Let me tell you a real quick story about a boy and a girl.
The boy got off of work last Friday and drove to a building in the industrial part of North Hollywood. He pulled out an instrument case from his car and entered the building, playing music with some people he met for a few hours.
When that was done, he decided to drive over to a friend's house, on the other side of the city. He could've gone home, but then he'd be alone and it would remind him that the girl was out on the town with her friends that night. She was having fun most likely.
So the boy drove out to his friend's house and stayed until midnight. Even though it was Friday and he wasn't the least bit tired, he bid his friends farewell and drove home.
When he arrived, there was a message on his phone, from the girl. He knew instantly because the Caller ID box showed her number. He called her back without even bothering to listen to the message-- she had just called ten minutes before he got home.
She was fresh from a night out with the girls, and she said that it didn't take very long for her to get bored. She explained that her phone message was an invitation to the boy, for him to stop by on the way home from his rehearsal. He asked her if the invitation still stood or if it was too late, and she told him that it wasn't too late.
The boy showed up with orange juice, breakfast eggs and artificial bacon, or "veggie bacon". The bacon really belonged to the girl but had been left in the boy's refrigerator a week earlier. The girl didn't eat meat-- she was a vegetarian.
The girl made breakfast at one in the morning for the boy, who hadn't eaten all day. Then, after they ate the two of them sat down on her bed and watched a horror movie. And the boy laughed to himself, realizing how funny it all seemed: the two of them trying to go out and do other things, only to end up wanting to be with each other, sitting on the bed, watching a DVD-- any DVD, it doesn't matter which --smoking cigarettes and not saying a word because even beautiful words would spoil the sanctity of a moment like that...
...and the next morning they woke up and fumbled around in the bed for a few hours, lazily gauging the day's respective plans, kissing and caressing and dressing and undressing and dressing again, this boy and this girl, the best of friends.
So the boy and the girl decided to get up, get some errands done together, and spend the rest of the weekend eating food and smoking out of pipes and laying around being lazy, sometimes alone, sometimes with good friends in nice settings while drinking wine with feasts spread out on dining tables.
And the boy and the girl were happy, but the reason why they were happy had nothing to do with the usual reasons why people get happy. The boy and the girl were happy because there was no need to spell it out, no necessity to make a big production about it.
It was enough that they wanted to spend their time together. Neither of them felt like they were obligated to be there with the other.
There was a palatable balance.
And that's the end of the story, but it's not the end of their story, and it's certainly not the end of the boy and the girl. In fact, you could say that it is a beginning of sorts, but not the usual type of beginning. There is no name, word or label for the type of beginning this boy and this girl are experiencing.
It almost seems pointless to try. But the boy knew that he could at least give other people a small impression of what it felt like. Then, they could decide for themselves what the boy and the girl felt, and whether it was a good or bad ending to this story.
The boy and the girl don't want their story to end. One day it will, but not now, and hopefully not any time soon. But if it should ever end, then it will be due to the passage of time, and nothing else. Because once a story is set into motion, nothing short of an act of God can derail its momentum, and that's assuming that God exists.
There is no question that there exists, however, a story about a boy and a girl. And that's all that matters to them right now.
Will they live happily ever after?
Sure. Why not?
Tuesday, January 31, 2006
Monday, January 30, 2006
burnout genius
Ever since I first picked out notes on a Casio keyboard when I was 12, I have had this vision of what I think music is about, based upon my own experiences listening to various genres, bands, performers and songs.
The uniting theme among nearly all of it was the hypnotic quality of music, the way a song can tranquilize your soul or ignite a passionate fire in your mind. Either way, I always felt that it was important to mezmerize people with your words, your rhythms, your sounds...
So it strikes me as odd that Don Van Vliet would do these interviews where he'd talk about making music that broke up the hypnotic patterns.
Don Van Vliet, for those who don't know, is also known as Captain Beefheart, my latest musical obsession.
The Captain is one of those performers who burned out and stopped performing, content to be a recluse, living in the desert in a trailer with his wife, his artwork (Vliet is also an established painter and poet in his own right) and all sorts of desert animals for neighbors.
What fascinates me about Vliet is his logic, the way his mind works. The word "genius" gets tossed around and applied to anybody and anything nowadays, but Vliet actually fits the mold-- he was an accomplished sculptor at the age of five.
But he had a beef in his heart against the world (hence his stage name) because his parents wouldn't allow him to be tutored and schooled in Europe, where he could've become a master sculptor, working in marble.
As sad as that is, I'm glad it happened to him, because otherwise the world would be robbed of his unique contributions to music, art, and literature.
*/*
Vliet's words are carefully chosen, in every interview I've read or watched online, and pardon me for making the connection but it reminds me of Native American speech, or at least stereotypical notions of what English-speaking Native Americans sound like:
INTERVIEWER: Does it bother you that the majority of the rock audience would probably find you very, very difficult to listen to?
VLIET: It pleases me, because of that momma heartbeat, that bom, bom, bom, it’s so boring, it’s so banal. I mean it’s so hypnotic, I don’t want to hypnotise anybody, I just want to play. I mean I want things to change like the patterns and shadows that fall from the sun.
INTERVIEWER: So you want to confront people with your music, rather than try and seduce them with it?
VLIET: Sure, I’m not a vamp - I don’t want to beat you over the head with this momma heartbeat, remind you of your mother… Who wants to be reminded of that life support system - you know, when they support it like that? I do my own music, I don’t need that bom, bom, bom. Who wants to be - that’s so stupid!
INTERVIEWER: So you’re talking about disco, really...
VLIET: All of it! Rock and roll, disco - anything where they think the drummer is an imbecile who sits there and goes bom, bom, bom. I mean who needs that, why do they need that?
In case that wasn't enough to give you an idea of how the Captain's mind works, here's some quotables... and quotable they are!
"I was like an egg rolling through time until I was 24. Then the egg cracked and I popped out."
"Why would [anyone] want to label themselves? I say, 'Lick My Decals Off, Baby!' I'm not interested in making any new mustard or ketchup. I make very good mustard."
"It makes me itch to think of myself as Captain Beefheart....I don't even have a boat."
"Be kind, man - don't be mankind."
"I don't want to sell my music. I'd like to give it away because where I got it, you didn't have to pay for it."
I have this thing for the burnout genius. Whether it's Syd Barrett or Arthur Lee or Roky Erikson or Jim Gordon or Nick Drake, I have an affinity for the crazy underdog rockers who influenced everyone and yet never made any money. I'm not talking about 'tortured artists'-- that's a whole different school of fish, and although I have my moments I can also safely say that I am not tortured, nor are my demons any worse than yours.
Don Van Vliet seems happy most of the time, even when he's angry. And like Arthur Lee of the '60s garage band Love, Vliet has created his own whimsical vocabulary. Their use of everyday language is unorthodox, poetic when it should be communicative. Wordplay figures largely into their legend.
And both men are eccentric legends, to be sure. I recently read an anecdote from Morris Tepper, who keeps in contact with Vliet on a regular basis. Tepper explained that a Beefheart song titled "Ricochet Man" was inspired by Tepper's account of Arthur Lee's gun conviction, the one that landed him in jail under the California Three Strikes Law.
When Tepper told Vliet that Lee got busted for shooting a gun in the air when nobody was around, Vliet said to him, "Man, ricochet, man."
Of course, no one else in the free world was thrilled to hear about that, save for me. And maybe that's why I savor the romantic vision of the burnout genius: I think there's a narcissistic well deep inside of me that draws from those types of waters.
*/*
Vliet claims to not be a drug user. I find it hard to believe, but then again the man is so strange that I DO believe it.
The truth is stranger than fiction, always.
Then again, what can you say about a man who prefers to sing in the studio without headphones on while imitating Howlin' Wolf and flexing his five-to-seven octave range so fiercely that he has shorted out microphones using only his voice?
There are lots of embellishments to the Beefheart legend: he wrote the entire Trout Mask Replica album-- all 28 songs' worth -- on a piano in eight hours; he taught his band how to play their avant-garde parts over the course of a year while living with them in a house in Woodland Hills; he molded the musicians like sculptor's clay, to the point where they were practically brainwashed members of the Cult of Beefheart; he stuck his record label with a bill for a tree surgeon after a nasty rainy season threatened the well-being of some eucalyptus trees on his property; he dropped out of school after half a day of kindergarten...
Some of these myths are perpetruated by the Captain himself, and some of them are just the kind of exaggerations that surround a forceful personality such as Vliet. And let's not forget the late Frank Zappa's part in the whole shebang: the two men went to school together in Antelope Valley, and it was Frank who produced the Trout Mask Replica album which saw the transformation of The Magic Band from a bunch of L.A. bluesmen into a free-jazz/Delta-blues/acid-rock combo.
The bit about the band being brainwashed by Vliet is intriguing, especially since I started this post wondering about his claim (repeated often) that he wasn't trying to hypnotize people with his music, that he was trying to do the opposite.
I find it ironic because I was hypnotized by the album Doc At The Radar Station, the first Beefheart purchase I ever made. As a childhood fan of Dr. Demento, I had heard of Beefheart for years and just wrote him off as another weirdo, but it wasn't until last year that I decided to buy one of his albums. And that one purchase led to another, and another, and another, and now here I am writing about this 20th century noble savage, a man out of time with his present environment if there ever was one...
I was hypnotized because I kept trying to find the skeleton key, the theme or motif that would suddenly render the rest of it accessible. And as I sat there trying to break it all down, I realized what it was about the music of Captain Beefheart that was making me go nuts.
It wasn't hypnotic; it was thought-provoking. I confused it for hypnosis because I was concentrating very intently on what was going on, and contrary to popular belief that's just one of many postulations as to what hypnosis is thought to be: intensified concentration, a singular focus stripped of all distraction.
Then again, what do fruitcakes like me, or Captain Beefheart, or anyone creative for that matter... what do we know anyway?
We're just nutjobs, according to all those 'normal' people out there who work in cubicles and wear suits but cannot even draw a stick figure or hum a melody in their heads...
And I prefer it that way. Only time will tell if I'm a genius on the level of a Don Van Vliet, but what's stopping me from pursuing things in a likewise manner?
Answer: nothing.
The uniting theme among nearly all of it was the hypnotic quality of music, the way a song can tranquilize your soul or ignite a passionate fire in your mind. Either way, I always felt that it was important to mezmerize people with your words, your rhythms, your sounds...
So it strikes me as odd that Don Van Vliet would do these interviews where he'd talk about making music that broke up the hypnotic patterns.
Don Van Vliet, for those who don't know, is also known as Captain Beefheart, my latest musical obsession.
The Captain is one of those performers who burned out and stopped performing, content to be a recluse, living in the desert in a trailer with his wife, his artwork (Vliet is also an established painter and poet in his own right) and all sorts of desert animals for neighbors.
What fascinates me about Vliet is his logic, the way his mind works. The word "genius" gets tossed around and applied to anybody and anything nowadays, but Vliet actually fits the mold-- he was an accomplished sculptor at the age of five.
But he had a beef in his heart against the world (hence his stage name) because his parents wouldn't allow him to be tutored and schooled in Europe, where he could've become a master sculptor, working in marble.
As sad as that is, I'm glad it happened to him, because otherwise the world would be robbed of his unique contributions to music, art, and literature.
*/*
Vliet's words are carefully chosen, in every interview I've read or watched online, and pardon me for making the connection but it reminds me of Native American speech, or at least stereotypical notions of what English-speaking Native Americans sound like:
INTERVIEWER: Does it bother you that the majority of the rock audience would probably find you very, very difficult to listen to?
VLIET: It pleases me, because of that momma heartbeat, that bom, bom, bom, it’s so boring, it’s so banal. I mean it’s so hypnotic, I don’t want to hypnotise anybody, I just want to play. I mean I want things to change like the patterns and shadows that fall from the sun.
INTERVIEWER: So you want to confront people with your music, rather than try and seduce them with it?
VLIET: Sure, I’m not a vamp - I don’t want to beat you over the head with this momma heartbeat, remind you of your mother… Who wants to be reminded of that life support system - you know, when they support it like that? I do my own music, I don’t need that bom, bom, bom. Who wants to be - that’s so stupid!
INTERVIEWER: So you’re talking about disco, really...
VLIET: All of it! Rock and roll, disco - anything where they think the drummer is an imbecile who sits there and goes bom, bom, bom. I mean who needs that, why do they need that?
In case that wasn't enough to give you an idea of how the Captain's mind works, here's some quotables... and quotable they are!
"I was like an egg rolling through time until I was 24. Then the egg cracked and I popped out."
"Why would [anyone] want to label themselves? I say, 'Lick My Decals Off, Baby!' I'm not interested in making any new mustard or ketchup. I make very good mustard."
"It makes me itch to think of myself as Captain Beefheart....I don't even have a boat."
"Be kind, man - don't be mankind."
"I don't want to sell my music. I'd like to give it away because where I got it, you didn't have to pay for it."
I have this thing for the burnout genius. Whether it's Syd Barrett or Arthur Lee or Roky Erikson or Jim Gordon or Nick Drake, I have an affinity for the crazy underdog rockers who influenced everyone and yet never made any money. I'm not talking about 'tortured artists'-- that's a whole different school of fish, and although I have my moments I can also safely say that I am not tortured, nor are my demons any worse than yours.
Don Van Vliet seems happy most of the time, even when he's angry. And like Arthur Lee of the '60s garage band Love, Vliet has created his own whimsical vocabulary. Their use of everyday language is unorthodox, poetic when it should be communicative. Wordplay figures largely into their legend.
And both men are eccentric legends, to be sure. I recently read an anecdote from Morris Tepper, who keeps in contact with Vliet on a regular basis. Tepper explained that a Beefheart song titled "Ricochet Man" was inspired by Tepper's account of Arthur Lee's gun conviction, the one that landed him in jail under the California Three Strikes Law.
When Tepper told Vliet that Lee got busted for shooting a gun in the air when nobody was around, Vliet said to him, "Man, ricochet, man."
Of course, no one else in the free world was thrilled to hear about that, save for me. And maybe that's why I savor the romantic vision of the burnout genius: I think there's a narcissistic well deep inside of me that draws from those types of waters.
*/*
Vliet claims to not be a drug user. I find it hard to believe, but then again the man is so strange that I DO believe it.
The truth is stranger than fiction, always.
Then again, what can you say about a man who prefers to sing in the studio without headphones on while imitating Howlin' Wolf and flexing his five-to-seven octave range so fiercely that he has shorted out microphones using only his voice?
There are lots of embellishments to the Beefheart legend: he wrote the entire Trout Mask Replica album-- all 28 songs' worth -- on a piano in eight hours; he taught his band how to play their avant-garde parts over the course of a year while living with them in a house in Woodland Hills; he molded the musicians like sculptor's clay, to the point where they were practically brainwashed members of the Cult of Beefheart; he stuck his record label with a bill for a tree surgeon after a nasty rainy season threatened the well-being of some eucalyptus trees on his property; he dropped out of school after half a day of kindergarten...
Some of these myths are perpetruated by the Captain himself, and some of them are just the kind of exaggerations that surround a forceful personality such as Vliet. And let's not forget the late Frank Zappa's part in the whole shebang: the two men went to school together in Antelope Valley, and it was Frank who produced the Trout Mask Replica album which saw the transformation of The Magic Band from a bunch of L.A. bluesmen into a free-jazz/Delta-blues/acid-rock combo.
The bit about the band being brainwashed by Vliet is intriguing, especially since I started this post wondering about his claim (repeated often) that he wasn't trying to hypnotize people with his music, that he was trying to do the opposite.
I find it ironic because I was hypnotized by the album Doc At The Radar Station, the first Beefheart purchase I ever made. As a childhood fan of Dr. Demento, I had heard of Beefheart for years and just wrote him off as another weirdo, but it wasn't until last year that I decided to buy one of his albums. And that one purchase led to another, and another, and another, and now here I am writing about this 20th century noble savage, a man out of time with his present environment if there ever was one...
I was hypnotized because I kept trying to find the skeleton key, the theme or motif that would suddenly render the rest of it accessible. And as I sat there trying to break it all down, I realized what it was about the music of Captain Beefheart that was making me go nuts.
It wasn't hypnotic; it was thought-provoking. I confused it for hypnosis because I was concentrating very intently on what was going on, and contrary to popular belief that's just one of many postulations as to what hypnosis is thought to be: intensified concentration, a singular focus stripped of all distraction.
Then again, what do fruitcakes like me, or Captain Beefheart, or anyone creative for that matter... what do we know anyway?
We're just nutjobs, according to all those 'normal' people out there who work in cubicles and wear suits but cannot even draw a stick figure or hum a melody in their heads...
And I prefer it that way. Only time will tell if I'm a genius on the level of a Don Van Vliet, but what's stopping me from pursuing things in a likewise manner?
Answer: nothing.
Friday, January 27, 2006
closet space
Normally I don't post after I've wished everyone a nice weekend, but I had to give props to Big J in NYC for her birthday gift via Amazon.com: R. Kelly's Trapped In The Closet Chapters 1-12.
Sex scandal aside (and let's admit it, Dave Chappelle's merciless lampooning of Kelly on his show to the tune of "Piss On You" is punishment enough), I've never been a fan of R. Kelly. His music always struck me as the kind of R&B that hardcore hip-hoppers used to be against, because it was nothing more than "Rap & Bullshit". Other than introducing the late Aaliyah to the world, I've never given much of R. Kelly's output any thought.
The sex scandal did nothing for my appreciation of him, other than amaze me that (1) the charges didn't stick, and (2) his fans didn't care. However, shortly afterward I made it a point to keep the channel on any Kelly music videos that popped up in my normal TV browsing mode. Whereas in the past I would simply change the channel, now I found myself actively watching Kelly's every move, out of morbid curiosity.
Maybe a part of me wanted to know what the appeal was... I mean, it's easy to defend Michael Jackson based solely upon his work with The Jackson 5, but who could justify peeing on underage groupies?
(btw: If Jimmy Page had ever been accused of peeing on underage girls, would the scandal make the papers? Keep in mind, this man and his former band have been responsible for some of the most wretched groupie legends ever concocted, and people barely bat an eye)
Even Chappelle-- obviously a huge R. Kelly fan --had to have a laugh at his expense. But as Chappelle put it, "the music is scandal-proof".
Now, bearing all that in mind...
Nothing on God's green earth could have prepared me for Trapped In The Closet.
Nothing.
And I'm a Prince fan, who stayed loyal even when his name was a symbol and he was putting together half-baked concept suites as albums.
Simply put, Trapped In The Closet is incomprehensible. The storyline is a rambling, tangent-hopping shim-sham. It makes no sense at all.
None.
And yet, I can't stop laughing over it.
You really must see it for yourself to believe it.
I wrote a really long post about it, but the computer inexplicably crashed. Luckily, Blogger now has the "recover post" function, which helped me to get back at least half of what I originally wrote.
And it's just as well, because I still have to watch it a few hundred thousand times before I can start a post-modern deconstruction of it. I also want to screen it to as many people as possible, to gauge their reactions.
You'll either love it or hate it.
PS: Last night Eve and I spent a nice evening at her place, cleaning up and watching DVDs. It was nice. Tonight she is going out with her girlfriends, and I think it's grand. She needs to do more of that. Yes, I'd be jealous if she met some guy at a club and got down with him, but let's worry about something that when or if it happens.
One day at a time.
Sex scandal aside (and let's admit it, Dave Chappelle's merciless lampooning of Kelly on his show to the tune of "Piss On You" is punishment enough), I've never been a fan of R. Kelly. His music always struck me as the kind of R&B that hardcore hip-hoppers used to be against, because it was nothing more than "Rap & Bullshit". Other than introducing the late Aaliyah to the world, I've never given much of R. Kelly's output any thought.
The sex scandal did nothing for my appreciation of him, other than amaze me that (1) the charges didn't stick, and (2) his fans didn't care. However, shortly afterward I made it a point to keep the channel on any Kelly music videos that popped up in my normal TV browsing mode. Whereas in the past I would simply change the channel, now I found myself actively watching Kelly's every move, out of morbid curiosity.
Maybe a part of me wanted to know what the appeal was... I mean, it's easy to defend Michael Jackson based solely upon his work with The Jackson 5, but who could justify peeing on underage groupies?
(btw: If Jimmy Page had ever been accused of peeing on underage girls, would the scandal make the papers? Keep in mind, this man and his former band have been responsible for some of the most wretched groupie legends ever concocted, and people barely bat an eye)
Even Chappelle-- obviously a huge R. Kelly fan --had to have a laugh at his expense. But as Chappelle put it, "the music is scandal-proof".
Now, bearing all that in mind...
Nothing on God's green earth could have prepared me for Trapped In The Closet.
Nothing.
And I'm a Prince fan, who stayed loyal even when his name was a symbol and he was putting together half-baked concept suites as albums.
Simply put, Trapped In The Closet is incomprehensible. The storyline is a rambling, tangent-hopping shim-sham. It makes no sense at all.
None.
And yet, I can't stop laughing over it.
You really must see it for yourself to believe it.
I wrote a really long post about it, but the computer inexplicably crashed. Luckily, Blogger now has the "recover post" function, which helped me to get back at least half of what I originally wrote.
And it's just as well, because I still have to watch it a few hundred thousand times before I can start a post-modern deconstruction of it. I also want to screen it to as many people as possible, to gauge their reactions.
You'll either love it or hate it.
PS: Last night Eve and I spent a nice evening at her place, cleaning up and watching DVDs. It was nice. Tonight she is going out with her girlfriends, and I think it's grand. She needs to do more of that. Yes, I'd be jealous if she met some guy at a club and got down with him, but let's worry about something that when or if it happens.
One day at a time.
Thursday, January 26, 2006
jealousy
"Living well is the best revenge."
--George Herbert, English clergyman & metaphysical poet (1593 - 1633)
I just took an online quiz about jealousy. Unfortunately, it didn't give me any cool HTML code so that I could post it here and brag about my score, but trust me when I say that I scored a 20 out of 100-- that means that I am relatively not jealous.
Of course, those online quizzes have all the scientific validity of a loaf of bread. But at the same time I've always known that, when it comes to being jealous, I am very good about containing it.
I do feel jealous often, but mostly about irrational things. And if something should ever happen that confirms my worst fears, I deal with it by saying that I saw it coming.
My theory on jealousy is this: if you have ever cheated on someone, it increases the likelihood of you feeling jealous over someone you care about. Cheaters can't tolerate their own jealousy because it reminds them of their own actions in the past.
Eve never cheated on me when we were dating. But her tryst with Sharky broke an explicit trust between us for a long time. The reason is that, before I got to know Eve, I sensed a sexual tension between them. Sharky knew Eve way before I did, and I think I may have even once told the both of them that the worst thing they could ever do to me would be to get together.
So, in other words, I set myself up for that one.
Maybe that's why it never really bothered me. I knew they got together even as they denied it, and I can't really blame them for their curiosity. But please, don't treat me like a little kid who needs his eyes covered every time a nude scene appears on a movie screen. Don't lie to me.
In a way, it was the best thing that could've happened, because now Sharky and Eve have no relationship whatsoever, and it wasn't my fault. I have no fears that they will ever reconcile fully. There's too much baggage between them now. Sharky and Eve's little affair brought reality crashing down on the both of them, and neither of them can get past that.
But I can get past it. And it helps that, since I didn't do anything wrong, I hold the upper hand in my relationships with the both of them.
One thing you all should know about me: never let me have the upper hand. You will regret it if you do.
*/*
Granted, I'm not rubbing salt into their wounds. The passage of time does that job quite nicely, with little effort on my part.
In the case of Sharky, karma was a real bitch. You see, Sharky was dating Nona, the younger sister of my friend Nina, for a long time. In fact, when he got together with Eve, he had been officially seeing Nona.
Sharky would confide in me all of his other dalliances, and because we were friends I kept them secret. But it pained me to be around Nona, knowing that all I had to do was open my mouth and she would know what a dishonest person Sharky was being.
However, I kept my mouth shut, because otherwise I would become directly involved, and I didn't want that.
Anyway, to cut to the chase... After Sharky hurt Nona for the umpteenth time, she found a way to get back at him: she began a romance with my friend and then-roommate Purple Paulie.
Nona and Paulie have been a couple for almost a decade now.
And recently, Sharky told me that he now realizes what an idiot he was in treating Nona the way he did. He was on the verge of tears as he told me.
His admission was instigated by a simple incident-- he showed up at one of my shows. And it just so happened that Paulie and Nona were at the same show. Now, mind you, anyone who knows Paulie and Nona can tell you that it is extremely RARE that they ever leave their insulated bubble to come see a show. Well, they chose one hell of a night to come out on the town, because as soon as Sharky saw them, the reality hit him in the gut.
And I was on the stage, a witness to it all. I didn't orchestrate this event-- who could organize something so perfect and balanced? Still, it felt like I was getting some sort of revenge anyway.
Or at least a form of justice...
*/*
Eve's jealousy is rooted in a different sort of karma.
She has always been jealous of other women concerning me. The main reason we broke up so many years ago was because I said something stupid, something about how my friends would cover up any affairs I could've had because they were so loyal.
God, was I wrong!
But I never cheated on her, and even though she technically didn't cheat on me, the Sharky thing and the subsequent cover-up only fueled my already-paranoid insecurities.
And so now, to know that she is jealous of my relationship with a girl whom I am merely good friends with is only mildly annoying.
The annoyance stems from my dislike of being blamed for something I didn't do. If I really was carrying on with other girls while seeing Eve, then I would feel bad, guilty, even ashamed. But I also feel that, if I am to be punished for something, it may as well be for something that I actually did, not something that she thinks I did.
After all, until someone came forward and told me the absolute truth about Sharky and Eve, I could only speculate and suspect that something had happened... and I never brought it up past the initial confrontation. I gave them the benefit of the doubt, because they were my closest friends.
She owes it to me to give me the benefit of the doubt, doesn't she?
So yes, it annoys me that she won't give me that benefit. But I know in my heart that I have done nothing wrong. I have been as honest as I possibly can be.
And, I have forgiven her for her past deeds. I am not relishing the way the tables have been turned, despite the years I spent vowing to one day get her back for her perceived treachery. The reason why is because the only way to move on with one's life is to forgive and forget.
I must admit, it makes it easier to forgive and forget if karma has somehow arranged it so that now she has to deal with the very insecurities that ruined our relationship over a decade ago. But it doesn't make me feel good to know that she is hurting, or that she thinks she is not worthy of me. In fact, it pains me to the bone.
After all, she has paid her dues. She has suffered enough, through no fault of mine. Why add insult to injury, especially when all I want is to be with her?
*/*
And yet, I wonder how long it will take before she is comfortable with me. Will I have to jettison all of my female friends just because she has issues? Will I have to change the way I deal with platonic friends of the opposite sex? Will I be forced to temper my social graces out of fear of triggering another episode where she is pushing me away?
And what about the complete opposite of this-- what would have happened had I been all over Eve at that birthday party? What if I'd had my arms around her, or kissed her in full view of everyone else? Wouldn't that be insensitive to my other female friends? Or better yet-- wouldn't that make Eve recoil and run away from me, out of fear that I am the one who is "too attached"?
It's her problem, not mine. But I know that if I want to have anything with her, I'm going to have to be patient. As I've noted before, that's all I ever do. I am the one who must be patient, even though I am not the one with the problem.
That's okay-- my life is good right now. I might be starting a new job soon, if things go well. This year looks like it's going to be better than the last, and already I have been blessed by the gifts and kind gestures of my friends and family.
Have a nice weekend, people...
--George Herbert, English clergyman & metaphysical poet (1593 - 1633)
I just took an online quiz about jealousy. Unfortunately, it didn't give me any cool HTML code so that I could post it here and brag about my score, but trust me when I say that I scored a 20 out of 100-- that means that I am relatively not jealous.
Of course, those online quizzes have all the scientific validity of a loaf of bread. But at the same time I've always known that, when it comes to being jealous, I am very good about containing it.
I do feel jealous often, but mostly about irrational things. And if something should ever happen that confirms my worst fears, I deal with it by saying that I saw it coming.
My theory on jealousy is this: if you have ever cheated on someone, it increases the likelihood of you feeling jealous over someone you care about. Cheaters can't tolerate their own jealousy because it reminds them of their own actions in the past.
Eve never cheated on me when we were dating. But her tryst with Sharky broke an explicit trust between us for a long time. The reason is that, before I got to know Eve, I sensed a sexual tension between them. Sharky knew Eve way before I did, and I think I may have even once told the both of them that the worst thing they could ever do to me would be to get together.
So, in other words, I set myself up for that one.
Maybe that's why it never really bothered me. I knew they got together even as they denied it, and I can't really blame them for their curiosity. But please, don't treat me like a little kid who needs his eyes covered every time a nude scene appears on a movie screen. Don't lie to me.
In a way, it was the best thing that could've happened, because now Sharky and Eve have no relationship whatsoever, and it wasn't my fault. I have no fears that they will ever reconcile fully. There's too much baggage between them now. Sharky and Eve's little affair brought reality crashing down on the both of them, and neither of them can get past that.
But I can get past it. And it helps that, since I didn't do anything wrong, I hold the upper hand in my relationships with the both of them.
One thing you all should know about me: never let me have the upper hand. You will regret it if you do.
*/*
Granted, I'm not rubbing salt into their wounds. The passage of time does that job quite nicely, with little effort on my part.
In the case of Sharky, karma was a real bitch. You see, Sharky was dating Nona, the younger sister of my friend Nina, for a long time. In fact, when he got together with Eve, he had been officially seeing Nona.
Sharky would confide in me all of his other dalliances, and because we were friends I kept them secret. But it pained me to be around Nona, knowing that all I had to do was open my mouth and she would know what a dishonest person Sharky was being.
However, I kept my mouth shut, because otherwise I would become directly involved, and I didn't want that.
Anyway, to cut to the chase... After Sharky hurt Nona for the umpteenth time, she found a way to get back at him: she began a romance with my friend and then-roommate Purple Paulie.
Nona and Paulie have been a couple for almost a decade now.
And recently, Sharky told me that he now realizes what an idiot he was in treating Nona the way he did. He was on the verge of tears as he told me.
His admission was instigated by a simple incident-- he showed up at one of my shows. And it just so happened that Paulie and Nona were at the same show. Now, mind you, anyone who knows Paulie and Nona can tell you that it is extremely RARE that they ever leave their insulated bubble to come see a show. Well, they chose one hell of a night to come out on the town, because as soon as Sharky saw them, the reality hit him in the gut.
And I was on the stage, a witness to it all. I didn't orchestrate this event-- who could organize something so perfect and balanced? Still, it felt like I was getting some sort of revenge anyway.
Or at least a form of justice...
*/*
Eve's jealousy is rooted in a different sort of karma.
She has always been jealous of other women concerning me. The main reason we broke up so many years ago was because I said something stupid, something about how my friends would cover up any affairs I could've had because they were so loyal.
God, was I wrong!
But I never cheated on her, and even though she technically didn't cheat on me, the Sharky thing and the subsequent cover-up only fueled my already-paranoid insecurities.
And so now, to know that she is jealous of my relationship with a girl whom I am merely good friends with is only mildly annoying.
The annoyance stems from my dislike of being blamed for something I didn't do. If I really was carrying on with other girls while seeing Eve, then I would feel bad, guilty, even ashamed. But I also feel that, if I am to be punished for something, it may as well be for something that I actually did, not something that she thinks I did.
After all, until someone came forward and told me the absolute truth about Sharky and Eve, I could only speculate and suspect that something had happened... and I never brought it up past the initial confrontation. I gave them the benefit of the doubt, because they were my closest friends.
She owes it to me to give me the benefit of the doubt, doesn't she?
So yes, it annoys me that she won't give me that benefit. But I know in my heart that I have done nothing wrong. I have been as honest as I possibly can be.
And, I have forgiven her for her past deeds. I am not relishing the way the tables have been turned, despite the years I spent vowing to one day get her back for her perceived treachery. The reason why is because the only way to move on with one's life is to forgive and forget.
I must admit, it makes it easier to forgive and forget if karma has somehow arranged it so that now she has to deal with the very insecurities that ruined our relationship over a decade ago. But it doesn't make me feel good to know that she is hurting, or that she thinks she is not worthy of me. In fact, it pains me to the bone.
After all, she has paid her dues. She has suffered enough, through no fault of mine. Why add insult to injury, especially when all I want is to be with her?
*/*
And yet, I wonder how long it will take before she is comfortable with me. Will I have to jettison all of my female friends just because she has issues? Will I have to change the way I deal with platonic friends of the opposite sex? Will I be forced to temper my social graces out of fear of triggering another episode where she is pushing me away?
And what about the complete opposite of this-- what would have happened had I been all over Eve at that birthday party? What if I'd had my arms around her, or kissed her in full view of everyone else? Wouldn't that be insensitive to my other female friends? Or better yet-- wouldn't that make Eve recoil and run away from me, out of fear that I am the one who is "too attached"?
It's her problem, not mine. But I know that if I want to have anything with her, I'm going to have to be patient. As I've noted before, that's all I ever do. I am the one who must be patient, even though I am not the one with the problem.
That's okay-- my life is good right now. I might be starting a new job soon, if things go well. This year looks like it's going to be better than the last, and already I have been blessed by the gifts and kind gestures of my friends and family.
Have a nice weekend, people...
Wednesday, January 25, 2006
ladybug
I left an emotional voice mail on Eve's phone yesterday morning. I felt bad afterwards, for being such a bitch about it. I guess I was on my "man-rag"... Once a month, I get really irritable and depressed. This time, it was forced into being by Eve's personal crisis-- I was feeling good about my birthday until all of this.
Not that Eve's breakdown tripped me up. But it did confuse me, that's for sure.
Any other girl doing this to me would have me looking at the front door, as Large Prof once put it. But it's always been different with Eve. You have to understand: compared to most other girls, Eve isn't the type to be crying. Getting mad? Sure. Angry? You bet. Livid? A commonplace occurrence. Sad? Occasionally, but she doesn't solicit pity. I, on the other hand, beg for pity at every bipolar opportunity.
For some reason, even though she makes me sad or mad sometimes... I can take it.
I've always been able to take it from her. Yeah, it hurts-- sometimes too much --but I often forget about how much I hurt her unintentionally in return. I can be real insensitive, and she has called me on it more times than I can count.
The only thing that ever cut me deep was the tryst with Sharky, and that was primarily because of the cover-up. I don't bring it up to her anymore-- it's water under the bridge.
We're both massively insecure people. But maybe the reason why people say we're suited for each other is because we're never flipping out on each other at the same time. I flip out on her, she flips out on me... there's a balance.
Who else would tolerate us except for each other?
I was contemplating these thoughts and others when I got home from Purple Paulie's house last night. I thought about my crybaby VM, and her brief e-mail response to the VM ("Don't go assuming it's over," she wrote), and I felt that maybe I've been a little selfish. All she was tripping on was her attachment to me, and maybe she had a point-- I am getting attached as well.
And speaking of attached, when I fumbled for my keys as I stood on my porch I noticed something in the dark. There was a piece of paper stuck to my metal screen door. I thought it may have been a Chinese take-out menu, or perhaps a pizza joint advert.
No, it was something else altogether. It was a drawing of a huge ladybug. And underneath the picture was one word:
"BUG"
I smiled. I knew she left it. And what's more, I instantly grasped the significance of this gesture.
*/*
Let's take a trip in the Wayback Machine, shall we?
1992: My senior year of high school. I was scrambling to get out from under the shadows of past loves, as usual. I hated my friends-- a bunch of hypercritical know-it-alls who knew nothing about real life. They saw me as a rambunctious clown, an uncontrollable force that made them feel uncomfortable because my business was all about jarring people out of their doldrums. They lived vicariously through my self-destructive shenanigans, but snickered behind my back in contempt.
I joined the Theatre Arts class and met some genuinely funny, talented people. They made me laugh and smile. Their sense of humor was just as twisted and warped as mine, if not more. Everything seemed like a game, and around them I felt like a kid instead of a precocious adolescent.
I met Eve in that class, and after she broke up with her boyfriend I started getting to know her. I didn't ask her out or make any moves. I already knew about her parents' insane scheme to keep her from having any friends, so I knew traditional dates were out of the question.
Instead, I talked to her. I listened to her. She had beautiful ideas, a fertile brain, ridiculous talent. She was highly intelligent underneath the exquisite physical layers. In her eyes there was a hunted, searching quality-- she was checking me out, to see if she could predict when the obligatory lewd proposal would emerge.
I made every excuse to be around when she was around. But then when she was near, I would play it cool and act like I didn't care. I would pretend that my heart wasn't beating so quickly, or that making eye contact with her was a natural thing. Inside, I was panicking-- I really really liked her.
One day, the two of us were talking, and one of us-- I can't remember who but it was most likely her --picked up a ladybug off the ground.
We started talking about how cool ladybugs are. We named this particular ladybug, but the name escapes me now. I think it may have been "Rodney" or something like that... a male name for a ladybug? For some reason, "Rodney" sticks out in my mind.
Anyway, that was when we first met. We'd joke about the ladybug every time we saw each other. It was an excuse for the both of us, a means for us to initiate conversation without feeling weird.
Shortly after that, we fell madly in love.
The ladybug is a symbol of that time for us. I haven't thought about Rodney, or whatever its name was, for years. Not even in those moments when I missed her so much and I would think over and over about the things we used to share, I never managed to remember the ladybug. It never came into my mind once in the 14 years since.
But as soon as I saw the picture left on my screen door, I knew immediately what it meant and where it came from.
I think that's why I take her shit-- she knows me very well.
*/*
When I entered my apartment, the first thing I did was go to my closet and pull out a manila folder. Inside the folder were the remnants of our high school courtship: some drawings (including a portrait she drew of me), a few watercolors, a poem, and the only letter of hers that I kept, a 14-page hand-written account of her Fourth of July family vacation.
I leafed through the letter, wondering if she had made any mention of the ladybug's name. And, of course, I started reading it.
Certain parts stood out for me...
"The warm breeze is carrying a comfortable feeling through my hair. The silhouetted trees, all aligned and leaning to the left, sway so gently my eyes strain to spy the slightest sign of life. Having crashed by now the clouds took on an incredible similarity to the sea's waves. Tonight's sky embodies the phrase "dusk". An array of colours begins with the dark navy and scattered pearls. It blends then from azure to teal, aquamarine, misty ivory and finishes a dusty, pale sienna. It's killing me to know you're so close but so out of reach..."
She quoted from a book titled Knots, by RD Laing:
Narcissus fell in love w/ his image, taking it to be another.
Jack falls in love with Jill's image of Jack, taking it to be himself.
She must not die because then he would lose himself.
He is jealous in case anyone else's image is reflected in her mirror.
Jill is a disturbing mirror to herself.
Jill has to distort herself to appear undistorted to herself.
To undistort herself, she finds Jack to distort her distorted image in his distorting mirror.
She hopes that his distortion of her distortion may undistort her image without her having to distort herself.
She made mention of our "telepathy thing" and quoted more RD Laing and jotted down hilarious details from her family vacation, but no mention of the ladybug's name.
No matter, I thought. The picture of the ladybug did its job.
*/*
I might have to keep a copy of this letter with me at all times, to remind me of how deep our bond has always been. For although she and I are different people and have grown and experienced much respectively since that year we met, at the same time she and I remain unchanged in many ways.
The both of us still view the world through the eyes of wounded intelligence. We both feel like we are cursed, or that we jinx those around us. Even as people approach us and beg to bask in our glow, we are reluctant to accept their praise, because she and I both feel like we could die tomorrow and the world would not stop for us.
When we found each other, there was an immediate attraction. Neither of us could believe we'd found a kindred spirit. Personally, I was wary of labeling anyone else after Amy Coates as my "soul mate". But Eve made me reconsider that notion, because she and I just click. I have joked to her that, if we were to switch sexes, she would be me and I would be her. She doesn't quite see it that way, but she knows what I mean by it.
Something she added in her e-mail yesterday gave me hope:
"We'll always be friends. After all these years, I'm still here."
Yes, but it took a lot to get this far. And for much of the time we were not friends. But she was always in my mind, and she has admitted as much to me. She even told me that once she accidentally called Dick by my name, and he never got over that. I think that explains why he hates me so much, even though we don't know each other at all.
She doesn't play the victim, but if anyone ever had the right to play one, it's Eve. I think what I need to do is just have faith, and stay patient, and try to be strong for the both of us when she is feeling weak. When I feel bad, she does it for me, so how much will it hurt me to carry the burden for a bit while she gets her head together?
No one said it would be easy, that's for sure. And I don't want anyone else. I can't take the demands of other women. Eve makes demands too, but like I said-- I can take it. They don't seem so much like demands as they are expectations. I do the same thing, and I guess it's disconcerting to see someone else doing to me the things that I do to others.
*/*
I took the picture of the ladybug and hung it on the wall next to my front door. I looked at it and laughed. There's a bad pun there, one that she deliberately placed there because she knows how much I love bad puns. Just the one word, "BUG"-- you know, as in "I just wanted to bug you"?
You had to be there, I guess. But it's exactly the type of joke that she knew I would get.
Not that Eve's breakdown tripped me up. But it did confuse me, that's for sure.
Any other girl doing this to me would have me looking at the front door, as Large Prof once put it. But it's always been different with Eve. You have to understand: compared to most other girls, Eve isn't the type to be crying. Getting mad? Sure. Angry? You bet. Livid? A commonplace occurrence. Sad? Occasionally, but she doesn't solicit pity. I, on the other hand, beg for pity at every bipolar opportunity.
For some reason, even though she makes me sad or mad sometimes... I can take it.
I've always been able to take it from her. Yeah, it hurts-- sometimes too much --but I often forget about how much I hurt her unintentionally in return. I can be real insensitive, and she has called me on it more times than I can count.
The only thing that ever cut me deep was the tryst with Sharky, and that was primarily because of the cover-up. I don't bring it up to her anymore-- it's water under the bridge.
We're both massively insecure people. But maybe the reason why people say we're suited for each other is because we're never flipping out on each other at the same time. I flip out on her, she flips out on me... there's a balance.
Who else would tolerate us except for each other?
I was contemplating these thoughts and others when I got home from Purple Paulie's house last night. I thought about my crybaby VM, and her brief e-mail response to the VM ("Don't go assuming it's over," she wrote), and I felt that maybe I've been a little selfish. All she was tripping on was her attachment to me, and maybe she had a point-- I am getting attached as well.
And speaking of attached, when I fumbled for my keys as I stood on my porch I noticed something in the dark. There was a piece of paper stuck to my metal screen door. I thought it may have been a Chinese take-out menu, or perhaps a pizza joint advert.
No, it was something else altogether. It was a drawing of a huge ladybug. And underneath the picture was one word:
"BUG"
I smiled. I knew she left it. And what's more, I instantly grasped the significance of this gesture.
*/*
Let's take a trip in the Wayback Machine, shall we?
1992: My senior year of high school. I was scrambling to get out from under the shadows of past loves, as usual. I hated my friends-- a bunch of hypercritical know-it-alls who knew nothing about real life. They saw me as a rambunctious clown, an uncontrollable force that made them feel uncomfortable because my business was all about jarring people out of their doldrums. They lived vicariously through my self-destructive shenanigans, but snickered behind my back in contempt.
I joined the Theatre Arts class and met some genuinely funny, talented people. They made me laugh and smile. Their sense of humor was just as twisted and warped as mine, if not more. Everything seemed like a game, and around them I felt like a kid instead of a precocious adolescent.
I met Eve in that class, and after she broke up with her boyfriend I started getting to know her. I didn't ask her out or make any moves. I already knew about her parents' insane scheme to keep her from having any friends, so I knew traditional dates were out of the question.
Instead, I talked to her. I listened to her. She had beautiful ideas, a fertile brain, ridiculous talent. She was highly intelligent underneath the exquisite physical layers. In her eyes there was a hunted, searching quality-- she was checking me out, to see if she could predict when the obligatory lewd proposal would emerge.
I made every excuse to be around when she was around. But then when she was near, I would play it cool and act like I didn't care. I would pretend that my heart wasn't beating so quickly, or that making eye contact with her was a natural thing. Inside, I was panicking-- I really really liked her.
One day, the two of us were talking, and one of us-- I can't remember who but it was most likely her --picked up a ladybug off the ground.
We started talking about how cool ladybugs are. We named this particular ladybug, but the name escapes me now. I think it may have been "Rodney" or something like that... a male name for a ladybug? For some reason, "Rodney" sticks out in my mind.
Anyway, that was when we first met. We'd joke about the ladybug every time we saw each other. It was an excuse for the both of us, a means for us to initiate conversation without feeling weird.
Shortly after that, we fell madly in love.
The ladybug is a symbol of that time for us. I haven't thought about Rodney, or whatever its name was, for years. Not even in those moments when I missed her so much and I would think over and over about the things we used to share, I never managed to remember the ladybug. It never came into my mind once in the 14 years since.
But as soon as I saw the picture left on my screen door, I knew immediately what it meant and where it came from.
I think that's why I take her shit-- she knows me very well.
*/*
When I entered my apartment, the first thing I did was go to my closet and pull out a manila folder. Inside the folder were the remnants of our high school courtship: some drawings (including a portrait she drew of me), a few watercolors, a poem, and the only letter of hers that I kept, a 14-page hand-written account of her Fourth of July family vacation.
I leafed through the letter, wondering if she had made any mention of the ladybug's name. And, of course, I started reading it.
Certain parts stood out for me...
"The warm breeze is carrying a comfortable feeling through my hair. The silhouetted trees, all aligned and leaning to the left, sway so gently my eyes strain to spy the slightest sign of life. Having crashed by now the clouds took on an incredible similarity to the sea's waves. Tonight's sky embodies the phrase "dusk". An array of colours begins with the dark navy and scattered pearls. It blends then from azure to teal, aquamarine, misty ivory and finishes a dusty, pale sienna. It's killing me to know you're so close but so out of reach..."
She quoted from a book titled Knots, by RD Laing:
Narcissus fell in love w/ his image, taking it to be another.
Jack falls in love with Jill's image of Jack, taking it to be himself.
She must not die because then he would lose himself.
He is jealous in case anyone else's image is reflected in her mirror.
Jill is a disturbing mirror to herself.
Jill has to distort herself to appear undistorted to herself.
To undistort herself, she finds Jack to distort her distorted image in his distorting mirror.
She hopes that his distortion of her distortion may undistort her image without her having to distort herself.
She made mention of our "telepathy thing" and quoted more RD Laing and jotted down hilarious details from her family vacation, but no mention of the ladybug's name.
No matter, I thought. The picture of the ladybug did its job.
*/*
I might have to keep a copy of this letter with me at all times, to remind me of how deep our bond has always been. For although she and I are different people and have grown and experienced much respectively since that year we met, at the same time she and I remain unchanged in many ways.
The both of us still view the world through the eyes of wounded intelligence. We both feel like we are cursed, or that we jinx those around us. Even as people approach us and beg to bask in our glow, we are reluctant to accept their praise, because she and I both feel like we could die tomorrow and the world would not stop for us.
When we found each other, there was an immediate attraction. Neither of us could believe we'd found a kindred spirit. Personally, I was wary of labeling anyone else after Amy Coates as my "soul mate". But Eve made me reconsider that notion, because she and I just click. I have joked to her that, if we were to switch sexes, she would be me and I would be her. She doesn't quite see it that way, but she knows what I mean by it.
Something she added in her e-mail yesterday gave me hope:
"We'll always be friends. After all these years, I'm still here."
Yes, but it took a lot to get this far. And for much of the time we were not friends. But she was always in my mind, and she has admitted as much to me. She even told me that once she accidentally called Dick by my name, and he never got over that. I think that explains why he hates me so much, even though we don't know each other at all.
She doesn't play the victim, but if anyone ever had the right to play one, it's Eve. I think what I need to do is just have faith, and stay patient, and try to be strong for the both of us when she is feeling weak. When I feel bad, she does it for me, so how much will it hurt me to carry the burden for a bit while she gets her head together?
No one said it would be easy, that's for sure. And I don't want anyone else. I can't take the demands of other women. Eve makes demands too, but like I said-- I can take it. They don't seem so much like demands as they are expectations. I do the same thing, and I guess it's disconcerting to see someone else doing to me the things that I do to others.
*/*
I took the picture of the ladybug and hung it on the wall next to my front door. I looked at it and laughed. There's a bad pun there, one that she deliberately placed there because she knows how much I love bad puns. Just the one word, "BUG"-- you know, as in "I just wanted to bug you"?
You had to be there, I guess. But it's exactly the type of joke that she knew I would get.
Tuesday, January 24, 2006
9 million times
I was at her house, half-asleep, on Sunday night, spent from driving all around L.A., accepting gifts and salutations.
It was time for me to get going. I saddled up next to her sleepily, and as I was gathering my strength to arise and put my shoes on, I noticed she was weeping.
Of course, I couldn't leave her like that.
She finally broke down and said that she saw one of my friends at my birthday party and got jealous. And it triggered a flood of trust issues, all of them relating to Dick, her ex, the guy who broke her heart by leaving her when she thought he never would.
She started saying all this shit that no longer has any effect on me because I've heard it, like, 9 million times. You know the spiel: I'm toxic... you could do so much better than me... I'm not good enough for you... you're better off with someone else... I hope you and so-and-so get together and are happy...
That kind of talk, ladies, is a cop-out. Any guy who falls for it at this point in the game is a sucker. You mean to tell me that I don't know what's best for me? You mean to tell me that you are an authority on how I feel and that I'm clueless as to what makes me happy?
Please...
So I dropped it on her: when she told me I should "start shopping", I told her, "I already tried that-- after we had our falling out, around this time last year."
I told her about Monique, how I fell into a two-week love spree that had me wondering if I was supposed to move on or re-evaluate my existence or Lord knows what... I didn't get too specific.
"I tried shopping around...and it didn't work," I told her.
Right now, we're taking some time to be apart. She has deep-seated issues, and no one ever said this would be easy.
What's interesting is: the girl that made her feel jealous has been jealous of her for much longer. The irony is mind-boggling.
I don't know what what the future holds for us, but I can only be patient. That's all I can do.
That's all I ever do.
It was time for me to get going. I saddled up next to her sleepily, and as I was gathering my strength to arise and put my shoes on, I noticed she was weeping.
Of course, I couldn't leave her like that.
She finally broke down and said that she saw one of my friends at my birthday party and got jealous. And it triggered a flood of trust issues, all of them relating to Dick, her ex, the guy who broke her heart by leaving her when she thought he never would.
She started saying all this shit that no longer has any effect on me because I've heard it, like, 9 million times. You know the spiel: I'm toxic... you could do so much better than me... I'm not good enough for you... you're better off with someone else... I hope you and so-and-so get together and are happy...
That kind of talk, ladies, is a cop-out. Any guy who falls for it at this point in the game is a sucker. You mean to tell me that I don't know what's best for me? You mean to tell me that you are an authority on how I feel and that I'm clueless as to what makes me happy?
Please...
So I dropped it on her: when she told me I should "start shopping", I told her, "I already tried that-- after we had our falling out, around this time last year."
I told her about Monique, how I fell into a two-week love spree that had me wondering if I was supposed to move on or re-evaluate my existence or Lord knows what... I didn't get too specific.
"I tried shopping around...and it didn't work," I told her.
Right now, we're taking some time to be apart. She has deep-seated issues, and no one ever said this would be easy.
What's interesting is: the girl that made her feel jealous has been jealous of her for much longer. The irony is mind-boggling.
I don't know what what the future holds for us, but I can only be patient. That's all I can do.
That's all I ever do.
Monday, January 23, 2006
so...
We started drinking around 3pm.
By 4pm I knew that I wasn't going anywhere later on in the evening.
By 5pm the chicken had been barbecued and the yams were ready to eat.
By 6pm the weed arrived, much too late by my clock.
By 7pm the cake was lit and everybody sang to me.
By 8pm I was blasting loud music and people were congregating outside the door.
By 9pm plans were made to continue the party at a karaoke bar. I declined.
By 10pm a large portion of the party left for karaoke. The rest of us stayed back and got really stoned.
By 11pm we were all tossed considerably. We watched Saturday Night Live.
By 12am there was no more alcohol.
By 1am the rest of the party got up and left.
By 2am I was asleep.
By 4pm I knew that I wasn't going anywhere later on in the evening.
By 5pm the chicken had been barbecued and the yams were ready to eat.
By 6pm the weed arrived, much too late by my clock.
By 7pm the cake was lit and everybody sang to me.
By 8pm I was blasting loud music and people were congregating outside the door.
By 9pm plans were made to continue the party at a karaoke bar. I declined.
By 10pm a large portion of the party left for karaoke. The rest of us stayed back and got really stoned.
By 11pm we were all tossed considerably. We watched Saturday Night Live.
By 12am there was no more alcohol.
By 1am the rest of the party got up and left.
By 2am I was asleep.
Thursday, January 19, 2006
birthday schmirthday
No one ever gets what they really want on their birthday, do they?
That's a pretty pessimistic sentiment, even for me. But it stirs up inside me annually, and I don't know why.
I sometimes attribute it to a post-Holidays depression. After the season of giving and giving and giving and spending and spending and more giving, I'm worn out. You'd think that I'd be looking forward to some wholesale receiving.
But it's never the case.
My birthday has always been a cause of major dissatisfaction for me, for as long as I can remember. It is the brightest point of ambivalence in my emotional spectrum.
I have had happy birthdays-- don't get me wrong. I've known the joys of receiving incredible gifts, heartfelt sentiments, or experiencing some high-grade bona fide fun in my honor. But as the years go by, I find my anxieties mounting earlier and earlier. It's going to get to the point where I'll be stressed out about my birthday before New Year's Eve passes.
It has nothing to do with aging. I am at peace with that notion.
It has to do with control.
Some people have no problem turning their birthdays into some sort of special event. But you'd think that a shameless self-promoter such as myself would also be in that league, and in reality I am not.
For example: tonight was going to be the night my band played The Viper Room. I promoted it as a birthday-related event, even though it was not planned as such. I figured, hey, it's the Viper Room, and it's a few days before my real birthday... why not kill two birds with one stone?
Unfortunately, our gig got canceled, because a major-label artist is booking the place for the whole night. I cannot divulge who it is until tomorrow, but suffice it to say I was NOT upset at being bumped by this particular performer. In fact, if thing work out well enough, maybe some comp tickets would be in order...
Anyway, the point is, now that I am faced with the quandary of not having a big gig tied in with my birthday, I am now less willing to go out on a limb. It would've been easy for me to bask in the glow of a rock show, because ironically enough it would spread the attention out to others.
Yes, it's true: on my birthday, I hate being the center of attention.
Any other day of the year, I want the spotlight... but my birthday makes me downright neurotic.
*/*
Luckily, Dotty the Karaoke Singer called me a while ago. We talked about our respective birthdays (hers is in the beginning of February) and how she has a disinclination to hand over the reins to someone else in regards to her birthday.
Dotty is an expert on party planning, and so it is always a disappointment for her when her well-wishing and good-intentioned friends cannot give back in equal measure the same energy that she puts into their birthday celebrations.
Dotty told me, "It's like, I wish there was someone in my circle of friends who was just like me in that way. I love my friends to death, and they are wonderful and loving and supportive, but every time they plan my party it always turns out horribly wrong. That's why I'm the one in my circle who handles those plans."
"They only want your approval, Dotty. You do so much for them and make it look so easy, and they get nervous because they don't want to fuck it up. In the process, they end up letting their expectations--and yours --overwhelm them," I said to her over the phone.
I could relate to Dotty's complaint: although I am not as good as throwing parties as she is, I do know that feeling of realizing that someone who is your friend has no idea what you like or don't like. Birthday gifts are an excellent litmus test, to see which of your friends really knows you and which ones are merely on the periphery.
It's treading on thin ice to get too deep into this, but at the same time I think (at some level) everyone feels this way.
I tell people not to give me anything for my birthday, and if they don't buy me a gift I don't get upset. But at the same time, there's that gnawing at the back of the head, that feeling that the person should've at least made an effort to get you a gift, even if it was handmade or cheap.
That's a human reaction, I think.
*/*
Eve asked me yesterday what I wanted for my birthday. I was put on the spot and couldn't think of anything.
The thing is, she knows what I want. It costs no money and wouldn't require her to charge her credit card with one single penny. But I know that she is unable to give me what I want, and therefore I view her question as being more along the lines of: "What do you want instead?"
One would argue that she is unwilling, but I think she is just ill-suited to meet my improbable demands.
And what is it that I want from her?
If I have to spell it out for you, it's not worth it.
That's how I view birthday gifts anyway: I don't like ordering people around so that I can profit maximally. Otherwise, I'd just tell everyone to give me cash and that'd be the end of it.
*/*
Dotty just convinced me to have a bring-your-own-meat cookout at my place on Saturday. Then, I will go over to my cousin's place for his birthday party. He's in his early '20s, so he has no shame in throwing the big bash for himself.
After that, I'll play it by ear. There's a club going on that night, one put on by my co-workers-- live salsa music and DJs until closing time. Or, maybe we can go over to Michael's Bar & Grill down the street. Perhaps we could all just go back to my place and continue to party until the break of dawn.
The next morning, I will have breakfast with Dotty and anyone who wants to join, and then make my way up to the desert to have a transitional lunch with my dad followed by a climactic dinner with my mother and my siblings.
Now that I have an idea of what I want to do this weekend, my semblance of control is returning. This makes me feel really good. I want to balance my need to be 100% in the driver's seat with my other virtue, that being my ability to relinquish the reins and go with the flow.
I don't want to be one of those birthday hosts who tortures his friends and family with his insane standards, but at the same time I don't want to be taken on a wild-goose chase by people who assume they know how I feel.
Eve asked me yesterday what I wanted. And now that I've talked it over with Dotty, and now that I've written about it at some length, I know what I want for my birthday.
I want to get WASTED!
*/*
Some memorable birthday moments:
1987-- For my 13th birthday, my parents allowed me to have school friends over for a party. This was the first time I'd thrown a party... ever. I was worried that no one would show up because I lived in Pacoima, but a good number of people arrived and we had fun. I received Beastie Boys' License To Ill on vinyl as a present.
At one point, we played Seven Minutes In Heaven. I remember that I had to go outside and make out with a girl whose best friend I had a crush on, and I recall that I made up some bullshit about not wanting to make out because it wasn't "dignified". I don't know how the girl took it-- she vocally agreed with me, but possibly because she didn't want to make it seem like she was being rejected.
I recall that a female friend of mine had an emotional breakdown, and one of my older brother's friends started macking with one of my female friends-- he was in high school, she was in junior high!
Also: my friend Sal's grandfather had just died, and he almost got into a row with my cousin Johnny, who didn't appreciate Sal's attitude (and didn't know about the dead grandfather).
Overall, a splendid affair...
1992-- I told my girlfriend Vera that I wanted it to just be the two of us for my 18th birthday. So what did she do? She organized a surprise party, of course, thinking that my rants against the idea were actually indicative of my profound desire to have one.
In retrospect, it was a sweet thing for her to do. But of course I had to go and ruin it without even knowing it.
The day of, I took a bus all the way from Sylmar to Canoga Park-- an hour and a half bus ride. By the time I got to her house, I had to pee so badly I was hurting.
She opened the door, and before she could greet me I pushed her aside and said, "I need to piss so badly!"
I ran past the kitchen, where a group of close friends were waiting to see the expression on my face. Instead, they caught a blurry glimpse of me running straight to the bathroom, my hands on my crotch.
I stopped and walked back to the kitchen, my pee suddenly not so urgent. Did I see what I thought I just saw? I looked inside the kitchen in shock, as my friends said, with much bemusement, "Surprise?"
I apologized, and went back to the bathroom. When I relieved myself, I blew out the candles on the cake and we celebrated.
1995-- On the night of my 21st birthday, my band was playing a show at the now-defunct Roxbury on Sunset. I turned 21 at the stroke of midnight, which was when we were slated to perform. It was an incredible night for me, and may serve as the basis for my next novel idea.
2000-- This one was memorable because Jeanie, my girlfriend at the time, gave me some awesome birthday presents: the selected letters of William S. Burroughs; a poem she had written about me that touched me greatly; a romantic dinner for two at the dimly-lit Casa Vega in Sherman Oaks; and a beautiful birthday BJ that I will never forget for as long I live.
It may seem shallow and materialistic, but at the same time Jeanie understood me from a different perspective. She met me while I was undergoing some massive changes in my life. It's a shame it didn't last long between us, but it was nice while it lasted. My birthday with her that year ranks in my Top 5 for sure.
Speaking of which, I've already listed four birthday highlights-- where is the fifth?
I don't know-- maybe I'll have another on Monday. For now, I can't think of anything. But I'll be sure to let you know when it pops into my head.
HAVE A NICE WEEKEND, FOLKS!!
That's a pretty pessimistic sentiment, even for me. But it stirs up inside me annually, and I don't know why.
I sometimes attribute it to a post-Holidays depression. After the season of giving and giving and giving and spending and spending and more giving, I'm worn out. You'd think that I'd be looking forward to some wholesale receiving.
But it's never the case.
My birthday has always been a cause of major dissatisfaction for me, for as long as I can remember. It is the brightest point of ambivalence in my emotional spectrum.
I have had happy birthdays-- don't get me wrong. I've known the joys of receiving incredible gifts, heartfelt sentiments, or experiencing some high-grade bona fide fun in my honor. But as the years go by, I find my anxieties mounting earlier and earlier. It's going to get to the point where I'll be stressed out about my birthday before New Year's Eve passes.
It has nothing to do with aging. I am at peace with that notion.
It has to do with control.
Some people have no problem turning their birthdays into some sort of special event. But you'd think that a shameless self-promoter such as myself would also be in that league, and in reality I am not.
For example: tonight was going to be the night my band played The Viper Room. I promoted it as a birthday-related event, even though it was not planned as such. I figured, hey, it's the Viper Room, and it's a few days before my real birthday... why not kill two birds with one stone?
Unfortunately, our gig got canceled, because a major-label artist is booking the place for the whole night. I cannot divulge who it is until tomorrow, but suffice it to say I was NOT upset at being bumped by this particular performer. In fact, if thing work out well enough, maybe some comp tickets would be in order...
Anyway, the point is, now that I am faced with the quandary of not having a big gig tied in with my birthday, I am now less willing to go out on a limb. It would've been easy for me to bask in the glow of a rock show, because ironically enough it would spread the attention out to others.
Yes, it's true: on my birthday, I hate being the center of attention.
Any other day of the year, I want the spotlight... but my birthday makes me downright neurotic.
*/*
Luckily, Dotty the Karaoke Singer called me a while ago. We talked about our respective birthdays (hers is in the beginning of February) and how she has a disinclination to hand over the reins to someone else in regards to her birthday.
Dotty is an expert on party planning, and so it is always a disappointment for her when her well-wishing and good-intentioned friends cannot give back in equal measure the same energy that she puts into their birthday celebrations.
Dotty told me, "It's like, I wish there was someone in my circle of friends who was just like me in that way. I love my friends to death, and they are wonderful and loving and supportive, but every time they plan my party it always turns out horribly wrong. That's why I'm the one in my circle who handles those plans."
"They only want your approval, Dotty. You do so much for them and make it look so easy, and they get nervous because they don't want to fuck it up. In the process, they end up letting their expectations--and yours --overwhelm them," I said to her over the phone.
I could relate to Dotty's complaint: although I am not as good as throwing parties as she is, I do know that feeling of realizing that someone who is your friend has no idea what you like or don't like. Birthday gifts are an excellent litmus test, to see which of your friends really knows you and which ones are merely on the periphery.
It's treading on thin ice to get too deep into this, but at the same time I think (at some level) everyone feels this way.
I tell people not to give me anything for my birthday, and if they don't buy me a gift I don't get upset. But at the same time, there's that gnawing at the back of the head, that feeling that the person should've at least made an effort to get you a gift, even if it was handmade or cheap.
That's a human reaction, I think.
*/*
Eve asked me yesterday what I wanted for my birthday. I was put on the spot and couldn't think of anything.
The thing is, she knows what I want. It costs no money and wouldn't require her to charge her credit card with one single penny. But I know that she is unable to give me what I want, and therefore I view her question as being more along the lines of: "What do you want instead?"
One would argue that she is unwilling, but I think she is just ill-suited to meet my improbable demands.
And what is it that I want from her?
If I have to spell it out for you, it's not worth it.
That's how I view birthday gifts anyway: I don't like ordering people around so that I can profit maximally. Otherwise, I'd just tell everyone to give me cash and that'd be the end of it.
*/*
Dotty just convinced me to have a bring-your-own-meat cookout at my place on Saturday. Then, I will go over to my cousin's place for his birthday party. He's in his early '20s, so he has no shame in throwing the big bash for himself.
After that, I'll play it by ear. There's a club going on that night, one put on by my co-workers-- live salsa music and DJs until closing time. Or, maybe we can go over to Michael's Bar & Grill down the street. Perhaps we could all just go back to my place and continue to party until the break of dawn.
The next morning, I will have breakfast with Dotty and anyone who wants to join, and then make my way up to the desert to have a transitional lunch with my dad followed by a climactic dinner with my mother and my siblings.
Now that I have an idea of what I want to do this weekend, my semblance of control is returning. This makes me feel really good. I want to balance my need to be 100% in the driver's seat with my other virtue, that being my ability to relinquish the reins and go with the flow.
I don't want to be one of those birthday hosts who tortures his friends and family with his insane standards, but at the same time I don't want to be taken on a wild-goose chase by people who assume they know how I feel.
Eve asked me yesterday what I wanted. And now that I've talked it over with Dotty, and now that I've written about it at some length, I know what I want for my birthday.
I want to get WASTED!
*/*
Some memorable birthday moments:
1987-- For my 13th birthday, my parents allowed me to have school friends over for a party. This was the first time I'd thrown a party... ever. I was worried that no one would show up because I lived in Pacoima, but a good number of people arrived and we had fun. I received Beastie Boys' License To Ill on vinyl as a present.
At one point, we played Seven Minutes In Heaven. I remember that I had to go outside and make out with a girl whose best friend I had a crush on, and I recall that I made up some bullshit about not wanting to make out because it wasn't "dignified". I don't know how the girl took it-- she vocally agreed with me, but possibly because she didn't want to make it seem like she was being rejected.
I recall that a female friend of mine had an emotional breakdown, and one of my older brother's friends started macking with one of my female friends-- he was in high school, she was in junior high!
Also: my friend Sal's grandfather had just died, and he almost got into a row with my cousin Johnny, who didn't appreciate Sal's attitude (and didn't know about the dead grandfather).
Overall, a splendid affair...
1992-- I told my girlfriend Vera that I wanted it to just be the two of us for my 18th birthday. So what did she do? She organized a surprise party, of course, thinking that my rants against the idea were actually indicative of my profound desire to have one.
In retrospect, it was a sweet thing for her to do. But of course I had to go and ruin it without even knowing it.
The day of, I took a bus all the way from Sylmar to Canoga Park-- an hour and a half bus ride. By the time I got to her house, I had to pee so badly I was hurting.
She opened the door, and before she could greet me I pushed her aside and said, "I need to piss so badly!"
I ran past the kitchen, where a group of close friends were waiting to see the expression on my face. Instead, they caught a blurry glimpse of me running straight to the bathroom, my hands on my crotch.
I stopped and walked back to the kitchen, my pee suddenly not so urgent. Did I see what I thought I just saw? I looked inside the kitchen in shock, as my friends said, with much bemusement, "Surprise?"
I apologized, and went back to the bathroom. When I relieved myself, I blew out the candles on the cake and we celebrated.
1995-- On the night of my 21st birthday, my band was playing a show at the now-defunct Roxbury on Sunset. I turned 21 at the stroke of midnight, which was when we were slated to perform. It was an incredible night for me, and may serve as the basis for my next novel idea.
2000-- This one was memorable because Jeanie, my girlfriend at the time, gave me some awesome birthday presents: the selected letters of William S. Burroughs; a poem she had written about me that touched me greatly; a romantic dinner for two at the dimly-lit Casa Vega in Sherman Oaks; and a beautiful birthday BJ that I will never forget for as long I live.
It may seem shallow and materialistic, but at the same time Jeanie understood me from a different perspective. She met me while I was undergoing some massive changes in my life. It's a shame it didn't last long between us, but it was nice while it lasted. My birthday with her that year ranks in my Top 5 for sure.
Speaking of which, I've already listed four birthday highlights-- where is the fifth?
I don't know-- maybe I'll have another on Monday. For now, I can't think of anything. But I'll be sure to let you know when it pops into my head.
HAVE A NICE WEEKEND, FOLKS!!
Monday, January 16, 2006
serious living
My nights are filled with loud music and simple songs, ear-splitting frequencies resonating and bouncing around the inside of my skull. We make a racket and work to a fever pitch and then we break down doors and demolish barriers with ham-fisted guitars and the notion of rocknroll as salvation/liberation.
My days are spent dodging malaise. Barely a dime in these pockets and too many goals to achieve. I whittle away at my dreams and force them to take shape. The shavings touch the granite floor and form a Rorschasch pattern around my feet.
There is alcohol to erase the slate, smoke to incite the gods, and banquets to sate the soul. My head is a whirlpool of chemical reactions.
Sex is a trembling drive buried deep beneath my superficial layers. The ultimate drug, really-- all high and no comedown. But the side effects are murderous, creating evenly-spaced aches in the wake of my climaxes.
Some days I tell myself that I want to marry her, and other days I realize that it's useless to contemplate such things because it seems like we are already married. This gandy-dance that we occupy ourselves with is nothing more than a formality, a polite charade.
There is money, and then there is none. I feel exhilaration nonetheless.
A canvas half-painted sits on an easel in my kitchen, staring me down. It implores me to finish the job. I have made plans to sprawl the canvas out on the floor and begin the final ornamentation that (I have concluded) will render it worthy of transcending the mundane.
I can't stop now-- it's all coming down the pike at rapid speed, and I'm standing there flinching as I hold my hands out to receive whatever is traveling through the chute.
Saturday night I drove my car among the winding canyons with friends in tow, howling like monkeys at the hypnotic watch-faced moon glowering in the ebony-night sky. Vows were sworn, egos shattered, my mind disordered then shuffled and reorganized.
The club housed metallic sheets of cacophony while I held a strong mixed drink in my hand. We were corralled like a herd behind imaginary lines in the carpet.
I love the way her neck smells when I've been drinking, I love the way her soft skin feels, and when we ditch the masses and deliberately lose ourselves it is as if we have rejected the mores of this tight-wadded nation outright. She and I often go into seclusion and refuse to emerge until the tension outside our doors dies down...
No time to jot it all down-- smudged impressions will do for now...
My days are spent dodging malaise. Barely a dime in these pockets and too many goals to achieve. I whittle away at my dreams and force them to take shape. The shavings touch the granite floor and form a Rorschasch pattern around my feet.
There is alcohol to erase the slate, smoke to incite the gods, and banquets to sate the soul. My head is a whirlpool of chemical reactions.
Sex is a trembling drive buried deep beneath my superficial layers. The ultimate drug, really-- all high and no comedown. But the side effects are murderous, creating evenly-spaced aches in the wake of my climaxes.
Some days I tell myself that I want to marry her, and other days I realize that it's useless to contemplate such things because it seems like we are already married. This gandy-dance that we occupy ourselves with is nothing more than a formality, a polite charade.
There is money, and then there is none. I feel exhilaration nonetheless.
A canvas half-painted sits on an easel in my kitchen, staring me down. It implores me to finish the job. I have made plans to sprawl the canvas out on the floor and begin the final ornamentation that (I have concluded) will render it worthy of transcending the mundane.
I can't stop now-- it's all coming down the pike at rapid speed, and I'm standing there flinching as I hold my hands out to receive whatever is traveling through the chute.
Saturday night I drove my car among the winding canyons with friends in tow, howling like monkeys at the hypnotic watch-faced moon glowering in the ebony-night sky. Vows were sworn, egos shattered, my mind disordered then shuffled and reorganized.
The club housed metallic sheets of cacophony while I held a strong mixed drink in my hand. We were corralled like a herd behind imaginary lines in the carpet.
I love the way her neck smells when I've been drinking, I love the way her soft skin feels, and when we ditch the masses and deliberately lose ourselves it is as if we have rejected the mores of this tight-wadded nation outright. She and I often go into seclusion and refuse to emerge until the tension outside our doors dies down...
No time to jot it all down-- smudged impressions will do for now...
Wednesday, January 11, 2006
taking it easy
My stepfather had a stroke.
I was thinking about paying my family a visit before it happened. The New Year came and the first thought in my mind was "I haven't seen my family since Christmas..."
So I skipped work and went out to the desert to see him. He's doing OK but his peripheral vision is messed up.
The doctors told him to take it easy.
I think I'm going to take it easy too. Something in the wings, something beneath the radar, something in the air is advising me to stop blogging for a while.
I have plenty of things to write about. In fact, I even started a brand new blog on Friendster, of all places.
But this also means that I'm going to dismantle some of the ones I started a while back that I haven't maintained at all.
I'm in the middle of doing some serious living, and I can't write fast enough to contain it all.
So I will stay away for a while... which means, of course, that I'm going to be back to posting on the regular in no time.
PEACE
I was thinking about paying my family a visit before it happened. The New Year came and the first thought in my mind was "I haven't seen my family since Christmas..."
So I skipped work and went out to the desert to see him. He's doing OK but his peripheral vision is messed up.
The doctors told him to take it easy.
I think I'm going to take it easy too. Something in the wings, something beneath the radar, something in the air is advising me to stop blogging for a while.
I have plenty of things to write about. In fact, I even started a brand new blog on Friendster, of all places.
But this also means that I'm going to dismantle some of the ones I started a while back that I haven't maintained at all.
I'm in the middle of doing some serious living, and I can't write fast enough to contain it all.
So I will stay away for a while... which means, of course, that I'm going to be back to posting on the regular in no time.
PEACE
Friday, January 06, 2006
cosmic prankster
Hear about that Wal-Mart website snafu? If not, here's a link to the news item, which revolves around an ad for the DVD Planet Of The Apes on the beleagured retailer's website. You can read the article for yourself.
*/*
I read so many Zen stories that I am sated, almost gorged from the generous online helpings. I stopped after a while, because an intriguing pattern began to emerge.
In almost every one of the Zen stories, the Zen Master is a cosmic prankster of sorts. His instructions border on cruelty and mischief, and although he clearly does not delight in tormenting the Zen students who seek enlightenment, I can't help but laugh at the way the Zen Masters seem to be mind-fucking their pupils.
One Zen story centers around a little boy who imitates the gestures of the Zen Master. Every time the master is asked about Zen, he simply holds his index finger up. The boy apes this behavior, until one day the master grabs the boy and cuts off his finger. As the boy runs away and cries in pain, the master calls after him.
When the boy turns around, the Zen Master holds his finger up again. And that, according to the story, is when the boy became enlightened.
Strange, eh?
To the rational mind, this is downright evil. But I get the feeling that Zen resists definition because of the rationalization that our brains develop in order to comprehend the things around us.
I liken Zen to pimping: "The game is to be sold and not to be told" is the pimp's motto. Likewise, my friend Zen Master recently commented, "The Buddha that can be told is not the eternal buddha..."
*/*
I am far from enlightened.
I get jealous, I get angry, I get depressed, I go too far with drink and vice, I shoot off at the mouth, I lose my patience, I rage against the seemingly insurmountable odds, I howl in pain...
I am seeking.
I am a bit of a mind-fucker myself, but I don't think it has to do with being enlightened. Detached, maybe. I know that I am able to go into meditative trances on my own, without thinking or planning it. But that is a far cry from mastery.
I am blind, but I am able to see what others cannot. I can walk into a room and just know. It's as if the invisible lines that connect us all-- that correspond to each of our respective paths --are clearly visible to me and only me.
My daily dilemma is pretending that I don't know what lies within the heart of a person. My problems stem from not being able to reconcile the intent with the presentation. A person can say one thing and do another, and not even be aware of it.
I call them as I see them, and it hurts the ones around me. I am forcing them to deal with things they'd rather not think about, and in a way it's as if I am trying to bring them down with me into the abyss of dark thought.
I don't deny the darkness in my soul. Sometimes I even revel in it. For the sake of balance, I must embrace it.
*/*
Ever see that movie My Bodyguard?
I saw it as a kid. Matt Dillon, Adam Baldwin, Ruth Gordon, Martin Mull, Chris Makepeace, Joan Cusack-- those are just a few of the names in this lost gem.
It's a simple coming-of-age story set in Chicago, in a high school. A boy is being bullied by a punk, so he enlists the services of the school loner. A friendship blossoms between the loner and the boy, and after a few ups and downs they both learn to stand up for themselves and their respective fears.
The message ultimately celebrates violence as an answer, but as an adult I see a movie like this in a different light. In the perspective of a heroic journey, the climactic showdown is actually necessary. Yes, violence in and of itself begets more violence, but the movie is so wonderfully acted and well-written that a humanity emerges. It doesn't end up being a Popeye scenario, where might means right. Rather, the message is that some things are worth fighting for, such as self-respect and dignity.
Adam Baldwin's performance is absolutely amazing. It's been almost 15 years since I last saw this movie, and his portrayal of the loner with a rumor-laden rep and a dark secret makes the film a moving experience, fraught with all the angst that comes with adolescence (mine in particular).
I mention this movie because it's on TV right now, and I'm watching it. If you haven't ever seen it, rent it or catch it on cable if it's on.
Have a nice weekend, people...
*/*
I read so many Zen stories that I am sated, almost gorged from the generous online helpings. I stopped after a while, because an intriguing pattern began to emerge.
In almost every one of the Zen stories, the Zen Master is a cosmic prankster of sorts. His instructions border on cruelty and mischief, and although he clearly does not delight in tormenting the Zen students who seek enlightenment, I can't help but laugh at the way the Zen Masters seem to be mind-fucking their pupils.
One Zen story centers around a little boy who imitates the gestures of the Zen Master. Every time the master is asked about Zen, he simply holds his index finger up. The boy apes this behavior, until one day the master grabs the boy and cuts off his finger. As the boy runs away and cries in pain, the master calls after him.
When the boy turns around, the Zen Master holds his finger up again. And that, according to the story, is when the boy became enlightened.
Strange, eh?
To the rational mind, this is downright evil. But I get the feeling that Zen resists definition because of the rationalization that our brains develop in order to comprehend the things around us.
I liken Zen to pimping: "The game is to be sold and not to be told" is the pimp's motto. Likewise, my friend Zen Master recently commented, "The Buddha that can be told is not the eternal buddha..."
*/*
I am far from enlightened.
I get jealous, I get angry, I get depressed, I go too far with drink and vice, I shoot off at the mouth, I lose my patience, I rage against the seemingly insurmountable odds, I howl in pain...
I am seeking.
I am a bit of a mind-fucker myself, but I don't think it has to do with being enlightened. Detached, maybe. I know that I am able to go into meditative trances on my own, without thinking or planning it. But that is a far cry from mastery.
I am blind, but I am able to see what others cannot. I can walk into a room and just know. It's as if the invisible lines that connect us all-- that correspond to each of our respective paths --are clearly visible to me and only me.
My daily dilemma is pretending that I don't know what lies within the heart of a person. My problems stem from not being able to reconcile the intent with the presentation. A person can say one thing and do another, and not even be aware of it.
I call them as I see them, and it hurts the ones around me. I am forcing them to deal with things they'd rather not think about, and in a way it's as if I am trying to bring them down with me into the abyss of dark thought.
I don't deny the darkness in my soul. Sometimes I even revel in it. For the sake of balance, I must embrace it.
*/*
Ever see that movie My Bodyguard?
I saw it as a kid. Matt Dillon, Adam Baldwin, Ruth Gordon, Martin Mull, Chris Makepeace, Joan Cusack-- those are just a few of the names in this lost gem.
It's a simple coming-of-age story set in Chicago, in a high school. A boy is being bullied by a punk, so he enlists the services of the school loner. A friendship blossoms between the loner and the boy, and after a few ups and downs they both learn to stand up for themselves and their respective fears.
The message ultimately celebrates violence as an answer, but as an adult I see a movie like this in a different light. In the perspective of a heroic journey, the climactic showdown is actually necessary. Yes, violence in and of itself begets more violence, but the movie is so wonderfully acted and well-written that a humanity emerges. It doesn't end up being a Popeye scenario, where might means right. Rather, the message is that some things are worth fighting for, such as self-respect and dignity.
Adam Baldwin's performance is absolutely amazing. It's been almost 15 years since I last saw this movie, and his portrayal of the loner with a rumor-laden rep and a dark secret makes the film a moving experience, fraught with all the angst that comes with adolescence (mine in particular).
I mention this movie because it's on TV right now, and I'm watching it. If you haven't ever seen it, rent it or catch it on cable if it's on.
Have a nice weekend, people...
Tuesday, January 03, 2006
zen teachings online vol. 1
This one is dedicated to Zen, who has been posting Eastern philosophy on her blog:
A renowned Zen master said that his greatest teaching was this: Buddha is your own mind. So impressed by how profound this idea was, one monk decided to leave the monastery and retreat to the wilderness to meditate on this insight. There he spent 20 years as a hermit probing the great teaching.
One day he met another monk who was traveling through the forest. Quickly the hermit monk learned that the traveler also had studied under the same Zen master. "Please, tell me what you know of the master's greatest teaching." The traveler's eyes lit up, "Ah, the master has been very clear about this. He says that his greatest teaching is this: Buddha is NOT your own mind.
I've got a bunch of these at home, in my three volumes of People's Almanac books written by Book Of Lists authors David Wallace and Irving Wallechinsky. But I found this one online, and what's funny is that there were comments at the bottom, gauging readers' reactions.
Most of the comments were people's thoughts as to who was more correct: the first monk or the second monk. I think it's funny because it's plain to me that they are both correct, which is also to say that they are both wrong.
I will probably post more of these as the week goes on.
*/*
Ever feel like you've been pulled into someone's personal orbit?
I paid a visit last night. I had a veggie sandwich in my hand.
She said the door was open, and I entered, and she was on her bed, watching Kill Bill Vol. 1 and smoking a cigarette.
She put Vol. 2 into the DVD player and we watched it together. No cuddles, no sudden moves...
When I rose to leave after the movie was done, it was as if I was unable to say 'goodbye'. It was one of those prolonged farewells, when you feel like you'll be branded the Ultimate Fool for turning around and closing the door behind you.
We kept talking, standing there, both of us wanting to obey passion's dictates but knowing that it would just send us further down into the mire of our tangled emotions.
Finally, we embraced, and I pulled away slowly, because as much as I wanted to hold her I also knew I couldn't keep holding on for long.
I'll see her tonight. We will work on art. I hope she is smiling, and if she is not-- well, I just hope she'll allow me to make her laugh.
A renowned Zen master said that his greatest teaching was this: Buddha is your own mind. So impressed by how profound this idea was, one monk decided to leave the monastery and retreat to the wilderness to meditate on this insight. There he spent 20 years as a hermit probing the great teaching.
One day he met another monk who was traveling through the forest. Quickly the hermit monk learned that the traveler also had studied under the same Zen master. "Please, tell me what you know of the master's greatest teaching." The traveler's eyes lit up, "Ah, the master has been very clear about this. He says that his greatest teaching is this: Buddha is NOT your own mind.
I've got a bunch of these at home, in my three volumes of People's Almanac books written by Book Of Lists authors David Wallace and Irving Wallechinsky. But I found this one online, and what's funny is that there were comments at the bottom, gauging readers' reactions.
Most of the comments were people's thoughts as to who was more correct: the first monk or the second monk. I think it's funny because it's plain to me that they are both correct, which is also to say that they are both wrong.
I will probably post more of these as the week goes on.
*/*
Ever feel like you've been pulled into someone's personal orbit?
I paid a visit last night. I had a veggie sandwich in my hand.
She said the door was open, and I entered, and she was on her bed, watching Kill Bill Vol. 1 and smoking a cigarette.
She put Vol. 2 into the DVD player and we watched it together. No cuddles, no sudden moves...
When I rose to leave after the movie was done, it was as if I was unable to say 'goodbye'. It was one of those prolonged farewells, when you feel like you'll be branded the Ultimate Fool for turning around and closing the door behind you.
We kept talking, standing there, both of us wanting to obey passion's dictates but knowing that it would just send us further down into the mire of our tangled emotions.
Finally, we embraced, and I pulled away slowly, because as much as I wanted to hold her I also knew I couldn't keep holding on for long.
I'll see her tonight. We will work on art. I hope she is smiling, and if she is not-- well, I just hope she'll allow me to make her laugh.
Monday, January 02, 2006
paradox
I had a great New Year, spent with friends eating hand-rolled shrimp eggrolls, Mahi tuna won-tons, and vegetable stir-fry. We joked that it was our version of the Chinese New Year.
All the food was potlucked and/or prepared at Purple Paulie's house in Topanga Canyon. Eve brought the stir fry and the banana blueberry bread. Paulie, ever the gracious host and eager chef, made everyone in attendance (merely a handful of close friends, a dozen or so people) a serving of creme brulee.
We watched movies, listened to music, played Foosball, and smoked a lot of cigarettes (tobacco and otherwise).
Oh, and there was alcohol. But I didn't drink, because I was the DD.
*/*
The next morning, I made up for my New Year teetotaling by drinking plenty of Newcastle brown ales. Eve and I watched football and had a pretty deep conversation about what we mean to each other. I was an emotional wreck, as usual, and we decided that maybe we were hanging out way too much, even for best friends.
She thinks she hurts me. I tell her that I'm the one who inflicts pain upon myself-- if anything, she saves me from my pain, and that's what hurts: I become too dependent upon her and others to cheer me up when I'm feeling down.
She made me a bookmark. It is beautiful.
I made a casual remark about how I would ask her to marry me if it weren't for the fact that I know what her answer will be. I was pretty drunk when I said this, and it was accompanied by a lot of overdramatic declarations and things I didn't mean... but even I was shocked by my admission.
You have to understand: I have never wanted to get married. Ever.
Not even to Amy Coates, who is married and a mother now.
Nope. Never cared for that.
So why was I talking about it to Eve? Because someone who doesn't know Eve and I that well recently asked me me if I was nuts for not asking her for her hand in marriage. I have never entertained such ideas because I'm real good at throwing the case out before it gets heard. But this time, I let the person speak, and they had good points.
The only problem is, this person hasn't known either of us for very long, and therefore does not know that Eve and I both have an inability to trust people.
She has her reasons, I have mine.
*/*
Speaking of Amy Coates for a second...
The reason why we missed each other on Tuesday was totally my fault. We had agreed to meet around 8pm in front of the P.F. Chang's in the Galleria where I work. But as the time drew nearer, I became... nervous.
Amy had quite a hold on me when we were together. I was afraid that I would somehow get hurt again. Possibly, I wouldn't have been able to handle the reality that she is married and living in Santa Fe, raising a child and living the life she has always wanted.
That could be another reason why marriage has been looming in my mind. But I digress.
Around a quarter to 8, I received a phone call. I thought it was Amy.
It was Eve.
She knew I was going to meet Amy and just wanted to call and say 'hello'.
I suspected there was more to it, because Eve was raving about some good luck concerning one of her acting side projects and was in the mood to semi-celebrate. I told Eve that I hadn't heard from Amy, which was technically true...
"Didn't she flake out on you last time?" Eve asked me.
And I remembered that, yes, she did. The last time she was in town, she told me she would call me to get together. I waited for her call. She never contacted me. Then, when days had passed and I e-mailed her asking if she had tried to get a hold of me, I received a reply from Amy that was a complete flashback to those frustrating days spent arguing with her, splitting the finest of hairs, squabbling over petty bullshit.
Her basic response was that she had to deal with her baby and her husband and simply didn't have any time for me, and that I shouldn't be so immature about it.
I told Eve that, if Amy didn't call me at 7:50pm, I would leave work and meet her at Denny's for a meal. I didn't have Amy's cel phone number because she never gave it to me, so I couldn't call her and see if she was still coming.
At 7:51 I called Eve to inform her I was leaving. She answered the phone and playfully asked, "It's 7:51-- why are you still at work?"
Later on, Eve denied that she was trying to divert my attention away, and I believe her. But, I think she was wondering in the back of her mind if I would make the right choice. Eve did the right thing by giving me a choice to make, even if she was silently rooting for me to come to her and not go to Amy.
My philosophy as of late has been to go where I am wanted. Eve wanted me to be with her; Amy was expecting me to be there.
I stood Amy up.
When I got home later that night, Amy had left a message. She had waited for an hour before leaving. She sounded angry.
I felt a little bad about that. But not that bad...
*/*
Friday afternoon, Amy left me a message on my answering machine, in regards to my apology and my offer for a make-up dinner that night:
"It's Amy. I'm calling to say that tonight isn't going to work. My family's all coming over tonight, and everyone's going to be here. I might've been more enthusiastic, however, if I hadn't been left waiting for an hour outside of P.F. Chang's, in the freezing cold. That may have something to do with it, I don't know. Happy New Year."
That left my evening open. I called Eve to see what time she was coming back from Murietta. She had left her work early to make the drive down there, as part of the good news she received earlier this week.
When I got her on the phone, she sounded angry. Her boss had been a dick to her, calling her up to remind her that she had left a project incomplete before she left. Eve, who works very hard and takes her boss' shit daily, screamed at him over the phone. Her boss, knowing he had stepped over the line, promptly apologized to her.
Then, she received a call from the people she was driving out to see: the event had been postponed. Eve had already made it halfway out there, in terrible pre-New Year traffic, for naught.
I told her to drive back and meet me at In-N-Out Burger, where I'd buy her a grilled cheese sandwich served "animal style". This made her happy. By the time we were back at her place, our bellies were full and her soul was calmer.
I didn't spend the night. I got up to leave, and as I leaned over to tell her I was going, I accidentally nudged her too hard. She awoke with a fright, her facial expression one of terror. I inadvertantly laughed and then I hugged her and apologized for scaring her.
I let her sleep. We were going to see each other the next day anyway...
*/*
The paradox of my relationship with Eve is that, while we are busy calling ourselves 'best friends', we are acting more like a couple.
For example: I would never watch a movie with any of my guy friends while cuddling on the couch or in bed.
Also: I would never give soft, close-mouthed kisses to my guy friends as a way of passing the time.
And we have been near-inseparable for the past three weeks.
We are fooling oursleves. Neither of us wants to let go or lose control of our lives. And we have good reason to believe that. I agree with Eve that right now a relationship is the worst thing for her. And I know that if I were seeing anyone right now, all the emotional shit I pile on Eve's back would instantly transfer over.
Only thing is, I don't know many girls who would tolerate me the way Eve does. Likewise, I am one of the few people Eve trusts... and I still manage to hurt and disappoint her regularly.
I really don't know what's to become of us in the upcoming year. But at least Eve and I are aware of one thing: we cannot stay away from each other. She doesn't want to be involved, but she finds herself allowing more and more. I keep going back on my words when it comes to staying detached.
We are so stupid. Why can't we get over ourselves? Are we doomed to be Jerry & Elaine for the rest of our lives? Will we be the non-FBI version of Mulder & Scully?
*/*
Two things that Eve said, two things that blew my mind:
1) When I said that maybe we should keep a little distance until a certain date, she refused, saying "One day at a time. That's how we have to take it."
2) When I said that I was part of a past she needed to get over, she said "You're not the same person you were ten years ago. Am I the same person you knew ten years ago?" I had to say no.
Because this is something that isn't easy to dissect, I am going to minimize my blog entries about Eve for a while. It has nothing to do with privacy. It has to do with trying to give voice to complicated desires and feelings.
I will still write about it, but in muted tones, and with abstract imagery.
*/*
This past week has been emotionally draining, not just for me but for others. I had dinner with Laurie and Daniel a few nights ago, and Daniel was feeling blue about all the red tape that keeps him from having a job in the States (he is British). The same red tape also disallows him from traveling back home to visit his family.
I sat up with him and got drunk as we shot the shit and opened up to each other. Being an English male, Daniel was embarrassed about being emotionally vulnerable, but I reassured him that it was normal, and that I have an emotional breakdown "every two weeks, it seems".
Everyone was feeling dragged down by one thing or another. But now the calendar has announced that 2005-- that vicious ogre --lies dead, in ruins, rotting away. 2006 is here, and although it's just another day in the scheme of things, it's also a nice opportunity to seize upon in order to make badly-needed changes in one's life.
It's not really a time to reflect, at least for me: I seem to reflect constantly, like a prism fixed upon the re-examination of nostalgia. As a writer, I strip-mine the past in order to have spare parts for my future literary vehicles.
But my head is swirling with new ideas, different notions, foreign concepts that suddenly have relevance to my life. And when that type of stuff starts happening, I find it more convenient to write less and live more. Then, when something remarkable has come about as a result of all of this transition and change, I can play catch-up and write it all down.
I will still blog, obviously.
I hope all of you had a wonderful New Year celebration, no matter where you were.
All the food was potlucked and/or prepared at Purple Paulie's house in Topanga Canyon. Eve brought the stir fry and the banana blueberry bread. Paulie, ever the gracious host and eager chef, made everyone in attendance (merely a handful of close friends, a dozen or so people) a serving of creme brulee.
We watched movies, listened to music, played Foosball, and smoked a lot of cigarettes (tobacco and otherwise).
Oh, and there was alcohol. But I didn't drink, because I was the DD.
*/*
The next morning, I made up for my New Year teetotaling by drinking plenty of Newcastle brown ales. Eve and I watched football and had a pretty deep conversation about what we mean to each other. I was an emotional wreck, as usual, and we decided that maybe we were hanging out way too much, even for best friends.
She thinks she hurts me. I tell her that I'm the one who inflicts pain upon myself-- if anything, she saves me from my pain, and that's what hurts: I become too dependent upon her and others to cheer me up when I'm feeling down.
She made me a bookmark. It is beautiful.
I made a casual remark about how I would ask her to marry me if it weren't for the fact that I know what her answer will be. I was pretty drunk when I said this, and it was accompanied by a lot of overdramatic declarations and things I didn't mean... but even I was shocked by my admission.
You have to understand: I have never wanted to get married. Ever.
Not even to Amy Coates, who is married and a mother now.
Nope. Never cared for that.
So why was I talking about it to Eve? Because someone who doesn't know Eve and I that well recently asked me me if I was nuts for not asking her for her hand in marriage. I have never entertained such ideas because I'm real good at throwing the case out before it gets heard. But this time, I let the person speak, and they had good points.
The only problem is, this person hasn't known either of us for very long, and therefore does not know that Eve and I both have an inability to trust people.
She has her reasons, I have mine.
*/*
Speaking of Amy Coates for a second...
The reason why we missed each other on Tuesday was totally my fault. We had agreed to meet around 8pm in front of the P.F. Chang's in the Galleria where I work. But as the time drew nearer, I became... nervous.
Amy had quite a hold on me when we were together. I was afraid that I would somehow get hurt again. Possibly, I wouldn't have been able to handle the reality that she is married and living in Santa Fe, raising a child and living the life she has always wanted.
That could be another reason why marriage has been looming in my mind. But I digress.
Around a quarter to 8, I received a phone call. I thought it was Amy.
It was Eve.
She knew I was going to meet Amy and just wanted to call and say 'hello'.
I suspected there was more to it, because Eve was raving about some good luck concerning one of her acting side projects and was in the mood to semi-celebrate. I told Eve that I hadn't heard from Amy, which was technically true...
"Didn't she flake out on you last time?" Eve asked me.
And I remembered that, yes, she did. The last time she was in town, she told me she would call me to get together. I waited for her call. She never contacted me. Then, when days had passed and I e-mailed her asking if she had tried to get a hold of me, I received a reply from Amy that was a complete flashback to those frustrating days spent arguing with her, splitting the finest of hairs, squabbling over petty bullshit.
Her basic response was that she had to deal with her baby and her husband and simply didn't have any time for me, and that I shouldn't be so immature about it.
I told Eve that, if Amy didn't call me at 7:50pm, I would leave work and meet her at Denny's for a meal. I didn't have Amy's cel phone number because she never gave it to me, so I couldn't call her and see if she was still coming.
At 7:51 I called Eve to inform her I was leaving. She answered the phone and playfully asked, "It's 7:51-- why are you still at work?"
Later on, Eve denied that she was trying to divert my attention away, and I believe her. But, I think she was wondering in the back of her mind if I would make the right choice. Eve did the right thing by giving me a choice to make, even if she was silently rooting for me to come to her and not go to Amy.
My philosophy as of late has been to go where I am wanted. Eve wanted me to be with her; Amy was expecting me to be there.
I stood Amy up.
When I got home later that night, Amy had left a message. She had waited for an hour before leaving. She sounded angry.
I felt a little bad about that. But not that bad...
*/*
Friday afternoon, Amy left me a message on my answering machine, in regards to my apology and my offer for a make-up dinner that night:
"It's Amy. I'm calling to say that tonight isn't going to work. My family's all coming over tonight, and everyone's going to be here. I might've been more enthusiastic, however, if I hadn't been left waiting for an hour outside of P.F. Chang's, in the freezing cold. That may have something to do with it, I don't know. Happy New Year."
That left my evening open. I called Eve to see what time she was coming back from Murietta. She had left her work early to make the drive down there, as part of the good news she received earlier this week.
When I got her on the phone, she sounded angry. Her boss had been a dick to her, calling her up to remind her that she had left a project incomplete before she left. Eve, who works very hard and takes her boss' shit daily, screamed at him over the phone. Her boss, knowing he had stepped over the line, promptly apologized to her.
Then, she received a call from the people she was driving out to see: the event had been postponed. Eve had already made it halfway out there, in terrible pre-New Year traffic, for naught.
I told her to drive back and meet me at In-N-Out Burger, where I'd buy her a grilled cheese sandwich served "animal style". This made her happy. By the time we were back at her place, our bellies were full and her soul was calmer.
I didn't spend the night. I got up to leave, and as I leaned over to tell her I was going, I accidentally nudged her too hard. She awoke with a fright, her facial expression one of terror. I inadvertantly laughed and then I hugged her and apologized for scaring her.
I let her sleep. We were going to see each other the next day anyway...
*/*
The paradox of my relationship with Eve is that, while we are busy calling ourselves 'best friends', we are acting more like a couple.
For example: I would never watch a movie with any of my guy friends while cuddling on the couch or in bed.
Also: I would never give soft, close-mouthed kisses to my guy friends as a way of passing the time.
And we have been near-inseparable for the past three weeks.
We are fooling oursleves. Neither of us wants to let go or lose control of our lives. And we have good reason to believe that. I agree with Eve that right now a relationship is the worst thing for her. And I know that if I were seeing anyone right now, all the emotional shit I pile on Eve's back would instantly transfer over.
Only thing is, I don't know many girls who would tolerate me the way Eve does. Likewise, I am one of the few people Eve trusts... and I still manage to hurt and disappoint her regularly.
I really don't know what's to become of us in the upcoming year. But at least Eve and I are aware of one thing: we cannot stay away from each other. She doesn't want to be involved, but she finds herself allowing more and more. I keep going back on my words when it comes to staying detached.
We are so stupid. Why can't we get over ourselves? Are we doomed to be Jerry & Elaine for the rest of our lives? Will we be the non-FBI version of Mulder & Scully?
*/*
Two things that Eve said, two things that blew my mind:
1) When I said that maybe we should keep a little distance until a certain date, she refused, saying "One day at a time. That's how we have to take it."
2) When I said that I was part of a past she needed to get over, she said "You're not the same person you were ten years ago. Am I the same person you knew ten years ago?" I had to say no.
Because this is something that isn't easy to dissect, I am going to minimize my blog entries about Eve for a while. It has nothing to do with privacy. It has to do with trying to give voice to complicated desires and feelings.
I will still write about it, but in muted tones, and with abstract imagery.
*/*
This past week has been emotionally draining, not just for me but for others. I had dinner with Laurie and Daniel a few nights ago, and Daniel was feeling blue about all the red tape that keeps him from having a job in the States (he is British). The same red tape also disallows him from traveling back home to visit his family.
I sat up with him and got drunk as we shot the shit and opened up to each other. Being an English male, Daniel was embarrassed about being emotionally vulnerable, but I reassured him that it was normal, and that I have an emotional breakdown "every two weeks, it seems".
Everyone was feeling dragged down by one thing or another. But now the calendar has announced that 2005-- that vicious ogre --lies dead, in ruins, rotting away. 2006 is here, and although it's just another day in the scheme of things, it's also a nice opportunity to seize upon in order to make badly-needed changes in one's life.
It's not really a time to reflect, at least for me: I seem to reflect constantly, like a prism fixed upon the re-examination of nostalgia. As a writer, I strip-mine the past in order to have spare parts for my future literary vehicles.
But my head is swirling with new ideas, different notions, foreign concepts that suddenly have relevance to my life. And when that type of stuff starts happening, I find it more convenient to write less and live more. Then, when something remarkable has come about as a result of all of this transition and change, I can play catch-up and write it all down.
I will still blog, obviously.
I hope all of you had a wonderful New Year celebration, no matter where you were.
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