarados
Under the PC near Professor Oak's radio
Misty I love you, but I'm no Ash
Magikarp I love you, but don't use splash

Team Rocket, I'm on my way with rare candies
eating them 90 a handful - Giovanni knows me

Oh Misty I think of your suspenders
If I could see them I'd heat up like charmanders
When we were young we had one four nine
When I was young I caught all the kinds

3/10

2009-06-01T06:31:00.000-07:00

Well my blog has finally reached the point where it's affecting my life. This is a big day.
Edit: I've deleted an old line in favor of this;
the person who commented on my blog was not who I assumed it was, but through my impatient actions, I've made manifest what I assumed had happened. So: I've delayed it a day, and I now have a measure of control over the process, but only a measure. Obviously I can't remove the old post, because that would be a clear and dangerous sign of dishonesty, which I cannot abide.

The one addition I'd make to my old post, though, to clarify it, would be that I've now seen Robin make eye-contact at least once.
But I'm scared. As anyone would be scared. These friends of mine, who I've only known a few short weeks, may already have a bone to pick with me. Perhaps not a serious one - as I said, I haven't talked to them.

and I realized because of this that I'm far more attached to the rhythm of revealing secrets than the joy of keeping them. I would rather control the pace, the exact time that things are revealed. The problem is that some things end up never told at all. So I don't tell them, but place them on the internet, for others to be told as they see fit, until the moment I'm ready to tell them myself.
What exactly does that mean? If, as in the current case, I'm not keeping a secret so much as deciphering information and determining what to do with it, is it actually disingenuous to tell the truth before it's fully matured? That's not an easy question to answer.
We don't give ourselves as much credit as we should for the precognition of our senses. Time, after all, only exaggerates the subtle machinations we can see from the outset. If there is anything hidden to us, it's hidden by the precognitive defenses of the people we care about, and I've only just now learned what that means.

As I said before - I've formed more of a connection with Molly and Monk than with Athena and Robin - but that's a cold truth. Do you want to know what I've sensed about the people I've met? What I've seen in them that does not exist in this plane, so I've never put it into words?
keep in mind when I talk of a connection I mean an emotional connection. I don't quantify how much I enjoy someone's company, how many times I laugh at their jokes, how much it makes me happy that they're alive and well. These things are tangled up together, of course, but they are distinct.
Robin has something bonded inside her that won't grow. If it grows, or if I can recognize it better, then I think we'll become a lot closer. But this intangible connection is hindered in the same way that thing inside her is.
My guess would be that she's drawn to Molly because the same thing has been allowed to grow beyond its natural limit in her; that is, where robin is bound, molly sings.
I don't think it would be difficult to develop an emotional connection with Athena, I just don't think it's something she strives for. It's similar to Melody's attitude, in a way. She and I just don't have the same social priorities.
Of course it was easy to form a connection with Monk because he reminds me very much of dogs I've loved before, and because the standards for animals aren't as high.

and I'll go on to say what I've sensed in my housemates, too, as a sign of solidarity:

Jessica and Dorian have begun to look down on me, passive-aggressively. Be REALLY careful with how you read this, because my default point of view is that people are looking down on me. So I say this about them, knowing it might be an illusion, and knowing full well that I'm saying it anyway.
Jessica, like Athena, has different social priorities. This is actually comforting. Friendships like this are easy to navigate, free of trouble and burden. Just a little awkward.
Dorian lives under her own burdens. I sense a lack of empathy in her. It's weird, because I know she acts empathetic, and I think she really believes in her own divinity (as we all should), but I still don't feel true empathy. It could be that her positive attitude bothers me because it's something I could never sustain, and I just have to get used to that. Anything overly positive seems disingenuous to me.
Carly has that quality I attributed to Molly, too; she lives her own life and is unashamed, and she lives it well. Anything else I could say would be useless detail.

So think what you will about how I feel, how you might feel about the people I know. But know, also, that you're wrong. And that no matter how many more truths, or variations on the truth, I reveal, you'll still be wrong.

3/10

2009-05-31T21:48:00.000-07:00

I saw the Secret of Nimh last night, which, as you can imagine, was a blast from the past. With mice. I really like that movie. It's about a kindly widow, living in poverty, whose only wish is for her sick son to survive. On the journey she's granted miraculous power through a pendant, and as soon as her son's safe, she gives it away.
It's the story of a saint in a world that barely deserves her. Anyone who knows me knows I see this kind of story as sweetly realistic. It's a small victory, but it was worth enough to the characters to overcome impossible odds to achieve it.

My housemate Dorian couldn't finish it. She said it was terrible. It's so negative, she said, I don't like it. From this one statement, over the next day, I was able to discern exactly what bothers me about her. The first thing is that she has no comprehension of sadness or poverty. It just doesn't occur to her that other people have lived differently. The other thing, I've been trying to put into words for a little while;

She and Carly are both spiritual healers, so why would it be that Dorian's spirituality bothers me more than Carly's? Because Carly talks about different kinds of energy - serpent energy, light energy, etc - and Dorian only talks about good and bad energy. That is to say, Dorian's perspective is entirely dichotomous as far as I can tell. Carly sees what's happening in the world, and names it based on a vocabulary she's been given, and studied carefully, because some of these things can't be expressed without an arbitrary vocabulary in our language. Dorian, however, doesn't believe in naming things, she believes in healing them. Taking away the bad energy and taking in the good.
Wait until she realizes that the energy I exude, the energy I'm most comfortable in, is dark energy. not bad, but dark. She'll never realize that the breadth of my misery is endless, and my happiness reflects its infinity. She'll never realize the fluctuation of my poverty, because to her, these things don't exist.

So Carly is a better healer because she acts more as a therapist, and Dorian is headed for bitterness and an early death, without ever knowing the solace of misery. And she'll never be a healer, because she believes in the manipulation of energy, honestly and completely, and it can't actually be manipulated. So when she says leave the bad energy and absorb the good, I hear her saying "your pain is gone, you can smile now" just like a placebo. Her vain positivity is apologetic - and worse, it's entirely genuine.

This in no way means I don't like Dorian - it just wounded me to see her turn a blind eye to something because of its - at least as far as I see it - its honesty. I just forgot that being spiritual doesn't really mean you have to be open-minded. Open-minded is the wrong word. I just mean - she doesn't understand that sadness is not just something to process. It has to be processed, it has to be conquered, and, ultimately, it has to be accepted anyway.

3/10

2009-05-30T22:00:00.000-07:00

I've recently gotten the two greatest compliments on my writing I've ever had. One was from Joseph Carrington, and it was in a comment on this blog, and the other was from Holly Olsen, in a similar electric fashion.

Jo said: I read your poems. Get that Poet's market book back.

Holly said: I read your blog all the way through without getting bored.

People have said nicer things about my writing. Notably, my brother Marshall, and my friends Don, Danny, and Beth, are endlessly supportive. My english teacher (the one from the dream, remember?) told me once, when a poet came to read at our school, "you're better than he is".

But I have a very hard time accepting compliments, for so many different reasons, and any blanket statement like that just seems extravagant to me. These 2 comments, from Jo and Holly, are ideal, and strike me just right in the heart, because they're simple and understated. The key words "I read" whose tense I'm still wondering on, are the really important ones. That's all I want. If you have read, and you read, and you continue to read, then I'm happy - the question of quality should be left to academics, I just want what I do to be enjoyed.

It's like a good meal. Sure, there are brilliant chefs working out there, making intricate meals daily. But half the time, I know, you're craving your mother's meatloaf. No matter what everyone else thinks, that is the best meal in the world. So if you get hung up on quality and you forget your mother's meatloaf, I think you've really lost it. Just like I've lost it, with all this metaphor business.

Anyway - here's the other side of the coin. I'm a little upset that I don't get links from Don and Jo on their comics. I know it's different - it's a blog, and it's poetry or else it's something personal. But I'm not ashamed of any of it, and I would like some kind of audience out there. Making assumptions in this area is delicate, of course.
Here's the real twist of the knife on this one - if they give me a link now, I'll know it's just because they read this, and that won't help anything. I've been wondering how to bring this up with any finesse in my blog, and I just can't. There are some things that I just can't find a natural voice to express them, so I meander through all the voices I know. Here I've gone between poetry, prose, and logic a few times already. My voices are hoarse, not from saying too much, or talking too loud, but just from saying things they aren't supposed to say.

8/10

2009-05-29T13:06:00.000-07:00

I haven't exactly been telling the truth.
but if lies of omission are as severe as all other lies, then we're all damned. Johanna will see through me, which is comforting. If she reads this, then she won't need to see through me, which makes it less fun, but more honest. Remember that dichotomy?
The people I've been spending time with the last 2 days, the ones who allowed me to effortlessly complete 8/10 of my daily tasks, have no face or presence to the people reading this. I've not told anyone in Oregon about my blogs, I haven't told them much about my life or my friends. That's the way it goes - I don't like to start a conversation I can't finish, which rules out pretty much everything except "what's up?" "how's it going?" and the always popular "what should we do now?". Likewise, the people in Austin currently know nothing (or essentially nothing) of the people here except their names.

I went to Hagg Lake today with Molly, Robin, Athena, and Monk. I don't just order the names arbitrarily, there's a reason Molly is first and Monk is last. Robin is necessarily next to Molly because they're best friends, and Athena is necessarily next to Monk because she owns him, and he's necessarily last because he's a dog.
Molly of course, is first, because she's the one I've really connected with, and of course she's the prettiest. I'm afraid of revealing this fact, this tacit attraction, because I'm not sure of the entirety of the ramifications. What can be assumed? Did I form more of a connection with her because I was physically more attracted to her? I don't think so, but it's possible. It seems natural, given all their personalities, that I would know Molly the best after so short a time. Robin's quiet, and Athena is a reactionary conversationalist, like me, so putting us together if more a staring game than a conversation.
But I do find it comforting, and amazing, that I've already met someone here who has impressed me. Yes - that is the true root of the attraction - that sly admiration. She lives her own life and is unashamed, and, more surprisingly, is good at it.
That's Molly. Oddly, the second strongest connection I feel to any of them is with Monk. He is one of the best dogs. Really and truly. And it's true, I only see sparks of life in Athena when she's interacting with him.
Robin is strange, only because she talks so freely to Molly, and can't seem to make eye contact with me, even for the brief uncomfortable split seconds most of us share before turning away - no, she doesn't look at my eyes at all. I haven't figured out whether she avoids eye contact with everyone, if it's just people she doesn't really know, or if it's just me, and if it is me, then why. These are hard things to solve.

I've intentionally given you no physical bearings here. Why should you know what they look like? You'll only imagine them wrong. Only a camera will do for that. There is more to say, as there always will be, but damned is damned and I'm done for the damn day.

8/10

2009-05-28T22:20:00.000-07:00

some days I smile for no reason, can't get a hold of anything or process any information. Then I get drunk and try to make it easier.

Well I had a gin and tonic, half a bottle of wine (roughly) and 3 beers and nothing became any clearer
or any less clear.
- - - - -
last night I drank alone at home. After listening to some music, all I wanted to do was watch the royal tenenbaums. of course that is like the one movie you can't find streaming apparently. So I watched 20 minutes of Rushmore and it was just not what I was looking for. then I took a bath and passed out.

today I did a lot of things. I made hummus for the first time, and played a short game of soccer for the first time since I was about 8. Then I drank with a couple flowers (and a dog), played some pool and cards, got lost.

Obviously the first night was much worse than the second, but I believe I made better use of alcohol on the first. I drank a large amount in a short burst, making it easier to lament and hustle off to bed. That's fairly effective self-medication. Today I drank because someone offered me gin. It made the social world easier to navigate, of course, of course, but what else did it do? Made the memories less clear, the actions, and made it all go by faster. What a waste of precious alcohol, quickening time instead of killing it.

4/10

2009-05-27T00:51:00.000-07:00

Some days I cry for no reason, can't get a hold of anything or process any information. Then I get drunk and try to make it better or worse.

well I had a bottle of wine and nothing became any clearer
or any less clear.

3/10

2009-05-26T21:36:00.000-07:00

before I get on with today's blahblah, I want to point something out to everyone reading this, because it's very important to me. The 2000 Nickelodeon movie Snow Day was originally going to be a The Adventures of Pete and Pete movie. I haven't seen Snow Day (who has?) but this movie that no one cares about could have been awesome forever. Ok, no, a Pete and Pete movie where the actors have aged 7 years, or with new actors, would just not work at all, but, if you would, I'd like you all to daydream about that ideal pete and pete movie, wherein the petes' relationship is glorified, older pete and ellen share a kiss, and it's revealed that Nona's dad abused her (just look at Iggy Pop there and tell me he didn't. How did you think her arm got broken?)
I know it's old news now, but much love to the 3 season long polaris music videos... I mean Nickelodeon show. yeah... Show...
-----------------------------

I've never made a serious effort to get published.
I sent one manuscript out to one publisher once. So the question is, why not?

Well the first reason would have to be that I don't really see the point. In terms of its actual affect on my life, I don't see that much happening there. I simply don't care enough to put forth the effort. It is quite a lot of work, you know?

Another more obvious reason is fear. I'm afraid they'll be rejected up and down the line and that'll be that. The biggest problem is contemporary poetry. There are a few distinct kinds of poems being published right now, and you couldn't pay me to read most of them. So how much of a chance do I really have of getting published among these people?
But besides that, on close, critical scrutinizing, my poetry doesn't hold up that well. There's rarely one point, or one story, that stands out clearly, and even when there is, there are several little tangents tangled up with it. My poetry knows no purity, or intellectual solidity. It's impossible to read most of my poems and think "this guy really knows what he's talking about, he's really shed new light on ____" or anything like that, because I maintain an ethereal or illusory property usually.
So why go through all that effort if success isn't worth that much, and failure at best is bothersome? The obvious reasons are income and social validation.

I need money, and I have almost 1000 poems sitting around anyway, I might as well go and sell some of them. and if my poetry could get published in this atmosphere, that would certainly be something special, and I would feel very valid for once as an artist.

the last reason is that I'm a bit of a perfectionist. Even if I revise the hell out of something, I can look at it a month later and notice one little turn of phrase that irks me. So having my own work floating around, claiming to be finished, when I know there's something wrong with it, well, that bothers me a lot for some reason.

anyway, I'm getting my Poet's Market book back from Austin, which Don gave me a few years ago, and, as I said, I have not really used. Don't get me wrong - I've marked pages, highlighted names, but that's it. And I'll send poems out to a few magazines and see what's up. But I've got at least a week before then, and I already have the best in my arsenal lined up in preparation for an anthological manuscript, so all that remains is polishing (if they need to be rewritten, then I'll just polish them anyway and hope no one notices) and then deciding what goes where.

blah. Do you know how much envelopes cost? Really not that much. But I don't really have any money, either, so damn you, USPS, damn you to hell.

2/10

2009-05-25T21:50:00.000-07:00

so why is this called disbelief, anyway, if it's all about truth?
the name came to me, as most things do, in the form of a pun. this belief/disbelief, which I quickly realized no one would get no matter which spelling I used (thisbelief was the best I could do, and I quickly nixed it).
The truth, as we know it, exists necessarily in relation to lies, as belief is relative to disbelief. The disbelief, to me, is the reason for stating the belief. It finalizes it, erases the last doubt. And this is more about belief than truth, because I simply do not keep enough secrets to tell one every day.
so I've put the name disbelief on this blog the way you put a person's own name on his tombstone.

so here's something that might seem to contradict my attitude towards my recent serendipity: I attribute no deep meaning to the dream I had last night. The characters were symbolic, as were the settings and the actions, but ultimately my brain was firing random neurons that, by piecing together into a prophetic or psychological image, let me see things from an angle I wouldn't normally have considered, but I absolutely cannot divine any single truth.
I know no one likes to hear about other people's dreams (except for me) so I'll only give you the relevant details: the dream was consistent, with only one gap in time, and the reality was solid enough that things happening in the beginning of the dream had real and apparent consequences later in the dream. All the actions took place in austin, except those centered at work. I met an old english teacher in a bar, who assumed I was drunk because of my mannerisms, and who, herself, was drunk on water.
From there I went to another party, with danny and his housemates, at what was some amalgam of austin party houses. After the party ended, there was a gap in time, and I came home to my house, which was laid out like an apartment, reminiscent of the brownstones, but nicer and bigger. There my english teacher had come home with Rick and they were talking about Scotch, for some reason. After she left, Rick came to the door of my room and told me that he was going to sleep in his own room tonight.
(After I woke up, I pictured that house I must have lived in, something out of 100 years of solitude - rick had gone out to sleep on the couch one day and his room had laid empty there until he was ready to reclaim it) After that I stared out the window for a while.
Suddenly I realized it was day time. Not only that, but the view outside was moving. Which meant the house was moving. But in the motion it took to sit up, I found myself in the driver's seat of a car. The car, evidently, had 2 driver's seats, possibly superimposed, and I was driving both of them, except I only controlled the actions of one of my selves. The one I couldn't control was jamming on the gas, driving forward at ridiculous speeds, and as soon as I got up and realized this, I started steering and holding down the brakes to slow us down. We argued, he wanted to go faster, I wanted not to die. So we both drove on.

It would be terribly easy to associate these images with spiritual events. Rick moving back to his own room would be a huge one to me. Of course arguing with myself about how I was driving, that one would be an obvious sign for a psychiatrist. But as I said, I don't. Rick, in his grave, has not moved an inch. Except of course the bits of his ashes that mixed with the riverwater.
And I don't even drive.
I believe that the rudimentary symbolism of dreams is considered symbolic only because it's weird. I don't believe that people pay heed to that sort of thing because it's revealing or true.

P.S. attention Austinites: I haven't gotten to listen yet, but I can't wait

1/10

2009-05-24T23:35:00.000-07:00

the sad truth is I spent all day today playing final fantasy 6.
I barely moved all day, and the only things I did besides play this game were eat, drink, listen to music, and see some tv. Is that so terrible in and of itself?
Maybe I wasn't happy today, but I wasn't lost in worry or boredom, and never did I want to be somewhere else, doing something else.

Some days when you wake up you're given an immediate choice: go into the world and live, or stay home and die. Well as soon as I woke up my housemates were leaving the house, going around the neighborhood, and invited me to come. aside from the need for breakfast (which was not so urgent) the reason I stayed at home was that I felt it, somewhere in me, that I needed to die a little today.

what I like about this game are the items: they could've made this same game without hidden items that quadruple your attacks or make spells cost no mp. Those were unnecessary - at lvl 99 a single unequiped hero could kill the boss - and the little stories around each one, well, those are doubly unnecessary. I could have won this game 10 hours ago. but I want Eon to cast 2 spells every turn without using mp, and I want Merlin to turn into a cat and scratch mighty wind at the enemies not once, but four times every turn, and I want Rhea to use 2 different ultimate swords and take no damage, and I want Stop to mimic every single drop of that overkill. Why? Because you can scrape by, and fight for justice with all your heart, or else you can take the time to become all-powerful, like your opponent failed to do.
And I want my heros to be all-powerful, and then decide to mete out justice with a wave of the hand. I want them to prove that absolute power does not corrupt absolutely.

Of course they don't. They just prove that given the choice between ending an adventure, or mulling about in a brown world with nothing left for me, I am going to be the one guy who always chooses to walk in a circle tapping x over and over. That's just who I am.

2/10

2009-05-23T16:18:00.000-07:00

so here's something fun: my job writing articles has already gone under. Technically I'm only on reserve now, but I don't appreciate the candor or demeanor of my employer.
I've been busy the past week, and haven't had time to devote to this work until now. As such, I had 1/10 done early, and was going to do 4 today and 4 again tomorrow - leaving 1, if that, to be completed later. The deadline, according to her, is still a week away.
But I got home in the a.m. last night, and had received an email saying if I didn't get back to her by midday today my articles would be reassigned, so I wrote telling her I was devoting the next 2 days to finishing the assignment. I went to a cafe (without internet) and completed 2 articles in about 4 hours, then went home and sent them to her. But I'd gotten an email, apparently, an hour earlier saying she was already reassigning my articles.
Which indicates to me that her deadlines are arbitrary, and so are her decisions. I admit there's nothing arbitrary about getting rid of someone who's not getting their work done. But notifying someone, a week from the deadline, that they have 24 hours to finish, that is arbitrary. If they've made no progress in a week, you're forced to assume they won't make any in the following week. I understand that much of it. In actuality, if she had waited a day, it would've saved her some hassle, and not affected much else, except that I would be exhausted and have some money.
I'm getting paid for at least one, and hopefully all 3 I finished, but am now on 'reserve' whatever that means.

So what are the important ramifications of this exchange? Blah. I need to make more money, I'm no longer making enough to have any extra to spend on anything ever, which means if my bike breaks down, that's it for biking. All the worry that entails, that lack of money, is bound right now with caffeine as thin and sharp as fishing line, and that's no pleasant matter. Besides that, I lost a job due to one day. I got called into DQ when I wasn't on the schedule, I was going to write a couple articles that day. So I'm angry, at myself, for shooting myself in the foot so casually, and not putting more effort into something as important as survival.
The other result, the one I'm trying to focus on, is that I realized each article took me 2 hours to write, and for a set of 5 I was to be paid $60. That means I was earning $6 an hour writing these articles. The work itself was arguably worse than working in fast food, and dealing with a passive-aggressive internet entity is more frustrating than you'd imagine. And you'd imagine it would be pretty frustrating.

So it comes down to this: I have to rebound by asking dairy queen for more hours. I told them I needed at least 15 hours a week to survive, which was true, but only technically. adjusting for tax deductions, I'm making roughly $7.33 per hour, and my rent is $350, quick division tells us I need at least 48 hours in a month to cover that. Ideally, 15 hours a week gives me an extra 12x7.33=$87.96, which hopefully would be enough to provide what foodstamps can't, and also cover some utilities. That's ideally. But, doing the math on the utilities (they kept the last bills, which is great) they cost about $400 a month, my share of which would be $100, then, and I'm suddenly $10 short every month, if I don't also save my tips.
The truth is I can't entirely stop my outside spending. If I feel like I need to drink coffee or alcohol, no amount of talking myself down will stop me. I can justify it easily as a one time 2 or 3$ expenditure. This justification never fails. It will work, if need be, 7 days in a week.
It should be clear here that I'm skirting disaster. Praying for an ease of burden that will prevent sickness and injury. 20 hours a week would allow me to save, in theory, making about 580 instead of 440 a month. Obviously I need to ask them for at least that much, if only to cover for any hours they might cut later, or I might feel forced to cut myself (no pun intended, I've never been that depressed).

The mixture of tension and relief is palpable right now, probably because I've had so much coffee, but it's by no means, in my mind, a disaster. It just means that, should a disaster come, I'll have no room to maneuver. If I take up Irene's offer, I'll have more money available to me, which reopens the concept of frivolous spending. The very fact of having absolutely no money curbs my spending very effectively, nothing else, I believe, really would. The truth is, if I get my one check from the writing gig before the end of the month, I can pay my rent. Otherwise I can't.
But, essentially, today's good and bad omens level out: I've finally looked at the bills, to know exactly what I need to expect to pay, and I know I can pay it as long as I work at least 20 hours a week. The loss of the gig means I can't make as much money total, but it also means I won't be spending mundane hours making $6. And one more thing:
If this hadn't happened I would continue postponing my efforts at publishing for god knows how long. With my free time at home actually free, I can get back to writing, and as soon as I get my poet's market book back I can start sending stuff in - and maybe I can find a second source of income, after all.

4/10

2009-05-22T01:34:00.001-07:00

Today was spent with Molly, Robin, and Athena; after work of course.
We got stoned. What's more honest than that? They were setting up the carnival, we walked by the shells of half-built rides. The sun fell slowly in the sky. I tried to do a reading with my new cards - it was slow and fairly simple, but it was accurate (so she said) which is heartening. The apple fritter I had was too expensive, light on the apple and heavy on the sugar, which is of course far from ideal.
You want the truth? I'm too tired to write anymore, and I have too much to do.

4/10

2009-05-21T16:12:00.000-07:00

I resent getting called in to work.
Blah who cares about money I just want to go back to sleep.
I don't care that I've already slept for 10 hours, and before I had to work, was planning on staying up through the night just to flip over my schedule, no that's irrelevant to me now all I want to do is sleep.
I played final fantasy 6 (or 3 to non-nerds in the US, though, really, how many of them even know of it?) until 4:30 am last night. I've decided that my team will probably have to be Celes, who I named Rhea, Gau, who I named Merlin, Gogo, who I haven't gotten yet, but will name Stop, most definitely, and Relm, who I will name when I figure out what the opposite of a realm is.
If you don't like it, shove a cork in your bottle of wine, after pouring a healthy-sized glass for you and all of your friends, and then have a good time. If you do like it, well, pull up a seat and let's see if the story is anywhere near as good as nerds like to think it is.

If you have nothing serious to say, say something ridiculous. I wish I was writing instead of playing games, but that's neither here nor there.

3/10

2009-05-20T23:00:00.000-07:00

I don't know exactly why, or when it started, but whenever something in my life becomes a responsibility I can no longer stand it at all. If I promise to do something, I'll do it. If I make that promise two days in a row, fine. If I continue to make it, though, there comes a point where it's assumed I will follow-through without the promise being made. That's when it's no longer a promise I make, but a responsibility, implicit just by my being.
I cannot fucking stand that. It's the worst in personal relationships - it's one of the primary reasons I stopped hanging out with Kate, it's one of the reasons I couldn't get close to Holly, or anyone else for that fucking matter, and it's one of the reasons I can't keep a routine going without become depressed or crazy. There's a necessary moment like this in any relationship; once you get close enough you are both obligated in certain ways, socially, and personally. If I can get past that phase without being overcome and chasing myself away, then that relationship is bound to last forever. Or as long as can be imagined. So it is with the people I call friends.
This is one of the areas of my life I've made no effort to change. I understand that it's a tendency that lends itself to dynamic living. A life in constant reflection and change is always superior, I think, to a stagnant and happy one. So instead of shirking the system entirely, I've been training myself to work within it, create loopholes in my own book, so to speak.
So - you'd probably think maintaining the two blogs I do would become tedious and terrible to me pretty quickly. But that's different, because I continue to promise myself, daily, that I will update them, and it's that promise that sustains them, not the routine. I'm always open to the idea of just destroying them at the drop of a hat, and that's what ultimately keeps them going.

If I may mention the non-gadje for a second, though I know people don't share my (shall we say) obsession with them - their way of thinking is what really unites them against us. They consider everything transitory, everything impermanent, and are able to live without having the things we take for granted. Their homes, their families, even their histories and mythology are entirely malleable. They have no reservations about retconning the very fabric of their realities. That's why I associate so strongly with them - I've never been able to see anything as final, or as perfected, because to me these are synonymous with fatal. I wouldn't be able to stand living in a world where I thought there was anything beyond the reach of change's purifying hand. So I live my life according to those principles.

yes, the non-gadje are more often known as gypsies, which is a name derived from the misconception that they originated in egypt. I've decided to call them the non-gadje, because generally their lives are spoken of only in reference to the everpresent gadje, and, having no other reliable name to cover the entirety of their people, I think it's appropriate. OK tangent over. Post too. good night.

3/10

2009-05-19T22:39:00.000-07:00

I'm exhausted today. Woke up busy, worked for 6 hours, came home to more work. work work work. and I'm spending my spare time looking over my new tarot deck. I'll do better tomorrow, I promise.

Which brings me to my truth for today: I've never knowingly broken a promise.
In this case I can't think of many specific examples, or at least the ones I can were all vague promises on my blog. But whenever I've told my friends I would keep something they told me secret, well, I always have. If I commit to something, I commit to it completely. Which is why I have trouble committing to anything, and it's also why I have so few friends, but I'm really close to the friends I have. It's allowed me to update this blog every day, and to move to Portland, etc and etc.
So: if someone asks me to do something, they will get one of three answers: No, Yes, or Maybe. and These answers should all be taken literally, because if I say no, I really won't, if I say yes, I will no matter what, and if I say maybe, well, who knows.

ok that's all I got I'm fucking exhausted.

5/10

2009-05-18T13:39:00.000-07:00

Obviously I'm going to run out of stories about my past sooner or later. Better get into the habit of daily musings, then. Today synchronized rather well, I think.
I rode around town looking for a tarot deck, which I found locked in the tower of powell. I drank bad coffee (it thought it was good coffee, you could so easily tell - but it bit into my throat. Every time I swallowed I could feel the fibers of my esophagus meet) and washed it through with water. I considered for a long time a book I might want to buy, but found nothing, or more accurately, found many things I couldn't afford (my limit was $5, and powell's is not like half price)
I sat and read from 100 years of solidad, in the middle of that cafe, the stumptown on division, and they played jon spencer's blues explosion, which I hadn't heard since long days gone longer by. so I wondered if I should call Travis, and decided to wait on that. The book was making me laugh. The book was making me cry, actual tears, that crept down my face but never fell off, and I suppose they must still be there, because I didn't wash them away either.
So Travis called me. He meant to call Taylor, but ever since we were children he's been assigning the wrong numbers to us. They were going out to eat dinner, with Irene and possibly others, and I wondered briefly if there was some family event I should know about...
I ate a bad sandwich on stale bread that the government kindly paid for, and not finding a good park near work, I ate outside an abandoned shop, where someone was giving away free books, and I found one to match the ones I couldn't afford. There I ate my sad sandwich, and when I got to my happy orange, my sweet desert, I bit the rind off to hurry its effect. and what did I find inside? A black spot, and ok, I thought, I'll bite that part off too, suck the poison out like a snake bite, and eat the rest. But I opened it to find the center was all black. I launched it into a nearby trashcan with the rainslick sticking to my tongue, and went to work for 5 hours like that.
Not much else to say. After work I went to the store, and the government treated me to some more goodies, but these again were not what they claimed to be. I've been having bad luck since the depression descended. Especially with food.

5/10

2009-05-17T13:34:00.000-07:00

no one in my family considers my father's death blameless.
I have three brothers, and I can't tell you exactly what they think, but I'm sure I can approximate it.
brother number one blames himself and our mother. Their heartlessness, their lack of compassion, are what finally did him in.
brother number two blames himself only. For one thing he failed to do, for one mistake, he blames himself for that endless death.
and the final brother believes that it was love that killed him. We all played a part, because he loved all of us, and that love eroded his heart from the inside. (it did have a hole in it, after all)

so who do I blame?
I blame him.

I read his autobiography, at least as much of it as was ever finished. His friend Micky is intrinsic to the whole story. By the time I knew Rick, Micky was all that really remained of his childhood. His symbol of strength, of justice and power.
The people we know when we're that young become mythical figures. I know my friends from elementary school are some of the most meaningful people to me, and will continue to be until I die. So Micky was no longer a person in the traditional sense.
I could tell you all the stories, but I don't know them well enough to do them justice. All I know is that as long as Micky was still alive, Rick had an endless source of strength inside himself. Maybe that wasn't a good thing - maybe he wouldn't have fought so much with Irene, maybe he would've told us about his condition, maybe he would've gotten up off the couch, if he wasn't absolutely sure of his own strength, of the goodness that surrounded him.
Maybe. But he was smart - he knew he was going, he just didn't see the point in putting it off. He saw change in the world constantly - he was a true revolutionary, and anyone who's ever known someone with that much passion, knows that the one thing that will never change is the fact of revolution in their lives. He was determined to die a revolutionary, even if it meant fighting against himself. But a life of constant change is more tiring than any other, there are just too few things to hold onto. And, as I said, when I knew him he only had one thing left to hold on to, and that was the legend of Micky.
We held on to him, which is not the same thing at all. So when we got the call that night that Micky had died, maybe there was a reason I couldn't remember who he was. Because if I knew who he was, if I really knew, then I would've known that Rick was going to die the next day. I would have known it beyond the shadow of a doubt, and I couldn't have taken it.
So why do I blame him? Why don't I blame Micky, or fate, or myself, or anyone else? Because he's the one who taught me the meaning of language. and when I listen to Bob Dylan with him, the thousand times I might've said "he not busy being born is busy dying", I stayed silent because I knew Rick was busy dying. Really busy with it. He worked constantly trying to make sure we would be alright when he was gone - he didn't have faith in our strength. He thought it was ok, as long as he left us with a home, but he didn't stop to think maybe it would be ok, maybe it would've been a lot better if he just hadn't left us so soon.

so, as a final supplication, here is the last paragraph he wrote in his book, and I'll leave it up to you to determine the thousand layers of meaning I've found in it:
"Not long after I came to know J.W. and Johnny, Martin Luther King Jr. was killed. They spent that evening in their dorm room playing a record of his speeches. I left them to themselves except for providing a bottle of wine and expressing my deepest sympathy. I can still see them huddled over the record player listening to the sound of that singular voice. Something about King’s voice made you feel braver and better than you were, it soared and swooned and whispered and roared. It rose and fell like the tides of the sea or the flight of a delicate and solitary bird. Years of pain and loss, of agony and shame, of wounded pride and hidden strength were under every word and you could not hear them without being moved or shaken and his best song was freedom. I was alone the night of his death because I did not want to be with my new white friends, the Yankees, and I did not have the right to be with my new black friends. I did not have the right because I had not fought hard enough or long enough or bold enough. Not yet. And so the dead call to the living and lay their claim upon them."

I just noticed in that last sentence he changes from past tense to present. well.

3/10

2009-05-16T19:04:00.001-07:00

As I've been feeling a heavy depression descend in the last couple days, I thought I'd talk about my mood swings today.
Obviously a lot of people have a lot worse problems. That never makes it any easier.
I've always gone through phases like this, sometimes years long, sometimes months, sometimes weeks, or even days. I'd consider my first 'happy phase' from birth to about three, which are where my first memories roughly live. I had a brief sadness then, I can safely say, because I remember very few specific events, but they were not happy ones. Then I was happy until middle school started, and that was the worst depression. It was all-encompassing, and it lasted between 3 and 4 years. Or it lasted twice that long, but dwindled slowly, I'm not sure.
From then on there were too many changes for me to list them all, and that wasn't really my intention anyway. When I'm happy, generally that amounts simply to the ability to be happy, that's the distinction I make. When I'm sad, it doesn't mean I can't laugh, or anything like that, it just means I can't feel happy, I always feel weak and lazy, I'm likely to snap at someone being unreasonable, and I'm just as likely to cry at any given moment. During these periods I actively seek catharsis, or else avoid leaving the house. This can include, but is not limited to: nulling myself with video games, beating on something with a stick, riding my bike listening to music, singing at the top of my lungs, and occasionally sitting silently trying to will myself to cry, to get it out of the way.
Well when I first realized this trend I didn't think much of it. I figured there were reasons I just wasn't paying attention to. When I realized there were no reasons, I figured it was a psychological problem, but it never got bad enough for me to seek help. It almost did, many times. Recently, I see it as a sort of weakness, but I know I can handle it. Some of my friends have depression so crippling it prevents them from living their lives surprisingly often. Some of them handle it really well, some worse than I do... But I can't speak for them, of course, my depression is relatively ineffectual.
Sometimes I attribute the difference to my mathematical mind. I think depression probably attacks one half of the brain more than the other, and it's the half of my brain that has less of a say over me. Sometimes I think I don't have any real problem, I'm just a pessimist at heart, and trying not to be one weakens me. So now, I can feel myself heading into one of these depressions (I've been in tune with the process for a while now, I know when they're coming, and usually when they're going, but not how long they'll last) and it's not a sad feeling.
I know I'm going to be sad for a while, maybe miserable, but it will make certain books and movies better, and it lets me be as weak and lazy as I act, at once absolving and comforting me. So if this blog falls behind, if you notice my little scores sink as low as 0, then you'll know why, at least as well as I do.

3/10

2009-05-15T14:32:00.000-07:00

I believe... the language Ive been using for these posts so far has been annoying and stilted.
I don't know when I developed the habit of being overly verbose in my writing, in that mundane way, but I wish it would stop.
Of course I don't have the ability to just stop doing it, any writer knows that's not how it works, but through a concentrated effort I could probably start to curb it. My subject for today: my title of writer, and how I've been feeling about it. It's no secret that I've gone through many phases in this area since I started in middle school - when I started writing every day it was out of necessity, I thought nothing of it. In high school I began forcing it sometimes, and I began regularly sharing it with the people around me. I think it was because of my reluctance to actually talk to people, more than my desire to share what I'd written.
It was definitely never about sharing. I wanted to know if it was any good. It wasn't until much later I discovered that not only was it mostly very bad, but I was asking the wrong people about its quality. By the time it became mediocre, about three years later, I was at the point where my english teacher couldn't help me improve the quality. This was her calling, this english thing, and she had no idea what to tell me. So I stopped giving it out to read, and published it quietly on the internet.
and I started asking only myself about the quality. Besides the rare: this is great. I'm so proud. I usually told myself: why did you write about this? why did you choose these words? this is all wrong. but now I'm a critic more than a writer, and I question more and more what my business is in this world. Am I only writing, after all, to reclaim the fervor I felt before? Out of some mixed up pride, some desire to be more than I really am?
It's a deeply ingrained habit now. I could only stop it the same way I could stop being overly verbose in this annoying way. Anyway it leaves me enough time for everything else I want to do. But in this day and age, the question of legitimacy has become even more skewed. It was always hard with poetry, seeing as most great poets were never recognized in their lifetimes, and, I would ask, what relevance did their writing really have afterward? plenty to us, I guess, but none to them. Most poets die abject failures, and sing to us from their death as a kind of sweet revenge.
And the word of the day is small publishers, zines, open mics and poetry slams. legitimacy through effort and will, that's all that matters. Anyone who goes to these events, reads the zines, and even a lot of the books, you all know how little of it is any good. There is greatness somewhere, and some of these people are admirable, and sure, it's fair to give everyone equal billing, but what does that give us to aspire to? A friendship with an ever-growing audience, if we're lucky, but that promotes friendly poetry, saying what you know is agreed upon.
I'm not going to try to fix the system. History lets everything change, and it's not my job to affect it, I learned that at an early age. I'll just write within the system, pretending it doesn't exist, like the great poets do, and pretend I can hope to aspire to be within range of their talent. and why? because, even if it's an arbitrary calling, it's at least an answer in a world of questions: who are you? where are we? what's going on? what do you do? Oh! there's one I can answer: I'm a writer. A poet and a writer.

5/10

2009-05-14T17:28:00.000-07:00

I thought I'd talk about my social life in Portland. Since I've gotten here, it's gone through a few phases. I'm going to warn you: this is the first time I'm going to be talking about something that is still directly relevant to my life. This is recent history.

I arrived here teary-eyed and exhausted. I'd spent the previous night with all my best friends, just staying up and waiting. My going away party before that had been one of the best events ever, and I left without regrets.
I arrived to a somewhat confusing map drawn over the phone by Don's unsure words. I had a premonition at the time that the next few weeks would be spent in a similar fashion. I lived in Don's house, followed him to his park, his coffee shop, and his grocery store. I road his bike and read his book and watched his movies. It was my first time spending so much time with him, and we had a lot of fun.
It took a while before we visited Melody, and her attitude seemed somehow less sure than Don's. It was a look I'd seen her give a million times; it reminded me of a deer in headlights, thoughtful and motionless, predicting disaster. We got high with her roommate and went to a bar, where I tried to be happy, but couldn't stop thinking about Austin.

The next week was spent randomly, with Mel or Don, or by myself, as I saw fit. Not much was accomplished, but it was still a lot of fun. I slowly got to know their housemates, and formed opinions of them: Alex and Mattie were alright, but uncomfortable. Beth had a manner that annoyed me, but we seemed to have similar taste in poetry, and we got along well. Carib, Laura(I think that was her name) and everyone else I met at this time disregarded me out of hand. That was ok, I was a little overwhelmed already.
It was after the comic convention, where we met Chris Onstad, Cheyenne, Jack, and a few others that things began to get rough. These were all good people, but they condescended to us noticeably, and as much as I wanted to make friends with anyone and everyone I met, I knew we'd never hear from them again, and felt free to do as I wanted. Here are the three people I had a crush on for roughly an hour each: the girl I talked to at the coffeeshop, the waitress at the moon and sixpence, and cheyenne. Beth came close, but didn't cut it.
This was when Carib became less despondant and more actively annoying. In reaction, Don became annoyed, and started concentrating overly hard on our predicament. What annoyed me wasn't his anger or his pessimism, it was that he couldn't make up his mind about what he wanted, and retreated to anger, and predictions, instead of acting. I felt like I was holding his hand through a dark corridor, leading him past the dangers of adult life. And it was my first month as an adult, really, I had no business leading anyone.
So Don's sincerity, and repetition, once they got on my nerves, made me less sure of my own actions. I had to be sure - it was all I had going for me, the only thing allowing me to make it in this new world. So I cut off his influence, and went my own way, trusting that he would follow or not, depending on what he wanted to do. Eventually he left. Melody still had not entirely lost her dear-in-headlights mentality, which I attribute now to her excessive smoking and drinking. She wasn't worried, she just wasn't lucid.
At her going away party I met three more people who I sincerely hoped I would talk to again, though I was too drunk to read them. It was a fun night, the little that I remember. The next day I met Adria, who I've talked to once since then. She wasn't my type, but she wore beautiful stockings, and once I detected her neuroses and saw her hair draped over her neck in the noonlight of the airy house, I had a subtle sense that I could love her, if she was not who I thought she was. Of course I'm not that good at predictions, and I was under the influence of romantic books and oregon weed.

Here's why I didn't include Melody in the list the other day: whenever I'm with her, she seems uncomfortable, in a way. Because of what we went through in high school, which I take the blame for, of course, and the subsequent oddities, she doesn't trust my friendship. She takes it as leftover love, overcompensating for a strange grief, or something worse. So I couldn't feel comfortable around her, either, and I couldn't shake that sensation a lot of the time.

Everyone I've met since she left, I've only had a passing interest in, not that they aren't good people, they're just largely uninteresting, and I'm keeping them around because I have no one else available. My conversations with Austinites have become cluttered with recent events, so that I feel like I'm reading the news to them, more than just talking. So my social life is reduced to two sets of bullet points and I don't know where to go.
When I have more money I can visit bars, things like that, where maybe something will change, but honestly I don't foresee anything too pleasant in the social arena until I decide to go to college. I don't want to make the impression that I'm unhappy with this arrangement; I'm unhappy that I have no say, but so far it's been entirely pleasant.

6/10

2009-05-13T13:27:00.000-07:00

You want to know a secret? I used to be a kleptomaniac.
On my way home, every single day in elementary school, we would go by randalls and I would steal whatever I wanted, and often a lot more than that. Usually it was just candy, but sometimes in quantities that were just completely unnecessary. When I got confidant enough, I was stealing upwards of $10 worth at least once a week. One day I had the brilliant idea to sell them at recess, 5 or 10 cents each depending on the candy, I figured I'd steal the first couple bags, then I could actually buy new ones with my profit, and go from there. Of course the teachers didn't take kindly to capitalism on the school grounds, I guess I was probably making all the kids hyper, and you know how parents are about their kids diets and whatnot. It didn't make sense then, but I guess it does now.

After I got caught once there, we didn't return. At least not often. I wasn't as comfortable anywhere else, and it wasn't like I really wanted the candy, so my life of excess soon dwindled to the occasional corner store grift. When I grew older it became more of a skill than a crutch - I was able to steal if I absolutely had to, but I didn't do it compulsively. To me, when I bothered to justify it, the moral question came down to this: as long as I was stealing from companies, and not people, it was not just amoral to steal, it was moral. If I didn't steal from actual people, then I was in the clear.

Which brings me to the part of this that is actually, really a secret. In between the blind, youthful stealing, and the older, frugal stealing, there was a change that took place. Getting caught didn't deter me, I only stayed away from randalls because of the threat of punishment. What made the change in me was the day I stole from a friend. It was back in the day when we all played Magic the Gathering, or at least we built decks, actually playing the game only seemed to happen a few times. Well I loved my green and white deck (we played with mana-dump rules, which meant that as soon as I got an alabaster potion I was pretty much invincible - of course I removed it from my deck after winning a game with it) and Danny Zigal had this Earth Titan or something like that that was just amazing. I'm talking 7/7 with abilities.

I think I've already underlined how stupid this is, but just to make it even more clear, I already had one of these cards. I stole from him so I could have TWO. And we didn't even play, so there was no good reason to even have one. I immediately felt guilty, and that's when I came up with my theory on the morality of theft. It's also when I stopped stealing for a long time. Did you think the stories were over? here's one more:
During the legendary times of Melody's apartment (or John and Melody's, or John, Melody, and Martin's) I stole shit every day from Walgreens. It was usually stuff like candy, again, but also toys and even drinks and ice cream. all I needed was my winter coat and a good five minutes. I would always share the spoils, of course, and try not to arouse suspicion with the employees by going in there with at least one other person.

The time I got caught, I was with Ricky Pineda, who we can all agree was and is completely insane. Well, I counted on him to give my mission a look of legitimacy, because this time I was stealing something important. It was medicine for Katie's menstrual cramps. but I was too absorbed in looking at the pills, which ones to get, and I didn't notice Ricky had gone. I was now left alone with the clerk's suspicions. I slipped the box of pills into my coat, and that's when I noticed I was being followed. I knew he wouldn't make his move until I was leaving, so I went around getting some more stuff. Candy, a toy or two, and a bottle of doctor pepper. That should be enough. On my way out, my heart racing, he predictably stopped me. He asked me to give up what I'd taken, and I obliged, saying "Yes, I did steal. At least I'm honest." and left on the counter 2 candy bars, a bottle of soda, and two slinkies. "Is that everything?" he said suspiciously, as if my pockets were bottomless. I nodded. "I'm not gonna call the cops this time, but you're never allowed in here again." I nodded again, not making a sound, and walked out, carrying my trophy, the bottle of pills.

That was the last time in my life that I had anything akin to kleptomania; the only really big thing I stole after that was a bottle of wine, but it was 2 a.m. on new year's night, and I'll stand by that decision until I die.

5/10

2009-05-12T13:27:00.000-07:00

Well, I'm going to take today to talk about the numbers on each post. so far 4.5/10, 5/10, and 7/10. The same day I decided to start this project, I decided to start a daily regimen of 10 things that I think I should be doing every day. I'm not detail-oriented enough to keep track of specifics, which is why I'm going by a score out of ten instead of a daily checklist. But here are the ten things:
1. wake up by 8 a.m.
2. do at least 10 pushups and situps (to be increased as necessary)
3. go for a walk (at least half an hour) without music
4. write poetry by hand (about half an hour - as long as I finish at least 1 poem)
5. read for an hour emphasizing complete understanding
6. spend at least an hour working on a specific project/book
7. do something nice for someone
8. say at least one thing just because it's true
9. go somewhere new
10. commit one thing to memory

so far I haven't been doing a good job with #1 or 10, and I'm doing especially bad with #8, considering it's one of the most important to me right now. I've been waking at 10, which is ok, but not ideal, and I just don't seem to run into anything to memorize.
Why are there 10? honestly that's all I could think of. Normally if I tried to do something like this, if I didn't do all ten every day for at least a week, I would consider it failure and stop completely. So I'm being more relaxed this time, and hoping as the easier ones become routine, I can worry about the more difficult ones.

7/10

2009-05-11T18:55:00.000-07:00

The truth: I don't love people as much as when I hated them.

Back in middle school, I hated the entire world (and thought it hated me, irrespective of the truth) and yet everything I loved, I loved fervently, beyond measure. All that amounted to then was sleeping in, playing video games, writing, and listening to music. When I moved on to high school, and found my first crush, that love became a lot realer. And of course when she put me down (however softly) so did the hate. But during that time, and over the next few years, I loved every one of my friends with such intensity that I couldn't speak a word of it unless I was drunk. I hated the world, too, because I saw so much suffering and I couldn't reconcile it with the beauty and the love that I saw.

I hated the world for this; everyone I knew deserved infinitely better than what they got, even if they got a lot, even if they were really very happy. So I would cry and scream sometimes and when I came out the other end, I was overcome by malaise. I no longer hated anything, but the love I felt wouldn't make itself known, either. Surrounded by my best friends, I would still think "why am I here? what am I doing with these people, in this terrible place?" and I never found an answer. My confidante melted into my solitude, so that her presence didn't disrupt my heart-space (as rilke would put it), but everyone else demanded something from me, or seemed to, and I couldn't tell what.

I regretted how I had treated my brothers (at least 2 out of 4) and could not recollect how I treated anyone else. So they demanded forgiveness. Most people demanded entertainment, and some demanded comfort. I got used to this, giving in turns so I never ran out of any one thing. But it was tiring. and my compassion, when I was tired, fizzled into a kind of fog that obscured my movement and the movement of those around me, and I no longer loved or hated anyone. I could only be bored and frustrated. I'm not sure when it lifted, but it has, and I've realized that compassion is a burden, and that I cannot, absolutely cannot, reconcile that with the beauty and love I've seen.

So I love less. and everything makes more sense. and life is easier, and I may not love my friends as much, but I enjoy their company more. Does that make any sense? So - here are the most important people in my life, and I want them to know they're loved, more than anyone else I've met: Johanna, Danny, Max, Don, Rick, Irene, Taylor, Marshall, Travis, Holly, Owen, and Beth. If your name is not on this list, of course I apologize, but I doubt you're surprised. If you are, let me know. Maybe I will go into more details on a later date of why I love each person and how they've helped me - but more likely I'll continue with random musings and older information first.

P.S. I've left Melody off the list for reasons I won't bother to explain right now.

5/10

2009-05-10T13:29:00.000-07:00

It's true that I have a habit of trivializing things, but isn't an insistence on honesty an obvious reluctance to trust my own instincts?
Lying, and revealing lies, is an important part of our social development - it makes us smarter, more observant, and more fun. Without lies, without secrets, there would be far less anxiety and worry, but at what cost? It's true the mystery-seekers have plenty of TV shows, games, and books to satiate them... and a sincerist could still play the social game by telling selective truths, or transient ones, as long as the person being mislead is, by the end of the night, lead back to the truth. I'd consider that ok. but giving away your secrets is going to have terrible consequences no matter what - most of your friends will think you don't like them very much because you didn't share these things with them, and then your closer friends, your confidantes, will feel slighted, because this precious information you entrusted to them alone, you're suddenly giving to everyone.

but am I trivializing both lies and truths, demeaning them by talking about them logically? can the web of society be unraveled by logic, or does it require that-which-is-not? Well, let's see. The feelings attached to keeping secrets, and finally revealing them, or having them revealed, are as powerful as the secrets themselves. These are often defining moments in our lives. I feel like without them our lives would be boring, would lack definition. Honesty is not the way to a run a world.

But I strive to be honest, because in a world where it's so often forbidden, I would like to be an oasis. I want to be the one person who you don't have to worry what I'm thinking, because you'll know - that is to say, you will know if it's good or bad, and how strongly I feel it, or I'll be silent because I don't care, or can't come up with the right words yet.

4.5/10

2009-05-09T03:23:00.000-07:00

I believe the string of coincidences, deja vu, and plain luck I've been experiencing lately are good omens, and that they foretell a small advent fortune, be it financial, social, or psychological. I know they're actually meaningless - arbitrary sparks shot off by excess caffeine or too little sleep.
Ever since I moved to Portland every penny, so to speak, has been face up. Timing always matches perfectly, every thing I need or ask for falls into my lap almost before I finish my thought. To name a few examples: When I first got off the plane, the MAX red line was scheduled for maintenance at 7:00 pm that day (that was my ride to Don's place) I know that doesn't qualify as good luck, really, only a near-miss. Well the first real omen happened the day I went to an open mic with Mel. The MC ripped a deck of cards in half, to run a raffle with it. We didn't win anything, but when he threw all his halves into the air at the end of the night, the ace of hearts landed on the back of my hand, face up. My hand was out, and it just sat there, looking at me. I still have that half-ace.
Later, when Don and I were looking for a place to live, he decided to go back to Austin. I don't want to imply that I didn't want to move in with Don - but I was foreseeing problems down the line that I didn't want to confront. And we'd been kicked out of our place, and were sleeping on Melody's couch for a while, and the very day she flew back to Austin, I met some people from Garza, and moved into a new place. So: when I was homeless, Portland provided, and when all my friends moved away, it did it again. Just when I ran out of money, I got my first pay check, just when I didn't know if I could afford to eat, I got 200 bucks a month in foodstamps.
These are the most pressing evidence, I won't go into detail on all my instances of deja vu, safe to say that last time I felt such a strong sense of deja vu was my first time walking through Garza, and my time there happened to be one of the happiest of my life.
And during this hectic time, my best friend from Austin, my confidante, says her dad is flying to oregon, and she might be able to fly up. Understand - it's rare just for her to have the oppurtunity to travel anywhere...

A lot of these things are obvious: I diligently worked on making sure I would be able to survive here, which explains why the lack of housing and the lack of money allign nicely with the reacquisition. Meeting people from Austin in this city, within 3 weeks, is hardly noteworthy, it just happened at the right time. Deja vu can be explained as a mental error, and, with the aforementioned happy connections, it could be a response to my situation - I'm projecting deja vu onto my surroundings to make them seem auspicious.

Understanding all this, I still believe that this city has changed my luck and that it is going to culminate in something great.

New Day, New Project

2009-05-08T16:01:00.001-07:00

Hi everyone! I'm starting a new project today, tentatively called disbelief.
here are some questions to get out of the way:

Why am I doing this?
I finished reading the archives of Joseph Carrington's daily comic - Do Something Awesome Everyday - and I decided that it was time for a change in my life. I've been on the path of self-improvement about as long as I've been writing. That's a long time, for those of you who don't know. Which means I'm not really adapting DSAE's principles, but that's where Postsecret and livejournal come in. I've been obsessing over honesty for a while now, too. When I was in high school, livejournal was the name of the game, and everyone told non-specific truths to an audience of friends, in kind of a hide-and-seek game of catharsis.
I ruined the game by not hiding one day, and asking others to do the same. Unsurprisingly, no one did. That's roughly when I found out about PostSecret - a weekly dump of sincere secrets that people feel free to share because of guaranteed anonymity. Well why is being honest such a big deal that we have to hide it? Is the truth always dirty, shameful? The other big influence is This American Life, which made me realize people do arbitrary things all the time; huge things, small things, for better or for worse. Is human nature actually arbitrary? Is this pattern of shame and disbelief poisoning us? Is it, in actuality, intrinsic to the coping mechanisms we rely on to keep us sane? Or is honesty the worst thing that can happen to a person?
which brings me to the next question:
What exactly is your new project?

Well, loyal viewer, every day I'm going to post something that is true, or that I believe to be true, or that I believe in despite knowing it's false.
Obviously a lot of what I say will be banal, and a lot will be embarassing for exactly 1 or 2 people: me and the person I'm talking about. I will not, I repeat, I will not reveal anyone else's secrets, anything they've confided in me, unless I ask them first and they're cool with it.

Will we learn anything from this enterprise? You, or I, or both of us? Maybe not - but learning isn't exactly the point.
- - - - - - -
I'm allowing anonymous commenting without moderation, in the spirit of (my own) truthfulness. Anyone who wants to add to my thoughts, anonymously or not, feel free to.