Winnie the Pooh is in My Blog Too

Awhile back I learned a few things. Important things, unimportant things. Obvious, not so obvious, and of course what should have been obvious. But it seems like the most important things, what should be so obvious, are often not. One of those things happens to fall in the important and obvious and not so obvious and what should have been obvious, and other categories as well.

I am, of course, talking about Winnie the Pooh.

Really. What else would I be talking about?

Recently—the past few months—the sheer brilliance and significance of Winnie the Pooh quotes came to light. For a man who reads and rewrites many quotes, I feel I should have known about Winnie the Pooh quotes long ago.

It was one of those nights like so many other nights, when you think something might be important, or you feel something, but you deny those thoughts and feelings because they seem silly and arbitrary and out of place, and you tell yourself to take off that ridiculous hat because you’re A) alone in a dark room with no one to see the hat, and B) the hat is horribly anti-Semitic

Anyway, here’s a Winnie the Pooh quote. One of my favorites. 

If ever there is tomorrow when we're not together.. there is something you must always remember. You are braver than you believe, stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think. But the most important thing is, even if we're apart.. I’ll always be with you.

Winnie the Pooh is obviously a badass, as well as a romantic. Combined, those are my two favorite things. I will again refer to Arthur Fonzirelli.

So you’re probably thinking to yourself, But Michael, why are you sitting in a dark room at 12am blogging about your undying love and passion for a yellow fictional bear who has an unhealthy obsession with honey? If you’re not thinking these thoughts, then maybe you should.

And to answer your question. A) –apparently this is my new style? No, no it’s not. This is a one time thing. I haven’t written in a very long time. It’s somewhat unhealthy for me, as my mind gets clouded with thoughts and insanity, but, at the same time, it keeps me focused on other things. Truth is, I have enough written material right now, especially for someone my age. I shouldn’t start something lengthy—I should start Aa) looking for a job so I can move and Ab) keep sending away agent queries and whatnot, and while doing that Aaa) continue editing and such. This system is becoming horribly confusing. Also, B) My life has recently taking an amazing and not really surprising twist, and lately I’ve been devoting most of my time to the most amazing person I’ll ever meet.

So writing can take a break while I formulate plans and complete the rest of my goals. The most important and difficult is already fulfilled. And wait…I just realized I’m horribly sidetracked and I don’t even know if I answered your original question, which was mine.

I’m thinking about Winnie the Pooh because of you, my dear. Because Winnie the Pooh understands what most people, and bears, do not. People are always looking for inspiration and reasons and advice, but they’re not looking in the right place—they’re not looking at Winnie the Pooh, and they’re certainly not looking inside themselves. They’re looking for logic, when life is anything but logical, when surprises are the honey that young bears loves.

I should have realized it then, I suppose. But I’m slow in understanding. Realized that Winnie the Pooh is in fact a prophet, and since I cannot be my own life coach, I follow the teachings of a anamorphic bear.

The Little Things

Today I was in the mall and didn’t once think about zombies. This seems like something little, but it isn’t, considering zombies are usually the first thing that crosses my mind when I enter any mall.

None of this is little or inconsequential. Quite the opposite.

Today my mouth hurts from smiling. I like smiling, although I don’t think I’m very good at it. But maybe I’m getting better.

I’m learning to drive while only using my left hand. This makes me exceedingly happy.

There are some things, that no matter how many times you see them, it always feels like you’re seeing, and feeling something, and knowing something, for the first time. That first amazing, breathtaking time.

I love curtains.

Tonight I wandered through a cemetery, and the sky was perfect. I think it’s the first perfect sky I’ve seen. The clouds, layered and billowed, allowed pockets of moonlight to pass through, and those pockets managed to bathe the cemetery in a pale, sterile light. The moon, nearly full, hid behind and within those passing clouds, just barely visible yet still spreading light.

And I wondered: is the sky itself perfect, or is it the moment, and all the moments before and beyond, and beyond, and beyond?

I was once afraid of forever.

Once.

Tonight, and nights prior, I’ve been learning and reaffirming the fact that some things are not meant to be understood by the masses, or even closer communities. Some things can only be understood by two people, together. When something may seem illogical or insane or countless other negatively connotated adjectives, that something truly makes more sense than anything else you’ve ever known or thought or said. It’s everything.

And lace. I also enjoy lace. But I’m not sure about lace curtains.

Beautiful Blurs of Motion

He was sitting on a train watching the world pass by.

He was thinking on this train, sitting, watching the world pass by.

He found it easier to think when the world was always in motion, when nothing ever stayed the same, when his thoughts were the only constant, and even they shifted at times, and fled when they became too real or too painful. And then he just did, and didn’t think.

The train was empty apart from him. It always was. Or always had been. And he always sat in the same seat, in the last cabin, at the very end in the left corner, and he always rested his head against the cold hard glass and stared, and stared, and watched the world blur like a painting suspended in a constant state of motion.

A state of motion.

Once, not so long ago, the world itself seemed to be in a constant state of motion. His thoughts never made much sense—at least not to anyone but himself. His mind was never quite right. And his heart—his heart he preferred to ignore. Otherwise it hurt. His heart he kept in a vault, perhaps somewhere on the train, where no one would ever find it, since he was the only passenger. He rode alone, and in some ways preferred it that way.

Riding a train is thought to be safer if you ride alone.

But he only preferred riding alone in some ways, and these ways weren’t enough.

Sometimes he would stand from his seat and wander the train cabin by cabin. Every cabin looked exactly the same. Vacant, clean, smelling of nothing.

And then one day it smelled like berries.

The scent surprised him. Sweet and inviting, almost intoxicating. Some cabins were thick with the scent. Others, faint, fleeting, nearly an apparition of his mind. But no—no. The scent was real. The berries were real. It came from somewhere, just as everything comes from somewhere, just as everything happens for a reason.

And so he followed the scent for hours and hours. The train had no end, or if it did, he had never reached the other side. The last cabin was his home, his refuge, but the front—there was no front, no end.

And so he walked.

And eventually he came upon a cabin where he could nearly taste berries in the air, and sitting at the end of that cabin, in the corner seat on his left, a beautiful woman who glanced up as he entered. At first he thought she was looking through him, or past him, at something behind, but then he realized her eyes were very much focused on him.

She smiled, and somehow, although he could not tell how just yet—just yet—he knew this smile wasn’t like her other smiles. There was a difference, and maybe it was slight—but it wasn’t, not to him—but he knew she had two smiles. One for him, and one for the rest of the world. And that touched something, somewhere, very deep within him. Something he had buried. Something that she, with just a smile, began to unearth. And that scared and delighted him.

“I’m doing a puzzle,” she said. “Would you like to help me?”

“I like puzzles,” he said, and approached. “How are you on this train?”

“This train?” she asked, as if there were other trains. “Oh, it’s just one of those things, I think.”

“Those things?”

She nodded and smiled and motioned for him to sit across from her. “Those things that are supposed to happen, those amazingly terrifying things that grip your heart and mind and never let go no matter what happens, those things that everything rests upon, that you balance your life upon, those things you must embrace even if they can break you.”

He nodded, it all somehow making sense. “No one wants to be broken.”

“No, but…”

“But you must let yourself be broken if you ever wish to be whole.”

She beamed and dropped a puzzle piece. “You can read my mind?” she asked.

“Yes,” he said, although he didn’t quite understand it, or care to understand it. Knowing was enough. “Is that okay?”

“More than okay. Now, will you help me put this puzzle together? I fear it’s been broken as well. I can’t do it alone. I need you.”

He looked across the table at her, and knew he needed her. “Why are you here? Really?”

“To be with you.”

“And this is real?”

“It can be real, if that’s your wish. But we really must put this puzzle together.”

He nodded and looked down at the puzzle; it was already halfway done. A puzzle of gnomes drinking and drunk from a barrel of rum. And more barrels in the distant skies, carried in the talons of great owls. And the owls were dropping the barrels of rum, and the gnomes were drinking from the barrels, and everything was good and quite strange. But, somehow, everything fit together. Perfectly. And that, he thought, was the very scary, terrifying part. Not just about the puzzle, but everything. It fit together perfectly, and he wasn’t accustomed to such breathtaking moments in life. He had never looked at a picture—even if just half complete for now—or puzzle, and knew that it was perfect. He had never began talking to someone and almost immediately realized he could talk to her forever.

“I’ll help you,” he finally said, after staring at the puzzle and the pieces, and her ringless fingers picking up the pieces and fitting them into the puzzle. “But I’m afraid I’ll put the pieces where they don’t belong.”

“Me too,” she admitted—admitting her fear with the realest smile he had ever seen, that she had ever smiled. “But I trust you.”

And he knew he trusted her as well. More than that. He just met her, but no, that’s not true at all. In some way, in some form, he knew her from the beginning. He didn’t know what beginning, but some beginning, and that’s all that mattered. He knew her, and loved her to the point of lightheadedness, the point where everything else pales in comparison, the point where nothing else matters, the point of real so real it almost feels surreal, and although he hated admitting it to himself, the point beyond explanation. He had always been so adroit at explaining things to himself. Sitting on this train, staring out the window at a muddy world of motion, explaining life to himself with his own fucked-up logic. So adept. Then, this, and explanation finally, and rightfully, and thankfully, failed.

And he couldn’t be happier.

The Nightfall Game:The Lightkeeper's Tale

 The Nightfall Game:The Lightkeeper's Tale

“I can’t stop seeing your face,” she began, the Lightkeeper. “So long ago when the winds were still wild and the world still free. So long ago, when whispers were the sound of music and music was but a notion yet to evolve. Long enough to forget, most would say. Just long enough to remember, and remember, and never forget that all things begin at the beginning.

“We were never an exception.”

She opened her dark eyes and stared across the room. Her eyes fell upon no one, but they never did. Of all of them, all who played this Nightfall Game, she was the most reclusive, the only one of them who did not speak outside the tale she told. The Lightkeeper—although no one knew what that titled bestowed—a petite woman who always sat in the darkest corner, always in the same robe of the darkest black, always with a single glass of wine so dark it, too, neared black.

Her stories never told a story.

“The lighthouse,” she continued, her whispers barely audible in the tavern’s deep silence. “Where I waited at world’s end for you. Do you remember,” she asked, “the brushes, and how they rested between your fingers? Do you remember my hands, my fingers, and how they molded with yours and became one, and how we became one? The paint, and how you called it your life’s blood? My tears, and how you called them your life’s greatest failure?”

She swirled the wine, sipped. Swirled. Sipped.

“Do you remember my words, my desires? Paint me something beautiful, I asked.

“And you said, what was it that you said?”

“‘Beauty cannot be painted, because beauty cannot be seen by instruments as blind as our eyes. We cannot see beauty. We can only feel it.’”

“Then what will you paint me?” I asked.

“And you smiled and touched my hand. A graze of the fingers, but enough.”

“‘Something you can feel.’”

“And you took my hand into yours and pressed it against my chest, my heart, and insisted that I must feel, that seeing is not enough and will never be enough. You must feel, and believe, and know, to truly see. Or else you are blind.

“And you painted me something beautiful in those days so long ago. Not beautiful in itself. It’s what you draw out of something, and someone, that’s truly beautiful and miraculous.

“And then, like all good things, you passed into the west on a ship that never returned. I waited, and in your absence I began the work you never finished. I painted you a hundred scenes. I painted you a world, hoping you’d find beauty in it, hoping you would return to capture what was rightfully yours.”

I can't think of anything other than dream doors now, so that's the title even if I hate it

Have ever you looked back onto your life and thought yes, that’s why that happened, now I finally understand, now it all finally makes sense when I thought none of it would ever make sense. Or maybe why something didn’t happen?

Have you ever looked back and found that so many things that never made sense, that you thought would never make sense, finally do?

Maybe not. Maybe you have. I hope you have.

--

This sort of thing has been happening to me quite a bit lately. Logic is coming from unlogic, and even that makes a sort of quasi-logic that’s a little frightening.

A lot frightening, actually. But a good fear, which is the best fear, and consequently the only fear you shouldn’t truly fear.

--

There are some things I say quite often, but only because they’re important to me and I rest much of my sanity and happiness on them. Dangerous, I know. But I live dangerously. I’m like Fonzi; I only dress in leather and tight jeans and I punch jukeboxes.

Everything happens for a reason. I don’t know when I started believing this, or why—I assume something must have begun the initial belief, but nothing too important if I can’t remember. Anyway, the older I grow—and I’m an old man—the more I believe something I once only just wanted to believe. It makes more and more sense. Everything does happen for a reason. You live like this, you’ll find yourself paying extra attention to everything. It’s rather amazing.

--

And dreams. Remember how I never shut up about dreams? Well, if you don’t remember then you should probably reread all my blog entries. I’m sure you’ll find many embarrassing things I wrote about myself, some of which are the consequence of a tad bit too much alcohol—good thing I’m cutting back a lot on that, because of someone.

Dreams. Usually I write about nightmares, because I don’t tend to dream anything other than nightmares, or at least some form of mentally damaging dreams. Not really nightmares…but something. My mind is fucked.

But nightmares or not, I’ve always said how dreams are more important than most people will ever admit or acknowledge. Now, I know I’m crazy for far more reasons than my obsessions with dreams. In fact, my dream obsession seems like one of the sanest parts about myself. Because, lately, dreams have very much directed my life and opened doors that may not have otherwise opened. Dream doors?! No, let’s not go that far. Let’s not be that crazy. Not yet.

Although dream doors does not have a nice ring.

--

So that’s it. I feel crazier than ever, but in a good way. I think the people who are crazy but know they’re crazy are the happiest, but then you’re not really crazy at all, since you know you are. You’re just you, and you’re happy, knowing that everything is happening for reasons and that dreams are dreaming and nightmares aren’t always nightmares and that even the dreams have reasons, extremely vital reasons to your waking self and waking life, and yes, all that.

Letter (8)

Letter (8)

The last time I wrote you letter I had to stop halfway through.

--

It wasn’t right. It wasn’t even a letter. It was forced and meaningless. I wasn’t sure where I was or where I was going. Now I at least know where I am, for now.

--

I was trying so hard to reach you that I was moving backwards, to somewhere I could never escape from. Somewhere between North and South Dakota, maybe, somewhere that’s real but really isn’t, somewhere you slip between the cracks and sink deeper and deeper into nothing.

--

I didn’t want to go there, not alone, so I stopped writing and stopped thinking for awhile. This was a few weeks ago, I think. Time blends. Reality blurs. Time repeats itself. I didn’t think that was possible but now I’m almost sure it is. The past exists to be repeated. Even those things you believe will never happen again.

Those moments, or moment, that seem incapable of replication.

--

I’m in South Dakota now, in a town that does exist. It’s not one of those cracks in the world. There’s nothing special here. I don’t have anything grand to share. I don’t do anything special or meet anyone worth mentioning or see anything that’s worth staring at. Well, one thing, but we’re not there yet.

What happens in the world, it doesn’t seem to happen around me.

 But there’s something here. The air is crisp in this part of the world. Crisp and clear and you can see forever. You can smell the sky, the night, and in the night, the stars. I breathe deeply, the cold air into my lungs, and breathe out, and suddenly I can’t see forever. Suddenly I’m lost deep within a frosted cloud of my own creation, and just as suddenly, it’s gone.

Or maybe I’m exaggerating. Maybe the cloud isn’t that big. Maybe I’m just lost in other ways. Maybe the cloud just looks bigger at night—nights like tonight—when the air is so crisp and the sky is so dark and the stars, the stars, the stars are endless.

--

I’ve been camping near a mountain’s summit, a bit below where the wind isn’t as strong. At night I climb to the summit with my sleeping bag and lay beneath the stars. There aren’t lights here. It’s a lot different from back home. There’s more stars, more everything.

I think I’m becoming part of the sky, and I think I’m okay with that.

I’d take you a picture but chances are you’d never see it, and even if you did, it wouldn’t be the same. There are some things you must see or experience, some things that pictures and even words fail to describe.

I’d tell you about the stars, I would, but it wouldn’t make a difference.

We Build, and Destroy

These words have been stuck in my head the past few days, although I don’t know why. I find myself at work, or at home, or half asleep, with a phrase lodged in my mind. We built these walls to block out the world. That’s all. It’s simple, I think. And extremely complex, I think. And when I say, I think, I mean I know, because I know there’s something far deeper to it, something I can’t quite grasp and will never understand. It’s just one of those group of words, for lack of better words, that join together form something far greater.

I often start stories, even novels, based off of a single sentence or just a few words.

My latest novel, Autumn’s Song, derived from two things. One of lesser importance: these words, which I couldn’t separate myself from—there came such soft rains. I was in bed one day, somewhat depressed and lost, as I so often am—in bed really, since I often write and edit in bed…not the depressed part!—just thinking, again, as I so often do. And it came into my mind. There came such soft rains. It was raining that day, I think. And this was awhile ago, while subbing for Griswold, after I read a Ray Bradbury short story—I think that’s who wrote it, about soft rains. So yeah, maybe I borrowed a bit, but Bradbury is one of the best, and all good authors borrow.

And so, we built these walls to block out the world. Again, I somewhat know where these thoughts derived from.

I build walls for myself, around myself, so I will not get hurt. I don’t like letting myself be vulnerable. I really don’t like letting other people truly know me, so I sort of put on a persona of sorts, another me, a good me I let the world see. Because it’s easy for me to let someone into who I truly am. When I have, or tried, I’ve been hurt, and in ways that are hard to describe, broken. So We built these walls to block out the world. There’s going to be a story from these words, eventually, when I put all the pieces together and build something from nothing.

But that’s all I have for now—the same words that have been stuck in my head for more than a week now, mostly at work where all I do is think, and think, and text my best friend, and text some more, and think some more, and that’s about it. And sometimes random words pop into my head. The ones I just described. And maybe because I work at a package store—Cheers, Darling. Cheers, Darling. Or maybe that’s from my favorite Damien Rice song. I don’t know. And maybe there will be a story from that, eventually.

Eventually.

We built these walls to block out the world, to separate ourselves from everything, from the outside, even from ourselves.

And It Will Stay With You

Lately I seem to blog late, late at night when I’m either thinking too much or can’t sleep… mainly because I’m thinking too much. Tonight is no exception.

Last night I didn’t fall asleep until 6:20am. Sleep has been a burden. As I posted in my last blog, sleep is scary, and really, it is for me. At least recently. The past two days. Lately I feel like Anne Frank—thank you for telling me to read that, if you’re still reading this—blogging my personal life rather than things I’ve written. But writing is writing and learning to be more open and all those good things.

Last night I really didn’t want to fall asleep. I attempted to fall asleep to music, hoping it would somehow stop my dreams, but I couldn’t fall asleep using that method. And last night I did dream, but the dreams didn’t bother me. They had nothing to do with me or my life, thankfully. They were just my usual nonsensical awesome dreams.

But the night before, as I mentioned, I dreamt, and I’m not exaggerating to say that the dream was devastating. Before I called it a nightmare, but I don’t think I should. It wasn’t a frightening dream by normal standards, and nothing bad happened in it. No ghouls or ghosts or aliens and whatnot.

But you know when you’re trying to extinguish a fire and it won’t quite burn out? And you’re like hey, fire, why aren’t you burnt out by now, shouldn’t you be cold coals and ash and not flames? Oh wait, now you almost are…but oh fuck, shit, fuck fuck fuck fuck shit, fuck shit, the flames are now huuuuggggeee because of this crazy-ass fucking dream and now I can never extinguish these flames! It’s like that. You think the fire is extinguished, and then your subconscious lights it aflame again, and you find yourself in a state of fucked-uppery.

So, today, at work, all I could do was think and try to understand my current state of life, and for the first time in…years I think, I was actually angry. Legitimately angry at my mind for seemingly working against me, for bringing such vivid and breathtaking and destructive dreams to reality. Because the dream was that real. Reality.

But maybe the anger is misplaced, or even unneeded. I put credence into dreams, perhaps more than I should. Let’s face it. We’re all fucked up. We, as people, are fucked up. So maybe I shouldn’t even trust my own thoughts, or what I’m trying to make myself think. Maybe my subconscious knows best, knows me better than I know myself, and is showing me the truth through dreams.

Because this has never happened to me before, ever, and I really can’t shake it or begin to explain what feel like inadequacies and shortcomings on my part. When I think I’m good, really good, I fall asleep and dream the most vivid and memorable dreams I have ever dreamt. Beautiful dreams. So beautiful.

And it ruins part of me.

And revitalizes part of me.

And I don’t know what to think or do or how to act when I’m always so good at controlling everything in my life.

So I just stop thinking, or caring, at least on the outside.

So I think I’m just conceding. I can control my conscious during waking hours. I think what I want to think and believe my beliefs. I have fun and enjoy life, etc. I can…look past the past, not forget—never forget—but at least progress.

But it almost feels like none of it matters. I reach a point and I dream again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and it hasn’t failed yet. It brings me back to somewhere I don’t want to be, but to somewhere I really, really want to be, and, again, I don’t know how to explain what’s happening in my own mind.  

I remember reading this somewhere in Italy, I think, when I lived there for a few months. Some artist said it—I forget who—but it resonates. And I’m paraphrasing.

When you see something beautiful, truly beautifully, something that steals your breath and captures you senses, remember it, and store it, and never forget it. For it will be your inspiration, your dreams and nightmares, and it will stay with you forever as part of you.

Sleep is Scary, so don't do it.

You supposedly remember fewer dreams when you sleep less hours.

 I should clarify.

REM naps increase dream recall rather drastically, as sleep is never deep and dreams…lay on the surface. Sleeping longer, along with waking up multiple times and falling back to sleep, is also often conducive to remembering dreams, mostly due to the later hours that fringe upon REM.

The last few nights I have slept from 5 or 6am to 11am. My dreams, normally, should be very difficult to remember, but they have been extremely detailed, preserved, and as usual, haunting. Actually, most of the dreams were rather interesting, especially one with me stuck in a world where time is suspended in motion, where everything you do almost instantly undoes itself. Of course I went crazy in the dream and started running people down in a truck. It was a very long and very confusing dream.

Right now it’s 4am, so I’ll post this tomorrow at a more reasonable time. Lately I haven’t had much motivation to blog, but to be fair I haven’t had a lot of motivation to do much more than attend the gym.

This is all connected, I promise.

Everything is connected, as I’ve said both here and to people and a person.

It’s odd, that I stay awake all night when I sort of hate night, or at least sleep now, because all I do is think and dream dreams I don’t want to dream.

I always wonder what motivates people, especially at the gym when you’re beating yourself up to become stronger and look nicer. What are they thinking? What inspires them? I usually think about things that frustrate and even anger me, of which there are too many. Today, and for a long foreseeable time, I thought about the dream I had last night. It was amazing, and horrible.

When you’re not trying to forget someone—some things aren’t intended to be forgotten—but at least put them in the back of your mind, that very same mind fucks you over through a dream, or in my case, many dreams. Last night I had one of these dreams, the first one in many weeks, and, surprisingly, it was by far the longest, most vivid, and most…personal?

I’m aware of how confusing the above paragraph may be, but I don’t intend to change it. Read it slowly, and more than once.

And while I usually describe my more interesting dreams, this time I will not. As much as I love public forums and sharing with those who care, I just as much like keeping some things to myself. Besides, details aren’t important.

Yes they are. To say otherwise would be a horrible lie.

But oh well.

And, so, I just felt like ranting about nothing and everything tonight, because why would I be sleeping right now anyway?

And yes, I sort of am wary to sleep tonight. Today I woke up not remembering my dream at first. Then, about ten minutes later, something triggered and it all came rushing back. I said something explicit, sighed, and just sat there for awhile staring at nothing. I was shocked for multiple reasons—one reason being how deeply the dream and the person in it affected me—and even a little sickened. Not in a physical sense, but emotional. So now I’m wondering if I’ll dream again, and if the dreams will be along the same lines, if I’ll see the person and think the same things and wake up wondering what the fuck my mind is doing when I sleep.

The Nightfall Game: The Seafarer’s Yarn

 There's nothing relevant or exciting or particularly good to say about myself and my life at this point, so here's the next installment of a The Nightfall Game.

The Nightfall Game: The Seafarer’s Yarn

“A tale of loss,” the Seafarer began. His year to begin, his tale to weave. He sat in the tavern’s corner, in the light of a single candle’s withering flame. An ancient, sun-scarred man, his dark cloak smelled of sea salt and low tide, and his pale gray eyes, when you studied them in just the right light, showed the sun setting across the watery horizon.

He spoke only of loss, knew not much else, and what else he did know he never shared.

“So long ago when we found her in an oarless rowboat drifting across the sea. She was nearly dead, haunted by the sun and sea. And she should have died. No food or water, she should have died, but life gives to us those rare blessings. Doesn’t it? And those less rare curses.”

The Seafarer’s listeners silently nodded, faces only partially visible in the dim candlelight.

“The next day she vanished, after she gave the gifts she came to give. A locket to Otten, and within that locket, a portrait of his wife painted beyond the delicacy of hands. ‘She waits,” said the spirit girl, for she was a spirit girl, ‘And she will wait forever, always, as you sail these seas.’ And Otten, how he wept and cursed the gods by names I cannot utter, and beneath the stars those gods summoned him into the sea.

“A bright red rose to Laurn. A bright red rose deep out at sea. ‘A rose from your gravestone,” the spirit girl said, grief in her dark eyes. ‘Still fresh, as are the memories of you face, but even that will be forgotten, someday, as you forever sail these seas.’ And Laurn, pale after so many years beneath the sun, stumbled into the quarters below deck, where we found her hanging so peacefully, her bright eyes finally dull.

“And she came to me last of all, did this spirit girl. I wanted nothing from her, saw the affect of her words and gifts on my crew. Two more souls had already joined the sea. I did not want to be third. Yet I could not unhear her words. ‘A stone, from land,’ the spirit girl said, handing me the stone. ‘For you will someday walk upon the earth, someday long from now when all you know and care for will be dead and gone, and you will be alone to live again.’

“And me, my friends, I did not cast myself into the sea or slip a noose around my neck. I leaned upon the starboard rail and searched the horizon. I did not see land, but I knew it was there, somewhere, and that when I found it I would have to start all over again. A curse, I knew, but my ship had been cursed from the beginning. And men, all of us, all people, we share the same curse of death and desolation.

“And so the spirit girl left my ship with one soul less than she came to take. The stone I kept for myself.”

One Step

45,918 words later...maybe I can sleep again. Edited four times on the computer, then twice over on paper, I've never edited anything I've ever written with such zeal and dedication. Now I know what Ellis means when he says he slaves over each and every word, the structure and meaning behind and within everything. It's hard, I think, with fantasy, when you have 500-1000 pages. This book is just 148 pages and not fantasy. I have no idea what genre this novel falls into. By far the most difficult and rewarding thing I've ever written. Now comes the fun part. Writing a synopsis for it, the cover letters, the other tedious things that I will begin tomorrow. Right now I'm just staring at the folder this thing is in and feeling very pleased with the last edit and what was changed this version--my version--of the end product. With this out of the way, and it is out of the way, I can start sending tons of stuff out again, as I didn't have the time previously.

I remember the exact night when I started writing this and how everything came together so quickly, and how, from that moment, it possessed me as things usually do. Yes, I've written six novels--all much longer--before this, and two half finished, but that's not something I brag about since none of it is published, and while each "finished" product felt like an accomplishment, this felt like much more. Perhaps due to the subject matter or how mentally draining the novel was to write. Maybe I should write happier things, but that's not me. Maybe it can be at some point in time, but probably not.

I'm thinking far ahead, I know, but this novel will have a dedication page when published. That's the only part left unfinished, in my eyes. In my eyes.

The Nightfall Game

I’ve been brainstorming for my blog for a long time now, trying to decide what sort of thing to write. Flash fiction, I know, but something semi-continuous, yet, at the same time, something that really doesn’t make me commit. The blog is mostly for fun and the writing isn’t all that serious. I barely proofread it—I’m sure there’s many mistakes I overlook, as I tend to blog late at night read most things over only once.

Regardless, I’d still like to present something worthwhile both for myself and those who read, something to post other than the Letters and my own rants about life and whatnot.

I started the blog for a reason, so I suppose I should continue it for a reason.

So, brainstorming, I started thinking about a Neil Gaiman short story. If you haven’t read him, you should; everything he writes is fantastic. Anyway, I forget the short story’s name, and I don’t feel like searching through my books for it. In essence, a bunch of people—Months of the year, actually. You know, June…July…November…those guys—come together for an annual meeting of sorts to share stories. It’s a contest, if I remember correctly.

And so my idea was born. I think it’s hard for me to write short stories because I can never write from my own mind or thoughts, if that makes sense. I have to get extremely deep into the character, become the character(s), and I think that’s harder in short stories than it is in longer pieces of fiction. You have less room, less time, and it’s a different sort of skills that I’m still trying to hone. But if someone else tells the stories for me, a group of characters I create before their stories, then it somehow feels easier. I’m aware that that may sound insane, but that’s okay. I understand insanity very well.

Also, writing this sort of thing is good practice, since I should be writing more short stories in hopes to publish them, as publishing is very much a snowball effect. Once you’re in, it’s easy to get deeper.

I suppose writing and publishing is a lot like having sex.

They both make me cry.

Wait, what?

--

The Nightfall Game

Prologue

They gathered as they always did, beginning so many years ago. It was an ancient game they played, and at the same time, not a game at all. Played, lived, obsessed over—it depended on which one of them you asked and how well they spun the lie.

They gathered as they always did, near the shore where you could watch the sea roll in and out through the salted windows of the tavern, where you could hear the waves crash against the stones as black as night, where you could feel the wind gust through the cracks in the walls. Lanterns burnt inside, their flames always flickering and always yellow more than white, creating more shadows than light. But they, those who gathered here, never fretted over the lack of light and excess of shadows. Their stories belonged to the shadows, were better off told in darkness than light, better off whispered.

They gathered as they always did, eleven in all but only ten who told their stories. The eleventh, a grizzled man behind the bar, poured their drinks and filled their flasks, but mostly he just listened to their stories.

That’s needed, even here. Someone to hear the stories, an evenhanded listener crouching on the outskirts, his one good eye watching the speakers one by one, one by one.

He was the only one of the eleven who ever gave his real name, and although he was as ancient as the rest of them, from a time nearly before times, when the stories, their stories, led to the creation of all other stories—although he was similar to the others, he wasn’t one of them. His name was Gallan, his true name, and he was the tavernkeep, and he was a simple man surrounded by some of the most complex men and women to ever live.

He wasn’t one of them—and after all these centuries he knew he would never be—but he was close enough to be a judge, to have a voice, to change the world again and again, and to always share their regret when they stood from their seats and emptied their tables and slid on their cloaks and coats and left the tavern for the night, and for the year, until the next year, and the next and next and so on.

Stories like this, they go on and on.

No, Gallan wasn’t one of them. He resembled them closely enough, as any man resembles any other man. His long white beard was a beard—hard to argue that. And his one eye—cloudy blue now—could see well enough. Almost as well as two eyes. Curse fishhooks. He wore a gray cloak that anyone else could wear, and black boots and a thick woolen shirt to fight off the chills.

Even so, he wasn’t one of them, but he belonged with them on one single night, every year, for so many past years that no one bothered to count anymore.

And so he readied the beer and wine and whiskey. The casks in place, the barrels full and tapped, the bottlenecked glasses filled with their burning, murky contents. He readied the tavern—although it had been readying itself since they last departed a year ago—because they would be gathering soon. And voices would fill the tavern, and words would be spoken, yarns spun and tales told, stories, and at the end of it all, a decision, a judging, a verdict, and they, those would played this Nightfall Game, would accept fate and leave again.

I Almost Went Blind and I'm Haunted by Desert Roads and Demons who Spit Shadows and Beautiful Women Stranded in Blizzards

Have to post before I forget too much of my dreams from last night. Before that, however, a brief anecdote. Hopefully my…stories are lucid, as I’m not tired as much as I am exhausted. I slept about three hours last night, followed by nine hours of work, so please have patience.

I won’t repeat myself too much. Although I didn’t spend last night how I originally intended, it was still quite excellent. Last night I blogged very late, and I’m not even sure what I said so I won’t bother to mention last night’s post more than I just did. I was half asleep and not entirely sober, so rereading it would likely be a very sobering experience.

Regardless, I still got home at a decent time and, since I was getting up at 8am for the gym before work, I went to bed at a reasonable time, before all my plans were ruined in some way or another.

Rather than fall asleep around 2am, I instead journeyed into one of my insane nightmare phases that are becoming harder and harder to escape; this kept me more or less awake, and haunted, until 6am, when I finally fell asleep—we will return here soon.

I wake up horribly tired at 8am, but I’m very committed and too stubborn for my own good, so I prepare for the gym followed by work. I eat and take my pre-workout supplements and do all that fun shit, and all the while my eyes are burning. Horribly. Bright red. To the point where they almost look to be bleeding. I can’t even keep my eyes open or look at anything, and it’s so painful that I’m becoming sick. In my exhaustion I didn’t bother to correlate my burning eyes to that I’m using the final drops of my contact saline solution, and the solution is not at all working as intended.  Essentially, I’m shoving fire into my eyes and not bothering to put out the flames, but I’m too tired to process this, so I let the burning continue until I’m nearly blind.

And so then I decide to drive, naturally assuming nature will run its course and I’ll be fine soon enough. About two miles later I nearly crash my car because, guess what, I really can’t keep my eyes open. I’m for the most part blind, driving with my eyes shut, and so I force myself to turn around. The gym is not in my future today, and, well, I rather not die or kill someone else. Also, the pain is making me sick and I’m close to throwing up. I have an extremely high pain tolerance, so I assume this must be bad.

So I at least make one intelligent decision for the day. Quota reached.

I arrive home and remove my contacts, since I’m going to sleep for about an hour before work, and sure enough my eyes feel instantly better. Still burning, but not the oh my god I need to rip my eyes out burning. Now it’s just a numbing pain even when my eyes are shut.

And so I go back to sleep. And that’s the end of that end. My eyes still hurt, but at least the new solution is working as intended, and tonight, sleeping more than three hours will likely rest my battered eyes.

But let’s get to why I couldn’t sleep in the first place.

Dreams, so many dreams, which, as you may know, is nothing to me. I’ve brought this upon myself through practicing lucid dreaming and increasing my dream recall, so I can’t complain, and I’m not complaining, but I am sharing.

Regrettably, or perhaps thankfully, I don’t remember most of my dreams from last night, but I remember enough to still disturb me, as the overall sentiments and atmospheres were unbearably distressing.

The first dream doesn’t sound like much; it’s what I felt that bothered me. I was in my room playing my Xbox 360, a game fellow gamers may know—Borderlands. It’s an apocalyptic futuristic shooting game and one of my favorites. Anyway, I’m stuck before the game even truly begins. I’m playing on an impossibly hard mode, a mode that doesn’t even exist. I keep starting the game over and over again. My character, which quickly becomes me, begins on a deserted road all by himself. Desert to both side, seamless and flat and seemingly forever. Scorched. There is no life. And my character is limping, already half dead before I even begin. So I start playing, and slowly, I just fall to the ground and die. I take a few limping steps, fall to one knee, and die. And I do this over and over and over again, for hours, dozens of times. I just keep dying, and watching myself die. Such a pleasant dream. My subconscious is fine.

The next dream is even worse, as it woke me up and didn’t let me fall back to sleep for awhile.

 So this right here, this paragraph, see it?, this all happened in real reality—An exact week ago I think, I was at my friend’s house and we were discussing scary movies. She, or maybe it was me, mentioned The Exorcism of Emily Rose, which I think is a severely underrated horror movie. We started discussing the most frightening scene, which we agreed is when Emily is at college, in her dorm room all alone, with the devil inside her, and there’s tons of contortion and whatnot. Good stuff. It’s one of those images I can’t get out of my mind to this day. Sure enough, as she’s flicking through channels, the movie is on, and not only, it’s that scene. We, of course, watch it.

I wanted to watch Masturbating School Girls 5, but noooooooo.

Flip ahead to my nightmare. No masturbating school girls. Sigh. Just one brief scene. There’s a man sitting on a park bench. He’s alone, and by alone I mean the rest of the world doesn’t exist. No ground, no sky or backdrop. Nothing. He’s wearing a tan coat with a hood, and the hood is up. His features are so normal they don’t warrant detail. He opens his mouth impossibly slow, until it’s too wide, so wide it would break in real life, and the darkest shadows I’ve ever seen begin to engulf his face. He’s screaming, silently, in horrible pain as shadows eat his face, and him, and eventually the entire nightmare fades to black.

The third dream is the worst, even though it’s not at all a traditional nightmare.

I’m at work, the package store where I put my English degree to quality use, and I’m behind the counter at the register. I turn around to ring someone up, and that someone happens to be a friend who likes to haunt my dreams—that unresolved conflict thing, so at least I sort of know why this keeps happening. Far too often. In the dream I know she’s not 21, so I shouldn’t be selling her anything, yet I just stand there like an idiot as we make small talk—the smallest talk possible. How are you? Good. How are you? I’m okay, alive. You look good. Yeah. Thanks. You too. Yeah. Yeah. Not much considering the circumstances. Do you have any blueberry syrup?

Wait, what? Yes, asks if we have any blueberry syrup, and for some reason I’m sure we do, only when I walk around the store looking for this syrup, it’s nowhere to be found and I can’t but feel like I’m letting her down, and this is familiar and not at all new, although I’m not sure why. Instead of working, I’m just fumbling around and staring at her and trying to talk, wanting to talk, and then, suddenly, there’s a blizzard outside. The blizzard of the century, the entire world in a whiteout.

I still don’t really care. I’m just trying to talk to her.

And my friend Mike comes in from outside insisting we leave with him, or else we’ll be stranded here forever and starve.  

I agree, but only because my friend who I haven’t seen or spoken to in so long also agrees, and together we follow Mike out the door, and the next thing I know we’re in his car. She and I are in the front seat, and for some reason Mike is in the backseat…where he’s driving the car by a system of ropes and levers tied to the steering wheel. No one is talking, as no one is sure what to say, and when I want to say so much, and do so much, there’s only silence and inaction, and snow outside. The entire world buried beneath snow. At one point the car nearly flips, and Mike in the backseat laughs wildly as my friend and I just stare through the windows, into the white.

I had more dreams, many more, but they’re not substantial enough to record, and seeing as this blog is somewhat of my dream journal that I share with the world, I rather not waste time and space—the internet is lacking space, of course. And so, between, these threes very vivid dreams and more, I only slept a few hours last night. The rest I spent in these dreams, and half awake thinking of these dreams, and fully awake haunted by these dreams, and so on and so on.

Overall, a decent night.

I have a headache.

There's always...

 Time.

October. Today.

September went out with a bang. Not really. September was entirely lackluster, highlighted by very few things that don’t eve seem that good. September was nothing like I thought it would be, but expectations rarely equal reality.

I got to hang out with my good friend tonight, Ron, which is always a blessing and far too rare, and my friend Mike invited me out to the bar with him. Ron and I get there and it turns out, what the fuck, I know Mike’s girlfriend, I’m extremely good friends with the guy Mike’s hanging out with…and I don’t know who the other girl is but I don’t really care. Small world. Really small world. Really, though…the world seems so small, but that’s because I haven’t moved away from here, and I really, really, want to move away from here.

So far away.

--

I want to get away, to go out and see no one I know, to be a stranger in a strange world. Not that I don’t love my friends, I do, but there’s people everywhere, and I can be everywhere as well. I’d like to start again and see where I end up.

--

Driving home was strange tonight. By how often I stared at the sky, I’m surprised I didn't crash. Silent lightning scorched the sky. I was listening to Explosions in the Sky on my CD player. What I listen to is always far more important than it should be, but music is everything; it’s the most beautiful thing I will ever know, the purest and most untainted, which is sort of the same thing but not.

--

Driving home, I couldn't help but think far too much, as I tend to do, and I only smiled when lightning flashed and lit the sky, when jagged bolts tore through the sky, when the sky was white, so white, and everything else was dark.

--

I’m a sucker for weather. I love storms. In my perfect world—a very fucked-up perfect world, indeed—storms would be nearly constant. Thunder and rain, a tempestuous existence broken only by peaceful moments. I think, because, I’m quite tempestuous. Not on the outside. More than ever, on the outside I’m calm and tranquil, silent usually and the opposite when I choose to be, which isn’t often. Silence, in which I think and weigh so much on a scale of my own, when inside I’m extremely tempestuous, dangerous, I think, to no one other than myself, and even to myself I’m not truly dangerous. Not in a physical sense, at least. Just mentally, in those recesses where thoughts run rampant and control is so, so fragile.

--

So when it storms I’m reminded of something, of myself, and I don’t know where to go from there.

--

And so here ends another month. I remember when I didn't know what month it was, when time blended and the date rarely mattered. And while September passed quicker than August, and while July was the slowest month of my life when June passed nearly as slowly, but better, I assume October will not be so different. This is good, though…in some ways. Time passes one day at a time, and often it doesn’t pass at all.

Letter (7)

Back to another part of the Letter series. I honestly have no idea where this is going or what I'm going to write until I start, but that's part of the fun, since it's more train of thought than anything else and what I write always surprises, if that makes sense.

I'd like to start another sort of flash fiction series on the blog, but I don't have any great ideas yet. Hopefully something good comes to mind. Possibly something incorporating my slew of fucked up dreams.

-Letter (7)-

It has rained for so many days straight that I stopped counting. At least it isn’t snow, and at least it isn’t cold. It’s not warm, but it’s something, just as everything is something, and I’m being vague, and I’m sorry for that, and for so much else.

--

You see, the rain plays music that most of us can’t hear, but I’ve been training myself for years. I figure I can’t play a real instrument, and although you can’t play the rain, you can take meaning from it and dispense that meaning into your life.

--

Our lives are made up of thousands and thousands of moments. Millions, actually. Maybe more. Most moments aren’t important, and some matter far more than others, but each moment exists on some level, and each moment, down the most miniscule, those that are not only forgotten but never remembered, each moment is a raindrop, and each moment has a certain pitch and frequency and sound. Each moment is a note. Each moment is a piece of a song, a part of music—the music of our lives.

--

I haven’t lived a very long time but I think my life is already made up of many moments. Many movements, if you will. Now more than ever the moments are adding up faster than I can keep track of, and along with the moments, the rain is falling, and falling, and falling, and I can’t avoid the raindrops.

--

Have you ever tried that? Being out in the rain but trying to weave through the drops? Remember, once, when that storm broke over us, and shortly after everything else broke?

 The song’s growing more complex, preludes and interludes and ludes I don’t even know the names of, and the repeats, my god the repeats.

--

 de capo al fine.

--

But we can’t go back to the beginning. I know that now, as I’ve always known but never wanted to admit. Andante. I can’t run, just drive across this world as I’ve been driving. Hear the music of the rain, the rhapsody of the storms, as this truly is the overture to the rest of my life.

--

And so, for now, I don’t drive. I don’t do much of anything other than sit out in the rain and listen to the song of my life. And although it’s a sad, sad song, minor in nature and even dissonant at times, it’s still a song, and it still has meaning, and that, really, is all we’re searching for.

Something Beautiful, Something Breathtaking

My blog frequency is faltering, I know. But for good reason. I’ve been extremely busy lately, and with a bunch of art commissions coming in, as well as some new excitement in my rather boring life, I’m even busier. I also need to post a new piano video, as I have two new songs I’ve been working on. But piano is rather hard for me. I live at home, sadly, and there’s always someone downstairs, some sort of noise and distraction and annoyance, so I rarely find an opportune time to play and record. Alas.

Anyway, since I’m already talking about music I might as well continue. You know those moments when you hear a song and it hits you incredibly hard? Well, maybe you don’t know. But it happens to me. There’s those songs that change your life, that you can play over and over again, and have played over and over again, and they never get old. They make you feel better—or worse—but no matter what they filled with emotion that makes you feel something—something you want to feel, need to feel.

If you’ve been following this blog you already know of The Trapeze Swinger by Iron and Wine; it’s my favorite song and has lifted me when I needed lifting. As a musician, as well as a composer and writer, music affects me very deeply, and while I mostly listen to various sorts of metal, it may come as a surprise that all of my favorite songs, all of the songs that have hit me the hardest and always stay deep within me, all of my favorite songs are outside the metal genre.

Just incase you’re wondering, here are the songs that have changed my life, and I do mean changed my life. I love when people share their favorite music with me, so I figured I’d do the same, even if you don’t care. You don’t have to look them up and listen, but if you do you might be pleased.

The Trapeze Swinger – Iron and Wine

The Sea and the Rhythm – Iron and Wine

To Build a Home- The Cinematic Orchestra  

Crawling Back to You – Tom Petty

 --the next two songs are ambient. Surprisingly, there’s no purely piano songs.

Brighter than a Star – Gandalf

Now Night Her Course Began – Sephiroth  -- a line from Paradise Lost, so it’s even cooler

There are, of course, many other songs and bands and artists that I enjoy, but these are the songs I have listened to hundreds upon hundreds of times.

So where am I going with this seemingly pointless rant about music? Well, I may have found a new song to add to the list. It’s a very simple song, yet its elegance and amazing lyrics—poignant and non-cliché lyrics, at that—are what makes it so beautiful. It gave me that wow, numb feeling that’s so rare yet so beautiful. And like all the songs above, the first time I heard it I had tears in my eyes.

I’m strange like that. I don’t really cry for the deaths of loved ones—though maybe I should, yet so often I can’t—and I keep my emotions tightly reigned in most of the time. Now more than ever, which may be good or bad. Yet there comes those times in life when you hear something beautiful—these songs—or see something breathtaking—John Martin’s Apocalypse paintings or Henry Fuseli’s Nightmare—and you can’t help but cry. Because someone, someone like you and me, a person like every other person, created beauty out of nothing. And that, I think, is the definition of true beauty. It’s partly why I write, why I compose, why I paint, why I want to do so much yet seemingly do not have enough time to master any of it.

And, so, I suppose I should link the song I heard yesterday and absolutely fell in love with. Admittingly, it’s partly due to personal reasons, but those are the best songs—the ones we can relate to on an extremely personal level. I linked it yesterday via facebook, and so I’ll do it again, as it did inspire this blog.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6nZGv8VTBVE

From Outside

I had an incredibly vivid and disturbing nightmare today, during a nap when I fell asleep while editing. However, when I was out tonight and tried to retell my nightmare, I realized how not frightening and silly it sounded, how it barely resembled a nightmare and how I couldn’t even explain it without going on and on. And, so, I’m going to rewrite my nightmare as a short piece of fiction to see if I can better capture the essence, as my written words are far more elegant and explanatory than anything I will ever say.

Some of the dream I have already made sense of—the setting, as last night I watched two episodes of Vampire Diaries, and of course the overall sentiment of being alone and discarded, as that’s something many of us fear and worry about, often more so than we should, and the appearance of certain items in the dream, as they came up in discussion late into the night. The rest, however, is beyond me, as so much is.

Truly, the dream was feeling more than anything else, of knowing I was alone and could never escape the solitude, that I was destined to wander, alone, forever, and I couldn’t break away from the hold it had on me. Even now the feeling is bothersome and yet I cannot explain it nearly as well as I should.

--

From Outside

We arrived deep into the night, passing into the foyer of a great mansion, a building unlike any of us have ever seen, yet alone entered. Gothic inside, too much like a castle ripped out of the ancient times and thrown into ours, the estate of a lord, a duchess, a count of depthless darkness. A long hall which a narrow red rug traveled down, to where the hall split into two—left and right. The ceiling, vaulted, arched a hundred feet above us as the darkness of night passed through the skylights and dimmed the flickering light of torches in sconces along the walls.

We thought ourselves dressed for the occasion. Suits, ties, vests, black shoes polished to reflect the torchlight, but the attendants merely shook their heads and stared at us with their empty, unresponsive eyes. It’s those eyes that still haunt me, the vacancy within them, the eyes of soulless husks with a single purpose: to allow entry, to prepare visitors.

We obeyed their commands and donned the long blue robes handed to us. Mine was longest of all, I remember, the robe ending at my feet and making it difficult to walk without tripping over the thick, burdensome fabric. The others had no problem; their robes fit perfectly, seemed tailor to their frames while mine merely draped off me.

Six, or seven, or eight of us in all—remembering is difficult—and although none of us understood the reasons for these robes or what we were getting ourselves into, we didn’t complain or ask questions. We smiled, nervously, as so many of my smiles tend to be, and nodded in acceptance. We had come this far; we could not turn around now.

“You will be chosen one by one,” the attendant said, his voice as empty as his eyes. “You will walk the halls and the escorts will choose you and you will be seated and it will be yours.”

We again nodded as if we understood.

The attendants drew the red ropes aside and allowed us deeper into the foyer, down the hall. So much is blur. A restaurant, I thought we were going to a restaurant, or was it a hotel? A concert? Chosen for what? Memories are so hazy. The most important things always go misunderstood.

Vividness returned after we left the attendants behind, for good. At least for me. I don’t know what’s become of the others, if they were destined for better lives, if they were meant to find someone here, or something, or live happily ever after. But that never happens, does it? And all the most famous love stories end in despair.

I recall seeing a notebook lying on the floor near the beginning of my journey. A notebook, I had thought. Why is such a thing here? But now I know.

We began down the stone halls. The lavishness of the foyer immediately vanished, replaced by gray stone austerity and thick wooden doors to both sides. Women—they resembled vampires at first glance, and maybe they were—stood outside the doors dressed in tight black leather, all with black hair in curls flowing down their backs. These women, these escorts, approached members of my group one by one, smiling their captivating smiles and drawing my friends away. One by one. One by one. It all happened so suddenly, so quickly, that it took me a few moments to realize I was alone.

The others were chosen for greater things. They were accepted, and perhaps loved? I still don’t know how love plays a role here, but it does, somehow, deep down.

I’m still walking. Sometimes, outside the rooms I can see through the walls, and there’s happiness inside. I can’t explain what I see. Outlines of people, living shadows, warm colors, emotions felt through time and space. Pleasure, joy, so many real emotions that I cannot experience from outside these walls and wooden doors.

 And so I walk alone.

A time ago, near the start of this, near the point that I realized my solitude, one of the escorts approached. But she wasn’t like the others. I couldn’t see her face. She was little more than a blur, a cloud of shadows with the figure of a woman deep within. She said, “You shouldn’t have to walk alone. I’ve walked alone for so long here. I can walk with you, if you want.”

I can’t recall my answer. I think I would have accepted her, as no one wants to be alone, but the memories fade and blur and so much is forgotten, and at the end of it all I still walk alone. She’s here, somewhere, wandering as well, and so many others are here as well. We’ve either found our destinations, where we should be, or we’re wandering alone, somehow avoiding each other through every step, somehow missing opportunity after opportunity.

So I Went to Montreal and...

...had a ton of fun. In short, Montreal is amazing. In long, I will tell you why and what I did over the course of my vacation. Not everything can be shared due to legal purposes—funny and true!—but for the most part everything worthwhile will be shared.

Tyler, Joe, and I leave early Thursday morning, from Connecticut to Canada on a straight course. The ride is nothing special. For the most part I text my friend who thankfully entertains me, and Kilgore (Tyler) and I listen to music. Classical music on the last stretch of the drive, which adds a nice element to the scenic upstate New York.

Let’s jump ahead to crossing the border, where I met the biggest bitch I will ever meet. Of course I forget my passport in the trunk, so I jump out and snag it to present it to the border guard woman person—she’s the enormous bitch. I hate her. I forever will. She says, in her bitchy voice, “Why did you bring your passport?” Of course I have no idea how to respond to this, so I stutter and think. “To give it to you?” I ask, which is apparently the answer she wanted, as he nods arrogantly. She then asks us a slew of questions—where we’re going, why, the hotel’s address?!, how long we’re staying, and more irrelevant questions. It takes us like five minutes to find the hotel’s address, and all the while she just stares at us. Really. Hugest bitch ever; you had to hear her voice.

I should have hit on her and see how far that got me, if I would have landed in Canadian jail.

We finally arrive in the city of Montreal and promptly drive around in circles for awhile, not realizing we passed our hotel once, and nearly twice. We then, of course, park in the wrong parking garage and have to switch to another one beneath the hotel, in what resembles an end of the world bunker. Our hotel is also on the edge of Asia Town. Yes, Asia Town in Montreal, and even inside the hotel is quite Asian. There’s an enormous and elaborate koi pond with bridges and everything.

Later we go out to eat and locate beer, and it is then I realize two things. One: I’m horribly underdressed in this city; everyone looks like gold. Two: 29 out of 30 women in Montreal are beautiful, and I’m not exaggerating. This trend continues throughout the trip, as we all notice that women in Montreal are stupidly attractive. I really should move to Montreal, by the way. I’m still stunned.

Also, we find six packs of beer, which is of the most importance. Phew.

I should probably tell you the reason why we went to Montreal. For myself, there’s a few reasons. One: a Grand Prix in Magic the Gathering, a card game that my friends and I play. Two and more importantly: I’m trying to expand my painting business right now in a big way. With acrylic arts I do alterations to Magic cards. It’s a fairly lucrative business and a ton of fun, so I brought my art supplies and painted for many hours at the convention, selling a fair amount of my art. Three and most importantly: I love traveling with friends and I’ll do it at every opportunity, to anywhere. I save just about all my money for traveling expenses.

So it’s Thursday night, our first night, and of course we decide to go out and get drunk while meeting up with a few friends. We drink towers of beer at the first bar—towers about four feet tall, nine liters of beer or something, and leave for another bar, as we want to see a lot of the city.

 At this point I’m still entirely sober and just full on beer. One guy is already very drunk, and others are rather drunk as well. I’m very silent at this point, as I’m slipping into one of my extremely introspective states, just thinking about myself in relation to the world and the people of it, and how drunken people act, and how I have now stopped myself from reaching that absurd and annoying point, and how Montreal, like most cities, is quite fantastic, and how today has been a very good day, from the car ride up to now, and so on.

And so we leave that bar in search of, of course, a strip club. However, one member of our group insists that we must get in for free, drink for free, have free VIP, and so on and so on—of course no bouncers agree to this and we look like silly Americans. So we’re on the street somewhere in Montreal haggling with bouncers about stripper prices and whatnot, and the entire situation is quite hilarious, until everyone passes up a very good offer into a strip club. Passing up good offers is not hilarious. However, Kilgore and I are sick of waiting so we agree to go inside.

This is my first strip club anywhere, ever. Yes, I suppose I’m rather old for a first timer, but I didn’t think I would really enjoy it, and I was right. Strip clubs are more depressing than anything else, and more than not the strippers aren’t even that attractive. All that, and I’m quite odd; I think I prefer talking to a girl more so than watching her dance on a stage. If I can talk to you for hours and find pleasure in it, then chances are I like you very much. If I can’t talk to you, then waste of time. But I’m a strange person and strip clubs have never been for me. That said, I’ll go to them.

The strip club: the first thing I see is a young gentleman laying on stage having his ass whipped by a belt. Great start. Kilgore and I sit off to the side and I spend $18 on bad beer. Even better start. The guy is claiming how he’s a marine and belts don’t hurt him.

Ugh, what?

 Other than the one blond, the strippers aren’t all great, and ironically, the most attractive girl in the club is the waitress. She was very nice. Watching the somewhat-pretty-half naked women dance on stage, I’m still entirely introspective rather than just enjoying the moment. Alas, I think too deeply and too often, even when I’m just barley buzzed. Strippers come over to us and solicit Kilgore while completely ignoring me, which I don’t mind but find humorous. He’s dressed far better than I am. I’m in a hoody promoting a metal band and black pin-stripe shorts. One stripper is actually very pleasant to talk to, but all in all Kilgore and I leave rather quickly, so as not to be separated from our friends. We have no idea where they are at this point.

Awhile later the entire group somehow ends up inside a dive bar, where we stay for at least two or three hours. Yes, a dive bar in Montreal. Most of the group is quite drunk. I’m 7 beers and 6 shots deep and very much sober, for some reason, but I don’t mind all that much. Mostly I just sit in the back with my friend, Brian, as we discuss things and watch drunk people make fools out of themselves. All the while this intense dubstep insanity music is playing and really fucking with my brain. I feel like I should be on ecstasy, a lot of it—I’ve never touched the stuff but still!—to be sitting in this bar, as the music is that intense. At some point Zelda-dubstep starts blaring, which is hilarious since we’re a bunch of nerds in a dive bar and Zelda music is playing, and apparently the bartender is also a nerd, and somewhat attractive, but I’m not going to waste my time trying to talk to a bartender. I rather just, well, do nothing.

Home at some time near 4am, I think.

Friday

I have nightmares due to the intensely loud dubstep and alcohol. I also partially freeze to death, as I’m on the floor beside an open window without a blanket, so I sleep in my hoody—I do this the entire vacation. Also, to fall asleep each night I put The Sea and the Rhythm on repeat on my Ipod. The song’s by Iron and Wine and probably my second favorite song of all time. Here’s a link. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nyiSg_iNLSI

Watch it.

As we came here to play Magic, we go to the convention center and play Magic much of the day. I won’t go into great detail, as I’m sure it’s boring for most readers. Let’s just say this weekend wasn’t my best.

There’s really not much to talk about for Friday, as we have to be up early Saturday for the big tournament, the Grand Prix.

For lunch Kilgore and I attend a noodle place. We’re sitting next to a group of six older women, from 30-50 I believe, and I have a grand idea of making them fall in love with Kilgore and I, escorting us around the city and buying us tons of gifts and perhaps using us as sex slaves. However, Kilgore doesn’t seem too into this idea, so it’s quickly abandoned.

The best part of the day was me painting at the venue and having other players appreciate my art. I’ll soon explain.

The worst part of the vacation, by far: dinner Friday night. For some reason we choose to eat the sketchiest, cheapest place in all of Montreal. I order a chicken burger and fries. I don’t know what meat I ate, but my god it was not chicken. Not at all. I think it was pure cartilage. And the fries we covered in a horrible, horrible gravy and revolting cheese. Even now I shiver about it. Really, by far the worst meal I have ever eaten. I think it made me sick. Just thinking about it now disgusts me.

Saturday

We wake up early for the tournament. I promptly do horrible, drop out, and set up my paint station at a random table near a fair amount of traffic so people stop, observe, look at my cards, and buy from me.

My plan very much succeeds. Lots of people stop by and look, and I talk to them about painting and Magic and whatnot. A few people buy my cards, which is always exciting, not for the money but because they appreciate it enough to spend a rather hefty amount of money for cards that do not normally cost so much. But hey, art is expensive.

A few professional artists are also at the venue. RK Post, Chippy, and a few others, and more than once random people come up to me and say, “Hey, are you Chippy?”, “Are you RK Post?”, “Are you the resident artist at this venue?” While I wish I could get away with the lies, I tell them the truth, that I’m just a card painter here to sell my work, but yes, I am an artist, would you like to see my stuff? Regardless, I was humbled and humored at people asking me if I was a famous artist.

Later on we drink more, play more cards, and eat dinner at an amazing Mexican restaurant. Seven of us attend, and we eat a ton of high quality Mexican food in Montreal. The margaritas were especially tasty.

Sunday

I wake up before my roommates and head to the venue, where I paint for ten straight hours. Yesterday people commissioned me to paint them cards, so I have to finish those and others for my friends back at home. It all equals a ton of painting, and I finish what I have to finish and make some monies.

And now, for the grand finale, I will detail the disaster that was Sunday night. Disaster may be an understatement.

We’re in our friends’ hotel room, drinking as usual. My one friend insists that he can chug a 1/4^th of a bottle of vodka. Of course, for hilarity’s sake, we insist he cannot, knowing he will attempt to prove us wrong. He downs the vodka, surprisingly, and then a beer, and I know he will soon be wasted, as he’s a very small guy. My equally knowledgeable friends also know this, and we want to see how far we can take this, so we all start doing shots of Dewar’s scotch—a revolting drink but at least it fucks you up. And these aren’t normal shots. It’s more like three shots at once, so in about thirty minutes my friend is hilariously drunk. He keeps hugging everyone, insisting that he loves them. At one point he tackles me off the bed, into the gap between the bed and the wall. He also keeps calling some girl from home, until we take away his phone to save him the $15 a minute. We’re good friends. Really.

The funniest part was when Kilgore and I returned to the room, only to open the door into my friend’s head; he’s laying on the floor staring at his phone, talking at it but not into it.

Realizing we cannot take our friend out to a bar, as he’s far, far too drunk and we’ll all likely be arrested, we attempt to bring him back to his hotel. A horrible mistake. Our friend can’t stand, or walk, and sometimes he tries to run away from us only to fall into bushes or nearly into the road, and people are staring. A lot of stares, but thankfully we avoid the police until my friend almost blacks out on the street. It’s then a few of us—not me included—realize we must take him back to the hotel room, as the walk is too far and he’s too drunk and we’ll all soon be in jail.

So the rest of us, five in total, head to my drunken friend’s hotel to contact the people’s he’s staying with, to tell them that he’s fine and not dead, yet. Of course we fail at this as well, and by this time it’s too late to eat a good dinner on our last night, so we settle for horrible pizza.

And now the rest of the night begins. Such a long, horrible yet humorous night.

We randomly meet up with another group of six people, I think, and they want to go to an Absinthe bar. While I hate absinthe, I agree since it’s something to do. However, two of our friends return to their hotel, leaving me, Joe, and Kilgore along with this new group.

So we start walking to this bar, which we’re told is close. And we walk, and walk, and walk, and walk, uphill, and walk, and walk. Joe and I make jokes and complain the entire time, as it’s a fucking long walk and Sunday night, our last night, is going straight to hell. Walking. Caring for drunken people, and walking. Honestly, hours of walking. We’ve done nothing else and now it’s 1am or close to it.

But the grace of the gods we finally arrive at this bar…which is clearly a date scene and not a group of seven dudes and a girl scene, but oh well, I’m fine with anything. I’m very easy to please, and if not I’m pleased, I’ll just stay quiet.

 So we all order absinthe, and it’s on fire and whatnot, and the sugar is melting, and for 140 proof alcohol, it does nothing for more. Sigh! Just a buzz would be nice at this point. But here’s the good part. The waitress never asked for money, so my $12.00 absinthe is free. I win! Eventually I order a beer and tip her $4.00, since my first drink as free and all.

I’m a nice guy.

We agree to leave this bar rather soon, since it really is all couples. Joe and I are still rather frustrated at this point, since we’re still entirely sober and it’s nearing 2am. Horrible night! The absinthe isn’t real absinthe, and I’m almost entirely sure it’s watered down, since I should at least feel something. But I don’t. No wormwood in this shit..

So we leave two people at the bar, the nice couple amongst us, and we go on a late night quest to find breasts at a strip club. We pass many, and they all look horrible or closed. It is, of course, 2am on a Sunday night, so we’re going to get the B-Team of Strippers, and my god that’s what we eventually get, at around 2:20am.

I don’t even remember the name of the fucking club, just that I hated it…apart from one incredibly hot stripper who was barely on stage.

Here’s what happened. We sit for about 15 minutes and no one is dancing. Somehow my Coors Light cost more than a Corona and Stella. What the fuck?

Wait, what? Yes, there’s no strippers dancing, just standing around talking and being jerks. One stripper looks about 4 months pregnant, and another, who sadly dances, is a horribly fat Asian. I had to look away then; I almost fell asleep. All the while I’m talking to my friend, who I just talked to the first time about 40 minutes earlier, and he’s a cool guy so at least that makes the awful strip club bearable. We’re there nearly an hour, maybe more, and at least 45 minutes of that is stripperless. I’m so angry at this point, and when the strippers come up to solicit our group with lap dances and whatnot, they of course avoid me entirely. So apparently strippers are afraid of me, or intimidated by my roguish good looks and they want me to strip for them. Yes, that must be it.

We leave at 3am, when it’s closing, and wander home, depressed and angry at the night. At least it was a humorous night, if you can find humor in that the night couldn’t have possibly gone worse unless one of us was arrested.

And that’s about it.