There is a glowing tremor within the fright

After a full night of restful sleep, I've been waking up in the mornings feeling arresting stress. Completely overtaking my mind and body to the point where I feel like I slammed a door shut behind me after running from an angry mob. Or like I just sabotaged a business with the push of a button and just got to my car, knowing that there were going to be headlines of a major collapse. I try to center myself for the most part, thinking about nothing, even thinking about SOMETHING to erase the phantom tremors. It's difficult, but eventually I steel up.

I wish I could wear the stress during the regular day, if in fact, that's what this is. I wish I could just be stressed out at the root of the issue and solve it. Figure it out. Come to grips with it. Handle it. Etc. This is the most stressful time of year for a retail manager, obviously. But there isn't anything more stressful than anything else. I have my team and they are handling the store operations just fine. I sometimes wish I could do more for them, but I know that's just the human need of having control speaking to me. I have to relinquish it.

We're not bleeding money. We're not in a bad place as a family as a couple or as members of society.

I'm... behind on writing an arbitrary personal top 100 albums of the year list that's FOR no one and that NO ONE is expecting or even wanting.

Christmas shopping is done.

Dad is stabilized after a couple of scares with his health.

Is this rationalization speaking? Are these lies I'm telling myself? I can see them, visualize them, quantify them. But isn't that what a delusionist would think and say as well?

Hurling catatonic tape.

The past couple of months I'd been posting a writing project that I worked on this year. Click the link below, jump back through all the stories. A post every couple of days, none of them related, all inspired by different albums.


Many Detailed Things.

Places that you've become holy.

It's been over a year. At some point, that was a mistake, but then once it went over a certain period of time, I figured I needed a break from always needing to write something down or react to something. It didn't help and it didn't hurt. I found somewhere between then and now through being a parent that I am part of a community. That the people around me are going to see me in the town and in the city and in the world and it's going to matter how I treat them or others who know them. I don't know how that concept never really effected me before. But being a parent who attended practices and games, etc. this sort of reality became clear. It made home feel more like home. It made here feel more like here. It made 3 years of always daydreaming of going back to NY disappear. Total relief, honest.

Found myself in a strange place after the last couple of weeks. I had (and still have) a bunch of PTO to burn up and I took some extra time. And the time that I had away from the store was spent more or less existing. Not accomplishing much outside of little bursts. Even the amount of media I was consuming started running together. Much of it felt distracted, sort of floating between two things, never really being consumed by any of it, overall. A few writing projects hovered before me and never landed on ledges. I can only imagine that this is what ADD feels like. Maybe we all have it, but we don't have the time to flex it. There's just so much out there.

Tomorrow, when I'm asked "What's up man. How was your day off?" and I say, "Good, man. Solid." and they ask, "Word! What'd you do?" What's my answer more likely to be?

Answer #1.
Watched all my shows from the weekend. Caught up. My Hero Academia was a filler episode so it felt a little disappointing. Felt like a guest writer coming in and cleaning up some loose ends with some of the fringe characters we've been able to avoid due to some of the high impact action in the core characters.

Twin Peaks was an episode that once again floated through a middle ground, but also somehow revealed a ton of information? It's always tough to say in that show, dude. Like we found out two characters are related to each other but are estranged. These two characters wouldn't even generally enjoy each others presence; how are they from the same family tree in any way? But I get it. Their intensities are the same volume but with different frequencies. Different powerful people. But did you see Sarah Palmer? Nah don't watch the show, huh? Well, yo. Her face is a passage to another dimension I think? Or maybe she just houses an entire dimension within her. It's tough to say. It's David Lynch, ya know? Weird. How are there only four more episodes?

Then another big bite into Game of Thrones. I tend to take those two shows back to back because they're so different. I almost need a break from that heavy weirdness, a lot of brainwork to something where, as popular and intertwined as it is, you don't have to pay any sort of attention at all to really enjoy it. It's all there for you. And maybe that's just a product of becoming so popular. I think that might actually be more the case. Where there may have been more cerebral elements of the show, the more popular it became, the less it spiked into more carnal events, and the more it felt like we were taking on big chunks of story over time. But again, going back to understanding that this show is quickly approaching its conclusion, maybe it's taking less time with its tapestry. Maybe we're just digesting these big ideas and watching them pull down curtains en route to a strong conclusion. The headiest part of the show for me is wondering how we're going to get a certainty here. Are we going to watch a frozen undead army battle the entirety of Westeros, but then also get a clear winner from the remaining two Queens? Do we ultimately have a game of League of Legends playing out in front of us, where the undead army is the little minions and the Champions involved are the Lannisters and the Snows and the Daenryses? Maybe. But I'm stoked that Tarly left the maesters. So good man! It was interesting to see something so relatable. This guy chased a dream for the longest time, and could have prospered, but he saw behind the veil! Rough. Anyone who has looked back behind the curtain into the positions of power and had to watch them make decisions from a higher position looking down without the knowledge that you gain from having your boots on the ground, hey, that's gonna burn you out, right?

Then after those two shows, it's easy to backslide into some more easy-entertainment. I watched Rick and Morty, which was an episode that was spoofing superhero tropes. Very clearly it was hitting on the Marvel Universe. For me, it was a little too self referential. The best way I can say it is that... it knows what it is now and I think it's playing a bit with what it can 'get away with' as being a show knowing it's a show and knowing it's got a multidimensional and multifaceted aspect to it. How close can you get to that singularity before you simply become Deadpool? There was a bit in there about the PA being confused because it was its first day that just worked for me as a perfect example for what the show was trying to be. Imperfect, I guess? Like... people stumbling over their words and not landing where they should. Not simply speaking their lines, but being more "conversational" about their sentences they're trying to say instead of delivering a line. But there were obvious jabs at things that were the things you would make obvious jabs about. I got it. I think the show has come from a place where they have so much finesse, usually, and this episode felt lazy. It felt poorly delivered. It's fine. I spoke to a bunch of friends too, right, and I was in the minority amongst them all. So I'm glad they watched it, they laughed, they enjoyed it. That's the point. Maybe I was just sort of hoping for more. Or, ya know, if this is a 12 episode season, this is the one that I'm not down with. The batting average for this show is still super strong. I'm just worried about their ability to feed the meme machine constantly, trying each episode to have a quote or a moment that's T-Shirt Ready.

Preacher was the last show I have to keep up with. It's just entertaining at this point, but I can't tell if I just like it so much because I love the graphic novel. This season was strongly elevating its game for 4 or 5 episodes but the last two have plateaued at best. Again, it's a long season. The guy playing a character named Herr Stark is super cool. But there's this whole other angle where a kid is in Hell, actually IN HELL and I want to continue watching that story play out.

The big meat of my day, though, the best part, was finally digging into the short films by Neill Blomkamp that he was putting up on Youtube. I knew he was putting stuff up on there and I had seen the teasers and trailers, etc. But I never actually think to jump on there and watch them. There are 3 "full" short films that are possibly better than 90% of anything I've watched this year. You like sci-fi right? They're all very clearly inspired by those great 80s/90s sci-fi powerhouses, like Alien, Predator, Event Horizon, The Thing, etc. But there are also elements of his newer stuff like Elysium and District 9 and also, 28 Days/Weeks Later, Apocalypse Now... it's just pulling from so many great reference points. They're like those stories I was writing a few months ago, microfictions, but obviously with such a stronger narrative. These are 20-25 minute films. Their production value is incredible. The sets are brilliantly made, the antagonists are the stars. There's this homunculus built from other humans, there's a rivergod who is a man transformed, and there are these aliens that are enslaving our entire planet... all of these things are done without handicap and without apology. They are brilliantly constructed. Totally recommend all of the stuff over on that YouTube channel. The coolest thing is he's said that his entire focus is to give it all away for free. And there was a poll on Twitter where he was asked if he should do a feature film or continue doing these little bite sized pieces. I think the choice was to do a feature, but I would really love it if they kept these context free moments going forever. They're genius. And they're all independent, so they're playing by their own rules. It's got so much potential from a storytelling perspective. This man's ideas are inspiring.

Also, Brand New is touring and coming through Charleston. Remember when I told you that bands never come through here? This is a big deal for me. Tickets go on sale on Friday. Fingers crossed that I can get something. I'm bugging out.

--
Answer #2. 
Ah, nothing man. Watched my shows. Listened to some tunes.
--

Because, really, the CORRECT answer is Answer #1.5, wherein Answer 1 is chopped into digestible parts and I end up having conversations that eventually juice all of the details of Answer 1 through the time I spend hanging out with these people. Answer #2 is really just a little short, but I don't give anyone the 'benefit of the doubt' of knowing what I'm talking about. So I don't talk about anything. My answer to the question "what books do you read" was incredibly long, but also approachable. Reference points. Names to check out. Roman numerals followed by capital letters and then digits. I never opened pull down menus unless they were asked about. It's tough, man. I notice here that so much of what I talk about is just flying by the heads of people who don't want to hear about it if they don't know about it. I can't tell what's up.

--

None of it matters, really.
Honest.
I just don't know how I was taught or how I learned to listen to what people talk about and be interested in what I don't know about to the point where I'm learning about more, etc. And how it seems that not many people learned to be that way.

_death.jpg

One thing that I've found about staying away from Facebook is that it makes me feel so strange about my opinions. I don't know where to place them. I don't know where to field them. I don't know where their home is. I've watched films and TV shows and listened to albums and songs and I just don't know where my reactions and my feelings for them go.

Facebook is where I would post trailers or quotes or captions or videos of songs or news articles. And that's how I would basically feel a binary fulfillment of showing people (my friends I guess?) what I liked. What I was getting into. As far back as high school with what now would be called a blog, I was posting 'reviews' and 'reactions' to movies and music. And now without a social network, I feel like before I even start a reaction or a text message, someone else's reaction is already going to be "yeah, I know" or any variant of that. It's been a really long time since I talked about a band or a show or a movie and someone said, "What's that about? Where did you find that? What is that? How did you feel about that?" And I guess with Facebook's system of Likes or Loves or Laughs or Wows, it felt at least like a currency that was filling the empty space that was there.

I've thought several times about starting a 'review' blog, something similar to what wrankmusic began as and ended up as. Just to have a place to dump thoughts and review into. This coming from the dude who has several times thought about tweeting "No one cares about your review," but haven't because of what it might mean for someone who wrote a review with the same positive standing and excitement who happens upon it. 

It's true, though. That review isn't the point. 

The artist getting out of their head space and calling something finishing and sharing it is the point. 

So, I think to go on Facebook and write a reaction to the new Stranger Things show or the first couple of episodes of Mr. Robot or a few No Man's Sky tracks I dug up or the game Inside. And it just feels like it won't matter to anyone but me who wrote it, because I've written it. 

It's weird, man. Why does this matter to me? 

Even jumping on something like Reddit, I see the reviews/reactions there and so much of it seems so much more well thought out than how I feel about what comes out of my mouth/fingers and I wonder what the point of throwing my two cents into the pot is. In fact, I went on /r/gamestop and dropped some thought on an actual work question and gave some insight, and it got downvoted. I didn't take it personally-- wait. I took it personally at first but then realized, you know, realistically, it was just the words that I guess got to be TL;DR or just really not helpful, overall. That's fine. But still, something I know about and something that I functionally am good at, it still doesn't even get any credo. I deleted it. 

But that Reddit space... it goes both ways, right? Like I could jump on any group and just drop a thought on something, an opinion and have it shredded. At least it would be people right? At least it would be someone somewhere? Would that equal the thumbs up or the heart or the gaping mouth emoji? 

Post script.

Had a dream a couple of nights ago that I've been lost in thought about since I woke from it.

In the dream, I had been handed a letter in some strange cursive that I haven't seen before. And the connotation was that it was a suicide not from my father. It read:

"I thought it would be better this way."

What a dark fucking omen.

In the dream, everyone was instantly in the phase of acceptance, sort of the way you act when an old dog passes or you uproot an old dead tree. Very strange overall vibe. We talked in past tense and we embraced the absence. Very void of emotion. 

My sister was the one who found his body. He had been in the bleachers at a baseball stadium, sitting alone when someone came upon him. The letter was found in his dresser sticking out of the top drawer. 

It's been a very long time since I had a dream so 'real', not in the sense of how immersed I was in it, but how close to actual context and character it was to reality. 

I often disassociate from people, relationships, humans, etc. I find a way to build them into this caricature of 

themselves, makes it easier to lose them or laugh at them or dislike them. Even make them a hero or a villain. But this one had nothing but modest over and undertones. The reality was palpable.

My father and I have the weirdest relationship and I have him built into this specific figure with so few actual details. I don't know if this will act as a wake up call or if it will be something else to any degree. But it made a lot of things very substantial.

Ark.

Been noticing myself as someone who is easily, too easily distracted. Don't know how it started or how I became one of those people who are impossible to tie down. I even expect the weirdest things of people when engaging in media. When I'm showing you a song, I want you to listen and notice things and not talk through it. When films are on, I don't want you to talk to me about anything other than the observations you're making within the film. Save the questions until the end.

Oddly enough, while I'm watching shows or films, I can't help but find myself eager to make notes or pick up a pen or a phone and start googling things. What I need to start doing this time around, as I'm trying to make myself a more focused reader, writer, speaker, watcher, observer, is to remember to simply make smart notes for myself to come back and check later, to flesh out later. And to let myself get fully engulfed into the art or the medium or the idea that's being expressed in front of me. 

Example.

Currently put on a film about isolation. As it's starting, begin making a list of other films I want to check out that relate to isolation. While I'm doing that, I open up the Chromebook to start googling "Films about Isolation" and start adding films to the list that started when the initial film started. And the whole time, I have my headphones on and the audio of the film is happening, and I'm peeking up and looking down and not immersing myself into the actual piece that started the whole cycle. 

Is this what I would want if someone was reading my stuff? 

Is this what I would want to be looking out at if my band was playing a show? Some other cats making notes in their phones about other bands to check out that I remind them of?

Hell no.

Trying to become more present. I think I was more present than this at one point. Maybe, maybe not. But I know I want to be.

Maybe that's why I feel my days completely slip away feeling like I've never actually done anything. Maybe it always feels like I'm only halfway doing anything.

I've also got this whole other tangent I want to go off on about how I've just been noticing that most of my time is spent trying to escape reality and the next series of things I want to do is about returning to the core of a reality without media involved at all. But that sounds devastating. It reminds me of the concept about how you're not supposed to shut the A/C off, just leave it on an average temperature all day because at the end of the day, it costs more to cool the house down after turning it off than it does to just be moderate the entire day. 

Man. 

Shelter this birth.

Very strange habit I fall into.

Whenever I'm listening to music, watching a film or TV show or even writing something personally. I am instantly transported, at some point in the writing, to want to share elements of it. I'm almost addicted to that feeling of sharing and waiting for the opinions of others.

I'm currently in the process of writing this thing and it's not done, it's not even through the first leg, and I'm already thinking of the first list of people I want to send it to to see where I'm at. To see if where I'm at with it is okay. To see if it's even worth getting to the finish line. This is the wrong way to do it. 

I just don't want to get to the end of this and feel like Ben Wyatt when he finished Cones of Dunshire. It's probably one of my favorite moments of Parks and Recreation. He goes into this lengthy and insane explanation of this board game that he's invented. It's completely convoluted and he's spent about a week or two without a job and built this game in isolation. And he's explaining it to Leslie, and at the very end of it, faced with her silence, he comes to the realization, "...this is nothing, isn't it?"

SO GOOD.

So funny. But at the same time, is this what my writing is like? I can't get to that point. I'm trying to write in a column, in a vacuum. Just going to get to the end of it and have it stand on its own. 

Would rather be happy with it and 'defend' or 'explain' the finished project than let it be warped and changed and divided by its audience.

The mouth of voids.

At some point I got lost in the distractions of the real world. Or the distractions from the real world. They did their jobs well. I got addicted to fiction and fantasy and escapes. I disassociated. I don't know when that happened. I can't place it. But I know it's real. It happened. It still happens. And it's not painful. It doesn't hurt. But it feels like something. It feels like a missed opportunity. A life lead in a barrier.

It's the strangest thing. Given the right alchemy of time, I would swing from book to film to album to game on an endless loop until I was finally caught up. And there's ZERO catching up. This is an impossibility. I'm never going to make it. I have to remind myself that it's NEVER going to happen. I'm never going to 'be there'. Especially in the sense that I'm constantly trying to find influences and mentors and what came first. Influences. Muses. Letters. Background. More and more and more. The pile growing thicker daily.

I'm never going to make it.

I took a month writing an act of a sci-fi story. A novel is the goal. And going back to it is great. It feels really good. I shared it and a lot of the feedback was great. But what it makes me feel is this endless void. The collapse. The things that she wanted me to add or explain or throw in made me feel almost helpless. Like: "How didn't I think of that?" The real issue becomes how I don't even finish anything, maybe I never see the gaps. And maybe I never fill the gaps because I don't feel them. I never go back and reread and understand what's missing. What's lacking. What's lost in translation. What got dammed in the filter between my mind and my fingers.

I plan to go back in on the piece in July. A recommitment to the project. And I'm looking forward to it. ACT I has a lot to set up and it's a lot of emotion and coping and awakening. And there's a lot of plot that I have mentally that I don't have on paper and eventually it's going to pass through the drain. I don't want that to happen.

I have another story that takes place in the NYC/BK music underground that still has a very solid plot to me, but the more I think about it [and just don't write it] the more I question it. I should just get it down on paper. There are so many finished things out there in the hands and eyes and minds of others that are somehow swimming in the same shallow pools I could be flooding if I just set my feet into them.

I got really into the microfiction project (here) and really loved the outcome of it, even if the actual feedback was sparse. I know all of it was quality. It bothers me that I know it. The main problem is that much of who I shared it with is... 'just'(?)... a friend. That's awesome. That was the idea. It's difficult to not be able to share it with a grander audience. But I don't know the way into the auditorium. It's like a bad dream where I don't know how to find the power switch for the microphone while standing on a stage. Or even closer... more direct... I don't know how to find the unlocked door to the presentation stage. 

I'll be honest. I'm not looking.

Years ago, someone added over 50 links to places to share my writing. My fiction, my poetry, etc. I'm planning to use July to jump on each of those and figure out how that is going to work for me. What happened there? Well, initially, I shared a piece of poetry that got 'publised' and when I shared it, instantly a friend jumped on to that same site and shared something also and also got published. That did two things to me:

1. Made my effort seem utterly bland. It stole the unique moment from me. I felt like anyone else. Everyone else.
2. Piggyback on that: It made my skill feel like the skill of everyman. Like all anyone needed was the link to that site and everyone would be 'published' there. 

What business did I have putting anything anywhere?

Fuck it.

Going to see what July can do.

Going to see what I can do.

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.