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