Trying to parse so much conflict. There are only so many channels available. At work I have to deal with awful music being piped in through the ceiling, physical demands, emotional demands, mental demands, and managing inconsistencies and as the day rolls fatigue takes its toll on the number of channels available. That's an analogy that works sometimes. The problem with channel failure is that things connected and monitored and capped through the channel are left to grow and die on their own. Sometimes its all cross chatter and all I have to do is select and confer or revoke access rights to my mouth parts. Sometimes its active denial and that takes up a channel. It's always monitoring sound as my eyes aren't always trustworthy under physical stresses. Well my eyes are but my vision is not. Sometimes a channel gets eaten up entirely by the effort required to make sure I don't shred my skin on some incorrect call to a memorized movement. Often times a few are taken up by keeping track of how I'm spreading loads and pain responses and how often I'm lifting what and with which muscle group. Today was so long a day that I limped out of there with so many failures it was all I could do to pay attention to how I was placing my feet so not to re-aggravate an ankle rolled earlier in the day. I was thinking if I killed them all then they would all be my friends because if they're dead then they can't not be my friends. I was thinking a lot of other things too, but the rest is lost to the dust on the linoleum tiles. Maybe I'll remember it later. My spine is burning. I did too much again. I have a dysfunctional relationship with my job. I don't hate it. I just wish it could be better. I just wish I could be better. I dropped a case of two liter jugs of bleach today and it exploded. Wasted thirty seconds with conflicting courses of action. It's like everyone put their hands up at once and started talking before I could call on any particular one and half of them had nothing to contribute to the solution which ended up being 'clean it up, dumbass'. I don't know how I feel today. At the end of yesterday I was pretty fucking depressed and I still don't know why. Maybe trust issues? I went running yesterday and some fat sows were outside with their lye ruined hair wrapped up while they killed the afternoon attempting to grill (it smelled terrible) and they were making fun of me for jogging. I have no idea why. I want really badly to explain to the people that I work with the importance of their cooperation and the generation of well knit atmosphere of trust because I am struggling mightily to keep all my parts moving in one direction without the whole thing smashing itself to furious pieces, but I know they wouldn't understand and if anything it would probably end up costing me the job. Maybe that's what's got me blue this afternoon while I'm trying to sleep. There are lots of 'I's in this one and not many returns.
There's one. Because I care. If only everyone cared just a little more. If I were a dictator the options would be friendship or death. Then I thought maybe exile would make it easier for me to make friends or at least delay the assassination attempts that would inevitably come along. And the extermination of the families of the exiled I would have to pursue to end the cycle of retaliation. Because I just want to be friends.
There's two. Am I that fucking hard to get along with? I asked an old woman if she needed help finding anything. She said 'no, but there is something you can do to help me out, champ.' She was adorable. She couldn't reach the back of the top shelf so I grabbed her fruit cereal for her. I guess I'm rooting for the world's current format, or at least America's current format, to completely collapse. Partially so I can finally get to work on my list of people who need to end, and partially so I can travel freely, but also partly so everyone who's security is based on finances and bullshit jobs will be cut loose to die and I can pick their bones for good meat. I walk past a lot of nice homes on my way to work. Outside of a conspicuously wealthy complex of four shared homes was a pile of nice things interleaved with their trash pickup. Why would they not simply donate it to somewhere? Don't most places have a pickup service? Oh well. It was stuff I couldn't use, but I'm sure someone else could.
There's three. Maybe that's it. Maybe that's what I'm training for. That's why I run and work my body till it breaks and stitches and then I break it again. I'm working toward the end of the world. You can come hang out with me when it's over. I'll take care of you. We'll kill lots of zombies, smoke some doobies some afternoons and hike to South America for the winters (the douchebags of America will probably bloat and ruin Cali when it's over). Shit'll be ridiculous, I promise, but stupid fun. For us. Because we've already been to the end of the world. Twice. I guess that's what makes us different.
///El-P "Oxycotin"
Clean with alcohol only. Do not attempt to replace blown fuses. Do not remove access panels. Return to certified mechanic for regular maintenance. Made in the USA.
2/15/11
2/12/11
Observation Continues Undocumented
Well, I have a mouse now. How swank is that? I'll tell you how swank it is: it is pretty ridiculously cool. I can't tell you how nice it is to not have to use a crappy touch pad. I had to pop one of the buttons off of the laptop and stuff a dime in there because it was malfunctioning so bad. With a mouse though I'm now in version 2.0 of my new technological life. No more will I have to scratch crude horsies on cave walls with burnt sticks. Speaking of horsies I really need to buy a few rolls of heavy paper so I can start writing on the walls. It's where words go. They go on the walls. End of story.
I was telling someone the other day, a friend of mine, we were hanging out and having a pretty good blast, that I'm pretty laid back and I told this rambling story about how I told some girl that I would shank her if she stepped on my ping pong ball and at the end of the story I realized that all it really said about me is that I'm incredibly neurotic and unpredictable in social situations involving alcohol. So I tried to save it. I forgot why I jumped into the story in the first place so I had to mentally talk myself back to the starting point, go back down the segments of the story, and hit the junctures correctly like a choose your own adventure book. Then, having retold the story to myself I realized the entire point of it was that I am laid back through 95% or so of life, but 5% of my life is governed by arbitrary and inflexible rules and I don't entirely understand why.
I know why I have to do certain things. I have to put my t-shirts on like a dolphin diving through a hoop. If I don't hold them and look through the neck holes while I'm putting them on then I run the risk of unknowingly entering an alternate dimension through the shirt hole and not realizing it until it's too late because I didn't see that things were different because the body of the shirt blinded me. That has to be done. No exceptions. If I make food I have to eat it no matter how awful it turns out. If I throw up because of it or get really sick then good for me. How else will I learn to not make bad food? If I cook for other people and portions don't turn out right I am responsible for eating the worst of whatever I prepare as a penalty for being a bad cook. There has to be accountability in the kitchen. A door to a pitch black room cannot be left open for any reason. If you don't divide the lit room from the dark room with some sort of physical boundary you run the risk of invitation of the things of night into the realm of day and the last thing I want is to be trying to do daytime things in a daytime room that happens to be dark and have to deal with nighttime things outside of ... well ... I don't even like talking about that sort of stuff in great detail anyway. It makes me sound crazy, but more importantly they don't like me talking about them and I'm the one who has to deal with their bad feelings so that's all I'm going to say about that, but the point is there are rules for reasons.
So what I don't understand is - people? I understand people. People don't understand how I understand them. People don't understand the rules. I guess the rules are in place so that I can be more socially normal. More functional. That's why they're important. I think. Maybe. This is boring me.
Today I had to get out of bed a bunch and I damn near broke my neck scrambling to accomplish things and get back into my bed to keep the sheets warm. I've got the heat set as low as possible now so the only warmth around is what I'm producing and throwing off into the air.
Someone lied to me the other day. It made me very angry. I wanted to beat her up, but how ridiculously stupid would that have been. It's against the rules to lie. Before, it was against the rules to upset other people. Now those two have flipped places. The only problem with that is, of course, memory bleed. Things disappear and get transposed and interposed and juxtaposed all the time, not to mention out and out manufactured. She said something about me needing to perform some task for her and I'm pretty sure I already did it, but it is also entirely possible that I didn't do it because I went to visit her and her husband at their place in one of my dreams and we had a great time and went out to a parade and they dropped me off at work and it was great, but if I asked her about that later she would have no idea what I was talking about let alone remembering something that she wasn't actually a part of at any point. So maybe I never did explain or perform the thing she needed me to and I just think and remember vividly that I did (because I do). It can't be her fault for not having physically been there to see it.
Life is still stupid. Well, stupid funny though I don't really report on the funny all that much these days. It's probably because I've seen it so much it's stopped being funny and now strikes me as just painfully aggravatingly human. Plus I think I already established that I am nowhere near as funny as I thought I was. If I ever become a stand up comedian I'm going to call my act "talk out the stupid", but - there's probably no need for a but there. I wasn't thinking of any follow up when the sentence ended, but then I got there and it was like hitting a wrong street, but you don't want to look lost, because that's when they mug you and take your laundry money and call you a pussy faggot, so you walk down the street and go another two blocks before doubling back on a side street in a big loop so that you're gone long enough for the porch sitters to think you were just going to the gas station for candy and not wandering around scratching your ass. I hate it when the houses are watching me more than I watch them. They could probably eat us if they wanted to.
I was working on some poetry the other day and I jammed a rhyme scheme into a poem about a feeling and it completely screwed it up and the end result was this gross sort of mannequin looking piece of poetry with a colorful baseball cap on it. I was ashamed, but I shared it to share the shame and the accomplishment hanging around it like a fart of impressive proportions. I don't know, it just felt like the right thing to do. The rules of production dictated action be taken. In a way I had to punish myself for forcing it through to an end and wasting precious time before work in creating so odious a turd. It was a still birth. Sad times.
I'm tired again, but I don't know what rest will help me accomplish in the next few hours. I'll let me know. And by me I mean you. And by you I mean the part of you that.... that is... not really a part of me, but... I am fantastically thirsty. I have a mouse. Maybe I should draw us something?
It's not much but I was already starting to get a mouse cramp by the end of it. I don't know if life is sweet. I had this really strange feeling while I was making dinner that there was no one left to beat me and that made me sad for longer than I thought it would. I dunno. Sometimes improvements take some getting used to I guess. Oh well. Time to try and travel.
=sigh= miss that wacom pad. But at least we have you. Sort of. :)
///Luke Slater - "You Butterfly" "...come, let us walk..."
I was telling someone the other day, a friend of mine, we were hanging out and having a pretty good blast, that I'm pretty laid back and I told this rambling story about how I told some girl that I would shank her if she stepped on my ping pong ball and at the end of the story I realized that all it really said about me is that I'm incredibly neurotic and unpredictable in social situations involving alcohol. So I tried to save it. I forgot why I jumped into the story in the first place so I had to mentally talk myself back to the starting point, go back down the segments of the story, and hit the junctures correctly like a choose your own adventure book. Then, having retold the story to myself I realized the entire point of it was that I am laid back through 95% or so of life, but 5% of my life is governed by arbitrary and inflexible rules and I don't entirely understand why.
I know why I have to do certain things. I have to put my t-shirts on like a dolphin diving through a hoop. If I don't hold them and look through the neck holes while I'm putting them on then I run the risk of unknowingly entering an alternate dimension through the shirt hole and not realizing it until it's too late because I didn't see that things were different because the body of the shirt blinded me. That has to be done. No exceptions. If I make food I have to eat it no matter how awful it turns out. If I throw up because of it or get really sick then good for me. How else will I learn to not make bad food? If I cook for other people and portions don't turn out right I am responsible for eating the worst of whatever I prepare as a penalty for being a bad cook. There has to be accountability in the kitchen. A door to a pitch black room cannot be left open for any reason. If you don't divide the lit room from the dark room with some sort of physical boundary you run the risk of invitation of the things of night into the realm of day and the last thing I want is to be trying to do daytime things in a daytime room that happens to be dark and have to deal with nighttime things outside of ... well ... I don't even like talking about that sort of stuff in great detail anyway. It makes me sound crazy, but more importantly they don't like me talking about them and I'm the one who has to deal with their bad feelings so that's all I'm going to say about that, but the point is there are rules for reasons.
So what I don't understand is - people? I understand people. People don't understand how I understand them. People don't understand the rules. I guess the rules are in place so that I can be more socially normal. More functional. That's why they're important. I think. Maybe. This is boring me.
Today I had to get out of bed a bunch and I damn near broke my neck scrambling to accomplish things and get back into my bed to keep the sheets warm. I've got the heat set as low as possible now so the only warmth around is what I'm producing and throwing off into the air.
Someone lied to me the other day. It made me very angry. I wanted to beat her up, but how ridiculously stupid would that have been. It's against the rules to lie. Before, it was against the rules to upset other people. Now those two have flipped places. The only problem with that is, of course, memory bleed. Things disappear and get transposed and interposed and juxtaposed all the time, not to mention out and out manufactured. She said something about me needing to perform some task for her and I'm pretty sure I already did it, but it is also entirely possible that I didn't do it because I went to visit her and her husband at their place in one of my dreams and we had a great time and went out to a parade and they dropped me off at work and it was great, but if I asked her about that later she would have no idea what I was talking about let alone remembering something that she wasn't actually a part of at any point. So maybe I never did explain or perform the thing she needed me to and I just think and remember vividly that I did (because I do). It can't be her fault for not having physically been there to see it.
Life is still stupid. Well, stupid funny though I don't really report on the funny all that much these days. It's probably because I've seen it so much it's stopped being funny and now strikes me as just painfully aggravatingly human. Plus I think I already established that I am nowhere near as funny as I thought I was. If I ever become a stand up comedian I'm going to call my act "talk out the stupid", but - there's probably no need for a but there. I wasn't thinking of any follow up when the sentence ended, but then I got there and it was like hitting a wrong street, but you don't want to look lost, because that's when they mug you and take your laundry money and call you a pussy faggot, so you walk down the street and go another two blocks before doubling back on a side street in a big loop so that you're gone long enough for the porch sitters to think you were just going to the gas station for candy and not wandering around scratching your ass. I hate it when the houses are watching me more than I watch them. They could probably eat us if they wanted to.
I was working on some poetry the other day and I jammed a rhyme scheme into a poem about a feeling and it completely screwed it up and the end result was this gross sort of mannequin looking piece of poetry with a colorful baseball cap on it. I was ashamed, but I shared it to share the shame and the accomplishment hanging around it like a fart of impressive proportions. I don't know, it just felt like the right thing to do. The rules of production dictated action be taken. In a way I had to punish myself for forcing it through to an end and wasting precious time before work in creating so odious a turd. It was a still birth. Sad times.
I'm tired again, but I don't know what rest will help me accomplish in the next few hours. I'll let me know. And by me I mean you. And by you I mean the part of you that.... that is... not really a part of me, but... I am fantastically thirsty. I have a mouse. Maybe I should draw us something?
It's not much but I was already starting to get a mouse cramp by the end of it. I don't know if life is sweet. I had this really strange feeling while I was making dinner that there was no one left to beat me and that made me sad for longer than I thought it would. I dunno. Sometimes improvements take some getting used to I guess. Oh well. Time to try and travel.
=sigh= miss that wacom pad. But at least we have you. Sort of. :)
///Luke Slater - "You Butterfly" "...come, let us walk..."
Sometimes When You're Feeling It
There are sometimes in life when you know your brain is about to cum and it is such a good and difficult to describe feeling and you're watching all of the things in front of you waiting for one of them to stand above the rest and glow landing light like and your watching and watching the field of little obtainable dreams and every second is a beat in the note of i'm doing this it really is about to happen and ive beenwaiting so longfor this instanttobecomeperfectlyalignedandnowicanfuckingdoanythingiputmymindtointhenextfiveminutes and then it blows and you realize that while you've accomplished nothing a taste of the feeling can, sometimes, be enough to spur further action in a potentially positive way, and a thing so small as that should not be discounted in value or ignored, but should be looked at as a mental exercise whose dividends, when well informed, intentioned, and carried motives are in play, should not be wholly discounted. I think I am okay with that. And then there are some times in life when you completely whiff on an orgasm. And now I have a sad. A happy after tasting sad.
///Mum - "A Little Bit Sometimes"
///Mum - "A Little Bit Sometimes"
2/10/11
Tired, but Still Looking
But I don't want the rest of the world to know I'm ready to call a time out. More movement in the bedroom again. Had to turn all the lights on yesterday to verify there was not a foot and a half tall little round black thing running around the edges of my bed. A face poked through my cigarette smoke. Scared the living shit out of me. Not a human face. Kind of looked like a really big nosed lizardy thing. Where do these bastards keep coming from.
I missed you all week. It sucks that we can't hang out more. On working days I have to chop 10 to 11 hours out of my day. 8 at work plus 2 in transit plus an extra one to two depending on how huge a slacker co-workers are being and how much work has to be made up at the end of the day. Out of the 12 hours left I usually have to spend at least 8 asleep so my muscles can knit up again for the next days work (if I don't I've found fatigue stacks up like bad heartburn and just as suddenly). So I've got 4 hours to handle midweek clerical stuff, working out, showering, making lunch for the next day, making a breakfast, and making a dinner if I want one. It's tough.
Discovered bits for flames is gone yesterday. Apparently the domain lapsed. Bad news. Worse news is I'm pretty sure all the files are lost except for the templates and graphics I saved on my desktop which is still trapped in NYC. So now there's a new one I made on blogger. It won't be as functional, but it'll be the story store house. Bits For Flames. I'm so tired tonight. I got lost again in Edgewood. Not on purpose. Have been doing a lot of traveling in dreams though I can't find the train station I used to use so I got lost and aggravated there too trying to find the bus station. Eventually I gave up and hopped in a car with a jitney who took me down to the industrial complex. I don't know why I wanted to go there. In fact I think I was supposed to be somewhere else, but he took me there anyway. I took some great pictures before I woke up. Wish I could draw them for you. It was breath taking.
///Air - "The Vagabond (featuring Beck)" I do the best I can not to worry about things. It's stupid, but all I want right now is god damn hug before I go take on another day of work instead of writing. I want some scotch. I just want to be a little warmer inside than I am right now.
I missed you all week. It sucks that we can't hang out more. On working days I have to chop 10 to 11 hours out of my day. 8 at work plus 2 in transit plus an extra one to two depending on how huge a slacker co-workers are being and how much work has to be made up at the end of the day. Out of the 12 hours left I usually have to spend at least 8 asleep so my muscles can knit up again for the next days work (if I don't I've found fatigue stacks up like bad heartburn and just as suddenly). So I've got 4 hours to handle midweek clerical stuff, working out, showering, making lunch for the next day, making a breakfast, and making a dinner if I want one. It's tough.
Discovered bits for flames is gone yesterday. Apparently the domain lapsed. Bad news. Worse news is I'm pretty sure all the files are lost except for the templates and graphics I saved on my desktop which is still trapped in NYC. So now there's a new one I made on blogger. It won't be as functional, but it'll be the story store house. Bits For Flames. I'm so tired tonight. I got lost again in Edgewood. Not on purpose. Have been doing a lot of traveling in dreams though I can't find the train station I used to use so I got lost and aggravated there too trying to find the bus station. Eventually I gave up and hopped in a car with a jitney who took me down to the industrial complex. I don't know why I wanted to go there. In fact I think I was supposed to be somewhere else, but he took me there anyway. I took some great pictures before I woke up. Wish I could draw them for you. It was breath taking.
///Air - "The Vagabond (featuring Beck)" I do the best I can not to worry about things. It's stupid, but all I want right now is god damn hug before I go take on another day of work instead of writing. I want some scotch. I just want to be a little warmer inside than I am right now.
dear (______):
Dear Pittsburgh Steelers,
It was a good year. Seriously. The entire season was handicapped like no other team in the league except maybe the Packers in one of the most difficult divisions to win except maybe the AFC East and we still kicked ass. And at least you showed us that Dixon can play. Please please please address the gaping hole behind Troy Polamalu at safety with a decent mid-round draft pick. Sweet cracklin' Jesus on a barbecue spit, I would like to not shit a brick every time he almost stubs his toe.
xoxo,
fan for life
p.s. I'm still mad at you.
It was a good year. Seriously. The entire season was handicapped like no other team in the league except maybe the Packers in one of the most difficult divisions to win except maybe the AFC East and we still kicked ass. And at least you showed us that Dixon can play. Please please please address the gaping hole behind Troy Polamalu at safety with a decent mid-round draft pick. Sweet cracklin' Jesus on a barbecue spit, I would like to not shit a brick every time he almost stubs his toe.
xoxo,
fan for life
p.s. I'm still mad at you.
2/3/11
Return to Patagonia
I don't know what I want to talk about today, but I do know that if I don't talk then I'll move closer bit by bit to having full blown running arguments with myself and when you do that people think you're crazy.
Something occured to me a long time ago that I never talked about. Not that long ago actually, but long enough to make calling it a long time ago feel appropriate. It occurred to me that maybe my Dad's goal all along was to make sure his kids didn't have kids. Would that mean that he wins if I don't have kids? But then I realized that first of all that is ridiculously complex of a double feint. Then I realized he is not smart enough to orchestrate anything requiring that much vision. Then I realized it didn't really matter anyway because if I do have a kid the lucky bastard will be adopted so he doesn't get my screwed up brain cells all up ins.
I guess I've been thinking about the continental divide a lot lately. I want to go back there. I want to go back to where the earth broke apart and I want to lay my face against the water and stand with my toes on the edges of sheer faces and think about how my heart would explode with bliss in midair if I were to fall and then bask in the glowing here after of a moment so full and heady left undone and swallowed in time.
It's just my day off, but my head is in another country. Not that it went there overnight, but it's been slipping and sneaking farther and farther away, but always coming back just early enough for me not to worry if it may have gotten lost.
I wonder if I'm lucky that I'm not dead. I had a dream about a fantastic geared machine. It was as tall as the side of a small house. Every gear had a photograph inside of it. Not a photograph as much as a photostatic image. Faces burned onto the faces of the gears and to protect them from the wear of the elements, because the entire machine was outdoors and built on the surface of a cathedral turned inside out, the gear faces were coated in slugs of brown glass that cracked under the strain of clinging for so many years. I don't know what it did. I didn't stay there long enough to figure it out, partially because the entire thing was making one hell of a creepy sound (the sound the joints of cockroach legs would make if one were stuck in your ear and flailing against the ear wax and hairs there), but also because the rust was gummy around chest level where someone clearly touched it and caught a sleeve and in all likelihood lost one or several fingers, but at least several centimeters of skin.
I'm not sure where I'm going. I need to see my old poetry professors. I don't think they need to see me though. In fact I'm almost certain they don't want to see me. It wouldn't help either of us to see each other. I feel like that's also true of a former best friend. It doesn't mean that I don't want some proof. I don't know what I would say to Jane. She'd say hello. I'd say hi. She'd ask how I was. I'd tell her how screwed up things have been. She'd apologize for lack of anything else to offer. I'd tell her don't sweat it and well.... fuck.
I'm not smoking. For now. Maybe that's the problem. I figure I'll save my money at the expense of further turning up the heat on my senses. I probably just need a hug and a couple shots. I don't know where my head's at, but it is having a fantastic time without me. It's like I woke up after drinking too much too early and everyone at the houseparty has pulled up sticks and gone off somewhere and no one told me where so ... empty nest? Maybe. More like I had a date with myself and I've somehow managed to stand myself up again and I don't get it. I thought we were in agreement.
=sigh= whatever. It's aggravating. I think I'm just gonna take my clothes off and ball myself up for a couple hours. Maybe get up later and write some more poetry. I had this great idea at work yesterday and I want to see it spin on its own and if it can't spin then I want to break it apart and see what's inside of it. Is it supposed to be so cold that your eyes well up?
I'm going back to new york this month. To get the last of my things. I'm not looking forward to it. But I miss my computer so God damn much, you have no idea. And my sex toys. But mostly my computer. It's hard to explain why I love. Through the years most everything else has been crushed, whipped, and burned out of my emotional spectrum. These days all I can do is love or hate. I sometimes wish there was something in the middle. But there isn't. I'm digital. Sad happy held digital boy whose head has gone back to Patagonia without him. Again. Now I give chase in dreams for want of touch.
///Hugo Maldoro - "I Know a Little Cuban"If Aguas De Marco had hips they would swing like this. If I wander around my mind long enough and find the clubhouse with the low fedoras and dim smoke parlors and enough palm fronds to set a tropic stage in a desert, maybe I'll see him playing dominoes at the usual booth with whiskey ice and cigarillos and a big watch with no batteries. Where did you go?
Something occured to me a long time ago that I never talked about. Not that long ago actually, but long enough to make calling it a long time ago feel appropriate. It occurred to me that maybe my Dad's goal all along was to make sure his kids didn't have kids. Would that mean that he wins if I don't have kids? But then I realized that first of all that is ridiculously complex of a double feint. Then I realized he is not smart enough to orchestrate anything requiring that much vision. Then I realized it didn't really matter anyway because if I do have a kid the lucky bastard will be adopted so he doesn't get my screwed up brain cells all up ins.
I guess I've been thinking about the continental divide a lot lately. I want to go back there. I want to go back to where the earth broke apart and I want to lay my face against the water and stand with my toes on the edges of sheer faces and think about how my heart would explode with bliss in midair if I were to fall and then bask in the glowing here after of a moment so full and heady left undone and swallowed in time.
It's just my day off, but my head is in another country. Not that it went there overnight, but it's been slipping and sneaking farther and farther away, but always coming back just early enough for me not to worry if it may have gotten lost.
I wonder if I'm lucky that I'm not dead. I had a dream about a fantastic geared machine. It was as tall as the side of a small house. Every gear had a photograph inside of it. Not a photograph as much as a photostatic image. Faces burned onto the faces of the gears and to protect them from the wear of the elements, because the entire machine was outdoors and built on the surface of a cathedral turned inside out, the gear faces were coated in slugs of brown glass that cracked under the strain of clinging for so many years. I don't know what it did. I didn't stay there long enough to figure it out, partially because the entire thing was making one hell of a creepy sound (the sound the joints of cockroach legs would make if one were stuck in your ear and flailing against the ear wax and hairs there), but also because the rust was gummy around chest level where someone clearly touched it and caught a sleeve and in all likelihood lost one or several fingers, but at least several centimeters of skin.
I'm not sure where I'm going. I need to see my old poetry professors. I don't think they need to see me though. In fact I'm almost certain they don't want to see me. It wouldn't help either of us to see each other. I feel like that's also true of a former best friend. It doesn't mean that I don't want some proof. I don't know what I would say to Jane. She'd say hello. I'd say hi. She'd ask how I was. I'd tell her how screwed up things have been. She'd apologize for lack of anything else to offer. I'd tell her don't sweat it and well.... fuck.
I'm not smoking. For now. Maybe that's the problem. I figure I'll save my money at the expense of further turning up the heat on my senses. I probably just need a hug and a couple shots. I don't know where my head's at, but it is having a fantastic time without me. It's like I woke up after drinking too much too early and everyone at the houseparty has pulled up sticks and gone off somewhere and no one told me where so ... empty nest? Maybe. More like I had a date with myself and I've somehow managed to stand myself up again and I don't get it. I thought we were in agreement.
=sigh= whatever. It's aggravating. I think I'm just gonna take my clothes off and ball myself up for a couple hours. Maybe get up later and write some more poetry. I had this great idea at work yesterday and I want to see it spin on its own and if it can't spin then I want to break it apart and see what's inside of it. Is it supposed to be so cold that your eyes well up?
I'm going back to new york this month. To get the last of my things. I'm not looking forward to it. But I miss my computer so God damn much, you have no idea. And my sex toys. But mostly my computer. It's hard to explain why I love. Through the years most everything else has been crushed, whipped, and burned out of my emotional spectrum. These days all I can do is love or hate. I sometimes wish there was something in the middle. But there isn't. I'm digital. Sad happy held digital boy whose head has gone back to Patagonia without him. Again. Now I give chase in dreams for want of touch.
///Hugo Maldoro - "I Know a Little Cuban"If Aguas De Marco had hips they would swing like this. If I wander around my mind long enough and find the clubhouse with the low fedoras and dim smoke parlors and enough palm fronds to set a tropic stage in a desert, maybe I'll see him playing dominoes at the usual booth with whiskey ice and cigarillos and a big watch with no batteries. Where did you go?
2/2/11
The Music that Made the Living 2010
I didn't make it out of 2010 on my own. I had a lot of help from a handful of friends and a lot of help from a handful of artists. If there's one thing that music can do it's make the living a little easier and a little more worthwhile.
My last tracklist was pretty sprawling, so in the spirit of the changes in structure enacted on the posts here sometime ago (changes that have kind of worked out alright I think) I'm going to structure the year end playlist too.
12 months -> 12 songs that tell the story of the year. Enjoy.
Dec 2009>> Nine Inch Nails - The Four of Us Are Dying Go
Jan 2010>> Yoko Kanno - Fish ~ Silent Cruise Go
Feb 2010>> Mum - They Made Frogs Smoke
'Til They Exploded Go
Mar 2010>> Deep Dish - Mohammed Is Jesus Go
Apr 2010>> Aphex Twin - At the Heart of It All Go
May 2010>> Evol Intent - The Foreword Go
Jun 2010>> The Black Angels - Young Men Dead Go
Jul 2010>> Massive Attack - Girl I Love You Go
Aug 2010>> Primal Scream - Higher than the Sun Go
Sep 2010>> Diplo - Summer's Gonna Hurt You Go
Oct 2010>> Danger Mouse - Insane Lullaby Go
Nov 2010>> Sage Francis - Lie Detector Test Go
Dec 2010>> Mathew Herbert - You Saw it All Go
Thank you to everybody that made being alive a joy by parts. Thanks for hanging in there. The caucus squalls on and smiles around the face. xoxo. I'll catch up with you later this week maybe. Sleep tight.
///The Cure - "Plainsong" I love you.
My last tracklist was pretty sprawling, so in the spirit of the changes in structure enacted on the posts here sometime ago (changes that have kind of worked out alright I think) I'm going to structure the year end playlist too.
12 months -> 12 songs that tell the story of the year. Enjoy.
Dec 2009>> Nine Inch Nails - The Four of Us Are Dying Go
Jan 2010>> Yoko Kanno - Fish ~ Silent Cruise Go
Feb 2010>> Mum - They Made Frogs Smoke
'Til They Exploded Go
Mar 2010>> Deep Dish - Mohammed Is Jesus Go
Apr 2010>> Aphex Twin - At the Heart of It All Go
May 2010>> Evol Intent - The Foreword Go
Jun 2010>> The Black Angels - Young Men Dead Go
Jul 2010>> Massive Attack - Girl I Love You Go
Aug 2010>> Primal Scream - Higher than the Sun Go
Sep 2010>> Diplo - Summer's Gonna Hurt You Go
Oct 2010>> Danger Mouse - Insane Lullaby Go
Nov 2010>> Sage Francis - Lie Detector Test Go
Dec 2010>> Mathew Herbert - You Saw it All Go
Thank you to everybody that made being alive a joy by parts. Thanks for hanging in there. The caucus squalls on and smiles around the face. xoxo. I'll catch up with you later this week maybe. Sleep tight.
///The Cure - "Plainsong" I love you.
2/1/11
Year End Retrospective 2009-2011
Somewhere in the middle of all the bullshit and heart break and fucked up bullshit heart break that filled the skies of 2010 like a flock of severely underfed ravens wheeling over a field hospital whose tents all blew away in a freak hurricane after the worst days of shelling the war saw since its start left a record number of open flesh wounds and completely overwhelmed the nursing staffs ability to even begin to sanitize them all, let alone beat the rats back... where was I going with that? Sort of lost track along the way in there. It's been a while since I've written any fiction and sometimes all I do is close my eyes and it comes bubbling up like gold oil in a blue toilet bowl.
2010 had its downs and its ups. I learned a lot of things about myself and about other people. I learned that most people are probably not my friends, but they are polite and a lot of times because they have to be. I come back to that a lot don't I? It feels like a lot. It's one of those things that I have to keep reminding myself because I'm not wired to accept it. In my head it's a circuit breaker that keeps opening and I have to keep going down to the basement to close it and it's a big hassle. Or is it the reverse? The reverse conditions being assigned to ... you get the point.
Back to 2010. 2009 was the break. The complete unraveling of the assumed and constructed reality. 2010 was the rabbit hole. More like the ocean. 2009 was the break from land. The acceptance that what I was leaving I will never return to because it is not only out of my control, but under the influence of things set in motion and built and conceived years in advance of my ever setting foot on the place I had the foolishness to plant a flag, however intensely the pole was thrust into the Earth and however proudly the wind took to my banner. The ground fell through as though my stupid ambition, well stupid is actually the wrong word there... my misinformed ambition were a fist and the dirt was the crust of a 99 cent store brand pot pie in a tinfoil bowl.
It's not to say that 2009 was fundamentally flawed well before it arrived. It is to say that through my and others efforts the collapse of 2009 was delayed for as long as it was because we didn't know just how thin and cheap and empty the ground beneath my feet was back in 2006. Or maybe I knew and I just did not want to believe. I think that's what it was. It was coming apart back then and I wanted to will it together and make it mine and not be the kid with a future and family so far out of line from everyone else he knew, but that kind of thinking is a recipe for catastrophe.
It wasn't all terrible. The collapse was, but there were things that happened apart from it and I tried to separate myself and compartmentalize the personal wildfire from the person I thought people enjoyed hanging out with. There was some success in that. I discovered the most intense smile is the smile mustered in the face of pains that refuse to be denied. Things burned off left and right in 2009 and then the descent to the ocean floor of 2010 was just as eye opening and faith demolishing. Not in faith in religion. That was long gone. There were still lingering faiths in parents that were systematically slaughtered, there was faith in decency that was blown away, then there was faith in systematic accountability that failed, followed by faith in language and reason, give and take, compassion, the senses, right on down to ... well, I don't know exactly where that fire ended or if it's still eating away inside of me.
Sorry I got distracted again. Just talking about it I sometimes think I can feel that fire touching the insides of my skin. It's comforting. That's all I have faith in now. The consuming flame of discovery that burns in the heat of destruction.
2010 was touching the void, but more than that it was my throat constricting and me screaming out, in a voice I wish I had 15 years ago, a simple no. 2010 was learning that I didn't have to take it. Learning that what I thought I needed and what I knew I needed were so far from what I was living and what I was living was so close to complete emotional rape mind fucking physical slavery was hard to deal with. Tracing the roots back to the abuse was even harder. Tracing the branches that grew from those roots was the hardest part. Right around there was when I finally found me. I guess I'm still the same, but I'm conscious in ways I didn't know I could be and it's made some things easier and some things harder, but it has also allowed me to move on. It was more than finally waking up to the actual dimensions of the cage. It was waking up to the universe outside of it, it's history, my history, how I got there, who put me there, what happened to me and because of me while I was inside of it, and who I was. It was like seeing for the first time with absolute clarity the person I was supposed to be, right there in the room with me, understanding that I could never be that person because of what came before, and finally being able to begin to let that go.
2010 was rage and heat. 2011 is going back to the soul that burned down to find the valuables left, if any, and started over again with free eyes. I still have a lot of letting go to do. There is still so much rage that still smolders, but I have the ability now to understand where it's come from and to direct it, at least partially, to where it must go. 2010 was also the discovery of who the people I could understand to be friends really are. One of the major reasons why I'm not dead in a basement in Queens is because of them.
The world is a fucked up place.
2011 I'm still on fire inside my head. I'm still learning to manage paranoid schizophrenia. I'm still trying to be human. The witticism of taking life one day at a time comes to mind. That's complete bullshit. Life is nothing without goals. I have some deaths to look forward to, but closer in I have the rest of Pittsburgh to look forward to and talking to you and with everything else burned to the ground I think that is finally enough to make sunrise so much less a spear through my heart.
///The Future Sound of London - "Among Myselves" I can hear myself. They were drowning me... your tracklist is up next. Three finger promise.
2010 had its downs and its ups. I learned a lot of things about myself and about other people. I learned that most people are probably not my friends, but they are polite and a lot of times because they have to be. I come back to that a lot don't I? It feels like a lot. It's one of those things that I have to keep reminding myself because I'm not wired to accept it. In my head it's a circuit breaker that keeps opening and I have to keep going down to the basement to close it and it's a big hassle. Or is it the reverse? The reverse conditions being assigned to ... you get the point.
Back to 2010. 2009 was the break. The complete unraveling of the assumed and constructed reality. 2010 was the rabbit hole. More like the ocean. 2009 was the break from land. The acceptance that what I was leaving I will never return to because it is not only out of my control, but under the influence of things set in motion and built and conceived years in advance of my ever setting foot on the place I had the foolishness to plant a flag, however intensely the pole was thrust into the Earth and however proudly the wind took to my banner. The ground fell through as though my stupid ambition, well stupid is actually the wrong word there... my misinformed ambition were a fist and the dirt was the crust of a 99 cent store brand pot pie in a tinfoil bowl.
It's not to say that 2009 was fundamentally flawed well before it arrived. It is to say that through my and others efforts the collapse of 2009 was delayed for as long as it was because we didn't know just how thin and cheap and empty the ground beneath my feet was back in 2006. Or maybe I knew and I just did not want to believe. I think that's what it was. It was coming apart back then and I wanted to will it together and make it mine and not be the kid with a future and family so far out of line from everyone else he knew, but that kind of thinking is a recipe for catastrophe.
It wasn't all terrible. The collapse was, but there were things that happened apart from it and I tried to separate myself and compartmentalize the personal wildfire from the person I thought people enjoyed hanging out with. There was some success in that. I discovered the most intense smile is the smile mustered in the face of pains that refuse to be denied. Things burned off left and right in 2009 and then the descent to the ocean floor of 2010 was just as eye opening and faith demolishing. Not in faith in religion. That was long gone. There were still lingering faiths in parents that were systematically slaughtered, there was faith in decency that was blown away, then there was faith in systematic accountability that failed, followed by faith in language and reason, give and take, compassion, the senses, right on down to ... well, I don't know exactly where that fire ended or if it's still eating away inside of me.
Sorry I got distracted again. Just talking about it I sometimes think I can feel that fire touching the insides of my skin. It's comforting. That's all I have faith in now. The consuming flame of discovery that burns in the heat of destruction.
2010 was touching the void, but more than that it was my throat constricting and me screaming out, in a voice I wish I had 15 years ago, a simple no. 2010 was learning that I didn't have to take it. Learning that what I thought I needed and what I knew I needed were so far from what I was living and what I was living was so close to complete emotional rape mind fucking physical slavery was hard to deal with. Tracing the roots back to the abuse was even harder. Tracing the branches that grew from those roots was the hardest part. Right around there was when I finally found me. I guess I'm still the same, but I'm conscious in ways I didn't know I could be and it's made some things easier and some things harder, but it has also allowed me to move on. It was more than finally waking up to the actual dimensions of the cage. It was waking up to the universe outside of it, it's history, my history, how I got there, who put me there, what happened to me and because of me while I was inside of it, and who I was. It was like seeing for the first time with absolute clarity the person I was supposed to be, right there in the room with me, understanding that I could never be that person because of what came before, and finally being able to begin to let that go.
2010 was rage and heat. 2011 is going back to the soul that burned down to find the valuables left, if any, and started over again with free eyes. I still have a lot of letting go to do. There is still so much rage that still smolders, but I have the ability now to understand where it's come from and to direct it, at least partially, to where it must go. 2010 was also the discovery of who the people I could understand to be friends really are. One of the major reasons why I'm not dead in a basement in Queens is because of them.
The world is a fucked up place.
2011 I'm still on fire inside my head. I'm still learning to manage paranoid schizophrenia. I'm still trying to be human. The witticism of taking life one day at a time comes to mind. That's complete bullshit. Life is nothing without goals. I have some deaths to look forward to, but closer in I have the rest of Pittsburgh to look forward to and talking to you and with everything else burned to the ground I think that is finally enough to make sunrise so much less a spear through my heart.
///The Future Sound of London - "Among Myselves" I can hear myself. They were drowning me... your tracklist is up next. Three finger promise.
dear (______):
Dear Volvo drivers
The outsides of your cars can still kill people. If you've got a minute, I'd appreciate it if you'd at least pretend to be concerned with the world outside of your mobile airbag.
Thanks.
The outsides of your cars can still kill people. If you've got a minute, I'd appreciate it if you'd at least pretend to be concerned with the world outside of your mobile airbag.
Thanks.
dear (______):
Dear residents of communities with private streets,
I have to get to work. Save your stiff posturing, high beams, and frowny faces for someone with the time to waste standing in large groups on street corners glaring at traffic and smoking black and milds. Those are probably the fellas you're looking for, and your "private" street is between where I'm at and where I'm going, so how many days in a row do you need to see me walking and smiling in a red jacket and orange back pack before you'll believe I'm not casing the joint? Silly bunnies.
up yours,
10 mile pedestrian
I have to get to work. Save your stiff posturing, high beams, and frowny faces for someone with the time to waste standing in large groups on street corners glaring at traffic and smoking black and milds. Those are probably the fellas you're looking for, and your "private" street is between where I'm at and where I'm going, so how many days in a row do you need to see me walking and smiling in a red jacket and orange back pack before you'll believe I'm not casing the joint? Silly bunnies.
up yours,
10 mile pedestrian
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