But Oh Well, Life Goes On

Someone wrote a song about me once.  I only know this because he did it right in front of me.  I no longer remember who he was.  I know I was with a friend or two, we had gone to someone's apartment in Albuquerque for New Year's Eve? Maybe? And the guys there were drunk.  I believe the last time we'd all been together, I had also been drinking. Possibly a lot. Probably I did something silly or foolish.  I no longer even remember all of the words to the song, but it was definitely about something I had done in some sort of drunken stupor.  And it all came back to one refrain, "But oh well/Life goes on." 

Ok, so maybe it wasn't a great song, and maybe it didn't show me in the best light. But goddammit someone wrote a song about me! Me!

When I was young I had this unwavering belief that I'd be famous.  Not a famous actor, or singer, or performer of any type.  Hell, not even the type of person who changes the world drastically.  I just knew that I'd be recognized and remembered.  I also hoped (ok, I admit it, knew) I'd be a published author some day.  I'd like to find some sort of grade school essay about what I wanted to be when I grew up. I seriously doubt it said anything like "doctor" or "lawyer", although I have the sneaking and embarrassing suspicion it said "secretary".

As I got older, I lost faith that I would be well-known myself.  But I thought, "Hey -- maybe I'll meet someone who is or will be well-known...and I will gain some notoriety through this person."  Yes. It's true. I've actually had this thought. More than once.  And in it's most basic form, it was something more like: One day, someone will write a song about me.  Ha! Oh yes.  That is what I hoped. 

I suppose I imagined that I would meet a boy/man (depending on my age -- they've only recently become men to me) who would fall madly and irresistibly and painfully in love with me.  It would be dramatic.  It would be fiery.  It would be tragic.  Love would be pain.  It would hurt too much to be together; it would hurt too much to be apart.  We'd yell and scream and fight and make-up.  And he, of course, would be an artist. Probably a musician.  And from the depths of all the drama and turmoil and passion, I'd be his muse in one tortured, deep, biting, yearning, hateful, loving song.  Of course, we'd never be able to have a long-term relationship. It would end.  But I'd never forget.  He'd never forget.  And the whole thing would live on in that one song. No matter when or where it was played/performed/listened to...It would me.  Us.

Well. So far, this has not even come close to happening.  But like the mystery song writer of yore said, "But oh well/Life goes on."

I'm not a song writer.  I'm barely even a prose/poetry writer.  But I think about what I am inspired by, and whom.  And sometimes the "you" is just any ol' "you" and the "he" is just some "he".  A no one. A someone. It hardly matters.  When the "you" is someone real, I often think of how embarrassed I would be for that person to know that I wrote something inspired by them.  That they actually affected me enough for me to write about it.  But at the same time, doesn't everyone deserve their song?  Hasn't everyone I've known earned the right to appear somewhere, in one line, in one poem, of mine?  I think they have. But be warned: it won't always be a flattering mention.

I've settled down a bit.  I've learned that I don't need a mention anywhere (and if I insist upon needing it, I'll always have the New Year's Eve live acoustic ditty).  I've learned that (surprise!) the world does not, in fact, revolve around me. Or anyone.  So I'll write my songs.  You write yours. 

Life goes on.

MySpace Blog Salvage #5: Snowflakes that stay on my nose and eyelashes

I found myself wondering on my walk home tonight.  I was wondering who doesn't like snow?

It is perfect, clean, soft, white, crisp, icy, powdery, wonderful, billowing snow.  I find it impossible to stay in whatever foul mood I've been in, whatever funk I've sunk into, when it snows.  When the soft white flakes come swirling from above, I can not possibly dwell on whatever I've been dwelling on.  I feel better.  Buoyant.  Uplifted.  I feel happy when it snows. 

It covers everything that is dirty, everything that is ugly, everything that is dead and makes it all sparkle with magic.  It takes away whatever was wrong the night before.  It makes me feel like I can do anything. 

Where I grew up it didn't snow too often, but I just knew, the moment I opened my eyes in the morning, that there was snow on the ground.  Everything was muffled, quiet, and peaceful.  The world felt safe.  And where I grew up, I never heard the scraping of snow shovels or the whine of snowblowers.  The city came to a screeching halt, all for the sake of the snow.  It was sacred and special.  My brother and I would go through every mitten, glove and sock in the house playing with the snow.  Making snowballs, snowmen, snow angels and anything else worthy of snow.  We made a snow bunny when we had a huge blizzard on Easter.  We had snowball fights in high school.  We longed for snow up to our knees, but it very rarely happened.

Now I live in a place where the plows come out in droves, like slow lumbering mechanical beasts.  They push the beautiful white snow to the side, making great grey and black banks of ice and dirt.  Now my neighbors are up at 5 in the morning salting and scraping their walks.  Now there is no reverence for the snow.  We grumble about it.  Get angry at the icy slush it becomes.  Frown at the forecast.  Wish for summer.

Except, maybe, me.  I long for it.  I hope it never quits snowing.  I hope it works those plows to death.  Breaks every shovel and blower.  Gobbles all the salt and ice melt.  Foils everyone's evil plans to destroy the white blanket Mother Nature has seen fit to wrap us in.

I woke up the other morning to a perfect world of white.  I was alone in a quiet house, no one else around.  No one driving down the street.  No one asking me anything or telling to me get ready let's go some where.  I looked outside to find deer eating the bark from the trees.  Squirrels running up and down branches.  Geese sleeping in fields.  And I knew everything would be okay.  Whatever was wrong would go away.  Would fix itself.  This really is one of my favorite things: a silver white winter that will melt into spring.

I look outside to make sure the fat white flakes are still swirling to the ground. I am thinking of taking a walk.  I am going to find an empty street somewhere and put my hands out at my sides, look up into the un-ending grey sky, and twirl around with the flakes landing on my pink cheeks and forehead.  For a few minutes, I am going to fly. 

If you see me out there somewhere, feel free to join me.  Or at least stick out your tongue and let a perfect snowflake melt there and make all well.

MySpace Blog Salvage #4: What to do....what to do...

My mind is all wacky right now.  I watched a film called Zeitgeist and it really made me start asking questions: what is going on?  I wasn't surprised by some of it...or really any of it.  The story of Christianity and Jesus was ripped off from a story ripped off from a story ripped off from a story....you get the point.  And it is sick that a story that is just an unoriginal tale is behind so much pain and bloodshed.  Some people feel saved by Jesus...I just feel trapped by religion.  I feel it's weight upon me and am sad that something like "religion" could come between me and half the world, a new friend or potential lover. 

 

The other part of the film focused largely on 911 stuff.  And here is the part that troubled me most: The lack of debris at either the Pentagon or the field in Pennsylvania.  According to this film, there was no debris from the planes at either site.  And I remember hearing that on the news, that the destruction was so total the planes and everyone on them had been vaporized.  But this film presented evidence and convincing testimony that it would be physically impossible for the planes to have vaporized.  There is no way the jet fuel would have burned at a high enough temperature for a long enough time for the planes to have just completely disappeared. Photos of other plane wrecks where jumbo jets plummeted from the sky show mounds of twisted aluminum and clearly identifiable tempered steel and titanium engine parts.  But four planes disappeared that day.  We know what happened to two of them.  This begs the question, what happened to the other two?  And it is pretty frightening to think about the possibility.  Those planes might have been landed at an airport somewhere, every person made to debark from the plane, and they might have all been systematically executed.  Or made to walk into some shower-like contraption a la Aushwitz, and gassed to death.  Who knows.  God (if indeed there is such a thing) only knows.

 

On top of all of this, I'm reading a book called Endgame (Volume I the problem of civilzation) by Derek Jensen.  And it is a book exploring industrial civilization and how we all must be deeply sick to continue living the way we do: raping the land and killing human and non-human beings everyday at an alarming rate.  We all participate.  I've just begun the book, so I can't discuss all the points, but I find myself agreeing with the points the author is making.  Clean air and water are essential to life and everday we are putting clean air and water in jeopardy.  I'm doing it right now by using electricity to type on the computer and have lights on.  And by traveling home.  And by using "resources" I purchased from a store which were probably taken forcefully from someone else. And taken forcefully can mean paying a farmer way too little and taking way too much, which is what happens everyday.

 

All of this makes me sad.  It confuses me.  Makes me wonder what it is I can do.  What I should do.  What I shouldn't do.  But I am seeing that it is this industrial economic nation that leads to murder, depression, starvation, anorexia, bulemia, drug addictions, hyper activity and any other malaise overtaking people every day. We are unfulfilled.  Unhappy.  Unsure of how to proceed.  Watching TV and going to sporting events and sitting next to our mothers and fathers and sisters, brothers, and friends and children, but never really looking them in the eye, never really saying anything to them.  Asking, "how 'bout those cowboys" or "how about the Mets" is about as deep as we get these days.  And if you want to talk about anything else, no one really has the time.  Or want to accuse you of conspiracy theorizing.  Or just don't care to understand another point of view. 

 

So here I am, at a desk job, brain melting, muscles melting, cancer melting, all of it dripping throught the drain in the center of the floor, all of it dripping throught the cracks in the floor, all of it dripping and running into the ground water, poisoning someone else's child....

 

Where is the fresh air.  The farm.  The freedom?

MySpace Blog Salvage #3: I am starving

So.....I've been thinking.  A lot.  And I have realized that something (in me) is stopping me from doing things that I want to do.  And I am going to stop stopping me. Over the past year and half, with no television, no computer and sometimes just nothing, I have had a ton of time to consider my place in this world.  I have felt desperate and lonely, fulfilled and excited, filled with wanderlust or happy to be where I am...I have been very confused and I feel that only now is the fog beginning to clear and I am ready to Live again.  I think I have been hibernating; fat on my sadness, and hopes, and timidity, just waiting for the thaw and spring to come again.  I am starving.  My hunger is voracious.  I am ready for the search and the hunt and the gather.  I am done thinking about where I have been and it is now time to consider the places I will go.  My face is thin, my bones are showing and now is the time to find the strength to go on. 

 

And what is in this hunt, this gather, this willfullness to live?  All of the things that I have wanted to do, have thought about doing, have said, "why don't I do that?"  Simple things.  Things that I can stop waiting for.  There is nothing too grandiose.  There is nothing impossible in any of my desires.  I want to bake bread.  That is what I want, to make a loaf from beginning to end. I started just the other day.  I was given a lesson.  It has begun and I will finish it.  I want to create postcards.  It should be simple.  I send them weekly to a friend and sometimes I cannot find the perfect one.  I shall make the perfect one.  This is possible.  I want to learn to shear a sheep, clean and card the wool, spin wool yarns and threads so that I can knit and crochet and weave from them, so that I can begin to clothe myself and my family...whoever they are and where ever they may be.  There is something special, almost magic about creating a piece of cloth, making a piece of clothing to cover and protect a friend or loved one.  I will begin with myself.  I will fortify myself and in so doing will be able to fortify others.  I want to write. And I do.  And I am doing it now. 

 

And mostly I want to live simply.  I feel it is necessary to rid my self and my living quarters of everything I don't need.  My life has become convoluted by things and false desires.  We are conditioned to believe that we need things to be happy when I believe that working 40+ hours for all these things, clothes, cars, apartments, jewelry, fancy televisions and phones and computers and everything  is actually making us very unhappy.  We have been conditioned to believe that things will bring fulfillment to our lives, but in reality we are left with nothing, with emptiness, dried-out shells...If I rid myself of these things, these meaningless objects, I can lay out my true self and see who I am.  And when I meet someone, they will not be blinded by my trendy clothes and shoes and earrings and watch.  They will see what is me.  And with any luck, what they see will be more brilliant than any thing they have ever known.

 

I am not the first person to say or think or realize any of these things, but this is the first time I have realized them for myself.  The first step is my awareness.  The second step will be in practice.  This search, this hunt, this gather for my new season's strength has begun.

MySpace Blog Salvage #2: People are clowns

People are fucking clowns.  I don't even think I need to say more.  You might be one of them.  You might care about what is in style and how your hair and makeup match you fake snakeskin ankle boots and belt.  You might have footless leggings on under your mini skirt right now, and you might be thinking, "I'm not a clown."  Well, you are. 

 

Everyday you wake up and put on your fucking clown outfit.  I see you.  Stuffing your bra so it fills out your trendy jumper or whatever sick thing is in style this minute.  You put all that makeup on, pink circles on your cheeks, mascara and liner on the bottom lashes and lid that just makes you look old.  You put on your skinny jeans that make your ass look fat and your old, scuffed, second-hand flats that make your big feet look even bigger.  Your hair is messed up just right and you are sure to have your trendy gold hobo with your Tmobile sidekick or whatever monstrosity is in there.  You are a clown.

 

Why don't you paint on a happy or sad face while you are at it.  Maybe a glistening tear falling from the corner of the right eye so I'll understand just how angsty and tormented you really are. So I'll be sure that you go home and really rock out to your fucking emo bands and cry to yourself over a mug of boxed wine about how your daddy took away one of your credit cards and is making you take the subway instead of paying a driver to take you everywhere. 

 

I wouldn't care about you, except for the fact that I run into your traveling circus everywhere I go.  You are on every street corner, smoking your virginia slims and laughing at the latest article in some fashion rag...oh my god, Kate Moss did what?  To who?  Like, totally....You are in my way.  You stop in the middle of the sidewalk, waddle your fat asses too slowly down the street and talk on your cell phones at every subway entrance in the city.  Here's the deal:  You are not important.  Your unique-in-the-same-exact-way cohorts are not important.  No one cares about you. 

 

Do us all a favor and disappear you fucking clowns.

MySpace Blog Salvage #1: Those I-swear-I'm-never-going-to-do-that-again moments

So there comes a time, in every man's life, when decisions have to be made:  Whether to toil, to trouble or just plain piss your days away, away, away.....  

----Dropkick Murphys

Actually there comes a time in everyone's life when you have to be an asshole.  Or maybe you don't have to, but it just happens.  Well, it just happened to me.  I made it to that point somewhere past three sheets to the wind and coherency.  Oh, I remember most of everything...until a certain point.  There are some things I said or did that might make the tops of my ears turn pink.  There are some things I said or did, which I could have said more eloquently or executed better, but they've been said, and frankly, I have to believe they've been said for the better.  I'm not going to walk around and be embarrassed by my actions.  Mostly.  I guess I will a little.  Who wouldn't?

 

I said some things to the people I love that weren't very nice things.  Which I apologized for.  I also said some funny things, like: "I know how mad you is! Are!"  I got into a screaming match.  I had like 10 alcoholic beverages.  Maybe something else.  I got sick.  Maybe in a car that belonged to someone I've only met twice.  I was basically in a coma the entire next day.  I slept on our hallway floor because it felt good.

 

What is the point of all this?  That it happens to everybody.  Not the same things happen to everybody, but things happen: embarrassing, how-am-I-going-to-look-these-people-in-the-eye-ever-again-and-expect-them-to-respect-me-and-not-have-lost-our-relationship/friendship/acquanitanceship type of things. 

 

What is the other point of all this?  That some of the best relationships are cultivated out of this type of occurrence.  If the same person you spit on the night before can look you in the eye, laugh with you, and still invite you out for a beer the next Friday, then you have made a true friend.  If the same person you told you hated yesterday can forgive you today, then you have a true friend.  It's true.  Just ask Charlene.

 

So, while I was an asshole and a jackass, I am still going to walk around with about 90% of my dignity -- and that ain't bad.

I Bet You Don't Remember

I bet you don't remember
the whistling in "Goodbye Stranger"
I bet you don't even like
Supertramp very much.

When I come home to visit
   I want to sit in the living room
      in the dark
and listen to vinyl records on the
   turntable
through the speakers that are older than
      I am
I want to see only by the greenish
   blueish light of the tuner
maybe one oil lamp
   for old times' sake,
you know?

Not very different
   from what I do for present times' sake
the glow of the tuner
   me
alone with the sound.

(10/21/10 AYA)

Haiku for a Tuesday

I wake up on the
wrong side of the bed on this
and ev'ry morning

Haiku For A Monday

I don't realize I'm
lonely until I do my
laundry by myself.