I'm Back... Because I care

So, I guess I will start this thing up again. Why? Because it is currently 11:11 p.m. and I am very, very bored. I am currently sitting in my bed in Emporia with my laptop on my lap covered in blankets despite the fact that it is about 80 degrees outside. It comforting, I guess. As I write this, my roommate is currently in his room on the other side of the wall to my left. He is with his girlfriend. And, I think, but I'm not sure, that they are both giggling. It might just be her, but I think there is a lower pitched one in there too. Anyway, it's annoying.

I'm not really sure what to write in this post, I kind of just wanted to start up again, because, you know, I am very, very bored. But I suppose I could leave you with something, if there is even anyone reading this... This summer I have come to realize, because of two main events, which I will get to in a bit, that all those people who tell you to live 'one day at a time' are full of shit. Seriously. It is so much easier to see your life on a plane than to see it as a series of connected, yet separate events, or days. And besides that, that is just not how life works. Every day lends itself to the next day, it all piles up and shapes everything. Obviously, this is kind of a "no shit" thing to say, but it completely debunks the 'live one day at a time' mindset, so it had to be said. To explain, I will use the two aforementioned events.

Event number one-- My maternal grandmother died on July 1st after a relatively short (about two months) bout with cancer. I will spare you the sappy 'she was such a strong person' and 'one of the greatest people I have ever met' routine because, frankly, none of it would mean a damn thing to you. What I will say is that it was so much easier throughout the entire process of her dying to think about it from a long-term perspective. What I mean is, I thought of myself at 50, and the memories I would want to have about my Grandma during this time. My 50 year self would, I decided, want me to be by her bed as often as possible, while the 23 year-old me might want to, I don't know, get drunk and bang out a horrid version of Tom Petty's Free Falling with an equally drunk guitarist. The 'one day at a time' part of me failed miserably during this time. Every time I got into that attitude, it did not end in the best possible management of time spent with her.

Slight tangent-- everyone kept telling me to 'live one day at a time' during the entire ordeal, and it was all the more infuriating. I know they were trying to console me, but COME ON! That is terrible advice to give, especially since most of those who told me this were older (50 or up), so, I assume, they had been through death before. Now, I suppose it is entirely possible that the 50 year-old version of myself that I created in my mind is a friggin' moron, and that the REAL me at 50 will look back and shake his head in disgust, but I suppose time will only tell (if I don't decide to join the 27 Club).

Event number two-- This one is going to look stupid compared to the previous one, but I have decided to postpone going to grad. school for a least a year. I think I would have loved school, but funding was an issue. I also feel like I should do some living for awhile. When I was having a lot of trouble making the decision, I kept thinking that it was a now or never thing, but once I stopped with the 'one day at a time' mindset, I realized that I do not have to set in motion the entirety of my future at 23, and for that matter nobody should. Once I got it in my head that I WASN'T having some sort of existential crisis, I was able to figure out what I wanted. It really was that simple-- a change in mindset.

Anyway, I am glad I am blogging and hopefully there is someone reading. If not, whatever, it's therapeutic.

Aqueous Transmission

I find it rewarding to write
in the hangover mornings,
or early afternoons
when the smell of ribs and cigarettes
still sticks to your nostril and palms
and the tastes of assorted acids
threaten to invade your esophagus

like swallowing your pride
like swallowing your hopeless soul

when the rain in your jacket is still soaking in

freezing to the bone
freezing to your hopeless, ignorant soul

These hangover mornings when coffee seems to perpetuate
the eyes-wide-open-in-complete-adoration
feeling of the night-
everything you love about being alive
combined with everything death deals in

jumping for joy
jumping out of that pathetic little synthetic soul of yours

hangover mornings that turn to hangover noons,
with nothing to do but plan last night again
hangover mornings that keep me alive,
remind me I'm human
I'd forgotten in the immortal night
forgotten till my soul,
my laughably feeble soul reminded me

For Jen, :)

When a sour mood inflicts itself upon you.
and the world seems foggy and trouble follows you,
just think that this day, is just one day,
on the long list of days past and future.
Though this one is marked "sour", look down the
list and smile, because the "sour" days are few
and far between,
and the "good" days, will bring about a smile,
guaranteed.
Don't worry, I'll be smiling with you, though we are
worlds apart, in more ways than one.
At least we can both smile.
There's always that.

The Eulogy of John Something-Something

Don't prey on your self esteem, there's no renewable resource in that. When it's gone, it's gone.

Influences wipe my mind of its own thought. I speak in cliche because that's all there is to say. Nothing new. Nothing ground breaking. Thought provoking. Filled with new distinction never thought of until this very moment, when blechlatablaya becomes something truer than "love". truer than "truth". The writer loses always, perpetually. A game played with poison can never be won by players or the audience. Poisonous words inflict in the mind the sub-servant thoughts it now speaks. love, hate, pride, freedom, patriotism, creativity, plaid suits and pink ties. Funny little hats and power chords.

"The necessity of action is in all forms of thought the main conspirator"- Dr. Jonathon C. Whogivesafuck, professor of Thought and Culture, University State College of Western Explicicity, (1954-2009). Shot dead on Oct. 22nd by everyone and on his own accord, to stifle his thoroughly uninspired ramblings.

Flow,

the vibration of the world that ignores itself until its trash becomes its truth. I stop, the deadened daytime canalway, as ships flash by at slow speeds and I feel the rhythm, rhythm, tap, tap, tap, tap, this beat keeps it going. The fear of thinking a thousand thoughts at once and not knowing which one to say, nay, to shout at the captain carrying his load down to the Waal. We all carry our loads to the Waal. Let it flow, into a pool of thought, meaningless to everyone else. Tap, tap, tap ,tap. Move, feel, sob, sniff, bat your fucking eyes. Lifeisbutadream. For a moment, you think you’ve got it figured out. A vision of Ginsberg hearing Blake in the back of his head. Talking something about a rose. There are moments when I am certain I know what it feels like to go completely, irrevocably, insane. Like when you can actually shut off all the noise and think, clear. Not analyze conversations in Dutch, not scrutinizing what some hack is saying about Kerouac, not conceal my displeasure with countrymen… really think, in silence, or in haywire, frenzied, frantically scrawled articulations that are unintelligible… even to me at times… “I feel what people will say… it plays out in my mind before it happens, y’know?” The Calcit blows that thick horn and creeps by, sending shockwaves to nearby, neatly man-made banks, housing me, and my uncomfortable stature and silence. The confused, awkward, hair-never-lays-quite-flat, modest analytic, pathetic, new adult, struggling with honesty, and the complexities of male/female relationship statuses… For the first time not being quasi-honest, not holding back… love exists for the same reason god exists- to keep everyone from becoming me- cynical, skeptical, bottom lip sticking out as if in thought, though really just unsure of what else to do. To stop analyzing everything would mean a total disassembly of my newly acquired, and permittable self, the semi-unique, yet totally recycled human contained in this body of uninspired proportions. Who, in reading of the wonders of genius minds gone crazy with wit, longs to achieve some ridiculous version of this in himself. Perceiving analytic thought to be essential to this quest, he challenges everything said to him in his mind, and therefore devalues the greatest skill one can have—that of the exclusive club of the 5 senses which can really be said to be the wisest of the troupe, the master of the others in ways the others no nothing of… the wonders of which transcend any thought a person can have… The magnificence of that all too important lesson, that one should hear without speaking and listen without the threat of wandering mind or thought of what to say next.

memory, all alone in the moonlight...

These memories are all convoluted into
a distant reminder of the very worst,
the absolute worst that could ever happen
to a man of your stature.
You hide it now,
but I know that when your head hits the pillow it comes rushing back to you,
and you realize over and over and over
the mistakes you made. The little slip-ups that
formed ranks and systematically
tore it all apart. The
crack in the foundation that sent the whole house
tumbling in so much
smoke and debris that
the only thing you could do was block it out, back away, close your eyes,
cough, and laugh it off until, at long last,
you were utterly, completely, entirely, totally, wholly, exclusively, fully-- alone, lock, stock and barrel.
And you know, without a doubt, that everything, every microscopic little minute detail that you ignored, or shrugged off, or dismissed with a wave of you grubby little hand, you KNOW,
that all those nights you didn't call, assumed it would be alright, YOU KNOW you were wrong.
You thought you were being normal, when really you had your head so far up your ass you thought your colon was the real world.

That being said... you tried your hardest... sometimes you just fail, huh?

Oh, Come All Ye Faithful

It's weird, That promised land of fortune and fame and opportunity, is not what it was before, when the masses crowded around the gate, with nervous glances up at lady Liberty, majestic and meaningfully perched on her throne. Then, then it was real; an outlet; an escape from the suffocation and torture. But now... now it's just the haven for sloths and bigots and the gluttons in some Pent house flat they pay a ridiculous amount for in order to hide their lack of personal attraction. And they are all alike. Uniquely alike. As if the same person is staring at me through a thousand different eyes. Their eyes, bloodshot and baggy from continually putting up the painted wall they allow others to see. A wall with flowers, pink and blooming, and newly unbraced teeth with silicon covering every humanizing blemish they had. The real people, trapped behind every single wall scream in vain, want release. But, out of fear or self consciousness or tragedy, stay put behind their brick walls with paint and flowers and masks. I too, had a wall. Mine is newly been taken apart, brick by prosthetic brick, until there was nothing left but a pile or shadow at my feet, which people stare at, and jeer, and mock... "is that his wall?" they whisper. "look how ugly he is." They boom in full voice, laughing till they cry and conformity squirts out of their noses. Wall gone, partition between myself and the world successfully dismantled into a worthless, steaming, stinking pile at my feet,which I kick and push away, but which flows back to me like a stream of unwanted children. I scream at my abortions, and kick and throw with all my useless strength, but they come back. always... begging me to build them up again. "I won't" I scream over and over until it echoes of the rock faces and sings back to me. "I won't." "I won't" "I won't". And the rocks sing true. I have found a place in this world where all people walk, unburdened by the unwanted, brightly painted brick, as I possess. To stay here would be a heaven... heaven forever without so much as a handshake given without permission and desire. Desire.