Sometimes, there is nothing that can make me feel better.
The hours I'm in this state add up like overdue bills, accruing interest, compounding the principal, making the actual amount that much harder to clear. And while everyone has monetary debt these days, I can't find anyone with as much emotional strain and stimulation fatigue as I do, other than my boss. I know no one who does what I do, as hard as I do it. I can't dump it on anyone I'd normally go to with a problem, because I know they'll just tell me what I ought to do. I know what I ought to do, and I'm trying to do it the right way. I just don't know how much longer I can stand up with this weight on me, day-in and day-out. I don't know if I can do it right, and while it's not the first time I've questioned my abilities, it might be the first time I've ever had a real reason to.
Mom: How are you doing with work?
Me: Mom, why did I ever start writing? Why does this have to be so god damned important to me?
Mom: You have a gift for this.
Me: It was a choice, and I'm starting to regret it.
T: I'm kind of in the same boat as you.
Me: Are you?
T: Yeah, you know, thinking about my life, and what I want to do with it.
Me: ...I don't have time to think about my life.
06 December 2011
19 November 2011
DIG
Funny that I end up working for a paper called Dig. I've had a thing about shovels and holes for as long as I can remember. I looked back at some old journals and noticed the theme laced throughout them all -- this fear of digging my own metaphysical grave.
While I hold a title that calls me a journalist, I'm still very much outside of that world. I haven't embraced the role so much as I've merely put on a different pair of shoes. Every new world I step into never has my full attention. I'm half-focused on remembering the details of the new one, so I can accurately describe it to the one I left behind. As far as I know, I've never not been this way.
I could take that one way, and say that it makes me more of a journalist than the journalists, as it's a journalist's job to treat each situation as if no one outside of them knows what it looks like.
But I could go the opposite way, and pin this behavior on a character flaw that I've been aware of for a long time -- the one where I can't ever completely leave a world I know for a new one.
I can't identify with anything. I can't call myself anything, be it writer, journalist, or otherwise, because the moment I do, it will become false somehow. And if I can't immediately see how it's become false, it's because I've stopped examining myself -- my actions, my ambitions, my emotions, my motives.
It's simultaneously a fear and a fact within myself; as scary and real to me as credit card debt or cancer. I've wondered why, for a long time.
I'm terrified of letting my life go unchecked, because if I let it go too far, I feel myself digging a hole. And it's not an emotional hole -- it's not depression, anger, or "the blues" -- it is a real, physical hole. Every day of my life, I'm horrified that I'm going to look up one day, while going about some mundane business, and realize that the hole is too deep for me to climb out of.
It's one thing to know I'm in a hole, but quite another to know I've somehow missed the part where I dug it.
Thus, every day of my life is spent making sure I'm not in too deep. I'm always looking for the shovel in my hands; always watching for the people with shovels in theirs. They're looking to bury me as much as I will inevitably bury myself. It's borderline paranoia.
My justification seems to lie in the people I've watched throughout the years -- there's a drought of self-reflection where I come from. The city issues shovels at birth, and when you leave, you keep it. Some of the things I saw there were enough to bury me. I'm not entirely sure that they didn't.
There are so many people in the world who don't let things get to them. They don't live in fear of what they might do to themselves, because they know where they're going and what they want. They've seen the things that I've seen and worse -- they've all watched people bury themselves, and are sure that they won't.
I'm wary of people that sure of anything. The only absolute is that we all end up in a hole by the time it's over.
I can't ever leave a world completely for another, because I make the mistake of caring about the people in both. I never wrote anyone off, and I still don't. I can't look away or "cut my losses," not because I pity them or because I'm sad for them or because I want to save the memory as a cautionary tale. I can't look away from someone who's visibly digging their own downward spiral, because whatever awful thing I'm watching is the truth.
You can tell yourself that it's their truth and that you don't have to deal with it, and that works for most people -- but if it's only their problem, you wouldn't have any losses to cut. Being affected is the default. I have been affected. It's not a weakness; it's time we start admitting that when things get under our skin, it's simply part of the human experience. Because I've seen people bury themselves, I know that I can, too.
Sometimes I try to simplify the purpose I've given myself. I can write, I can relate, I can speak, convey, invoke, whatever you want to call it. The simplest I've ever gotten is this: I can't ever leave a world completely for another, because I subconsciously refuse to believe that there are two. My purpose isn't to tell people that -- it's to make them understand that.
The closest I might ever come is by demanding my own honesty, by digging up things inside of me and forming paragraphs of my faults, how I came to them, and what I think about them. Even if it never leaves my head, it's worth it.
While I hold a title that calls me a journalist, I'm still very much outside of that world. I haven't embraced the role so much as I've merely put on a different pair of shoes. Every new world I step into never has my full attention. I'm half-focused on remembering the details of the new one, so I can accurately describe it to the one I left behind. As far as I know, I've never not been this way.
I could take that one way, and say that it makes me more of a journalist than the journalists, as it's a journalist's job to treat each situation as if no one outside of them knows what it looks like.
But I could go the opposite way, and pin this behavior on a character flaw that I've been aware of for a long time -- the one where I can't ever completely leave a world I know for a new one.
I can't identify with anything. I can't call myself anything, be it writer, journalist, or otherwise, because the moment I do, it will become false somehow. And if I can't immediately see how it's become false, it's because I've stopped examining myself -- my actions, my ambitions, my emotions, my motives.
It's simultaneously a fear and a fact within myself; as scary and real to me as credit card debt or cancer. I've wondered why, for a long time.
I'm terrified of letting my life go unchecked, because if I let it go too far, I feel myself digging a hole. And it's not an emotional hole -- it's not depression, anger, or "the blues" -- it is a real, physical hole. Every day of my life, I'm horrified that I'm going to look up one day, while going about some mundane business, and realize that the hole is too deep for me to climb out of.
It's one thing to know I'm in a hole, but quite another to know I've somehow missed the part where I dug it.
Thus, every day of my life is spent making sure I'm not in too deep. I'm always looking for the shovel in my hands; always watching for the people with shovels in theirs. They're looking to bury me as much as I will inevitably bury myself. It's borderline paranoia.
My justification seems to lie in the people I've watched throughout the years -- there's a drought of self-reflection where I come from. The city issues shovels at birth, and when you leave, you keep it. Some of the things I saw there were enough to bury me. I'm not entirely sure that they didn't.
There are so many people in the world who don't let things get to them. They don't live in fear of what they might do to themselves, because they know where they're going and what they want. They've seen the things that I've seen and worse -- they've all watched people bury themselves, and are sure that they won't.
I'm wary of people that sure of anything. The only absolute is that we all end up in a hole by the time it's over.
I can't ever leave a world completely for another, because I make the mistake of caring about the people in both. I never wrote anyone off, and I still don't. I can't look away or "cut my losses," not because I pity them or because I'm sad for them or because I want to save the memory as a cautionary tale. I can't look away from someone who's visibly digging their own downward spiral, because whatever awful thing I'm watching is the truth.
You can tell yourself that it's their truth and that you don't have to deal with it, and that works for most people -- but if it's only their problem, you wouldn't have any losses to cut. Being affected is the default. I have been affected. It's not a weakness; it's time we start admitting that when things get under our skin, it's simply part of the human experience. Because I've seen people bury themselves, I know that I can, too.
Sometimes I try to simplify the purpose I've given myself. I can write, I can relate, I can speak, convey, invoke, whatever you want to call it. The simplest I've ever gotten is this: I can't ever leave a world completely for another, because I subconsciously refuse to believe that there are two. My purpose isn't to tell people that -- it's to make them understand that.
The closest I might ever come is by demanding my own honesty, by digging up things inside of me and forming paragraphs of my faults, how I came to them, and what I think about them. Even if it never leaves my head, it's worth it.
29 October 2011
Stop Pulling
The Weather Vane Said to the Wind
I do not have a middle
like yours
I can't chase you like they can
and though they can't catch you either
they get to try
I create a picture for those of them
who care to remember that
measurable things aren't always
things they can change
I am stronger than you
most of the time
but when it matters
I can do nothing but point
to where you're going
unable to stop until
you get there
or until you
stop
pulling
I do not have a middle
like yours
I can't chase you like they can
and though they can't catch you either
they get to try
I create a picture for those of them
who care to remember that
measurable things aren't always
things they can change
I am stronger than you
most of the time
but when it matters
I can do nothing but point
to where you're going
unable to stop until
you get there
or until you
stop
pulling
15 October 2011
Can't
This is where it stops.
Not pulling the second all-nighter of the week shouldn't put me behind. Fuck this. I love what I do, but I need half a day off every once in awhile.
I rarely feel like a person anymore. I haven't slept in 48 hours, and I'm a third of the way done, haven't missed a day of work, or slept past an alarm this week. When I do my job right, there's no fucking reason I should have to throw my health to the dogs like this.
I am going to sleep until my body is ready to wake up. I don't give a fuck what I miss tomorrow, whatever it is isn't worth this sort of stress.
Goodnight.
Not pulling the second all-nighter of the week shouldn't put me behind. Fuck this. I love what I do, but I need half a day off every once in awhile.
I rarely feel like a person anymore. I haven't slept in 48 hours, and I'm a third of the way done, haven't missed a day of work, or slept past an alarm this week. When I do my job right, there's no fucking reason I should have to throw my health to the dogs like this.
I am going to sleep until my body is ready to wake up. I don't give a fuck what I miss tomorrow, whatever it is isn't worth this sort of stress.
Goodnight.
05 October 2011
24 September 2011
That Damned Third Dimension
Time doesn't just heal all wounds. It makes them possible.
I'm not wounded any more than anyone else tonight, but with the state of Standard Physics in limbo, I've been taking age-old maxims and turning them in on themselves. If physics can't stay constant, we might as well relate them to things as unstable as emotions, life, and death. Weird how they still make sense.
With these words we have, we can prove anything. Here, I'll prove it:
If everything we can measure in the known universe has been a farce since we gave them numbers, maybe it's time that we stop looking for constants. Entertain the thought that it's all just clumps of random stuff swirling around us, and that matter doesn't have to have mass.
It simply has to matter.
If dark matter is anti-stuff, maybe all we have to do is stick our heads in a cloud of it to understand what it is, or isn't. Anti-matter is a tricky term, though, because everything has some value if it's measurable, right? So what about thoughts? Perhaps, in the new model of Physics, thoughts will have as much mass as planets do, because they all matter.
If it were only so simple, right? If all we had to do was tack one letter on the end of a word to balance the equation!
And to think, we created that word, and accidentally gave it two meanings. Was it an accident?
And, think: how many of us believe an all-knowing, omnipotent being gave us the power to give words meaning?
This is where it turns in on itself: the believers are correct because they are sovereign, and their lives are given meaning because they're sure that it does. Though they've tricked themselves into believing that they've received the meaningful life, it does not make them stupid. It demonstrates the power of belief to the rest of us, and I believe that that power is much more important than the atheists give it credit for.
If everything is star-stuff, and if each of us is able to believe whatever beautiful maxim we convince ourselves of -- whether it's the power of a bearded sky man or that we've managed to flag down and measure the fastest thing in the universe -- why, then, can't the universe do the same? It's a double standard to disagree.
Our universe is an absolute mystery -- every time we think we've measured something real, every time we've found another piece of the puzzle, it's a lie. With all scientific facts and theories compiled, it's just as factual to say that we exist in the belly of a whale. Or, more appropriately, in the belly of something so much bigger than us, we don't have rulers long enough to measure it.
In this brave, new, post-modern universe, in which our sacred constant number of light has fallen under a shadow of doubt, we'd do well to note that everything worked more or less the same before we disproved ourselves. Isn't it weird how unsettling it is to know that science can give us a number that fits everything we know, but still can't explain everything we see?
Similarly, we'd also do well to note that no one can give something value except for the sovereign who's sure it exists.
"Sure."
That word is proof. If every human on earth were to be sure of the same concept, in unison, we would be able to prove it, because we create the tools that measure it. We could do anything. The joy of worldwide agreement, on anything, would create too much optimism and energy for our lonely and fragile bodies to contain. We'd probably materialize a new life-form within our own collective, universal belly.
A life-form inside of us, but not of us, that will label each of our billions of harmonious, living bodies a "galaxy;" each of our organs a "star;" each of our cells a "planet."
And the piles of dead skin strewn across what we long ago labeled, "earth"...they'll call those, "dark matter," because they can't fathom the thought that something so big could be alive, much less capable of dying. It's a simple concept, but they're expecting it to be far more complicated. They won't figure it out until all rules and constants have been destroyed, and all possibilities exposed.
The human state of celestial harmony can't last forever, though, because nothing living does. And the second that one of our billions is no longer sure of what "sure" is, the critters within us will be forced to question the few, constantly-changing puzzle pieces they've been able to reach.
And they will wonder the same things I'm wondering right now: Are all the pieces even out there? If they are, who's assuming they fit?
Why assume we aren't part of the puzzle?
Many life-forms have died, and will die, in inevitably endless attempts at species-wide agreement over a single word; be it "light," "self," or "God." The slain bodies will decompose, and the wind will carry the remnants into their universe. The anti-matter will accumulate, composing the very substance that evades explanation within their rigid set of rules -- the ever-elusive Dark Matter.
What if the true dimensions of the universe are locked inside of every tool, word, or language we've ever created and attributed meaning to? And, because they are man-made, we subconsciously disqualified them? Does that mean our species has a self-confidence issue? Well, if the organs in my body couldn't agree on the meaning of "keep Christie alive," I'd have a lot more than a self-confidence issue on my hands. In short, we disqualify our ingenuities because we know they're inadequate, and we know we can't get anything done until we can all point in the same direction.
All of that jargon will be lost on the life-forms inside of us, though -- it will mean nothing to them, because they do not agree with us. We are not their God. We don't know their answers, and if we did, we wouldn't understand them. Even if we are billions of enlightened entities living in harmony because we all finally agreed on the meaning of one thing, we still won't see what's inside of us.
Why? Well, after we've solved our own problems, we'll have better things to do. We won't have any reason to look anywhere, except out, out, out -- onward, towards the non-existent corners of the universe; stretching and creating more canvas as we see fit. We won't worry about the belly that contained us for so long, because their meanings were expanding far into the unknown, long before our species stood upright.
I'm not wounded any more than anyone else tonight, but with the state of Standard Physics in limbo, I've been taking age-old maxims and turning them in on themselves. If physics can't stay constant, we might as well relate them to things as unstable as emotions, life, and death. Weird how they still make sense.
With these words we have, we can prove anything. Here, I'll prove it:
If everything we can measure in the known universe has been a farce since we gave them numbers, maybe it's time that we stop looking for constants. Entertain the thought that it's all just clumps of random stuff swirling around us, and that matter doesn't have to have mass.
It simply has to matter.
If dark matter is anti-stuff, maybe all we have to do is stick our heads in a cloud of it to understand what it is, or isn't. Anti-matter is a tricky term, though, because everything has some value if it's measurable, right? So what about thoughts? Perhaps, in the new model of Physics, thoughts will have as much mass as planets do, because they all matter.
If it were only so simple, right? If all we had to do was tack one letter on the end of a word to balance the equation!
And to think, we created that word, and accidentally gave it two meanings. Was it an accident?
And, think: how many of us believe an all-knowing, omnipotent being gave us the power to give words meaning?
This is where it turns in on itself: the believers are correct because they are sovereign, and their lives are given meaning because they're sure that it does. Though they've tricked themselves into believing that they've received the meaningful life, it does not make them stupid. It demonstrates the power of belief to the rest of us, and I believe that that power is much more important than the atheists give it credit for.
If everything is star-stuff, and if each of us is able to believe whatever beautiful maxim we convince ourselves of -- whether it's the power of a bearded sky man or that we've managed to flag down and measure the fastest thing in the universe -- why, then, can't the universe do the same? It's a double standard to disagree.
Our universe is an absolute mystery -- every time we think we've measured something real, every time we've found another piece of the puzzle, it's a lie. With all scientific facts and theories compiled, it's just as factual to say that we exist in the belly of a whale. Or, more appropriately, in the belly of something so much bigger than us, we don't have rulers long enough to measure it.
In this brave, new, post-modern universe, in which our sacred constant number of light has fallen under a shadow of doubt, we'd do well to note that everything worked more or less the same before we disproved ourselves. Isn't it weird how unsettling it is to know that science can give us a number that fits everything we know, but still can't explain everything we see?
Similarly, we'd also do well to note that no one can give something value except for the sovereign who's sure it exists.
"Sure."
That word is proof. If every human on earth were to be sure of the same concept, in unison, we would be able to prove it, because we create the tools that measure it. We could do anything. The joy of worldwide agreement, on anything, would create too much optimism and energy for our lonely and fragile bodies to contain. We'd probably materialize a new life-form within our own collective, universal belly.
A life-form inside of us, but not of us, that will label each of our billions of harmonious, living bodies a "galaxy;" each of our organs a "star;" each of our cells a "planet."
And the piles of dead skin strewn across what we long ago labeled, "earth"...they'll call those, "dark matter," because they can't fathom the thought that something so big could be alive, much less capable of dying. It's a simple concept, but they're expecting it to be far more complicated. They won't figure it out until all rules and constants have been destroyed, and all possibilities exposed.
The human state of celestial harmony can't last forever, though, because nothing living does. And the second that one of our billions is no longer sure of what "sure" is, the critters within us will be forced to question the few, constantly-changing puzzle pieces they've been able to reach.
And they will wonder the same things I'm wondering right now: Are all the pieces even out there? If they are, who's assuming they fit?
Why assume we aren't part of the puzzle?
Many life-forms have died, and will die, in inevitably endless attempts at species-wide agreement over a single word; be it "light," "self," or "God." The slain bodies will decompose, and the wind will carry the remnants into their universe. The anti-matter will accumulate, composing the very substance that evades explanation within their rigid set of rules -- the ever-elusive Dark Matter.
What if the true dimensions of the universe are locked inside of every tool, word, or language we've ever created and attributed meaning to? And, because they are man-made, we subconsciously disqualified them? Does that mean our species has a self-confidence issue? Well, if the organs in my body couldn't agree on the meaning of "keep Christie alive," I'd have a lot more than a self-confidence issue on my hands. In short, we disqualify our ingenuities because we know they're inadequate, and we know we can't get anything done until we can all point in the same direction.
All of that jargon will be lost on the life-forms inside of us, though -- it will mean nothing to them, because they do not agree with us. We are not their God. We don't know their answers, and if we did, we wouldn't understand them. Even if we are billions of enlightened entities living in harmony because we all finally agreed on the meaning of one thing, we still won't see what's inside of us.
Why? Well, after we've solved our own problems, we'll have better things to do. We won't have any reason to look anywhere, except out, out, out -- onward, towards the non-existent corners of the universe; stretching and creating more canvas as we see fit. We won't worry about the belly that contained us for so long, because their meanings were expanding far into the unknown, long before our species stood upright.
09 September 2011
Yet, Damn.
a battle of the young
versus the old
the driving force
versus the settler
is it good or bad?
holy or evil?
is it wholesome versus derelict?
those words are too long and don't say enough.
how can i describe the parallel adoration and
agony of interacting with a
soul, sidelined as it solders to mine,
alloy of learning and passion,
the combination stronger than
either alone, before?
and after, how the evaporation leaves my eyes just enough
cracked
to watch you leave
peacefully, without regret,
i assure you i will not resent you for it,
yet, damn.
versus the old
the driving force
versus the settler
is it good or bad?
holy or evil?
is it wholesome versus derelict?
those words are too long and don't say enough.
how can i describe the parallel adoration and
agony of interacting with a
soul, sidelined as it solders to mine,
alloy of learning and passion,
the combination stronger than
either alone, before?
and after, how the evaporation leaves my eyes just enough
cracked
to watch you leave
peacefully, without regret,
i assure you i will not resent you for it,
yet, damn.
03 September 2011
It's Like
In the struggle to relate, to describe, something to another person, I constantly use similes. It's like this, like that. Like something you've experienced that might be, even remotely similar to what I'm describing.
The person I'm talking to makes all the difference in deciding what will best relate MY experience. Intrinsically, it's not their experience, and might never be, so it's my duty to communicate it as clearly as I can.
If it's my bartender, who I usually don't know very well, I'll use the least generic universal I can think of.
But if it's someone I know well, I'll say something like, "I imagine it felt similar to when your mother had to cash out her life savings to buy you a car," or, "Pile up everything you've ever experienced in your life -- your relationships, your adrenaline rushes, your darkest moments -- and pour something very flammable on them. Casually light a cigarette with a match, and throw that lit match on that pile. That's what it felt like."
Sometimes I slip up and try to do that to people I don't know very well. I wonder if they understand anyway.
The person I'm talking to makes all the difference in deciding what will best relate MY experience. Intrinsically, it's not their experience, and might never be, so it's my duty to communicate it as clearly as I can.
If it's my bartender, who I usually don't know very well, I'll use the least generic universal I can think of.
But if it's someone I know well, I'll say something like, "I imagine it felt similar to when your mother had to cash out her life savings to buy you a car," or, "Pile up everything you've ever experienced in your life -- your relationships, your adrenaline rushes, your darkest moments -- and pour something very flammable on them. Casually light a cigarette with a match, and throw that lit match on that pile. That's what it felt like."
Sometimes I slip up and try to do that to people I don't know very well. I wonder if they understand anyway.
31 August 2011
Greyhound
Lots of things in my life are serendipitous. The fact that I interviewed Flatbed Honeymoon last week -- a brilliant, shining Americana star amid a sea of pretentious fucks -- and they gave me their newest album on vinyl as a consolation prize is one in a long, long line of blessed coincidences. Because they gave me this song. I can't turn it off.
Hello Greyhound, my old faithful friend
take me somewhere a ways away
I've had all I could take of these
mean old city blues
I've worn right through these walkin' shoes
So come on, big momma,
get these wheels moving on down the line,
If we can just pass El Paso, I'll be doin' fine
I believe it's time for a change,
it's time for unknowns to unfold,
it's time to lay the cards on the table.
it's time to live if I'm able
I feel like an old lounge singer who's got
one last song to sing
better make it count, boy
better make it ring.
they got some worn out lookin' folks
strewn out across the aisles
it smells like desperation
for miles and miles and miles.
It's time to live if I'm able.
Hello Greyhound, my old faithful friend
take me somewhere a ways away
I've had all I could take of these
mean old city blues
I've worn right through these walkin' shoes
So come on, big momma,
get these wheels moving on down the line,
If we can just pass El Paso, I'll be doin' fine
I believe it's time for a change,
it's time for unknowns to unfold,
it's time to lay the cards on the table.
it's time to live if I'm able
I feel like an old lounge singer who's got
one last song to sing
better make it count, boy
better make it ring.
they got some worn out lookin' folks
strewn out across the aisles
it smells like desperation
for miles and miles and miles.
It's time to live if I'm able.
09 August 2011
I Think This Might Work
Day two of the first work-week minus Our Fearless Leader. It's good in a different way; in this...balanced way. I seem to get more done, and it's hard to put a finger on why.
It's not just the absence of random happy hours or invitations out. It's an atmospheric thing. The air pressure is different, the barometer shifted. I'm not sure if it's that he intimidated me (which he did) or the pressure he put on us all (I've been in a pressure cooker for 8 months), but that room is different. Not in a bad way, just different.
Doors for opportunity and creativity seem to have opened. I feel optimistic where, before, it was alternating between mania and dread. I took better pictures the day he left, and now I'm confident in my ability. My writing has perked up. My office hours are better. Dare I say, training is over, and now I have the tools and confidence to do my job well.
I'm going to look back on that 8 months and be grateful that it happened, but I'd sacrifice Buddha if it meant I never had to do it again. I'm not saying I didn't like Our Fearless Leader -- quite the opposite, I respect the shit out of him -- I've just never been pushed so hard in my entire life. And from the first day on the job, he made it very clear that his alliances weren't with the business, that they were with us. I think that permeated every article I ever stayed up all night working on. Sure, I bitch about it, but a little bit of belief in someone goes a long, long way, and it made me willing to miss important things in my personal life, family, friends, relationships.
And now, that's over. I'm simply better, and I can't wait to see what I do with it.
It's not just the absence of random happy hours or invitations out. It's an atmospheric thing. The air pressure is different, the barometer shifted. I'm not sure if it's that he intimidated me (which he did) or the pressure he put on us all (I've been in a pressure cooker for 8 months), but that room is different. Not in a bad way, just different.
Doors for opportunity and creativity seem to have opened. I feel optimistic where, before, it was alternating between mania and dread. I took better pictures the day he left, and now I'm confident in my ability. My writing has perked up. My office hours are better. Dare I say, training is over, and now I have the tools and confidence to do my job well.
I'm going to look back on that 8 months and be grateful that it happened, but I'd sacrifice Buddha if it meant I never had to do it again. I'm not saying I didn't like Our Fearless Leader -- quite the opposite, I respect the shit out of him -- I've just never been pushed so hard in my entire life. And from the first day on the job, he made it very clear that his alliances weren't with the business, that they were with us. I think that permeated every article I ever stayed up all night working on. Sure, I bitch about it, but a little bit of belief in someone goes a long, long way, and it made me willing to miss important things in my personal life, family, friends, relationships.
And now, that's over. I'm simply better, and I can't wait to see what I do with it.
08 August 2011
Evaporated
Summers here are so tense. But as if on cue, these things that eat at me tend to relax and settle in around August and, though it's still hot as nuts roasting in hellfire, ebb into Autumn. Formulaic as it may sound, year to year, it is never the same.
Four of my friends have left Baton Rouge within a week's time. I was sad for a while, but every reason they're leaving has a point and is good for each of them. I'm happy for them all, and the good things they've set in motion for themselves. It's not sad anymore, and now that all the going away parties are over, I can have a normal week.
Four of my friends have left Baton Rouge within a week's time. I was sad for a while, but every reason they're leaving has a point and is good for each of them. I'm happy for them all, and the good things they've set in motion for themselves. It's not sad anymore, and now that all the going away parties are over, I can have a normal week.
14 July 2011
still
i've been holding out the important parts,
shouting to the world at large,
"hurt it as hard as you can,
so i know how much i can take."
now i know.
shouting to the world at large,
"hurt it as hard as you can,
so i know how much i can take."
now i know.
30 June 2011
Ambition
It seems I've gotten a little too ambitious with work this week.
As I'm trying to go on vacation at the end of July, just for a weekend, I thought it'd be nice to plan out my entire month as far as articles go. What runs when, who needs portraits taken, what things I have to go cover. Sounds like a plan, right?
WRONG. Not only is it almost impossible to plot these things out due to the negligent planning of others, but I cannot pace myself for the life of me. I now have a full page of ideas, which is good, but in my brain, they must be at least somewhat developed and planned before I leave the city for any period of time. They don't actually have to be, but my internal task list has become cluttered and overwhelmed. At this rate, I'll never get to go anywhere, because I have no idea where to start!
I am dumbass. There's got to be some system here, some time-management thing where I can semi-plan for an entire month but not have to look at everything at once.
Perhaps multiple pages of a legal pad would do. And a little less frantic garble. I'm forgetting I have an entire week to pull off four articles for an issue, and I don't actually have to have everything done this week.
Word I like: Gerbil.
As I'm trying to go on vacation at the end of July, just for a weekend, I thought it'd be nice to plan out my entire month as far as articles go. What runs when, who needs portraits taken, what things I have to go cover. Sounds like a plan, right?
WRONG. Not only is it almost impossible to plot these things out due to the negligent planning of others, but I cannot pace myself for the life of me. I now have a full page of ideas, which is good, but in my brain, they must be at least somewhat developed and planned before I leave the city for any period of time. They don't actually have to be, but my internal task list has become cluttered and overwhelmed. At this rate, I'll never get to go anywhere, because I have no idea where to start!
I am dumbass. There's got to be some system here, some time-management thing where I can semi-plan for an entire month but not have to look at everything at once.
Perhaps multiple pages of a legal pad would do. And a little less frantic garble. I'm forgetting I have an entire week to pull off four articles for an issue, and I don't actually have to have everything done this week.
Word I like: Gerbil.
26 June 2011
Stop Being Stupid: An Independence Day Diatribe
Freedom.
The word has a certain scent to it…like mountain air, or dryer sheets. As a word, the double-E takes the inflection soaring skyward with confidence. It’s a well-built word for what it represents.
All Americans have it in this day and age, and it’s really neat! You can do lots of cool things with freedom, like stay up all night for no reason, or decide you really like Astro Vans even though your friends think they’re stupid. Freedom gives you the ability to sleep with your head where your feet usually go, or feed your hamster peanut butter. There’s an airy delight that comes with knowing you aren’t on any set path.
But there are some downsides to it, too. It's stuff that we can't do much about, either, save for making sure our sovereign selves aren't dumbasses.
You can decide that everyone else should like Astro Vans as much as you do. And if they still think Astro Vans are stupid after you’ve told them what you know to be the truth, you might want to slap them. And if their dog gets hit by an Astro Van, you might be super sure the dog died because (by proxy) it thought Astro Vans were stupid. You have the freedom to protest the dog’s funeral…and you might just do it, because everyone should know what happens when you don’t like Astro Vans.
And you are totally free to do that. Legally. Our Constitution accidently protects stupidity, too, much to the dismay of everyone else.
Here is an explanation in the form of a 10-part, easy-to-use narrative. It may help you navigate the vast minefields of freedom as they relate to rights, law, and stupidity, but it will not ever change the rights of stupid people. You may find the format familiar:
1. You’re only legally allowed to do tasteless things because someone assumed you were civilized and reasonable. Though Thomas Jefferson and James Madison didn’t know you personally, they gave you the benefit of the doubt, probably because they had a lot of reasonable friends.
2. While it’s philosophically significant to say that “guns don’t kill people; people kill people,” it’s only acceptable to say aloud if you can admit that (a) saying such a thing implies that you are above needing a gun, because it’s universally understood that killing people is a bad thing. Also, (b) it’s way easier to kill someone for a stupid reason with a gun than without one.
3. No army can occupy your house if you say no, until they pass a law that says they can. Not that they’d want to. Protip: choose living arrangements that are not fancied by armies, just in case.
4. The cops have no right to bust your door down while you’re feeding peanut butter to your hamster, creating an Astro Van shrine, or doing anything else freedom-oriented. But sometimes, they think the peanut butter is heroin or a nuke and they shoot you for the trouble. It’s semi-rare, but that’s the trick landmine: not a whole lot you can do about it after the fact. Guns don’t kill people; people kill people.
5. Though some of our founding fathers had a lot of faith in mankind, they knew that even they themselves couldn’t be trusted when angry.
For instance: If you convince enough people to dig Astro Vans, and then your dog got hit by a school bus, you’d be angry enough to march right on over to the school board superintendent and demand to know why they deal death and evil to children. Trusting your legal system, you call the police. Because you are so angry and upset, an arrest is made for good measure. A trial date is set, guaranteeing the accused a competent and random jury. Odds are good that at least 50% of them do not much care for Astro Vans.
6. Within our legal system, the superintendent is not seen through the lens of others’ beliefs. He is quite sure he’ll get to go home soon, as he doesn’t even drive a school bus, and the whole thing is silly, anyway.
7. Because trials take forever, the superintendent insists that the dog was worth less than $20. The Judge agrees via yawn. Superintendent is allowed to leave after paying $80.00 in court fees.
8. After you find him, you murder the superintendent with a carburetor, because he clearly ordered that school bus full of children to murder your dog. And though you are super guilty, you won’t get murdered at the hands of some people who don’t much care for Astro Vans as punishment. For you are safely in jail, after a jury of your peers deem you guilty of murder by a ratio of 6:4. The jury is free to vote “not guilty,” even if all evidence is to the contrary. You take solace in the fact that 40% of the jury believes that it was cool of you to kill that guy.
9. You slip on a mystery puddle in your cell and land on the concrete, cracking your skull. Within ten years of your martyrdom, your cult qualifies as a religion. Because our basic rights are not limited, and the First Amendment covers religious freedom, the subsequent wave of Astro Van thefts is openly claimed to be part of religious ritual – your followers know their rights, because though you are their founder and martyr, they secretly don’t want to end up like you did. It is legal grey area, but no one who had an Astro Van stolen likely wanted to keep it around, anyway.
10. The Astro Legacy flees, and concentrates in West Virgina, building van shrines with whatever they can. The following years will be hard times for the Astro Legacy, for their prophet is dead, and they are cast out. They find solace in the kindly people who reside in West Virginia, and before they know it, there won’t be a shred of Astro ambivalence in the whole state. In 20 years’ time, they will put their Astro Commandments out in front of their courthouse, made of imported plywood, and lacquered up all shiny-like.
Every once in awhile, the Fed will come in and try to say it’s illegal to display such a thing, but they can’t really do anything because the states themselves reserve the right to expound upon the Constitution’s specifics, including the First Amendment. Eventually, the government will give up, because when it comes down to it, the quarrel is over your dumb ass liking an Astro Van once upon a time, and that shit just is not worth it.
But when your stupid ass followers get a President elected, start a bunch of wars over your beliefs after you’re dead and invade an already war-torn country with a drone army modeled after an outdated minivan, a lot of people are going to wish it’d been worth it to somebody.
The moral of the story: you are free to get mad at people who don’t believe what you believe, but you are not free to kill them because of it – just de-friend them on Facebook or something. There are parts of the world that have suffered for centuries under people who impose their beliefs upon others. Our legal system is designed to prevent this from happening, while giving us the freedom to believe whatever suits our worldview – even if it’s stupid – because they assumed we weren’t. Don’t prove them wrong.
Killing people in the name of belief is pretty stupid, but never underestimate the power of human belief. This Fourth of July, listen to the fireworks – the reason we light them is because they remind us of our own Revolution, when a bunch of yokels led by philosopher-leaders defeated the entire British Royal Army.
That’s pretty fucking impressive, but our leaders will not always be philosophers. In fact, that is the understatement of the century – in the last decade, we chose a President…twice…who believed that his God gave America the freedom that we non-gays enjoy, waged a war in the name of it by pulling a number 4 and lying to an entire country to do it. He got away with it, without ever acknowledging that the people he killed were doing the same thing, or that America enjoys its freedom specifically because our sometimes-Atheist founding fathers wrote our God-Damned Constitution.
(Fun Fact: God’s First Commandment specifically forbids anyone to believe or worship what they want, unless it's him. America’s First Amendment specifically says the opposite.)
(Fun Fact: If New Testament God [the softie] had written the Constitution, he would have written it for the whole world – not just the America part of the world, because by New Testament rules, he loves everybody. The fact that he didn't doesn't mean we have to go write it for them, especially if they don't want us to. And we certainly shouldn't kill them to get a point across, because it's specifically forbidden by the Fifth Commandment.)
(Fun Fact: Old Testament God played favorites. Our Constitution does not, as it protects stupid people, too.)
Be happy enough with your own freedom, and feed peanut butter to a hamster. It’s funny because it gets stuck to the roof of their mouth and they lick their lips a lot afterwards.
The word has a certain scent to it…like mountain air, or dryer sheets. As a word, the double-E takes the inflection soaring skyward with confidence. It’s a well-built word for what it represents.
All Americans have it in this day and age, and it’s really neat! You can do lots of cool things with freedom, like stay up all night for no reason, or decide you really like Astro Vans even though your friends think they’re stupid. Freedom gives you the ability to sleep with your head where your feet usually go, or feed your hamster peanut butter. There’s an airy delight that comes with knowing you aren’t on any set path.
But there are some downsides to it, too. It's stuff that we can't do much about, either, save for making sure our sovereign selves aren't dumbasses.
You can decide that everyone else should like Astro Vans as much as you do. And if they still think Astro Vans are stupid after you’ve told them what you know to be the truth, you might want to slap them. And if their dog gets hit by an Astro Van, you might be super sure the dog died because (by proxy) it thought Astro Vans were stupid. You have the freedom to protest the dog’s funeral…and you might just do it, because everyone should know what happens when you don’t like Astro Vans.
And you are totally free to do that. Legally. Our Constitution accidently protects stupidity, too, much to the dismay of everyone else.
Here is an explanation in the form of a 10-part, easy-to-use narrative. It may help you navigate the vast minefields of freedom as they relate to rights, law, and stupidity, but it will not ever change the rights of stupid people. You may find the format familiar:
1. You’re only legally allowed to do tasteless things because someone assumed you were civilized and reasonable. Though Thomas Jefferson and James Madison didn’t know you personally, they gave you the benefit of the doubt, probably because they had a lot of reasonable friends.
2. While it’s philosophically significant to say that “guns don’t kill people; people kill people,” it’s only acceptable to say aloud if you can admit that (a) saying such a thing implies that you are above needing a gun, because it’s universally understood that killing people is a bad thing. Also, (b) it’s way easier to kill someone for a stupid reason with a gun than without one.
3. No army can occupy your house if you say no, until they pass a law that says they can. Not that they’d want to. Protip: choose living arrangements that are not fancied by armies, just in case.
4. The cops have no right to bust your door down while you’re feeding peanut butter to your hamster, creating an Astro Van shrine, or doing anything else freedom-oriented. But sometimes, they think the peanut butter is heroin or a nuke and they shoot you for the trouble. It’s semi-rare, but that’s the trick landmine: not a whole lot you can do about it after the fact. Guns don’t kill people; people kill people.
5. Though some of our founding fathers had a lot of faith in mankind, they knew that even they themselves couldn’t be trusted when angry.
For instance: If you convince enough people to dig Astro Vans, and then your dog got hit by a school bus, you’d be angry enough to march right on over to the school board superintendent and demand to know why they deal death and evil to children. Trusting your legal system, you call the police. Because you are so angry and upset, an arrest is made for good measure. A trial date is set, guaranteeing the accused a competent and random jury. Odds are good that at least 50% of them do not much care for Astro Vans.
6. Within our legal system, the superintendent is not seen through the lens of others’ beliefs. He is quite sure he’ll get to go home soon, as he doesn’t even drive a school bus, and the whole thing is silly, anyway.
7. Because trials take forever, the superintendent insists that the dog was worth less than $20. The Judge agrees via yawn. Superintendent is allowed to leave after paying $80.00 in court fees.
8. After you find him, you murder the superintendent with a carburetor, because he clearly ordered that school bus full of children to murder your dog. And though you are super guilty, you won’t get murdered at the hands of some people who don’t much care for Astro Vans as punishment. For you are safely in jail, after a jury of your peers deem you guilty of murder by a ratio of 6:4. The jury is free to vote “not guilty,” even if all evidence is to the contrary. You take solace in the fact that 40% of the jury believes that it was cool of you to kill that guy.
9. You slip on a mystery puddle in your cell and land on the concrete, cracking your skull. Within ten years of your martyrdom, your cult qualifies as a religion. Because our basic rights are not limited, and the First Amendment covers religious freedom, the subsequent wave of Astro Van thefts is openly claimed to be part of religious ritual – your followers know their rights, because though you are their founder and martyr, they secretly don’t want to end up like you did. It is legal grey area, but no one who had an Astro Van stolen likely wanted to keep it around, anyway.
10. The Astro Legacy flees, and concentrates in West Virgina, building van shrines with whatever they can. The following years will be hard times for the Astro Legacy, for their prophet is dead, and they are cast out. They find solace in the kindly people who reside in West Virginia, and before they know it, there won’t be a shred of Astro ambivalence in the whole state. In 20 years’ time, they will put their Astro Commandments out in front of their courthouse, made of imported plywood, and lacquered up all shiny-like.
Every once in awhile, the Fed will come in and try to say it’s illegal to display such a thing, but they can’t really do anything because the states themselves reserve the right to expound upon the Constitution’s specifics, including the First Amendment. Eventually, the government will give up, because when it comes down to it, the quarrel is over your dumb ass liking an Astro Van once upon a time, and that shit just is not worth it.
But when your stupid ass followers get a President elected, start a bunch of wars over your beliefs after you’re dead and invade an already war-torn country with a drone army modeled after an outdated minivan, a lot of people are going to wish it’d been worth it to somebody.
The moral of the story: you are free to get mad at people who don’t believe what you believe, but you are not free to kill them because of it – just de-friend them on Facebook or something. There are parts of the world that have suffered for centuries under people who impose their beliefs upon others. Our legal system is designed to prevent this from happening, while giving us the freedom to believe whatever suits our worldview – even if it’s stupid – because they assumed we weren’t. Don’t prove them wrong.
Killing people in the name of belief is pretty stupid, but never underestimate the power of human belief. This Fourth of July, listen to the fireworks – the reason we light them is because they remind us of our own Revolution, when a bunch of yokels led by philosopher-leaders defeated the entire British Royal Army.
That’s pretty fucking impressive, but our leaders will not always be philosophers. In fact, that is the understatement of the century – in the last decade, we chose a President…twice…who believed that his God gave America the freedom that we non-gays enjoy, waged a war in the name of it by pulling a number 4 and lying to an entire country to do it. He got away with it, without ever acknowledging that the people he killed were doing the same thing, or that America enjoys its freedom specifically because our sometimes-Atheist founding fathers wrote our God-Damned Constitution.
(Fun Fact: God’s First Commandment specifically forbids anyone to believe or worship what they want, unless it's him. America’s First Amendment specifically says the opposite.)
(Fun Fact: If New Testament God [the softie] had written the Constitution, he would have written it for the whole world – not just the America part of the world, because by New Testament rules, he loves everybody. The fact that he didn't doesn't mean we have to go write it for them, especially if they don't want us to. And we certainly shouldn't kill them to get a point across, because it's specifically forbidden by the Fifth Commandment.)
(Fun Fact: Old Testament God played favorites. Our Constitution does not, as it protects stupid people, too.)
Be happy enough with your own freedom, and feed peanut butter to a hamster. It’s funny because it gets stuck to the roof of their mouth and they lick their lips a lot afterwards.
12 June 2011
Routine
It's occurred to me that I've only kept and held jobs that allow me/require me to stay up all night every once in awhile. I'm done with all my work right now, it's almost 9am, and I'm still up. Writing.
The constant in my life seems to be fucking up any routine imposed upon me. And goddammit, I've gotten really good at it. Jury's still out on whether that's a bad thing or not.
The constant in my life seems to be fucking up any routine imposed upon me. And goddammit, I've gotten really good at it. Jury's still out on whether that's a bad thing or not.
Afterbirth
I have no comparative experience, but writing a cover story is the closest I've ever come to giving birth. By that count, I have two children now. Let's hope BOTH of them aren't black sheep, cause that first one sure as hell was.
Giving Birth and Writing a Cover Story: A Comparison
-You don't need stitches after writing a cover story, but you might feel the need to remove your trachea.
-No one smokes two packs of cigarettes while giving birth. At least, not that I've heard of.
-Labor takes anywhere from 8 to 48 hours, and how long it takes is out of your control. Writing a cover story takes anywhere from 8 to 56 hours, and how long it takes is directly proportional to how well you've done your job last week. Or how much speed you have.
-Cover story contractions might be just as painful as labor pains.
-Cover stories have deadlines, whereas doctors can only approximate a due date.
-Both end results will keep you up all night, wondering what the world will think of your creation -- both tomorrow, and 5 years from now.
-After you give birth, you're required to hang out with and develop your creation for at least 18 years. When writing a cover story, those 18 years are jammed into however long it takes you to write the bitch.
-At the end of the real or compressed 18 years, both child and cover story leave your sphere of direct influence.
When child or cover story leaves home, both scenarios are met with relief, either in a thank-God-I-don't-have-to-look-at-it-anymore way, or simply a tired sigh. But also, both are met with a certain degree of self-doubt: have I taught it everything it needs to know? Have I fixed all the errors I've made? What if I've fucked it up? What if the wrong people end up reading it, and don't understand what I've scribed upon its soul?
What if I forgot to make sure it had one?
And in both scenarios, after they leave home, all you can do is comment on how people react to it. And in this day and age, both scenarios might only be able to comment online.
A child leaves home with a malleable, changeable life ahead of it, while a cover story leaves home unable to do anything but what you told it to do, forever.
Well that just got real serious. Didn't see that one coming. This better not be my baby alarm going off, or I'll be pissed.
Giving Birth and Writing a Cover Story: A Comparison
-You don't need stitches after writing a cover story, but you might feel the need to remove your trachea.
-No one smokes two packs of cigarettes while giving birth. At least, not that I've heard of.
-Labor takes anywhere from 8 to 48 hours, and how long it takes is out of your control. Writing a cover story takes anywhere from 8 to 56 hours, and how long it takes is directly proportional to how well you've done your job last week. Or how much speed you have.
-Cover story contractions might be just as painful as labor pains.
-Cover stories have deadlines, whereas doctors can only approximate a due date.
-Both end results will keep you up all night, wondering what the world will think of your creation -- both tomorrow, and 5 years from now.
-After you give birth, you're required to hang out with and develop your creation for at least 18 years. When writing a cover story, those 18 years are jammed into however long it takes you to write the bitch.
-At the end of the real or compressed 18 years, both child and cover story leave your sphere of direct influence.
When child or cover story leaves home, both scenarios are met with relief, either in a thank-God-I-don't-have-to-look-at-it-anymore way, or simply a tired sigh. But also, both are met with a certain degree of self-doubt: have I taught it everything it needs to know? Have I fixed all the errors I've made? What if I've fucked it up? What if the wrong people end up reading it, and don't understand what I've scribed upon its soul?
What if I forgot to make sure it had one?
And in both scenarios, after they leave home, all you can do is comment on how people react to it. And in this day and age, both scenarios might only be able to comment online.
A child leaves home with a malleable, changeable life ahead of it, while a cover story leaves home unable to do anything but what you told it to do, forever.
Well that just got real serious. Didn't see that one coming. This better not be my baby alarm going off, or I'll be pissed.
10 June 2011
In Passing
These questions I'm asking, they make the world keep going. This is why people survive, this is how people get happy. They ask these questions.
...These ones.
...These ones.
07 June 2011
Vapor
Sometimes you meet people who hit your soul, hard. They knock you out suddenly and without warning. Sometimes those people are meant to be a fleeting experience in your life, and instead of getting attached, you've got to take what they've done to you and remember it and be happy that it happened. Get bitter, sad, angry or negative about it and the whole experience might as well have never happened.
Say it's easier said than done, but the more it happens to me, the easier it gets and the more grateful I am for these experiences. When you meet someone who hits your soul hard enough to shake it around and make you question things you've never questioned before, that's lucky. Some people on earth go a lifetime without feeling a connection like that.
I've met more than one, and I reflect it in everything that I do. Can't help it. I'm fucking lucky.
Say it's easier said than done, but the more it happens to me, the easier it gets and the more grateful I am for these experiences. When you meet someone who hits your soul hard enough to shake it around and make you question things you've never questioned before, that's lucky. Some people on earth go a lifetime without feeling a connection like that.
I've met more than one, and I reflect it in everything that I do. Can't help it. I'm fucking lucky.
30 May 2011
Where the Humans Eat
It's been a weekend of relaxation, for the most part. Though I've managed to drink myself into a stupor several times, I feel like I've gotten a lot of substance in.
I need to think about some things. I need to talk to a certain person about those things, after I think about them, good and hard. Mostly hard. It's going to be hard.
Shit's always hard. The falling-into-the-lap things are the worst -- wasn't there, and now it is; surprise. Surprise problems, complications, etcetera. Sure, it was stupid in the first place, but it's turned into something I need to think about and make sure I'm okay with before I make decisions.
Decision is a misleading word: there is only one decision to be made, negating the "decision" part entirely. All that's left is leading myself there, with reason, sound mind and my own thoughts, instead of "what's right" or "reasonable." I need to make sure I know why I'm doing this. Otherwise, I risk wondering about it....weeks, months, years later, at weak points in my life. Those what-ifs can be real pesky sometimes, and I'm particularly susceptible to doors I opened and didn't explore.
Dangerous. This is so dangerous.
I need to think about some things. I need to talk to a certain person about those things, after I think about them, good and hard. Mostly hard. It's going to be hard.
Shit's always hard. The falling-into-the-lap things are the worst -- wasn't there, and now it is; surprise. Surprise problems, complications, etcetera. Sure, it was stupid in the first place, but it's turned into something I need to think about and make sure I'm okay with before I make decisions.
Decision is a misleading word: there is only one decision to be made, negating the "decision" part entirely. All that's left is leading myself there, with reason, sound mind and my own thoughts, instead of "what's right" or "reasonable." I need to make sure I know why I'm doing this. Otherwise, I risk wondering about it....weeks, months, years later, at weak points in my life. Those what-ifs can be real pesky sometimes, and I'm particularly susceptible to doors I opened and didn't explore.
Dangerous. This is so dangerous.
26 May 2011
Extremes
And she claimed it took no effort of will to hold him as he wept as he raped her. She just stared into his eyes lovingly the entire time. She stayed where he left her all day in the gravel, weeping and giving thanks to her religious principles. She wept out of gratitude, she says.
She had addressed the psychotic's core weakness, the terror of a soul-exposing connection with another human being. Nor is any of this all that different than a man sizing up an attractive girl at a concert and pushing all the right buttons to induce her to come home with him and lighting her cigarettes and engaging in an hour of post-coital chitchat, seemingly very content and close. But what he really wants to do is give her a special disconnected telephone number and never contact her again. And that the reason for this cold and victimizing behavior is that the very connection he had worked so hard to make her feel, terrifies him.
She had addressed the psychotic's core weakness, the terror of a soul-exposing connection with another human being. Nor is any of this all that different than a man sizing up an attractive girl at a concert and pushing all the right buttons to induce her to come home with him and lighting her cigarettes and engaging in an hour of post-coital chitchat, seemingly very content and close. But what he really wants to do is give her a special disconnected telephone number and never contact her again. And that the reason for this cold and victimizing behavior is that the very connection he had worked so hard to make her feel, terrifies him.
25 May 2011
Once Were Two
Last night, while tossing and turning, generally unable to sleep, I tried to dissect infatuation from love.
I guess love always starts there, with some insatiable passion, a tangling of sheets and lips, a muddling of where your body starts and theirs begins. You might begin to feel something changing in your life, like the climax of a novel, the part where nothing can be the same after that.
You'll hear some crap on the radio that you made fun of a week ago, and all of a sudden, Guns n' Roses speaks to your soul like they know what's in it (and you know they don't), and you don't know what's happening. You leave the house or the bed or the bar and right above your stomach, it feels like Christmas morning in there -- boxes wrapped, waiting for the greenlight to tear them open and explore them.
(I always opened mine with careful discipline, because I knew the boxes would be gone after I open them all, and half of the allure was ripping the paper apart. Make it last, make it last.)
Infatuation is the best.
But last night, while mostly not sleeping, I had two absolutely heartbreaking dreams between sessions of picking love apart. They were heartbreaking because the things I wanted were happening in them, and neither of them can happen right now. And while it's my life's calling to explain these things that happen to me, I could not find words for this situation.
With only 26 letters to fashion an explanation, it's impossible unless you describe your whole world in one instant -- every breeze that blows, every hour that passes both fast and slow, every wave of goosebumps that brings you to your knees. The way cold water hits a parched throat after a long night, every shudder at every touch after that moment you figured out that you didn't want to "grab a drink," "eat dinner," or "watch a movie" with that person, that all you wanted was to be in the same room with him and it didn't matter what the hell you did.
Because everything changes after that, and it's irreparable and irreversible. By definition, that's damage, but it's what makes any good story worth reading.
I am damaged; irreparably and irreversibly changed. Make it last, make it last.
I guess love always starts there, with some insatiable passion, a tangling of sheets and lips, a muddling of where your body starts and theirs begins. You might begin to feel something changing in your life, like the climax of a novel, the part where nothing can be the same after that.
You'll hear some crap on the radio that you made fun of a week ago, and all of a sudden, Guns n' Roses speaks to your soul like they know what's in it (and you know they don't), and you don't know what's happening. You leave the house or the bed or the bar and right above your stomach, it feels like Christmas morning in there -- boxes wrapped, waiting for the greenlight to tear them open and explore them.
(I always opened mine with careful discipline, because I knew the boxes would be gone after I open them all, and half of the allure was ripping the paper apart. Make it last, make it last.)
Infatuation is the best.
But last night, while mostly not sleeping, I had two absolutely heartbreaking dreams between sessions of picking love apart. They were heartbreaking because the things I wanted were happening in them, and neither of them can happen right now. And while it's my life's calling to explain these things that happen to me, I could not find words for this situation.
With only 26 letters to fashion an explanation, it's impossible unless you describe your whole world in one instant -- every breeze that blows, every hour that passes both fast and slow, every wave of goosebumps that brings you to your knees. The way cold water hits a parched throat after a long night, every shudder at every touch after that moment you figured out that you didn't want to "grab a drink," "eat dinner," or "watch a movie" with that person, that all you wanted was to be in the same room with him and it didn't matter what the hell you did.
Because everything changes after that, and it's irreparable and irreversible. By definition, that's damage, but it's what makes any good story worth reading.
I am damaged; irreparably and irreversibly changed. Make it last, make it last.
20 May 2011
I Am Stupid
Man. I am just on a rampage for fucking up shit this week.
These things I do don't make any goddamn sense. Oh, my life, and such people in it. On one hand, I should count myself lucky for having such great people surrounding me at all times. On the other hand, I seem to have a penchant for creating impossible situations.
Seriously, impossible. Self, you're a dumbass. But self, you've got some guts, if I may say so. Some stupid guts.
Shitfire. This is trouble.
These things I do don't make any goddamn sense. Oh, my life, and such people in it. On one hand, I should count myself lucky for having such great people surrounding me at all times. On the other hand, I seem to have a penchant for creating impossible situations.
Seriously, impossible. Self, you're a dumbass. But self, you've got some guts, if I may say so. Some stupid guts.
Shitfire. This is trouble.
17 May 2011
One Week
I've sickened myself of looking at word documents. In the past two days, I've actually felt nauseous pulling up my article template. I'm so glad it's a light week, on one hand, but on the other, getting through another one sounds like the hardest thing I've ever done in my entire life.
I miss non-directed, random conversation. I miss talking about things I don't know much about. I miss being a fly on the wall (the longer I hold this position, the less possible it becomes to walk into a place and not see at least two people I know professionally), able to listen to conversations that shouldn't mean anything to me and being able to postulate on the people having them, without them knowing that I'm a reporter. I've always known that I'm an introvert, but I don't think I ever realized how essential being unnoticed is to my peace of mind.
I used to love having the time to search for pieces of a human puzzle at my leisure, without having to put it together in a week's time for the entire city to look at and scrutinize. I haven't been able to slow down long enough to assess the damage it's done.
My heart currently resides on an organic farm in the pacific northwest, and while it's always been consoling to know that he's still on the planet somewhere, these rough spots are excruciating without him. There was a time when distance wasn't bad, even good for building resilience to being needy or jealous or otherwise, but as I get older, I'm finding that those lessons have been beaten to death. I have learned them over and over again, without ever having had the opportunity to fuck it up. I'm done building it up, and I'm losing the ability to stand up straight. I need my heart.
Though I'm glad I have one, because I don't have the time to develop feelings for, or even meet people who don't have some affiliation with my job. Even if I do meet someone who's unaffiliated, they will be soon enough -- it's a life job, and I can't ever leave it at work; the cables remain attached when I leave the office and sometimes, even while I'm asleep.
When I go out, I see people I've interviewed, and it's hard to tell whether they liked the article or not. I haven't gotten a ton of bad criticism or anything, it's just the disconnect from having previously known every soul who has ever looked at your work, to knowing there are tons of people you don't know who might read 5 pieces of your work, every week. I'll see someone I had to rush an interview with, or had to rush writing the piece that involved them, and I think they can tell I didn't have the time I needed to treat it adequately. They might not know, or care, but what if I've made a triviality to their life's work, with my inexperience and fiction training?
I have a tendency to say I'm good, I'm fine, my life is great and I'm happy. There are times when that is true, and usually they're intense enough to throw a shadow on the things that aren't so good. I'm a born optimist, almost to a fault, and it's not often that I'm not actively trying to make my life better. It's just gotten the better of me today.
I miss non-directed, random conversation. I miss talking about things I don't know much about. I miss being a fly on the wall (the longer I hold this position, the less possible it becomes to walk into a place and not see at least two people I know professionally), able to listen to conversations that shouldn't mean anything to me and being able to postulate on the people having them, without them knowing that I'm a reporter. I've always known that I'm an introvert, but I don't think I ever realized how essential being unnoticed is to my peace of mind.
I used to love having the time to search for pieces of a human puzzle at my leisure, without having to put it together in a week's time for the entire city to look at and scrutinize. I haven't been able to slow down long enough to assess the damage it's done.
My heart currently resides on an organic farm in the pacific northwest, and while it's always been consoling to know that he's still on the planet somewhere, these rough spots are excruciating without him. There was a time when distance wasn't bad, even good for building resilience to being needy or jealous or otherwise, but as I get older, I'm finding that those lessons have been beaten to death. I have learned them over and over again, without ever having had the opportunity to fuck it up. I'm done building it up, and I'm losing the ability to stand up straight. I need my heart.
Though I'm glad I have one, because I don't have the time to develop feelings for, or even meet people who don't have some affiliation with my job. Even if I do meet someone who's unaffiliated, they will be soon enough -- it's a life job, and I can't ever leave it at work; the cables remain attached when I leave the office and sometimes, even while I'm asleep.
When I go out, I see people I've interviewed, and it's hard to tell whether they liked the article or not. I haven't gotten a ton of bad criticism or anything, it's just the disconnect from having previously known every soul who has ever looked at your work, to knowing there are tons of people you don't know who might read 5 pieces of your work, every week. I'll see someone I had to rush an interview with, or had to rush writing the piece that involved them, and I think they can tell I didn't have the time I needed to treat it adequately. They might not know, or care, but what if I've made a triviality to their life's work, with my inexperience and fiction training?
I have a tendency to say I'm good, I'm fine, my life is great and I'm happy. There are times when that is true, and usually they're intense enough to throw a shadow on the things that aren't so good. I'm a born optimist, almost to a fault, and it's not often that I'm not actively trying to make my life better. It's just gotten the better of me today.
16 May 2011
One Love
It's so rare to have an entire day at home, not pounding out copy on deadline or staying up all night staring at a word processor. And it's kind of funny that I've decided to blog after weeks of doing nothing but writing. Maybe it's not funny...maybe it means that I've actually dedicated my life to this passion.
27 April 2011
Waiting
I'm not that disappointed. It's definitely been worse. I'm just ready, that's all.
We've had a long time to get this together. What's five more months, really, in the scheme of things? I feel like I've spent my whole life waiting another year, another two.
I refuse to wait. I decided that last summer. When he left, I did not wait. I kept going, kept looking, kept doing. It was different after that--I was a different person. There was no potential left; all the energy was kinetic. I had no idea what I was doing, and for the first time, I just did things anyway. Aimlessly.
It was fucking beautiful.
Shit just fell into my lap after awhile, because I really did know what I wanted, somewhere in there. There was a snapshot in my head, of he and I happy somewhere. I didn't know where, but wherever it is, there are a million ways to get there.
If time is the fourth dimension, maybe I was able to see in 4-D for a moment. Maybe that's bullshit, and I just saw what I wanted. I might as well have seen the fourth dimension, because one of the very few things I know for sure is that we will live in that snapshot at some point. Maybe not for the rest of our lives, or happily ever after, and honestly, I don't give a shit. I just know we'll get there.
Maybe I'll spend these five months learning how to not wait...better. As long as I'm learning, I'm not sitting around, idealizing over things that haven't happened yet. That shit is always unhealthy.
We've had a long time to get this together. What's five more months, really, in the scheme of things? I feel like I've spent my whole life waiting another year, another two.
I refuse to wait. I decided that last summer. When he left, I did not wait. I kept going, kept looking, kept doing. It was different after that--I was a different person. There was no potential left; all the energy was kinetic. I had no idea what I was doing, and for the first time, I just did things anyway. Aimlessly.
It was fucking beautiful.
Shit just fell into my lap after awhile, because I really did know what I wanted, somewhere in there. There was a snapshot in my head, of he and I happy somewhere. I didn't know where, but wherever it is, there are a million ways to get there.
If time is the fourth dimension, maybe I was able to see in 4-D for a moment. Maybe that's bullshit, and I just saw what I wanted. I might as well have seen the fourth dimension, because one of the very few things I know for sure is that we will live in that snapshot at some point. Maybe not for the rest of our lives, or happily ever after, and honestly, I don't give a shit. I just know we'll get there.
Maybe I'll spend these five months learning how to not wait...better. As long as I'm learning, I'm not sitting around, idealizing over things that haven't happened yet. That shit is always unhealthy.
23 April 2011
Saturday
Today is a vast expanse of options.
All my work is done for the week. I just got $50 in groceries from Whole Foods (that's a LOT for me), still have some remnants of hangover lurking around in the ol' mind grapes, but it was the first day in months that I haven't had SOMETHING to do. I have to go to a show later for a band I interviewed, but I'm looking forward to that.
It's a really great day. I might learn how to sew later...after I roast this red pepper.
All my work is done for the week. I just got $50 in groceries from Whole Foods (that's a LOT for me), still have some remnants of hangover lurking around in the ol' mind grapes, but it was the first day in months that I haven't had SOMETHING to do. I have to go to a show later for a band I interviewed, but I'm looking forward to that.
It's a really great day. I might learn how to sew later...after I roast this red pepper.
07 April 2011
Adultscape
I got a huge raise, at the expense of someone taking a paycut. I guess this is what adult-land looks like.
05 April 2011
Femininity
It's some club I was never invited to join. The land of bows, barrettes and make-up; flaunting of pretty legs and fingernails, tight shirts beneath loose cardigans. Batting eyelashes and waxing eyebrows, leaving behind the little girl, unaware that she's supposed to be pretty.
It's occurred to me many times throughout my college years, that I need to explore how I became this person I am; how I cultivated my definition of femininity. I skirted the topic for a long time, half-afraid of it, half unsure I understood it. Afraid to understand it? Maybe. I knew it was convoluted, I knew there was no reason to think I had to be the rough one, the unkempt, au-naturale weird girl. But that's what I've always felt like.
Stuck somewhere between self-aware and fully-bloomed, I grew to distrust the members of the club. They were sinister with their stuffed bras and painted faces, and the rest of their God-given beauty. I was shaped wrong. I hadn't been given the gift so important to girls of my age--I had a lumpy stomach, a chubby face, skinny legs and flat, brown hair. I also had a premature swearing problem by age 8 (thanks, Dad).
I surrounded myself with the other awkward girls--three misfits who all had strange tastes and weird quirks. Casey, our commander, had a loud, bellowy voice and a boxy frame, and loved to ride horses. Dana was tiny, she had hair flatter and browner than mine and did nothing but practice ballet and read Little House on the Prairie books. Ashley was freckly with a major learning disability--she was put on every ADD drug ever made. She hated it, cried every night. She suffered from flat feet. I let her cheat off my tests because I couldn't bear leaving her behind a grade if she failed. She was the first person who ever told me I was smart.
We were all fucked up. Our families were poor, we lived in Baker and we couldn't afford to look cool like the rest of those cunts. My family regularly received the church food donations, and I was only enrolled in the Catholic school because my mother worked for the church and got a waiver. Ashley's parents fought all the time. And those cunts would trip us in the lunch line, and other cunty things like that. For a long time, I just thought it was supposed to be like that.
But as much as we hated them and all their accessories, we all wanted desperately to be women, and recognized as such.
One day in fourth grade, I stole some lipstick from my mom--it was this awful shade of tan/brown--and at recess, I went to the bathroom to put it on, making sure no one was in the stalls before I pulled it out. I was so afraid--not of what it would look like, but that they might think I was trying to be like them.
And of course, Kayla Berthelot walks in. Cheerleader, tall with perfect hair and clothes tailored specifically to her. The girl I imagined went home to a secret, decadent lair, to conspire with her evil mother on ever-endless ways to be more cunty.
"Hey Christie, tryin' to be pretty?"
I stopped, mid-"O", looked at her grinning in the mirror behind me, and dropped the lipstick down the drain.
"Just, ah, putting on my lipstick," I blurted out, a little too loudly.
"You don't wear lipstick," she said. The grin slid off her face like my grandma's eyeshadow slid off hers, into this stone-face fueled with disdain.
I said nothing as she floated out of the bathroom.
What could I have said? "Yes, I do?" No, because I didn't wear lipstick. She already knew that. Girls like me don't wear lipstick.
And that stuck with me for a very, very long time.
It's occurred to me many times throughout my college years, that I need to explore how I became this person I am; how I cultivated my definition of femininity. I skirted the topic for a long time, half-afraid of it, half unsure I understood it. Afraid to understand it? Maybe. I knew it was convoluted, I knew there was no reason to think I had to be the rough one, the unkempt, au-naturale weird girl. But that's what I've always felt like.
Stuck somewhere between self-aware and fully-bloomed, I grew to distrust the members of the club. They were sinister with their stuffed bras and painted faces, and the rest of their God-given beauty. I was shaped wrong. I hadn't been given the gift so important to girls of my age--I had a lumpy stomach, a chubby face, skinny legs and flat, brown hair. I also had a premature swearing problem by age 8 (thanks, Dad).
I surrounded myself with the other awkward girls--three misfits who all had strange tastes and weird quirks. Casey, our commander, had a loud, bellowy voice and a boxy frame, and loved to ride horses. Dana was tiny, she had hair flatter and browner than mine and did nothing but practice ballet and read Little House on the Prairie books. Ashley was freckly with a major learning disability--she was put on every ADD drug ever made. She hated it, cried every night. She suffered from flat feet. I let her cheat off my tests because I couldn't bear leaving her behind a grade if she failed. She was the first person who ever told me I was smart.
We were all fucked up. Our families were poor, we lived in Baker and we couldn't afford to look cool like the rest of those cunts. My family regularly received the church food donations, and I was only enrolled in the Catholic school because my mother worked for the church and got a waiver. Ashley's parents fought all the time. And those cunts would trip us in the lunch line, and other cunty things like that. For a long time, I just thought it was supposed to be like that.
But as much as we hated them and all their accessories, we all wanted desperately to be women, and recognized as such.
One day in fourth grade, I stole some lipstick from my mom--it was this awful shade of tan/brown--and at recess, I went to the bathroom to put it on, making sure no one was in the stalls before I pulled it out. I was so afraid--not of what it would look like, but that they might think I was trying to be like them.
And of course, Kayla Berthelot walks in. Cheerleader, tall with perfect hair and clothes tailored specifically to her. The girl I imagined went home to a secret, decadent lair, to conspire with her evil mother on ever-endless ways to be more cunty.
"Hey Christie, tryin' to be pretty?"
I stopped, mid-"O", looked at her grinning in the mirror behind me, and dropped the lipstick down the drain.
"Just, ah, putting on my lipstick," I blurted out, a little too loudly.
"You don't wear lipstick," she said. The grin slid off her face like my grandma's eyeshadow slid off hers, into this stone-face fueled with disdain.
I said nothing as she floated out of the bathroom.
What could I have said? "Yes, I do?" No, because I didn't wear lipstick. She already knew that. Girls like me don't wear lipstick.
And that stuck with me for a very, very long time.
29 March 2011
The Rise and Fall of Lies the Cat
Not many people know about Rittiner Drive’s cat problem. The reason: one of them is that everyone on Rittiner Drive seems to own a cat. The other, is that the Rittiner cat problem resides in one ancient, single, feline soul: Lies, the Cat.
Many Rittiner residents speculate on the origin of Lies, and some call him by different names: F*cker, Crack Cat, Why Does He Pee On All My Stuff, Fake Baby, The Talented Mr. Kitley, and Stank. The neighborhood, confused by his survival despite the fact that NO ONE feeds him (everyone has been surveyed), is left to dig up the dried, grass-covered nuggets of Lies’ mysterious past.
But all they’ve come up with is what they have witnessed: Lies’ survival. In the space of the last two weeks, I personally have seen Lies close to death via being attached by a dog—we all thought it was going to happen—and then, he was fine. No explanation.
Then, he got hit by a car, and again, everyone thought he was a goner. But he was, of course, fine. Again, no reason he should have survived it.
Lies has never been to a Veterinarian, he’s never gotten shots or been neutered. He's never been weighed or otherwise accounted for. He's especially never been carbon-dated.
Because I’ve never lived on Rittiner Drive, I have a unique and unbiased history of this mysterious creature. I have done the research—the answers materialized from months of wearing cat ears and peeing on stuff. Sorry, friends and family, but it was a worthy cause. I did not find the exact origin of Rittiner’s favorite feline asshole, but I know it dates back more than 144 million years.
Long ago, in the Cretaceous Period, Lies terrorized the hearts and minds of the Muttaburrasaurus and the Rhinosaurs by sneaking into their dinosaur houses and peeing on all of their stuff. When the First Great Extinction/meteor/God-bomb/alien invasion took place, Lies survived by extracting the tears of dying dinosaurs with a pure copper rod he fashioned out of pain, with help from his razor-sharp tail. He stored the tears in large clay pots underground.
He then peed in the pots, and because of that fateful act, Lies taught his lanky, stupid body to subsist entirely from pee and sadness. As a side effect of this survival tactic, Lies invented the first battery! (see Baghdad Battery.)
Was it an accident, or was it intentional? No one knows.
Because Lies’ bones were morphed into Adamantium because of the aliens, the meteor/Zeus’s lighting bolts/Cthulu’s tentacles did not affect him. As the rest of Earth’s creatures were melting and starving to death, Lies was stealing their tears and peeing on all of their stuff. That’s what Lies does; that is how he rolls.
So how did Lies end up on Rittiner Drive? No one knows for sure, but I knew several folks on the block who had things to say. Maybe they don’t talk to their neighbors enough, but it became very apparent to me after talking to only a few residents.
Lies has no home, nor does he want one. His sustenance is solely based around sadness molecules and pee atoms. There’s one quality of Lies I haven’t yet mentioned, and this quality is the reason he earned his nickname: he can look like any cat on Rittiner Drive. And there are many, many pet cats on Rittiner Drive.
Example: one former resident recalls Lies sneaking into her home on certain occasions, when many visitors were on her porch. Lies happened to be shaded and colored identically to her cat, Baby. The visitors, not knowing the subtle differences between Baby and the immortal catdroid, let Lies in. He proceeded to pee on everything she held dear, and tears were shed—which Lies later collected, though there are no witnesses to that. One can only assume, since he feeds on sadness and his own pee.
The only thing that bothers me about Lies’ current state is that he’s been diminished to it. He had some glory days, you know? Hanging out with dinosaurs? Making the first battery ever known? It must really suck to have to hang out on Rittiner Drive instead of going to the next-best thing (I think it will be the second coming of our soon-to-be alien overlords). But rest assured, dear public: when our civilization blows itself up, Lies will rise again. It’s all he knows; all he can do. He is the bridge between entire epochs of history; he is eternal.
Until then, he’s probably going to hang out on Rittiner Drive, imitating your cats and peeing on your stuff. Hey, at least he’s predictable.
Many Rittiner residents speculate on the origin of Lies, and some call him by different names: F*cker, Crack Cat, Why Does He Pee On All My Stuff, Fake Baby, The Talented Mr. Kitley, and Stank. The neighborhood, confused by his survival despite the fact that NO ONE feeds him (everyone has been surveyed), is left to dig up the dried, grass-covered nuggets of Lies’ mysterious past.
But all they’ve come up with is what they have witnessed: Lies’ survival. In the space of the last two weeks, I personally have seen Lies close to death via being attached by a dog—we all thought it was going to happen—and then, he was fine. No explanation.
Then, he got hit by a car, and again, everyone thought he was a goner. But he was, of course, fine. Again, no reason he should have survived it.
Lies has never been to a Veterinarian, he’s never gotten shots or been neutered. He's never been weighed or otherwise accounted for. He's especially never been carbon-dated.
Because I’ve never lived on Rittiner Drive, I have a unique and unbiased history of this mysterious creature. I have done the research—the answers materialized from months of wearing cat ears and peeing on stuff. Sorry, friends and family, but it was a worthy cause. I did not find the exact origin of Rittiner’s favorite feline asshole, but I know it dates back more than 144 million years.
Long ago, in the Cretaceous Period, Lies terrorized the hearts and minds of the Muttaburrasaurus and the Rhinosaurs by sneaking into their dinosaur houses and peeing on all of their stuff. When the First Great Extinction/meteor/God-bomb/alien invasion took place, Lies survived by extracting the tears of dying dinosaurs with a pure copper rod he fashioned out of pain, with help from his razor-sharp tail. He stored the tears in large clay pots underground.
He then peed in the pots, and because of that fateful act, Lies taught his lanky, stupid body to subsist entirely from pee and sadness. As a side effect of this survival tactic, Lies invented the first battery! (see Baghdad Battery.)
Was it an accident, or was it intentional? No one knows.
Because Lies’ bones were morphed into Adamantium because of the aliens, the meteor/Zeus’s lighting bolts/Cthulu’s tentacles did not affect him. As the rest of Earth’s creatures were melting and starving to death, Lies was stealing their tears and peeing on all of their stuff. That’s what Lies does; that is how he rolls.
So how did Lies end up on Rittiner Drive? No one knows for sure, but I knew several folks on the block who had things to say. Maybe they don’t talk to their neighbors enough, but it became very apparent to me after talking to only a few residents.
Lies has no home, nor does he want one. His sustenance is solely based around sadness molecules and pee atoms. There’s one quality of Lies I haven’t yet mentioned, and this quality is the reason he earned his nickname: he can look like any cat on Rittiner Drive. And there are many, many pet cats on Rittiner Drive.
Example: one former resident recalls Lies sneaking into her home on certain occasions, when many visitors were on her porch. Lies happened to be shaded and colored identically to her cat, Baby. The visitors, not knowing the subtle differences between Baby and the immortal catdroid, let Lies in. He proceeded to pee on everything she held dear, and tears were shed—which Lies later collected, though there are no witnesses to that. One can only assume, since he feeds on sadness and his own pee.
The only thing that bothers me about Lies’ current state is that he’s been diminished to it. He had some glory days, you know? Hanging out with dinosaurs? Making the first battery ever known? It must really suck to have to hang out on Rittiner Drive instead of going to the next-best thing (I think it will be the second coming of our soon-to-be alien overlords). But rest assured, dear public: when our civilization blows itself up, Lies will rise again. It’s all he knows; all he can do. He is the bridge between entire epochs of history; he is eternal.
Until then, he’s probably going to hang out on Rittiner Drive, imitating your cats and peeing on your stuff. Hey, at least he’s predictable.
Cement
Generally I saw my life in days, stretched out between two poles, end to end like a mosh pit full of privileged douche-bags, making up reasons to be pissed off enough to draw blood and make an enemy or two.
There is nothing general about it now. The days aren't days, they are hours, minutes, seconds. And in between each of them is some unidentifiable lust for all things alive; a deep need to run into every open door available to me, because this time I live in is unique. There will be no other like it. These doors don't stay open for long, and I have to try to understand what's behind each one before they fill with cement--I have to get in there to push, push, push, and then draw it out of its hole lest it remain there forever. It is not exhausting.
No, I've not taken acid recently. I think it's just spring. Don't mind me, I'll just be filling all the empty rooms with cement, because their space is no longer necessary.
There is nothing general about it now. The days aren't days, they are hours, minutes, seconds. And in between each of them is some unidentifiable lust for all things alive; a deep need to run into every open door available to me, because this time I live in is unique. There will be no other like it. These doors don't stay open for long, and I have to try to understand what's behind each one before they fill with cement--I have to get in there to push, push, push, and then draw it out of its hole lest it remain there forever. It is not exhausting.
No, I've not taken acid recently. I think it's just spring. Don't mind me, I'll just be filling all the empty rooms with cement, because their space is no longer necessary.
24 March 2011
Cosmic Plinko
Taking someone for granted is rooted in believing that we can ever completely know someone,
and I don't think we can. Every person is a universe unto themselves, they have different experiences that guide their decisions and reactions, and no matter how long you know someone or live with someone or date someone, you will never, ever, fully understand their way of doing things. The trouble arises when you think you do.
However, bouncing things off of another in conversation is essential to understanding the universe within yourself--your way of doing things, your reactions to the small stuff, the stuff you sweat when you know you shouldn't.
Anyone remember Plinko on The Price Is Right? You're that ball, and everyone else is those pegs. We need each other to get where we're going.
and I don't think we can. Every person is a universe unto themselves, they have different experiences that guide their decisions and reactions, and no matter how long you know someone or live with someone or date someone, you will never, ever, fully understand their way of doing things. The trouble arises when you think you do.
However, bouncing things off of another in conversation is essential to understanding the universe within yourself--your way of doing things, your reactions to the small stuff, the stuff you sweat when you know you shouldn't.
Anyone remember Plinko on The Price Is Right? You're that ball, and everyone else is those pegs. We need each other to get where we're going.
15 March 2011
13 March 2011
Too tired
...but never so much that I don't spend the rest of my energy wishing I were there, and not here. There's always just enough to drive me that much further west.
The more I look at my situation, the less I pity myself.
The more I look at my situation, the less I pity myself.
25 February 2011
Flonk
I have been in something of a flonk lately. It's not a funk, it's not sadness, turmoil, etc. So I invented a word for it. Flonk.
Flonk: noun. State of mind in which a person so strongly feels they will fail, that they consider not trying any harder to prevent said failure.
At the office, I continue to think of playing in dirt, writing short fiction and watching things grow. As I edit, I have to think of a million things at once: word limits, order, flow, art, fact-checking. No room for daydreams, really. Somehow, I fit it in.
My brain is torn in so many directions, I forget things. So in my spare time, I end up making lists. The second I sit down to write something for me, I feel guilty because there is so much to do. I've exhausted almost every organizational method I have; I take home that giant desk calendar every weekend and try to come up with alternate methods of dealing with this mass of information. Nothing sticks.
I half want to push myself harder, to prove to myself and whoever else is in the newsroom, that I can beat the shit out of this job. That's the part of me who wants to get better at whatever endeavor I come across; the go-getter. The other half of me sees my lonely cat and my lonely counterpart, my dirty living room (a specific kind of non-mess that comes from never being home), and thinks that I don't exactly have the 100% to give to this job.
I never come home with the feeling that I've done a good job, or the best that I could do. I simply don't know enough about the format or the business to know if my judgement is valid. Does it REALLY look good? It can never look good enough. Compliments make no difference.
Flonk: noun. State of mind in which a person so strongly feels they will fail, that they consider not trying any harder to prevent said failure.
At the office, I continue to think of playing in dirt, writing short fiction and watching things grow. As I edit, I have to think of a million things at once: word limits, order, flow, art, fact-checking. No room for daydreams, really. Somehow, I fit it in.
My brain is torn in so many directions, I forget things. So in my spare time, I end up making lists. The second I sit down to write something for me, I feel guilty because there is so much to do. I've exhausted almost every organizational method I have; I take home that giant desk calendar every weekend and try to come up with alternate methods of dealing with this mass of information. Nothing sticks.
I half want to push myself harder, to prove to myself and whoever else is in the newsroom, that I can beat the shit out of this job. That's the part of me who wants to get better at whatever endeavor I come across; the go-getter. The other half of me sees my lonely cat and my lonely counterpart, my dirty living room (a specific kind of non-mess that comes from never being home), and thinks that I don't exactly have the 100% to give to this job.
I never come home with the feeling that I've done a good job, or the best that I could do. I simply don't know enough about the format or the business to know if my judgement is valid. Does it REALLY look good? It can never look good enough. Compliments make no difference.
13 February 2011
Even Though I Haven't Seen You In Years
It's occurred to me that I've somewhat accomplished what this blog was created to do. I still wanna write in it, because it seems to have helped.
I could always use help.
I could always use help.
09 February 2011
Tendencies
Run around with a dog, who just wants to run, and there's this urge to let your tongue flap out in the wind to drool everywhere with a stupid, happy grin on your fuzzy dog face. True story.
22 January 2011
11 January 2011
Spent
Two days into it, and I can already tell this is going to be that period of my life where I actualized how much, and to what depths, that I hate myself.
Between adapting to normal-people office hours and being a salaried employee, I am feeling the plug that held everything in my heart dissolving. I may sound like a big baby, and I probably am a big baby, but again, I've pushed myself out of my comfort zone. I might as well have moved to Egypt. All of a sudden, I don't keep the same hours as my friends, and my evenings will be spent working on tedious drink special spreads and scrambling to fill white space. And if I'm lucky and plan well, which might take awhile, that white space might eventually have actual content.
But until then, the heart's dissolving. Broke for 3 weeks, and working non-stop until then. This always happens with a job change, and most people have savings for that sort of thing. I don't. I suppose as long as I can pay my rent, I'll be fine. I'd like electricity, but I'm not picky. I'd like some food, but I suppose I can deal. Done it before, but with each two-month period I live stressed for basic needs like this, it gets a little less fun.
However, the one amusing factoid about this job is that, no matter how many times they drag me into the office at 9am, I'm still writing everything when I get home. I can't write in an office. I tried; does not work. As soon as I get home, I make a pot of coffee and get to work like I've always done. Work and writing cannot be cross-bred, else I develop a burning hatred for the trade.
Between adapting to normal-people office hours and being a salaried employee, I am feeling the plug that held everything in my heart dissolving. I may sound like a big baby, and I probably am a big baby, but again, I've pushed myself out of my comfort zone. I might as well have moved to Egypt. All of a sudden, I don't keep the same hours as my friends, and my evenings will be spent working on tedious drink special spreads and scrambling to fill white space. And if I'm lucky and plan well, which might take awhile, that white space might eventually have actual content.
But until then, the heart's dissolving. Broke for 3 weeks, and working non-stop until then. This always happens with a job change, and most people have savings for that sort of thing. I don't. I suppose as long as I can pay my rent, I'll be fine. I'd like electricity, but I'm not picky. I'd like some food, but I suppose I can deal. Done it before, but with each two-month period I live stressed for basic needs like this, it gets a little less fun.
However, the one amusing factoid about this job is that, no matter how many times they drag me into the office at 9am, I'm still writing everything when I get home. I can't write in an office. I tried; does not work. As soon as I get home, I make a pot of coffee and get to work like I've always done. Work and writing cannot be cross-bred, else I develop a burning hatred for the trade.
06 January 2011
Playin' Hookey
Well, not really. I do have some sort of food-borne illness, for which I refuse to go to the doctor, because I frown on the dignity quotient of pooping in a cup within the sanitary, weird-smelling walls of a doctor's office bathroom.
So I took today off, which is rare, because I woke up with a horrifying backache that felt as though someone had set fire to my spine. A valid reason: spine fire.
I have a lot to do before Monday. This..."Job" fell into my lap a few weeks ago as the entertainment editor/staff writer for a new magazine called "Dig". It started on Craigslist. As a freelancer, I am doomed to haunt the Craigslist job listings every day, for all of days. So I found a listing asking for people who wanted to write REAL journalism.
Now, REAL journalism is a childhood dream of mine. A dream that dissolved under the unbridled lunacy of today's "branded" journalism. I gave up on it a long time ago, when I started reading (well, really when I started watching) the news. I wanted to be a muckraker, a digger, a revealer of dirty secrets. A world-changer. When I realized I'd have to overhaul the entire industry to write what I wanted to, I gave up. Prematurely, too easily, and without any sort of fight. That's a bad habit of mine.
I didn't know there were others braver than me. I didn't bother searching them out, because I'm a coward, and when left to my own devices (or at least, in that period of my life), I'll just scrape by so I can fart around in all my free time.
So I met up with the editor a few weeks ago, at Perk's, and he got me very, very excited. I felt these childhood yearnings sparking inside of me for the first time in a decade. Taking a shot at Baton Rouge. Cease feeding them the fodder they want, and start forcing down some truth. This city needs to be changed, and this new magazine is setting out to do it. Right off the top of my head, I made a list of things I could write about. All these injustices people bitch about all the time, but never do anything about. Kickbacks, dirty politics, racism. It's all here, festering in the basements, waiting to be aired.
And, uh, this editor was impressed by my overzealous enthusiasm, probably because it was real and unfiltered (I was saying things like "OMG, THIS THIS AND THIS! YUEAHHH!). When he found out he had money in the budget for salaried full-timers, he called me. Annnnnd I signed a contract. He gave me homework--"The New Journalists" and things of that sort--and I start Monday. So he basically hired me solely based on enthusiasm, because all I've got on my resume' are a few shitty articles that I didn't really care about, and I've never held an editing position.
Whatever. I'll take it.
So I took today off, which is rare, because I woke up with a horrifying backache that felt as though someone had set fire to my spine. A valid reason: spine fire.
I have a lot to do before Monday. This..."Job" fell into my lap a few weeks ago as the entertainment editor/staff writer for a new magazine called "Dig". It started on Craigslist. As a freelancer, I am doomed to haunt the Craigslist job listings every day, for all of days. So I found a listing asking for people who wanted to write REAL journalism.
Now, REAL journalism is a childhood dream of mine. A dream that dissolved under the unbridled lunacy of today's "branded" journalism. I gave up on it a long time ago, when I started reading (well, really when I started watching) the news. I wanted to be a muckraker, a digger, a revealer of dirty secrets. A world-changer. When I realized I'd have to overhaul the entire industry to write what I wanted to, I gave up. Prematurely, too easily, and without any sort of fight. That's a bad habit of mine.
I didn't know there were others braver than me. I didn't bother searching them out, because I'm a coward, and when left to my own devices (or at least, in that period of my life), I'll just scrape by so I can fart around in all my free time.
So I met up with the editor a few weeks ago, at Perk's, and he got me very, very excited. I felt these childhood yearnings sparking inside of me for the first time in a decade. Taking a shot at Baton Rouge. Cease feeding them the fodder they want, and start forcing down some truth. This city needs to be changed, and this new magazine is setting out to do it. Right off the top of my head, I made a list of things I could write about. All these injustices people bitch about all the time, but never do anything about. Kickbacks, dirty politics, racism. It's all here, festering in the basements, waiting to be aired.
And, uh, this editor was impressed by my overzealous enthusiasm, probably because it was real and unfiltered (I was saying things like "OMG, THIS THIS AND THIS! YUEAHHH!). When he found out he had money in the budget for salaried full-timers, he called me. Annnnnd I signed a contract. He gave me homework--"The New Journalists" and things of that sort--and I start Monday. So he basically hired me solely based on enthusiasm, because all I've got on my resume' are a few shitty articles that I didn't really care about, and I've never held an editing position.
Whatever. I'll take it.
04 January 2011
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