Thursday, December 31, 2009

"The Groove Is In the Heart."

I used to have a friend named Jill who would constantly tell me, "You are fired from my life" even though it seemed like we would be friends for life. She had lots of way cooler tattoos than me and idolized Lady Miss Kier. I forget why we stopped talking. Don't think it was anything specific, just lost touch I guess. '

I miss Jill O.

Thursday, December 24, 2009

"Full Circle."

This past year started with confusion, stress, a need to finish one thing and striving to keep something else going, even though I was blind to see the writing was on the wall months before it actually did...

...crash and burn. How I like my life.

Originally, (within this disclaimer, pointing out this means like 5 minutes ago) I felt this would be some diatribe on the meaning of life and what it all means. On how a couple of weeks ago I thought my year, in a way, has left me full circle emotionally in the same place I was a year ago.

Except that's bullshit. For the first time in a long time, I don't feel like I'm living in concentric circles of misery and confusion. I haven't asked the question, "What's wrong with me?" in a couple of weeks now because I think I've figured out what was told to me two weeks before my birthday almost a year ago...

It's not me. It's you.

There's a simple reason: Some people are bad people. No matter what their motives, no matter what you want to think of them, not matter what you do or react or how you try to treat them...some people are just not capable of dealing with the realities of life and compensating goodness back. Lie, cheat, steal, ignore..maybe it's part immaturity and maybe it's a soul centering selfishness that can't be reconciled.

The whole year, wrenching back and forth over something that's got no explanation than a scared child is incapable of being honest. Likely with anyone.

Either way, I don't care. It's completely out of my control, and it doesn't define who I am. A new job, new friendships, re-connections, a graduation, and a talk with advice I should have listened to myself have taught me that frankly some people just aren't only worth the trouble, but really, probably where never really worth the time to begin with.

I'm just sorry I didn't realize this...I mean really...realize this quicker. It's on to bigger and better things now. People who can appreciate me and show that appreciation without throwing out excuses for their own guilt. I've got too many things to do (both planned and spontaneously) now, and I'm excited about what the future holds. I'm excited about not knowing what the future holds even more.

Good-bye, 2009. I hope it was all worth it.

Tuesday, December 01, 2009

"Pro-logue."

She tried to mean it would last forever when she said it. It ended up lasting slightly shorter than that.

Tuesday, November 24, 2009

"Advi(s)(c)e."

You are always a little bit better than you give yourself credit for.

Don't
wait.

Never call.

Just talk.

Face to face.

This is just a beginning.

I can't even begin to imagine what any of the above means. It floats through the mind as thoughts with no real meaning other than what it means to me. I sometimes think I don't even know where I am anymore or what I want. Five minutes after I feel comfortable I panic because I'm not. Normal is a state of mind that people try to trick themselves into. I watch some people and wonder if they are happy, really happy. Then I wonder if comfort is a form of happiness. But really, I don't think it is.

Who really knows what they want?

If you want to sit, with another person, watch a movie, or a show, or listen to music, or play a game...what if you get bored?

What if all we really want is another person next to us on the same wavelength as us and the activity your participating in is negligible at best?

Sometimes I wonder what that other person is really for since mostly, they seem to make you miserable that their not there. Or they just never really want to be there at all and are simply acting the part to save hurt feelings...

I only think I want what i can't have. Or I only think I want this imaginary thing that I've never really experienced (or maybe wanted to experience so bad that I've tricked myself into thinking what those fleeting things were)

Some one recently told me I'm at home on stage or with words but outside those two safe places I'm unsure and this comes across as a lack of confidence.

That maybe true...or maybe it's that no one's presented an environment as amazing as the way it feels when you are on stage or wrapped up in your own written words.

Either way, I don't think I care anymore. I do know this whole thing...whatever it's been...is over now.

Time to start anew.

Friday, September 11, 2009

"Ghosts."

I'm.

Not.

Here.



I've never been here.

Not really.

Thursday, September 10, 2009

"lost."

Have you ever gotten so far inside your thoughts that you forgot where you were? Is that even a possibility?

Music usually clears my thoughts. Not lately.

What happens to a dream deferred?

I don't know Mr. Hughes.

I spend every day trying to figure out how I can want everything and nothing at the same time.

Self-esteem is a son of a bitch.

Love is an illusion. Something not real.

All the while deathly afraid that this constant state of off-kilter is exactly what I strive for all along the way.

I don't want you.

But I want you.

I want you to want...me.

But if I'm nothing then doesn't that mean I want nothing?

We all strive for those quiet moments, when everything seems good. They're small...few and far between...and nothing to initiate them into starting...nothing stopping them from fleeing just as fast.

I want to crawl into those moments and never leave them.

No, I don't. I want to feel exhilarated and excited and comforted and content all at once.

This is not life.

It's much easier to tell people to live, than it is to take your own advice.

Closure and comfort are then mutually exclusive.

Although I'm not so sure I really believe that.

I recently realized things can be easy. I have a hard time distinguishing easy from settling.

Not that it matters because "settling", things being "easy", that's not a real option anyways.

No matter what these self-proclaimed "signs" may say.

Signs almost like a game.

A game I'm not sure I can play any more.

A game I'm not sure I want to play anymore.

Sunday, August 30, 2009

"Reset."

We can dwell and analyze things that have happened in the past (recent or ancient) and things we can't change or we can just be.

It's hard to set yourself up in a new state of mind if you've spent any extended amount of time over-thinking what your life has been before.

Life is life. It is what we thought it was.

I don't hold anger well. I don't think anyone actually does. Anger is not a natural state to live one's life in.

The one thing she said to me that makes sense, and is the most honest thing she ever said to me was that time heals all wounds.

I'm not a typically bitter or angry person. I want things to be healed. It's quite possible that they never will be however.

That's not me, it's her.

It's definitely her.

There's no such thing as too nice. This is a fallacy made up by people who want to ignore the real problems in their own lives. Too nice is an excuse. Excuses can step the fuck off.

In the end, you have major problems if your misconception is that someone is too nice to you, cares about you too much. These things are terms people make up to justify a lack of logic in their own lives.

It's sad really.

If you want an asshole, you deserve an asshole.

That's sad too.

I just don't care anymore. (Not to be confused with being bitter or angry. It's both better and worse depending on the stance you take on not caring about things.)

Tomorrow is the first day of the rest of my life.

Scratch that.

Today is the first day of the rest of my life.

Friday, July 31, 2009

"Dream.Crush."

Crushes exists to allow us to live our lives vicariously with another person without actually having to realize what the reality of that relationship would be like. Crushes allow us to understand what the fantasy of being with another person would be like, but without all the messiness of actually getting involved with them. Crushes seem to always be resultant in an immediate and sometimes intense physical attraction, but the beauty of the crush is that the imagination lets the mind run free in fulfilling the idea that both physically and mentally this person is perfect for you.

To crush is the ability to fall for someone from afar, or sometimes even several people at once.

A crush is also a defense mechanism. It's a way to recognize that you'd never be able to actually initiate anything with these people, because you feel they are completely unattainable, or the more popular phrasing of "out of your league". So in a way there's no pressure to fulfill a crush because you don't think you necessarily have a chance with them, being that you don't think they would ever be interested ore that the timing is wrong or whatever the case may be.

Much like a crush, a dream can be fulfillment of the libido or attraction in the subconscious. Some dream analysts explain things representing other things as a call out to subversive things brimming underneath the surface of your conscious mind.

I say this is bullshit.

Dreams are manifestations of our subconscious to be sure, but they could also be a manifestation of positive thinking, something we want to make happen, something we think we can make happen.

Obviously in this case, the things have to be normal to the material world. Of course most people don't dream about unicorns and magic. Most people dream about themselves in the most abstract terms, whether they be metaphoric or literal.

So, what happens when the crush, something that can be determined as unattainable intersects with your dreams, something that your mind believes, at a subconscious level at least, is attainable by you.

I don't usually dream.

Strike that. I don't usually remember my dreams. At least no in any sort of vivid state. Usually it's very small fractured pieces that are largely gone from my memory by noon of the day after I had the dream.

Last night I had a dream that I remembered vividly. Well maybe not vividly, but I remember the intensity and memory of it sticking with me when I woke up this morning. Details aren't necessary, but it's caused me to think seriously about what it means, my above (perhaps now former) thought and conceptualization of the crush versus the concept of the dream.

My mind seems to be trying to tell me something (that sounds kind of crazy but true at the same time) that my fears and insecurities have help me from doing.

It's a weekend for thinking. Maybe too much so. But I feel like it also is some sort of muse to something creative in my near future.

That and it conceptualized how much more emotionally transformative simple kissing can be to sex.

Wednesday, July 22, 2009

"Writer's Block."

What do you write when you're not sure what to write?

A riddle wrapped in a question wrapped in a conundrum.

Or something like that.

I've been sitting wondering about word for the last week.

Writing and re-writing.

Re-writing. Not revising.

I hate revising. One thing I've learned to this point is to never deny your first instincts. Instincts are all we have that tell us whats ultimately right and wrong for ourselves.

What we say can be infinitely different from what we write. Saying things involves depths of speech and words and actions that can't be interpreted on the page. A good writer is able to translate the emotions and motions of speech onto the page but it's never the same.

It's artificial.

I always prefer to write out things because I always think it explains my thoughts so much more vividly than if I'm placed on the spot and have to emote them through the little orifice on my face, which always always seems to betray me by either saying the wrong thing, deleting things, or saying nothing at all.

The only place where we can perceive things being more brilliant than on the written page is in our heads. Thinking about what you are going to write or say is really the precipice of meaning in what you are trying to convey. Thus it never gets any more pure than what's in your head.

Rarely have I ever heard a writer say that what they get out of their imaginations is exactly as they wanted on the written page. Sometimes it's better, some times it's not quite as good, but rarely, if ever is it the same. This also seems to take for granite that better or not as good is the same as pure.

They are not. Purity is as close as you can get to perfect in some aspects.

I'm not scared to write or say things, nor share them with othr people and yet there's an invisible undefinable wall that sometimes keeps me from doing so.

It's probably the inner critic in me saying that no one will like any of it.

Or maybe it's the inner critic in me saying it's not even worth comment, which I suppose is worse than being loved or hated.

Currently, there's all these things going in a million directions, and it's difficult to keep track because none of them have endpoints right now.

Or they could have endpoints...it's just the endpoints have not been placed.

Or something.

I want to be honest at it's core. I want to say what I mean and mean what I say.

I want to mean what i write and write what I mean.

But what if I don't know what that is?

Square one.

So...what do you say when you don't know what to say?

"Nothing."

At least right now.

Thanks.

Monday, July 13, 2009

"Rejection."

True story. I asked Tina Comeau to dance with me while Love Bites by Def Leppard played at the 7th grade dance. She said no. She said no because I never asked her to dance when we were in the 4th grade together. Tina and I had gone to school in Amesbury together, and then I moved, and then two years later she obviously convinced her parents to move to Haverhill to chase after me. Anyways, back to the story, her reasoning was fine and logical. Except we didn't have dances in the 4th grade. SO there is no way i could have asked her to dance.

This was just one in a long line of rejections I suffered early in my life with girls due to their not making any sense and me taking the rejection harder than I should.

Recently, I decided I wasn't going to be obsessed with the rejections of my youth any longer because it had gotten to a point where it intertwined throughout my life where starting and finishing things in general have become a gargantuan task. It started with my recent graduation, that for whatever reason, I have had as a monkey on my back for many years. I think it stems from not knowing what comes next after such a huge achievement being finished. But part of it also seems to be the inability to finish because not finishing in some way is better than the rejection felt by failing at something.

My second stint at school recently was much more streamline and easy than I remember the nightmare of my first stint. My first stint seemed a constant stressful game of procrastination and last minute papers tat didn't get passed in because they just weren't good enough. Rejection reared it's ugly head. This was compounded by a massive meltdown on my part due to a massive downfall and rejection of a relationship at the end of that first stint that seemed to all funnel the perfect storm of one of the lowest parts of my life. Depression followed, with the inability to get out of bed for a couple of months.

Then I told my self to stop it. And slowly but surely I've been building myself back up ever since.

I guess I at some point, beyond my immediate academic pursuits, like many others, would like to fancy myself a writer, a wordsmith if you would.

But until recently, I have never be able to get beyond conception of the ideas beyond my head. I say recently, because some of the great scholars at UMass-Boston actually helped me to bust through that fear of rejection just a little bit. The greatest thing a professor can say to a student who wants to write is "This is not up to your usual high standard of writing." Another thing, as said to my sibling, "Your parents read to you as children. It's how they turned out two fine writers."

So I want to teach. I feel an affinity for it and think I can help others realize their potential.

But I also want to write. For myself more than anybody else. But, the ego in me does say, for other people too. Because the greatest compliment in the world is people embracing what you've spent a long time sweating and slaving over, putting these words together in their oh so important and relevant order.

Great novelist and comic book scene setter Greg Rucka once said in a seminar I went to that, and I'm paraphrasing here, to become a good writer you have to write. Everyday. It doesn't matter what it is, if it's good or bad or indifferent. You have to write.

I guess the idea of rejection has kept me at times from doing this. But I'm sick of rejection.

That's not accurate. I'm tired of being scared.

The last few months I went through this whole thing were being afraid and not myself cost me a lot, whether it was my fault or not. More and more I think it wasn't my fault and fear and rejection were just and excuse for me to justify how things were.

The rejection, as it was, had nothing to do with me. Most of the rejection I self-harbor in my life in actuality has nothing to do with me.

A friend of mine in high school always had these girlfriends and I could never understand why or how. And one day I realized he was fearless. That was his key.

As it needs to be ours.

So in life, rejection is just an excuse. We all need to push it aside and no longer let it define who we are, but rather redefine it as any number of negative and needless things in our lives...it's just an excuse.

Live life. Do what you want to do. If you see something, try to reach for it. If you miss, you get other chances at bat.

Even Ted Williams struck out once in a while. But he still got back up to the plate.

Friday, June 26, 2009

"Orenthal James Simpson 1947-2009"

(AP) Reports are coming in stating that Orenthal James Simpson has passed away today while incarcerated at Lovelock Correctional Center in Lovelock, Nevada. Details are sketchy currently, but sources are saying that Simpson, affectionately know as O.J. to friends and family, was trying to defend a fellow inmate while being "shanked" mercilessly to death. This coming mere months after being sentenced at a noble attempt at vigilantism to reclaim his own possessions from a number of corrupt memorabilia resellers in the black underground racket of reselling celebrity items for huge profit. "He carries on in death as he did in life. A noble spirit who only thought about others, and was always willing to put their needs in front of his own," said former lawyer and friend Robert Shapiro.

Simpson came to prominence after a stellar and Heisman award winning performance as a University of Southern California running back in the late 1960's. Simpson parlayed this into a very prominent career with the American Football League's (and later National Football Leagues) Buffalo Bills. But perhaps how OJ is most remembered and beloved is for his role as Officer Nordberg, the dimwitted and hapless but lovable sidekick to Lesley Nielsen's Officer Frank Drebin in the hit Naked Gun movies. "[Simpson] played these roles with a gullibility that made you think he could be anyone's friend," said close friend Al Cowlings.

Simpson leaves 5 children from his two marriages. He died just short of his 61st birthday.

Saturday, June 20, 2009

"Be Careful What You Wish For."

"This is not a relationship. We're not in a relationship."

" I know. We firmly established that in the beginning. I never asked you for that. BUt we also were not about labels, and suddenly it's labeling by labeling what it's not."

"I know. That's because it feels like a relationship."

"I know. It feels like all the shitty parts of a relationship."

"I know."

What does hanging out mean? What is it's definition in the American dictionary of relationships? It seems pretty simple upon first glance, but it becomes so much more complicated once you actually attempt to do it.

This seems clearly to be because there's so much expectation on what's supposed to come after "hanging out". And what exactly are the boundaries where you cross over from this state into dating or a relationship or whatever comes after.

I propose a moratorium on labels and titles that come from the American Dictionary of Relationships. Because the words never mean what they are supposed to mean in it and they always suppose so much more than they need to.

How can you get to know anyone if the immediate bottom line seems to be to jump into a binding contract with them off the bat?

In order to hang out, it would suppose a requisite is to actually spend time.

But hang out has so many different interpretations connected to it. What does it mean? and where does it go from there? This is one of the great mysteries in human relationships.

And exactly how do you spend this time...the dating of our ancestors is seriously antiquated and outdated.

Going to the movies are never appropriate early dates. Your going to sit in the dark for two hours with someone you were supposed to be getting to know better. And f one of you doesn't like the movie, well, that makes for awkward conversation after.

Going out fora "dinner date" just sound antiquated. It sounds like something old people do. We are not old people.

Life is not natural I guess. Not in the way we want to. Or at least relationships aren't prone to be.

I think I, personally, have been on two "dates" in my life.Neither of them went particularly well because they felt and were forced in some fashion. There was nothing natural about them. The girls were fine, nice even, maybe it was just the wrong time. I don't know.

Every other way I've ended up with someone is by a victim of circumstance in meeting.

Which is not working.

So, isn't the way it was intended is you see someone, your attracted to them, and you try to find a way to send more time and get to know them more?

And yet every way to go about this seems forced and unnatural and hopeless. It's a tease of a little game that men and woman play with each other on a global scale.

We are supposed to show interest but not too much interest. We are supposed to have fun, and if we're lucky it's too much fun that lasts a really long time, or it's short, messy and complicated.

What happened to simple? What happened to sitting on the couch watching movies? What happened to taking a walk and talking? Whatever happened to comfortable silence?

How do we meet people in this day and age?

Maybe we just don't.

Friday, June 19, 2009

"Heartbreak."

What is heartbreak?

Is it the song you put on repeat to try to catch a glimpse of what you at least deluded yourself was happiness for that one brief time?

Is it the song you put on repeat to remind yourself how miserable and self-deprecating you want to keep yourself because that's what makes everything just a little more bearable?

It's certainly better than a week straight of rain, the pitter- pitter-pat constant outside your window, no sight of the sun for miles, reminding you that the weather doubles as an explanation for your mood.

What is heartbreak?

Have you ever known heartbreak?

All sorts of things can cause it, the staggering brilliance of an incredibly emotional invested movie, the whelping and emotion of the most emotive song, a simple black and white photograph encapsulatiig a simple theme or mood, a novel painting emotion with words instead of images.

A girl.

Heartbreak happens to everyone. If your lucky, more than once. IT's a way to prove investement into something.

It's caused by feelings which we can never, no matter who scholarly the psychologist, ever fully realize, analyze or understand.

Hopeless romantic is such an overused term, but seems appropriate for almost everyone.

Heartfelt or heartless...even all the Grinch wanted was to love and be loved. That's why his heart grew three sizes that day.

People, writers, artists try to use these nihilistic terms in order to contextualize their pain, their heart ache.

"everything we know is wrong."

"just give up. it's easier."

They use these in substitution because they think it's the one way to get that feeling of happiness back.

So when you come to grips with heartache, when you take it on and start accepting it, when you truly move on from the thing your heart was broken over....

what's next?

"there are plenty of fish in the sea."

"you gotta get back up on that horse."

That all assumes so much and so little at the same time.

Maybe it's all in the chase....maybe the chase is the real cause of heartbreak.

Or, maybe it's never getting across the finish line. It's always in the run, and never in the finish.

Or maybe, just maybe there is no finish. Could it all just be chase?

Exhilaration is never matched out side those first few moments when eyes meet, conversation clicks, and while perhaps too soon, you both are thinking, this may be the one.

But it's never the one really, because there is no "one".

Because at the end of the day...

it's just heartbreak being prolonged.

Thursday, March 12, 2009

"What I've learned..."

1)Be careful what you wish for. It's all a self-fulfilling prophecy.

2)I'm not feeling anymore. It's just easier that way.

3)I'm absolutely incapable of not thinking too much about anything.

4)Number 3 is always my downfall.

5) Number 4 is always my downfall.

6)Love is a farce.

7)Like is a phantom.

8)I can't even get to one before the other blows up in my face.

9)"It's not you, it's me." Yeah, right.

Wednesday, February 25, 2009

(Sadness + music) / catharisis = healing

"Wonderwall" by Ryan Adams from the album Love Is Hell
"There are many things that I would like to say to you but I don't know how..."

"So Real" by Jeff Buckley from the album Grace
"And I couldn't awake from the nightmare. It sucked me in and pulled me under..."

"Lost Cause" by Beck from the album Sea Change
"Sorry eyes that cut through the bone but make it hard to leave you alone..."

"How It Ends" by DeVotchKa for the album How It Ends
"...And you already know how this will end..."

"Sentimental Heart" by She & Him from the album Volume One
"Old habits die hard when you've got a sentimental heart..."

"Mexico" by Incubus from the album Morning View
"You could see me reaching, so why couldn't you have met me half-way?"

"Everlong" by The Foo Fighters from the album The Colour and the Shape
"...and I wonder, if everything could ever feel this real forever...if anything could ever be this good again..."

"Dreams" by TV on the Radio from the album Desperate Youth, Blood Thirsty Babes
"I know your heart won't grieve what your eyes won't see, but you were my favorite moment of our dead century..."

"The District Sleeps Alone Tonight" by The Postal Service from the album Give Up
"...and I am finally seeing that I was the one worth leaving..."

"Will You Smile Again?" by ...And You Will Know Us By the Trail of Dead from the album Worlds Apart
" If heaven sent you downstream, where banished eyes haven't been...would you smile again for me?"

"Only In Dreams" by Weezer from the Blue Album
"But when we wake, it's all been erased, and so it seems, only in dreams..."

"Black" by Pearl Jam from the album Ten
"and now my bitter hands chafe beneath the clouds of what was everything..."