You know, we’re a dying breed you and me…

more about “My Own Worst Enemy | Lit | Music Vide…“, posted with vodpod

I feel like the 90’s ended too soon.

What’s it really getting me?

There’s a moment in time
And it’s stuck in my mind
Way back, when we were just kids

Cause your eyes told the tale
Of an act of betrayal
I knew that somebody did

Oh, waves of time
Seem to wash away
The scenes of our crimes
But for you this never ends

Can you stay strong?
Can you go on?
Kristy are you doing okay?
A rose that won’t bloom
Winter’s kept you
Don’t waste your whole life trying
To get back what was taken away

My New Year’s resolution was more a attempt to do something I’m good at even better. I don’t know, maybe it’s the walking, or the movies, or something I’m doing different, that I’ve realized that while my full intention was to be the greatest asshole I could be might not be my best choice in the world. Sometimes ghosts come back into your life to make up for all the shit you did in the past, not to fix something that is to come.

I think of Alice as my Dr. Prashar in this case and I’m simply Dr. Pincus sitting on the chair looking up at the ceiling listening to the final piece of advice my college has for me: “At some point in your life you’re going to have to stop and ask yourself the ultimate question: This business of being such a fucking prick, what is it really getting me?”

I think I need to rethink my idea of what is important to me in this world and push away the bad and be happy for a change. Because I can’t continue to walk down this path. I’m getting old; it’s getting old. I probably have no reason to be writing this. A lot of you probably think I have no right. The other day, I passed a church and thought how much easier it was to believe in the past and just kneel and pray. The thing is, even in those days, I felt empty. No matter how much I have, I will always feel empty. I feel empty and scared and no matter what I do it’s always the wrong move.

What has being an asshole gotten? Less friends and being less trustworthy, that’s what. Don’t respond to the post.

You wanted it, so here it is.

I had a vision I could turn you right
a stupid mission and a lethal fight
I should have seen it when my hope was new
my heart is black and my body is blue

And I’m losing my favourite game
you’re losing your mind again

I had this dream the other night that caused me some discomfort. It’s wasn’t too good of a dream. It’s waning down to the 18th. Want to know what’s wrong with me? People tell me that sometimes when you’re at your lowest you have to reach out for help. What if you’ve never been good at reaching out to others but  don’t want to be left alone? It doesn’t matter, right? I’ll manage.

My mother’s going into surgery later this month. It irks me. This is the woman who just took care of me over a month ago after my surgery and now the roles will be switched again. She needs the surgery, but because she’s diabetic, I’m worried. I worry a lot these days. I feel replaced and misplaced at times. My mother’s surgery is just the worry of the now. I feel incomplete in a rather completed cycle. Was anyone else left amaze at my turning back and running? I  wasn’t it. I’m wont to let go of the past. That’s who I let people down. I’m prone to be a let down. Don’t contradict me, it won’t work.

So here’s to 2008, the goddawful year and a horrible experience that I never want to remember again. I hope to never look back on this year as anything but major disappointment save Barack Obama’s success. If anything, the country speaking for change has given this year a silver lining.

“That there, that’s not me…” (Radiohead)

In a little while
I’ll be gone
The moment’s already passed
Yeah it’s gone
And I’m not here
This isn’t happening
I’m not here
I’m not here

I suddenly have a strange feeling and I’m not feeling well and I’m not thinking straight and I have no one to call because it’s late at night and I’m to only suffer alone. Something bad just happened. I don’t know what, and I probably won’t know what any time soon. I contemplate a shower and perhaps I could get through it without bursting at the seams. I feel hollow. I feel stranger. I feel like a person I used to be long ago. But I got help. I got help, didn’t I? My dreams aren’t making any sense. I dream of Jyg. I dream of old flings. I dream of girls I was once consider a part of. I dream of all my fuck ups. I dream of all my let downs. But the history is all wrong. I’m so torn in between and I’m thinking that an unspoken pact has now been destroyed. I don’t trust anyone the way I could. I don’t even think I trust myself in sticking out during the rough time. 

I have a BA in English. Doll reminded me that today. Yet, I don’t want to use it. I don’t want to use it because I don’t want to wake up ten years from now and realize I’m stuck. I don’t want to be stuck. I want to do the beat up jobs. I want to get dirty. I want to get frustrated. But I don’t want to do it with my BA. My BA’s just paper. It’s worthless and worth some thing all at the same time. I don’t know what is gripping my throat right now. I’m finding it harder and harder to breathe. A word. Love. Hate. Pleasure. Pain. Distress. Worried. Hands shake. I am beginning to think that if I’m ever going to be normal, I need to start at the bottom and weed out all this shit before I completely lose myself in these words. 

You don’t know who I am, so please don’t pretend. 

So please. Don’t pretend. 

I’m okay. Everything is okay now.

At night, when I hear voices, I am most sane

Sometimes I fear I’m doomed to be like Daniel Pecan Cambridge, so I ask of you all to kill me if I ever get to that point in my life. For those of you who don’t know me, I’m a little messed up in the head. Seriously. Here’s a list of my quirks; well, the ones I’m willing to announce:

1. Evens. I hate numbers. Even number of ice cubes when I serve my drinks (or when I’m in anyone’s house and serve myself a drink). I stomach fast food drinks and those served by me by rationalizing that it’s insane to count my ice cubes at Wendy’s after it’s already been served and just plain rude if my host served me a drink and I removed an ice cube. 
2. With that being said, I also have to the same thing in an even number amount of times. Say my index finger just happens to touch something by accident. I am then forced to touch that same thing with each of my fingers at least once as 1X10=10 (and even number!).
3. During commercial breaks and only during ones that I like to watch, if I’m doing something with my hands like holding a pen, I have to hold said object (stop thinking perverted already, I said pen!) with all ten my fingers touching it for the duration of the commercial. With that being said, the Bill Gates/Jerry Seinfeld commercials are becoming a compulsion of itself.  
4. When I’m at my worst, I tend to count my steps. This helps reduce my anxiety for some odd reason. 
5. At times, I have to sit on my hands. Not with them under my ass, or anything, but thighs. It’s a quick thing and most of the time, I don’t even know I’m doing it. 
6. Like with the counting my steps, when I’m at my worse, I avoid cracks on the ground, or lines dividing the cement. 

That’s all for now. I’m heading back to continue reading The Pleasure of My Company. 

When we talk in silence, your words echo through my head

Am I alive or thoughts that drift away?
Does summer come for everyone?
Can humans do as prophets say?
And if I die before I learn to speak
Can money pay for all the days I lived awake
But half asleep?

The thunder is booming outside – my skull hurts – and I can feel the oncoming storm brewing. It’s a whisper of the night that is yet to come. You missed the train, my love, the lady said as she stood on the tracks and vanished into the fog. I think. The purpose of all these missed opportunities is unknown to me. I shuffle on.

A girl once talked to me about her dreams. A girl once swore she would marry me only to marry someone else in the end. The vibrations in the sky threaten electrical currents into my mind. I think there isn’t a choice in this world other than to jump off that locomotive.

We build walls to keep others out. I have erected mine. I won’t let you in because I didn’t trust myself. I was right not to. There were others who tried to tame me, to soothe me, but I’m fickle. I burn. Let me burn. I am the fire that will devour your suburban mind.

When the second ghost called me on the phone, I wondered if maybe that a stronger energy was trying to tell me that I have not been wise. But I’ve fooled you all. I never knew a single thing before.

I’ve forgotten how to sleep at night

Cause I’ve been wishing so hard
Tell me can you relate
You want something so bad and in time
It’s too long to wait
Cause I’ve been wishing so hard
Tell me if you think that it’s true
Cause everything I’ve been wishing
for I had in me in you

The room smells of bread. And I think about two things that I did wrong with my life. And while I shouldn’t think about them, they’re all I have going on in my mind. I don’t know what to do with myself. There is no more neutral party. I’ve erased all boundaries, all borders, this whole Summer.

My friend’s marriage is ending. Can’t say she didn’t try. Just another statistic for you to chalk up. And me? Well, me. I’m just bitter. I don’t know what I have to bitter about.

As I talked to her on the phone, I said that maybe she should’ve crawled before she ran. Sure, statistically, we get married because we are or got someone pregnant, but that wasn’t a sign that you’re ready for marriage. That’s where husband made the mistake of it. He thought because he said it, it meant that the powers that be had made it factual. But words are just words. And while he blames her for a lot of things, he doesn’t realize all those times the other three fingers were pointing right back at him, as the saying goes.

Sometimes, I think I should’ve listen to my own words. I ran before I even crawled away from the pain. I moved to fast and I only brought the hatchet down on myself even harder. I don’t know if others realize this, but…I’m at a loss for words. Me. The person who’s supposed to be a wordsmith.

I want to be forgotten,
and I don’t want to be reminded.
You say “please don’t make this harder.”
No, I won’t yet.
I wanna be beside her.
She wanna be admired.
You say “please don’t make this harder.”
No, I won’t yet.

On Growing Up

If all you’re seeing is your lies
You had your chance, but now you’ve blown it.
You want this world so you can own it
I am the keeper of the songs of everyone

Look into the sun and see your soul is dying
Used to feel the faith, but now you’re tired of trying
Should have left alone what you have stolen from everyone

How are you feeling?
You seem a little sick to me

I read a piece in Esquire by Stephen Marche entitled “Can We Stop Acting So Childish?” I have a subscription (big surprised, hu?) so I’m not sure if it’s on newstands or not, but go pick up the issue and read the piece if it’s not online. I think the person on the cover is Tom Brady (missing Brady Bunch brother? I have no idea who he is or why we should stop hating him). But the piece really got to me when I read it yesterday (this post was supposed to be written afterward, but it was The Professor’s birthday and Jyg and I were invited to to the gala). I ponder most of it on the drive over there and even more so when I showed Jyg where I spent the earlier parts of my life. Donna’s changed so much and looks almost inhabitable at night. I’m sure my grandmother would have hated the changes down and perhaps may have succumbed to defeat and moved in with us if she hadn’t passed eleven years ago.

I’m twenty-five-years-old. I don’t drive because of this fear that I can’t even explain most of the time. I still live at home with my mother because of this deep seeding guilt of leaving my mother in a state of depression. My relationships are less than perfect. I close myself off emotionally from people I love. I sit at home and write porn for money. I read books to escape my mundane life. I graduated from college but haven’t used my degree in any real work. I am the epitome of manchild, am I not? That’s the topic of Marche’s piece in the collum “A Thousand Words About Our Culture.”

As a country, we seemingly, but possibly unwittingly, gratify the adult-child. He starts his piece with the fact that the beloved children’s book, but possibly well hated (even though it hasn’t been released) film adapation, Where the Wild Things Are. I loved the book as child, and I’m pretty darn sure that I would still love it if I had the book to read to my nieces and nephew. And while little can be said about the book, what Marche points out is what seems to plague us to this day – it’s about a child realizing that it’s time to grow up. The only problem is, we don’t realize that anymore.

The source of the new ubiquity of the child-adult centaur may be the extended adolescence in which we all find ourselves. If you believe the conservative commentators, every urban American under the age of 40 rides a skateboard to work, and the criteria that once defined adulthood – giving up bands, getting a steady job, normal sex – no longer apply. Hipster parents are the new children raising children: Put the kid down for a nap, check the BlackBerry to see if the Shanghai office has sent the proofs, then take the videocam into the bedroom, and afterward maybe listen to Vampire Weekend with a joint while playing Halo 3 together. That’s the new happy marriage, the new happy adulthood: the desires of adolescence empowered by money and confidence.

And while I find myself at the crossroads a lot lately, I’m beginning to notice that I recognized the terrain. That tree over there, it’s awfully familiar. It’s almost like I have  been here before. Only I haven’t been here before because in order to be able to say, “I’ve been here before,” I would have to actually leave this place and walk as far away from it until I loop back and find myself at the crossroads again. I never leave. I say that I will, but I never leave. Forever to be stuck in the middle until someone takes my hand and leads me away from it like they did when I was a child.

The other day I was mistaken for a 40-year-old man because I hang out with a 40-year-old man. That sort of logic didn’t work when I was sixteen, so why is it that sixteen-year-olds see me as old now? That’s right, because I’m no longer sixteen, I’m nine years old than them. I’m almost a decade older. When did that happen? I admit, I was never hip. I was never cool. I wasn’t “down” with the in crowd in high school. I didn’t sell drugs or have sex with multiple partners – fuck, I still don’t sell drugs or have sex with multiple partners. I didn’t go to the movies and watch stupid movies and than chuckle about them with the guys in the changing rooms, interchanging scenes from the movie with how big this one girl’s tits are. I was mature, wasn’t I? Didn’t I take things seriously – sure, maybe not school, but that’s because I knew the stuff already, I didn’t need to learn it. I never studied, managed high grades in the classes that I actually liked. So what happened? Wasn’t I supposed to be the promised child? Instead, I’ve become the Prodigal Son who refuses to come home and see the error of my way.

Why do I find it so hard to choose a path, be it the right path or the reckless path, and find my way back? Perhaps then, the tree will have changed and an median would have been set.

whisper now
and tell me how you’ll watch me
and tell me somehow i’m gonna be alright

“Is there something that you’re trying to say” (Tantric)

I purposely forgot about
Loving anyone
Cause I’m the only one who has
Who has been stepped upon

Is there something that you’re trying to say
Cause I can take it
Cause I grew up a man this way
And if I’m hurt I’ll shake it

Alice was sad tonight. She called and we only spoke for a few minutes before she decided she wasn’t in the mood to talk to me – or anyone for that matter. I wanted to stay in bed, but I decided to return the virtual world and try to forget. Well, I didn’t and so I continued to think about it.

I don’t have any emotional attachment to her other than a friend. I’m glad we can get pass the whole once upon a time thing, but the thought has always lingered with me. There was a point when I did have strong feelings for her and I know she felt the same way for me. And after I made my declaration of love, the next day, I got up and left. I didn’t look back to see what could’ve been and I know I left because I thought in the long run, it was for the best. I wasn’t going to be with her because I was a bad person. I was still in that mentality of a child. I knew in the long run, I would only hurt her and by running away, I did what I thought I was avoiding.

Fast Forward to the 2006, I’m standing outside the Nueva Onda Poets’ Cafe calling her up on my cell phone and asking if she would like to join me. I’d called her a few times in the past, most of their failures. I called because a part of me wanted to call her and reconnect. Be friends. I thought I could mend bridges that easy, and for her, so she tells me now, it wasn’t that hard. But at that time, I’m thinking a part of me wanted to know there was a solace between us. That somehow she found it in her heart to let that little mistake of me hurting her go. For the second time in our lives, I ran away.

Fast forward to now. She’s married, unhappily. She feels trapped. She hates her job. She hates her life. She has ambition but no motiviation/support. At night, I think I’m the last chance guy to comfort her. Her husband’s a dumbass. The person who has titled himself the love of her life has decided to run away. And there I was, the beacon of hope. But as a ghost, I can’t help to feel that there’s something deeper to her presence in my life. And that’s when I noticed it.

Everything I did seven years ago, I’m doing again. I’m repeating my same mistakes. I’m reliving each moment I had with Alice with someone else. Funny thing is, I’m too much of a coward to fix it. Some things, I suppose. I dunno. Sometimes the only way to go is to go backwards. I’m sorry.

“Even if you don’t want to speak tonight that’s alright…” (Lifehouse)

I’m finding my way back to sanity again,
Though I don’t really know what I’m going to do when I get there.

Spoke to Alice again tonight. Words were shared that I never thought I’d say to her. No hidden confession bullshit, but resurfacing things that I’ve long kept inside my mind. Apology for just getting up one day and never spoke to her again. I tried to reconnect with her afterwards, but years after I had pretty much damaged our friendship. I fear I’m currently repeating old habits by pulling away. Sometimes I’m afraid that certain people don’t deserve me and not because I think I’m too good for them, but because they deserve someone more stable. Someone they can depend on.

We spoke in soft voices like we did in the past when I felt something for her. I don’t anymore, of course; the person I was then and ther person I am now differ greatly. The same goes with her. I remembered the nights when our secret relationship started, though it never bloomed anymore than one I love you and then my vanishing for a long period from her world. I got scared. I was this tainted person and she was virginal. I didn’t want to pollute her with me. I had the habit then of using those around me and leaving when I got bored. And some people deserve better.

Jenn’s words affect me. I love her, too. I don’t think I say those words enough to the people I do love. I do love you, each and everyone of you, but I’m incapable of holding on to whatever this world has to offer. I don’t want to hurt you. I don’t want to cause you pain. I’m working on myself because I don’t want you to think badly of me. And if I do hurt you, if I do let you down, then please understand it’s because you deserve better than me. And if I could offer you the world, I would lay this burden down and give you each pebble it has to offer. Sometimes, I wish I could a little more human and little less cowardly. And I speak to all of you, not just an individual. I do love each and everyone of you.

Suddenly I’m reminded of a scene from Lord of the Rings. I’m not sure if I can find it in the book, or a direct quote from the movie, but Frodo and Sam are trekking in the woods when the discussion of the weight of their mission is given. Sam responds that if there is a small good in this world, isn’t it worth fighting for?

I shall take the thunderhead of pain and make use of it. Maybe one day I will see the good this world has to offer. I may see those who have chosen to be good erase those who have decided to be producers of evil. Perhaps one day I’ll see the person you see in your eyes.