This is where I found out what work was. What it was like to lose. And what it was like to win. I saw holes cut in the ceiling by people who I will kill dead and buried if I ever catch their eyes. And I wish i could go here, back to that time and sit and talk to you. One more time. Just once more, just to see the laughter in your eyes. The shine. The love. They used you until you couldn't be taken any more and then you grabbed me and asked me to have fun. To live my life. And I never talked to you again. The last time I saw you, you grabbed my hands and begged me to take out your tubes and pull the plug. Your eyes were gone, away, and your grip was death. I don't ever want to remember you in the way the world made you.

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Your glory days were 1948. At least you had them, old man.

Congratulations, haircutter of the year.

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Spinning turning yelling throwing up.

Grab that brass ring, asshole.

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This is where all the cool kids hand out.

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They put me in charge of the exit doors. Can you believe that?

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I got off that stuff. Just like you asked me to.

I was listening to this song once and realized that it was my life. That was 15 years ago. I should have listened harder.

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He rides next to me, unaware that his life will change. That this is a lifelong blind date. Someday, I will be his dad. And he will be my son. But today, he is just riding in my car.

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You see a cute bee. I see the end of all life. You say tomato. I say toh-mato.

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Johnny Thunders sang, "You can't put your arms around a memory."
Buddha said, "He who loves 50 people has 50 woes; he who loves no one has no woes."
I say that what does not exist was never really there.

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You know that part where Johnny Cash is all fucked up on pills and breaks all the lights at the Grand Ole Opry?

If there were lights along where I worked, I'd be doing the same fucking thing.

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I imagine that all the past versions of me exist in a long hallway, posed for display like statues that depict crucial moments in my life. I laugh at every single one of them. Someday, who I am now will join them, and who I am then in the future will mock me for my innate stupidity and lack of common sense. Under each statue, I see a title. Some of them are easy to read. Young me. 16 year old me. Arty me. But none of them are me and none of them ever really were. I am only who I am now and that me is a free floating blob of colorswirl treading into abstract canvas. Or something. The future me will laugh at how stupid and pretentious and sappy I am. And the me beyond that will be angry that I ever called myself stupid. I hope that as the statues get older, you won't be able to see the roadmap I've made of my arms and the tiremarks all over me.

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Cut off my fingers. Right through to the bone. It would make it easier to get the words out of my head. I feel like there used to be a straight line from words to keyboard. And now, no amount of your substance of choice can get the words right. I feel like a brick wall of hazy fog has been constructed behind my eyes and that I have to grab a plastic pail and childhood sand building implements to slowly tear it down. I feel like every door and passageway is blocked, closed or under construction. I have everything to say and nothing to tell anyone, because words can't make a difference.

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I can drive all night and I do, the music on the radio making a soundtrack for my bald tires dancing across unfeeling concrete.

"So drunk in the August sun," and the next two lines are empty in the best way possible. "I've been sitting here too long and I've been wasted."

I hope that the songs last longer than my eyes, as they slowly droop, windows open, I don't want silver or gold. I just want to get home.

And Issac is singing "No, cos I know the score broke my back." I pray to the gods of music to get me back to my safe street, somewhere far away. What do they have for me?

I scan the dial look for meaning when we all know that nothing means anything.

"Then I fell asleep in the city kept blinking." And "But still I'd be lying if I said it wasn't easy." Static. Feedback. Whirl. Silence. Tires on the median, quick save, windows down, slap yourself in the face to stay awake.

Thank God for Win. Screaming me into alertness, "before they turn the summer into dust."

The voices keep me awake as I careen into the early spring night, no destination in mind, no map in hand, just hoping it doesn't get too foggy.

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It was an elective surgery. As much as any surgery can be. I didn't want to watch this one, because I watched the last surgery in reflection in the light above me and I never recovered. I didn't want to watch them open up my brain and slice little pieces out or scrape around my skull, finding the elements of me that I no longer needed. They asked me if I wanted the pieces and parts to keep and put on my desk in a jar of formaldehyde, so I could watch their floating dance through viscous fluids, but i said no. I have no interest in watching parts of me that I never needed.

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Orson Welles said, "Tell it by the fireside or in a marketplace or in a movie, almost any story is almost certainly some kind of lie."

So should I tell you the story of the boy who sat in mortal fear that the sun would stop burning in 5 billion years. Long after he was dust and faded away into the wind.

Or would you rather hear the one about the man who ran away to somewhere no one even speaks words?

I have a million stories. Most of them are lies.

Perhaps I could regale you with the story of falling asleep at the wheel and driving off a bridge. Maybe you'll find a moral inside it.

I don't know. That one is kind of fuzzy, even for me.

Of all the stories that have happened in my life, I don't believe any of them. Everything that happens to me is an inherent mistruth. But it depends on who tells the story.

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Discretion is the better part of valor. And cowardice, too.

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Sometimes I wake up and I feel like a child. I see the world as a magical place filled with surprises at every turn. Colors are brighter and you know there is a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. The problem you see, is when you open yourself up to magic and the unseen you get the good with the bad. Sinister things lurking in the cold night air. That feeling that you aren't alone. Trust me brother. You aren't. The type of creatures that hide their treasures at the end of a rainbow will shank you over a pot of gold for sure.

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I have whole boxes full of things that I don't want to look at but can't bring myself to throw away. Such is the lack of recycling even within my own life.

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A confession. My OCD was so bad when I was a kid that I felt as if I had to touch everything because I may never get a chance to touch it again. In retrospect, I can understand this. There are places that you wished that you were still welcome at, after all. It's a hodgepodge, really, that OCD. It comes from the fact that you cannot control the world and that you fear change. You then try and control things that you can. I can control touching an object before I leave the room. I can control doing things in even numbers. I always worried the worst would happen if I fell short of the tasks fate had for me to do, in what order I had to do them. It's crippling. Some days, it was a struggle to get out of bed and get ready. I am doing my best to corral it now, because I realize bad things will happen no matter how many times I mumble out phrases or have panic attacks. I think it was all a naive belief that magic could be real and guide our lives in some fashion. Now, I just try and go through my day and don't think about the significance of how I walk into a room or how many steps it takes, because it doesn't matter.

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My uncle used to just throw garbage out his window. Open the window and just throw a whole bag out, without a care as to what was inside it. It used to impress me.

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I write under the influence of music. My favorite song to write to is "Sometimes" by My Bloody Valentine. It's hard to even understand what the words are. I looked them up.

Close my eyes
Feel me now
I don't know how you could not love me now
You will know, with her feet down to the ground
Over there, and I want true love to grow
You can't hide, oh no, from the way I feel

Turn my head
Into sound
I don't know when I lay down on the ground
You will find the (way it) hurts to love
Never cared, and the world turned hearts to love
We will see, oh now, in a day or two
You will wait
See me go
I don't care, where your head turned (I don't know)
You will wait, when I turn my eyes around
Overhead when I hold you next to me
Overhead, to know the way I see

Close my eyes
Feel me now
I don't know, maybe you could not hurt me now
Here alone, when I feel down too
Over there, when I await true love for you
You can hide, oh now, the way I do
You can see, oh now, oh the way I do

If you've never heard the song, it is playing in Lost In Translation when the female protagonist is staring out of the window into the neon light of Japan.

It's worth noting that My Bloody Valentine bankrupted a company making this album and never made another one. They also all got deaf from playing so loud.

It is a swirl to me. A swirl of fuzz and noise. It allows my words to spill from my head.

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Smile on a dog

They say that you go through a dip in faith in your life. When you are young, you are very connected to God. Maybe because you have been to Heaven and just left there or whatever bullshit fairy tale you would like to believe. When you are older, you are getting closer to dying and therefore, must stop thinking that it is a bullshit fairy tale and have faith.

In the middle, you are wrestling with doubt as surely as Jacob wrestled with an angel. If that's true. I'm not entirely sure.

Belief is a funny thing. You can feel very connected to some force at time and place your faith in it. I pray every day. And I don't believe in God any more and I still pray every single day. Maybe it's a force of habit. Maybe it's me hoping that when I pray, I'll see some sign or hear God's voice. But all I hear is my own voice.

Jesus said to Thomas, "Blessed are those who did not see and still believe."

Conventional wisdom says that you should not test the Lord, your God.

When I was a kid, I would get the shakes when I would think of dying. It goes away. I don't even worry about it any more. Fuck, as I've said before, I have willingly placed my fate in whatever guides this universe and done stupid, foolish things.

I will ruminate over this as I sing XTC at karaoke.

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Going the wrong way in a city I have never been to going somewhere I have never gone singing songs I know out loud and off key. When I file the footnotes in my memory, that is the one that I will turn to the most often.

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A red door signifies that the home welcomes visitors. Irish people believe it keeps ghosts away. Some people just like to walk through doors. Others want to figure out why it is the color that it is.

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Days away from my first dog. I wonder if I will be a good dad. Because other than cats, and now this dog, this is it when it comes to parenting. Sure, I can rent your kids for the night. But I always am shy holding babies. I worry their heads will fall off. You know, that's an unfound fear. And then you pick up a baby and the head falls off. I told you so.

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Once digital TV came in, people stopped latchhooking rugs. Which is a fucking shame. I liked the Hulk rug.

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One By One

I had my contacts in and there was a mirror and I did not recognize myself any more.

The me that I draw is not me any more.

I have grown up, my face is not angular. My mouth is not angry. My eyes have lost a little of their sparkle. That's what I noticed. It wasn't age. It just looked like they couldn't focus properly any more. That they were half open slits staring back at me telling me to look away.

Maybe.

Maybe the reflection in the mirror is not you.

Maybe the reflection is another dimension and we are drawn to the mirror at the same time, our only connection through reality. Am I drawn to the mirror or is he drawn to me?

Why does he look at me like that?

Ask him for me.

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I have found the moments in my life where I am most sure of myself is when I am doing the absolute worst thing for myself. When I throw myself as hard as I can into the unforgiving ground. That, there, in the seconds before impact, is some of the peace that I find. And I can never explain it to you or anyone else. Because for a second, just a brief second, I enjoy how my body feels. Because when I get up, I might not get up. And that's the test. The test to see if I can cheat again.

The thrill of it is like a drug. Better.

The older I get, the less I believe that I am immortal. My hair has gone white, aches and pains fill my sleepless nights. I worry sometimes that I will never figure out life.

That's why I seek those brief moments. Because there are very few people who can do what I do. And I celebrate it. I'm a survivor, whether I want to acknowledge that or not. Now, almost all that I have survived was created by my own doing. I know that now.

Someday soon, I want to find that peace without feeling the need to giggle in death's face. You have to figure that sooner or later, this body is going to give out or I am going to run out of lives. And the older I get, the less fun it is to crawl along the floor and try and stand up.

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Sometimes, even the way you remember things is tenuous. You are both the narrator and hero of your story. But you aren't omniscient and you are flawed. Even when you look back at shining moments, perhaps they were fuzzy and cloudy. Or maybe right now is the best time of your life and you'll never see it. Maybe right now is better than six months ago. And six months from now, well, that could be better. Or worse. Life is like a bucket over the falls. You know you will probably die, get hurt and not walk away from it. But then again, it's pretty fun to throw yourself into fate. To give up worry and control for once. Dorris Day sang about it once. It might have sounded very happy. Maybe it was. Or maybe she was crying when she sang it.

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I'm five years away from my mid-life crisis. Well, unless I'm going to die next week, which means I had my mid-life crisis at 17.

I remember what I was like at 17.

Shit, I really am going to die next week.

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The way to the river was covered with ice and snow. Impassible, just about. It's a good thing there was a rail. The water below was ice ridden. Nothing moved, save the soft snow floating into the ground, rising against the sky.

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Friday, the snow was so heavy I thought I wouldn't get out of town.
Today, they are feeding the trees into a woodchipper.

I just wrote woopchipper instead of woodchipper.
I would probably like this device more if it was called a woopchipper.

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I'd like to say there was some artistic reason behind this, but the truth is, I just thought that the light bulbs looked pretty as the snow fell.

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Even Mary will turn her back on you sometimes. I think this one glows in the dark, so this one doesn't count.

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