My Son, The Actor

My son is an actor.  He always has been, since he was a little guy, hamming it up for everyone. 

And now he works at Marvel Studios.  He’s not acting on camera, but he’s still “acting” for other people.  A person has to fit in, obviously, to get a gig making movies.  People who want to make movies usually want to call themselves “actors”, but all the beautiful parts of movies are behind the scenes:  the writer, the producer, the director, the cinematographer, the video people, the audio people, the stand-ins, the extras, the caterer …

Movies may have only a few main actors onscreen, but the number of people who work on the movie (in some context) is enormous.  Think about someone who makes epic movies.  My first thought is Steven Spielberg.  He produced E.T., Poltergeist, The Goonies, Back to the Future, Empire of the Sun, Schindler’s List, Twister, Men In Black, Saving Private Ryan, Transformers, Super 8, Lincoln … 

 

Are you fucking kidding me? How many people did it take to make all of these iconic movies?

The answer is:  a lot.

So, my son, he got a little older and then “acted” differently.  Acting in high school is different than when you’re little, so people become a version of themselves (as they are in high school), and then they act as the senior class president, or the president of a marketing club, or the president of the German Club, or the starting quarterback, or the starting wide receiver, or the dutiful suburban boyfriend … and they lose themselves a little bit.  Because they’re always acting.

But take it to the next level:   college. 

According to the movies, college is one of the following things:

• ·         Animal House
• ·         PCU
• ·         Old School
• ·         American Pie
• ·         21 Jump Street
• ·         Neighbors

Yes, these people exist in college.  No, they aren’t real. 

So … everyone is acting, yes?

And then, my son wants to actually be a part of a community of people who act for a living.  But the community is nothing like the movies, where all the good parts make it to the film.  The movie-making industry is not the same as the two-hour movie we watch at home.  It’s a culmination of thousands of people working together to get to a final product, which (hopefully) is the product of a genius, like Walt Disney, or Quentin Tarantino, or Clint Eastwood, or Martin Scorsese, or Stanley Kubrick, or John Carpenter, or Woody Allen, or Cameron Crowe, or Darren Aronofsky.  These people had a vision, and then they systematically created that vision – on film-.  How fucking cool is that?!

And you know what?  My son is a perfect superhero, because throughout his entire life, he has tried to make the world a better place, be kind to other people, be the best possible version of himself, be educated in as many ways as possible, be a lover not a fighter, and listen to art (music, films, words) in the active tense. 

He is (at the same time) the best and the worst version of himself, every day. We all are. 

He will become Ubermensch some day, because all Nietzsche was trying to say in that book was to be the best possible person you can be, every day.  And when you look at your life (said Nietzsche), imagine having to live your life – forever – in exactly the same way – over and over. 

• Would you make the same choices?
• Would you chase the same demons?
• Would you love more deeply and strongly and internally?
• Would you want to wake up, tomorrow, and be in the same place?

And (if not), then you have to do something about it.  Do something different, until you feel better about your choices.  If you change nothing, well, you’ve chosen your life.  If you do something and fail, well, at least you did something.  And if you do something which makes you more whole, well, take the positive endorphins and channel them into something else which builds the best possible version of you.  (Because you are beautiful, in all the ways a person can be beautiful.)

I love you. 

Love Is a Drug

I would like for love to just be love.

It’s not. 

Love is a barter system.  Trading – this for that.

Love is sexual politics.  Trafficking in position, and lust, and power-balance.

Love is ego-reduction.  I need to be the most important thing in my life, but my ego has to deflate (periodically) to let other people in.

Love is money management.  When you’re dating, the spread is fairly equal, but when you’re married, the financial concrete boots seem to be attached to one person or the other – not both.

Love is a drug.  I crave it, I want it, I day-dream in it, I want to bury my face in it.  Every day.

Love is paying twice as much for three times less, because the quality of love overpowers the reality of economics and (sometimes) logic. 

Love is mental foreplay. 

Love is critical mass.  Thinking that you can’t take any more of what you have, but wanting more of it anyway.

Love is suffering. 

Love is elation.  Walking, with shoes, but feeling nothing but air beneath the soles of your feet and the ground.

Love is situational.  (Crosby, Stills, and Nash: “If you can’t be with the one that you love; love the one you’re with.”)

Love is occasional.  If the person you love isn’t in proximity regularly, the love comes in tidal waves.

Love is consolation.  Coming home and having someone who is there in body, soul, and mind to validate all the things I do in order to stay alive every day.

Love is a puppy.  It loves unconditionally and with beautiful abandon.  (And it occasionally gets so excited that it can’t control itself.)

Love is.  (After all, it’s both a noun and a verb.)

I have to believe in love, otherwise, what is there to believe in?  Work?  Netflix?  

Love is the drug.  And when two people are doing the same drug, on the same plane of a love-high, love is the most scintillating drug of all.  

Pretty Things

Hello. 

I say hello to you in my head many times, every day.  You’re not here, you never are, but you occupy space in my brain.  So let me tell you what I would say if you listened:

“LIFE IS BEAUTIFUL” - What a lovely headline.

Pretty things.  So what if I like pretty things?  Pretty lies, so what if I like pretty lies?

From where you are, to where I am now, is its own galaxy.

Be a star and make it past your color TV.  This time will pass, and with it, will me, and all these pretty things.

(And don’t say you don’t notice them.)

I need to put my phone on vibrate for you.  I tried to dance with Britney Spears – I guess I’m getting on in years, because I just end up in tears.  It’s like Pinocchio, who becomes a boy, but just wants to turn back into a toy.

So my phone will be on vibrate for you, but call me anytime.  Call me in the morning, call me in the night, call me anytime you like.

The space is too vast, so my phone’s on vibrate.  For you. 

Bi-Curious Socks

My socks are pretty queer.  But sometimes they’re bisexual and sometimes they’re homosexual and sometimes they’re asexual and sometimes they’re even straight.  Let me just put it this way:  my socks like each other.  They like to mingle. 

Socks are just like people, I suppose.  Sometimes we want something that matches us, and sometimes we want to flip it and reverse it.  Different colors, different sizes, different fit.  Just depends on how a person is feeling in that moment of life. 

We all need to get in the dryer and mix it up.

Ayn Rand

  Find the “I”.

§  Individuality.

§  Independence.

§  Integrity.

§  Intelligence.

A proper “I” can stand alone.

I am finding myself.

Sometimes I don’t’ care who I am, because I’m too tired.

Sometimes, who I am, is just a person trying to breathe.

Sometimes I care so much that I am paralyzed.

I always thought I knew myself. 

But I think we are just getting acquainted.

All it takes is a series of crises, and then I have to look in the mirror and ask myself just who the hell I am?  How did I get so old?  How did I get so tired?  When did I stop properly taking care of myself?  When did I become this person? 

Bottom line:  I can only be who I am, so if other people don’t like or appreciate me, I can’t care.  I have to stop caring and focus on Ayn Rand’s idea that the only way to help other people is to help oneself first.  Maybe if people cared for themselves first, and flushed out all the “socially appropriate” mores and norms, individuals would be happier more often. 

(P.S. Fuck Rand’s misogynistic agenda 😊)

The University of Nebraska at Lincoln, and Other Bullshit

                                                                     

Universities are the downfall of contemporary society.  Four-year universities are predatory entities which select students whose parents have the ability to take out loans to pay ridiculous amounts of money for classes which are (generally) useless, and then students are penalized if (god forbid) they can’t sustain 12 credit hours.

Additional bonus:  students HAVE to live on campus freshman year, thus ensuring they will have to pay the university more in housing than in actual tuition.  (And I won’t even address the financial rape of the cost of textbooks- usually written by the professor teaching the class.)

Here’s the deal:  sometimes, life happens.  College coursework if often totally inapplicable to reality.  A student needs about half of the bullshit classes offered by any given university, but if that student doesn’t pay the extortion fees; they’re fucked.  Student end up taking nonsense courses, only because there are NO REAL ADVISORS on the UNL campus.  Professors are forced to take on x-number of students per semester to advise, thus they don’t care.

Personally, I am tired of acquiring personal loans to pay off college classes that get my children a whole lot of nothing.  Nothing.  They get a degree.  Awesome.  What does that degree get them?  Nothing.  UNLESS … they are trying to be a lawyer or a doctor or a teacher or an engineer (or some other field which is specially designated to train a human being to do a job).  Or UNLESS, they get lucky and stumble into a field which is hiring.  Sounds like a pretty shitty investment, yes?

Getting a degree in the humanities is like taking $20-$40,000 in cash and wiping your ass with it.  Cross your fingers and hope, right?  Mortgage your future on something which MIGHT work out … maybe. 

Why is today’s society preying on the next generation of people??  We are putting them in a position where they have a college degree, but can’t afford to live anywhere or pay any other expenses besides the college loans they (and parents, on their behalf) took out. 

Maybe, one day, the United States government, and their state counterparts, will consider the possibility of EDUCATING college students, rather than feeding them lies about the requirements of any given job. 

I am a high school teacher, and I thought my job was to help prepare kids for college.  As it turns out, colleges are just a “higher” level of education, on the level of “going-to-the-library-and-checking-out-books”.  To be perfectly honest, most students would be better off reading books from their local library than throwing money at possibility. 

Read a book.  Read a lot of books.

And fuck universities, until they can pay a little respect to the young people who are keeping them in business.

I (Heart) LA (?)

I just came back from a week-long vacation in Hermosa Beach, CA.  This is the third time I've been there, because there's something about the ocean that quite literally draws me in.  I love the sound of the ocean and the sand in my toes and the fact that beach vacations are a beautiful break from the mundane reality of Nebraska life.

I love my friends in LA.  I love that the AVP volleyball tournament was going on, and I could watch hot people being more athletic than I care to be.  (They're pretty to look at, if nothing else.)  I love the great food, the cool houses, the sun (even though it burnt me crispy this time).  I love being in a place with someone I love and wandering around.  I love that I walked into a Gibson guitar store and watched an impromptu mini-concert put on by the owner and his friend, which was watched by me, my friend, and two other strangers who were rolling on molly and string a coherent sentence together (them, not us).  I love the smell of the air.  I love that our balcony was literally on the beach and the wind blew that salt-air smell directly into my suite.

But ...

California has changed.  You might be under the mistaken impression that pot is recreationally legal.  You'd be wrong, even though the state says it is.

As it turns out, pretty much everything is illegal:  smoking, drinking anywhere which isn't caged in, skateboarding on the piers, having a plastic bag ...

California has changed from the Golden State to the Uptight Tourist state.

I'm sure it's not like that everywhere in CA, but the beach cities have gotten so white-bread and expensive that it's not "cool" anymore.  Eating out - literally ANYWHERE on the beach - is going to cost $100 for two people.  The cigarette/sin tax is like 40%.  Rental properties are outrageously expensive.  New laws prohibit short term renting (just in case someone who "doesn't belong" tries to hang out there).  Cops?  Everywhere.  Venice?  The bastion of free love and free spirit?  Commercialized.
Yes, Venice still has a great, eclectic mix of weirdos, but it's not the same. Even Venice is on lock-down.

I'm not saying places should always stay the same, or that they shouldn't improve infrastructure, or that they shouldn't make beaches safer, BUT ... calm the fuck down California Chamber of Commerces.  Don't take one of the greatest of the 50 states and turn the beach cities into uptight, suburban neighborhoods.

Don't get me wrong, I love California.  I will be back.  I will stay on the beach EVERY time, because even the THOUGHT of driving in Los Angeles traffic makes me nauseous.  So many people, so much smog, so much douchbaggery on the highways.  BUT ... when I walked out the airport in Omaha and hit 97 degrees with like 80% humidity, I wanted to throw myself in front of a shuttle bus.  Nebraska heat sucks ass.  All my flowers/grass/plants were basically dead after just one week of Nebraska's scorching heat.

So I'll take Hermosa instead any day, because there I don't have to hide inside an air conditioned room, simply because it hurts to breathe in 100 degree weather.  Especially when no beach is right around the corner to make me forget about all the bullshit.

But, yeah.  Beach House Hermosa.  Go there. Stay there.  Get the ocean view room.  And tell them some girl from Nebraska sent you.  They might remember the couple who stayed there and refused to follow all the rules :)

On Trying

Trying is overrated.

Here's what I mean:  when I try too hard or think too much about something, the result is counterproductive or counterintuitive.  I try too hard and I get pissed.  I think too much and I am intellectually paralyzed.  Oftentimes, the result of either action is ... well, nothing.  (Or, at least, it feels like nothing.)

Example:  this morning, I laid in bed and thought about what I should do today for THREE HOURS.  Three.  I knew if I got out of bed, I would have to actually do something, so I just watched netflix and drank coffee.  Super productive, I know.

This afternoon, I bit the bullet and bought 10 bags of mulch to spread in my gardens.

Fuck me.

I'm allergic to it.  I spent three hours sweating like a grape-picker.  I had any number of spiders/ants/aphids/mosquitoes in my hair the whole time.  My body now hurts.  And nobody but me cares that I did all that work.  No one appreciates it, and I'm fairly certain that the mulch will not stop the insidious creeping of clover, wild vines, and whatever other bullshit weeds tend to take over every year.

The plan (for now) is to just sit outside this evening, pour a cocktail, and enjoy the pretty, red-dyed, tiny pieces of tree (aka, mulch) that I have scattered throughout my plants.  Perhaps I'll light a torch and have a lovely conversation with myself (since no one is ever around).  At least the neighbors won't have to listen to me yelling profanity every time I get impaled by a rose bush (which is what they were blessed to hear today).

As far as thinking too much, I will never be able to stop that train.  My only current thought is to become wildly addicted to heroin, in order to NOT think.  This is probably a bad idea, so I'll stick to a glass of wine and the small piece of satisfaction which comes with a semi-productive day of manual labor.

Happy Summer.

Summer, and Other Heat Strokes

Summer in Nebraska is good for like a second.  Actually, now that I just wrote that sentence, I realize that summer is not officially here in Nebraska – we’re still in spring, and the temperature is 93 degrees, with a heat index of 102 (and 54% humidity).  Going outside to do anything is basically a punishment for having chosen this state in which to live. 

I love not having a job in the summer, and yet I’m constantly wandering around doing mundane shit when I don’t have to plan curriculum or grade papers or get up early.  I sleep until like 9am, then I make breakfast and take it back to bed with me, so I can watch Netflix and chill (no sex-pun intended).  I just don’t really want to do anything.  It’s a catch-22.  I’m bored, but I’d rather be bored than grade research papers and wade into a sea of hormonal tidal waves at 8:00 every morning. 

But the heat – oh, god – the heat.  With it comes gardening chores and lawn mowing and roughly one million carpenter ants and Japanese beetles eating my flowers and different teenagers marauding in and out of my house and … yeah, you get it.

I’m going to California next month, and I’m pretty sure (just like every other time I’ve been to beach) I’ll cry when the place takes off over the Pacific Ocean and then turns back inland to bring me back to the infinite acres of corn and conservatives. 

For now, I’m trying to improve my house, with all the (incredibly) limited ability (and funds) which I have.  New garage door opener, new dishwasher, newly refurnished study.  I also read a couple of books, and now I’m on to Virginia Woolf’s To the Lighthouse.  Jesus, H. Virginia.  No wonder you walked into a river with rocks in your pocket.  Sentences that last for an entire paragraph, and themes that would make any sane person want to choke someone to death. 

I understand your pain, friend.  I wish we could have hung out while you were still alive, though I think I’d rather spend that time with other neurotic messes like Kurt Vonnegut and Hunter S. Thompson and Ernest Hemingway and Chuck Klosterman.  (It’s probably no coincidence that that list consists of only men, because women tend to freak me out with all their gender-specific feeling words.)

Next step:  mastering that fucking Stratocaster in the basement.  Or at least playing it functionally.  I have been lazy.  And what better time to play guitar, when it’s too hot to go outside and my brain is fried from reading fiction from the 1920s?

Thank you, summer, for providing a window in which to play, differently. 

Earth Day, And Other Natural Phenomena

I woke up today, on a farm.  Time is suspended there.  Clocks run differently, if at all.  There are no neighbors, no impending chores, no responsibilities.  I can be alone, with nature, and commune.  I can get completely naked and sunbathe, and no one is there to watch or judge or even consider the fact that I have shed all my clothes and am lying supine on a lounge chair. 

And then I have to get in my car and drive back to reality.  Getting into the car to leave is hard enough, but once I get into the driver’s seat, the minutes begin ticking again.  Life, being eaten away in small pieces by a clock.  Imminent actuality. 

I want to revel in the suspended timelessness.  I want to drink in the joy of not having an alarm going off in the morning or having a series of bells tell me where I have to be and what I have to do every hour of every day.  Freedom comes in various ways, and it doesn’t come very often.  I want to succumb to the sun and the stars and the weightlessness of just being alive, without having to be somewhere (or someone) I don’t want to be. 

My dreamscape is unrealistic, perhaps, but that doesn’t make it less necessary.

And the Band Said … What?

Can I get a witness?  I have found that knowing things and KNOWING THINGS are two different types of testament.  I can “know” something in my head that doesn’t work out with my heart.  How wrong they both can be.  Having all parts of my body working in synchronicity is difficult.  I don’t understand how a person’s body can send so many conflicting signals. 

I think I know what I want, but I’m usually only partially right. 

As I’m writing, I realize that none of this matters.  None of my words or thoughts or feelings matter.  Things ARE or they AREN’T.  Period.  What is the point of typing feeling words into a computer?

There isn’t one.  

Post Modernism & Love

I’m listening to my 15-year-old tell her “being dumped” story, and it’s basically a (very close) version of what just happened to me, so … either I just dated an emotionally retarded 47-year-old, or people actually don’t grow up in any real way. 

I am loathe to embrace the second choice, because I feel like I have absolutely changed and matured since I was 15.  What is it about certain people who just remain childish and petty, regardless of the actual number of their age?  At some point, everyone needs to grow up.  It’s much easier to remain immature than to grow up and treat other people with respect.  It’s much easier to blame other people for … whatever … than to look in the mirror and talk to yourself about your flaws.  It’s much easier to lash out reactively than to reach out emotionally.  It’s much easier to blame other people than to take responsibility.

So … to all people, whether you are 15 or 30 or 45 or 70:  get the fuck over yourself. 

WE are all people.  WE all need love.  WE should treat people in accordance with the Golden Rule – which is treating other people the way you want to be treated, NOT (as many people misinterpret it) treating other people as they have treated you.  (This should be common sense, since none of us really ENJOY feeling like shit.) 

(I might be wrong there – some people seem to enjoy being serial victims.)

I used to be guilty of being a narcissist (when I was like, in my twenties), but I am now guilty of habitually putting other people’s feelings in front of my own.  I put up with other people’s shit if I love them.  But a person who truly loved ME would do the same for me.  Or, they would just NOT purposefully hurt me, because courtesy is taught as early as kindergarten.  Kindness just seems like common sense, yes?  And yet … a person’s age doesn’t matter.  People sometimes don’t embrace common sense, empathy, and self-love no matter how many years they’ve lived on this planet (with 7 billion other people who would all like the same self-worth).

Maybe, at the end of the day, the best cliché is to just Be Kind. 

Valentine’s Day

Valentine’s Day is a holiday for lovers or a reason for cynics to complain, right?  Most people think I’m a cynic, so I could write a blog entry about how over-hyped Valentine’s Day is, because it’s just a commercialized reason to guilt people to spend money on someone they care about.  I mean, if you don’t buy your significant other something on this day, you’re an asshole who doesn’t show love, right?

Well, I’m not in love, and I’m not a cynic.  I am an eternal optimist.  I always expect the best of people.  Every day, I wake up and think people are going to be good.  They are going to be respectful and forthright and kind and responsible.  Every day, I am disappointed by people.  Not everyone is unkind or irresponsible, but the people who matter to me are constantly taking advantage of my optimism and love.  I guess I’m just a crushed idealist on any given day.

Maybe I’m doing life wrong.  Maybe I SHOULD be a cynical bitch all the time; at least then, I wouldn’t be disillusioned all the time. 

I haven’t had a “Valentine” for at least a decade.  I have to be content with being the love of my own life, which is difficult for a person who doesn’t have terribly high self-esteem.  Don’t get me wrong, I don’t care that I didn’t get flowers or gifts or love today, but it would be nice to have someone, ANYone, who cares enough about me as a human being to love me properly.

Perhaps, I’m not worthy of love.  Perhaps, I am unlovable in a romantic capacity.  Perhaps, my expectations of other people are too high.  Perhaps, I don’t deserve to be loved.  Perhaps, my definition of love is so egregiously incorrect that I wouldn’t even know if I experienced it.

Who knows?  Certainly not me. 

Love is a drug like any other.  Love is also a transaction like any other.  Love is often just a contract to which people are bound by the parameters of the agreement.  Weird to think of love like that, yes?  And yet in any relationship, the two people agree on terms.  When someone violates the terms, love dissipates.  And sometimes, one person is in love and the other one isn’t.  That’s life.  That’s love. 

So happy February 14^th.  Love should be an everyday, spontaneous expression of true feeling, not a corporately sponsored day of the year.  Love yourself, because if you don’t, you can’t love anyone else properly.  

On Writing

One of the smartest people I know told me that in order to be a proper writer, I need to write every day.  The problem is that even though I have a million thoughts and ideas and conflicts and epiphanies every day, I don’t have the attention span to write them all down.  I wake up with something deeply compelling – a story trying to get out, or a message trying to get in – and I’m too tired to sit up and write.  Or I wander around my house thinking about how not to think – trying to find ways to distract myself from my thoughts – and all I end up doing is thinking more.  Thinking differently.  I have whole conversations with myself, because my brain is trying to tell me one thing, and my body is telling me something different. 

I literally just took out a different journal and hand-wrote some words that I can’t write here.  Things that I only want to say to one person. 

I can’t believe the fundamental disappointment I feel in that person.  We have been friends for 30 years, and I have never, NEVER, not liked him. 

I don’t like him right now.

It’s not about love at this point, because I will always love him for one simple reason:  All moments are connected, and all moments in life are happening at the same time.  Time itself is fluid like that.  We are all just a collection of moments which all run forward and backwards and sideways.  I love him collectively, as a whole.  I just don’t like the person he is right now.  I wonder if he is so far down the rabbit hole that I won’t ever see him again.  I wonder if I will ever know what happened.  I wonder if he genuinely dislikes me, or if he’s embarrassed for being so disrespectful. 

I don’t think I’ll ever know.  I don’t think he has the personal courage required to own up to himself and his actions.  I’m beginning to think … Right, I’ll keep it at that last statement:  “I’m beginning to THINK.” 

As it turns out, the more I think about him, the more I both love him and hate him at the same time. 

And now I’m realizing that I’m just sitting here thinking about something that doesn’t matter, because I am the only one in the conversation.  So one more day of “writing” done, because writing isn’t changing anything right now.

I cannot, via words typed in a document, change the fact that there is no WHY.  Things simply ARE.  All I can do is articulate things in my brain in a superlatively ineffective way to get the thoughts out of the way.  Flush the emotions into the toilet of cyberspace, hoping that (one day) I will either find some answers or accept that there are none.  

High School is Viral

I am currently sitting at my desk, watching students annotate an Arthur Miller essay.  I look like an infectious homeless person, because I’m totally sick (with a head cold and sore throat) and I’m wearing my giant “I-feel-sick” sweater.  I’m pretty sure I brushed my hair this morning, but I wouldn’t bet money on that.  I tried to call in sick, but I was five minutes past the stupid fucking deadline, so … here I am, spreading my germs around just like the rest of the 1500 germy, viral human beings in this cesspool. 

Everyone is sick, because everyone comes to school sick, and they touch everything, and they cough on everything, and they don’t cover their faces when they sneeze.  It’s truly disgusting.  The problem is that we HAVE to be here, so no one really gets better.   We all just pass around the same cold for like three months. 

I just want to be in my bed.  I would really love to be in my bed and have someone who loves me enough to make me soup or curl up with me and take a nap.  I now understand that will never happen – I will be dating myself for the rest of my life, so I need to find a way to like (and take care of) myself more. 

Last period, my seniors were writing (I use that word loosely here) about their strengths and weaknesses and life goals and whatnot.  They were honest, I’ll give them that.  But when a person identifies their “strength” as being good looking, I wonder what the hell they were thinking.  Or when someone identifies his special skills as hunting and coloring.  Or when someone’s life goal is to stop smoking the “devil’s lettuce”.  Or when someone’s weakness is “trying to get in all the girls’ pants”. 

I was a total deviant in high school, but I managed to get it together.  And in 2017, high school isn’t that hard.  Basically, you show up, do at least half of the stuff you’re asked to do, and you’ll graduate.  I currently have 9 of 24 seniors who are not passing my class, and ALL of them need it to graduate in May.  Sometimes I’ll see them in the hallway before class, they’ll say hi, and then they’ll just leave.  So, like, they were HERE in the building 10 minutes before class, but they couldn’t stand to be here another minute, so they took off and went home or to McDonald’s or whatever. 

So I’m going to do the same thing.  I got someone to cover my last three classes today, and I’m going to pick up some food and go home and crawl in my bed.  Happy Friday.

Literary Tropes and Corpses

I just realized that I have become a trope in literature.  What a bummer.  To be a recurring theme is not exactly cause for celebration.  But … hmmm.  If I can see my life from the outside like that, and observe who I am and I have been and who I’m becoming, is that potentially good?  I’m not sure.  Because part of me wants to be oblivious (it hurts less) and part of me wants to be hyper-aware of my life as I’m living (it hurts more). 

Here are my archetypes:  the broken idealist (Holden Caulfield), the hopeless romantic who thinks you can recreate the past (Jay Gatsby), the Madonna/whore (Hester Prynne), the time-tripping drone (Billy Pilgrim), the master manipulator (Niccolo Machiavelli) … probably I’m just Holden most of the time, even though I’m old.  When I think about it, Kurt Vonnegut was just an older Holden, so maybe that’s my trope. 

The older I get the less tolerable I am to bullshit.  I recognize the fact that I bitch and complain sometimes, but I am ALWAYS aware of how annoying my own angst is.  I don’t like it myself, which is why I puke it on out this blog rather than directing it at other people all the time. 

I don’t want to be a hopeless romantic.  I thought I believed in love, but I was wrong.  Love doesn’t solve anything.  At best, love can make life more tolerable; but at worst, love just disappears and leaves an exogenous shell.  Being a shell sucks. 

More archetypes:  I am on a QUEST (to become the person I want to be and to live the life I want to live).  I am on a JOURNEY through levels of personal hell to shed all the harmful, external forces invading my life.  I wear BLACK all the time, perhaps because I’m mourning the passing of my youth.  I am a BRUNETTE temptress, not the goddess I deserve to be. 

I’m ready to just be a person who doesn’t fit into any categories.  I am sick of seeing myself through the eyes of other people, and the scope of society’s terms.  I’m ready to free myself.

An Experiment

I get it now.  I was an experiment.  I was a thing you were interested in, for a minute, because I was different.  You wanted to find out what would happen.  Kind of like when a little kid sees matches for the first time and tries to light them.  It takes a couple of strikes, and then fire happens.  And then the fire starts to burn the kid’s finger, and he throws down the match and moves on to something else. 

Realistically, the kid could become a pyro, but (more likely) the kid was just curious.

I don’t like being thrown away like that.  I know everyone has their own, independent personality to cope with (experiences and all), but people should think about what fires they light and what will happen if the flame gets out of their control. 

Are you going to step on it?  Thrown water on it?  Watch it burn down to the ashes? 

And if the fires burns too bright for you, call 911.  Or something.  Don’t just stand there and watch other people stand in a burning room that YOU set on fire, accidentally (?). 

Experiments are only conducive to learning when the people involved all know what the fucking experiment is.  I mean, if I just show up to a concert to hear music, but the real deal is that some weird auditory experiment is being conducted on me … is that fair?  Maybe I should just accept the fact that I heard some music, and not worry about the trick being played on me. 

Or maybe the experimenter shouldn’t let the rat in the cage kill itself trying to get out, just because he or she is trying to find something out.  To experiment with life.  Isn’t a scientist usually observing things to see how they turn out?  And isn’t a scientist quite used to failure, simply because everything is an experiment?  I mean, sometimes things turn out as planned, but usually there are extenuating circumstances and unpredictable forces interfering, so they just watch and then plan the future events accordingly.

He was watching me, now that I think about it, all the time.  Observing from a distance.  Declaring things which were happening, but the declarations were often without emotion.  Sitting in a chair with a cocktail while I took a bath or listened to music or kissed him.  Moments were documented, introspection occurred.  Positive outcomes created future experiments, until the experiment was out of his control.  No scientist wants their plan to exceed their control.  They lose power.

Did I make you cry the first time I gave you a deep tissue massage and I said “you deserve to be taken care of once in a while”?  Yes.  You literally wept, and then you said, “I wasn’t expecting that” when you came back into the room a few minutes later.  That’s it.  No subsequent feeling words.  Stoic manliness or professorial distance or something else just as vapid.  I should have noticed that you were systematically addressing the glitches in your machine.

Spontaneous, unpredictable reactions are the fabric of life, friend.  You can’t foresee everything, but you can certainly adapt to circumstances.  I believe that’s called evolution.  Evolve, already.

Today

Do you ever not look at yourself for a while?  Do you ever look at the reflection in the mirror only long enough to brush your hair and your teeth and make sure no articles of clothing are in disarray? 

Do you then, sometimes, look in the mirror and see a shittier version of yourself?  Do you wonder how you let yourself go?  Do you wonder if you care enough to improve your mirror image? 

Wouldn’t it be great to have someone else who reflects you? Who can tell you when you’re disintegrating?  Who cares enough to speak the truth about what lies before them?

Is it a vapid dream to think that other people care enough about us to speak their minds honestly and truthfully and kindly?  

Questions

Is it possible to get so good at being single and alone that you accidentally miss some potentially great things? 

Is it possible to get so wrapped up in wanting to be with somebody you love that you forget who you are?

Is it possible to listen to your brain and your body at the same time?  It is possible that those two things might not have the same agenda?

Is it possible to just drop all the extraneous nonsense in a relationship and create a continuous dialogue between two people?

Is it possible to sacrifice a piece of yourself and maintain who you are?  Is it possible to tell when you’ve sacrificed a bit too much of yourself?

Probably not.  Good talk.  

What?

Love happens at like 450 degrees. It fucking burns, and it feels so good. You sit there wanting to stick your hand in the fire just to see how it feels, but you already know it’s going to burn your hand.  It’s going to hurt.  Should I stick my hand in there? 

Yeah, probably. 

What the hell kind of logic is that?  Because, ironically, you want to stick your hand in there.  You want to feel the hot proximity of love.  You want to be lit on fire with mind-numbing orgasms and stolen, soul-stroking kisses, and guilty, coy looks in front of your other people.  The desire is far more consuming than the love (if you’re doing it right), and then comes the honeymoon: watching-movies, laying-on-the-couch, making-love-all-day, making-meals-together, falling-asleep-together, waking-up-together, showering-together.  You like it.  Everything feels good.  Little things are important, and that flower by the bed when you woke up was totally unlike that person, but they did it because they like you.  Smile; drink it in.

 “Like” is the important word in that last paragraph.  Having sex is great, but making love with someone you really like is different.  This person in front of you is not just a momentary, sweaty distraction; you’re all of a sudden hanging out with your good friend, but you’re getting laid too.  (That sounds like such a douche-bag thing, sorry…)  It doesn’t suck to be happy.

But, you know where this story goes. 

Reality sets in, and people are often not on the same page.  Things just start not working out, because of time or distance or work or school or whatever.  Then you have a choice.  Try to chase the dragon, by compromising parts of yourself in order to make someone else happy?  Or let go. 

Letting go is hard.  Letting go can feel really redemptive and beautiful, or it can feel like ripping your own heart out of your chest.  Do you know when to let go?   Do you know when to rip your own heart out, and place it at the feet of the person you love and hope they don’t trample on it?  Do you want to fight for something?  Is there anything to even fight for?  How did something so beautiful turn into a dilemma?  Me?  You? 

Who cares?  You were right all along.  You weren’t listening to yourself.  You only remember a version of what’s happening.  There are two people in a relationship, after all.  (God, I hate that relationship word.  It’s like a fucking linguistic time bomb.)  But you need to listen not just to yourself.  You need to listen to the other person, right?  Respect.  Change your frequency to listen to other channels.  Find a different path.  Live a different life.  Embrace change and allow someone else to break through your carefully constructed brick walls.  Maybe you’ll be better or happier or healthier.

Or …

Listen to that shitty, gnawing voice in your head that doesn’t trust other people.  Or just give up, because trying is too hard.  Or be mean to that person so they’ll go away and you don’t have to face your own shitty personality flaws.  Or string the other person along so you don’t have to make an actual decision. 

How are you going to find someone else?  Meet them at a bar?  Meet them on e-harmony?  Find someone from your past who is more accessible, so you don’t have to try as hard?

 Your problem is that (eventually) they will want a part of you, and you’re not willing to give anything away.  You don’t even realize it, but you’re pushing people away, because you think you’re too fucked up to be loved properly.  Too many missteps; too many losses.  You try to find love, and then you tank it (accidentally, on purpose), because you don’t want any more messy situations in your life, right?  It feels better to not care, right?  You’re a little proud of yourself because you were able to shut off the tap before that other person wanted too much from you, right?  Good for you.  Good for all of humanity. Because the nearly constant euphoric, orgasmic, fluid parts of your “relationship” are gone; it’s all over, right?  Move on, right?

You know you.  I know you differently.  I’m just meeting me.  

I’m Gonna Forget

I don’t know if things are good or bad.  Probably bad, I don’t know.  I don’t know where things end up, so maybe I am the weakest point, maybe I was the weakest point all along.  I need to change the design a little bit.  The old me didn’t have seals in it.  And that wad of grease I just pulled out of that place probably didn’t being there.  Moments are an inferior message.  Context is key. 

It really doesn’t matter. 

I’m just trying to hear everything. When I hear good things, I put them in context.  What’s the next thing?  Am I missing a bolt?  Was I constructed improperly?  Does it matter?  Interesting. 

Silence. 

I wonder how far I should go with it?  Should I take it all apart?  At what point do you stop fucking with it and move onto something else? 

Silence.

Does what I say have a bad connotation?  Then take it back.  Use it how you need it.  Do what you have to do.  Breathe in the fumes of whatever is around you and either swim or choke.  It’s all up to you.  Maybe everything will spark together and start on fire, or maybe it will just eventually break and you’ll be searching for a short in the electricity. 

There’s nothing wrong with learning experiences, until people step over the line and unnecessarily hurt others.  Human nature is adaptable.  Sometimes.  If you don’t move on, the darkness overcomes.  Fuck the darkness.  Using the cover of darkness is sometimes just an excuse, but it’s beautiful.  No one expects you.  Others can’t see what’s beyond the glare of the streetlights.  But you’re still lurking in the shadows.   What are you doing?

The little shit doesn’t matter.  Sometimes there’s a pile of socks, and then it becomes a metaphor for your messy life.  Sometimes socks are just socks.  Move on to a different corner of the room.

These things that I’m writing have no coherence whatsoever.  You’re welcome.  Sometimes life is just bullshit and nobody cares.  Sometimes life smiles on you for a minute – how can you tell the difference between a smile and a frown?  The people who care are the ones who need to stay in our lives.  The ones who accept us for who we are – fucking broken shards and all.

We have to wander off sometimes, just to find out where we are.  And sometimes, when we come back to home base, we forget where we lived in the first place.  Lost.  Out of place.  A player on a stage where the light shines on us, but we forgot all the lines.  Frozen in place, without an exit sign or a pulse.  Feel your carotid – see if you’re still alive.  Feel the pulse.  Count the beats.  Ask yourself if you’re still alive. 

If you are, live out loud.  Sing.  Play.  Be.  Write.  Think.  Don’t think.  Just DO.  

Stop (?)

I can’t stop.

The obsessive part of my brain is constantly running and wondering and wandering and wanting.  I want everything I can’t have, and I resist everything that’s around me. 

To be clear:  I don’t HAVE any people.  We don’t own one another.  I INTERACT with other people, some more intimately than others, but I don’t OWN any of them, including my children.  Everyone is his or her own person.  So why do we try to possess other people?  Why do we want to label and classify the people in our lives?  Why can’t we get all Kurt Vonnegut on this bitch of a life, and accept that there are people who orbit our worlds more closely than others? 

Take care of me, and I’ll take care of you.  Respect me, and I’ll respect you.  Love me, and I’ll love you.  Have my back, and I’ll have yours.  Listen to me, and I’ll listen to you all day and all night, and even when you’re not talking.  I can hear you.  You’re not talking to me, but I can hear you.  When the wind blows really hard to the south, I go outside and say words out loud so they can find you.  I may be crazy, but I’m not THAT kind of crazy.  I know what I know, and you are just lost in yourself right now.  Fucking dig your way out.  Listen to the wind.  I will help you find the good part of you again.  And you will do the same for me.

Maybe. 

I think I might overestimate humanity. 

Ravaged Words

02 January 2017

Some things are too embarrassing

I could never tell you

I could never tell anyone

How much I think about you

How it scares me

Every morning as insomnia’s grip loosens

I stare at your picture

I think of your painful shyness

Your ravaged self-opinion

Your incredible beauty

How I am drawn to you

I will never be able to pound words into lines

To match the velocity of your presence

I will never let you know how much you hurt me

No, I will never tell you

The last few months have sent me into myself

It’s not easy to forget you

Time is healing me

I keep my feelings to myself, it helps

I don’t understand you or your kind

I end up getting myself messed up

I can’t take any more beatings like this

If I thought it would help

I would stay with you for as long as it took

I would show you something different

That I was telling you the truth the whole time

As it is right now

I have taken all I can

Your shallowness has thrown me into a deep hole

It would be better for me to hate you I know

But I can’t

I try but I keep thinking of you sitting alone

Seeing yourself as pieces of broken glass on the floor

Your introverted rage is hard to be around

Good luck

-H.R.

To Henry Rollins

Question:  How did you get in my brain?  How can you write such hauntingly beautiful, fucked-up shit?  How can you write depressing, soul-crushing rants, and then drop a love poem in the next breath?

You said that writing was the stitching that kept you from exploding – we have that in common.  But sometimes the words just get in the fucking way.  No matter what I say or write is misconstrued or misinterpreted or ignored or just left to float for a second in the open air, and then it just dissipates.  I delusionally think that my words and thoughts have import, but … maybe they’re just a convenient medium for my existential angst.

You also wrote that silence is the most powerful sound you’ve ever heard, and I want to punch you in the face for being so right.  I could tell you about my boyfriend who just broke up with me and then followed with abject and total silence, but it’s fucking embarrassing.  I’m 45.  I’m supposed to be old enough to know better.  I’ve already been married and had kids, and it didn’t work.  I was celibate for a decade, and then I tried again, only to be left feeling like a stupid 15-year-old girl who didn’t know any better.  I agree with your line, “I can’t take any more beatings like this.”  Allowing people in is self-imposed cruelty.  People are harmful.  They lift me up, and then strappado me when I let them in.

Ready for some irony?  I teach high school.  I like it most of the time.  I give great advice to teenagers, advice I can’t even take for myself.  I reach out and listen to them and change their lives, but I can’t listen to myself or change my own life. 

Example:  why the hell am I writing a letter to you?  The simple answer is that I’m reading your book (The Portable Henry Rollins), and you’re the first person who has understood me in like a thousand years, but you don’t even know me.  You have a gift for just breaking through all the bullshit and laying it on the table, regardless of how gruesome or honest or sincere it might be.  I try to do that on my blog, but I’m pretty sure no one reads it, because people are afraid of honesty.  Honesty often comes out sounding like clinical depression or unabashed rage.  I don’t write when I’m happy.  I write when I need therapy, which I can’t afford on a school teacher’s salary. 

But I digress.  My intent was to thank you for writing a book that came to me at a point in my life when I desperately need it.  (I’ve never read any of your books before now – just listened to Black Flag and got angry-drunk back in the 80s.)  I just wanted you to know that all your rambling is a beautiful mess, and I wish I could pull myself out of this self-medicating coma of liquor and prescription drugs long enough to care to publish my writing.  I just can’t.  Yet.  I’ll either be dead soon from organ failure, or I’ll come up to breathe again. 

Either way, your book has helped me find some much needed air, so thank you.