The Time at Hand

Okay folks, it's confession time.
It's a confession in the way of a question. Is anyone here like me, in that they are compelled, obsessed, and drawn beyond their will to spend inordinate amounts of time on Wikipedia every day of their lives? I'm not the only one? Thank God!
It is one of those things that, the further I delve into it, the further I’m compelled to dig. One thing always leads to another. With a fancy new high-speed connection in one hand, and those twin sisters Wikipedia and Wikibooks in the other, I find that there is nothing I cannot learn if I simply set about looking into it.
I delight in following random links, and then subsequent links, and so on and so forth. It never ends. I grin wondering how many of the kids today who walk around donning black eyeliner and Nine Inch Nails patches on their backpacks are familiar with the origins and meanings of the word Gothic. It’s remarkable. A 4th century language and a (beautiful) style of architecture, among other things… most interesting to me is the fact that ‘gothic’ was a derogatory term thrown at those cathedrals back in the day, meant to imply how ugly and barbaric they were.
"Darling, what do you think of these new buildings?"
"I think they're positively gothic."
This kind of thing just makes me smile.
Not that I dislike modern-day gothic culture, mind you. I've had my share of nights where I pulled on the fishnets and Docs, downed a few shots of Jäger, and pounded the dance floor to the pulsing beats of VNV Nation; I also dream of having a pair of elegant gothic sconces fixed to the wall of my bedroom someday.
But I wonder how many Hot Topic kids know the history of something so integral to their identity.
I’ve found, as anyone who spends any amount of time on Wikipedia finds, that there is far more out there than anyone could digest in a lifetime. The sheer scope and comprehensiveness of it is awe-inspiring. Say you are sitting there, listening to Gomez do a glorious cover of Tom Waits’ “Goin' Out West” and sipping your earth-colored Tuocha. You may suddenly tangent over to the life story of Sima Qian and learn how he shaped Chinese historiography for centuries to come. Or over to the fantastic fictional world of Babylon 5, where the conflicting ideologies of Vorlons and Shadows threaten to engulf the universe in fire. Then you're looking at types of clouds. Then the discography of Marty Robbins. And so on, into the sunset.
All of this is at our fingertips, all of it is free, and it knows few, if any, bounds.
It can be overwhelming. I have to take breaks often, be it with hilariously entertaining Star Wars vids from Robot Chicken, or seeing Henry Rollins tear Ann Coulter a new one. These things help me escape from the constant barrage of new information, and give my brain a rest.
I must take some time away from the computer. I'm very aware of its power to make me feel I've been productive when really I've simply reorganized my iTunes library for the fifth time that day. With a force like Wikipedia, it's hard to feel that there could be any wrong in it. But nonetheless, I know when I'm addicted.
So in the imminent future, I will be initiating a new ritual: for one day a week, I shall forego all computer use, cell phone use, and use of any other contraption that might make me reachable or distracted or otherwise disengaged from my own life. Instead, I'll spend more time with Jonathan Strange, the wise words of Barry Lopez, or just plain take a walk.
I've yet to think of a suitable name for this ritual, or to choose a specific day. But the day is nigh.
The time, as always, is at hand.

4th Time Around

It was a good day to work on the summer mix. Work ended early, and the heat of the afternoon fit the music like a glove. Like it or not, the corresponding weather sometimes gives me the clarity I need to make structural decisions that nothing else could have. It has been difficult to work on this mix on rainy days.
But now, at last, it's done. The dragon is slain for another few months. I'm really beginning to consider retiring, at least temporarily, from the seasonal mix process. It's become more stressful than it's worth, and I'm running out of songs. Feeling a bit like Bilbo, stretched and thin, like butter spread over too much bread. I won't go into the root of this as I've covered it in past blogs, but I definitely think a break might do me some good.
Though I hate to stop when fall is next. I love fall. We'll just see how things go, shall we?
I appreciate the comments... I really do read them and take them to heart. Sometimes you can feel infinitely strong, never questioning the meaning of what you're doing; other times you're doubting your every step, and a kind word of encouragement makes a huge difference. Really. Thank you.
And so the days roll on. Summer approaches, and I escape into books and music. There are so many great books out there, and so little time. At the moment, I'm spending a good part of each day in the rainy, romantic streets of London in the early 1800s, where faeries hold masquerade-balls nightly and bewitch the high society. Where Napoleon Buonaparte is sent nightmares by magicians in the employ of his enemy, the English. Where the days of English Magic being a thing of antiquity are coming quickly to an end.
I love this book.
I realize that both of those links encourage you to buy things, but before you accuse me, at least consider that both of them are good businesses. Powell's needs no defense, and Gorey Details is based right here in Portland as well. They're nice people. And I like their stuff.
I am feeling happier these days than I have in some time. It's a strange feeling, not one I'm terribly at home in. I certainly resist it. But there is so much to smile about. I walk to Fred Meyer everyday, crossing over the I-84 freeway, watching the trucks gliding and listening to music and enjoying the feel of the sun against my skin. I read. I look at the people, and keep walking. The trip to Freddie's has become almost ritualistic. Sometimes I have it in mind to buy some cereal, or orange juice, but more often than not I'll simply wander until I find something I want, or grow weary of the search and head home again. It's a nice walk. What more justification could I need?
And now... well, now I have time. There's no way around it. And if I'm tired of anything, it's of making statements about what I have to do now. I know what I have to do. Making grandiose declamations of purpose is counterproductive.
So there. No moral, no resolution.
Keep on keepin' on.

Cracks in the Roof

It's been a while.
Like before, I found that the longer I waited, the harder it was to summon the will to write again. The pressure built up in my head, and I shied away from it more and more. This is a nasty cycle.
Funny how things work that way. Lately I've been extremely depressed and non-productive. Perhaps it was because I didn't have a job. Perhaps it was the messy end of a friendship that'd got me so mired in self-sabotage. Whatever the core reasons for my being so, I've excelled at keeping myself down. One thing feeds another; I perpetuate the darkness.
And so, there has been little to no writing.
When you are looking up at the things you'd like to fix or improve about yourself or your life (let me rephrase: when I look at these things) I am faced with so many issues and desires that I become overwhelmed and subsequently do nothing at all.
First things that come to mind: I'd like to loosen up in my awfully perfectionist habits, my tendency to think there's a right way to do everything. In doing so I would have a far easier time cutting loose creatively and feeling free to make any number of glorious mistakes, which would both do me good and no doubt lead to some good art as well.
I'd like to develop a better sense of discipline. The time I've spent without a job or any other externally imposed structure has been largely wasted; I sit in front of the computer and do nothing. I've had the experience many times of being far more focused and creative when forced to work under limits and schedules. But left to my own devices, I flounder. I'd like to change this.
And I'd like to spend more time understanding why I have the tendecies I do. Why I seem to seek out drama, situations that will keep me from being happy and creative and so on. If I have any skill, it is at finding these situations, or making them up in the absence of real ones. I am a master of keeping myself unhappy and never really looking at the fact that I'm engineering it. Instead I ascribe it to other people, the world, fate, what have you.
I look at all these things and feel overwhelmed. Where do I begin?
I know where to begin, of course: Anywhere I like. Just pick something!
It's simple enough to laugh at, and maybe that's why I never do it.
I can only change myself in small ways, and each of these changes will affect me as a whole.
But it's still hard to get started.
I did get a job, finally. So with that I feel a change in the air, and it will be the current that starts other little changes moving. The return of structure. The return of a semblance of meaning. And then I might just start writing more. And drawing more. And maybe just finding a little bit of joy in my day-to-day existence.
So what all this amounts to is that I am going to start writing more. I won't wait two weeks between entries. I don't care if it's too much for you to read. I need the practice.
I've made many mistakes in the recent past. I'm going to try to understand them, to know why I make them over and over, in hopes that I can break the patterns. Writing is not a panacea, but it is one of my tools.
It's high time I gave it the respect it deserves.

Nobody Broke Your Heart...

this is for Amy.


Where has all the poetry gone?
I think back on my past and can barely recognize the person who used to be so full of wonder and romance and life. Who would write down lines of obsession and love without hesitation. I remember a time when there was some meaning in the world. When I could look at art or listen to music, or even read something beautiful, and be moved by it. A time when I felt more deeply.
But did I really feel more deeply? Am I just romanticizing the past, creating some rose-colored “good ol’ days” to reminisce about?
I feel like a shadow of myself. Who am I really? Every day I wake up and am filled with fear of doing the things that would enrich my life. The things that will actually be worth remarking upon after I die. I fill my time with false productivity and self-sabotage, staring the clock in the face, and running away in terror.
I stopped looking at the details. I stopped believing in myself, and I lost the ability to risk mistakes, lost the courage to put my heart on the page, to fearlessly express whatever modicum of truth I possessed.
There is a strange paradox here. I know one thing is true: I am more able to feel and express emotion these days than I ever have before: I cry more easily, laugh harder, and breathe deeper. This I know.
But I have also become almost entirely cut off from the parts of me that are willing to give that emotion any shape or form. I don’t write that much anymore. I never write poetry; I wouldn’t even know where to start. It’s all bogged down in thoughts. Why not just say what I am thinking? And who cares what I am thinking? Then there are thoughts of structure, of the “rules.”
I must have died. How did it happen? Whatever my original intentions, I have become truly lost.
I can still see the world of beauty. I know it exists. I know what it looks and smells like. But I feel like an observer, unable to really participate in it.
The world of poetry and life and love is all around me, and when I read the lines all I can think of is how much more it would have meant to me in years past. How I used to feel able to inspire beauty in others. Now I cannot even inspire it in myself, nor muster the courage to try to make it.
That Elliott Smith song keeps running through my mind. Everything means nothing to me…everything means nothing to me...
Sometimes I cry, and yet never do I turn these moments of true emotion into any sort of art. They are lost. It’s such a selfish way to lose, the way I lose these wasted blues…
Sick to death of this. Sick of feeling afraid to get out of bed each day, of preferring to turn over and hide in dreams until the screaming of the schoolchildren across the street force me to get up.
My life becomes nothing more than a collection of lyrics, and I look around for someone to take me out for drinks or to call and just help me shut off my mind.
I fear creating petty, mediocre art. Afraid enough that I never do anything anymore. When did I become so tired and jaded? All the time in the world is at my fingertips, and I waste it.
I’m writing this to give the sickness a name. To bring it into the light.
So I can start to come back to life.
It is said that if you bring forth what is inside you, it will save you. Alternately, if you don’t bring forth what’s inside you, the same things will destroy you.

I bought a book of poetry tonight. Maybe it will wake me up again. Maybe it will be the pebble that starts an avalanche.

Maybe everything’s not lost.

-----------------------------------

You gave me stormy weather
with just the shadow of your hand
across my face.
You gave me the cold, the distance,
the bitter midnight coffee
among empty tables

It always started raining
in the middle of the movie,
and waiting amid the petals
af the flower I brought you: a spider.

I think you knew it was there
and enjoyed the awkward moment.
I always forgot the umbrella
when I went to pick you up,
the restaurant was always crowded
and on the corners they were hawking war.

I was a tango lyric
to your indifferent tune.

~ julio cortázar

Catching Signals That Sound in the Dark

There is a contradiction here somewhere, see if you can spot it.
What started out as a simple journey to Target to use up the last of a gift card a friend had given me turned into much, much more.
I rode along the bike path overlooking I-205, all the cars and trucks gliding along down the hill from me. Nick Drake sang softly to me. Dandelions dotted the path on both sides, and above me, the most incredibly blue sky. A perfect day for riding.
I got to Target and looked for Cadbury eggs. No luck. People seem to swarm upon stores before Easter is even past to claim them all... ah well. I finished my other business in the store and returned outside. It is curious how stores like Target, Circuit City and the like never have bike racks in front of them. I guess they assume no one rides to such places. On one occasion this gave me reason to actually take Lyra inside a Circuit City with me, which was fun. She usually gets left outside; I could feel her excitement.
I rode away from Target and back along the I-205 path. The album was progressing, and I rode back towards home. When I reached the exit, I decided to try exploring a bit rather than head straight home. I knew there was supposed to be a cemetary somewhere around there, the Willamette National if I remember right. Probably a military graveyard like the one seen in Harold and Maude, or the one where my grandfather was buried. Rows upon rows of identical white markers, stretching out forever. I wanted somewhere to sit in the shade and read. A friend had recently bought me a copy of Hesse's Narcissus and Goldmund, and I had become quite taken with it.
The road opened up to the right, and all I knew was that this was the general direction... I rode a ways and the path began to wind uphill... always off to my right were trails leading into what looked like paths through woods. I asked a man waiting for the bus which way the cemetary was. His English was poor but he repeated 'cemetary' back to me and gestured up the hill a ways. I thanked him and kept on.
The hill grew steeper and I shifted gears and kept pedaling, starting to sweat. There were trees everywhere, I felt as if I were nearing a forest. On my left I saw a large church. I kept riding, the road winding around and around, and then I found it. Or at least, I found something.
Lincoln Memorial Park was not what I had been searching for. But there it was, a cemetary built into the hillside itself, cement paths winding themselves among the tombstones and trees, going up up up. I rode and rode, climbing. It went on for what seemed like an eternity, but I know it felt that way simply because it was so steep.
Halfway up the hill I passed their mausoleum, a giant white building. I stopped inside for a moment, and left almost immediately; the air smelled dead and dank. Stale. I wanted to feel life today.
I kept riding up, and finally got near the point where I saw no more hill rising above me. I was almost to the top.
When I finally got there, I found a gazebo-like structure, a perfect resting place. There were plots and graves even up here, and countless trees and squirrels and insects. I parked Lyra by one column and sat down at the opposing one, taking off my pack and pulling out the book.
I read, and wrote, and breathed. It felt so peaceful be up so high, with a clear view of most of the city stretching out before me. There was no one around for miles in each direction. I read and looked around and reflected. I am grateful that more people don't choose to take comfort in the serenity of graveyards. There was nowhere else I could have been so completely, wonderfully alone.
Life came at me and overwhelmed me. Maybe it was reading Narcissus and Goldmund, maybe it was the sound of the wind in the trees. But I felt life filling me up, and I felt joyous and calm and utterly present. I wrote a few pages, and sat leaning against the column, receiving everything and marveling that life was so impossibly infinite and wondrous.
You see, for the last several weeks I've been feeling extremely disconnected from real life, giving in to excess time on the MacBook Pro and texting on my cell phone. I've felt more and more cut off from myself and my ability to breathe and speak truth.
When I sat there today, it came flooding back upon me like a great wave. Life! I am here. I'm reading a book. I like the trees and the quiet. How fucking wondrous it is to be alive.
Before I left I wrote a note to myself, asking how I might be able to retain this sense of calm and clarity when in my day-to-day life, how to remember to just be, and be amazed. I didn't have an answer.
But having felt it so strongly, I know that I will not forget it.
I put my things away and suited up for the ride home. Clicked on Neutral Milk Hotel's In the Aeroplane Over the Sea and set out. The way up had been an excruciating uphill climb.
The way home felt like flying.

What a beautiful face
I have found in this place
That is circling all round the sun
And when we meet on a cloud
I'll be laughing out loud
I'll be laughing with everyone I see
Can't believe how strange it is to be anything at all

Turn on the Bright Lights

I stand at a point in my life where the next step I take can be in any direction. I can do whatever I please. Contemplate a career change, a new house to live in. I can take the time to ask myself: What do you want to do now? Of course, I could fall back on everything I’ve done before. I’ve become quite proficient at mindlessly steaming milk and smiling at people I hate. I can sleepwalk through coffee jobs. It’s become automatic. I can do it.
But I could also do something new.
I stood in the shower this morning and felt overwhelmed. Flooded with thoughts. Am I not terrified? Not full of glossy resolutions and slick, streamlined blogs? I realize I spend a lot of time attempting to present myself as being very cohesive and together. Yet now more than ever it feels foolish to even try. It keeps me from trying anything new. There’s no room for falls and experimentation. I whittle each movement down to a presentation that has a message, a question, a bit of wisdom. Fuck that! I have no idea what to do now.
It frustrates me how there will be times when you are filled with ideas for things to do and write and try and be, and then, almost as quickly as they came, they are gone. Moreover, they always come at times when you’re not able to capture them. Like in the shower this morning. I sat down at my computer again and whoosh, almost entirely gone. I struggled to get down what I remembered. Things always come to me at inopportune times, like when I’m riding my bicycle and listening to my iPod, or when I’m gazing happily at the stage watching a show. Can they be analyzed, these varying moments that bring such possibility?
The other day I lay on my back in Ladd Circle looking at the sky, brilliantly blue and speckled with clouds (what kind of clouds are they? It occurs to me that I cannot name almost anything in nature. Yet I am semi-encyclopedic in my knowledge of music. This is wrong), and I felt really small. Not in a bad way, just small. As if looking up at the overwhelming hugeness of the sky was simply giving me proper perspective again. Things seemed to not matter so much.
Could I not take this moment in my life, where I am bound by nothing, and really invest the time to take a fresh, intelligent step? To re-think everything I’ve valued and done so far? Isn’t every moment good for that, and aren’t I just being lazy and simplistic by needing such a moment to ask myself what the hell I’m doing?
Well, yes.
Nonetheless, that’s where I find myself. Asking a lot of questions and feeling afraid to try and answer them. Maybe it’s simply the overwhelming silence, the space afforded by having no job and no obligations, that has filled me with such terror. I have all the time in the world to do….what?
I could snap into action tomorrow and find some job that I love. Shannon put forth that I’d do well as a music supervisor. It sounds like a dream job, but for the fact that I have no contacts in this town or any other, only an obsessive love of listening to and collecting music coupled with a high-speed internet connection.
But I could find something if I set myself to it. I could find some job that didn’t fill me with disgust and drain my energy and make me feel more and more isolated from my fellow man. Some job that would cause me to look back on the past year of my life and think did that really happen? Did I really put up with that for so long?
I could do it. And I could take the time to learn the names of things. Of clouds and trees and that amazing dark blue bird I saw arching its wings majestically as I rode along the Eastbank Esplanade last week.
I could do all these things.
But resolutions are bunk. The future is unknown and undetermined, or so I believe. But that’s just one more question I can ask myself. It’s a fucking mess, and that’s just how things are most of the time.
Don’t get the impression that I’m pessimistic or overly worried. Really, I’m just musing aloud. I just watered my little basil and garlic plants that Shannon gave me, and put the kettle on. The garlic has grown visibly just in the last few days. It makes me smile.
Spring is here. The robins are returning to the world. I am in love.
It’s up to me now.

Dying Like a Day

Taped onto one of the shelves on my desk is a strip of paper which has the following words typed on it: Writing makes you feel better. It was given to me by my friends Staci and Solon, who had made several copies of it to keep as general reminders, free to whomever needed one. I took one home after my last visit with them.
How true it is. Miraculously, the simple setting down of words, as with the speaking of one's feelings, has such a therapeutic effect. Nothing is changed or fixed, but just getting it out does so much.
Today I have been struggling against time, willing the clocks to stop, and growing more and more sad as I futilely watch the day slip through my fingers. I feel this every day, and yet I find that it's more intense when I'm actually using my time well. I have been so productive today! I argue. Why cannot time slow down for these moments? When I waste my time, I hardly notice the end of the day approaching. But when I have lived, when I have done all I could do, it always makes me sad. I start to slow down. The coffee has long since worn off, the light starts to fade. The energy, the will drains out of me. Perhaps it's simply the passing of my peak hours that brings me down. I feel most creative and alive between nine a.m. and noon. Once it's past, I cannot help but feel diminished.
But that's no reason to let it stop me entirely. I would do well to learn to work with these feelings, not futilely rail against them. I just refuse to accept the inevitable passing of that part of the day, and that part of me that lives in it. I can create and function for the afternoon and night if I just readjust my expectations and intentions. Mornings are good for writing and listening to pop music (especially Elephant 6 stuff). Afternoons are good for reading and drinking tea and relaxing. Evenings make me want to listen to Low, drink Papio, and perhaps do a bit more writing. These are all good things.
But I still have the desire to retain that morning feeling, that fresh, zealous attitude, and so I despair everytime I am unable to keep it.
So the good days seem to fly by, the mornings of infinite possibility and joy, and the down times seem to last forever. I still get sad, and each passing morning feels like a tiny death. I can't stop it.
So I write it down. The clock still counts off the seconds, the day wanes.
But writing does make you feel better. It's true.

Fuck Safeway

Safeway truly is one of the outposts of hell. You can tell just by looking at it, even from the outside. There is, after all, a giant red 'S' guarding the front gates...
You enter and immediately feel your soul being bombarded by the tacky cardboard displays and condescending banal sales pitches blaring out through the speakers, sandwiched between some of the worst songs you never hoped to hear again. They seem to specialize in mid-90s soft rock, usually Phil Collins or Rick Astley or some other sucker of Satan's cock, as Bill Hicks would say. Really. Can anyone actually stand it? Are Safeway regulars so fucking inundated with noise and ads and shitty music that they don't notice it anymore?
I went in with the simple intention of buying some burn ointment. I was sealing a letter with wax not long before and burnt my finger on the lighter, in my determination not to touch the wax itself. I didn't have anything in my bathroom, of course, so I reluctantly headed out the door and drove off.
I scanned the Pain Relief and First Aid aisles. Row after row of Ibuprofen and Alleve and fuck-all knows what else. Itch relief. Cracked skin relief. Relief for nearly every possible ailment imaginable... except burns. I blinked. I looked again, sure I was missing it. Nothing. I asked for help and the guy started looking feebly through the rows, just as I had, while meekly asking me about the nature of the burn. Was it serious? Did I really need some ointment for it? No, I told him, it's not dire, but it hurts and I would certainly like to put something on it. Oh and did I mention that I don't have to justify to you why I want to put burn cream on, you fucking moron? Do I need to have a third-degree burn before you'll magically produce something from your back pocket? Christ. What are you trying to gauge with these inane questions about the state of my finger? I guess he felt the need to make conversation to stall the inevitable.
He suggested Benadryl in the end, it being useful for burns among other things. I wanted to murder the guy. But I thanked him and turned away any further assistance so he would leave, and then picked up the Benadryl and walked away from the First Aid section.
Goddamnit. I had been in such a good mood earlier.
The soulless, vapid energy of the place was getting to me, so I moved to the aisle with all the cookies and such and looked for something sweet to buy. Nutter Butters perhaps. I scanned the different cookies, their plastic sheen glistening in the fluorescence like tiny idols. Nothing appealed to me enough to actually pick up. But I began fiddling with the Benadryl box. My finger was still red and hurting. I opened it and unscrewed it and put a bit on the burn, which felt nice. I was careful not to crease the tube. I capped it and closed up the box again. I am thankful I didn't have to break any seals to open it. My finger felt a little better, and I walked the Benadryl back to its shelf and put it back with all the other forms of relief. That cheered me up a little.
But I still wanted something for my sweet tooth.
Thankfully, it's the right time of year for this sort of thing. I walked to the end of the store and found some Cadbury eggs, paid for them, and headed out into the night air.
Fuck that place. I'll take Winco anyday. The people who shop there may be terrifying, but at least there's no Michael Bolton playing.

Beware the Ides of March

I’ve thrown out all my old attempts at updating and written them off to being too old, left to sit too long. I don’t really care anymore to make this all that spectacular. I have to write something, or I’ll suffocate. I have been such an emotional mess the past month, and gotten almost nothing done. I’ve been caught up in an extremely intense relationship, which now finds itself finally being laid to rest. I can feel it below the ground. The earth is still soft. I felt the end coming and coming and it kept going up and down and threatening to break into something beautiful, but I knew it wouldn’t. I feel like I’ve tried really hard to grow and listen (and hear) things that were said to me, and yet I always fell short of doing so. I always shouldered the blame; I always took it all on myself. Sometimes I think that I’m doing so well, and then I just lose it entirely. I feel that in many ways I have been wrong, been unfair or unkind or simply not listened. But I am trying. I am trying so hard to hear.
Yet time and time again, I fail.
I am so very tired of this.
I have so many things to do. I’ve made a list of them all, which just stretches before me like a life sentence. I feel overwhelmed and stretched thin enough to break and I am just so, so tired. I need to take better care of myself. I am emotionally and physically exhausted.

I will try to update more, for those of you who read this. I’m sorry it’s been so long.

But enough of “the fight,” enough “you and I,” enough of “prevail” or “walk in the light.” While the angels stand by I get high as a kite. I'm too tired to smile or know that I'm right. Am I right? And all our best-laid plans, they crumbled in our hands. ~Okkervil River

The Bird Gerhl

The old stories talk about gods and goddesses appearing to mortals in animal form, to observe their characters, or test them, or make sport of them.
One day I looked outside my window and saw a robin. Beautiful and delicate and red as a cinnamon candle. I expected her to fly away immediately, but she remained, looking at me, fearless… and I looked at her, and was silent.
The robin kept returning, day after day, and we began to speak to each other. Never with words, only by holding one another’s gaze, for minutes on end. We understood each other perfectly. The little bird would simply look at me and I at her, and she would bathe, and sing, and then fly away. And I let it be what it was, in its simple beauty.
Not long after, the bird stopped coming to my window. Yet that same day I found myself face to face with a beautiful woman with dirty red hair and eyes that contained oceans and violet mittens on her hands. I only had to look at her once to know it was the robin I had befriended. Was she Venus? Minerva? Athena, the gray-eyed goddess of battle? Or some amalgam of the three? I didn’t know. I only knew, in that moment, that I’d love her for the rest of my life, no matter what happened.
We walk together among the trees and along the river, and talk of all things. Of the sickness in the world and the rules of the universe. We lay together and she curls her fingers in mine and I feel like a little boy again. She is a burning thing that threatens to suck me into oblivion when I look into her eyes. She is a siren, singing sweetly as she leads me to the edge of a towering cliff. She is a frightened girl, ever with one foot out the door, one hollow promise floating from her trembling lips.
I stay with her and am terrified. To be so completely taken and certain of my own destruction, certain that she will poison me in my sleep and feel no remorse… yet I feel safer in her arms than a newborn being held by its mother. There is such darkness in her soul, such a desire to torture and twist my fragile body and mind around… it fills me with fear and nausea and yet I cannot but be drawn to her… as if we were opposites, loathing one another and yet needing the other so badly…
I feel as though we are standing on opposite sides of a great plain of battle, I on the side of the angels, she with the demons; the air rank, smelling of sweat and semen, laughter and pain swirling together. We look at each other over this great distance and our eyes ask: can we not come together through all this? Could not our love destroy all these boundaries? Overcome these damning and sacred distinctions? If light and dark were to merge, would it be the end of everything? When the angel and the demon made love in the Preacher Series, they defied all the laws of heaven and earth, and made something wholly new… and they were destroyed for their boldness…
But we live to break down boundaries. We live to defy, and to seek out that love so intense and pure that it threatens to burn our skin away, to leave us bleeding in alleyways, to laugh as we beg for death, for it knows it is sacred beyond all things. We reach for it, and never find it. It is ours, and as soon as we have tasted the blood in our mouths it is gone, leaving us desperate and insane.
I am her slave, and she is mine. I am Severin to her Wanda. She holds me cruelly and loves me like I’ve never known. The world spins; time ceases to exist. And I ask: where is the real madness here? That I once found things like time and boundaries important, or that I am now free from them? Clocks dissolve, and I see clearly.
She is blinding, and beautiful, and I know she will soon be gone. Off to seduce another with her song. I can only let her go.
I love her. I am ten times stronger than I knew I was.
And she is flying, flying, flying away.

Playboys and Broken Pabst Boxes

What a last few days... I hardly know where to start.
I have this article on my computer, written by the lovely Mark Morford, which I have been reading and re-reading. Upon finishing it I am always determined to go straight upstairs and clean out my closet, once and for all. It has been stuffed to burst with clutter since I've lived in this house, and I never touch any of it. Naturally, the few times I've tried to do this, the same thing usually happens: First, I pull out several boxes and spread them over my floor. I open up the first one. It is full of old Playboys. I look in another. There I find old school notebooks and homework assignments and pieces of writing I did when I was 14 and a photograph or two and before I know it I am sitting in my chair amidst the piles of rubbish swimming in a sea of nostalgia and going through each box, amazed at all the things I had forgotten.
Then I realize two hours have past and nothing's been done, but I'm hungry and it's dark outside now and I have to go to work. I stuff the papers back into their boxes (worn, broken down Pabst and Bud Light boxes taken from my days at the G Street Pub) and shove them back into the closet hastily, where they sit until the next time I read the aforementioned column.
This time around, I resolved not to let nostalgia defeat me. I got up early, prepared some Arabian Mocha Sanani in my french press, and put on a recent mix by my fellow mix cd auteur, Ryan. The sounds of Cab Calloway filled the room and I set into it. Determined not to get distracted or sidetracked by whatever I might find in those beaten old boxes...
It was mind-boggling. I opened a box of old vhs tapes and found that I owned a copy of Pump Up the Volume, a movie I've been planning to buy on dvd for a while now. There were splintered Vic Firth drumsticks thrown from a rock show long ago. A large box of what must have been every pair of shoes I've ever owned in my life. Several comics I had drawn back when I attended the Evergreen State College. Memories came flooding out and I was tempted once again to get lost in them...
I did not. I began dragging boxes out to the living room and slapping post-its on them, designating where each would go. My shoes and ungodly tacky old hawaiian t-shirts (what the hell was I thinking?) to the thrift store. My useless, spyware-ridden pc and all its constituent parts to Free Geek. Old copies of The Stranger (a whole box full. Honestly.) to the recycling bins.
This went on till nightfall, and I came damn close to falling into the trap of reading old pieces of writing and looking at postcards from people I could not remember at all... but I kept myself focused and got everything organized and finally put the few things I was actually going to keep (the old Playboys, photographs, some letters) back in the empty closet and slid them to the side. The rest of it lies stacked on the couch in my living room. Tomorrow I will drive them all to their new homes, and come that much closer to living the simple life I so desire... strange how much the state of my closet affects the feeling of my room. Now that it's been stripped to its essentials, the whole place seems to breathe a bit easier.
These were all little parts of me from all the years I've lived, and yet I never touched them. Never called or visited them or asked them to tea. They lie alone, neglected, forgotten.
I don't care about the past so much anymore. Why, then, has it always been so hard to simply let these things go?
It will all be gone. Soon. I still have some big plans for the purging and cleansing of my room and my life, but damned if it ain't a fucking start.

Sickness and Sadness

Last night I met with a friend at a coffeeshop. We sat in the dimly lit back room and drank tea and talked. One thing we talked about was what we felt most strongly defined us. For both of us, two primary things came up: our sickness and our sadness. We all have our little sicknesses; things we obsess over or do against all better wisdom. Parts of our nature that will lead us into harm.
As I rode the bus home this morning, watching the rain run along the windows and obscure the signs of the streets crossing East Burnside, I thought back to it. I have many things I consider “sicknesses,” which isn’t to say I don’t like them (in fact, some of my favorites things about myself fall into this category), but they aren’t particularly healthy.
One of these is my compulsion to make mix cds.
It began innocently enough, some years ago, when I made my first mix as a gift to myself and two close friends up in Olympia. We were soon to part ways, and the songs were to remind us of the times we’d shared, enjoyed one another’s company, and so on. Harmless enough. But it continued when I began to document the music I was listening to each month. I’d have a mix for July 2001, then August, and so on. A journal in music, if you will.
There were also (and still are) the mixes that I have made for various women in my life. The intentions have varied, but they always basically revolved around the idea that I was expressing my feelings for them through the music in varying degrees between the subtle and the not-so-subtle. Some boys brings flowers, some write love letters; I make mix cds.
I like doing it; I’m good at it. But I let myself get a bit carried away sometimes.
Midway through High Fidelity, John Cusack briefly states a few rules for making a good mix cd. I have elaborated this question into a full-blown essay, and still constantly obsess over it and revise it in my mind. It’s developed from something innocuous and pure into something almost viral: over the past two years, I have become more and more aware of a part of my brain that scans every song I hear for its potential inclusion on some as-yet-unborn mix. Scanning for theme. Emotional tone. What about a mix about leaving home? About starting over? What about this? What about that? It prevents me from really just listening to whatever it is I’m listening to on its own merits, just for the sake of enjoying it.
This has got to change.
I adopted Ryan’s habit of creating four mix cds a year: one for each of the seasons. Both to help process the change, and to keep from stretching myself too thinly. The winter mix was recently completed and sent out into the world. And now, naturally, that little bug in my mind has begun frantically working on the spring compilation. Here in the dead of winter. Immediately it begins dreaming up new mixes to fill the void until spring comes, or worse, keeps nagging me to get started early on the spring comp. Sometimes it's a conscious process, but always it's going on somewhere outside of my awareness as well.
It's developed a life of its own. I can't stop it.
What I can do is examine it, and hopefully come to terms with it.
I’ve been reading this wonderful book on Zen called Dropping Ashes on the Buddha, basically the collected lectures, teachings, and letters of Korean Zen Master Seung Sahn. I’ve read many books on Buddhism and Taoism and spent a lot of time thinking about them, but this book in particular is really driving home the point that I, despite all my good intentions, am still just as attached to my own desires as anyone else, however noble and cultured I might find them.
I read the book while waiting for the bus and the more I read the more I thought about how far I have still to go. I have been meditating regularly, yes, but I still approach it with that desire-mind, that mind that feels a bit superior for having done it. I don’t let this stop me, because practice is the important thing. I sit, and it’s good. But I know I’m still approaching it from the wrong mindset.
Still, it’s got me thinking about all the things I do, and all the things I think of when I ask myself the bottomless and simple question: what am I?
It comes down to my sickness and my sadness. I’m tremendously attached to both of them. They’re intrinsically tied to my identity. I’d fight tooth and nail to keep from letting them go. And yet as I read the damningly simple words of Seung Sahn, I know that they are, in the end, hindrances as well. Over and over it comes up: This is thinking. This is, as Hamlet said, just words, words, words.
Put it all down.
So where does this leave me? I am not remotely ready to give up all my earthly possessions and let go of my opinions, judgments and beliefs, nor am I willing to cut my hair off or stop making the mixes. They may feed my vanity, but they also help keep me sane.
But I know that I have to find a middle ground, a healthy relationship with my sickness. It comes down to simply being present. I can embrace the tendencies without letting them consume me if I simply stay in the moment and don't over-think it. When I'm looking in the mirror, that is everything; there is only me and my hair and my vanity. When I’m working on the spring mix, the spring mix is the entire world. But the rest of the time I have to really focus on just being where I am, and not drifting off into the land of scanning songs or worrying about what people might think of me. I have to drag myself, kicking and screaming, back to the present. Right now. The only place where the music is playing. The only place I’m really alive.
The sickness and sadness can remain. They’re a part of me.
But everything in its right place.

Resolutions

I had written about half of a long update when Safari decided to summon the spinning rainbow pinwheel of death and freeze, and it was lost. I am too tired to try and recreate it. It pisses me off when things like this happen (Gmail, I must say, is wonderful in this respect. Auto-save drafts. Rock).
I was going to write all about my thoughts on the new year, and how, despite my constantly professing that it meant nothing to me, I did feel a little thoughtful and a little like reflecting on things and asking what the hell I really believed. And all I could come up with was this:
New Years' is a tool, like anything else. Being the globally sanctioned day of beginning again, turning over a new leaf, etc., it is useful if you need an excuse to do that. But I just cannot emphasize enough: each day is new, and practice and consistency outweigh any one day's actions or decisions or resolutions.
Mark Morford recently wrote a column which captures the essence of what I feel about the whole New Years' thing (I highly recommend reading his blog in general, he is insightful and hilarious and wonderfully wordy).
For my part, I have been extremely productive so far. Ryan and I have recorded three songs, fueled by red wine and candlelight. I am meditating again, and thinking and writing more. These are things I was doing before the new year, and ones I want to keep doing. The resolution, then, is to simply continue. I know where I want to go and what I want to do.
Each day is new. Each day there must be new resolve and new determination. If it helps you to have a special day for it, so be it.
Whatever helps you along your way.
I'll raise a glass to that.

p.s. Here's a song to kick your ass into gear, if you need it.

Pocky and Nag Champa

The full ensemble of candles surrounds me. Their lights sparkle with tiny universes and prop up my bones. Nick Cave weaves his magic behind me, and Warren Ellis’ sorrowful violin makes circles in a dirty pond. The smoke of my incense rises across my desk and I am looking at this screen, trying to make sense of everything I’m thinking and feeling.
I am against the idea of new years’ resolutions, as I’ve said, but this time of year does make me wistful and think of all the things I have to be thankful for. There is so much; I couldn't name it all if I tried. So many people who have helped me get to where I am, so many little things that have pushed me in the right direction. I am thankful for the friends I have, especially Ryan. I am thankful to have my strength, and for all the writers and musicians and artists who have sent their creations out into the world, year after year. I am thankful that I am sitting here at my desk eating pocky and drinking jasmine pearls tea while nag champa smoke floats in front of my eyes. That I again have a supply of my elixir of life in my cupboards. That I am content to live a simple life. That I am so goddamned fucking lucky.
I feel support from everything around me. All my music and books and candles and letters from friends. They sustain me and keep me going. Especially the books and records. I take them as signs that I cannot give up. Each new cd or book or painting is a push to me to keep on moving. For it goes both ways: they support you, in hopes that you will create things that will eventually support others. How many times has my life been saved by a song that could just as easily not have been written and recorded? How can we measure such things? I imagine all the things I might one day do, how they might do the same for others. It may be a bit overly simplistic, but I see all creative endeavors as working in this way: people helping each other survive. Those who create at once help me get by, and push me to contribute to the circle. Whether it is stated explicitly or just implied, every record I hear or book that I read is whispering to me: Write. Draw. Play guitar. Anything. Just do something. I feel I owe it to them, and to myself, to give something back to the world that has sustained me so many times. My first draft of a novel continues to collect dust, and I know what I have to do.
I am so thankful to have come to this point. I have a long way to go, but I am not afraid to throw myself into it anymore. I feel I have something to prove. I look in the face of each crazy, insurmountable task and grin. Whatever it is, I won’t back down. It will probably hurt like hell and I’m mad for even attempting it. But that’s the idea. How else can you approach life? It is going to kill you, after all. So strap on your boots and look up at the shitstorm flying your way and take a shot of New Deal and just savor the fact that it’s stupid and probably suicidal and there’s nothing you’d rather be doing.

I pick up my pen and prepare to fight.

People Just Ain't No Good

I rode to work tonight and felt weary and sad and beaten. I’d spoken to a friend on the phone for half an hour or so before heading out, and she told me of a bunch of my co-workers’ going out drinking and the subsequent drama that ensued. As she talked, it became almost comically horrific, and I felt thankful, for once, that I’d been stuck at work that night and spared the sight of it all. But when we had hung up, all the images she conjured played through my mind again and again and I just got sadder and sadder. All the energy flowed out of me as I rode over the murky Willamette River, my tires banging over the bumpy walkway of the Steel Bridge.
Why do people take such shitty care of themselves? Of each other? It hurt me to think about it. I think of my friends as a sort of extended family; mostly my close friends, but even the people I work with to some degree. And while I may not like some of them very much, I would certainly look after them if they were down or ill, and I want all of them to live well and be (relatively) happy. But they don’t fucking take care of themselves. Between pounding shots and forming stupid little cliques and being the centers of their own little universes… how can they live that way? I became angrier and angrier the more I thought about it. My Cancer instincts get really upset about things like this. I know most of the world is fucked, but these are people I judge to be relatively intelligent and sensible. So how could they, in what was intended to be a night of bonding, be so isolated from one another, so heartless? It made me want to shut my eyes and shake my head until it just disappeared like some bad dream.
And I lose heart. You look to people you’re close with to sustain your faith in human decency; when they fail, it’s hard to keep the act going.
I suppose I want to believe that people are better than they are, which is simply one little part of my hope-springs-eternal desire to see the world through innocent and ignorant eyes, seeing everything as far simpler than it is, and aren’t we all basically human and want the same things? Aren’t we?
But more than that, I want to believe, somehow, that my believing that people are, or at least can be, better than their worst impulses will somehow influence them to actually be so. I don’t know how that works, but I think I believe that if I live my life with the strength and determination to love others and support them, that they’ll learn to be good in their own ways and take care of themselves and one another. Such is the wishful thinking of a Cancer.
And so, with the tale of my drunken friends and co-workers floating in my head, all the wind just went out of me. Maybe it’s because it’s the holiday season, when we Americans decide, as a collective, to subject ourselves to inane Christmas music we hate (really, is there anyone out there who doesn’t loathe it?), consumer hysteria, and infinitely more stress and anxiety than we endure in any other part of the year. Somehow in all the madness and blinking red and green lights, the bits about love and caring for one another get lost. Or perhaps trampled underfoot, like so many unfortunate shoppers at a Wal Mart before dawn. It just makes me sadder than hell.
Maybe it was this. Maybe I’m still down about the girl. Maybe it’s just that time of the year. Whatever it is, it played out with me breaking into tears at work when my frustration with a co-worker came spilling out abruptly. I am tough in some respects, but when I speak up and tell the truth through my fear and better judgment, I become a little boy and can hardly keep from choking. I ran in the back room and hid behind boxes of cups and lids to really let it out, and then went back to work. After that, the calm and smiles returned, and my co-worker and I got along a bit better.
I just wish I had the verbal faculty to reason with people and help them stop being so self-destructive, and teach them to be better to one another. My roommate, a Cancer as well, adheres to the philosophy that you have to expect people to let you down; then it’s no big deal most of the time and a pleasant surprise the rest. I hate to admit that he has a point, but I know it’s true. I know there are good people in the world. Maybe I just don’t get out enough.
Either way, I am emotionally and physically exhausted. Thank Amanda Palmer the holiday season is almost over. The ridiculous rituals we build around these specific dates... they are just days, like any other. This time around I have no thought of New Years’ resolutions; each day is just another day, another chance to get back on the right path.

In a Fast German Car

It has been brought to my attention that there are actually a few people who read this blog, so I am going to make an effort to update at least every few days. I would write anyway, just to stay sane, but of course I want people to read it – I’m not out to exist in a vacuum. Hell, I’ve got my ol’ Five Star composition journal for that. Pages upon pages of illegibly scribbled blathering. Not something anyone would want to read. I don’t want this blog to be a one-way conversation into the void. But most of the time, that’s what it is. I try to make each one meaningful and worth reading, so that when you’re done you don’t regret the time it took you to read it and wish you’d done something more useful and productive like whack off to internet porn or call your mother. Most blogs, after all, are just people rambling about their day with no thought of cohesion or purpose (or grammar, for god’s sake). I try to make mine a bit more polished than that. The problem, really, is this: what the hell do I have to talk about? Like anyone else, my life is rather boring most of the time. I get up and go to the bathroom and putt around my room doing this or that most of the day, eat, listen to music, etc etc ad infinitum. And these things are only really interesting to me occasionally. But if I can put some thoughts or emotions down here that transcend the mundanity of my little existence, then maybe it will have been worth your time. At least I hope so.
I guess my point is that if you feel something from what I write, I hope you’ll respond or let me know somehow. Comments or emails or whatever. It’s a vast and lonely internet, and anything is better than nothing.

Okay. Moving on.

It’s my experience that we can be told all the Great Universal Truths in the world, and until we learn them in our guts, until we come to them on our own, they’ll just bounce off us again and again. Like a song you hear so many times that it stops meaning anything. It just becomes sounds.
Moreover, we handily keep forgetting whatever revelations we've had, so we can come back later and realize them all over again! How profound it feels! Just like the last time! I’m a little bit older, but wow!
One that has been recurring in my life is the painfully simple fact that all we have is the present moment. Yes, we all know this. But I still spend most of my time elsewhere, thinking about the past (leads to wasting the present) and worrying about the future (ditto). Nice little cycle of self-sabotage I’ve got going here. I meditated for the first time in a while last night, and as I sat there I just kept telling myself Okay, at least I’m here for ten minutes out of the day. That’s all this is. Just be here. Really, that’s what meditation boils down to, if you strip away all the fluff about contemplating great philosophical questions or mulling over Zen koans in your head: sitting in one place and being present with yourself. It's simple. It’s practical. You are just paying attention for once. Over time, this practice will lead to more presence in all areas of your life, and it’s amazing the calm and clarity that come from it (for a far more articulate explanation of meditation, read this entry by the inimitable Ms. Palmer).
Today I kept trying to be in the present, and to think about what that meant. For instance, I was expecting a phone call, but then considered how much time I could spend checking my phone constantly instead of just being where I was. The phone will ring when it rings. Come back to the moment. So I’d go and do something else, like organize my room or work on a mix cd and Christmas presents and drink green tea. I would paint my nails Hedwig blue and put on my shiny red Yes, Mistress lip vinyl and then unwittingly get it all over the bathroom sink before going to make some quesadillas (and let me tell you, it feels silly to see lipstick on tortillas).
The difficult thing is to let go of one set of moments and move to the next. Say you were completely present while doing something, but now it’s done, no two ways about it. I always want to dwell on it, congratulate myself for doing something right for once. No! Keep going! Once you start down that path, it's a slippery slope straight into the arms of long periods of inactivity! Come back to the present.
I got a lot done this way. Being someone who gets really easily distracted, it helped me keep focused on one thing at a time and move on to each item on my to-do list without too much delay. It didn’t even really matter what I was doing, as long as I was paying attention. After all, we only have 24 hours each day, and they’re gonna pass one way or another. So buckle down and choose to do something you like. Something that will make you happy. You can only hope to spend the time well. When we die, all we can hope for is to look back and know we lived as well as we could. Isn’t avoiding those thoughts, denying death and all that, just more avoiding the present? It seems somehow connected. Although I’m a bit rusty on all my Buddhist doctrines.
Now I’ve gone on and on about this... I wouldn’t ramble so much except that it is still a very rambling dialogue in my head, not clear or settled at all. Throughout life I keep getting sidetracked, then putting myself back on the path, then losing it again. Revelation. Forgetting. Rinse. Repeat. And that’s okay. We’re not perfect. But dammit, eventually this practice is going to stick. If I keep at it I will become more and more resistant to slipping into a constant daydream. It'll be easier and easier to just be where I am, and then maybe I won’t look back on my whole life and feel like I was never really there, that it wasn’t ever happening to me.
Maybe.

Hit the Ground Running

It was mid-afternoon when I was awoken by a phone call telling me I didn’t have to work this evening, due to the snow. I rolled out of bed and showered, and looked outside. The earth was covered in white, pure and foreign. There I was with four days off in front of me. There was only one thing to do: pile on the layers, lace up the boots, and head out into the cold to buy some wine.
I wrapped my Gryffindor scarf around my mouth and locked the door behind me. The wind was mild. I plodded along the sidewalk, the ground giving beneath me, transformed. The sounds of my finally complete winter mix in my ears. The snow had settled. The streets were new to me. I walked happily, with barely any cars passing by. The light from the streetlamps illuminated everything; the red and white flags of the Arby’s, the temperature and time on display at Washington Mutual, the library closed due to inclement weather.
I reached the Safeway and took off my headphones. I found the wine and bought a loaf of bread for later and went back out into the cold winter air. I walked with the music playing, plastic bags banging and twisting against my legs, joyfully trudging through the soft snow. It is a strange phenomenon how the way back always seems so much quicker.
I reached home and prepared a pot of tea. The cat’s water bowl had long since been coated white, and I filled their empty food bowl. Later that evening there were paw prints in the snow, and I smiled.
I had such plans for the evening. After all, I had expected to have to work tonight. With the extra time, I was ready to throw myself into productivity with gusto: what was I waiting for? I drank the tea and made some soup and started a load of laundry. Not long after, Ryan arrived home and began telling me all about a girl he’d met during his trip to Canada. How well it had gone. I pulled the corkscrew from the drawer.
We started with the one and a half liters of Gato Negro Cabernet I bought from Safeway. He broke open the Chateau Lorane Raspberry Mead, and then we opened a bottle of Vin de Savoie. Some French wine.
We talked and drank and listened to music in my bedroom. It was lovely to see him so happy; he never really talked to girls, was never so smitten as I saw him then. Who cared how it would turn out? He is happy now. We listened to The Long Winters and my winter mix and sat together in the dark, lit only by candles. A holy moment. Two Cancers together, feeding off one another, sustaining one another. I love that boy. How lucky am I to have such a roommate?
Eventually we finished the third bottle and he was getting sleepy. I took him by the hand and walked him downstairs, tucked him in, and went back to my room.
So he is asleep, and I am here. I have three days off. Despite all that has been going on, things are so fucking good. I will throw myself into disciplines that have fallen by the wayside. I will write and meditate and call friends and write Christmas cards and send out copies of the winter mix. I will write letters and buy candles and walk in the snow again.
All we have is now. So let’s go play and be thankful that we can be here together. For fuck’s sake, what else can we ask for? We should be thankful for every second we have. We should hold hands and sing songs and be glad to be alive.
Our time is now. It really is all we have.
I want more nights like this.

Winter Update in Two Parts

Part One: The End is Finally Here

I used to love her from a distance, imagining a life we might someday live together. I built it up, brick by brick, until it towered a hundred feet high and blotted out any chance of seeing her as a real person. It grew and thrived. Then I found myself tasting the dream, amazed, disbelieving. And it slipped through my fingers like smoke. I wrote my book, and we tried again. But in my heart I could feel that it was not to be.
It played out more or less like it did the first time around, all those bad dreams and sad entries. I saw it coming, as I had then. Now, as before, I can't help feeling that I orchestrated it in some slightly masochistic way. The only difference being this time I was better prepared. But again I dropped her off, and again I broke into tears as miles were put between us.
I will no longer dream of her. I will still think of her affectionately, and perhaps I won't ever quite get over her. But there is no more crystalline picture of a perfect woman. Only a sad and beautiful girl too fucked up to love me as much as I love her.
I know it's not personal. It's just timing. Isn't everything? It's not good or bad. It just is what it is.
And now, finally, I can put it in the ground and move on.
I don't usually do this, but rather than go on about it, I am going to post lyrics instead. Over the course of this whole messy affair, there has been one record that has been on repeat constantly, providing an uncannily accurate score to it all. As time progressed, different songs narrated the specifics of the tale. It felt, at times, like it was written just for me, as great records tend to.
That album, of course, is Okkervil River's Black Sheep Boy. So here are some lyrics.

If you want to see and be seen, then be seen. Your dress is dark red and your opening eyes are bright green. Make a scene, but don’t lie on the bed, laid out like you’re dead, because honey, you’re murdering me. Be a little sheep learning who’ll shear and who’ll feed. The hands come and they leave. Be hands holding a knife. Be a being on two feet, with his heart trembling, butchering for a king he believes in though he’s never seen. Be the princess in that stone tower, crying for that handsome butcher’s plight (and, as some princess might, she still calls him a knight.) But the best thing for you would be queen, so be queen. You’re all that I need. Though I know that it never can be, I’d be pleased to post your decrees, to fall at your knees, to name all your streets and to sit down and weep when you’re carried back through them and set down to sleep, and to lie by your side for sublime centuries (until we crumble to dust when we’re crushed by a single sunbeam).

If you want the whole experience, you can hear these fragile and beautiful words set to music here:

Okkervil River - A King and a Queen

Part Two: The Quest for Good Christmas Music

In the spirit of Lindsey's recent entry concerning how awful most Christmas music is (no argument here - it's on all the time at work and I am ready to kill) - I decided to follow suit and seek out and make available some not only tolerable, but perhaps even enjoyable and sincere Christmas ditties.
So here are the fruits of my search. Enjoy.

Low - Just Like Christmas

Big Star - Jesus Christ

The Cocteau Twins - Winter Wonderland

The Pogues - Fairytale of New York (This one is on my winter mix, so if you're getting a copy, perhaps it's best to wait till it arrives)

Death Cab for Cutie - Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)

Spinal Tap - Christmas With the Devil

Squirrel Nut Zippers - Winter Weather

Low - Long Way Around the Sea

The Cleansing and the Cold

I have been meaning to write for a week now. It kept getting put off somehow, between the below-freezing weather keeping me wrapped in my bedsheets and the slight depression that comes with becoming entirely nocturnal. Honestly, I rarely see the sun most days. It has gotten to the point where I am barely functioning, every part of me screaming out that I need to put everything else aside and simply write. It is, after all, the only way I stay sane. And it's cheaper than therapy.
First things first. The computer has returned from the altar of the gods that is Apple Technical Support, and not only did they manage to fix the seemingly dead-time-to-go-to-the-scrapheap logic board, they did so without needing to erase my hard drive. I had been worried and upset about losing all my files, as the crash was so bad that I'd been unable to back anything up prior to sending it off to them. I was certain it was all lost: the music, the writing, the pictures. Gone. Tears were shed, and I prepared myself mentally and emotionally to move on and just let go of all that history and memory.
Which is amusing in a way, as it directly ties into the themes of my novel. The question of memory and dream. What would you be without your past? Without your memories? I felt I was about to find out, in some small way. Being that I have a terrible memory, sometimes pictures and songs are the only things that keep my past, whether it's true or not, alive.
But it was not to be. The Apple Gods preserved it all, and I have again been given a chance to change my foolish ways (read: buy an external hard drive and back the motherfucker up. Yes sir, on it). When I saw that it was all there, I simply stared, slack-jawed, for a moment, and then proceeded to put on the New Pornographer's Twin Cinema at full volume and dance flailingly around the room with joyous abandon.
I have not looked at or touched the novel in a few weeks. It is good to get some distance from it, but I am getting anxious about the whole rewrite process. The month of November was such a flurry of producivity that I feel almost as if I'm going into some sort of withdrawal now, doing nothing. I get up and make myself cup after cup of tea and check my email and go to work and go home and drink wine and get myself off and then sleep. The days blur together.
Thank (whom? I suppose it'd be inappropriate to thank God, being an atheist. How about Amanda Palmer? Yes, that'll do just fine).
Thank Amanda Palmer that I am a Cancer and have the ability to pull myself out of depression with relative ease. If I were a superhero, it would be my special power. To see with total clarity what needs to be done to restore hope and joy and sanity, and then to set about doing it. I almost always know what to do. Perhaps it's my instincts, perhaps intuition. But I like to think it's really my good ol' Crab Sense kicking in.
There will be more writing, for starters. Still letting the novel cool off, but in the meantime I will work on new projects. I am also writing songs and playing guitar every day. The one difficulty with that is that it is usually around 50 degrees in my house, and cold fingers combined with steel strings = pain pain pain. Damn my lost calluses. I'll get them back eventually.
I will start to meditate again and I will keep riding my bicycle and start to eat more than just chocolate and cheese, as much as I enjoy being able to make the Ween reference. It's just not healthy. I will go out for drinks with friends more often. During November I saw no one. Always writing the book. I turned down invites and became quite the recluse. This will now change.
And behind everything else is the girl. The girl from the story. The girl I dream about. She is out there, behind every thought and probably underneath every creative impulse I have these days. Who knows what will happen? Right now there is hardly anything to speak of between us. But I can feel the potential. I can feel that if I just have patience, and keep living and playing and writing and dancing at Embers on Wednesday nights, that things might just work out. Don't ask me why or how. I just feel it.
Winter is here. The season of forgetting and of cleansing. We pile on layers, like animals growing extra coats of skin. The cold is brutal and utterly beautiful as well. It reminds us that we still feel, for better or for worse.
Of course, I still want to lock myself into my bed with an unending supply of soup and grilled cheese sandwiches and watch Babylon 5 and Eddie Izzard concert films until it warms up a bit. Until spring wakes from its bed of leaves and insects and saunters down to put an end to all the ice.

Until then, if you're still down, you can always listen to this song.

Sigur Rós and the Bathing Birds

It is done. The first draft of my novel is complete. I worked on it all night, and once I reached within 2,000 words of the goal, it seemed impossible to allow myself to go to sleep without first getting it all out. So, in between brief video game breaks and trips to the kitchen to boil more water for tea, I wrote 4,600 words over the course of the night, bringing me to a grand total of 50,012 words written between November 2nd and this morning.
As it fueled so much of the novel throughout the month, I closed out my writing to the music of Sigur Rós. I wonder how many authors, in their books, acknowledge musicians and teas and so on in their Thank-Yous right alongside all the living, breathing people? I would imagine that most of them do. After all, do not these things play just as much a part in the process as any person, if not more?
Now the sun is up, and it is a glorious day out. Birds splash in giant puddles, shaking the water off their feathers spastically, before diving back under for one more rinse. I am in love with them, and with everything else as well.
I am so fucking happy. So relieved to be done. So ready to take a break from writing.
And so proud. I cannot even begin to describe it.