it's my body for now.

Was talking about the new Radiohead album, A Moon Shaped Pool, with a friend and since he hadn't listened yet, I wrote it in a notepad to send to him later. It's posted in a Facebook post, but I felt like it would be buried there. Here's its proxy.

Burn the Witch is a cool jam, and I never realized that anyone could use the suspense and fear and building stress factor as an instrument. The video that accompanied its release is a testament to that and certainly aided my notice of that vibe, but the way the song constantly builds into this almost thrill/horror movie terror is perfect.

Daydreaming is basically what I expect of Radiohead. A perfect song by the band. Almost as if an alternate universe band was just producing songs that I imagine Radiohead would do, this is it. Great song. One of my favorites on the album.

Decks Dark has the simplicity of a drum machine clacking along to set a basic pace, to sort of let Thom Yorke perform his standards above and within it. The misbehavior of repetitious notes that float on the periphery becomes the new star, like a misfit that has been attracted by the simplicity and is teasing and taunting anyone willing to catch it. It all comes together into a swelling hymn, clearly directed and organized. The bass line on the conclusion has a familiar repetition though I can't place its origin. And the blasts of guitar rippling keep the beat in its own way. A pulse from the extraordinary.

Desert Island Disk has that Jonny Greenwood vibe to it. This is his song, his ship. There's something old and western about it, clearly an expanse that inspired the title of the track moreso than the lyrics themselves. There's such a rustic mood about it. One of my favorites throughout the record.

Ful Stop has an unbelievable build throughout it. Nonstop head bobber. The bass line is already famous. Such a drive. The sweeping whale sounds that go over the track give such a thrill ride. A groove. And the jazzy drums around 3:15 get me hype. Lose the mind. There is a flute or a drifting sort of warble that shows up, too, that is sort of reminscent of the Beatles at their coolest, most psychedelic. When this song breaks open, it's like Pandora's Box, man. What an unbelievable groove. This is the song I feel like people will be talking about.

Glass Eyes. It begins so beautifully. Almost painfully. Like waking from a dream. And the way it's produced, almost tuned too loud, like the speakers can't contain it. Like you're listening to found footage is gorgeous. Perfect. Vocals sound like they're stolen from the OK Computer recordings. Just a stoic, eyes closed and clear-as-a-bell delivery. The orchestral qualities here are pitch PITCH perfect, recorded to perfect. Such strong and singular notes.

Identikit has that weird Thom Yorke vibe about it. That untamed reverb mumble quality that a lot of his solo stuff has. And the simple drum and guitar piece over it is minimalism finesse.

It's become clear at this point in the record that even without me paying any mind to it, I've been swept up into another universe by this band. Simply by paying attention, simply by standing and listening to the Man at the Podium, I'm completely bought in and totally sold.

The guitars that stand in at around the 2 minute mark of Identikit show how their simplicity and their looping and repetitive mantras are mental tantricity at their finest. The song builds into this massive crystal tower that I can only marvel at. There's something about the ending that brings up a feeling found in the strange 60s and 70s, those weird Jefferson Airplane moments.

As a title, The Numbers reminds me of Lost. I don't know what it refers to at all. But the way it opens as a montage of sound and vocal certainly fits the bill. A nice, chill sound. The production on this track is really its finest form. A wide and pointilist spread, a real piece of work built of an army of many pieces, it comes together into a strange and beautiful mess. Lots happening, but smoothing into a controlled and warm body.

Present Tense has the same melding of minds feeling. Sort of a swept and shaved concept of seeing the canvas and the paint as it spreads across the surface, that a painting is built of time and pieces, of elements that exist on their own. The beating drum at the finale calls that to concept. That there are men with hands that have touched this piece of work. That nothing is predetermined or built without effort.

Strangely, the next track didn't have much of a personality, but it seemed to gain its blood and skin when the reverb of the track dripped off of Yorke's voice for the first time and became its own splash of a wild eyed liquid. This one, Tinker Tailor Soldier Sailor Rich Man Poor Man Beggar Man Thief, feels more like a Bjork song, an exhibit to sort of walk through. And it becomes sort of apparent that most of the second half of the album (since The Numbers begun) has sort of felt all the same way, like a moving and winding museum, a trip through an aquarium. A fully guided underwater experience. A display.

And I'm not even there yet, but the final track's title sounds so gorgeous. True Love Waits. The title alone feels like a piece I'd want to frame, if nowhere else, on a piece of untouched, untainted paper.

The piano here sounds distracted. Like being swept off or disturbed for different meanings. Again, returning to the looping and descending sounds of so much of their library before them, it calls to mind an end, a true conclusion to the wilderness that built up before it. The world that it made for itself eventually collapsing in on itself. The foundation no longer with the integrity to contain its expanse.

It's a great album. As someone who only found a fanhood in the band after the previous release, King of Limbs, and then in their live show in New Jersey years later, it's the first album that I was able to see as a release, to follow to its birth and then open up when it finally landed. I can see how this is a total and complete experience, the songs taking the momentum of the build up and sweeping you up within it. This band does things no one else can do, and much of it is happening outside the lines of the music itself. I'm happy to be a part of this full experience.

the middle place.

Standard zombie apocalypse dream, though it was set up more like The Last of Us. Walking out of this massive warehouse sometime right before it was starting to get dark and we crossed a train yard. For some reason, we thought walking on the rails would stir Them to find us. Something about that they laid their heads on the rails somewhere down the line and if anyone shook it, they would head in that direction. It was late in the outbreak and it was getting to a point where They were shutting down and waiting for the next people to cross them to engage. The biggest issue that we had [perceived] was finding other people to help us and to find a permanent residence. We were only two people and were starting to figure out that the more people we had with us, the easier it would be for us to actually live somewhere and not constantly walk from place to place.

At one point, it is getting dark and we split up because two rails go in two separate directions and I'm keeping my bearings on where she went but it's so dark that I can't see her. But I assume that she's walking in a certain direction following a certain track, so I know where she is. The more I walk, hoping to get back to her direction/rail, the more it starts to feel like when you're lost and you're driving and you're waiting for an exit or a good place to turn around. I feel that I'm getting farther off course and more disoriented. I end up in a tunnel where there is a train car that has sort of an old feel to it. I am inside of it and I look out the windows and I can't see anything out of it. I'm still in the tunnel.

When I hurry to get out of the train car, there is a feeling of a chase or the possibility of being noticed, so I am crouching down and running. I run in the direction that I came from, both panicking because of the way that I'm going to be caught or found and also because I have no idea what fate she might have met or if she's just walking, assuming everything is going to be okay. I end up at a school. The school has pull down garage doors that are slightly opened. I think to crawl under the door, and look in. There is the garage door, a small vestibule, and then another garage door that's opened just the same amount. I start to crawl under but I get this horrible sensation that if I'm found in there by people that might be inhabiting it, they will kill me or attack me anyway. So I sit against the side of the school and there's still the feeling of panic and I truly don't know what to do. So I start to get the urge to start yelling her name, but I don't because I know, obviously, that the 'chase' is still happening, They could be out there anywhere, and also the population of the school.

So I start walking in a direct line to where I think her rail may have led her. I'm walking across this huge field at this point, it's all lit up blue, kind of like walking at night on television or movies. It should be completely black, save for points of light on the horizon. I come to a point where I see her rail trails off further in another direction away from the way that I headed in the first place. So I start to follow it more closely and I follow it by looking for ahead and listening as well to hear her footsteps or any sounds.

I start to get the feeling that "combat" is now happening and I look around and there's one of Them, and they look like a scarecrow almost. There's no discernible face, just a loose body that is lunging, a head/face that you can't see and a mouth. And I fight it off with a big bar that would normally be too big to swing accurately, but there's an 'animation' that when I swing it, it starts from the furthest point of the staff and approaches the thing's head and it slows down time and I have to manage to aim it, almost like a Wii game, to hit it in the mouth. I have to do this several times and I eventually kill it.

I feel that there is nothing left around me, so I start calling her name because the battle has disoriented me, moved me further away from the rail where now I can no longer see it. And I can see the light of the school back in the direction I was coming from. And there's no response from her, and I panic again, the same feeling that I had, whether or not to go into the school or to not.

a collection within a range.

at the beginning of the year, i set up a "calendar" for myself, scheduling writing periods for different projects. just to see if it all would work, just to see if different pieces of fiction would make sense. just to dust off some old prints and put them to the light and see if they would develop. so far, some have and some haven't. some have the same core energy that i wanted in them and some have been taken back a few paces and reworked. some of them have turned from sad and dreary and weird into more upbeat "comedy" styles. it honestly feels like some of the best ideas i've had just need to be whittled down into short pieces, rounded off at the edges and made really nice digestible capsules that i can put out into the world and allow them to breathe on their own outside of a folder on my desktop. outside of an icon. some of these things have full days put into them, from conception to pause. whether it's actually sitting in front of the keys and hammering them in or just thinking on them between different days at work and having concepts that i want to work into them. there's a lot that goes into it.

but the fact of the matter (for me) is that all writing has always been done at its strongest when i am completely alone. wait. that's not what i mean. i need to be away from people who are going to try and engage me in conversation. from my fiance, my friends, my stepson... being near them, there's just not the attention and ability to dive directly into the work that i need. 

i'm currently in a Panera sitting among the breakfast crowd and these are the strangers i can be buried in and have no problem with. so even if i'm making eye contact and sort of getting some of their energy absorbed into me (not going all new age, but there's an undeniable avenue that we follow when we're met with other people indirectly. call it a vibe, call it an energy, call it your own unconscious thought. whatever it is, it's there.) and it's vibrating into the fiction.

this whole schedule/calendar, though, wasn't made to be disappointing or stressful. not in any way. so the fact that last month, kaleena was around every day and i wasn't getting up early to put in the writing work and i was spending all of my free time with her isn't something that i want to make me feel like a set back. no, that's really a gift that i didn't want to take for granted. so i'm a month behind and working on this sci fi story that i started during NANOWRIMO last november. one that i don't even know if it works out properly. but one that i have notes in two separate moleskines and in one composition book that i fairly well like. i'm hoping to have it done by the end of april. and to then move on to the next one in may and so on and so forth. i trust that i can do it if i stay focused, which is one thing that i've never been able to do with long fiction.

that's why those microfictions work so well. they're these blasts of ideas that don't leave the page. they don't even leave the moment. they're put out in such a quick fashion that they only have time to be exactly that. just a flip book. just a moment stolen from some other timeline. a couple of them ran into two cards sent to two separate people. but those are where my strength has mostly come. ones that i don't leave and come back to.

so far, i trust it. but it's "hard" work to make these work. and what's my goal? really, honestly, just to finish it. i'm going back to the place i was in 2003 or 2004 just writing a short story and sharing it with a handful of friends and seeing where they think it should be. bigger? smaller? exactly where it is? it's tough. a lot of times, i've seen into places where writers are being inspired by their peers and where authors are being lauded and i just can't agree. and i wonder where do these people get into THAT club that they've just inspired each other to do these flat projects without really 'succeeding' in writing these great stories. OR. i wonder how they are able to just not worry and write simple, cool stuff that they enjoy and not want more more more more out of it and themselves.

anyway.

sci-fi piece at the end of April is the goal for right now.

microfiction project still rolling along super nicely.

http://manydetailedthings.tumblr.com 

palm installments.

i'm freezing, man.
spending my time this year writing every day. not a bad way to pass the time, no, not at all.

right now, i'm trying to acclimate myself with a new keyboard shape. it's always like this. but this that i'm writing on right now is a chromebook, a nice utilitarian one gifted to me by Rahul. and i'm feeling a little tossed around by it. let's be real, not really. i'm not lost. i'm not trying to reconfigure a full language, not trying to rebend my fingers to fit new places.

here's the deal:
i've spent the last month writing everything by hand. i took on a project last month of sending out over 30 microfiction pieces to friends and family. these little short stories put together on a single serving card with a single serving voice. and i went back and read through them over the last couple of days and i think a lot of them came across really great. my next series of thoughts for that project are how to properly display and share them with everyone. it's leaning towards a tumblr account where i post a new one every other day (daily?) and get them out there. it took my quite some time to type them up. surprisingly enough, the transcription process took me a few days. when i'm writing those pieces, it seems that i fall into some kind of trance, pass through some sort of portal and write without looking up. with a fury of blood behind my eyes and a voice harping through my mind and i just put it all down. i kind of remember themes, but not so much the specific lines dropped there. going back was a treat.

but yes, sitting here, i'm trying to get into work #3 for the year. i started simply with a little blog about NES games. then february was spent on the micros. this month the main project is going to be revisiting the NaNoWriMo project that i started in november. easily the worst time to start writing in retail. just back to back to back to door to door to door spent in the store. so it's not that i don't think i can do it, it's just that by the time i get some free time, i don't want to sit down with it. it doesn't get a fair shine. the story that i was working on had a cool vibe and even going back this morning and reading over it, i really liked where it was going. but overall, i think it feels like i might not be able to finish the story with the spread i want to tell. that's the problem, though.

referring back to writing those short stories, those micros, that trance i go into isn't sustainable. but that's where i write my best. that's where the writing flies out of me, completely parenthesized. burning up fuel like a drag race. and coming through this way, i'm not trying to say that i'm trying to drive a le mans... but at least a NASCAR race. at least even a few miles. so i have to take a lot of the skills that come with The Trance and be able to saddle it and ride it and tame it and loose it when i need it. controlling and commanding your talents is harder than strengthening them.

that's what this whole year is about, though. trying to have a month set aside for different things. having each month be spent on specific items, specific works. trying not to feel overwhelmed by all of these different little new and homeless works.

so i'm going to wake them up, let them shake off some of the hay and see where they lead me. see where i can lead them. and see if this works. see what i can show. because at the very least, i want to show people what i started. let someone else finish it. let others know that there's something here. that it's not just some trash talk, like something i say i'm doing when i'm dodging texts or phone calls. these words are happening. they just don't go anywhere.

You're not going to shake.

Gigantic picture.

I just had this weird memory of being a kid and playing with an Etch-a-Sketch. And getting to a point where I really couldn't draw anything. I couldn't illustrate an idea or portray an image. So I started dragging the little points across the entire screen. I cleared the entire screen of all that weird silver film. And the more I cleared it, the more I could see the way the toy worked, the way it was just two (four?) pipes that moved a "pen" back and forth. And I feel like that was one of those moments where I started to feel less like a kid and more like just someone who knew that at some point you could see the insides of everything. That you could see the cameras in reflections. That teachers went home to a real life. Not all at once, obviously. That moment wasn't a breakthrough. But it's an element of a myriad of others that was.

heavier than air.

the swimming semen a fuel, an alchemist's
conception for the creation of flesh.
Step One of Man.
the extract of Man
 to build
> teeth
> eyes
> skin
> soul
> heartbeats
the blood, a suspended mold
petrified history.
confined to a corpse delayed by a lifespan.

plumes of the birth of Man,
pearlescent bulbs growing out of
species in anti-gravity.
results of a great many of us
born,
all dreadfully lucky,
all dreadfully alive
taking for granted the fact that
our Sun doesn't consistently set us on fire.

Sizzling Disdain.

it's really weird that at some point, a kid or a young person is going to make an okay joke or a good humorous comment and people are going to easily laugh or calmly  be like, "ahh, nice one" and then it's not going to have to go anywhere else. and the kid is going to be disappointed because no one trolled him and no one tried to make him get one upped or no one is going to be negative about it. and someone is going to have to be like, "see? not everyone is trying to be sarcastic, sardonic, negative dipshits". at that point, the kid will have to make a hard decision to stop trying so fucking hard all the time OR to just kind of roll with everything WHILE STILL trying to leave all that garbage behind.

it's tough, man.

enameled fame.

even if it's just in your wildest dreams.

crust of indigo.

i woke up this morning at 3:30am because i was so stressed. that seems so ridiculous, to be stressed out over something so intensely that it rises you from your sleep. you're unconscious, but the rattling and humming still spins so loudly that you just can't remain underneath that wave for long enough to let it pass.

i'm 33 years old working a retail job that is IDEAL for college students. and maybe a little bit beyond that. maybe great also for those who are really interested in the gaming industry and the customer service industry and can really genuinely make an impact on a small to medium business and take home some pride with that. putting it that way, actually, it feels like that's something i could be a part of. i do what i do pretty well. i'm not the greatest at customer service from a standpoint of whittling down a message to the lowest common denominator and then slowly building a conversation and thereby a transaction from it, but i genuinely enjoy helping people out when they need help. the entertainment industry isn't anywhere near where you should be if you're looking to genuinely help anyone out. that's just the honest truth of it. they want to play a game [or change that with watch a movie, hear a song, read a passage, phrase, story, tome] and they want to enjoy a part of their life outside of what's holding them to the earth. is that important? yeah, man. is it crucial? no.

again, i'm 33. i don't want to do this anymore. i want to help people in need, regardless of what their past was and/or what their future is. i want to be able to find a need for someone and help them out. should i be dishing video games? nah man.

that stress is ultimately the trunk and body of the tree for which this branch is currently low reaching: my store is too small for the volume and inventory that we have to contain it. so it feels as if it is constantly bulging at the seams. never going to use this as an excuse to not keep the store neat, to not keep the store shoppable, to not keep the store manageable or to just let things fall by the wayside and say FUCK IT, WE'RE TOO SMALL. nah, man. that's a childish approach. i'm 33, man. i can't just let there be a reason that i can't do something hover there. i'm a human being and i have reason. i'm a problem solver. that being said, every box that i open involves shifting other things in the back that were already in a place because of the box that i opened before it. so it goes beyond filing and merchandising. it is constant problem solving. and that's an exhausting prospect. SO. those are my 45 hours every week. and then this week and next are ramped up hours and 6 day weeks so bring that up to 58 hours this week. that's not inherently the issue. that's just the lack of relief that i get from the problem. it's retail, man. you do it because you were put here to do it. it's never, really, actually, something that you are going to want to do unless you're running your own business. in that case, you can go ahead and laugh at my 58 hour week and say that it really must be nice to have that one day off.

thanks for all that you do, by the way.

THAT being said, yesterday we had a phone call telling us that our RM is coming in to the area and, obviously, they didn't want to talk about where they were going. i opened yesterday so didn't close the store or have any idea what the store will look like. then i close today so i'm not going to be there until 2. so will i miss him? maybe. will i walk into him being there? maybe.

the call also was primarily about P&L reports for our store. i'm going to be honest with you. i can walk an entire classroom through individual P&Ls. i can dominate that conversation. i understand it. i get it. i have it. i know it. if this were what the visit were about, great. but instead, see the previous few paragraphs. store is basically a tight squeeze. and coming from other stores region-wide that are probably in a better position to be in a better position to not be constantly changing to be kept at 0, then he might have a thing or two to say about the way the store looks as opposed to wanting to understand what the Manager is doing. Managing, you know? no? alright.

so. there's all that. just. work stuff.

i'm not happy in a job where i am mentally and operationally operating above what it looks like and also don't really care about the nature of the units that we're selling, just as long as we're moving the units. yeah? [just took this and tweeted it in a smaller fashion]

also, the fiance is sick and we're just hoping for it to get better. it's physical and constant. nothing i can offer or provide is making any difference.

mentioned this somewhat recently. 2015 has been dominated by playing video games. far cry 4 into the witcher into batman back into the witcher into mad max and then into fallout 4. entire year of just video games. i have passed on so many movies to see, books to read, places to see, new state to learn, a life to live in all of my free time.

so that then has become me thinking about 2016 [and then my new year's resolution?] or a good turning point when i want to start turning something around and becoming something different or someone the same but a better version of that and making people around me better because i'm better. bringing people up. bringing people around. having friends again. being someone more than who i am right now.

having ambition.
having goals.
having my new friends know that i want to write. that i write at all. that i write well. that at some point i was a dude with a lot of dreams and things i wanted to do and things i wanted to be and a growing individual.
instead now, i'm just some guy who hands out mixes and works at the game store.

i got a customer complaint a couple of weeks ago about customers saying that i was being childish and always treat them childish. that instead of just saying i didn't have an answer, i try to make up answers. this was from a new DM who i told, "hey. i'll take that for what it is. i can tell you that i don't act childish, but you wouldn't know that. i can tell you that i don't make up answers and will be the first person to say, verbatim, 'oh yo, i don't know man'. but you don't know me. so i'll take that as the first impression you have of me from a third person perspective, but in our two conversations, you know enough about me to know that i'm not going to defend myself here. it's all perception." he liked my response and he said that he absolutely doesn't think that i act childish and in the two conversations we've had, i definitely showed myself to be someone who clearly understands the position, the job, the company and a position a level above me. but he just wondered where that came from. is that stressful? am i on task anymore? naw man.

i had to finish a christmas gift for the fiance [which i finished this morning] and the process of doing that in my head was sort of daunting and i was wondering whether or not it was going to come across as a macaroni necklace or something that i'd be proud of. [having finished it, i like it a lot, but seeing it again when it's unwrapped may make all the difference]

my parents are old.

also, the thought that you will always think that there's more time. there's another day. there's time tomorrow. i'll do it next week. next day off i'll take care of it. when i'm done with this, i'll start that. you will never have enough time to do anything that you hope to do if everything that you hope to do is shifted back to make room for the stuff that you just happen to be doing. you/i should just be doing an equal amount of good and great and hopeful and i-can't-wait-to-do-this things, and catching up with friends and family because one day, everyone's going to be gone and you're going to miss all of them and all the things and you can read whatever fucking book you want when you're alone.

the best thing i'll ever be able to tell anyone about charleston, sc if i were to move tomorrow is that "downtown area was pretty cool. i never spent much time there. my fiance loved the beach. there was a lot of traffic." and for two years, for that to be all that i can show for it is fucking embarrassing.

i dono, man. i'm 33. is this stuff i should be stressed about?
maybe.
maybe not.
i just want to do something that makes a difference to someone else.

A silvery wax that you peel off in a long ritual.

trying to Wake Up instead of just waking up.
spent 2015 playing video games. watching television.
worrying about the fact that these new people won't like my words or actions or me.
it's weird.
cascaded into worrying about the existing audience liking my output or liking me.

second guessing for a whole lot of steps.

video games instead of writing.
instead of listening.
instead of watching.
video games instead of living.

We Were the Only Stars.

What are we going to feel tomorrow?

See all the way through your house.

i was inspired by an article written by Tame Impala's Kevin Parker (here) about the process of enjoying the music that you love and to pay what you want for music you love. i didn't read the article before getting this spark of thought. so the article itself might just be a dissertation on the industry of the music business. 

what i'm going to talk about here is the process of sharing and enjoying what you love. whether it's an opinion about a song or a record or if it's the song or video itself, just love what you love. just get behind it. you can't find music that you're going to love from the most obvious of places all the time. sometimes you have to be that person that takes the risk and post a song that no one cares about just to get someone else's brain thinking. it's an important process of life. and the biggest thing to come to grips with is you might never understand or hear or witness the fact that you were the person that inspired that creative spark.

you're not always going to read a new novel and check the back and find a footnote that says, "this entire story and interaction between my main characters was inspired by Steve Cuocci, a guy i know on facebook from a show i went to once. Thank you for posting that HEALTH song that time and thank you for the brief comment you left above the video. It became my everything." a lot of times, catalysts are the furthest from the foreground, the things that come in this little subversive and pervasive ways, they enslave you in your dreams and they delay you in your walk to brew your tea or pour your coffee. they come to you in a doodle or you think you hear someone say a line from the song you thought you forgot on line at the post office.

share everything.

always feel good about the things that you want to share. you like it, you want it to represent you on social media at that moment, so put it out into the world. don't base whether or not it was a good idea on how many likes or comments or shares you get. don't share it for anyone but you. share it like a banner you're waving from your porch. 

FACT. i don't know how many people read this blog. i don't know if ANYONE reads this blog. i write poems and thoughts and dreams for myself here. sometimes i share things i'm proud of with the people i care about. sometimes i don't. i trust that at some point, someone will uncover this and read through some of it sometime. it's no big deal if no one does.

"the value of music is the value you extract from it"

listening to a record that i've heard no opinion on used to stress me out. it used to give me the feeling that i was walking down a pathway without any level of trust or any sense of direction. i've grown to understand that that very concept is what i've learned to love about music. sometimes i'll carry down the entire path and feel that a massive journey has been undergone. like i've crossed a desert or a tundra. i've recreated a whole new landscape of thought. and my virgin eyes and that path has been so clean that i feel that i've made my own impact on the place itself. other times i'll go through it without taking a single thing from it or feeling anything.

if it's something that i've received a recommendation from, so many different factors come into play. if they told me things to look for i might spend far too long in one position trying to translate their message into what's before my eyes or found in my ears. sometimes if someone has really torn something asunder, i'll be wondering and distracted why they found such a beautiful thing so terrible. ever worse, sometimes i'll take the time to agree with them on so many different things that they flagged for me that i won't explore the universes that sit behind them. or within them.

in the state of social media that we're in i think that we start to assign quality and value to our thoughts and ideas based on the amount of response that we get as opposed to the internal process that brought us there and the breakthrough that it took to arrive. i think we need to avoid allowing that value system to invade all of the things that we do. to a degree, we become addicted to that approval or that feedback. that's how so much of our output leaves our notebooks and our journals and our conversations and end up OUT THERE on the walls and in the big places for all the eyes to see. we want to be heard, and in those little micromoments, we want to be famous. we want to think that when someone likes our post, we have their attention and we're becoming that footnote in the novel.

you will never be the footnote in the novel.
even when you are.

you have to be the author.

i'm super caffeinated, man. so i'm running from thought to thought and i may not be making cohesive sense. but i'm not writing an essay for you. i'm capturing these thoughts to throw into the ocean in some kind of sealed bottle. i might tell people where to find the bottle and i might not. it just doesn't matter. assign the kind of love and the amount of love you feel only based on how you feel it. not how much you feel like you're allowed to or how much is appropriate to.

just be rad. have dope conversations. share your interests. share what you love. when you find someone with similar interests, don't compare just inspire. get behind it. your whole goddamn energy is going to disintegrate if you keep it in compartments and you dole it out in these regulated time frames.

What can we, of the city, do?

just a brief observation i made while walking from one room to the other today in our apartment/house. i can't believe how much has changed since two years ago. even just from a single year. i am home, off today. waiting until around three o'clock to pick up parker. not too worried about it or going to let it affect my day instead of getting bothered by it or even having that experience not exist. excited to watch playoff hockey on the ipad while the girlfriend and i watch a new episode of chopped. playing a video game sort of casually while listening to a bunch of new music that may have gone by the wayside. just taking it real easy. full of coffee and a positive energy. again, not all things are new and fresh and opposite. but the feeling of peace and serenity and overwhelming Home is more than i could have expected.

god in the wet dirt outside of kansas city.

wrote this dream on microsoft notepad and it crashed. as it was crashing, i took a picture with my phone. but it seems that i got most of it. it was days ago, so the beginning is shaky. the picture i took picks up in the middle of a paragraph. i don't remember what came before it, but it seems to start off in the beginning. i remember we were living in a city, and we were being led through these big check points, like toll booths in the beginning, like as we were going out of our houses, early on in the day. 

divided into two colors, orange and blue. and at no point did we know what those oclors meant, but we knew there were going to be differences. celebrities started coming in and being part of those teams as well. not teams, but sides. and you could tell camera crews were coming in as well. and filming dialogue with the celebrities but not letting us know what was going on. and when night fell it was almost like a scene from godzilla where there were buildings falling apart and explosions and earthquakes and everyone was running and being 'coraled' into this one office building. and we sat around in these big office lobbies. in an instant, a switch was flipped and the floor and the chairs and the walls became not glowing a certain color but you could tell what color it was. and you could also see what color each individual was. and anyone orange in the blue area was being shoved over the line, or hurt or killed. and i was hanging with my best friend and we didn't know we were different colors and i was trying to talk to him like, hey, it's just colors, who cares? and he was FULLY bought in. just walking away, totally not down with getting involved in an orange team member. and i went so far into that area that i was 'captured' not even touched or anything, just knew that i'd been captured. and to an audience, one of the celebrities said that i was going to be executed in front of all of them. and some were applauding, some were laughing, some weren't paying attention. … so I was put down on my knees with my hands behind my head like a ‘prisoner’ style. and this guy had this massive switchblade axe type weapon and he was going to slice my head off with it. but time ran out or something like that. so ‘at morning’, we all became uncolored again. so the show was over. but at night, the earthquakes would happen again and we would all have to resume our places again. and my friend was my friend again and I was having discussions with people about being executed. and I tweeted or facebooked about it and people were responding to it like crazy. and I started to feel ‘okay’ about being executed. the day was weird because the celebrities hung out with me and I was on tv on one of those good morning America shows on a couch, etc. and that was all a blur, like a memory. and I remember going into the ‘offices’ early and getting set up and people were walking by like “ohh there’s the guy” in a cool way, like I was an athlete or something. and the time came and we resumed our places and as I was about to be killed, I think I was getting rescued but the timing wasn’t working out. things were happening in the background and the peripheral, but no one was stopping the executioner, just the team around him. I either got killed or saved the moment I woke up.

stratastrophe.

i feel like with addiction,
there's got to be that weird stasis you hit where
NOTHING HITS THE SAME
and you feel awful and awful and awful about when the
first and second and third hit will just be priming you
for the supreme and metamorphasmic drip
that you finally surge through yourself.
but the exhaustion at that tipping point,
is it all worth the sale? the purchase?
circling down into the core of Need.

a good goddamn, the ability of swarm.

it was weird. all the lights in the bar were on and I had arrived and all was warm and familiar. like old friends. I'd never met a one. but all old friends, like high school graduate mates. but a bit detached. like they knew,e, thought more OF me. more exactly, they knew a friend that I'd dated. and I came back to see her but she wasn't around or she was. but in this dream I never saw her. I remember walking in and they gave over control of the music and the atmosphere. and all the drinks were free. one of those absolutely temporary moments and one that feels so invincible. I sat on the bar and watched the full room and drank a beer endlessly. cold and constant. 

the specific part I remember is her friend coming over. a whole new invention. small and shorter. shoulders. a white tee shirt. she was sad and missing someone and I never understood who but I understood it. He had left her. and I never Loved her but she was under my protection there and then. and I had her back. and there was no romance save that reserved for the lost. I just wanted her to be okay. and she sat on the bar with me, quiet. large sunglasses and silent. 

and we left the bar and she drove us to a house somewhere unimpressive. white porch, unclean. and the sun was coming up on the light blue slats. paint peeling. and I remember sitting on the step. sun rise like a film waiting to be made, all the right reds and oranges with the blue. a goddamn deep sigh that goes forever because he's gone. and for some reason I don't have a shirt on and she has a neck tattoo and still wearing he sunglasses and the tears. the I'm sitting and she's crouching behind me, her arms crossed and leaning on my back and her head rested on her arms and crying. and I'm just there for support and we're okay. 

fastening the ship to the fleet.

i feel like i shy away from conversations that go from intro/beginner tier to intermediate/knowledgeable tier because the level of competitiveness in those conversations can be more overwhelming than the amount of shared information and helpfulness and reason that goes into them. at least in my experience. forget expert level. that's just where people to go masturbate or piss.

i guess this could be mostly pointed out on the internet, because where else can you really REGULARLY go to speak your mind on topics? the most ready example i have is a music group that just popped up on facebook that i got included in. there's so much that i want to speak about, but only one of them is a friend and the rest are friends of friends. so if i go in and start just wielding all of these opinions and throwing down general input on different artists, i'm already perceiving that i'm coming across as knowledgeable to a fault. that could just be my own nature of perception of others clouding my perception of how others perceive others. i think the syntax of that sentence holds up. what i'm trying to say is maybe it's just me.

same goes for anything hockey related or video game related. once i step outside of the realm of people who know and understand my voice i start to feel like i'll be seen as the person i was in middle school/high school which was a sort of forceful know-it-all who tried to prove that i knew a lot about subjects i knew nothing about through reference, posturing and "conversational logic equations". awful. so now i've learned about that part of my Self and have been very toned down about how i approach revealing my opinion outside of my groups of friends who know what i mean. but ALSO, i've been compensating for that part of my personality by being COMPLETELY nonpartisan in so many conversations that i actually do have a leaning towards. the one thing i've gained out of that style of conversation or interaction is that i leave all of the negative opinions out of it. it's never helped anyone. even now when i hear negative opinions about something it frustrates or embarrasses me for them. going back to the music discussion, there are times i wanna lay in and be like "that band is honestly more wack than i have ever heard. how are people listening to this and then bringing it with them?" but what's that going to do. are they going to change their opinion? a decade ago, fifteen years ago, yeah, i honestly think i thought people would rethink their stance. now, i more or less take a higher road where i want to ask "hey man, i don't think i get it. what song(s) or what other bands are you listening to that got you into that? i think i need a stepping stone." same thing happens with sports, but the nature of the conversation is always competition so i'm always instantly disappointed when someone brings competition into it because obviously i'm the outsider there. it's fine.

i would love to 'escalate' my interactions on these types of subjects that i actually have a knowledge about. not only to learn more on the subjects but just to get proven wrong a little bit. learn that a few people might talk some cool shit and be willing to hear me out and learn something. i know i have a lot to offer and with my current surroundings and current job, i don't think i'm teaching anybody anything, which is something i've always sort of gotten a big rush from.

you gotta feel good, man.

kid, hum the bidding.

i just had the craziest flashback while standing and cleaning the kitchen. 

it was from a "cub/dad" weekend camping trip when my dad and i went camping with the cub scout troop i was a part of. it was the first or second night we got there. probably the first night. and we had gone to sleep and it was dark. probably around 8? 9? had to be somewhat early. and i remember going to sleep and waking up alone and there were voices far away. and i just had this recollection of walking across this field with all of these tents and getting closer and closer to where my dad was with all of these other guys, these other men and i remember seeing him and us interacting... i don't even think i knew what to say and/or i don't remember saying anything in particular. but then i remember going back to the tent alone and going to sleep.

i feel like this is a memory/moment that really [eventually] put into perspective what goes on in the world of People as opposed to Parents. i think about this moment from time to time i realize. and i wonder if he was embarrassed or if he was surprised or if he cared or if that ever crosses his mind. i wonder if he was just kind of hanging with these other Dad Dudes and feeling good about it. i've always seen my dad as kind of antisocial. mom and dad never had any friends as i got older, just members of the family they spoke to. no one who were "family friends". is that rare? are family friends real? 

anyway, now i'm thinking about when you're just trying to get away for a weekend and you meet this random set of people you'll never talk to again and you're just shit-hanging and maybe drinking, maybe smoking, who fucking knows. and this little kid comes up and is like "ummmm..." and what do you do? i'm in that position now. he's not MY kid, but he "is". and if i have someone over and we're shit-hanging and playing a game or talking bands.. and little man comes out and wants to have food or something, i'm cool with it. but i'm pretty social. if you're not social, does it affect that?

ALSO. who do i get this social vibrance from? is it my dad? there's no way. i don't think i get much from my dad at all, in fact. it took me a while to realize that i think i got my more creative side from my mom. i realized that my mom always wrote us letters. i think she has that drive to write. or at least that small seed that could have been nurtured into a more avid writer. she reads a lot. she has a love for Words. i wonder if she ever has realized it. or if she realized that I realize it. any of it. but i think if she were allowed to grow in a creative environment, i think she would have spun something really great. 

i know dad reads a lot as well. or read a lot. he's read a lot of those weird coming-of-age novels. henry miller and hesse. vonnegut. a lot of that older stuff. asimov sci-fi. really interesting to see where that. his mind is more of the left brain, science minded stuff? who knows. it's always been pretty easy to tell that i'm my mom. and my sister is my dad. everything is strange. 

the sober moment, an apartment fire.

i went back and read a story/memoir that i'd written years ago about a break up. and i can't believe how sharp some of the points still are. but i remember the people involved. me and her. and i remember them as characters. they're no one. they don't matter to me. but the events and the things that occurred within that life are so authentic and surreal to me. 

there's a couple of things:

- it still reads like the voice that i generally write in. so there's something about that that feels like it doesn't need a translator or a period of time to pull those words together. i don't have to sit back and understand it. i don't have to figure out if i believe it or not. i don't give a shit if i buy it. there's something in there that i feel. 

- that experience of the breakup... that particular breakup... was the defining moment in my life that took me from who i was to the very beginnings of who i am. there's even video of me during that time that i look back on and kind of don't get. i don't understand who that person is or was trying to be. well. i kind of get it. there's an ego there that i don't respect. there's an ego there that's never been checked. also, an ego that's unfounded. someone that became a character in his own head that deserved way more clout than he had assumed. even now, i know i have an ego and i have a strong bravado of a narcissist. and that's fairly repugnant. i get pretty tired of it. but there's a HEAVY sadness that has come with that learning experience that opened up the deep end of the pool. and even if i don't linger in it, i respect that it exists. 

-----

as a music listener, if i didn't make mix cds, i wouldn't listen to anywhere near as much new stuff as i do. and i really enjoy that chase. to say "i don't care" who listens to it is a shitty lie. but to also say that that's completely why i do it is wrong as well. i'm glad that i have a series of mix cds that i've built on my own from other people's work and then shared with people. i think this process helps me keep a part of me alive that i will always miss the tail end of. /// even making end of the year lists keeps me listening to new music that comes out during the current year. 

as a blogger, i'm not sure what i would be without the many different voices i try to compartmentalize in different URLs. this blog, the games blog, the music blog [RIP], and even a new entertainment blog that i'm doing with the girlfriend. these are all individual exhibits that have NOTHING to do with each other. and i think even as characters, they'd truly annoy and bother each other at a party. 

i don't know. 

"fault."

"

how do you not write something down in a small, personal notebook once a day? you worry about what other people will think when you write it. even down to the smallest little monologue about veterans or war. you HAD that thought. it happened. and it spiraled off into nowhere. just jot it down. it's frustrating that you don't write it down anymore. audience ruined everything. this is the third stream of consciousness you let change from smoke to smoke in the past month. IT'S THERE.

baby out with the bath water.


"

talked to a friend on the phone yesterday for almost an hour. felt incredible, like i was alive and throwing real opinions at real listener. and getting tactile feedback. and hearing opinions back. learning and teaching. it felt important on that scale. it felt like the friendships i miss. no small talk. no talking about real stupid life without attaching things overly large or overly small. everything a fairy tale or a joke or a way for us to understand each other. not making the tragedies digestible. not making the stupid things we think anything less than cosmic.

you wonder why.