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do you know where we stand, in this lake of mother's milk? rid of the anguish and the bland melodrama of this and that? because there never was a pinch of want or let it be, and there it was-- there we were, anyways, you and me: bereft of the dangers of have not, we found that there's no more ink in this dried up well. our spirits sat by the side of the road and threw rocks at passing cars while the sky fell and birds ate our flesh. i used to think that the time was now, and that the moon was above us, and that the clouds ate the mountains; but the sky is clear, and this is still then. and the truth is that in the end we are not even verbs; we are but conjuctives: forcibly affixed betwixt words of meaning and less.
Saturday, July 27
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there's a reset button tucked away somewhere in the recesses of my mind. and most of the time i deny its existence: it's santa claus, or god, or the notion of justice: crap we make up to feel some magic. and even if it did exist, there's no way to find it or get close enough to observe it or figure out how it works. but it's obviously there, because she hits it. and then everything's both absolutely clear, and absolutely muddled, all at the same time. i guess it's kinda like the degauss button on my monitor (or for you old schoolers, the equivalent of smacking the side of the television set): is the picture any better? any worse? it's most probably just the same, but for a whole singular instant of time, the monitor was doing amazing things with shapes and colors and sound. it's wonderful, except it's fucking scary to be vulnerable like that; to have that switch hit randomly. and then i protect myself with rationale; layers of logic and cynicism. when all i really want is just another fix.
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because eventually twilight approaches, and the options narrow. and i feel the blah, weighing down on me like some big boulder. sometimes it's hard to breath; all this weight; when i catch my breath long enough to get some distance i regret looking at the broader picture. because what are the odds that i'll beat the odds? what do i want? what is the set of attainable goals? is the attainable sufficient? probably not. par sucks, and at the rate i'm going, chances are par's gonna bite me in the ass.
where do people find physical / emotional / mental peers of the opposite sex? or do most just settle for two out of three? one out of three? it's not about some stupid checklist; it's about that rhythm-- that elusive connection. oh how rare it is, that desire to rise to the occasion instead of shutting the hell up and closing down and playing it stupid and rejectable, to get away. and the raw interest isn't even enough, because you need to be at the right place at the right time (and so do they) and it doesn't hurt to have venus in retrograde, or some such nonesense. and i'm not the compromising type, so i better find more stuff to occupy my time, because the magic eight ball says not likely. i'm probably just really fucking lucky at cards.
Wednesday, July 24
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i don't like not being anyone's type. it makes the beginnings very difficult. but i guess it's pretty cool when they're eventually surprised by how hopelessly attracted they are to me. is that sentence even grammatically correct?
Tuesday, July 23
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i love my friends. and some are incorporated into my life better than others. and i miss them. and i collect awesome women. and i've a collection that i won't trade with anyone, for anything. these women are amazing. and adoring these women so much feels kinda gay, so i'm gonna go surf for porn now. straight porn.
Monday, July 22
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since i faired well (28/30) on the online mensa workout, i ordered their official practice exam and took it today. i think it's generally a bad sign if i think a test is really easy. it'll be an ego blow if i find that i don't qualify (meaning my iq is not of the top 2% of the population), but i think it would be excruciatingly depressing if it turns out that i am in the top 2%. because, if i'm brighter than 98% of the people out there, well then, may god have mercy on us all.
but i've decided that if i do indeed qualify, and this is the real incentive, then i'm going to treat myself to a second tattoo. right now the primary candidate is getting the word 'temporary' placed somewhere on my arm, but i'm trying not to get too attached to the idea, because even though i try to sound smart, i'm fairly stoopid, and the test might pick up on that. but i think that a tattoo that says 'temporary' would help remind me that, after all, it is.
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listen here, you little shit. i wasn't reachable on saturday because even if you weren't a meticulous pain-in-the-ass, i'd still rather spend the beautiful day with my friend undisturbed by the likes of you. you called incessantly this morning, and when i finally woke up and returned your whiney-ass calls, you nearly demanded to see the car immediately so you could show it to your wife. well, i had a date, and fuck you if you think i'm going to cancel that just so you can berate the condition of my old car in front of your matrimonial slave-driving keeper-of-your-balls. it's not my responsibility to be available for your every whimsical demand, even if you did try to reach me 'all morning' but couldn't. i still can't believe you actually whined angrily "well, if you don't want to sell the car then that's fine." did you just graduate from passive-aggressive college? you're a grown man in your frickin fifties, and you're trying to guilt me into doing business with you?
it's not my fault that you're in more of a hurry to buy a car than i am to sell one, just like it's not the fault of the guy you were tailgating that you totaled both cars and need to buy a new one. you are the most inherently unpleasant person i've had the displeasure of coming across in a long long time, and it makes me sad to think about humanity when i know you're in it. it actually makes me wish i bought a new car that gets even worse gas mileage than the sports car i did buy, just so i can end this that much quicker. the only reason i was civil with you was because i felt sorry for your sorry ass, hearing your wife yap-yap-yap at you in the background. the reason i'm selling the car cheaper than it's probably worth, and not trying to squeeze every last nickel out of it, is so i don't have to chase assholes like you for business.
Sunday, July 21
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today, prior to seeing an amazing set of her space holiday (yes, this would be the third time) followed by an equally fantastic set of the american analog set, i had dinner. and for dinner i had a beet salad.
the beet salad is generally composed of mixed greens, beets, red onions, some refined cheese or other (today's was gorgonzola), and some variant of vinaigrette. and as i was eating this beet salad, i was thinking to myself that i've had better beet salads. and immediately after that thought, i started to wonder what kind of a person am i, who at the age of 25, has experienced superior beet salads. maybe it's standard fair. maybe most 25 year olds have consumed a sufficient number of beet salads to be able to rank quality. i don't know. but it doesn't sound normal. regardless, it's kind of depressing to think that i've had as good a beet salad as a beet salad can get. isn't it? beet salads will always be compared. there's a loss of innocence there that can't be regained. i'll never again simply enjoy the brand new delight of the flavors of beets and onions and (preferably) warm chevre.
and obviously i'm not just talking about salad. the notion is a transferable to other experiences in life. for example, i'm likely to never have as good of lamb chops as i had in argentina. ever. i can't express the amazement that overcame me as i enjoyed these chops of lamb. the mountain ranges and glaciers in argentina were predictably beautiful, but the lamb chops were 'amazing.'
and so, there's a strong argument for not experiencing 'the best' too soon in life. because the best doesn't last, and then what can i do with the rest of my time but lament its loss?
Friday, July 19
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it's not that i'm not interested in current events, or what's going on in the world; i'm perfectly capable of getting very upset at stuff i have no deep understanding of or ability to influence, just like everyone else. but up until the existence of newsblogs like metafilter, i could never find a sufficiently dense medium of information. television news is soooo sslllooww; i can skim a gajillion news items in the time it takes them to say, "and now, here's john, with the latest in sports." i ingest information at a certain pace, and if there are big pockets of air in between the important bits, i lose focus. which is probably why i hated school. which is probably why i like to learn everything on my own. and which is probably why reading slower than thinking makes reading difficult.
for example, i don't have the ability to read descriptions of weather in novels. whenever an author begins a paragraph describing the clouds or sky or what not, my inner mouth keeps reading, but my mind is thinking about something completely different. it moves on. my fragmented mind is both reading the words, and thinking about stuff i did that day. and then i go back and reread it and it happens again. and then i slow down, and read each word, and focus on each word, except i can't do that fast enough to make the whole sentence stick. eventually i end up just skimming it for key words like 'rain' or 'cloudy' and get by on that, because that's all i can do. it's hard enough to stay focused on the bits of the book where stuff happens, let alone the bits where absolutely nothing happens. that is, it's hard enough to focus on reading. especially on fiction. the only real time i can get through a whole book is on vacation; otherwise i tend to read pages and not internalize a single sentence, and sometimes i won't even notice, except i'll suddenly ask myself, 'wait a minute, how the hell did they get here,' and then i'll go back and discover i 'skipped' important developments.
the great thing about being your own editor is that you can write an entry that starts out as an observation on the transformation of the way news information is distributed, by the hyperactive digirati, for the same digirati, and end up explaining my disability in reading fictional weather. there's probably a term for it. meteorologic iliteracy?
Monday, July 15
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everyone eventually comes to the realization that they need someone. and that someone is me.
Sunday, July 14
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you can live, or you can make art. not both; not at the same time. because art is born of the frustration of observing life. and the artist attempts to capture what s/he can't participate in. who would bother to slave at capturing the minute details of life if they had the option to live it, instead? at least that's the truth behind my art. my writing is akin to draining pus from a cyst, or releasing the pressure from a skull after trauma; it's not a pleasant process, but i feel much better afterwards. and i started photography because i would stand in a place of supposed immense beauty, and only see myself; like a death-bed-ridden man having a vivid recollection of youth. good art or bad art, but the artistic drive is there. even my humorous entries (especially my humorous entries) were written at the worst of times.
but as i'm living the summer, my blog suffers. even this entry is driven by a singular frustration of having to choose between life and art. but as my time passes, i have too much to do and no time to articulate; events/emotions/tides come and go, never settling into moldy, crystalline, betraying words/thoughts/anecdotes. it's all wispy and fleeting. that's why there's never any evidence of the good times.
i love the music that came out of the pacific northwest: elliot smith; unwound; juno; sunny day real estate; nirvana; quasi; modest mouse. but i'll bet it's all written in the winter, because my summer days would make van gogh drop his brush and go for a bike ride.
Thursday, July 11
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we hate it when our friends cry.
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i'm not looking. i'm not. i couldn't stand to get into anything right now. but i want to meet people. lots of people. just so's i can find out what they're like. here's how i'm gonna lure them: my the stranger ad.
Tuesday, July 9
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12 to 2. we lost 12 to 2. i can't believe we scored 2. indoor soccer is fast and furious, and usually just a blur. the field is roughly a quarter of a regular outdoors soccer field. i wonder if there's a version of soccer that's a quarter of that, because that's what i want to play. i think we're going to have to double our time practicing foozball. they scored once every 4 minutes. next week we're going to try to get it down to 5. baby steps... i'm all about baby steps.
Sunday, July 7
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some like cake. but i'm a pie man. pie doesn't sacrifice taste for appearance or structure. there are no layers of colors; no fancy swirls of frosting; no trim or stature or funny marzipan decorations. all there is is a thin flavorful doughy crust enveloping sheer delicious madness. where cake is shallow youth, obsessed with the glass displays of flavorless buttery crowns, pie is true substance. pie is ugly. pie is real. yes, there exist excellent, deep, meaningful cakes. but they're few and far apart; while every pie is sophistication -- simplified; maturity in a tin pan. so what if the candles don't stay upright; to hell with cake -- if i marry, i'm gonna have a huge wedding pie. cherry, apple, peach, rhubarb, pumpkin, mmm, pecan. served cold, hot, or with a scoop of vanilla mode. pie: it's what's for dinner.
Wednesday, July 3
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tonight i fly out to visit someone i've known for 10 months now, but haven't met yet. i'm kinda shut down, which is what happens before flights / nervousness / travel / stress. i will share a bit of advice for the global consumer: get your cars from illinois, and your women from texas.
oh. and fuck me. i'm older. tomorrow i'll be in my mid-mid-twenties. w00t.