That time I had a fever and dreamed I was abducted and maybe I really was.

Forgot to mention this.



Maybe it was because I had a fever last night, but I think I was abducted by aliens. Okay, not really, I hope, but the fever fucked with my mind. I was semi-conscious all night, having the strangest, most outer-body dream that I was...abducted, I guess, with a bunch of people I didn't know, and forced to travel the world, appearing in one place and a second later appearing somewhere else, collecting artifacts for superior beings.

All along I was entirely aware of what was I doing, conscious of my dream but believing everything about it was real and factual.

Fever makes me dream really freaky shit, including a dream about gnomes I began having as a child. Anyway...I can't even explain how it felt last night, as I was in my bed, but I wasn't, awake but not, dreaming but not really.

It reminded me of my time at UConn a few years ago. You see, I'm extremely stubborn, especially when it comes to medicine and being sick. I've only been to the doctor for an illness once in the past...four years? Possibly longer. At UConn one weekend, I probably had a fever of 104+, considering I was not only dreaming constantly, but hallucinating as well. I remember talking to myself in my room, seeing a horse in my dorm, having a plethora of dreams, and then nevertheless going out Friday night to hang out with friends. Ah, good times.

Letter (5)

            We were standing outside, so silent.

--

            Do you remember when we were silent, together, and it was good? Right. Silence was always uncomfortable before you, as if sound needed to permeate and then resonate.

--

            And then you said, or I said, or someone said, that words are just words and actions speak far louder and say much more. But now all I am is words. And, together, the two of us…we are only words back and forth. Or just back. Or just forth.

            I suppose one of us was wrong.

--

            And the snow was falling as snow tends to do in winter, in northern Michigan. And there was sound, beautiful, mesmerizing sound, and none of us knew where it was coming from. We were drunk, a bit lost—but aren’t we all more than a bit lost?—but we all heard the music.

--

            I would write you a song if I could play an instrument, but I’ve never been good at the arts. I paint only in black and white and compose music only with sharps and flats. Still, I’d write you a song, and I’d play it for you, and maybe, someday, you’d listen and take something from the music.

--

            And you’d understand.

--

            And the song played on and on. A piano—no other instrument, melancholy and made for winter. The notes fell with the snow, landing softly and resounding, resounding, resounding.

            I looked around, into their eyes, my people now, who all stumbled out of the bar, and tears welled in every pair of eyes, slid down cheeks to be frozen in two or three minutes.

            We stood outside without coats, but we weren’t cold. The music warmed us.

            Some of us, even the few who don’t like music—I’ll never understand that—stood transfixed, staring into a night lit only by snow and a moon muted behind clouds. We stood there and listened and really didn’t understand what was happening, or why.

--

            Don’t be surprised that I thought of you. This should never surprise you. The strangest things remind me of you. I wake up at night with you in my mind and I don’t know why. Or, I know why, but I don’t understand it.

--

            And when the music finally stopped, we wandered back inside without a word, and inside we sat in silence for most of the night. Words, it seemed, would ruin everything. Sound—sound other than the music—was unfitting, improper and even ruinous.

--

            I still don’t know where the music came from. From someone’s hotel room or car, perhaps. Or maybe the music just existed, and that’s all. Maybe we were meant to hear it. All of us, so lost, finding solace only in music and drunkenness, but drunkenness is no cure, just a world of mirrors that only crack, and music can be everything.

--

            And so, I think, I will write you a song. An instrument, and knowledge, and from those two I will eventually be capable. Maybe by Iowa, or Nevada, or New Mexico. At some point there will be music.

Power has Returned--Of Dreams, that is.

            I have power again, which is nice, and but there were some nice aspects to have not having it. Mostly, not being distracted by the internet…I’m already finding it far too distracting. Not having power was just like having power, only I wrote less since my laptop was dying. Thus, I read about 800 pages spanning multiple books. I’m almost done with the Fionavar Tapestry series by Kay, and while it’s good, it’s not nearly as amazing as The Sarantine Mosaic—those books have impacted me very deeply.

            I also liked how dark the world felt. Last night I laid beside my pool and watched the stars for awhile.

            I hated not being able to write as much I wanted to, but I survived, and now I get to write again and sleep less again.

            Speaking of sleep…maybe it was from sleeping in silence when I usually sleep to a lot of noise, but my dreams, and nightmares, were absurd. I’m discovering that this blog is sort of becoming a dream journal, but only because the dreams feel so real and touch my mind so deeply. Intimately, actually. Is it sad that my dreams are the most intimate thing in my life? That, and writing.

Many of my waking thoughts are focused on my sleeping thoughts. So where to begin?

--

            Lake.

For those who have been following diligently and recording notes of everything I say and do, you will remember lake from weeks and months ago. Lake is a sound option on my phone for receiving texts. I first heard lake at a train station with my friend Chris, what feels like so long ago. Really, though, this summer feels like the longest, most stretched time of my time. The longest road, if you will. Time is supposed to pass quicker as we age, but it’s doing the complete opposite for me. Lately it’s been standing still.

That night at the train station honestly feels like years ago, a completely different person. I can’t wrap my mind around it.

            Anyway, lake. Lake first appeared, or sounded, when I began texting my friend late at night in the train station, as I was bored enough to test every single text option available on my phone. The initial text, however, was not out of boredom, but other factors neither here nor there.

Lake was ultimately chosen as a keeper due to its mystical ambience, its fantasy-like qualities. From that point on I kept lake as my text sound—other than when sounds were not appropriate, of course—and since I was mostly just texting one person around this time and for weeks to come—many, many texts—lake unknowingly formed a connection to the person I was texting, such as when a smell reminds of you something, or a song triggers a memory, and so on and so on. But I silenced lake awhile ago.

            So, my dream. It’s a quick one. In my dream I jump awake in bed, as I hear lake. I reach for my phone on my painting table beside my bed, see that someone has texted me at 4:30am, but the message vanishes before I can read it, before I can even read who sent it. I was so angry in my dream, so frustrated, believing I knew who sent the text and yet I couldn’t be sure because it vanished as soon as I touched my phone.

And then, within the dream, I dreamt I was dreaming the same dream that I just

dreamt.

            Mind-fuck. I finally wake up for real, and instinctively grab my phone. It’s ironically near the same time I dreamt, only there’s no message, no text, nothing, and so I throw the phone across the room, bothered more deeply by this dream than I should be.

            It is, after all, only a sound that no longer sounds, a sound linked to a memory, or memories, even when so little time has passed, and yet, as I said, in ways I cannot explain when I feel I can explain most things about myself so well, time has slowed down to moments and hours and minutes rather than days and weeks and months. At least, at this rate, life will seem very long. This is a good thing.

--

            I’m skipping far ahead in this next dream, as it was incredibly long, and incredibly vivid and detailed. Typing everything I remember would likely reach 4-5 pages, single spaced, and much would be unimportant.

            I’m at a water park—I tend to dream of these quite often—watching people compete in a waterslide contest. Doing tricks down a waterslide, that is. Only, really, I’m distracted by a person I didn’t expect to be here. I’m on an elevated platform above the pool, with a clear view of the entire slide, and she’s also up here, on the stairs, watching what I’m watching, but also watching me. There’s an awkwardness to everything in the dream, to me, and my friend, and how we’re trying but failing to ignore each other, all for reasons I’m not sure of in the dream. Painfully aware of each other. Eye contact, eyes darting away.

            Hey, dream me, this reminds me, or you, or us, of something.

            A girl begins her waterslide tricks, doing cartwheels down the slide. Everyone is clapping and cheering. She’s flying down the slide, but as some point loses direction and cartwheels off the slide. Everyone gasps. I hear an awful crack and thump, and look down to see that the is very much dead on the sidewalk below, her neck broken, her body rigid as a board, her eyes open impossibly wide.

            Such a disturbing image.

            Usually I die in my dreams, not other people.

            Suddenly, everyone is on the ground around her, people I know from high school and the gym and parties. I’m up top all alone. My friend is down there crying for the dead. Everyone is crying other than me. There’s a female Chinese opera singer singing a song for the dead girl. I’m trying to cry, but I can’t. Tears are so hard to find, except when they’re not, I’m too focused on everything else: my friend’s unexplained presence here and our combined awkwardness, and also how the dead girl’s eyes refuse to stay shut. People try to close them, yet they open wide again and again.

            I eventually watch everyone walk away. My friend looks over her shoulder, and of course I wake up at that moment. Fuck you, dreams.

--

            I’m realizing how long this blog is becoming, and while I have so many more dreams, I’ll stop here. The two above dreams are by far the most vivid and out-of-body, nearly lucid. I had other dreams. A fire dragon battling an ice giant deep in the dungeons of some forgotten ruins/something that reminds me of the trailer I lived in many years ago—yes, I’m a nerd even in my dreams, apparently. Yet another dream of roller coasters and a track not yet finished, only this time I didn’t die. This time the coaster flew, and didn’t stop flying. A seemingly mindless conversation with my sister, only she kept returning to one single thing—a mutual friend between us—only nothing made sense. The world wasn’t this world. Me hoarding food and water in a fallout shelter, as the end of the world was imminent.

Some dreams I wrote down on the sheet beside me as quick notes, and now, reading these notes, there’s so much I’ve already forgotten.

            But the waterslide dream is all written down from directly after I woke up, haunted and horrified, not of the death, but of what I saw in the dream, and felt, and still felt when I woke.

--

            I’m beginning to understand how Poe felt, how he feared sleep and his dreams. Granted, he took far more drugs than I ever will, but the feeling is mutual. Paraphrased, perhaps, from Poe. Sleep, those little pieces of death, oh how I loathe them. But I don’t loathe my sleep, or dreams.

A Hurricane, and Zombies, and Dreams of Gyms and Tigers

            Tomorrow is the hurricane, I guess. If you’re not from the east coast, although I suspect most reading this are—for the few who read it, that is, though I have no idea who that is nowadays, or if anyone is—if you’re not from the east coast…I have no idea where the fuck I was going with this sentence so I’m just going to end it here.

            Anyway, natural disasters only excite me because there’s always a chance the apocalypse is coming and I will be proven right and then I can live in some ultra cool apocalyptic world, or die with everyone. I’m not being morbid or emo or depressing—I’ve just always been fascinated with doomsday-type events and ideas. And since everything strikes in threes, according to some nonexistent quasi-fantasy truth-nontruth, something horrible is bound to happen after this hurricane, at least along the east coast. Earthquake followed by hurricane followed by…zombies?

            If it is zombies, I’m telling you right now, I’m going to be pissed because I haven’t bought my katana yet…and I’m actually quite serious about this. Once I can afford it, I’m buying a real katana because it’s one of the best weapons and defenses against zombies, and of course I’m terrified of the zombie apocalypse and how realistic it actually is; people who haven’t done the research really don’t know. So I’ll be loping off you’re head when you’re a zombie. Really. The first thing that pops into my head when I enter any mall is that zombies are going to start charging at me and I’m going to be eaten. I’m entirely honest right now.

--

            To be even more honest, I’m most excited for the hurricane due to my love of storms. A lack of power doesn’t concern me. All I do is write and read anyway, and I essentially live in darkness since I never have my lights on to begin with.

I just want to stand outside tomorrow when and if the world is crazy and take it all in.

            Storms have a way of amping me up; they let me lose control. Since I often have extremely good control of my emotions—even more so now, after I pledged to never, ever get as drunk –or drunk in general—as I got during last Friday’s debacle, and when I promise myself something I keep that promise; my willpower is absurd—since my emotions are so tightly reigned in, it can be good to just go nuts. You know, wandering around in a storm, in the forest, and screaming and smashing sticks. Yeah, I’m not crazy.

            Also, some of you could be thinking, wait, Michael…so few people have ever called me Michael, and 99% women; I don’t know if that’s strange or not. Wait, Michael you have horrible, seemingly self-destructive control of your emotions when it comes to certain things, and I know what those certain things are.

            Well, yes, random voice, that’s true. You have a point…but just one point.

--

I think it’s the wind, or maybe the rain, or the clouds. I don’t know. I’m not sure how to explain it, when I can usually explain myself so well. If there’s no lightning, I really want to go kayaking tomorrow, as I live on a pond. I know. It sounds rather insane, perhaps suicidal, but I’m a great swimmer, and more so, I often take stupid, physically dangerous risks. Some people are just born to take them, I guess. Between not valuing my safety all that highly and appreciating pain—as long as I do not shatter bones—risks amuse me.

            Tonight, for example, bored at work from about 7-9, when customers finally stopped showing and my co-worker was drunk out of his mind, I began tossing a box cutter up into the air and catching it with the blade out. If you’re good you come away without cuts. I’m decent, as I often twirl pens and whatnot and I have good hand coordination, so I only bled about six times, three of those cuts requiring Band-Aids since they wouldn’t stop bleeding. One is rather bad, since I admittingly aimed too high, like twenty feet in the air, and sliced my thumb open on a razorblade falling from the Heavens. This is how I entertain myself at work when there’s nothing to do. I also forget where I was going with this, or why I’m here, other than to express brief encounters with extreme boredom.

--

            I’m scattered lately. Thoughts, that is, as sleeping has suddenly gotten more difficult once again. I’m dreaming more again, and too many of the dreams are not at all pleasant.

One involved me at the gym. You would think a dream taking place at a gym can’t be a nightmare, but I had the dream five or six days ago and it’s still really bothering me. A lot. I think about it way too much. Enough so that the dream has already repeated itself, and it not only haunts me, but pisses me off.

            That’s one of many things I don’t understand about our subconscious. So here I am trying not to think of certain things, right? Right. And I’m doing a good job and going about my days and nights and doing all that somewhat fun stuff, right? Yes. And then my subconscious says, no, you’re getting off too easy, too soon, so I’m going to give you not the worst dream you can imagine, but something that will really, really fuck your morning up, ruin your entire day, and stay with you for a long, long time to come. I’m going to fuck you sideways. I’m going to return you to the past, to a reality you have actually lived, but I’m going to make it so much more painful and disturbing, and what’s my reason? I have no reason. I’m just a subconscious ruining your fun.

            But as I’ve said, I believe all dreams have a reason and a thin thread of reality, the past and future and present. There’s something in our dreams that we must take from them, and learn, and grow, even if it deeply bothers us, which this dream is doing to me right now.

            It’s odd, though. The gym is one of the few places I love, where I can separate myself from everything and everyone, including my thoughts. However, there’s been times when the gym has…been unsettling—this is vague, I know, but I need it to be vague, and I’m sorry for that, really—and lately my subconscious threw me back into an equally bad, if not more so, version of the past.

            A reason, right? I want to believe that, but it’s hard since nothing good has come of this. Other than fodder for my already overly taxed mind.

--

            I had another dream. This one I can explain in great detail—it was one of the most vivid dreams I’ve ever had and it’s not nearly as personal to me or anyone else as the other dream, the gym dream.

            I woke up in the backseat of a black car. Leaving the car, I found myself in a very dark and dirty garage. The walls and floor all dank stone stained by unknown substances, crowded by rusted tools, but across the garage the far wall had been knocked away, leaving an opening into a jungle. I found two empty bottles beside the car and thought to myself, well these bottles shouldn’t be here, so I decided to bring them into the jungle and drop them into the water, into one of the deep holes where the ground falls away. So I leave the garage and enter the jungle, in water up to my waist in some points, tiny land islands in other places, the tall green ferns growing into the water so that the ground is constantly sloping up and down. In the corner; yes, the jungle has a corner where a wall is, I drop the bottles and turn around to go back to sleep in the car. Only now I see a very old man with a dark cloak and long white hair wandering through the jungle with a small tiger on a lease. Only the tiger has a very long neck, far longer than it should. I hope he doesn’t see me—from the beginning I’m terrified of the old man and his tiger and I know I should avoid him at any cost—but when I start back, he wanders, so slowly, into my path no matter what, even when I cross back deeper into the jungle multiple times and try to arch back around. He’s always there, in my path, someway, and always motioning for me to go, to turn my back on him. Finally, when I see that he turns his back on me, I start madly sprinting for the car, knowing I’ll be fine if I can get inside and lock the doors. But when I start to run, I feel him running behind me, chasing me, and I’m nearly awake at this point filled with terror. I feel him and the tiger transforming behind me, almost becoming real, and I sprint into the garage already knowing it’s too late. I turn, and the old man is little more than a shadow holding the baby tiger, but the tiger suddenly grows in his arms and leaps at me, cornering me, and when the tiger is in the air, I wake up screaming in reality, thrashing awake and smashing my head on my wall.

            This happens more than it should. Last night I woke up with a huge gash on my knuckle. I often cut my ankles when I sleep…I don’t know how, and more than once I’ve bruised my arms and chests. Nightmares. Fun.

            I don’t know what the tiger dream means other than I might be running from something, that I fear change, perhaps? Or want change? I don’t know. Either way, that’s not the dream, or type of dream, that truly bothers me. Sure, I woke up and couldn’t fall back to sleep without reading, but the fear faded within hours.

            It’s the more realistic dreams, the dreams with people from my real life, at least at some point in time, that are sort of driving me insane. I thought they were over, and now they are back, three dreams this week, although two are so brief, nothing more than a single moment in time, but vexing just the same.

            I had planned not to blog tonight, or maybe a few sort sentences. But sometimes words must be said. Whoever said silence is golden was obviously wrong. At least sometimes.

Letter (4)

 Wrote this around 4am last night. Just now posting.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 Letter (4)

I haven’t written in awhile. A little more than a week, but it feels like more. I don’t know why that is. Maybe because the less I write, and the longer I live, and the longer I keep myself from reading your letters, the farther I feel from you. I’m not forgetting or feeling less or truly even thinking about you less. I just feel further away, like we’re drifting in opposite directions while floating in the same river.

--

            And I don’t know if that’s a good thing.

--

            I’m in Michigan now, incase you’re wondering. The snow makes traveling hard and staying in one place is too easy. I’m in another hotel, this one nicer than the last but still nothing special. There’s a bar here, dark with too many places to sit and not enough people. I’ve spent the last four nights here drinking gin and tonics. I do a little talking, but mostly I just sit and watch and think. You know how I am, how I can talk, but I rather just listen and observe, take in, the moment.

--

            The people here don’t seem happy and I can’t seem to wrap my mind around why they’re not all smiles. Some are alone, but most aren’t. Shouldn’t that be reason enough to smile?

--

            Last night an elderly man sat on the stool next to me and began to talk, out of the blue, about how I must control my life instead of letting it control me. I don’t know what sparked the conversation. I said nothing to him. I didn’t even make eye contact, but when he started I couldn’t stop listening. He didn’t say much, and the silence between his words dragged on for minutes, but when he did speak it was impossible not to listen.

--

            You’re young, he told me. And I’m sure, I’m young and getting older. Everyone is, some quicker than others. You have everything before you, he said, you have nothing before you. I know you’re smiling at that, reminded of Charles Dickens.

--

 The best of times, the worst of times, and how a single day, a single moment, can encompass so much, can alter everything. We have everything before us, and we have nothing before us. It is the epoch of belief. It is the epoch of incredulity.  

--

            We have everything yet we do nothing with it. We waste it, and it wastes us away.

--

            I don’t think Dickens was talking about love, and when he does, it rarely turns out well.

--

            I’ll write again soon, but as of now I’m sitting in the corner of the bar writing on a piece of paper and everyone’s starting to leave. It’s not closing time. Something’s happening, or happened, outside in the snow. Everyone’s standing to see, and for now I’m one of these people in this little corner of Michigan where strangers converge and lives blend. I suppose I should join them.

--

            I hope you’re still reading. You’re why I write.

No need for more.

            Such a good night. One of my best friends was in town tonight, down from Springfield, so Dylan and I headed over for a night of welcomed relaxation and nothingness. We sat outside on the porch, in the dark, talking, for hours. Talking about life and death, space and time travel, the past and how fucked up we were and still are, and how, sometimes, we are such bad people but good just the same. People and nothing more.

            It was one of those nights you savor, a night where you forget about everything else to remember the past and consider the future as you discuss your fate, and our fates as humans, how the curse of Griswold lingers, killing so many young people, and what to do in the oncoming zombie apocalypse, the end of the world, and where we stand in the heart of everything, and how aliens will someday either destroy us or save us from destroying ourselves.

            It was a night that made me feel, and really remember, that I’m so young even when I sometimes feel old. Between how this summer has played out and that my sister is starting college so soon, I have felt old at times, but most of the time I feel like I’ve always felt and will truly always feel. Young, especially at heart, and now more than ever, never taking a moment for granted.

            All night, through so many different and random discussions, I cranked my neck toward the sky and stared into space. Countless stars tonight, clusters so deep they boggled my mind and still do; I cannot wrap my mind around the infiniteness of the universe, how when I look into the sky I’m seeing countless miles, so many years, away. It gives me a welcomed headache.

             I listened to the conversations, and took part in them, and told my own stories, but truly, I was lost in space as I so often am. My neck hurts. I’m always lost in some form or another, it seems. Nearly four hours of studying the same stars and clusters, and one star so bright, and amazingly, nine shooting stars tonight. Nine. I don’t know if there was a meteor shower or something, since nine shooting stars in one night seems outlandish. Each was amazing, almost more so than the last.

            It’s frightening—how deep I get into my thoughts when I’m looking into a night sky free of clouds and other obstructions. I thought about my past, to events as recent as this summer, and I thought about space and pondered what I was looking at, that there’s so much opportunity and possibilities in such an infinitesimal pocket of the sky. There’s so much beyond us—beyond even our ability to comprehend and process. It is said, and proven as much as any science can be proven, that everything that can be happening right now is happening right now, everywhere, to everyone; try to wrap your mind around that—the infinite dimensions that exists everywhere.

            The night was crisp, so that some clusters of stars truly were countless, the dots so numerous yet so small that they created nothing more than a white aura cloudy in its infiniteness. It was beautiful and hypnotizing and kept me fascinated for hours and hours. It made me feel sort of crazy—but I am sort of crazy—studying the sky with such focus that I was silent for ten or twenty minutes at a time. Even now I know I cannot explain myself well—what I feel.

            And tonight returned some things so fresh and tender, but the sky, the night sky, tends to do that. There’s history up there, and a future as well, and memories and possibilities, and some nights you just want to lay on the ground and stare forever, and everything will be good because you need nothing more. There’s the sky, and the stars, and you, and no need for more.

The Great American Game

 People always complain how baseball is boring, and despite that I love baseball, I wrote this. Seems like a stellar idea.

“It’s a sunny day here in Toto Park, located in the heart of Nebraska. If you’re tuning in, get ready for a great game between two real contenders for the pennant this year. We have Nebraska’s own, the Silver Sickles, against the visitors, all the way from Alaska, the Anchorage Ice Blocks. It should be a fine day of baseball, a fine day indeed. I’m Jim Johnson and I’m sitting alongside my partner, Hank Henderson.”

“Hey there, Jim. Today will be a great game between two teams that have been playing very well lately. How about you start, Jim? Tell the fans out there the special circumstances of today’s game. It’s a real whammy.”

JJ: If you’ll been following this season you know there’s been a handful of changes to baseball. No game’s the same and no game is safe and the people love it! First of all, today they’ll be no pitchers and the batters will be hitting off tees, so get ready for a lot of great hitting. Ever since the mound was heightened by three feet the pitchers have had the advantage, so today will even things out a bit.

HH: A lot of great hitting, that’s for sure. Don’t think it will be too easy for the batters, though. Hitting off a tee is a lot different from hitting a pitch. Usually the ball’s moving and now it’s not, so the batters have to make a huge adjustment. How about the specials in this game, Jim?”

JJ: Well today we have the fan favorite, Bases Loaded Throw a Glass Bottle special. Teams better prevent a bases loaded situation, because every fan is loaded with a dozen glass bottles each. Once the bases are loaded, all those bottles will be thrown into the field, preferably at the players. We’ve got 40,000 fans here today, so that’s a lot of glass bottles. Of course the fans in the bleacher seats won’t be able to hit the field from their seats, so expect a lot of glass through the stadium today.

HH: From that glass alone, Jim, what’s the Death Rating today?

JJ: Funny that you asked, Hank. For players the Death Rating is about 2.2%. That’s just concerning glass bottles, don’t forget, so don’t fret over the low death expectancies. Players will die and fans will cheer. For fans it’s a bit higher. 6.6%. There’s a lot of glass and a lot of beer in this stadium, so expect some bloodshed. Expect a handful of brutal deaths in the seats today. Today the bases have also been replaced with bear traps, so players have to watch where they’re stepping.

HH: Now how powerful are these bear traps?

JJ: Well they’re made for bears, so pretty powerful, Hank. If a player forgets and steps into a trap, expect a severed foot, some screaming, and a fair amount of blood.

HH: That’s what you call a base-running error!

JJ: Sure is, Hank, sure is, but that’s not all. Players really have to mind the walls today, because it’s lined with C4 explosives. The slightest pressure will detonate an explosion powerful enough to kill anyone within a ten foot radius. It’s all about awareness today, awareness and death. Both teams need to be ready.

HH: So let’s get this game started.

--Beginning of the 2nd

JJ: We saw a pretty exciting first inning. Hitters really teed off on those tees. Score’s 10-7 now, with Jingle Jones up to bat. He has the same initials as me, Hank, you see that?

HH: I see that, Jim, I sure do. Looks like the first swing is on the way, and oh my god, looks like we have a glass bat! Installed last season, occasionally a player brings to a home plate a bat that feels and looks wooden. It’s glass, though, and it shatters on impact, into hundreds of jagged shards. That’s a painful way to end the game, Jim.

JJ: That’s a lot of blood, Hank. Looks like Jingle Jones got some of that glass in his face and eyes. That bat sure did shatter. The catcher’s on the ground, too. They’re rolling around in all that blood.

HH: No one’s dead, though, not yet. Blinded, maybe, but not dead. Well that’s an official out in the books since Jones won’t be seeing anytime soon. Just remember, fans, a team receives a point for each gallon of blood they spill, so self sacrifice is key here. Bleed to win, as they say. Jingle Jones will be smiling tomorrow for all that blood of his covering home plate.

JJ: That’s if he survives, Hank. And you have to remember that some of that glass is currently imbedded in the catcher’s face. That blood gives the Ice Blocks some motivation. Double Decker Bloodsheds are in play today, as are Bloodfeuds, so we may see a duel in the next few innings.

HH: Today’s duel weapon is the katana, brought to you by Saint Peter’s Deadly Instruments of Death.

--Top of the 4th

JJ: Still no deaths, but how about last inning? Rexy Vito, the first baseman for the Silver Sickles, ran right into the second base bear trap. I could hear his screams from here.

HH: You sure could, Jim. I haven’t heard a player scream like that since George Anderson was impaled by the lance thrown by the Kentucky Knight’s mascot. Oh, what’s this, looks like Clyve, for the Ice Blocks, hit a deep liner and he’s trying for three, but wow, sweet Jesus, Jim, did you just see that!

JJ: A guest umpire! Who is that? Is that Bran Jacobs, the mixed martial artist, because he just spun-kicked Clyve right in the face, right in his mouth. Let’s see that in slow motion. Look here, the guest umpire threw off his hat, jumped into the field of play, and kicked Clyve hard enough to bring the stretcher out. I wasn’t expecting that. I think his neck might be snapped. I think he’s dead.

HH: We can only hope, but these players must be ready for guest umpires. You just can’t feel safe out there. That’s not the name of the game.

JJ: Not at all.

--Bottom of the 7th

JJ: We have a score of 28-26 right now. Only one explosion, sadly, and it mostly just took out a section of the fans. I hope there wasn’t any children.

HH: You have to blame the parents for that one, Jim. You never know when the walls will be lined with C4. One out in the 7th and two players on base, just one more and the glass bottles can start being thrown.

JJ: I’m hoping for it, I really am, but wait, it looks like the iron gates are raising.

HH: You don’t think, really, an Unleashment?

JJ: Wolves, Hank, a whole bunch of ravenous wolves are running onto the field! This will surely increase the Death Rating of players. It’s going off the charts, a 38.2%! Jesus, look at those wolves, they’re monstrous! They haven’t been fed for days and all they want is blood! Blood!

HH: And here come the dugouts. Everyone’s racing out. An Unleashment is a huge opportunity for points from Double Decker Bloodsheds and Mortal Strikes on Beasts. Each wolf execution is worth one point, and here come the Ice Blocks with bats, but those wolves are quick, aren’t they Jim?

JJ: Steve Sanderson just had his throat ripped out, I think. Yep, he’s convulsing. That’s about a gallon of blood right there! And what’s this, we have a Bloodfeud in the middle of the wolves. I can’t see their numbers. There’s just too much blood, but they sure are swinging those katanas with the utmost desire to kill.

HH: Someone’s gonna die, Jim. Someone’s gonna die.

JJ: There he goes. That sword pierced him like a knife through butter. Ten points to the Ice Blocks for Murder Via Duel.

HH: Wait, wait, Jim, those two duelers were on the same team! We have a Murderous Betrayal! I haven’t seen one of those since the Pitchfork Fight of 2020 or the Tornado Sushi Battle of 2026.

JJ: Uh oh, Hank, those wolves are getting awfully close to the wall. Get ready for the C4! Here it comes! Wow, that’s a lot of fire! Those corpses are flying through the air. I can’t even keep track of points.

HH: Gallons of blood. Look on the third base line, look at that. The Ice Blocks mascot, Mr. Ice Block, is getting ripped apart by three wolves. They’re tearing through his costume with ease, aren’t they? Oh gosh, there goes his arm.

JJ: This is America, Hank. This is what it means to be American. God, I love baseball, I just love it so much I want to cry.

HH: This looks like the end of the game, folks. You’ll have to tune in later for the end score, once all the corpses are tallied and the blood is properly measured in the Think Tank. There’s a lot of bodies to count, wolves and players, and a lot of instant replay to view.

JJ: But don’t forget to tune in tomorrow. We’ve got balls wrapped in barbed wire and the outfield full of trap holes. We have even have the classic Brick Bomber Flyover, and you know what that means. It should be a great game.

HH: See you next time, folks.

Update and such.

I finished writing my book a few days ago. I planned to blog about it sooner, but I didn't want to jinx it. I’m not even sure what I could have jinxed. Just the writing, I guess. Writing is strange and terrifying like that; every time you start something new, you wonder if you’ll ever be able to finish, if you still know how to write. I know I’m not published yet, but I’m entirely confident that I could be if I was just a bit luckier. I hate the idea of luck, admitting that it’s real, and yet I know how important it is in terms of any and every form of art. You could be a great artist and be unknown, or be horrible and be famous. Life is odd like that.

            Anyway, this book was the hardest thing I’ve ever had to write, and yes, I had to write it. It’s personal…in a way, yet still fiction. It’s far different from anything else I’ve ever wrote. It’s shorter, and more mature, and darker but not in a violent or cruel or disgusting sort of way. It’s just dark, the topic and sentiment throughout. It’s odd, how hard it was to write, considering, before the first edit, it’s only 150 pages. I wrote it quickly, but when I immerse myself into something, I become completely possessed and can’t think about anything else.

            I live it.

            Before editing down the third novel in my fantasy series, it was over 1000 pages. I wrote it in two months. I don’t know how I did it, and during college of all times, and I remember writing almost none of it. I do, however, remember not sleeping, as well as the most important part of writing that book. I finished it, at around 700 pages, and I read it and realized something vastly important was missing. It felt like part of me, myself, was incomplete. Then I wrote an entirely new character, a new, tragic story for her, and wove it into the novel, and then it was complete. That character has become vastly important to the series. Without her, I’m not sure where I would be.

            People are always astounded by how much I write. If I sound like I’m bragging, I’m not, because then they ask if I’m published and I say no, no I’m not, and that’s always horrible. I’ll brag someday.

But I do admit the volume of my writing is rather absurd, considering my age. I have five finished and obsessively edited (only be me, however) novels in my fantasy series, as well as a prequel partially finished and book six. These novels range from 400-800 pages in length, so there’s a lot of volume. I also started an entirely new fantasy idea, which sits at about 300 pages right now, and my novel The Eight Sides of Everything is shorter, about 200 pages, and up until now, my most “literary” piece.

I recall the proudest moment of my life. I was reading my nonfiction piece in front of a rather large audience at UConn. I wasn’t proud about reading it, however. It was what my professor, and the head of the English department, and an amazing and acclaimed author said about me to the audience. She said I was the most prolific and dedicated writer she knows. Me, an unpublished and unknown  and unimportant student, when she knows and meets so many authors, and she said those amazing and rather insane words. About me. I almost couldn't read. It still astounds me, and it’s part of what keeps me going.

Anyway, the novel I just finished…I’m going to be editing now, obsessively as always, but I’ve already started and this time it’s different. I’m changing less, and I don’t know if that’s good or bad. Maybe it’s the drastic difference of writing style in this novel, or something. I don’t know, but I’m finding that most of it is…good. It takes a lot for me to say that about my own stuff. I really dislike all my poetry and most of my short stories, and so, apparently, do literary magazines. Ha. I’ve completely erased a 600 page book and started from scratch. I’ve thrown out and erased so much trash. Every single word is incredibly important to me.

But the book. Like most things I write, I started with an idea. This time the idea was simpler than ever. The idea—a man wakes up alone and he cannot remember his past. That’s all. I don’t outline. Hate it. So I started writing it in an apocalyptic setting, as I’ve never experimented with that, and before I knew it, I understood my novel, what I wanted to do with it, what would be the driving force behind it all, the memories, the loss, the pain, the bleakness of the world. I had to be all internal rather than external. Internal struggles, I feel, are more profound and impactful. And dreams—dreams had to be immensely important. And that’s all I’ll say about it.

Now I get to edit, which is something I love. I should, I know, probably be an editor, as I’m getting rather good at it, especially when it’s not my own work, but I’m afraid of that job. I hear it makes you want to write your own stuff less, since you’re reading and editing so much as it is. But I should do something more with my degree. If I only more videogame companies were hiring writers.

Letter (3)

I'll post a more substantial update and such tomorrow. Tonight, I don't feel like doing anything other than editing my novel--update about that tomorrow, for the few, if any, who care. But I care! I must catalog my life, so when I lose my memory, as I surely will considering how often I write about memory, I can read my memories and remember them, and memorize it all. Or something. Anyway, yeah, the saga continues!

Letter (3)

In the silence of black and white, we are all colors.

I wrote that yesterday on a napkin in the diner. I think I’m getting better at this whole writing thing.

--

            I like things with meaning and truth. Those are just about the only things I still like.

--

            I’m still in Michigan, and the sky is still snowing, and snow is still piling along the roadsides and parking lots and everywhere else snow usually piles. Everything is white and seamless. Last letter I told you I was going south, but I’m not. I’ll head west through the snow. I’m starting to like the stuff—snow.

--

            I’m going to tell you a story and maybe you won’t like it. It’s about me and this girl I met at the diner. She was just drifting through, like me, but she’s drifting faster than I am. I think she has somewhere to be. I don’t. Maybe you’re thinking, wait, why is he telling me about a random encounter with a random girl.

Because nothing is random and everything has at least some applicable meaning to your own life.

It’s how you use the events around you to shape yourself.

--

            She sat down next to me at the counter. I was the only customer before her. When she entered there was two.

            She was cute, really pretty, in a different way than you. Not beautiful, and she was short, with short blond hair cut to uneven edges, freckles on her face and bright blue eyes. In every way different from you, so she didn’t remind me of you, which was good. I hate to be reminded of you, and that’s not an insult or anything like that. It’s just unhealthy, you know, being reminded of someone so far away, someone who speaks only with letters, and even those letters I fled from, so you’re silent now, a memory, a slew of memories, all bliss and pain and nothing in between.

            We got talking, her and I, and we talked for hours, until the diner was about to toss us out for the night.

            She was driving on, she said, but maybe she’d get a room for the night. She asked if I was staying nearby, if I had a room, if I had anywhere to go that night, or the next day, or ever. You didn’t have to be perceptive or intelligent to understand. It’s like when we first saw each other, and first spoke, and how painfully obvious it was. It was like that, but nowhere near as surreal. It didn’t have the magic, and without magic you just have life, and life is never good enough.

--

            And so I said I was traveling the other direction, tonight in fact. Now. And she was disappointed. That was clear. And I wasn’t sure I made the right decision. I’m still not sure. We parted ways, and I knew there could have been something there, between us, but it wouldn’t be enough.

--

            I’m not blaming myself, and I’m certainly not blaming you. And I didn’t tell you this story for you to remember what we had and how rare it is, or to convince you. I’m done with that.

--

            I just write letters now.

--

            It’s everyone’s flaw. That’s all I wanted to make clear. Our inability to change. Humans, people, really aren’t good at adapting. We think we are, but we’re not. Things don’t change; they just stay the same, and we perceive everything, including ourselves, differently. We fool ourselves. We lie to ourselves. We’re foolish liars.

--

            Rereading this letter, I realize it’s awfully depressing and I should probably just toss it out, but before starting the very first letter I promised myself I would write what I think and not erase anything. It’s purer that way. Realer. Easier, in a way.

--

            And now I’m back in the hotel room and I’m almost ready to move on. I’ll be in Wisconsin soon, in a few days. I don’t know what’s there for me. I’ve never been in Wisconsin, but I’ve never been in Michigan until now either. The world is big, I’m discovering. There’s a lot to it, and a lot of people you’ll never know but wish you knew.

Letter (2)

If you haven't read Letter (1), you should. Flash. Fiction.

Letter (2)

The first letter I wrote mostly for myself, and I called you her in it. I could have said she, or you, but instead I said her, like I was talking to no one. From now on you’ll be you.

--

These are your letters, after all. I write them for you, and me, and no one else. Stamps are expensive.

--

            I guess my letters are the opposite of yours. You say we can never be. No us, and I understand. Well, no, not really. I can’t even begin to understand. I accept it, is all. So I’m writing these letters to tell you that you’re wrong. You feel what you feel, and feelings, they can’t ever be wrong, just misguided and confused, like we’re misguided and confused. It’s just that we’ll be together someday, at some point, in the future, and in the meantime we shouldn’t be depressed and forlorn. So that’s why I’m traveling, and I’m thinking of you, and the thoughts hurt, but it’s a good hurt, and the nights are long, but the nights are always long. That’s why I prefer them to day.

--

            It’s just a feeling, you know? I’ve learned to trust them.

--

            I’m somewhere in Michigan, I think. North. It’s cold and snowy and there’s little of anything here, just roads even empty of cars and signs plastered with snow. I think, maybe, I should head south.

--

            I didn’t drive today, or yesterday. I checked in at the hotel two days ago and I haven’t left. The snow’s part of it. The other part is that I like it here, in this small red walled red rugged hotel room with a painting of a duck in a lake all by itself. I’m the only person in the hotel other than the staff. The woman at the check-in told me. You’re the only traveler here, she said, and I’m the only traveler here.

--

            It isn’t as lonely as you think. I have the road, and my car, and my thoughts. There’s always my thoughts.

--

            I don’t know if you’re still sending me letters. I’m not there to receive them, and by the time you receive this letter, my second, you’ll know that I left and I’m not to be found, that I’m okay and I’m not okay, and that I’m always somewhere I haven’t been before. I hope you’re still sending me letters, and still writing, because that means you haven’t completely forgotten about me yet. No, that won’t happen. There are things, and people, you can’t forget. I won’t be foolish.

--

            But you’re so good at being foolish, you just said to yourself. I know you so well, and then I don’t.

--

            That scares me too often. Being forgotten. Do you feel it, when you’re forgotten?

--

            I hope your book isn’t finished yet, and that it will never be finished. Words are enough, but they were too much, too, weren’t they? And that’s why I left. Because of the words, and the silence, and how so much is said when we never speak. And the book you’re writing me, and how I hate and love it. And now we’re different people, you and I, writing books to each other.

--

            I’m going to watch a documentary about black holes now.

A Jar of Hearts and Night of Words

Very little to say tonight. Just got home. Horrible headache. Should sleep, but I don’t, or can’t. It’s one of those two. I used to get headaches quite often, but in the past few years they have very much subsided.

Do you ever feel like you’re close to writing something really good, and poignant, and meaningful, but you can’t quite find the words? I’m near that point, I think. I write so much more…skillfully?...when the sun is down and 2:00am rolls in, and then 4:00am. It’s when the sun begins to rise that I know I must stop, or at least should stop. Oh, the joys of being a night person. Living in the dark wouldn’t be so bad. I wouldn’t mind working third left, but then I couldn’t write, and that would be a problem. That, and most third shift jobs are awful, but that’s not so different from my current job. Anyway, the real reason I’m posting is not to bore you, but to shamelessly promote myself once again, which is easy since I don’t have shame to begin with.

Here’s another link of me playing piano: something new. It’s a cover rather than my own song, of Jar of Hearts by Christina Perri. I won’t rant again about how much I love Christina Perri and her wonderfully depressing music, but I could. Still, I won’t. I hope you like it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9OjwaviWkME&feature=channel_video_title

Time to read and write.

A Poem, and a Piano

Not much tonight. Just a poem I wrote awhile back (and heavily edited tonight) and a song I wrote and played tonight.

Here's the link to the song. Hope you enjoy it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5wl_Vpzx-tw


Here's the poem. It's actually a true story of one of my many amazing train rides while living in Florence. I wish I was still there. I wish I never left. 

There and Back

The train stops

somewhere between Florence and Venice.

Once alone,

I am joined by a traveler.

An Italian woman,

young and beautiful,

deeply tanned, lithe, alluring, a model?

Perhaps a bit too short.

Tight, small clothes

reveal skin and all curves

as she speaks words I cannot understand.

I stand and step aside,                                     

giving her the window seat.

Diagonally across from me,

a Chinese woman,

all frowns and complaints.

Staring at me, directly across,

the apparent boyfriend of the young Italian woman

smiles, smugly.

Glancing from one to the other,

I wonder

how this man,

his fake orange tan

and tight pink shirt,

his spiked black hair

glistening with gel

and gaudy glasses

nearly as large as his face,

this exact replica of Zoolander—

Ben Stiller the model—

arched plucked and waxed eyebrows,

foolish grin and all—

how does this forged man,

this cardboard caricature,

a replica of a joke,

attract this woman?

Even her voice is seductive,

her laugh intoxicating

as the couple talks beside

and across from me.

Her leg occasionally glides against mine.

She leans near,

drifting asleep,

as I respect personal space

in fear of angering Zoolander,

male model.

He is much larger than me.

We arrive in Venice.

The couple walks off

hand in hand

without me as the wall between them.

Returning,

the train stops

somewhere between Venice and Florence.

I inwardly sigh at my company.

Two men,

attired in leather

and long white cloaks,

both masked by colossal gemmed glasses

and sporting Gucci bags.

Sparkling jewelry,

rings and chains,

earrings and necklaces,

glisten even in the mute light.

I miss the Italian girl.

I even miss Zoolander.

The white-cloaked man sits beside me,

his friend—partner?—

across from him.

They speak foreignly.

I look down to read,

to notice their legs touching,

one’s foot tapping the other’s.

I have no qualms with homosexuality,

yet this train ride confuses me;

it couldn’t be any more foreign.

The man beside me powers his laptop.

Porn fills the monitor:

topless women grinding on stage,

bare-chested men

dancing to rhythms.

Rather classy porn,

if porn can be classy,

and it can—

abstract art and florescent colors,

music blaring through headphones

and painted nude bodies.

He watches the entire train ride,

and I,

trying not to see,

catch occasional glances

of the sex-filled screen.

Letter (1)

The weekend is over and I am exhausted.

Friday I went to the gym very early (for me, at least), at around 9:30am, followed by nine hours of work, followed by hanging out with friends until past 3 am. I work up the next day, after not sleeping at all that night due to dreams waking me up over and over, for another eight hours of work, followed by a party at my friends house. Turns out I wasn’t at all in the mood to party. At all. Nothing about it pleased me. So I mostly just talked to my friend about how much we hate life and how we’re depressed. Go us; we’re not downers in the least. That part, at least, was fun, since we’re in a very similar boat and it’s true: misery does love company, especially when you share the misery. Last night I sort of slept, at least better than usual, but I still woke up at least six times. This may seem like a lot…but it’s not. Not at all. I planned to do absolutely nothing today. Just try to sleep and whatnot, but instead I went to my friend’s picnic. I’m glad I went. I had a lot of fun, despite my fatigue. People told me I should take sleeping pills and whatnot, but I stay away from any and all medicine whenever possible. Nightmares, of course, can be caused by unresolved conflict and various others things in life, but like I’ve said, if we dream something, then we’re supposed to dream it at least on some level.

I looked at the calendar today and realized it’s only August 14^th. Usually the months fly by. For some reason, this is the slowest month of my life. It feels like it’s lasted forever, and it’s not even half over. Strange, because I’ve been extremely active and having tons of fun with friends, yet time really does drag.

Anyway, I’m beginning something new tonight. It’s a series of flash fiction. I’m not sure where it’s heading or what I’ll do with it. It’s about a guy, I guess…you’ll see. Everything is fleeting. That’s my main goal, I think. Fleeting. Actually, I never know what my goal is, or if there is a goal, or what I’m really doing. It’s just flash fiction, close to around 500 words, and it’s in letter form…you’ll see. Always moving, always in snapshots and thoughts, seemingly random but perhaps not. I don’t really know.

Letter (1)

She wrote me a letter explaining how she could never be with me. She was too afraid to lose what she never had. The risk, she insisted, wasn’t worth the pain of loss. There’s never gain without loss, but we’re stubborn, and young, and we take but so rarely give.

No one wrote letters anymore, but she did. The page white, her ink black. She didn’t cross out words or scribble over letters. Her penmanship was neat, almost perfect. She said this wouldn’t be the last letter, but no matter how many letters she sent, this would always be the beginning of the end. We could never begin.

That much was clear, and certain, she said. She would write me a book and I would read the chapters one by one.

--

            Reading the book would break my heart, she said, just as writing it broke her heart. But sometimes the heart must be broken. It must heal itself, strengthen, to be broken again.

            She said this. She said many things to me.

--

            Perhaps I’ll one day write my own book filled with memories.

--

            This was all before she left. And before she made me leave.

--

            I couldn’t endure the letters. She was right. Reading the, broke my heart. It broke everything. I stopped understanding life and started questioning everything. So I left, or I fled, and I vanished.

--

            Now, at night, I drive. I don’t know where I’m going. Day I sleep, and dream, and wake up with a bottle of whiskey on my nightstand. I hate whiskey, the burn and the taste, but it reminds me of her lips, how they tasted the last time, and that’s the one thing I refuse to let go of.

She told me, in one letter, that while you can forget or at least pretend to forget, some things you must hold onto forever. The past is the pieces of our lives; some pieces cannot be lost. We’re nothing without those pieces.

--

            I still believe everything she ever told me. Not because I want to believe, but because I must. My belief in her is everything. It shapes me. I wish it didn’t.

--

            I live from hotel to hotel. I check-in at night, the latest hours, near dawn, when the world is asleep and I’m just done driving, alone, through the darkness of roads and highways I’ve never traveled until then. I remind myself of a character in a Jack Kerouac novel, only they seem to have all the fun while I have music in the darkness of my car and the yellow and white lines of the road, the dim streetlights and cars passing ever so seldom. They have what I want and everything I try to avoid.

--

            Her letters rest in a neat pile on the passenger seat, beneath a stone I found beside a river. I drive with the windows open. The air is cool, refreshing, healing. The air breathes into my eyes and tears run down my face.

            Sometimes I read her letters when I drive. Usually I don’t. I try to read them as rarely as possible. I fail, but that is expected.

--

            This was never expected, but the best and worst things in life take you by surprise.

Converge

Today was a day. If this ends up being a jumbled mess, I’m sorry. In case you’re counting, which you’re not but I am, I haven’t really slept much, at all, since Sunday into Monday. Maybe 10 hours of actual, restful sleep, all week. Between waking up early for work and Six Flags, and the dreams that won’t let me rest, I’m far past the point of exhaustion, into a state where everything is funny and depressing at the same time, where I don’t know really know what I’m saying or doing and I don’t really care. Everything hurts, but I barely feel anything. I’m so exhausted, so drained physically but far more mentally. It’s beginning to hurt to stay awake, yet I’m scared to sleep, and dream.

so here I am, typing this past 3am in the morning.

I’m starting to worry, but I shouldn’t complain, so I won’t.  

Tonight, after work, I attended the card shop, as will be my ritual for now on, on Fridays. I love seeing my friends, especially when we can drink together behind the cardshop, outside near the dumpster. Yeah, we’re classy. Actually, we sort of are; we’re a very intelligent and witty and knowledgeable group of people. Besides, being classy and proper and mature is entirely overrated.

Tonight, more than usual, I’m realizing how life is about having fun and finding pleasure in it more than anything else. Life is about being happy; it’s how you find that happiness that may be the hard part.

Everything converged on me tonight. It was…insane. I don’t even know where to begin. I’m smiling so much right now, and I don’t know why because I’m not even happy. I just feel like I know something, or maybe I’m getting better after so much made me feel bad. I don’t know.

Maybe I’m just far too tired.

I think everything came together at a very, very strange point tonight.

There was a handful of us left in the cardshop. Someone mentioned food. I was about to leave, to go home and try to sleep, but then Jake, my friend, convinced me to go with him to Taco Bell and pick up food. Jake is seventeen, and I’m twenty-four, but he’s a good friend of mine. I have an uncanny ability to get along and friend almost anyone. I don’t mean to sound arrogant, but people just tend to like me. People always come to me with their problems, and so many people tell me everything, and dump everything onto me, revealing so many secrets. I don’t mind. I love talking to people. More so, I love helping my friends.

But I’m getting off topic.

Jake was driving to Taco Bell, me in the passenger seat, and he says, I hope you like Taylor Swift because that’s all I’ve been listening to lately. Turns out I actually love Taylor Swift. This could be embarrassing to admit, but I don’t give a fuck. As you know, I love depressing music, and if you listen to her lyrics, she’s extremely depressing. Jake asks which song I want to listen to, and of course I choose Enchanted, and he flips out because this is his favorite song.

At this point I completely lose it. I’m so tired, and it’s near 2am, I haven’t slept in forever, I’m going to Taco Bell for some reason, listening to Taylor Swift in a car that my seventeen year old friend is driving through Norwich. I begin to laugh manically, insisting that I both hate and love my life. So true. I really realized how happy I am that I lack any and all maturity in some facets of my life, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.

The moment you consider yourself mature and an “adult” is the moment you truly lose part of yourself, part of you that makes you whole. We really don’t change as much as some of us like to admit. The more things change, the more they stay the same.

I thought of this on Wednesday, too, at Six Flags, when my friends and I, some thirty years old, acted like moronic kids and even commented, together, how we’ll never get old, how we’ll be like this forever, and how we really and utterly believe this. It was beautiful, reminding me that I’m at least entirely happy with who I am and how I act, how I’m ashamed of nothing and how I know exactly who I am, how I will say and do almost anything as long as its not cruel or absurdly stupid or falsely macho; there’s a fine line for everything, of course. I have no inhibitions, no modesty, I’m mature in some ways but a child in others, and I live one day at a time, savoring everything, every moment, every one, using every hour to my advantage. I really love who I am, even if I don’t like where I am in life at this time or what’s been happening in my life lately.

Tonight I laid on the ground in the parking lot outside the cardshop and studied the few stars in the sky, and just talked, and it was good.

Converge. We’re back to that again, because today, somehow, everything converged. It began at work, I think.

We had a tasting for two rather awful beers. The tasting lady was an extremely attractive, smart, and interesting person. I ended up talking to her for well over an hour, probably closer to two, doing absolutely zero work in that time. She was very easy to talk to, despite my exhaustion, and I had a good time “working”.

Two things stand out. This happens a lot to me; I pick out details and think about them. I dissect everything. I remember everything I deem important and forget everything else. I have an amazing memory for the things I want to remember, a horrible memory for everything else.

If you, reader, were to ask me everything we discussed, I could go on and on and on, listing everything, down the tinniest detail, the first words, the last words, because these are things I deem important, the things that change me and shape me, the things I want to remember. You, reader, may even know who you are. Everything else I forget, perhaps intentionally. I must save room for what’s important.

Anyway, back to the beer tasting lady. At some point we started discussing books, and how I write, and she said she would like to be able to read fiction, but she’s just so involved in her own job, that she can’t get her mind out of it (she has a masters in some sort of therapy and works with mentally ill and disabled patients in a hospital). My response was, of course, that I’m the complete opposite. My problem is that I can’t get my mind inside this world. I’m always thinking about somewhere and something else, existences that only exist in my mind and on paper. I’m happier in a world of fiction. I am an escapist in so many ways.

There’s something magical and tragic about that. I’ll figure it out, eventually.

She also mentioned how her father founded and built Bobcat from the ground up. If you don’t know what Bobcat is, look it up. Anyway, she went on to say how no matter how much money you’re making, no matter how successful you are, no matter how popular or praised and whatnot, none of it matters if you don’t love what you’re doing. That’s the only thing that matters in life. You have to love what you’re doing, and to a greater extent, love the people you’re with, and love who you are. You must live with love, or else you have nothing, and you are nothing more than a husk.