best of: September 2003 Archives

i've said it once i'll say it a million times it is supposed to be difficult if you do not encounter serious challenging circumstances that test you to your soul you are doing something wrong life does not get better being easy, it merely leaves you numbed out complacent stagnant struggling to stay awake under the influence of the inertia.

maybe that's what's wrong with me, huh? maybe life is supposed to be easy and the same thing day in day out maybe it is about comfort and moderation in everything except numbness, can't get enough of that? or, here's another question: what's better, to have bested a beast of a difficult situation, or never to have had the difficulty?

now for some people comfort and moderation is the thing, but for others among us it is not. and though we may long for it even pine for it and consider ourselves suffering for the lack of it, our minds have other plans. we can try to defend against those plans, adorn ourselves with the psychic shock absorption the insulation the well-appointed interior the long list of amenities, and do our level best to cruise through it controlled but for us comfort is really not the thing, it looks good it seems like it should feel good but it is never quite right with us down deep, that restless shifting within that vague disquiet that surfaces in the idle silence between heartbeats, a sense of urgency that is all at once impractical and illogical and irresistable. and oh, resistance is costly, though it's intensity that it costs us and that's hard to justify; much easier to take credit for our efforts against surrendering to the messy chaos our dreams suggest to us. logic tells us that messes and chaos and red 1969 z28 convertibles are difficult and stressful and therefore wrong for us, but logic knows naught of intensity. logic tells us intensity is not a need. i beg to differ.

some of us just aren't buick people, no matter how hard we try to convince ourselves otherwise.

i therefore rescind all my whining about wanting to be normal. fuck normal. i'm a freak. i'm weird. but life is interesting, and i am awake, and i am alive.

You hear me say this don't make any sense As I hop up and over the fence Hooked on nicotine and phonics Fun like macro economics Still and quiet like they taught us Fun like macro economics Vigilante thoughts and a cheap guitar I am my own movie star I don't know you I don't want to I don't know you I don't want to
eve 6, tongue tied

could quote lyrics all nightlong and possibly express everything but then again maybe not, since it would be impossible to include enough context, and with me with music it's always contextual. the elaborate process by which these things become one with the soundtrack adds anything from nuances to entirely alternative meanings to these things i quote, and yet, and yet ...

Pacific Sun, you should have warned us, it gets so cold here. And the night can freeze, before you set it on fire. And our flares go unnoticed. Dimminished, faded just as soon as they are fired. We are, we are, intrigued. We are, we are, invisible. Oh, how we've shouted, how we've screamed, take notice, take interest, take me with you. But all our fears fall on deaf ears. Tonight, they're burning the roads they built to lead us to the light. And blinding our hearts with their shining lies, while closing our caskets cold and tight. But I'm dying to live.
dashboard confessional, several ways to die trying
Something 'bout the whiteness of the phone Something 'bout the Genius of Modern Music How can I think How can I fail you? Something 'bout the distance to the nerve Something 'bout white hands of fate I don't deserve The bedroom ghosts
the posies, love letter boxes

between the posies and the dashboard confessional there were things starting seeming like damn good ideas the eve6 is a little mentally healthier for me at the moment.

How much longer will I try before I realize I'm desperate in the situation that I'm in again I'm exhausting yet another topic I've exhausted frequently with no regrets.
eve 6, how much longer

my life is mostly dreamt in the textures my speakers spin around me and i live in a world where the surreal sensation of the loss of these latest dreams fades into a fantasy in which there ... in which there is ... there is no loss (but there is always kansas)

I'm woven in a fantasy, I can't believe the things I see The path that I have chosen now has led me to a wall And with each passing day I feel a little more like something dear was lost It rises now before me, a dark and silent barrier between, All I am, and all that I would ever want be It's just a travesty, towering, marking off the boundaries my spirit would erase
� � � � �
And though it's always been with me, I must tear down the Wall and let it be All I am, and all that I was ever meant to be, in harmony Shining true and smiling back at all who wait to cross THERE IS NO LOSS
kansas, the wall

yes there is. yes there is. yes there is. but nice try. nothing uplifting lasting long here in the spaces where the constant chatter obviates the answer, which is here, has been here, patient waiting for the first silent moment

If you could see all the roads I have travelled towards Some unusable last equilibrium. Run like an athlete and die like a dead beaten speed freak, An answer to all of the answers to yes. If I wait for an answer, Will the silence be broken? Do we wait for an answer? Do we leave it unspoken?
yes, tempus fugit

the answer, the answer is no.

change changing places root yourself to the ground capitalize on this good fortune one word can bring you round changes
yes, changes

and in spite of the answer everything is different and nothing has changed and this is endless and finished, now and forever.

All the foolish notions: When we'll die that's all that is. We can never really understand the broken promises. All along we run together (Remember?) All along we run as one (Remember?) When you find a perfect union, you've got to follow it.
yes, holding on

but the answer, the answer is no.

all of this in context and symbolic and filtered through my consciousness days or decades ago in ways i cannot ever explain, so it does express exactly what i meant, but only to me.

sorry about that

I can't go out no more.
There's a man by the door
in a raincoat
smoking a cigarette

i have such a complicated relationship with reality, which is why i spend so much time here, in the internet. when i venture forth into meatspace, i am so easily overwhelmed by the normalcy i perceive. sitting outside the school yesterday afternoon as other mommies and daddies gathered, even though i blend in well and you can't tell, i still felt this intense difference between myself and everyone else. times like these i am seized by this fierce wondering, this what if i had grown up when i was supposed to and led a responsible existence, what if i had settled into the world as opposed to flipping and twisting and thrashing through it as if i'd been washed ashore here, drowning in this unfamiliar atmosphere, what if i'd behaved like i was born here and belonged?

the difference isn't visible to the ordinary eye but i am not feeling it with my eyes, i sense it in the deepest layer of my skin. and i sit quietly wearing my awareness thinking wondering what it would be like not knowing what i know, not having gone where i have and not now being someone who is from where i've been.

i wonder if they appreciate the quality of their stress. i wonder if they realize how luxurious it is, having ordinary middleclass problems. i wonder if they have any idea, any at all. and why should they? and why do my thoughts take this tone? there is no unfairness here between us, we are merely the results of our different decisions.

and can't help it this is the sort of thought process that brings the litany of regrets rolling like credits across my perspective. doesn't obscure anything that isn't indistinct already in my watery eyes, but serious selfpity is never about the vision, is it? it isn't. and in this case, the introspection concludes with a few words from one of the more bitter aspects of my self, spoken in a voice one might mistake for reason: this is not unfairness. you had your chances, you made your choices, your life is your own ... here the reason ends, and the abuse begins, which makes this as good a place as any to stop all this whining, doesn't it? it does.

* * * * * * *
what a lot of words that was, when all i really had to say was this: i have reclusive tendencies, because i am weird and i have many issues and complexes as a result.

25 miles cruised through the country (both ways) (each way i mean) (oh hell it was 50 miles) (in opposite directions) (taxis call it 10-6, 10-19) (it was not nearly long enough) (and yet it was perfect)

and there was a shoe sale in the middle and then the 99� rack at goodwill at the end and sometimes i'm such a girl. sheesh.

there are certain combinations of patterned sunshadows and 75 degree wind in the hair and all the windows down and robert plant and pink floyd played loud on the buick's concert sound IIs (which are perfectly capable of creating a resonance within the well-worn leather seats) and this clears away all the usual existential angst i mean seriously, give me one of those dour-faced sourpuss nihilists for an afternoon and there would be a change in philosophy, i guarantee it. c'mon, jean paul, climb on in, frederich, ima gonna take you for a leeetle ride ...

however i never need company on this drive. highway 118 is a straight curvy flat rolling ribbon of two lane unwinding sixty-five seventy dangerously sexy daytime headlights type of trip, strictly business this was, i don't cruise around unregistrated for pleasure, no sir. it was all about practicality and necessity and responsibility and there are certain air temperatures at which it should be illegal to remain clothed, and by this i mean i believe i might be regretting the whole deciding - not - to - spontaneously - take - my - shirt - off - i - mean - why - not - there - are - way - skimpier - bathing - suits. not complaining, merely mentioning that so i could slip in the fact i seriously might have done that, but my hands were kinda busy. and when it comes down to the windblown seduction of patterned sunshadows skimming the skin intimate and mirrored in the scintillating rushing oncoming traffic intimate i mean between us we've got a hundred twenty miles an hour and not eight feet separating us and i take the thirty five mile an hour curves at fifty right around the time will you listen to those tires screaming [insert name being screamed here] i mean what are the chances?

[do not i repeat do not try this yourself. i am the best driver i know. and i do this all the time so i have plenty of ... um. what? no, no, that's not what i meant to say at all ... wait. yes it was. ]

not recommended if realism is important to you. not that this isn't real. your mileage will most definitely vary. you were warned.

in a universe such as this where all possible histories exist, is it any wonder my mind wanders? i am aching in waveforms in eleven dimensions, exactly, most of which (as hawking tells it) are just very, very tiny, which is why we only see the four.

we being a generalization, and as we know all generalizations are false. as for myself, i have been aware of anywhere from five to seven dimensions for at least as long and probably longer than i can remember. this awareness is written in the same cryptic runes as all the things i fail to explain in fullness, the best i can express is just the extent of what's lost in the translation.

if you sense any futility in my struggles with these words, this is why. if you sense this process is almost effortless, this is also why. if you think these things are contradictory, think again.

(they intersect in surrender)

and i don't remember was it dreamt awake or otherwise just i was in the midst of it and the thought hit i have never known pure surrender always obeyed these externalized fears, never brought them flowing free through me so that they do not limit me but rather become catalysts for different levels of pleasure like more surfaces exposed to sensation. but unless there is trust perfect trust the fears are still separate and still in control. and control is the balancing element in this give and take, control can be taken but unless it is also given, as in relinquished as in completely, the fears are still in control and still separate from the experience, and the experience is incomplete without them. and i want i need to know no control. and i know, i know it's mostly only just a dream.

The quality of mercy is not strain'd,
It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven
Upon the place beneath: it is twice blest;
It blesseth him that gives and him that takes:

William Shakespeare
[Merchant of Venice, IV. i. 184]

and what is given what is taken what is left laying out in the rain rusted wasted lost the extent of it is unknowable like the lamented potential i personally pissed away back in the day. and though i try and never wonder what might have come of me, in vulnerable times my own voice still rains down in my own mind, a voice that lost itself years ago, screaming ranting raging until it reduced itself to this ragged whisper, a difference which passes for grace in this journey of mine defined by rain and it hasn't been gentle with me, nor i with myself.

as i pass through the merciless aftermath of my latest mistakes, my path takes me straight through the worst electricity of an entirely stormy existence; i am at the mercy of the elements here, but i am also the elements themselves. i am my own solstice i am my own justice, and as such i have neither given nor taken very much mercy.

oh. a conclusion? don't have one.

there are things i have frightened myself writing. perhaps frightened is the wrong word, unless it is; i am referring to intense intimate things that happen in the text box of a weblog entry screen, and since i have private places to keep private things, it means these things mean to be public things, which makes me an exhibitionist, in a fluffy, pretentious sort of way.

i was going to go on a rambling tangent about other fluffier more pretentious aspects of this tendency of mine, not sure whether i was going to intellectualize it or go for the touchy-feely fundamental interconnectedness of all things vibe, might have tried to do both, but why?

i also find it curious that i am attaching this babbling preamble so full of self-conscious apology, i suppose there's still something resembling shame that i get this delightful dizzy thrill doing it, that i find the vulnerability exhilarating, like swinging the swing up so high there's an instant of weightlessness at the top.

ever do it in a buick?

as i get stronger and healthier my levels of frustration have gotten worse, not better, and i'm beginning to worry that, in the remotely possible eventuality that i ever manage get laid again, that i might actually hurt somebody. at this point i'm thinking i really ought to come with a warning label and some terms and conditions, and so i've drafted the following pre-coital agreement. virgins, clergypersons, and those under the age of 18 are strongly admonished not to click the more text link.