Crushes are meant to break hearts. It's inherent in meaning.

Yearbooks equal crushed dreams and broken crushes.

That's what I just learned.

I can count seven, eight, maybe even nine major crushes I had in high school simply by flipping through the class pictures of the Haverhill High School class 0f 2004.

(Don't worry, this isn't some sort blast through the past of every girl that ever rejected. Nick Hornsby and Stephen Frears both translated that to the creen way better than I'll ever be able to through words on here.)

Really more than anything it's humorous to me to think back to that time.

I was never a very popular person (at least in my own eyes) and seemed to always get the comments from my mom's friends about what a handsome boy I was. No offense to the friends of the family but, this is something you want to hear from the hot blond captain of the cheerleading team, not you mom's mid age friends.

Fuck that, you don't want to hear that from the captain of the cheerleading team. You just want her to make out with you in that uniform.

(Before any of my female feminist friends call me on any of this, we all have these fantasies. Adn it seems to me today, the first thing, aside from an initial physical attraction, that attracts me to a girl these days is more so her ability to hold a conversation with me more than anything else. So you can calm down now. These are all the thoughts of a fifteen/sixteen year old boy.)

The younger I was, the more brave I was. As I got older, I either got smart enough to know that none of these girls I had crushes on would ever go out with me, or I just got afraid of being rejected again. But it's all funny nonetheless. Because all of this would lead me to where I am now.

I remember the first girl. Sixth grade shop class. We were making spice racks. It was a double period. And i was turned down probably a good fifty times before I gave up. But she was blonde and at that moment in my young life the most beautiful girl I had ever seen. I'm not even sure how clumsily I went about it, but it must have been clumsily enough that detracted something. We would pretend we were The Breakfast Club and I was the nerd. And the nerd, at the End of The Breakfast Club, gets to write the letter. He doesn't end up with a love interest at the edn of the movie.

Next girl was a brunette. Learned the crazy logic of the female mind from this one. Went to elemntary school with her in a different town. She moved to our town. Third, forth grade you chase the girls around the school yard, but you certainly don't think anything of girls. Fast forward to the seventh grade dance (incidently the dance I remeber making friends with Ben Goldbaum because I could recite more than "One" by Metallica as a compositon by said band) and this girl, when asked for a dnace by yours truly says, you never danced with me when we went to the old school together. At first I feel bad until I realize...we were in third grade..we didn't have dances. Girls are crazy.

I think I gave up for a little while after that.

Sophomore year. The most beuatiful girl I've evr seen walks into class. Blond hair, gorgeous smile. And she'll want nothing to do with me. She's a football cheerleader, i'm in the band...it's romance never meant to be . Sam Spade monlogues run through my head. I'm not even sure anyone even knew I had a crush on that one. What would be the point of telling? Way out of my league.

Junior year, I get an idea. I will sneak notes into this girls locker and warm the little cockles of my heart. The previous summer this girl sees me at summer time (This is my third year in English with her) an strikes up a conversation with me like we've been long friends forever. My heart instantly melts. It takes me eighteen some odd months to come up with a plan. So I start leaving notes in her locker, anonymous notes of really bad poetry that today I know is bad but couldn't tell you what I wrote back then (probably much influenced however by the fact that I'm reading "It" by Stephen King at the time, and one of the main sub-pots invloves someone giving secret love notes blah blah blah i digress...) but it was probably cheesy and really bad. Your hair is like flowers yadd yadd yadda. Then one day, way after school, as I have dropped another not in her locker, her best friend happens around the corner right after me committing my anoymous crime. I immediately stop leaving notes, and to this day I'm not sure if the friend (who I also developed a crush on...next story...be patient) told her and they put two and two together, but the blond tall girl I had a crush on..never really treated me the same way again...at least in my own guilty paranoid mindtrip.

Senior year, we're taping the schools TV show. I'm there every week not for the school credit or to learn about the exciting world of TV production, but just to be close to this incredible funny and smart girl who hosts the show. Jesus, I mean that's why everyone was there. Who didn't have a crush on her? She had everything, brains, looks...the ultimate girl for dudes our age. (Except one of the co-hosts. I'm still pretty sure there was something incredibly unhealthy about is Paula Abdul obsession from the seventh grade and...well...i don't know. If he turned out to be gay at our next reunion I wouldn't be surprised. Although some people might say the same thing about me and I 'm fully heterosexual so you never know. I digress again...) The special thig about this crush is it was something I didn't want to give away. It was sepcial because whether she new the attention she gave us was making us short of breath and all dopey, it didn't matter. We liked it. And it was that innocense that was key.

Fast forward a few months. The most gorgeous underclassmen I have ever seen in my life walks past me and starts singing in chorus class like an angel. My friend and I work out a deal where he will ask his huge crush to the prom if I ask mine. I find out she has just broken up with her boyfriend. (This may actually be entirely fictional, but it's how I'm remebering it now...anyways...) I don't know if I'm stupid or self-destructive but a day before I'm goign to ask this girl to the prom one of my best friends finds out her boyfriend can't go. So I offer to take my friend, even though my sights are set on this vison of heaven. My friend says yes. Shit. I done fucked up. Or maybe I was afraid and it was my sub-concious way to keep myself from being rejected. Either way, I went with my friend...another could of would of should of flown with the wind. (Interesting sidenote to this story, a couple of years later I was working with this paticular crushes sister and she came in and one of the women I worked with said she thought I was going to pass out. So apprently, even two years later, certainc rushes can overtake you with out reason or warning.)

So I'm in college. Dating here and there. And again, this beautiful girl walks onto my staff fro the summer. And she's in the process of breaking up with her boyfriend. And one night she comes home from a wedding after locking herself out of her room. And I'm on duty. So it's two am in the morning and 100 degrees out and she looks phenominal and i'm in my boxers and a t shirt. And I open the door and am breathless...she looks amazing. And so I go get my kesy and think about what I should say when I come back, and I decided to tell her how incredible she looks. And so she goes and gets her key and comes back to the room. And we chat for a while and she tells me about the wedding and then strangely seems uncomfortable towards the end of our conversation. The following is the conversation I have with myself when I lay back down:

"Wow, she looked really beautiful tonight."

"That w as really cool that we got to talk."

"She kind of rushed the end of that conversation."

Then sheer terror enters my heart as I realize what I was wearing when talking to her.

"Shit...was my dick hanging out of my boxers while I was talking to her?"

To to understand my embarrasment you had to understand 1)how incredibly hot this girl was and 2) the direct relation of her hotness to the laughter coming out of my friends mouths when I related the story. My friends swore they would not relay any of this information back to the source who I now was embarrased to even look at.

One week after the semester starts, this girl walks up to me and says there's nothig to be embarrased about, she didn't see anything. Strike twelve.

So anyways, this went off in way more of a direction then I intedned. But i guess my point is, crushes lead to not only a special place where things are exciting and secret and special but also a palce of laughter and misunderstanding and confusion. I wouldn't have it any other way though because it's a lsoely unique exeprience everytime you have a crush, whtehr it's enacted on some way or not. And it's always inifnitely better in your head then it could ever be in real life, but aren't things always better and more exciting that way.

I crush a lot. I'm always amazed on a daily basis at the new things that can cause a crush, from intellegnce to looks to je ne sai qua. I've got several crushes right now. Christ, I've developed crushes out of no where on girls I haven't seen for five years that I went to school with for eight years. I may have reacted to any all or some of them in the wrong way at this point. And no matter how much I might think I'm embarrassed by the way I deal with these things, I increasingly find in my short life thus far, that I'm not at all embarrassed or ashamed when people find this stuff out either volunarily or involuntarily.

And while some of the magic might be lost when the crush is revealed, what replaces it is flattery. And flattery may just be that spark that turns the crush into a bomb.

Or at least us hopeless romantics can always hope right?

Currently listening:

S/T
By Auf Der Maur
Release date: By 1 June, 2004

"The cheap seats are boring. Go sit over there."

Thirty is the new twenty.

There's a world of difference between knowing what you want to do and actually dong what you want to do. Why are we satisfied to stay in a world that pays the bills but gives us no emotional or intellectual satisfaction?

It's a rhetorical question.

Things that tend to pay the bills, for the most part, unless your extremely lucky, are diametrically opposed to things that willl motivate you intellectually and emotionally.

But at least the bills are paid right?

Well most of them anyways. The one's that matter.

Let's go back to something I said a second ago though. Is it luck to be able to be emotionally and intellctually stimulated by the work you get paid for? Is it drive? Is it those that are truly successful and happy in what they are doing less lazy then the rest of this with dreams and aspirations.

No. It's not solely drive. And luck pays a part in everybody's life, loves and outcomes.

A little bit of every success is being in the right place at the right time.

There's a fine line that I don't feel like I've found yet somewhere out there. Because there's no lack of passion, that's for sure. It's not for lack of passion for the things I want to do that success has avoided me thus far.

And really what is success?

I guess I equate succes with being fundamental hapy and enthused about getting up every day and tackling exactly what it is you want to do.

But i think it might be something more than that to. Because you don't just look for success in your professional life. You look for it in your personal life I suppose to.

Bottom line is, I feel restless right now. Not neccessarily unhappy, but static.

I hate static.

And maybe it's just a temporary feeling that will fade next week. Because I certainly don't feel static in every aspect of my life. Just certain aspects.

I never want to say checkmate or have checkmate said to me and have it ring with any real resonance, you know?

I have a list. Lots of us do. Right not it's not corporeal. It's constantly changing. But it exists.

The problem is there are so many things we can't just wake up tomorrow and do. No matter how bad we want to.

Just like we can't always wake up and have the person we want next to us there. Forget whether there's a relationship (physical or otherwise) there or not, it's just not possibly for eveything you want to be there when you want it to be. Life doesn't work that way.

Bottom line is i'm really restless right now...almost recklessly so. I'm not doing what I want to be doing most of the time, I'm not waking up next to who I want to wake up next to most of the time, I'm not taking the steps right now to get my self to that next place I want to be.

And it's fucking killing me because maybe, just maybe, a part of me i afraid of changing from the static, comfortable life I'm living in right now.

Even though I hate being static.

Shit's gotta change.

Currently listening:






Source Tags & Codes
By ...And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Dead
Release date: By 26 February, 2002

Pianissimo

"So what are you gonna do kid?

Are you going to sit around, wondering what could have been, crying over the last great love of your life? Are you going to sit back wondering and dreaming about what could have been while time passes you by? Are you gonna stifle that passion with a look and a wink? Are you gonna take it, whatever is thrown at you, with out so much of a whimper? Are you gonna stay static in a world that moves around you, wishing you could have back yesterday? Are you gonna look in the mirror, reciting lines from a movie that's far past being in vogue, thinking that they meant something to the no one you're reciting to? Are you gonna make a dinner for one beside a piano that plays it's tune with no soul behind the music being made? Are you gonna let passion die without a fight or a word of truth? Are you gonna be the person so sorry that everone's sorry for you? Are you gonna keep listening to what everyone else would do in your situation? Are you gonna hold back for that one last chance even though it's the wrong thing to do? Are you gonna wait for that last breath, that last carress?

Or are you gonna go out there and usher in change? Are you gonna add electricity to thing thing that's causing that battery to run low? Are you going to stop fading and do something to make that meaningless motionless thing that surrounds you dissapate and start anew? Are you gonna take that dame by the hand and let her know not if but when? Are you gonna stop shedding tears and start s preading smiles?Are you gonna suck the life out of death? Are you gonna stop reading up and start acting on? Are you gonna stop making and start fucking? Are you gonna show confidence with out saying your confident? Are you gonna start running the whole race? Are you gonna look fear in the eye and tell it your all out of it? Are you going to stop pretending and start caring? Are you gonna stab that motherfucker through the heart and lick the blade clean? Are you gonna leave her dead in the snow and get on the plane and not look back?

What are you gonna do kid? What are you gonna do?"

Currently listening:





World's Apart
By ...And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Dead
Release date: By 25 January, 2005

With something he's been aching to tell you the whole time...

Perceptions of our own realities being what they may....

I can't help but think my attempts at being "friendly" are batted down on multiple fronts by the notion that I might be disingenious to the way i feel about things and people. Nothing could honestly be further from the truth.

(This being said , sometime in life we're hit with the most ridiculous bout of a lack of sens e in what to do, it would seem the subtext then seems that were are unsure and playing games. Let me say, that this is in fact not true. Times ten.)

No one likes games, me least of all. As a matter of fact, resolution as of this morning when I woke up late...no more games.

You know that line in that movie you saw, the one that reminds you of real life but....isn't? There's not much more to it then that. So basically we go through life confused. All of us. Every last single fucking person.

You think you know what the rest of them out there are thinking but really it's just a juxtaposition of your own thoughts and feelings forced onto someone you could really not possibly know less about. So you sit and think and wonder and over think and over analyze and work everything back and forth in your mind four million ways to Tuesday.

(Incidently, while I appreciate the advice I am given, we both know I will never listen to it. Suffice to say, throwing your arms up in frustration maybe be the only option you have left.)

I think my problem then becomes, while truly trying to analyse eveything that's going on right now right down to the nth degree, (Because that's what I do...analyse and analyse until i'm sick....i can't just ever let things be...my mom's says it's my curse) i find there's a disconnect to my life and my process of thought...maybe I'm not the only one, but I feel like I am:

1)I am happy for those who are happy around me only until the point that I realise they have what I want but for some phantom reason cannot obtain. It's at this point I secretly wish for a crash-and-burn (not really becasue these are dear friends but that devil on my shoulder sometimes wants to snicker. We all have that devil, and thankfully we are all able to shoo him away when he whispers these thoughts into our heads.) The reason I can't obtain what other s have are multiple in scope but really boils down to one word: fear.

2)I have too many temptations surrounding me with not enough time and not enoufgh patience to wait. And yet I want to wait for these things that I semeingly don't have enough time to devote to. And because of that I give the impression of a need to rush into these things, which inturns chases these things away. Also at the abck of my mind is the thought that my reaction to their interation is thus that I maybe subconciously chase them away. BUt this all leads back to the fact that these things are all done because I'm afraid if I don't react in some way, any way, then these things will move on with out me.

(An interesting digression from the above hypothesis is this it now occurs to me that all the above statement, be it good or bad, can be directly related to issues I have with certain "other" people in my life. While I'm not wholly a believer in the works of Feud, I do believe that certain elemtns of what he said abotu a relationship between a child and his parent, especially in developmental years, has some sort of significant relation to the relations that child forms later in life, be they stunted (meaning short and messy and cut off), or over developed (meaning obsessive.)

In any case my lack at being able to develop any of the skills needed to fucntion properly in the parameters of all that is lead me the the above dilemas.

3) (and this is the most important one making it the final thought that's running through my brain right now...so pay attention) We live in a world of natural paradox. We live in world where we are told to be honest, to share our feelings, to always tell the truth but then are not only given examples in the world of the exact opposite of that, but are then also discouraged by others actions when we do so. Is it possible for any of us to truly be honest, even given a connotation or subtext of what we are saying, and taken at our word.

So I'm left with the uneasy and queasy feeling that I'm right back where I started from the beginning. I'm not sure at all of what to say to who because, worse then the rejection of any idea I might throw out, is the fact that it won't illicit any reaction. (This is in fact only half true. The greatest fear is still definitely no rwactiona t all. Running a close second is the fact that rejection will come back. And I don't just dislike rejection, I'm, admittedly so now, scared shitless of it. Evidence of this can be seen by the multitude of half started/half finished things in my life - from actual creative projects to relationships - that I have every intention of finshing, giving closure to but haven't been able to quite get to yet, despite the known fact of a feeling of elation I will feel once these things are ended. This fear is as irrational as a fear of heights or to furry animals. I know this. I thought I had understood and come to grips with some of this last year, but fear always rears her ugly head when you least suspect it.)

A wise man probably once said there is truth in all that is said (despite the amount of times you tell a person afterwards that your jopking. Despinte how infitisately small the turht in those words may be...it still rings with some resonence be it smirk or lauch or smile or tear...because it illicits a reaction of some sort.) Reaction is truth.

I can only illicit a responce from a reaction. If there is no reaction, that leaves us all in a sort of quandry, doesn't it.

Response should illicit reaction which in turn should illicit response.

Et cetera.

So what does happen if there's no reaction? What are you supposed to respond too?
Should every reaction illict some sort of response? Even if it's negative?

And don't even get me started about feelings.

Currently listening :





Wrongville
By Sweet Diesel
Release date: By 07 October, 1997