Roles and Reversals

I am sitting here at my friend's apartment. It is communal. I am on the computer, Joe is playing FF12, and Matt is talking on his cell. Matt is trying to get the WEP key for the apartment's wifi router from Joe's sister. With varied bits of success.


These are people who's company I enjoy, even though our lives are going in different directions. But for the present set of time things are harmonious.

I think about where my life was a year ago. I often make these comparisons. Not really judging myself, but for the exercise of analysis. I believe is it important to do this because if I didn't I would imagine there would be a feeling no direction.

I haven't moved forward, but backward.

Troublesome.

The weight of water

Summer is coming to an end. My employment has broken apart. My 4th semester at college begins in less than a week. Somewhere in all this I am supposed to open the door that gets me out of St. Louis.

It is possible, that by the end of the year I will be set to head to Seattle, hardly looking back at the midwest. A blind jump in a cold lake.

I've always been interested in cold water.

Historical Footnotes

Get Hyphy

Amusing

The young folks I know in St. Louis either despise the time spent here away from college or are in denial of the shitty people they call friends.

I learned a long time ago to keep the exploiters at at arms length. Its hard to push away people who constantly bum rides, talk shit about you, and do everything in their power to not grow up. Those people tend to have some characteristic that is appealing, a certain outgoingness is usually the case. Bohemian attitude a close second.

But these young folks, like those who returned to the Zone of Alienation after the nuclear disaster of 1986, they believe in and pray for something that will never be.

Ever Changing

December wasn't the greatest time. I was broke, had no job, and just got kicked out of a band in a mess of bad circumstances and drama.

It was a lot like this:
I always say the ditch I just wormed (no pun intended) out of was the worst one I ever knew, but its a cycle that I will say the same about the next measurable period of my life. That could be seen as an expression of the progression of existence or the denial of repetitive failure. Obviously, it is in my best interest to be unsure.

How was I going to pay for college? What was I going to do with this crap in my kitchen? Shit, how was I going to feed myself? In the middle of all this frustration, all these thoughts of things ahead, the impending reality of all of those things; I had a dream. I was in a room so bright and ornate. A window that seemed to stretch beyond the angle of my neck. Overwhelming contrast was so present, everything had a white edge. In front of me was one of my now former band mates, looking through me he said: "Welcome to The Verve".

The room, and the booming declaration from someone who I was at odds with stayed with me stronger than most dreams. So much so that I took the most striking elements of the dream and wrote them down in prose. For almost 6 months this sat, relatively unchanged save for a few paragraphs that felt right. Of course, what to do with these 3 pages of text didn't leave my mind often. There was something in it all worth cultivating into something more. There were characters, I left them ambiguous enough for change. But the plot, the direction, it took months to come to what I felt was the right road. I ended with two characters left open ended and one set on a more concrete ideal. The plot with elements of black and white, the separation between stimulation artificial and stimulation felt. It took a lot of thought, deliberation, and time to get where I am right now. I just hope the end result is the sublime, is the worthwhile.

2 Days Off

I am going to drink and play video games and read and find a new job like I caught that shit breakin' into my house.

Word.

The Case Against.

This has been sitting as a draft for over a month, so I am just going to put this out there.

A few days ago, the new Marilyn Manson album, "Eat Me, Drink Me", was leaked on the internet. It's not as bad as Golden Age of Grotesque, but more embarassing than Trent's lyrics on Year Zero.

More than a bit of my youth was spent listening to music like Marilyn Manson and while I have outgrown the stuff, I can't deny it. I cut my teeth on that music. Who I am today is in part to the Manson CDs I listened to out of earshot of my parents. If it wasn't for John 5 I doubt I'd be playing guitar. If I didn't play guitar, I wouldn't have inspired my father to get back into music and I don't know how things would be between us. Until I asked him about the old Epiphone acoustic in the basement our relationship consisted of me surfing the internet at his house on Sundays, spending way too much time on SomethingAwful, Stileproject, and Newgrounds. To clarify, this was before Stileproject became a bunch of porno ad scripts and Newgrounds became a haven for script kiddies and bad animation. 2000 seems so long ago, I know.

It isn't uncommon for someone to feel that they have a vested interest in something that was meaningful to them in their youth. So when I listen to Manson's overproducing groans over guitar riffs that are too disco trite for Fall Out Boy or Panic at the Disco, I understand the anger that middle aged nerds have towards George Lucas in the present day. Someone is fucking you. Not just you, but a very precious image or slice of your childhood. Yes, the golden moments of your youth are supposed to be faded by the light of the common day. It's part of becoming more mature, more understanding of the world around you. It isn't fair, but at the same time it is.

I suppose Marilyn Manson has more in common with Billy Corgan than I thought, in that they both need to go away before they suck all the meaning out of their past endeavors.

Creativity.

Being creative is a painfully difficult task to handle. To be creative means that there was some part of yourself you have been holding back, hiding in the shadow, and now you've let it run the yard for a bit. You know you need to let your creativity run wild, what would the neighbors say if you didn't? The question is, how can I balance it with the rest of my life?

Ever meet someone who seemed so streamed into their job or a particular way of life, and you catch them doodling and notice the style of the hatch marks, the general quality of this quick work? Then the person reacted with shame and embarrassment on your interest? "Oh this? Ah, it's nothing. Kid shit, ya'know? Anyways, did you catch 24 last night?"

Here I am, sitting, thinking about the bottlenecks in my creativity. I haven't been writing as much as a feel I should be. Too busy with work, maybe. Too busy giving my time to Shannon, no regrets to that. I haven't been neglecting my creativity. Merely, just letting it out long enough to do it's deal.

But.

Motivation is an ice cold motherfucker. I am lazy. Those two things are the biggest hurdles from me achieving what I want. I was thinking of how I could get what I wanted, accomplish a goal large or small. Lets take money, for example. I could ask for more hours at my less than awesome job. Sure, I could do that. Problem is, I turn into a raging asshole if I have to work more than 3 days a week. They'll hire anyone. Anyone. If the store manager interviewed a bag lady and during the interview she opened her soiled fanny pack and started eating an old pizza crust, she'd still get a firm handshake and a "Welcome to the team. When can you start?" Maybe I could get a new job.

But I'm lazy, a lot of jobs are more or less lateral moves from my current one. The energy could be spent at play or at rest and have a more functional role. So I sat, thinking. I could work my short stories together and present them as a collection to a publisher. I'd need more material to make such a gesture worthwhile. Hardly twisting my wrist. That would be more appealing as it would be halfway to achieving multiple goals or even better, achieving them wholly.

So there was this mental outline of what to do. I promtly flushed the toilet, wiped my ass, and proceeded to do nothing.

It was glorious.

So the sun rises again with the intent to set.

Finals are over come 1:05PM today. No better than before. No better than they were. Flames on the corners of crisp dollar bills, dust on the tops of door frames. Bitter, maybe. Content, momentarily. I'll still find that imperfection in your smile when you're fresh from the dentist. Don't worry.

Test

Boner.