The Indecisive, Conflicted Life of

There is free wireless at this Holiday Inn. It's these little discoveries that keep me going, I'm sure of it.

Yesterday I read a book. Yeah, a whole book. It was nice-- I forgot how much I like doing that. Just sitting down with a book and reading it. Minimal interruption, taking it all in. "The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao" by Junot Diaz, before you ask (as I'm sure you were about to). Do I recommend it? Do you think you've ever been in love?

It brings up something interesting, though. The title character, a socially awkward and overweight Dominican sci-fi/fantasy enthusiast, has the bizarre but beautiful habit of falling in love with all of the many women who pass through his life. As endearing is this is, Mr. Diaz' theme works in near direct conflict with one of Mr. Sheff's (Yeah. Will Sheff. Okkervil River. My hero.)

Will writes, (as the album name of what is, in my opinion, the best OR record) "Don't Fall In Love With Everyone You See" But Oscar did just that, in the story of his brief, wondrous life. And it was magical. Beautiful and fucking-- innocent. The purity of man in possession of so much love despite the absence of its reciprocation.

So who's right?

I don't know. But while I think Will is right to warn us, but I get the feeling he believes as strongly as I am beginning to that we all fall in love a hundred times in our lives. Hell, I'm talking a dozen times a day. Maybe not Oscar's love, the awkward forwardness of the unkissed and looking to become lost, but the kind of love that comes from looking upward out the back windshield of your buddy's car from the backseat. Or from simultaneous laughter. I think I fall in love every time I buy a damn coffee.

It's like wanting something so bad you build it. It isn't the same but that's what I've got. Somewhere, there's a perfect balance between care and discretion-- and the capacity to have and share all that love.

Unconventional, yeah. But some nice thoughts, I think.

I'm in Florida. But not the Florida with beaches and bikinis and Disney characters. Nope. The other Florida. I haven't seen anyone older than 7 or younger than 45 sans my sister and random waitresses in 3 days. But I'm getting some reading done. And reminding myself why I'm no "family" man-- despite how badly I want to be one.

I wonder if I'll ever write that novel.


Bomb the blogosphere,
Mike

Jesus, etc.

Christ is dry on my tongue and I am a puddle of digression.

I am, perhaps, the term personified. As if a single one of us isn't, now. Catholics
in his house, kneeling and thinking that in the morning we'll draw straws

to see who makes the omelets. We're a splatter of pea coats and sweaters
and hairloss. Too in-between the ages that remember Jesus. The Nicene

Creed is projected on the wall because we don't know it. It should
have been in Latin like I've heard it used to be for all the good we did it.

And I remember Jimmy, telling me with a mouth full of Dutchmaster
that you have to keep it wet so it won't rip. His thumbs working to crack the spine

and spill the dirt and the shit onto the floor. Like a surgeon. Or
maybe like something else, which escapes me. And I remember Junior

year, and how stupid I was. I wonder if I'm as stupid now. Now
that I've come full-circle on the subject of intimacy and landed

nowhere. Like it won't change tomorrow. Like it ever stops. Maybe
it's the way things move around me when the bathroom is dank that makes

people climb out of their people-costumes and stop reciting Shakespeare.
And when someone puts The New Radicals on I feel my own people-costume feather

like molted spiderwebs-- crumbling under the implications of the past
tense and exactly what it is to be too anything. Late, late, late--

like my grandmother who always asked how my girlfriend was. I would protest
at the embarrassment of being eleven and treated like I thought about girls like that

(which I did). Now I think I'd lie. "She's fine, Grandma. Beautiful." And maybe
she'd smile. As I write I realize grandma never met a girlfriend. As big an injustice

as any. Jimmy's name isn't Jimmy. But the idea is the same-- the tongue, like
it intended to send a letter. And I remember cracking the window and toweling

the door. And I remember Father's homily about being God's great masterpiece
and thinking it bullshit. And I remember the great sadness of regret

and the way it all rushed back like if Central America stopped and the East became
the West like it sometimes does in songs about believing. The sex

and how it wasn't important like the music was.

And I remember standing in the upstairs E wing
as I was recited lines I knew by heart.

Bring back album-based music!

The following are the top ten most important albums to my life, thus far.

10. "Films About Ghosts" by Counting Crows
"Oh, well happy new year's baby
We could probably fix it if we clean it up all day
Or we could simply pack our bags
and catch a plane to Barcelona 'cause this city's a drag."
Counting Crows put on the best live show I've ever seen. The experience was moving in ways I couldn't have expected from a band I wasn't even there for. It became clear during a particularly riveting rendition on "Mrs. Potter's Lullaby" why Goo Goo Dolls open for them.

9. "Enema of the State" by Blink 182
"I haven't been this scared
In a long time
And I'm so unprepared
So here's your valentine."
I wouldn't play guitar if it wasn't for Tom Delonge. No two-ways about it. And while I can't remember if it was "Dammit" by this band or "Brown-Eyed Girl" by Van Morrison that was my first learned, I can accredit the effort to Blink. This album appealed in every way to the middle-school kid in me who didn't get girls and just wanted to be a middle-school kid making mistakes and being vulgar and being young.

8. "Greetings From Asbury Park" by Bruce Springsteen
"I stood stone-like at midnight,
suspended in my masquerade
I combed my hair till it was just right
and commanded the night brigade"
For years, this was the CD I played while in my Dad's truck. For entire trips to various campgrounds and back again, Bruce accompanied. It's pretty safe to say that when I started really writing songs I wanted to be the next Bruce Springsteen. Today I hope to one day hold a candle to him.

7. "What It Is To Burn" by Finch
"Stay with me
Cigarettes and open air, hand in hand
I said stay with me
'Cause every star that I see is brighter than the last"
This album IS my freshman year of high school. I got turned on to it by a sophomore in my drama class and, I guess, I haven't been the same since. It was my first exposure to "emo" or whatever it was and I loved it. I went through an elitist classic rock period junior year and I can't even express how refreshing its been to come back to this album. Like coming home by walking backwards.

6. "Your Favorite Weapon" by Brand New
"And is that what you call a getaway?
Tell me what you got away with
Cause you left the frays from the ties you severed
when you say "best friends" means friends forever"
If "What It Is To Burn" is my freshman year, "Your Favorite Weapon" was sophomore. Yes, "Deja Entendu" is "better." But this isn't about that. This record put poetry to my frustrations for the first real time, I think. I covered songs from it in my first "band" at my first "show," the local Cornerstone Cafe.

5. "I'm Wide Awake, It's Morning" by Bright Eyes
"The end of paralysis, I was a statuette
Now I'm drunk as hell on a piano bench
And when I press the keys it all gets reversed
The sound of loneliness makes me happier."
I accidented upon Bright Eyes by perusing shared networks on iTunes last year. I found myself listening to strangers' libraries more frequently than my own. It's all about the lyrics and I'm always so thrilled when people get that. Conor Oberst is the artist I'm most frequently compared to, and be that meant positively or negatively... I'll take it.

4. "(What's the Story?) Morning Glory" by Oasis
"All your dreams are made
When you're chained to the mirror with the razor blade
Today's the day that all the world will see"
Oasis is the first band I ever went to see with friends. I'll never ever ever forget it. Taking the train, eating at Nathans in Penn Station, noticing the British kids behind us smoking weed, Jet, crescent moon tambourines, and Ultimate the next morning. How perfect.


3. "Yankee Hotel Foxtrot" by Wilco
"The cash machine is blue and green
For a hundred in twenties and a small service fee
I could spend three dollars and sixty-three cents
On Diet Coca-Cola and unlit cigarettes"
My album I'm currently wearing out. It's so working/middle-class. So earnest. So midwestern. I tell people I want to move to Oregon or Nebraska. It's because of the worlds that exist in these songs. Wilco is from Illinois but it's a universal things for the middle-Americans I think. Something I've never gotten, having lived only on coasts. A slower life, a big sky life.

2. "Black Sheep Boy" by Okkervil River
"So why
did you flee?
Don’t you know you can’t leave his control
only call all his wild works your own?
So come back and we’ll take them all on.
So come back to your life on the lam.
So come back to your old black sheep man."
It occurs to my how much I owe Apple for my musical taste. I happened upon Okkervil River on an iTunes radio station. The first song I heard was "Black." OR is my favorite band. There's just nothing I can say that can express what their songs have done for me.

1. "The Blue Album" by Weezer
"You walk up to her.
Ask her to dance.
She says, "Hey, baby, I just might take the chance."
You say, 'It's a good thing
That you float in the air...
That way there's no way I will crush your pretty toenails into a thousand pieces.'"
I was on a Boy Scout canoeing trip. I was maybe eleven or twelve. My dad and I were carpooling with another family. The other kid in the car was a couple years older than me and on the ride home he asked his dad if he could change the music. After a nod of his dad's head he slipped in a cassette. For the next two or three hours I listened to "The Blue Album" three or four times, interrupted only by the clicking as the car's cassette deck flipped it every five songs. I would have never gotten into rock music, never mind alternative rock music, had it not been for this experience. It's still close to me, despite Weezer's decline. And I think it always will be.

So, to summarize, my life by album:
Middle School: "Enema of the State" by Blink 182
9th Grade: "What It Is To Burn" by Finch
10th Grade: "Your Favorite Weapon" by Brand New
11th Grade: "(What's the Story?) Morning Glory" by Oasis
12th Grade: "Black Sheep Boy" by Okkervil River
Freshman: "I'm Wide Awake, It's Morning" by Bright Eyes
Sophomore (s0 far): "Yankee Hotel Foxtrot" by Wilco

Hm.

Bomb the blogosphere,
Mike

On the surgical stage

Aside: This note will be composed of disjointed, largely unrelated but nevertheless applicable one-liners. Sorry. This is going to end up highly confessional. Really, don't read it. Sorry. /Aside

How is it that I can surround myself with people and still feel lonely? It's possible that I'm just not good at convincing myself that I'm supported.

Pretentious people are the most self-conscious and insecure.

I am probably pretentious.

I am probably not as pretentious as I seem sometimes. But maybe I am.

There's little better than being proven wrong on a bad first impression. There's little worse than being proven wrong about a good first impression. Being proven right doesn't really make me feel any more or less of anything. Except maybe cynical.

If you asked me what I looked for in a girl the first thing I would think of would be a mutant Audrey Hepburn/Jenny Lewis and the first thing I'd say would be, "I don't really know."

If you asked me again I would say, "cute, sweet, well read and listened, honest, and in possession of a good, honest laugh." What I would mean to say would be, "cuddler, handholder, lyrics-quoter, and whisperer." What I would really mean would be, "crazy about me." And I would picture sweaters and sidebangs. But those aren't really important.

I think sidebangs are so cute because foreheads are so funny looking.

I'm too picky.

When I find out that someone told me something because it's what I wanted to hear, while they told a party with a conflicting opinion that they agree with them, I get deeply hurt.

Some of the behaviors that bother me the most are behaviors I would adopt given the right circumstance. That makes me feel horrible. But I don't think it's really so bad to be jealous as long as you're honest about it.

Coupland is right. Dogs are beautiful because they never fall out of love.

People are always telling me not to worry about what others think of me-- that I'm amazing and people just don't realize it-- that I've just gotta keep truckin' or hangin' in there or-- that there's a setting and a cast of characters out there waiting for me somewhere--
That is the worst advice.

The term "breakdown" doesn't mean deconstruction or collapse into power chords and crashing cymbals. It's because life is an album and at times things unravel and move at different speeds. We tend to do a lot of screaming during those times. Whether we open our mouths or not.

But it will always always all come back together for one. last. chorus.

I talked about this last time-- but people don't want to hear the truth. And so to preserve what it seems I'm supposed to be I gotta bottle back up. This must be why I've got pores called fingertips. Pens and guitar strings. Blogs and conversations that are only ever half open.

Thinking about how much it would mean to me to be read into makes me feel narcissistic, arrogant, and pathetic.

All writers are liars.

Conceit is like skin.

But it's not the kind of lying you're thinking of. If I say, "I love you," it means I love you. But I'm lying because I didn't say, "I love you because you remind me of the midwest and how I've only been there in postcard racks."

Or assuming a persona. Maybe I don't love you-- but if I did it would be fucking beautiful.

That doesn't make any sense.

None of this makes any sense.


Bomb the blogosphere,
Mike

Like antennas to Heaven

In order to really really express ourselves we need the ability to invent adjectives. They just aren't vast enough or aren't applicable or accurate enough to properly prefix any given emotion. Like that sinking feeling you get in your stomach when the butterflies that used to flutter there wither and die. Like the lead feeling of sleeping feet when something comes full circle. Or even the cavernous hollow of chest-- like the heart's given up, closed its belfry wings, resigned to sicken and so live.

But that's why we have images. And that's why we have nouns. There are nouns no adjective can touch. Guilt. Regret. What is "guilt" when it's something deeper than "guilty?" And what am I if I'm relieved and at the same time so full of regret? Am I a baby born healthy to a single mother, a motorcycle and a magician for a father? I'm not. Or am I selfish because I got to say what I had to say to make the guilt subside[?]-- but I fucked up and you've moved on and we're learning that the recovery process isn't universal. Because what's out there is out there and is it wrong to hope that words alone can find host in opinion and create possibility? For second, third chances?

I'd hope that one day with all this rhetoric I'll finally say something that makes sense. But I hope too much more that with all this weight and hurt I'll finally forget figures and say something real. Or something beautiful.

You don't make friends by saying what is true. You don't get invited to parties or out with the cool kids by saying what is true. You don't get laid by saying what is true. You don't get by on facts. We don't get by on the true. We live on food and water and aethetics and when we can't find enough to eat or drink or love we create it-- and I think that maybe that's why the world is getting smaller. Because we all need to be in Paris to blow our loads. So to speak. And we want so badly to be have everyone else think we're beautiful.

[line deleted] because you don't find love by saying what is true.

Nothing hurts worse than regret, I'm convinced. And I've seen the mantras: "live life with no regrets." But you might as well be living without feeling in the tips of your fingers. So that even when you're subject to bites and cuts and burns and slammed doors-- you're groovy. Wouldn't it be nice to be numb? No. It would be so dreadful and lonely and false to never hurt and never regret.

Aside: Self-conscious ---> self-aware? Goal, maybe. /Aside

So again, sorry.

I'm still figuring this whole thing out. Really.


Bomb the Blogosphere,
Mike

With poise, with grace

"Chase This Light," the new Jimmy Eat World album, is hella good. Even though it sounds a little like a musical at times.

My mom is reading some "How to get published" book. I guess so she can give me advice or empathy or something when I hit the point of needing such a book. Anyway, I skimmed through it a little bit and the common advice seems to be what I already knew: write everyday. More of writing pages of shit for a line you love. So here I am.

Mark and I had our first radio show last Monday. It went pretty well for everyone... except whoever tried to call in. We could not figure that stupid phone out. We played some quality jams though, rocked out a little bit. It was fun and I'm looking forward to this upcoming Monday.

Spring break I'm roadtripping to Canada with Keith and Mark.

...

That right there was a pause for applause.

The Moon Red-Handed is coming along, coming together. I've never really been held to a practive regiment before when it comes to music, but everyone who wants to progress should be. Most of the recording equipment I ordered came in too. So big things are ahead, methinks.

Man, I wanted real bad to go to Six Flags tomorrow to see everyone. The weather is effin' shit though. Rain rain, GTFO.

Aside: I just got a text message that says, "Hey can you do me a favor and shut your mouth or I will do it for you okay? Have a great day" And all I can think about is what a terrible sentence it is. /Aside

But yeah. I only even really want to see 4 or 5 people. And I'll be alone in my visit because that's how it goes.

Aside: Nowhere people really are terribly dramatic. /Aside

And then there's the party. Do I even want to go?


Bomb the Blogosphere,
Mike

A soundtrack

Why the hell do these things work out so perfectly?

1. Open your library (iTunes, Winamp, Media Player, iPod, etc)
2. Put it on shuffle
3. Press play
4. For every question, type the song that's playing
5. When you go to a new question, press the next button
6. Don't try to pretend you're cool...

SOUNDTRACK TO THE LIFE OF: Me

Opening Credits:
"Wolf's Mouth" Kevin Devine

Waking Up:
"Kracked" Dinosaur Jr.

First Day of School:
"A View from the Afternoon" Arctic Monkeys

First Kiss:
"Roads" Portishead

Falling in Love:
"What's in Store?" Architecture in Helsinki

Fight Song:
"Killing a Camera" Braid

Breaking Up:
"I Don't Know How to Say This" The Early November

High School:
"The Ugly Organist" Cursive

Prom:
"Silver" Mineral

College:
"Katrien" Mogwai

Study Abroad:
"After O'Rourke's 2:10am" The Good Life

That One Drunk night:
"Bacardi" Nada Surf
(WTF.)

Life:
"In a Radio Song" Okkervil River

Mental Breakdown:
"Pull My Hair" Bright Eyes

Walking Down the Street:
"Blueside" Rooney

How your Husband/ Wife Feels about you:
"Cute Without the 'E'" The Vitamin String Quartet

Driving:
"Enthused" blink-182

Flashback:
"A Shot in the Arm" Wilco

Getting Back Together:
"Butterfly" Weezer

First Job:
"Harvest Moon" Neil Young

Wedding:
"Love and Some Verses" Iron & Wine

Birth of Child:
"Alone Down There" Modest Mouse
(Oh my.)

Vacation:
"All There Is" Rites of Spring

Retirement:
"Neon Bible" The Arcade Fire

Final Battle:
"Smith" Pompeii

Death Scene:
"Last Call" Elliott Smith

Funeral Song:
"I Hope Tomorrow is Like Today" Guster

Closing Credits:
"Voids" Paulson


Funny funny funny.


Bomb it,
Mike

The arc and the eclipse

Things come together and things drift apart.

And so seems the general operation of it all.

Really, a post a month wasn't what I was gunning for. But the whole apology thing is growing tired I'm sure. Perhaps I should be more concise and less ambling. More visual and less introspective. I can't scribe my chronology, but I can paint snapshots-- that kind of thing.

So I've finally got something cooperative and musical going on! The sixth, or thereabouts, saw the birth of The Moon Red-Handed-- and acoustic project of Sir Rick Marciano and myself. Judging by our first little jam session the other day, there is certainly something to look forward to. The only downside is that writing songs severely inhibits by ability to write poetry. Yeah, believe it or not the process is entirely different. But it is what it is and I'm glad to make the trade.

I used exclamation points in the previous paragraph.

There's electricity in the air.

I've been pretty down the last couple days(weeks?). The single life is one I'm accustomed to. But it's also one I feel like I need to outgrow eventually. Like wearing hand-me-downs. And it isn't looking so good on me-- especially not lately. Loneliness is a callous lover, let me tell you. Not that, I'm sure, you need telling. We all know the chill.

And I guess I'm just jealous of all the happy couples. I am. And it isn't worth it to pretend I'm not.

It's just that people are so fickle
they fall in love at different angles.

I haven't shared any poetry in a while. Here you go:

[removed]


Bomb the blogosphere,
Mike

Prairie fires

I sometimes worry that to keep a blog such as this one is self-serving and egotistical. So many sentences beginning with "I". But at the same time, where am I without that pharmaceutical glow or percussion of text against eyes against mind against heart? Shut up tight, liquor-lunged perhaps or bronzed from necessity to be something worth knowing. So it's as much for me to share as it is for you to cradle, maybe. And that alone is enough justify it.

That, and the echo.

It's been a while again, hasn't it? I'd promise not to make a habit of allowing months between posts but these things happen. The shame of it is that with such a larger span of time to reflect on I feel like I lose track of the minute bits of beauty that really matter in favor of summary. But this too, will happen. Almost as unforgiving is the feeling of responsibility- to say something grand and worthy of time wasted. And I'll be honest, there's nothing more synthetic than a month sprinkled in powdered sugar. So we'll try avoid that. We'll stay as small as we can without losing it through the space between our fingers.

I don't miss being home any more than I missed college those first weeks between sheets that smell like the sheets I've slept between for years. The freedom is still fresh and I haven't enough time to think about how I'm another year older and another year more unfit for hiding under my parents wings. Or how in 3 years I'll be expected to frequent the nest more as a novelty than a necessity. Give me time. I'll be thoroughly worried about my life and my future and growing up soon. Right now I'm just enjoying the quiet and the late mornings.

My classes are alright. Naturally, Poetry Workshop is the high point of my academic week. My professor proving himself a genius over and over again with each class. It's a homecoming and my poems have never been more organic. Better writers than I have dreamed of being poets. And better writers than I have crumbled, become homeless, sucked shotguns off, given up. Taught high school English in tiny Minnesota towns. Drank until the words couldn't tread water any longer. And worse writers than them have weathered long enough to see dawn break the storm clouds. Precious few of us wake to blue skies. Precious few.

Intro to Psych is essentially the same course I took in high school. With the same book and everything. Anything short of an A is a product of my foolishness. Intro to Lit is essentially 3 hours of prospective Literature majors attempting to assert themselves as insightful. It'd be wrong of me to assume myself above this, but I don't know. If only Hemingway knew what we were going to do to his work. He'd have shot his publisher before himself.

I have Public Speaking tomorrow. It's more work than a Public Speaking course should be, but the professor knows her shit. And the company is quite the opposite of unpleasant. Quiz tomorrow. I haven't studied.

Of all the things I think about, the wildest must be my midwest romances. There are few things more desirable than sky blue skies into sunsets over rangetops. Of handholding and gypsy-moths and blue jeans and prairie fires. The warmth that sweeps through evening chill like inland waves or music.

It's funny how people can look different from different angles. Or how hard it is to tell the girl across the classroom that her abnormally large nose was the most beautiful thing I saw today. That so much history must be in the creases of her face that form when she smiles. Some eyes are just tired. And I want to tell you, boy with the cigarette outside the atrium, that I know how you feel. You're gonna be alright.

We're all gonna be just fine.

Bomb the Blogosphere,
Mike

Post Script: Something more tethered to Earth soon haha. I promise.

In one fell swoop

If there's one thing I've learned,
it's that we never feel the heat until we get burned.

In one fell swoop we're gonna cover the past two months. Cool? Cool. It's embarassing to realize that I haven't updated in over a month, I assure you. But really, what has there been to say? I work 65 hour weeks and sweat nearly every second of it, I collect reasonably fat paychecks that I don't have time to spend and I dance the Cotton-Eyed Joe. I'd be lying if I said that every day is the exactly the same, but really, what matters are those inexplicable subtleties. So why try? I've met some of the most amazing people and I can't think of another batch of kids I'd rather wear carpet and fiberglass with.

But we try so hard not to die,
sometimes we forget to appreciate life.

It's almost unfathomable to think about not seeing those same smiling or laughing to sleeping or sweating or hungover or stoned faces on a daily basis. And when that time comes at the end of August and into the fall- when I'm back at Ramapo, Laura and Matt are back at Rider, when Steve's on a boat somewhere, all the high school kids are dozing off in class and thinking about high school things- I think, or maybe I hope, I won't be alone in feeling like I left a little part of me at Six Flags. Because I think we do that. Leave little traces of ourselves everywhere we've sweated or cried or bled or laughed. It's a nice thought. That when we die- we're still scattered around the world.

When the spark reaches powder, I will blow up.
I'll become the mist you breathe into your lungs.

Nineteen is a stupid age. I can buy cigarettes I won't smoke and do in secret what Twenty-One year-olds do legally. I can wonder what it's like to be two decades old. I can give coworkers funny looks when I find out that they were born in the 90's. I don't think I want a cake this year. Nineteen candles is perhaps a few too many.

All of my love will then turn into yours.
And you will feel hope bleeding out from your pores.

But I did manage to get out of the house long enough to spend a killer weekend last week with Eric. His brother's engagement party straight into Warped Tour Sunday. Ballin'. Warped Tour was pretty cool. All that could be expected to be lame certainly was. But flying Gatorade bottles and overweight crowdsurfers aside, I had a great time. What follows is a list of the 8 bands I saw ranked from worst to best based on live performance in Englishtown. (because you know that if I do a long and sweeping blog entry... I'm gonna rank shit):

8. Drop Dead, Gorgeous
7. The Starting Line
6. Coheed and Cambria
5. Envy on the Coast
4. Hot Rod Circuit
3. New Found Glory
2. Straylight Run
1. The Spill Canvas

I am the definition of objective.

[Mom and] Dad, you were there when nobody was.
I followed your lead, now I'm proud of what I've become.

I want to grow my hair, grow a beard and get a tattoo. And I wanna play guitar in a rock 'n roll band. Perhaps I'm going through a phase. We never seem to grow out of those, do we? We just grow from one to another. But I kinda like it like that. And I wanna keep putting pretty words together for pretty girls. Up three-sixty-five a year twenty-four sev 'cause real gangsta ass poets don't sleep.

[Girl], you never cease to amaze me.
Maybe someday we'll get another chance to be.


FM Stringer - AIM
12:31 im blogging
12:31 and thinking i sound old

_______ - AIM
12:31 you ARE old


To all my friends, where do I start?
I know I'd be dead without you in my heart.

In my heart.

Bomb the Blogosphere,
Mike


Credit where it's due: "Appreciation and the Bomb" by The Spill Canvas

Backwards through the megaphone

Yeah. It's been a while. I know.

But what's ever there to say when someone else has said it better already?

My life has belonged to Six Flags for what must be the past four weeks by now. I don't even mean that figuratively. This week, Tuesday through Sunday, I'm working open to close. That's somewhere between 10 and 13 hours every day. But I'll tell you what. I love just about every second of it. From tying in Sly's belly hoop to learning to worship the Character Clubhouse whiteboard to dancing the Cotton-Eye Joe for the second time in 45 minutes to napping on the breakroom floor to drinking contraband Rockstar to being a nonsmoker on cigarette breaks to gradually learning and accepting that everyone in the department is at least a little bit bisexual to gossiping to Block Party. To the windows-down car ride home. And all those other little things between. To writing prematurely nostalgic run-on sentences about how much I actually enjoy my job.

It's been a long time, I've realized, since I've actually given my all into something. Since I've really dedicated myself to doing the best that I can do. And even longer since I've felt that glowing feeling you get when your efforts are recognized. Four weeks ago I was making a huge fucking mess out of escorting Porky to and from the Big Wheel. Three weeks ago I was imagining the embarrassment of dying dressed as K-9. Two weeks ago one of my most respected co-workers said I was a great escort, among the best he'd had. And sometime last week I walk in and see my name next to "Main Gate: Sylvester." There I stayed for three days. Possibly 36 of the best hours I've ever had. I don't care if this sounds stupid. I can't expect the vast majority of those reading this to understand. But when I'm on the street, when I'm Sly or whoever else, it's not about watching the clock and counting down the hours. It's not about the paycheck or weekend plans. It's about rocking the fuck out to "Mmm Bop" and "Mambo Number Five." And rock the fuck out I do.

My second day as Main Gate Sly I was escorted by the guy who usually fills that role. After the morning's first, or maybe second, Cotton-Eye Joe he said to me: "You killed it, Sly. Amazing job." And it made my fucking day.

Sure, there are times when I want to drown myself in the fountain. A good number of the high school kids are, objectively, whiny little bitches with attitude problems. Honestly, I've never heard so many absurd complains and makeshift maladies. Nor have I ever met anyone quite so eager to make insulting assertions about myself. Whatever. I'm sure it's to compensate for his own overwhelming inadequacies or some other jargon like that. And I'm feeling just good enough not to punch him in the throat.

I have off tomorrow but go back Tuesday. I can't wait.

Now the usual fractures of thought:

My dog, Cassie, passed away last week after being transported to the Garden State Veterinary Clinic. They attempted CPR and it wasn't successful. We think it was spleen cancer. I went to the Relay for Life Cancer Walk last night with my family and we lit a luminary-thing for her. It was nice. I thank whom ever is up there for letting me spend her last day with her. I miss the tinkle of her collar and the way she would wag her tail. Even up to those last hours, too weak to walk.

My lodge adviser in the Order of the Arrow died also. I helped conduct the Broken Arrow Ceremony at Conclave. I was proud to have been a part of it and to have served as one of his Chiefs.

They say death comes in threes. We'll leave this one open ended...

There are a ton of friends I haven't yet seen this summer.

And not even a prospect of a summer romance. Seems this won't likely be one for the record books.

Sex, as an event and not an act, confuses me.

And that's about it. If you're reading this, I probably miss you.


Bomb the Blogosphere,
Mike

"Spill this dark ink"

It's always hard to say what makes us feel the way we do. What puts us in these "fuck yourself" moods.

But I'm just impatient lately. And any number of other things that either do or don't stem from my frustration with this two-dimensional conversation. Practice for whatever it is I'm waiting for. I don't even know what it is I miss about the way things were. It's possible that they never actually were, in reality. I have a bad habit of romanticizing things.

And I can't decide if it's more or less mature to tell myself that things'll change. Because they never really seem to for any significant length of time.

And I also can't decide if it's more or less mature for me to try so hard to believe in Shane Koyczan lyrics. Or, I don't know, John Cusack movies.

"Gotta cash in my reality checks."

And maybe stop living between one-liners.

I do apologize for the ambiguity. But I guess when I'm this burnt out trying to articulate lonliness without using the word comes out a little less clear that I'd have liked. And maybe vagueness is just our way of not saying what we mean. And I'm just to exhausted with... with everything to hide it effectively.

And I hate using words like "empty" or "hollow" when I'm trying to describe how I feel. It's more like being a big bowl of chicken caesar salad without the dressing. You don't really need it. But everything just isn't right without it. Yeah. Exactly like that.

And I really do believe that independance is an impossibility. That we are only the sum of our relationships and interactions. And that whatever it is we're trying to achieve, happiness or whatever else, is attainable only through that moment of silent belonging. I think that's love.

I need someone willing to lend me her maddness.

Bomb the Blogosphere,
Mike

"Through candy-coated eyes"

People say that Jersey is a dive.

But, really, livin' ain't that hard if you know you're alive.

It's the day to day life for forgetting what it is to worry, right? Dad always said, in a given situation, it's always too early or too late to worry. But that doesn't stop either of us. The future is scary. Big and scary and dreadfully obscure. So I guess it's nice to come home from work too tired to do anything beyond collapsing into bed. It brings out the subtleties. Smooths the redundant and highlights the extraordinary. Makes every misplaced moment significant. There's a beauty in that akin to novelty. And probably as fleeting. But for now I'm okay operating on the small scale. For now I'm okay just living until my bones ache with restlessness.

But I'm as historically restless as I am historically ideological. But I sometimes wonder if I'm too busy watching falling stars to chase them. Or if I'm too busy chasing them to catch one.

I got my Manzar letters the other day. Letters written to me two years ago by myself and some of my friends. It's funny how at the same time things change and others stay exactly the same. I don't think anyone can write a letter to himself and not come across as dumb two year later. I think parts of us grow at different speeds. I don't know for sure though.

Bomb the Blogosphere,
Mike

Tonight's for fighting

I need new soundtracks for these whiskey nights. But that's for another day.

I've finished my first year of college. But somehow I'm not yet prepared to write about it. It just hasn't sunk in yet. It isn't real. Not tonight.

Tonight's for summer mixdiscs and open windows. For working it out. For trying to be panoptic.

Tonight is for one liners.

Shifting my biological clock should be a gradual process, I understand, but I'm finding it dangerously difficult to get up before noon and go to bed before 3. And living the next four months without Late-Night Dining to tide me over is going to be a trip and a half. The intelligent person would start eating breakfast but I say "Nay! Breakfast foods are for in Diners at 4am." See the problem? I need to reset my life for summer-rules.

I need to set goals for the next several months. Because if I don't, I'll get nothing done and I'll feel like a giant failure. So please accept the following as my "SuMmA lOvIN' tO-do LIsT!"

1. Weekly Ultimate Pick-up Games
Status: Begun
I need to stay in/get in better shape for next year's Ultimate season. To do this, I gotta keep playing. Good thing for me there are plenty of willing and talented disc-tossers around here. The only wrinkle will be finding a day that's good for everyone. It'll get even trickier when I start working. I have no idea what that'll do to my calendar.

2. Survive Empoyment at Six-Flags, Make Mad Dough
Status: Begun
I have department orientation on Sunday, which essentially means that I'll be starting next week. This is either wonderful or terrible news.

3. Make Rock in a REAL Musical Project/Band
Status: Pending
Dan and I have been talking about this forever and I know we both really want it to happen. And honestly, there's no group of guys I'd rather work with than the ones he's assembled. He's probably the most rock-dedicated dude I know, Matt's amazingly talented, and Tom has the Dan-stamp of approval. And that's good enough for me. I picked up the Strat today and didn't sound so hot. I need to get my electric chops back in shape. That, or turn it up. Volume and quality are so totally correlated. But seriously. I want to write sweet songs and play shows. Like... now, damn it.

4. Have a Summer Fling
Status: None
Seriously, is there any better a topic to write about? I could get some quality pop-punk out of it. I'll just overuse the words "heart" and "boardwalk"and somehow incorporate driving abandoned highways with the windows down. In every song. But there's some appealing novelty in it... in falling in and out and never forgetting. In that "what if's" and coulda-beens. We'll see about this one though. The opposite sex is historically uninterested in its resolution.

5. Write my fucking Musical
Status: Put-off for like 2 years
Not much to say. I just need to fuckin' do it.

6. Spend as much time as POSSIBLE with my Boys and Girls
Status: Pending
I love my Monmouth County crew. I really really do. There are no times like those shared with them. I need to make personally sure that Applebee's nights and WaWa runs and drunken antics and bad movies and late nights and hysterics and honest conversation and man-hugs and blown kisses and four/four handshakes and Socratic singalongs and drama gossip and Surf Taco evenings and political Starbucks humor and lasting memories are maximized. That's all there is to it.

And no, I haven't yet decided myself if number four is a joke.

But I'm no longer a college freshman. And that's enough to tickle the corners of my lips upward.


Next time: A lengthy reflection on this past semester and musings on my disdain for bullshitters.

Bomb the Blogosphere,
Mike

It's a funny thing...

...about writing as a craft.

It's the integrity of the art.

And how we write whatever the fuck we want.


Bomb the Blogosphere,
Love always,
Hugs & Kisses,
Mike

"Face or kneecaps"

Come on. Hit me with your best shot. I'm down and you won't get a better shot than this one.

Maybe it isn't entirely her fault that everything I see her do or hear of her doing disgusts me. Maybe I'm just emotionally overdriven enough to transfer the pain into anger. The only thing I can hope is that what happened to me, what she did to me, helps generate awareness of her game to everyone.

I've already struck chords to the last song I'll ever write about you.

And 2001 alone has more than the number of one-liners you deserve.

So, as a final thought, I hope that every time you get your heart stomped on... every time you get led on or played... I hope you stop and realize that he isn't me. That he isn't half of me.

But enough of that. Only a week or so left in this semester. How wild is that? I remember so vividly this time last year. Preparing for prom, graduation, summer... worrying about high school problems. Well, I suppose that some things aren't so easily changed. But I don't really feel any smarter. Maybe it'll take a couple weeks of being apart from the classes and exams and homework and the fucking Birch Tree Inn cafeteria food for it to set in. For me to feel whatever wisdom I'm supposed to have garnered. It's not over yet, though. My nostalgia is premature.

The single/uncommitted/untethered gauntlet isn't the worst thing in the world, I suppose. There's always that promise of chance meeting, of aligning availability and interest. It all boils down to that "hope" thing, as it tends to. But I guess I'm okay with that. What else have we got, right? It'll take some time to trudge through the doubt and cynicism though. My self-esteem isn't the quickest at recovering. But refusing to hide the cuts- by letting them run in the rain- I think that'll help. I think I'll be back to my swagger before too long, so to speak.

And I'll be ending one of the worst weeks of my life with some of my best friends. Tomorrow we drink in celebration. There's no drowning on Cinco de Mayo.

So no. Everything isn't back to normal. It won't be for a while. Everything isn't forgotten. Forgiven, perhaps. Each of our greatest weaknesses is our humanity. And that's what she is. She's human. And so am I. We'll always have that. We'll all always have that. So I guess everything is okay. Life is okay.

I am okay.

Bomb the Blogosphere,
Mike

"Isn't that what you expect?"

"I could have sang you to sleep.

And all you want from me..."

All you want from me...

You want nothing to do with me.

Today is most likely the worst day in recent memory. I'm listening to Saves the Day and laughing my ass off because what I really want to do is cry and catch a train to Kansas City where I'd forget everything I've known in the last month. Where I can save some fucking face. This is the last time I put so much stock in someone. The last time I try to make something out of nothing. The last time I let myself lie in bed and smile to myself at how much promise there is in a potential future with someone.

But I am guilty of saying that all I wanted was some closure. And, in a manner of speaking, that's exactly what I got.

So, although it's a really roundabout way of saying it, this is essential entirely my fault. I don't doubt it. I don't deny it. I believe it fully. My conduct in the past few weeks has been so so so stupid. I set aside everything I've learned about people and let myself get enraptured. Again. A-fucking-gain.

It's entirely my fault for letting myself sink this deep.

When you say "yeah I get you" I hope you understand that you couldn't possibly.

When you say you "dated someone exactly like" me... I hope that one day he takes you back.

Because boys don't care like I care much anymore.


That's all I've got to say about that. This'll be on facebook for whoever want to read it. But I don't care anymore. I'm sick of trying to be who everyone wants me to be.

Bomb the fucking Blogosphere,
Mike

Tennis shoes

It's 3:40am on what promises to be a beautiful April Sunday and I have nothing better to be doing than reheating some General Tso's, putting on and half-watching Kingdom of Heaven, and thinking about things. And how crazy things always seem to get. This is the night and what it does to you. What it does to me. Makes me think and dream in impossible ways with a clarity, or cloudedness, uncharacteristic of day. I'll sleep through half of the beautiful Sunday today promises to be but what matters now is me and my General Tso's. My cherry coke zero. The backround noise and my wandering mind. This is the night.

Greek Week seriously interupted our Ultimate Frisbee equillibrium. I arrived at the field to discover it swarmed with Fraternity boys and Sorority girls. Their muscle shirts and big white plastic-rimmed sunglasses. Their uniform crew cuts and fucking sidebangs. We started our game 40 minutes late because of their potato sack races and inability to understand that their tug-o-war game could just as easily be conducted on the sidelines. That's 40 minutes to watch and think and realize that I'll never be one of those guys. I'll never have mammouth biceps or million dollar abs or chisled features or centerfold calves. I'll never be able to competetively throw a beer keg for distance or bench press a small horse. I won't. I will never be that good looking or have that certain collegiate air of superiority.

Is that what you want in a guy? Is that what I'm not to you?

Hilton hit one of them in the head with a disc. I laughed. Sometimes it's the best you can do. Laugh and be self-righteous in the face of everything you're not.

I took Casey's advice and wrote a song. I may be an asshole, but I listen. It's not bad as far as I can tell, but everything sounds better alone at 2am than when I finally get the balls to play it for someone or to record it. It's what I want to say, though. What I wish I could reverse but can't, it seems. It's not for lack of trying, but then again, it never is. It is now, though. It's something. I've got something to show for these 4am's, these dreamless nights, these unreciprocated gestures. It's the opposite of how it happened to Rivers. You've got my letter, I've got my song.

Just say something. Say fucking anything.

On Friday I went to the Ramashows concert. The bands were half-good, half-bad. I took a liking to the fun-loving Flaming Lips-esque Lima Research Society whose infectious melody and saccharine singwriting left me with "Magic Juice Box" stuck in my head all weekend. The show's headliner really made an impact though. I Am the Avalanche started as what I expected, a mediocre emo punk rock band. But they had two significant differences. One was that they closed with a Lifetime cover, which will always win me over (unless you do it poorly) and the other was the song "Green Eyes":

When she called my sneakers "tennis shoes"
I knew she was from the west coast
or the "best coast" like she'd say
and I had to disagree

I fell in love with a ship
A vessel with at least twenty holes
Yeah but she still floats
I fell in love with the sea
A brilliant tidal wave
She devestated me

It has to have been since my rediscovery of "Nothing Feels Good" that lyrics have shouted at me like these. We all fall in love with wild things, with beautiful things. We all invest ourselves in heartbreakers and the only thing that seems to ever be true to us is our roots. So continues my love affair with New Jersey. One day I'll go back to California. But I don't think anyone ever really leaves New Jersey.

At least not forever.

Bomb the Blogosphere,
Mike

Forgive me my antiquity

I had a stick of gum for dinner last night fighting back or biting down to halt the dams behind my eyes for bursting first in many months but then... it isn't often one has a week like this And these are the nights we thought we'd left in high school The dry mouthed cigarette sips gin stink of liquor broken now and open to abuse it's so hard to always hide baby and I've grown too old or tired to try to be for you that soldier who doesn't break when you bend him, doesn't bruise when you beat him, doesn't wait for you for hours honey harrowed now but hoping maybe somewhere there's a reason why you aren't where you said you would be oh baby baby baby ... Am I to you so commonplace? Ours is a generation that's forgotten forehead goodnight kisses or holding hands on trains because we like it But most of all we are a breed that has forgotten conversation We're all small-talk segways and witty quips that somehow always lead to fumblings with buttons breathing heavily deliberately hot and gripping slipping squeezing salt balloons and moaning - we might as well be fucking ourselves So forgive me my antiquity I just try too hard to believe in people.

Bomb the Blogosphere,
Mike

In saying "cuspidor"

Multi-tasking has, historically, been a rather strong suit of mine. I'm currently sitting in my Freehold bedroom blogging and chatting online on the Mac, watching Taxi Driver in the background, and attempting to download The Departed onto the Dell. Now, if I was any sort of sensible my prioritization list would include studying or working on the math project I have due on Monday. But of course, and equally historically, I do not.

This past week has had its ups and downs, that's for sure... and more than its allotted number of ambiguities and "what-the-fuck" moments. But last night kinda made it all go away. Cryptic? Sure. But it's not really so important what's got me like it does as it is... simply that it is. That's it's there in my life and in my recent history. To rewind and replay and mull over. I like things like that.

Am I the only one who thinks that apple pie with a slice of yellow cheese on it is about as American as child obesity? Patriotic. But for all the wrong reasons.

People wore crazy blazers in the seventies. I wonder if there's anywhere I can still buy one.

Seems the multi-tasking goes hand in hand with entering random stream-of-conscious mode. This entry is becoming strictly reactionary to what's going on in Taxi Driver. With about the grace of Robert DeNero's birthmark. Don't sweat it, Bob. It's very becoming. I promise.

I really am facinated with he concept of lying. With what motivates people to tell others things that either aren't true or fall within some degree of the truth. A lot of the time it's probably to impress. Or to create some false image of oneself in the eyes of those around him. It's gotta be indicative of a miserable self-esteem issue. To be so unsatisfied with yourself that you lie to assume something alternative. And then there are the instances in which people fuck up, or fuck around on each other, and that becomes a big lie. Not the mistake, or the affair. The relationship. It's complicated to operate a relationship in shades of grey. And really wishy-washy. But I guess that's why people fuck around on each other in the first place. Indecision. Selfishness? Irresponisbility or a disregard for committment or respect. Whatever. But I think that if someone sat in my taxi and told me that he was going to shoot his wife for cheating on him, I'm not sure I'd blame him.

I'm really in miserable shape. I shouldn't have had the trouble I did at frisbee today, keeping up with everyone and such. A decent arm only gets you so far, right? But being in good shape requires getting in good shape. Which requires devotion on top of motivation. It's one of those things that seems too distant. Too unattainable to be real. But still fervently desired enough to be bothersome. And thought about with enough frequency. But now I'm whining.

"Romance." It's kind of an icy word when you whisper it out loud. And "love." Those end-"v" sounds have a real edge to them. But "gossamer," "wisteria," "oleander" and "dulcemer." Those are beautiful words.

And "home."


Bomb the Blogosphere,
Mike

"So come back, I am waiting"

There is, at this point, no doubt in my mind that the music of Okkervil River is the most important to defining and detailing my life. It's sweeping, majestic, raw, dark, intensely perceptive and poetic. One never before knows the hopelessness in a set of dark black blinds or the romance in a single, cracked stone. Or the crackle in a radio song.

But I digress.

I envy Alanna's ability to write without reservation. To be a private writer doing what she does for the sake of it. I write to be read. That's why I tag people in this mess. And why whatever's in here will be just a few clicks shy of honesty. Well, maybe not honesty. But spontaneity. An unfinished quality... an essense of genuineness. Maybe I should try. But at the same time I realize that if I'm ever writing about someone in here, I'll refer to him or her as just that.

"She makes me smile like I haven't in forever."

See? But where are the balls in that? There isn't a gusto to the language like there would be if I wrote about how Leopold is the biggest fucking cock-sucker, like, ever. With imagery and colorful verse! "And when Leopold ran a sticky hand through that crisco hair I felt like saying 'well, isn't this just perfect' before burying a potato skinner in his neck." Sorry Leopold, whom I've never met but will inevitably find this and be insulted. Maybe I take to ambiguities. Or maybe I just really want you to wonder if what I've got to say is about you.

Rutgers deferred my application, opting to wait for my Spring semester scores before admitting or rejected me as a transfer- arranging it so that I'd be selecting classes after the incoming freshmen, I'm sure.

And I can't help but think "Well...

Isn't this just perfect."

But life isn't all bad. I got a job this morning. At least I think I did. The employment application and interview process at Six Flags is extraordinarily disorganized and unpleasant. But I have orientation next weekend, so that sounds reasonably binding. What'll I be doing at Six Flags? I will be costumed character. Go on. Laugh. Get it all out. But the price is right and performance art is something I've been missing these past months. Maybe "art" is a stretch. I take what I can get.

No, seriously, it really isn't all bad. I've been happier lately than I've been in quite a bit. There is a fairly lengthy list of things that have contributed to this but it does NOT include: Rutgers University Admissions Department, Probability and Statistics, the UFlorida Gators, every damn store that I put in an application for and never called me back, my family to some extent, etc. It's funny to note how depressing my "good days" seem.

So Overlook it is next year. And in certain terms, I couldn't be happier.

It's time to get big, little kid.

Bomb the Blogosphere,
Mike

South x Southwest

Sometimes, I suppose, we're left to evaluate and take inventory of all the things that make us. Sift through nuances and decisions, details and descriptions. Filter out the unappealing, purge the distasteful. Tune. Adjust for intonation and perfection. Rewrite. And rewrite. And rewrite.
Recreate and recycle. Make new what has worn. Purge. Cleanse. Hide the unattractive under sweatshirts and sweet words.

I've got a head like the sieve these days. And a heart like a doormat.

A mouth like a leaky faucet.


there is a glow
that rises off the parkway
a billion teardrop fog
refracting headlights
homeward bound
and I
am so
enveloped by this
night deprived of sleeping
deeply
lost in dreaming
watching trickles
run in rivers down windows
south by southwest
and missing you dearly


And yet the impossibilty of obtaining that which I have been apart from for so long is more and more obvious every day. The more I think about it, the more certain I am that the promise of companionship is synthetic. That eligible and available are more different than intially expected. That Hollywood endings exist to satiate our neverending thirst for hope in white knights on silver stallions. In princesses and in humanity.

For what it's worth, I blame internet netowrking at least in part for my neurosis.

But back to self-improvement and my inability to perform it. I'm sick of living in drafts. Of being rough around the edges. I lack a luster and reflections are evidence enough of this. Inventory is evidence enough.

Ah, life! Wherefore art thou ever faithful to the fair of skin? Hath thou no eyes with which to see? No heart with which to cradle me and sing me softly, now, to sleep?

Heh. I'm a riot.

Bomb the Blogosphere,
Mike

Love is best shared simply.

No play on words title, this time, for an entry detailing my experiences with a movie screening.

In the short review that follows (I find it much harder to review things I enjoyed) I'll make sure not to spoil any of the movies more surprising moments. Nor will I reveal the ending or even attempt to approach discussing the alternative view on the world and growing up provided. I'll just say that it moved me and made me thing in way a movie hasn't in a long time.

My neglect to be "punny" is most likely because, unlike last semester's evening with Sunshine, tonight's feature is an exceptional slice of cinematic glory. Mark and I went to see a private viewing of Rocket Science, a beautiful romp through one of suburbia's most fractured circumstances. The film, which earned Sundance Film Festival reognition, chronicles one year in the life of the unfortunately named, stuttering high school freshman Hal Hefner (Reece Thompson) as he falls in love with the beautiful and liquidly confident Ginny Ryerson (Anna Kendrick), captain of the school debate team. Hilarity and twisted sweetness ensue as the tongue-tied boy dives headfirst into Policy Debate, love, and life.

The cast, made almost entirely of youth and implemented adults only to supplement the realism and advance the plot, is nearly flawless. Thompson's insecurity and poor oratory is infinitely endearing and truly creates an empathetic atmospher while Kendrick plays the cookie-cutter cutie you love to hate. Equally strong at the performances of Josh Kay and Vincent Piazza, playing the socially awkward pornography enthusiest Lewis and Hal's kleptomaniac brother Earl, respectively. The setting, soundtrack (most memorably featuring The Violent Femmes' "Blister in the Sun" behind a revenge sequence) and screenplay breathe New Jersey and the film protrays Policy Debate culture, to the best of my knowledge, fairly accurately.

If you're a fan of Rushmore, The Royal Tenenbaums, The Life Aquatic, I Heart Huckabees and Little Miss Sunshine you can't miss Rocket Science when it is released this August. And if you currently or have ever competed in high school speech and debate, well, you should already havre August 10th marked on your calendar.

Bomb the Blogosphere,
Mike

Don't worry, we'll be back to discussing my own fractured circumstances soon.

"Landlocked blues"

What an absolutely miserable day.

At least if the rain were pounding there would be some energy. But instead it dribbles and runs lazy rivers down my window before, bored in its own purposelessness, retiring to that ground where it makes slush of this morning's flurries. The roads are in ruins, everything is getting cancelled, I've got no plans for the evening, and everyone seems to be holed up in their own personal spring break hibernations. Morale is low. Life took a fucking snow day.

Though I suppose, in all fairness, it hasn't been the worst spring break. I mean, it started two days early when I got picked up at 4am and driven to Newark to catch a 6:45 plane to San Juan, Puerto Rico. I was there attending a leadership conference and conducting some evaluation and planning. Business. As usual. We got to tour Old San Juan, however, and I suppose it was kinda cool to be in a city made up entirely of crumbling ruins and overpriced bars. It was a good trip, though I was eager to get back home and spend some time with my friends from home.

How silly of me.

The only schools that ended up having "off" the same week as mine were Rutgers and Dartmouth, the latter of which is only half true as Tom came home Tuesday. Early this week I enjoyed the opportunity to catch up with Eric. We trekked out to a drama rehearsal with Bryan, Kristen and Rich and were greeted by the mass chaos that tends to go hand in hand with tech week at FTHS. We got to talk to some of the kids which is always nice but for the most part we kept to ourselves in a quiet corner of the classroom behind backstage. After escaping we drove to Applebee's for cuisine and conversation characteristic (+3 alliteration points) of a night in good ol' F-town. It was nice and we ate a record number of half-priced appetizers, 8 dishes for 5 people... a record I am bent on breaking.

The next day Eric drove me to the mall and window-shopped while I filled out applications for summer employment. Thus far I have applications submitted for Six Flags Great Adventure, The Gap, Banana Republic, Fossil, and the Apple store. Number of phone calls recieved and interviews scheduled? Zero. Perhaps I'm impatient, but this is rather distressing. Later on we drove to Manasquan to go to Surf Taco. We could have just driven a straight line to the one in Point Pleasant, but since Eric's friend works at this one we spent half an hour or so wandering the shoreside streets of Manasquan squinting a street signs 'til we found it. I wasn't even hungry... but I ate a Sunset Classic anyway. There are certain things you just don't pass up.

Thursday was exciting. I got up mad early for my second driving lesson.

[[For clarification sake... and for those of you readers (ha!) not completely down with my life and history... yes, I have my driver's license. However, last year I was in a car accident and totalled the car I was driving. Now, a year later, since I need a car to drive to work and things, we got a new one... a 2003 Jetta. Sweet, right? The catch is that she's manual... and I have no idea how to drive stick. Hence, driving lessons. End anecdote.]]

It didn't go so hot and I was pretty pissed at myself for a while. But then at 10am or so Tom picked me up and we drive to pick up his cousins before catching a train outta Matawan, City bound. We were going to see The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. After arriving we ate lunch at Bella Vita off 7th, which beforehand opened up the opportunity for me to be cool and say, "we could go to this little Italian place I know." We did the obligatory Toys 'R Us stop and then headed west to get on line, for 90 minutes, for the show. All in all, it was funny and a pretty cool experience. The program is a lot shorter in person but I got to see Sandra Bullock in real life... an event that may very well sustain me in future tribulations. We ate dinner at Nathan's (ew.) and headed home, exhausted.

Which brings us, me, to now. Sitting in my room, in the quiet, with the lights off. Eyelids heavy from neglect and utterly reduced to one word responses to half-hearted questions. Break isn't supposed to be like this. Hell, home isn't supposed to be like this. And with the weather like it is, it looks as if I'll be completely and totally landlocked for at least the rest of the night. Probably even into tomorrow.

I don't know if I'm gonna make it.

Bomb the Blogosphere,
Mike

Let's just talk about the weather

Life really does have a hilarious way of letting you know that you're worthless and directionless, that your dreams are unattainable, that your talents are overrated, that your love life (as if) is laughable, and most of all, that the reason for all the aforementioned is that you are simply not good enough at what you do and how you live to matter.



In other news, it was uncharacteristically sunny in Hell today.

Bomb the Blogosphere,
Mike

"Your new aethetic"

It's one of those days.

One of those long, lonely nights that I sit through and think about how I'm utterly sick of writing poems with happy closing couplets.

I'm sick of investing hope in things that break too easily.

Like... people.

The "I am what I am, take me or leave me" philosophy isn't worth the bullshit its written in. Because you never what someone thinks of you, really. You never know what's whispered behind your back between chuckles at your flaws. You can't tell if your participation in a group of people is real or some kind of running joke shared between the select elite. I can't in good conscience name a single person at this fucking college that I am certain likes me for the person I am. Not for the things I say or the words that spill from behind my teeth or quivering pen onto page. Not for some fragile link, a connection via some rediculous common interest. A single person that thinks for just a fleeting moment, "I thoroughly enjoy time spent with Mike. He is a genuinely good friend."

And it isn't limited to within this environment, however God-forsaken. Friends from home move ahead in life, advancing towards tangible, goal-based futures. Creating relationships based on something like all that is left of what was once called love. Forging friendships and sailing unblinking into tomorrows brightly lit by life led without me. Where am I? What am I doing here? What makes up my tomorrows?

I'm sick of doubting.

And I'm sick of the turnpike stench and knowing that there isn't a corner of the globe I can huddle in to escape it.

Every city, every state is an imperfect reflection of the last. The paradigms and dynamics fall into place in ways the deviate frighteningly little from the known. The people occupying schools or streets: blurred shadows cast in the setting sun creating outlines on the pavement. Constant, consistent outlines. At least that's how it feels when you can't help but believe that you are so totally alone in your life experience. In my life experience.

Where's the life? Where is the beauty in character or personality besides lost behind synthetic emotion? The horror in symmetry. These are just aethetics. I am not a fucking print. I am not a fucking copy of the Mona Lisa that the poster store sells a hundred thousand of for $8.99 plus shipping. I breathe and I hurt and I long for company. For companionship. For love?

But is that what you want? A manakin that you can pose and manipulate and reinvent? Is that all we are? All we do? Faces in a tool chest. Filling roles and performing tricks.

This is what I get for being honest. For trying to embrace a life of minimal delusion and falsery. And yeah, I've said some fucked up things. I've made some fucked up choices. I've hurt a lot of feelings and maybe broken some spirits. But my perception does not define you! I don't claim to be law any more than I claim to be God. These vibes that I get- this instinct I trust my social conduct to- it's so tragically imperfect. But when I'm right I succeed. And when I'm wrong I fail. Isn't that just so beautifully "so it goes"?

And I've made a lot of mistakes.

I've been wrong about people before. I'm detached and defended against someone while being raped raw by another. I've had my spirit broken too. I've fucked up in letting myself be vulnerable before, and I keep doing it. Not for aesthetics. For honesty. And if who you know isn't who I am... I've lost myself.

This arrogance. This pretense. This is my aethetic. This is my defense.

One day maybe I'll learn to trust again.

Bomb the blogosphere,
Mike

Blown a wish

You know, I have never had a valentine.

Just throwing that one out there.

I was doing better at updating regularly for a while, and now I'm back to slacking off again. Though, as usual, I have the "nothing to report" plea to fall back on. Valentine's Day this year brought with it some snow. Or rather, quite a lot of snow. Enough foul weather, in fact, to cancel all the classes at good ol' RCNJ. Good new, right? Sure. If it was any day but Wednesday. Mother Nature has a sick taste for irony, doesn't she? Piling us with snow on the one day of the week that I have a class I enjoy. It couldn't be tomorrow- rescuing me from an early math class in which a group project is due and a late Readings in Humanities class in which an essay is due. An essay that, of course, I have not yet begun. Typical, eh? Typical.

So in many senses, the bleak wintered stormy weathered Valentine's Day is oh-so appropriate. Like the coldness of my heart, emo-me says. But seriously, I can't stand Valentine's Day. I hate the idea of recognizing a holiday celebrated by a select population. It's like... a day for the people who are happy anyway to be extra happy and rub it in the faces of those who aren't. Let's all just celebrate how fucking happy we all are! Please. Sure I'm bitter. But I am so not alone in this.

I woke up this morning for long enough to check my email and make sure that I didn't have a class to prepare for. Then I rolled over for another good hour and a half. After finally getting up, showering, and dressing it was time to work on that math project. The one that's due tomorrow. We finished it up (and when I say "we", I really mean Ashley and Jess. I am so useless at math. I pretty much sat there and stole Ashley's music. I'm such a waste.) and parted ways.

Then I watched Eurotrip and chilled with some legit people (at Ramapo!) until around 6:30, at which point I had to make good on a promise I made to Casey a couple weeks ago. A promise that I'd accompany her on guitar while she sings "You Get Me" by Michelle Branch to Mark. So we did that and it was cute and sweet and adorable and "awwww"-inspiring. Yeah. Oh, how I hate you, St. Valentine.

So I went back and we ordered up some Chinese, hung out, and played Scene-It for a while. Afterwards we just talked about all aspects of life for.... for hours. It was seriously incredible. I'd missed that. It was really refreshing and I felt so welcomed. I can't really phrase anything without sounding lame so you'll have to trust me. Even without the typical ingredients to a good college time... I had fun.

"But you... but you... You write such pretty words."

But I guess there are worse things than being alone on Valentine's Day. Being single on Valentine's Day. Because there's all this promise, right? All. This. Hope. That maybe she's right around the corner or in the blind spot beneath my nose. Maybe she's staring me in the face but glancing away when I chance a look. Like we're taking turns flinching and missing each other. Or maybe she's waiting somewhere in the coming months. Here, home, elsewhere... Who knows? All I can say with some semblance of certainty is that she's out there somewhere. Somwhere watching the Earth turn and hoping that I'm out there. Counting stars in the same way we're all blown a wish on the wings of tomorrows and tomorrows and tomorrows.

Awfully romantic for being anti-V-Day, wouldn't you say?

Yeah. I guess I would too.

Bomb the Blogosphere,
Mike

Note: Today's title refers to "Blown a Wish" by My Bloody Valentine off the album Loveless. Ain't I clever?

I use the same words in every poem.

It seems as if the RSS feed that spoonfeeds this monster into facebook no longer works. It's just as well, really. I don't have too much of value to say these days. Watch though, I'll preface this blog as such and suddenly everything miraculously fixes itself and I look like a huge douchebag. Wouldn't be the first time.

My life varies only slightly from week to week. My "everything" seems to be a small array of unending cycles that spin round and round fluctuating only minutely from cycle to cycle. The thing is that they aren't cumulative. Nothing ever builds on itself or anything else. It's like Groundhog Week meets The Mike Stringer Show meets A Comedy of Errors. Good God, give me something to work with!

On the other hand, I'm writing lots of poetry. Lots of poetry that I'll actually look at and read without wincing. I'm happy about that despite my conscious rejection of the knowledge that you can't raise a family writing poems. And unless I plan on writing the great American novel, I can't expect prose to pay the bills either. Some people are good at math or science or something else that translates into an economically stable future. I end up being the starving artist. Though I suppose that the art comes from the pain which comes from the struggle. How's that for twisted?

Regardless, I both dread and eagerly await recieving the decision on my transfer application to Rutgers. It could be quite altering. Imagine losing a year... as I'd essentially be doing. Is it worth it? Is it really better there? One can only hope.

I remember talks I used to have with old friends about "real" people and "fake" people. But now it feels like the argument isn't so accessible anymore. I don't know these people. I make judgements and I end up being wrong. I get caught up in a whirlwind of being myself and trying to be likeable and I wonder... who am I to say who's "real" anymore. Am I even? I really sincerely hope so.

I've always been facinated by lying, the nature of falsehood, and bullshit. And I can't help but think that of all the things these people have told me - all this shit I've swallowed as fact - there's gotta be some bullshit in there. These are the things that I think about when I'm being introspective.

Maybe I should post some writing on this bitch.

Maybe.

Bomb the Blogosphere,
Mike

"Nothing feels good"

Interestingly, the sheets of paper on my dorm room door declare that "FM Stringer's Song of the Week" for this particular row of calendar squares is "Nothing Feels Good" by The Promise Ring. If you haven't heard the song, don't sweat it. You're in good company, I'm sure.

But yes, "Nothing Feels Good". Am I a champion of apropos song selection or what?

Please excuse the following. I'm rather fractured.

So I'm sitting in the dark with The Honorary Title blaring in my earbuds as my roommate flicks channels back and forth between "the Strongest Man in the World" competition and an interview with Bill Nye "the Science Guy" on CNN. CNN of all things! Oh... it's Larry King live. Never mind.

I have math class in six hours.

But see, the terrible irony in writing this thing is that the people who really should be reading it almost certainly are not. And she's done so much for me. Despite the cryptic conversation and speaking between intentions. Despite the months of hatred and miscommunication. Despite heated words and broken hearts. Despite time gone by... I still bleed for you. I sing your graces between swigs of the Captain because, let's face it, that's when we're at our most honest. And our most vulnerable. I read that poets drink not to make the pain go away... but to fuel it. To remind ourselves that we're alive. And my best poetry is about you.

Even though there are few moments that go by in which I don't pray for someone beautiful to glide into my life in skinny jeans and flats (holla Rick)... even though my most magnificent dreams feature some- some angel brushing her bangs out of her atlantic blue eyes and asking me if I'm into Okkervil River... even though I can't think of what I wouldn't give to love and be loved again...

I think that on the back burners of my brain simmers the lukewarm hope that you'll take me back.

But I'm being silly.

And it's time that I put these absurdist fantasies to rest and start running the singles gambit again. Because kissing girls in dark rooms before stumbling back to my own is only worth so much. It's the conversation that carries the most value. The giggles between butterfly kisses. The comfort. The cuddling. The needlessness of libido.

What it comes down to isn't anything profound. This isn't an entry in which I, in all pretentiousness, unleash upon whoever fucking reads this my worldly pretty-talk and smirking quirks. This is putting down in text how truly alone I feel.

One day I'll make a living being vulnerable. One day maybe you'll take advantage of me. One day maybe you'll rape me and leave me battered and broken. But I'll get up. And I'll write. And I'll make a living being vulnerable.

But for now... this is me feeling lonely.

Math class can go fuck itself. Really.

But then

It's been 26 hours since my last cigarette so I guess things are, in some strange way, looking up.

Bomb the Blogosphere,
Mike

Fingerpainting

Almost as if to illuminate my miserable inability to achieve closure and the new beginnings which follow, I find myself prefixing an unhealthy number of sentences with "and" or "so."

Just food for thought.

I'll let you chew on that for a moment.

Okay.

There isn't a whole hell of a lot to report, truth be told, sans the boring rehash of the goings-on in my life. But I guess that there are worse things. This past weekend was largely pleasant and Eric's visit was most welcome, as was the assurance that the past six months or so haven't been the product of my growing maddness therein. It was fun to decline responsibility for a night- just saturate and let come what may. I don't get to do that often. And probably for good reason. We went to New York and that always manages to put me someplace magical for a while. The lights and sounds and people. It's the second greatest city on Earth. Second, of course, to London... which is only so great because I've never been there. And until I do it will continue to simply be the flawless depiction of class and zeal that I've scrawled -nay- haphazardly fingerpainted on the canvas of my mind.

There are so many places I've never been.

And then there's this thing I do with isolated lines. You know, when I'm saying something that I think is significant, worldly, quotable, or wise. Is it really as effective in accentuating a thought as I think it is?

Is it?

Or perhaps it's just useful in creating a tempo, pauses and moments implying their passage, in the piece. Are we having a conversation, dear reader? A depressingly one-sided conversation? Have I effectively made it so that my monologuing is compelling and theatrical?

I'm probably pretty unbearable to read or even talk to when I'm being cynical. Whatevs. This morning I had math class, another 90 minutes piled atop a mountain of time wasted trying fruitlessly to learn how to think in numbers. I'm a mathematical lost cause. Maybe when I die they'll observe my brain to find some rare tumor only present in the grey matter of those weirdos who'd rather write an essay than do long division. Okay, maybe a slight exaggeration. I'm actually pretty fucking good at long division.

Afterwards I opted not to go back to sleep in hopes of limiting my hours as an insomniac - a stupid decision considering that tonight is 24 night and I don't have class tomorrow. So I could theoretically stay up as late as I want, watching movies or something equally useless. So once again my good intentions are trumped and my eyelids are getting heavy. It's not even 1pm yet. I think I'm hypersomniac.

Or a hypochondiac. Hm.

Bomb the blogosphere,
Mike

PS. I can't figure out if I should capitalize "blogosphere". I suppose it is a proper noun. Fuck.

Everyone sells out

So lately I've been in between dreams, scheming and seeing nothing through. Running around in circles and wondering why the scenery isn't changing. Shit goes wrong and shit goes right but in the long run they're really nothing more than potholes in the long road to the middle. My aspirations to mediocrity.

I've been occupying my time doing things with the purpose of making the hands tick by faster. I've accomplished damn near nothing. I am unmotivated. I am uninspired. I am utterly utterly unoriginal.

"I like too many things and get all confused and hung-up running from one falling star to another till I drop. This is the night, what it does to you. I had nothing to offer anybody except my own confusion."

Jack Kerouac was never wrong about anything.

My creative writing course is going to be a lot more difficult than I had originally expected and it seems that this whole semester is going to be one big failure after another. Everything I've written since the first meeting of the class is complete and total garbage, melodramatic slobber that drips from the page like kisses wet with tears. Utter. Emo. Shit. I'm trying too hard. That's really what it is. I want so badly to scribe something enlightening and... fuckin'... important that I'm selling out in the worst of ways. I'm trying to write good poetry. I'm trying to produce something utterly synthetic and sell it as philosophy. I'm a fucking scenester. I hate people like me.

In between writing stanzas better suited for boys with feathered hair and girl's jeans than the intellectual elite I'm ignoring my other work and trying to subscribe to a work-out regiment. So I'm trying to look better before swimsuit season. Fucking sellout.

And as sick as I am of the whole "Waahh, I'm upper middle class white with feelings and no one understands them" mentality, I can't help relate. It's this cancerous feeling of not belonging in the pit of my stomach.

Where's my golden girl?

"The only people for me are the mad ones. The ones who are mad to love, mad to talk, mad to be saved; the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn like fabulous yellow Roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars."

You know you've hit a new plateau of lameness when you snag quotes from your facebook profile to convey tone in your blog - which incidently has an RSS feed with facebook and loads all blog entries into the page's "notes" section.

Christ.

Bomb the blogosphere,
Mike

In honor of High Fidelity:
My Top 5...
Pump-Up Songs

5. "Invalid Litter Dept." by At the Drive-In (tie)
5. "Post Script" by Finch (tie)
4. "Timberwolves of New Jersey" by Taking Back Sunday
3. "Amphetamine" by Everclear
2. "Let's Go" by Trick Daddy ft. Lil Jon and Twista
1. "Victoria's Secret" by Sonata Arctica (don't knock it 'til you try it)

Honorable Mention:
"Fight Club Theme" by Nine Inch Nails
"Theme Song of a New Brunswick Basement Show" by Lifetime

"Always ten feet tall"

So winter break, in all its ups and downs, draws to a close as friends trickle down the Parkway or some other more interstate superhighway and I find myself whiling away the evening hours alone... again.

Such is the end of anything though, I suppose. But I'm beginning to really believe it's true that it's better to burn out than it is to fade away. At least then you don't have to worry about the weekends spent in limbo... in fumbling preparation for closure. It's just, poof, concluded. I guess that's not the way the world works though. And what kind of mixtape would my life be without transitional sequences, right? right.

Everyone is all "God, I can't wait to get back to RU!" or "Man, my homies at Harvard must be missin' my gangsta ass." Even facebook statuses proclaim a longing for Universities missed and friends missing. Brittney is MiSsIn hEr RaMaPoOo gUrLeEz! lol!!1 <333

Christ.

Everyone.

Everyone.

Everyone... and yet the funny thing about it is how easy it is for me to get comfortable. With people, with places, with habits, with whatever. But I'm thinking that when you get rooted so easily, constant upheavals... constant instances of uprootedness weaken your grip. Weaken my grip.

Elipses imply uncertainty. Almost always.

As often, at least, as they imply a presence of the unspoken.

Just pause to add your own intentions. Right here.

...

Feel better? Neither you nor I, dear reader, will ever be able to, respectively, read between those dots. So fuck 'em. Fuck 'em all.

Oh, home. Which house is yours?

Bomb the blogosphere,
Mike

...

"So this is the new year"

And, really, I don't feel any different.

So this is the new year.
And I don't feel any different.
The clanking of crystal
Explosions off in the distance.

It's truly been one hell of year. I pretty much did all of the obligatory recapping in my last entry, detailing friendships made and friendships kept. I talked about my classes and about my friends. Nothing much has really changed since then except that I learned just how right I was about everyone. Winter break shared with old friends has been less a breath of fresh air than a desperate gasp. I don't know if it's healthy to cling to the accostomed to with such ferocity - and I know even less if I'm even going to let it bother me.

Granted, I miss my friends from college too. It's two different worlds really. And I was never terribly good at juggling.

So this is the new year
And I have no resolutions
For self-assigned penance
For problems with easy solutions.

But this isn't about last year. This isn't about Bava house parties or Harvard or Europe or Prom or Graduation or Summer of '06 or my first semester away from home. This isn't about mistakes made or questionable decision making. This isn't nostalgia and this certainly isn't about regret.

"We are nowhere and it's now."

And what really matter in these first hours of 2007 is the twelve empty pages of calendar days ahead. It's impossible to tell where I'll be in 365 days. I couldn't tell you now if i'll be enrolled in Ramapo or Rutgers. I couldn't tell you if I'll be single or in a relationship or madly in love. I couldn't tell you now if I'll still be making music in the wee hours of the night, seeking solace in the satisfaction of independent accomplishment. I don't know if I'll be drunk or sober, stoned or sitting by the window, dreaming. Maybe in a year I won't be listening to Death Cab or Bright Eyes. Maybe I will be. I couldn't tell you now what will have unfolded or changed or fallen apart or been built. I couldn't tell you. All I really know is that in 365 days I'll be here, typing about how I don't feel any different. But I will be.

So everybody put your best suit or dress on
Let's make believe that we are wealthy for just this once
Lighting firecrackers off on the front lawn
As thirty dialogues bleed into one.

New Years resolutions are for people who need some empty promise to motivate them in rectifying something about themselves that they or their partner find troublesome.

This year, I do not resolve to lose weight. I do not resolve to go to the gym more or to do extra crunches to trim baggage off because I'm supposed to want to. I do not resolve to make more of an effort to talk to girls or to be friendly to everyone. I'm probably not going to join a club. I don't promise that this time next year I'll be self-crafted out of stone. I have neither an iron will nor a shallow heart. I don't resolve to lay off the liquor or stay off cigarettes. I won't allow myself to be governed by anything like it.

This year, I will sing whatever tunes is in my head and blaze whatever trail leads to where I want to be. I will keep my friends close and my enemies far far away. I will contribute to conversation in a lively and effervescent manner. I will laugh obnoxiously and, grinning, tell stories. I will play my guitar as loud as it'll go. And I might play out of key. I'll live. I'll be.


I wish the world was flat like the old days
Then I could travel just by folding a map
No more airplanes, or speedtrains, or freeways
There'd be no distance that can hold us back.

New Year's Eve is the most popular suicide night of the calendar year.

And we're all still here. We've got clean slates and another handful of weeks to accomplish and experience and to fall in love. We've got clear sailing. We've got blue skies 'til morning.

There'll be no distance that can hold us back.

Bomb the Blogosphere,
Mike

Lyric Credit "The New Year" by Death Cab for Cutie