disgracing myself yet again

I’ve got nothing pushing me.

***
searching for
something anything the thing
that will make me feel
something anything the thing
that will complete  
me you us everything

there isn’t one
***

There is no way for me to explain away the restlessness.

The middle years are easy to write.  It was preteen/teen angst and the glory of the awkward.  I knew I wasn’t good enough for any of them and so I never was and never tried to be.  I was always going to “show them” in some indefinite future.  I never did.  Not much has changed since then.  Instead of hiding behind the quiet, plotting in silence, I hide behind the loud, boisterous nonsense.  And no one is fooled.

***

It was the sixth grade dance and I didn’t want to be there.  Amy, the girl I had a crush on, had a boyfriend, Rick, and she was here with him.  And I didn’t need to see that.  What was that going to help?  It was only going to make me more miserable.  Not that I knew anything of “misery” but let a kid pretend to know what it means to have a broken heart.  But somehow I got suckered in.  My mom was one of the chaperones.  Not of the dance part, thank reputation.  But since she was going to be there, I had to stay.  Awkward.  So there I was with Dave, walking the dance floor.  We weren’t dancing.  We were neither cool enough to actually feel comfortable dancing nor lame enough to dance anyway.  We had just spent a good twenty minutes by the punch bowl talking about how we should have brought something to “spike” it.  We didn’t really know what that meant.  But we knew that we would be a lot cooler if we did.  And we knew enough to pretend.  But the punch bowl got old.  And it was a little too close to where the chaperones were standing and hating themselves.  So we were heading out to see whatever else this shit dance had to offer to suave and sophisticated men as ourselves.  This, unfortunately, meant that we had to cross the dance floor.  But I wasn’t thinking about that.  I was commenting in the ironically detached way that would become my trademark that this was a really lame party.  Then we were accosted by this pretty young thing.  She normally went by the name of Allison and she normally sat two rows over and one seat up from me in class.  Not that I had a thing for her.  Because I didn’t really.  She was pretty.  And she did have a boyfriend.  (I have always had a thing for unavailable or uninterested women).  But I was into Amy at the time.  So I hadn’t really given Allison much thought.  She asked me to dance.  Me.  Not Dave.  Me.  Did I mention that she was pretty?  I, however, was an idiot in 6th grade.  A trait that has not changed in the slightest.  I made a joke about her boyfriend.  And a comment about how I didn’t dance.  And then we kept going.  On our way out.  To nothing in particular and one of the most memorable regrets of my young life.  

***

The World is completely indifferent to my existence.  And I am starting to share the opinion.  Cries of hate are better than I could hope for.  When they hang me, no one will come.  Even the crows will disregard my putrefying corpse.  If nothing I will ever do will ever make a difference, why haven’t I given up yet?  You can see some things better in the dark.  The screams waiting within me will never find their true release.  And then I wonder why I my thoughts venture toward the darker things.  It is a feeling of abounding uselessness.  And not in the good Taoist sense.  But in the Western purposeless and drifting sense.  I have lost my anchor.  I am drifting out into the madness of my own creation.  And yet?  There was something I was supposed to do before I left.  And it won’t get done now.  And the world will suffer.  As it always does.  And yet.  It remains completely indifferent.  Not that my plight is in anyway unique.  Nor am I in any way unique.  It’s all the same bullshit.  Over and over and over and over.  And then what happens?  The crowds who once cheered you hang you for a murderous traitor.  I don’t care if they hate me.  I just need some attention.  Accept me.  Acknowledge me.  Don’t let me die alone.  Everyone dies alone.  Bitch all you want.  It won’t help.  It won’t fucking get you anywhere.  Same end.  No one lives forever.  This is not the way it was meant to be.  This is not how it was supposed to turn out.  My Muse failed me again.  As she always does.  As she always must.  Contentment is the nemesis of creation.

Writing usually helps me.  It helps me vent, control my feelings, get control of myself.  It isn’t working.  Jealousy was never my kind of girl.  Not that she ever stays long with me.  But she fucks me up while she’s here.  And leaves me a shell of myself.  To rebuild and find another.  As I have time immemorial.  I really should find a better racket.  One that actually works.  I can’t believe I have stuck with this fucked up shit for so long.  It never worked.  It has never made me happy.  I don’t even believe in happy anymore.  I don’t think it’s possible.  At least not for me.  Look what I have become.  I held such promise in my youth.  It has slowly drained from me.  And left me like this.  And no one can tell.  And no one can tell.  Or if they can, they don’t care at all.  And I think that is probably worse.

Mommy never wanted this for me.  And she doesn’t know how it happened.  I hid so much from everyone.  Over all the years.  It’s no wonder she never saw it happening.  But slowly.  Slowly.  I lost myself.  My essence drained away from me.  The failure for me to become one of them and the failure of me to remain myself.  Failure.  Always failure.  Always regret.  Always.  My Muse.  She has always let me down.

And no one fucking understands.  How could they?  How could they?  I barely understand.  I am drowning in myself and my disappointment.  I was meant for so much more.  How did I end up like this?  I could have been somebody.  But now?  Now, I don’t know who I am.  But I know I’m not somebody.

***
“Do you need anybody?  I just need someone to love.  Could it be anybody?  I want somebody to love.”
- The Beatles, “With A Little Help From My Friends”  

Happy St. Zwintscher's Day!

“St. Zwintscher’s Day: A holiday celebrated on the Fourth to Last Day of the Year named in honor of Zwintscher, the first and only Pirate Saint.  Soon after his canonization, followers of St. Zwintscher declared that the Fourth to Last Day of the Year be set aside to honor the great man.  Early celebrations included tapping kegs of rum, drinking till blind drunk, then raping and pillaging.  While these practices were toned down as the years progressed (modern celebrations have been altered slightly to replace the raping and pillaging with a rousing exchange of gifts and consensual sexual favors, and a preferred spirit is often substituted for rum) there has always been a strong undertone of drinking, debauchery, and rebellion present in the celebrations.

St. Zwintscher, Captain of the infamous pirate ship Grin of the Albatross, was the scourge of the Seven Seas at some indeterminate point in history.  Indeed, records of his activities date from as early as 721 and as late as 1855.  He and his crew were said to be of the most unsavory of sorts; misfits and malcontents that sailed the world doing as they would, taking as they pleased.  Rumors of his exploits ranged far and wide.  He apparently ventured as far as the nations of China, India, and Japan and had amongst his closest associates a Ninja Master known as Shogo, a Taoist Sage that took no name, and an adventurous sultana of surpassing beauty.  It was also said that there were a great number of dark magicians in his employ.  Of all the rumors that circulated, however, the most popular was that he was impossible to kill.  

Officially canonized by the rogue Black Pope in the Year of Our Lord 1147, Saint Zwintscher has always been a countercultural hero.  Records and details of his life are drawn from a fragmentary reference in the Book of Broken Shadows, an apocryphal history of the dispossessed.  It was said that he left behind memoirs under the title Black Sun Rising referencing his flag: the rising black sun on a field of white.  There are no known copies extant.  It is interesting to note that his flag has been adopted as the flag of the literary movement the UnEnlightenment.  Moreover it was members of the UnEnlightenment movement that revived the modern celebration of St. Zwintscher’s Day.”
- The Encyclopedia of Both Good and Bad Things

***

In the dark of the night, daring the World to do something; anything.

Somehow I have always known that I would make my stand alone.

They weren’t the ones that I was waiting for.

I lie here listlessly, wanting little more than to carry out acts of ever increasing violence and unspeakable depravity.  “But I want to break free … Oh how I’ve got to break free.”  Something needs to happen.  Soon.  I don’t know what’s to become of me.

***
“When, in disgrace with fortune and men’s eyes,
I all alone beweep my outcast state,
And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries,
And look upon myself, and curse my fate,
Wishing me like to one more rich in hope,
Featur’d like him, like him with friends possess’d,
Desiring this man’s art, and that man’s scope,
With what I most enjoy contented least;
Yet in these thoughts myself almost despising,
Haply I think on thee, – and then my state,
Like to the lark at break of day arising
From sullen earth, sings hymns at heaven’s gate;
For thy sweet love remember’d such wealth brings
That then I scorn to change my state with kings.”

- The Shakespeare, “Sonnet 29”

building to something...

I’ve got it all right here.  The source (a book of Bukowski poems).  The source (a scotch and soda).  The source (loud music of various sorts).  And yet.  Nothing is coming.  The words aren’t ready to flow.  Or I’m not ready to let them.  And yet…

There are a lot of things that I am not ready to say.  So that holds me back.  I have never been good with timing.  I never know when the right time is.  I can often tell when the time is wrong.  But I am never sure if it is right.  

Love and Alcohol.  Because it would seem that that is all my life ever boils down to.  

I don’t know why I write so much misery when I really have no miserable experiences to speak of.  I suppose misery is easier to fake than happiness.  

Fuck it.  I’m getting nowhere with any of that.  End of legit post.

***
“Don't be concerned, it will not harm you.  It's only me pursuing somethin' I'm not sure of.  Across my dreams with nets of wonder I chase the bright elusive butterfly of love.”
- Bob Lind, “Elusive Butterfly”
***

And then the rest…

He was always a quite child.  He never felt that he belonged or that his opinion mattered to the general consensus.  He let the others have their way and kept his thoughts to himself.  It was as much his fault as theirs that he never felt in.  But he knew that.  He knew that he could change it all.  He knew how to do it, too.  But he was scared.  Dating was a big deal in 6th grade.  Not that his reputation could be hurt.  New kids don’t have reputations.  No one looks at them twice.  Once they get over that “pick on the new kid” phase, anyway.  So now he was going to make his mark.  He was going to vault himself into popularity.  He was going to be somebody again.  Like he used to be, at his old school.  Her locker was 634.  It was across the hall and a little down from his.  But still close.  They were in the same class.  He sat behind her most days.  He used to sit in the front of class.  But that was at his old school where everybody knew him and didn’t call him a nerd for sitting up front.  They knew that his eyes were bad but that he didn’t like to wear his glasses.  There was no way that he was going to sit in the front of class at this school.  Or wear his glasses.  One whispered remark and he would be a nerd for the rest of middle school.  And that would ruin everything.  She smelled nice.  Like flowers.  He always found it hard to concentrate on class when he sat behind her.  It was a sacrifice he was willing to make.  Besides, he was way ahead.  He could do most of this in his sleep.  Not that he would let on that he was smart.  Smart kids never got the girls.  He had seen enough movies to know that.  It was after English that he went over to her locker.  Her friends had just headed off to their next class and she was standing there all alone.  The timing was just right.  The Universe was pulling for him.  He cleared his throat.  He was nervous, but he fought the feeling.  Now or never.  Death or glory.  It was too late to turn back.  He would look like an idiot.  And that would be worse than rejection.  She looked up, pushing a strand of her long blonde hair out of her face.  She smiled.  “Hi, Isaac.”  She knew his name.  A good sign.  “Amywillyougooutwithme?”  

Find me.

Thing 1: You’re going to die.
Thing 2: Today?
Thing 1: Or tomorrow.
Thing 2: Much the same.
Thing 1: I suppose.
Thing 2: Are you certain?
Thing 1: Certain?
Thing 2: Of death.
Thing 1: Death is always certain.
Thing 2: But today?
Thing 1: Or tomorrow.
Thing 2: Much the same.
Thing 1: I suppose.

Inaction is the bane of my existence. It’s not indecision. I know what I want to do with my life. And roughly, I know how I want to get there. Or at least I have something of an idea. I know where things are or should be headed, what I need to be doing to get there. And then, as to the things that have little to do with my Future, great and fearful though the concept may be, there are some other things that I know I want, know I want to do. But I don’t. For one reason or another I never get around to doing all the things I mean to do; saying all the things I mean to say. I seem to like to bottle things inside until I get drunk and let them out in a barely coherent rant. Which I would advise against, it not being the most effective means of doing anything. I guess it’s that I’m afraid. Of life of my future of fucking all this shit up of everybody in the world not loving me they have to love me everybody has to love me why don’t you love me? Look at me, deer in the headlights. I’ve decided which way to jump. I just don’t know if I am ready. Maybe if I wait for the car to hit me I won’t have to follow through on anything. Or maybe I’ll do it tomorrow.

Thing 1: I think it’s going to rain.
Thing 2: Rain?
Thing 1: Yes.
Thing 2: Soon?
Thing 1: Possibly.
Thing 2: I don’t have an umbrella.
Thing 1: Perhaps we should go.
Thing 2: Aren’t we waiting?
Thing 1: Is that what we’re doing?
Thing 2: I always thought so.
Thing 1: For whom?
Thing 2: The Cat.

***
“Hold me closer tiny dancer. Count the headlights on the highway. Lay me down in sheets of linen. You had a busy day today.”
- Elton John, “Tiny Dancer”

Catastrophony

And so he slinks back into his cave, so well known.  Deep within the darkness and the warmth there is safety.  There is the familiar echo of his voice.

Her: You know the only reason I brought up other guys in front of you was to make you jealous.  I hoped it would, you know, light a fire under you.  Get you to ask me out.

Him: It only ever made me depressed.

I would have to say, for my taste anyway, a real martini (that is, a gin martini) is better than a vodka martini.  Shaken and strained.  With those little flecks of ice floating on top.  So good, so cold, when it hits your lips.

Have you ever burnt yourself in effigy?  On that note, I have never actually burned anyone in effigy.  What with being a pyro and all, you would think I would have gotten around to it.  At least a Guy Fawkes.  But no.  And I think that’s sad.  I would cry if I were the crying sort.  No, that is a lie.

The wheels are in motion, but I don’t know who is driving.  It isn’t that my life is completely stagnant.  Not quite.  Not yet.  Things are happening.  Or I am working on making them happen.  It’s just that I am in one of the worst parts of the transition.  I think.  If I am wrong then this is going to get much worse.  Did I mention that I have never really cared for holidays?

Oh, well.  Welcome back.  And here’s to 300 more.

***
“Home, where my thought’s escaping.  Home: where my music’s playing.  Home: where my love lies waiting silently for me.”
- Paul Simon, “Homeward Bound”

Drinking for Truth; whatever it may bring

It’s not that I am miserable.  I’m not.  I’m doing just fine.  Not that “just fine” is anywhere near where I would like to be.  But that is mostly how things are and I am not in a fighting mood right now.  If you had not realized it (and I try to keep it hidden, so I don’t know that you would have) I am quite prone to mood swings.  I often fluctuate quite easily from ebullient to pissed off to bottom of the bottle depressed.  And I have little control over it all.  The littlest things will set me off.

But right now I am finding myself in the most truthful of moods.  Well, perhaps not the most truthful.  There are still some lies that I would tell.  Still some truths that I will not reveal.  But I am in a very truthful mood.  So here it goes.  Here are some things that I probably should have said a long time ago and just didn’t, for one reason or another.  I am not really good at this kind of thing.  Anyway:

Misa, I really care about you.  I do.  And I know you find it hard to take me seriously, well, so do I.  But I do have my moments and this is one of them.  If I had lived nearer to you I would have asked you out ages ago.  I can only hope that you would have given me at least a chance to prove that I am worth your time.  But as it is that I live so many hours away, I felt that it would be a waste of your time if I had pursued you.  Especially since I have never found myself very good at the practice.  There are innumerable other girls you could ask to verify that statement.  But as it is that I have been in a depressed mood this evening and then drinking quite a bit to top that off, I find myself in a position that simply will not let me rest on my laurels.  So here it is, plain and simple.  I know we live a long ways away from each other.  And I would not ask you to drive or fly that distance, as it is both costly and time consuming.  But if you want me too, I would drive (I can’t really afford to fly) that 4 or 5 hours (whatever it is) to see you.  Hell, my dad did worse.  He drove 9 hours to see my mom after they first met.  If not, I understand.  Distance is a mother fucker.  And I can take it.  There is a girl around here that I am thinking of asking out.  I don’t know her quite as well, and she may not be as suited for me as you are (I really don’t know, I haven’t gotten to know her that well yet) but she doesn’t live so many hours away.  I realize that I am I likely overstepping the bounds of propriety at this point and if I had anyone to hold me back, I don’t doubt that they would.  But fuck that shit.  Like I said, I am depressed and I have been drinking and I have decided that it was about fucking time that I said some of the things that I have been meaning to say.

I am not so drunk that I am incoherent.  Nor am I so drunk that I will reveal all things.  On the off chance that the girls I know in Vegas are reading this I will not reveal any more on that topic.  It’s just that I have grown tired of wallowing in the mire of my own ineffectuality.  I was made for so much better than this.  And this stagnant lifestyle is not meant for me.  And I will break out in any way I can.

In case anyone was wondering: 2 gin and tonics, 2 extra strong scotch and sodas.  And misery and loneliness.  Don’t forget that.  It’s a good thing I am not thinking about the consequences of my actions.  Because I am starting to think that they are not going to be so good…

Hope is a good thing. Maybe the best of things. And no good thing ever dies.

I hate lukewarm coffee.

S > 0

Clearly I need you more than you need me.  Though I am loathe to admit that I need anyone.  And I suppose I would get by without you.  And you would easily get by without me, that is beyond question.  But that doesn’t mean that I don’t need you.  That everything wouldn’t be better if you were here with me now.  It would be.  That is, until I fucked it all up.  

***
“I am just a poor boy, though my story’s seldom told…”
-  Simon & Garfunkel, “The Boxer”
***

I am generally just depressed right now.  Everything is just falling apart.  I am falling apart.  Nothing is really working out like I had hoped.  I had such bright dreams of how coming back to Vegas was going to be such a fucking sweet trip.  I was going to get some job or another that was going to pay not only all my bills but leave me enough to go out most nights and party on the strip and in the bars and whatnot.  And do it all in style.  I have yet to go out in Vegas.  It has been 6 months.  I don’t really have many friends.  None that want to go out with me.  Or that I want to go out with.  It’s always one or the other.  I should have expected it.  I should have seen it coming.  I mean I hadn’t talked to my friends from high school since high school.  So that didn’t really work out.  And not going out by myself I wasn’t really meeting any new people.  Not that I can really afford it anyway.  I don’t have much money as it is now, and then with the grace period on my loans being over, I am going to be basically broke.  And I can’t see that anything is going to change.  This is going to be one fucking useless piece of shit year.  I am going to be glad when I get the fuck out of here.  Lie to me and tell me it’s going to be different when I get wherever it is that I am going.

Ok, that was a little to close to a diary entry.  Sorry ‘bout that.  But I needed to vent.  Life isn’t really going my way right now.  And I don’t seem to have the balls to do anything about it.  I suppose I should go ahead and ask her out, get rejected and move on.  After all, there’s nowhere else to go from here.  I really need to get the fuck out of this shit hole.

***
“Left to his own devices, the Prophet would surely have self-destructed long ago.  Lucky for all of us, help came along just in time…”
- James Walsh, the Life and Times of the Prophet (a work in progress)

You should have done something. You should have tried to stop me.

• I did not allow myself to go to bed.


• And why, pray tell, did you do that?


• I believe it had, in theory at least, something to do with a spavined horse.


• Aha!  That is clearly an act which I cannot, with clear conscience, allow.  You must cease and desist at once.  At once, I say!


• I am afraid that I can do no such thing.  You, sir, are a foulmouthed man of low station and questionable birth.  It would not surprise me to find that not only was your father French, but also that at least three of your close maternal relatives were of Gallic descent.  Good Lord, man, you fairly reek of it.


• I hate you.


• It is a sign of one of the greatest flaws of your people that you would feel the need to do so.  I am at once both ashamed of and sympathetic for you.  If you were a homeless man I would surely toss a penny in your cup.


• This conversation has idled too long in the fancy of others.  I will no longer let you shame me in public.  Good day, sir.


• Good day.  And have a pleasant tomorrow.


• Right back at you, Captain.

It’s getting worse, isn’t it?  Well, it is to be expected.  You left me all alone without any restraining influences.  It is only logical that I would have fallen deeper within myself.  I cannot and will not apologize for my behavior.

My estimation and understanding of everyone I know is both completely wrong and exactingly correct.  I don’t know which one is more important.

Has anyone actually been plotting the course of my descent?  It would be nice to know if someone cared.  Or at least had paid attention.  I mean, it didn’t start out like this.  Posts used to make sense.  For the most part.  There was a central theme, a coherence.  Though I would have to say, I have never much cared for coherence or overarching narratives.  They are such a stumbling block to creativity.  And so contrived.  At least from my perspective.  So was it inevitable that my creative urges would bring me to this point?  To this watershed moment of crystal clear realization?  No.  That is bullshit.  Like the rest.

It strikes me at times like these that I could be wrong about everything.  And I don’t know if it would matter; if it would even make the slightest difference.

***
“Oh, well.  What the hell.”
- McWatt, the pilot

every man’s first time should be with a whore

Love?  Guys like me don’t know the meaning of love.  Which I guess is good for the rest of you, in the long run.  I mean, I may break a few hearts or whatever, but at least I won’t end up ruining anyone’s life.  That is completely up to you and your future ill matched partners.

Two things: whatever Lola wants, Lola gets.  Other than that, you’re on your own.

I’m breaking.  But it doesn’t really matter.  I suppose, and then not much.

Embedded in the lies and the amusement and the things said for shock and the things said  for no reason at all there is something of myself.  The problem is I have forgotten how to find it and how to tell it from all the rest.

Her – You write?
Me – I write.
Her – You’re a horrible person.
Me – I am.

I appeal to the worst in you.  But so long as I am the one doing it, you don’t have to feel guilty for enjoying it.

The Greatest Fear: to amount to nothing
The Greatest Challenge: to prove everyone wrong

I may not have known the consequences coming in, but there is no escaping them now.  It’s a Death or Glory charge; to go gently into the maelstrom.  I was always a sucker for theatrics and embellishment.  A hyperbola is a geometric shape.

In the end it’s all the same.  And I don’t really mind that.  It’s the middle that I want to be different; better, more interesting.  It’s all we have left to change.  Amusement can be so debasing.

***
“Why am I sticky and naked?  Did I miss something fun?”
- Fry

garbled eggs; thoughts while sitting

lying is the last greatest art form
the wellspring from which all other arts emanate
it is so
it is written

I have yet to find anything worth fighting for.

You’re never going to get shit from anything if you only ever care about yourself. I should fucking know. Life is a dull and tasteless affair. Hell is other people. But so is heaven. So where do you go from there?

I have killed for less.

Easy, baby. Chill out. You just aren’t good enough for me. I simply can’t devote that much of my precious time to an endeavor as phenomenally useless as you. Besides, you’re not that attractive.

Bitch, you talk to me that way one more fucking time and I will slap you. In the goddamn mouth. Fuck, slut, don’t even fucking try. Me, not good enough for you? Fuck that shit. You can’t handle my fucking sweetness. So shut your goddamn mouth and know your fucking role.

• What do you do for fun?


• I rape kittens.


• Oh. Just that?


• There are some other things. But I wouldn’t want to bore you.


• Good. I hate being bored.

I am so funny.

He wanted to create something. I just wanted to destroy.

***
"You're smiling. Why are you smiling?"
"Because there are some time travelling ninjas out to kill us."

Document3

When smoke gets in your eyes it’s about time to start drinking.  Again.

That’s the regular fucking story, isn’t it?  Booze and the rest of it.  Because what else do I have?  I hate myself.  I hate my life.  And I don’t fucking give a shit about anything.

Coarse and unfinished.  Not a bad way to go.  There is always something more.  There is always something more to do.  And then?  No and then.  And then?  No and then.

If god gave a shit about you, he would have killed you off years ago.  You are a total waste of fucking space.  Let the rest of us die in piece, you blanksouled motherfucker.

Again.

It’s not a trust issue.  I don’t put myself in those situations.  I don’t need to trust people.  I trust myself.  Everyone else is just a walk-on.  There are small parts.  Yours.  And there he goes again.  On his damn dull ego trip.  Eh.  At least it’s better than some of his other shit.  Actually, no.  Not really.

3 is the number after 2.  It is also after -7.  On the number line.  Look twice.  You’ll see.

There is a point to all of this.  A reason.  It all has some underlying theme.  I just don’t know what it is.  Let me know if you can find one.  You might be able to figure it out.  I just can’t make myself an objective observer.  You know how it is.

By the way,

and drink oblivion till your return

As always, more.  As always, more of the same.

12 year old scotch.  4 year old soda.  Mixin’ to win.

Are lies better up close?

And to think that we let him believe that it was all over.  And that he went on believing so long after any sensible person would have given up hope and hung themselves with a good bit of rope from that propitiously placed tree.  There was so much riding on that game.  Who knew that it would all end like this?  I would have killed him years ago if I had known it would have made that kind of difference.  You know, the kind that would have worked out well for me.  I would have.  If I had known.  So many things that would have been if only they would have been.

I was trying to think deep thoughts, ones with universal significance, &c.  And I found that I really couldn’t.  Or rather, I could, but I couldn’t make myself care.  I know a good part of the issue is that all those “big ideas” are all “out there” happening to other people.  I have never been to war or killed a man; been to prison or on the receiving end of the justice system.  So those issues don’t much concern me.  I am of the majority and so whatever issues of the minority that apply to me are those that I have chosen to bring upon myself, and thus do not mind.  Accidents of birth and what have you.  I’m too young for social security or politics (especially to care about them or think they are legitimate, I’ll need to be far more senile before that happens) and I am relatively too healthy to overly concern myself with health insurance, much less health care for other people.  All those problems are happening to other people.  Some near some far some I know some I don’t.  And though I live below the poverty line and all of that shit, I just don’t fucking care.  Maybe it is because I have never faced those problems, that I have never seen the value in being part of the system or the suffering in being excluded from the system.  Maybe it is all those things.  But how does that change the fact that I don’t care about other people?  I suppose I might care about the problems if they were my problems.   But my problems roughly extend from the fact that I don’t like to work yet have to, that I am really lazy, and that I am easily bored.  Aside from that my life is so ridiculously dull as to be a caricature.  And it would be, if only I wasn’t so certain that nearly everyone else’s lives are just as dull and unchanging as mine.  After all, caring about problems that can’t be solved doesn’t solve them any more than ignoring them because they are someone else’s problems.  Life goes on without us whether we are paying attention to it or not.  Garandō had the way of it.  

You see, in my “Allegory of the Cave,” I don’t go back to help.

***
“Use, Captain?  If by use you mean filling our bellies or our purses, I confess it will be no use at all.”
- Reepicheep, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader

“It’s all self-mutilation when you’re the only character in the story.”
- Usko, Self-Non-Determinism and Her Opponents

only the journey is written

If I could live the lives I wrote, I wouldn’t waste my time writing them. I figure that’s how most writers are. Maybe not Hunter Thompson. But he’s really the exception that proves the rule. Those who cannot do, write. Not that I really want to kill anyone (homeless or otherwise) or most of the other fucked up shit that comes up. Eh. What are you gonna do?

I’m not a horrible person. Honestly. Trust me. I guarantee it. Would I lie?

It’s like one of those annoying commercials you just can’t get out of your head.

Oh, so I've started reading The Chronicles of Narnia again. What with the movies coming out and all, I wanted to refresh my memory. And that way I could comment snidely on how the book was so much better. But upon looking back on them (and so far I have only re-read The Magician's Nephew and The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe) I'm hoping the movies are going to be better. Because these books aren't that good. The plots run relatively thin and seem forced most of the time, the main character is Deus ex Machina despite Aslan and the children's attempts to the contrary, and C.S. Lewis's heavy handed moralism is really quite annoying. There are some good ideas in them, some good takes on myth and such, but ultimately the story tends to fall short. I guess I wasn't quite as discerning as a child. It happens.

Oh, funny story... I was about to go to work 12 hours early tomorrow. I almost mistook a 4:15 pm start time for a 4:15 am start time. That would have been both awkward and incredibly annoying. I do so ever love my sleep. Good thing I checked the schedule one last time. Ok, so maybe that wasn't the funniest of stories. I suppose it would have been funnier with a midget. But I didn't have one handy at the time.

***
“Roses are red,
Violets are blue.
I didn’t send you flowers.
I hope this will do.”

- Usko, Broken Apologies

Liar or Lunatic (?)

Work the scene ... and the scenery.  Everything is "just details."
 
I've been relatively caught up in my own descending madness such that I have either forgotten or misplaced the majority of my responsibilities (only to myself).  I still go to work with a feverish regularity.  But it seems that I am forgetting to eat more and more often.  Explanations are relatively hard to come by.  I have always enjoyed eating and I believe that I continue to do so.  I most certainly am not against eating (in theory or practice).  And yet I find that, as the days go by, I am eating less and less often.  The only reason that I can think of is that I am poor.  Also, I am lazy.
 
***
The Satyr's Ball: beginnings and apologies
 
The Satyr’s Ball wasn’t just for the satyrs or the sexually adventurous.  Though they did make up a large portion of the membership.  And then, of course, there were the virgins to be ravaged (though they were only virgins the first night).  We bought them in bulk overseas and had them shipped 3rd class freight.  If one or two didn’t “make it” through transit, that satisfied the darker proclivities of some of the senior members.  (You know, the ones who wore makes or hoods even though they weren’t supposed to and we all told them that they looked horsefucking ridiculous – especially while they were fucking the horses – but they did it anyway because they thought that they were too important to mix with us “common folk” or that they were too important and could have certain “information” (their involvement in certain “counterculture” clubs) getting out to the voting public.  There is just no reaching some people.)

It was also something of an artist commune.  Which was mostly the reason I stuck around.  Mostly.  Free exchange of ideas or some such.  Working with the best of every field.  Furthering “art” and other noble ideas.  With a noisy background of deviant sex.  Because that’s how us artists types roll.  No wonder you middle Americans will never be invited to our parties.  You prudish bastards.  I was a writer posing as a actor pretending to be a poet.  You know, one of “those.”  Does it get any better?  No.  It doesn’t. 
 
***
"Yes, they're sharing a drink they call loneliness, but it's better than drinking alone."
- Billy Joel, Piano Man
 
"Take me as I am.  I've got nothing else."
- Isaac Aronson, First Confessions and Sorrow