|oystershell|

IN THE ROUND

thank you, nina pearsson.  never has a song hit like this:

i am young and i'm alive.  i want to talk about things.  i am young and i own my life.  i need to talk about it, baby.

i am one, but i asked for two.  i didn't get anything.  this puppet's lonely without you.  it's tough to walk without strings.  i do my dance in the round. 

i'm right on track, but this state is frail.  you slip out and derail.  i do my dance in the round.  so people clap your hands.  clap your hands.

i wanna do it right this time.  i wanna step in time.  i wanna do it right this time, yeah. 

clap your hands.  i gotta get it right this time.  i wanna step in time.  i wanna do it right this time.  i do my dance in the round.

i am young, coming at you live.  people gonna talk about me.  when i'm done, please hang me high for everybody to see.  'cuase i do my dance in the round.  so, people clap your hands.  i wanna get it right.  i'm tryin' to get it right.  i wanna get it right.  i'm dying to get it right.

clap your hands.

can't stop listening.

SIXTEEN DOLLAR BOTTLE

i accidentally bought a $40 bottle of pinot noir.  i thought i was buying a sixteen dollar bottle.  but what can you do when you're half way out the door staring down at the receipt? 

so we drank it.  there's still some left, waiting on the counter, waiting to be drunk. 

and what of me?  there's still some left, waiting on the counter, waiting to be drunk.  sitting on trains, counting down days, watching the cars and people and buildings go by.  drinking lattes and waiting for bombs to drop. 

i need to start packing.  i need to make it in to work on time.  just once, at least.  i need to stop having so much fun, because it only makes me miss it all already.  i need to stop worrying about what hasn't happened yet, what i can't control, because it only makes me a crazy person.  which is not to say i have anything to worry about at all.  i can't wait to get there.  i can't wait for my friends to visit and stay in the jupiter and fall in love the way i have.  or at least kiss me hello.

i've spent a lot of time trying to find my way out of the dark.  trying to feel my way around.  trying to escape.  and i know what you're thinking, and i know you're trying not to think about how we all have something we're all always trying to escape.  it's okay.  i've reconciled with that.  anyhow, i think i've found my way into the light.  i think i'm halfway through the door.  and it makes me sad.  it makes me feel very alone in a way i'm not certain i can articulate. 

being alone, though, is not so bad.  i can wait, anticipate, for the day i feel something for someone again.  i can fantasize about what it will be like to feel anything at all for someone again.  hellos and the tuggings of pants and the pulling of shirts and the grabbing of arms as i lay my face into it.  with laughter.  with compassion.  with love and communication.

and in the meantime i'll drink my wine with my friends.  i'll make it last.  i'll get drunk and dumb and throw my weight around.  and revel in the freedom to just be, with  no real debt to anyone.  i can do whatever i want.  i can eat my dinner in a fancy restaurant.

sixteen, forty, i really can't taste the difference.  i once had a $250 bottle - i thought it tasted like shit.  give me a miller high life and a picnic table anyday.  we'll get high and drunk and watch the stars.  and then you'll lean in and kiss me for the first time.  and we'll both be surprised.  and then i'll say, "hello." 

HAPPY SAD

don't ask me why i'm listening to sheryl crow's "strong enough", because i could not for the life of me tell you.  actually, i probably could, and maybe that's the trouble with questions.

instead, i'll tell you what i'm doing right now.  i'm sitting in my room, feeling very entombed and a little bit of everything else.  i was in portland over the weekend, and now here i am, lovesick.  wishing i could just get there; and, as always, hating being in limbo.  wondering if we're all always just living in limbo.  waiting for the next ride to come along.  waiting for the bomb to drop.  waiting for him to see us the way we want him to, instead of the way he does.  banking entire moments, relationships, lifestyles on waiting for it to happen.  i a in love with portland.  and i miss it so freaking much.  and i guess that's a good thing, because five weeks isn't long at all. 

i'm already starting to miss my friends.  but i suppose that's what planes and trains and phones are for.  i have the greatest friends here.  but i have new sidewalks to walk, new friends to make, new faces to kiss and just so much more to see, instead of waiting for something to see me.  the ways we want to be seen, instead of the ways we actually are.  so i stare at the boxes on the floor, i make mental checklists and i get a little sad.  happy sad.  try as we might, we can't deny loving that feeling. 

exactly five weeks.  are you going to miss me?  i'm going to miss you.  do you miss me already?

JUST (FUCKING) SMILE

early this week adam asked me to name some things that make me smile.  me being me, and completely unable to name the boring shit we all smile about, i thought long and hard.  and i wrote some things down and sent them off.  and i spent the rest of the week finding addendums.  smiling more and more.  i asked him to do the same, and he did.  and that made us both smile.  sometimes in the midst of it all, we forget how easy it actually is.  to. just. smile.

here's 40 things that make me smile:

1. sobering up in all-night diners at 2 a.m.
2. the first sip of a really good glass of wine
3. when someone else randomly plays a song i like a lot (best if on a jukebox, but anywhere on any medium is good)
4. my dog
5. whenever anyone just picks up a guitar and starts playing (because i wish i could do the same)
6. getting busted singing in the car by passing drivers
7. the few minutes right before you kiss someone for the first time- all that nervousness and hesitation
8. watching someone else get excited over something
9. unabashedly acting like an asswipe
10. getting text messages
11. a particular pair of flip flops i have
12. when someone gets what i'm saying before i even finish saying it
13. mashed potatoes
14. autumn
15. the first few gingerbread chai lattes of the season
16. "sweet thing" by van morrison
17. sleepy toddlers
18. seeing chris, colette, matt and susan in person; because it just doesn't happen enough
19. the corner of 16th and mission
20. talking about new orleans to someone who's lived there
21. fried pickles
22. sharing a pot of coffee with someone at home, in pajamas, on sunday mornings
23. train rides
24. charming, small towns
25. providence, rhode island
26. going to the zoo
27. when strangers do nice things for each other
28. talking all night
29. thrift store shopping on valencia, magazine, st. marks or hawthorne
30. the smell of the trees/mountains on a cold autumn day
31. the way jen scrunches up her face when she's really frustrated
32. lotus bleu!
33. smudge snatch grudge match
34. wednesday nights with chris and jen and wine
35. my puma high tops
36. the sound of cable cars passing by
37. the way it feels when someone lightly runs his finger along my hip bone
38. inappropriate dinner conversations
39. the way buckley tilts her head and perks up her ears when you ask her a question
40. waiting for sunday this sunday

i encourage you to take a stab at it.  it will make you smile.

ONLY TO YOU

"what you feel only matters to you.  what you feel don't mean shit.  it's what you do to the people you love that matters."

the zach braff, grey's anatomy and the overwhelming feeling of absolute ambivalence about everything. 

and i wonder: is it always going to come back to these things we get tired of turning our backs on.  passing cafes.

AN OPEN LETTER

dear passion.com,

i. am. a. fag.  love girls.  don't love their vaginas so much.  since you have managed to infiltrate my computer with your spyware surely you know this from the not large but equitable amount of gay porn i look at from time to time.  other than lindsay lohan and paris hilton vagina slips, have you ever seen me deliberatly track down ladyflaps of any shape, size or kind?  no?  i didn't think so.  so tell me why then must you forever slow down my already slow computer (yes compaq, expect a strongly worded letter of your own soon) with vaginal pop-ups.  unless the vagina is attached to a womb that wants to carry my seed, or i am particularly drunk, i do not want to see it.  this is not to say that if i did your vaginas would even be much to look at.  your vaginas generally are nasty.  i could hang my laundry from some of those things.  and i don't care how confident the woman is, or how much better bigger is, or how little i care about women's sizes... but nobody, nobody wants to look up from their keyboard to find a fupa staring them down.  let me repeat: nobody wants to look up from their computer to find a fupa staring them down.  not even straight, horny, drunk, desperate men.   not even them, unless they can physically stick their straight, horny, drunk, desperate dicks into the nether regions of said fupa.  and even then it's questionable.  passion.com i urge you to immediately fire your marketing team and "talent" scouts.  they are doing a truly terrible job.  when you are selling homely vaginas and a man is spending one to two hours a month looking at penises, he is not part of your target consumer group.  enclosed please find for your reference a photo of a homely vagina (exhibit a) and a photo of a penis (exhibit b).  please look them over, review and analyse the differences, and make note that these are two very different things that are not in any way interchangeable. 

thank you for your time.  i look forward to not have surprise pussy on my monitor ever again.

sincerely,
josh hallmark

RETRACTABLE DOORS

after work, after the long bart ride, after i spent all day wishing the day would just end, i ran down the metro escalator as the doors of my train began to slowly close. not only was it my train, but it was an almost-empty train at civic center, at rush hour. i leapt over the last three steps and rushed across the platform. just to watch the doors shut me out. and as i stopped in my tracks, defeated, i heard that awful beeping noise all muni riders in a hurry to go anywhere hate. someone had gotten in the way of the closing doors, and now everyone would have to wait for some yahoo to sneak in the retracting doors. some yahoo who was now holding up everyone's long awaited ride home after those hellish 8 hours spent guzzling coffee and tylenol. i looked up to see a young girl standing in the doorway before me, smiling. her foot held firm between the now retracting doors. her big, bright eyes looking right at me. and everyone on the train glaring at her. i stepped in, grinning ear to ear, looked around at all the impatient faces, looked down at her and then thanked her. and it made my whole day. it is so rare that someone goes out of their way to help out a stranger. nevermind over something so small like an almost-empty train at rush hour.

i got carried away with my hair again, and now it's too short when i was supposedly trying to grow it back out. i was twenty minutes late for work and got picked on by the bitch attorney. i had nothing to do all day and not much else to do tonight. but there are people who care. if only about the little things. there are people who see beyond the foot in front of them.

i know my posts as of late have sounded a bit depressed. i know everyone's fiona apple sometimes. the thing is, i haven't been. i'm just trying to learn as much as i can. i'm trying to understand what's going on around me. i'm trying to accept that not everything is how we see it or think it ought to be seen. i'm just trying to cultivate something better here. it's not sad, i'm just trying to spell things out for myself.

i am not a role model. i am not a superhero. those are things i never signed up for. i'm just trying to make the most of what i have, learn from my mistakes and get by without hurting the people i love. it's not always easy work. anyone can vouch for that. but this thing here and you and retractable doors make it easier. i will bitch and moan and groan and i will be sad and i will cry during the nicole richie interview. but i will do it all genuinely happy. sometimes i can be a real asshole. sometimes you have to lose in order to win. sometimes i can be really selfish. but i'm a good guy. i'm a flawed guy. and i try and i try and i try. and that's enough for me, even when i'm fiona apple. even when the doors don't retract. even if the hair's too short or the guy doesn't call back or i'm reduced to eating spaghettios and hamburger helper because i can't otherwise save money like a normal, responsible person.

my point is: come over. let's talk about what really matters. let's talk about retractable doors.

ADVERTISEMENTS ON SUBWAY WALLS

the train pulls out of the station past advertisements on the subway walls.  slowly passing by the wide and barren windows.  and we are subsiding on passing glaces.  passing glances at billboards and baseboards and bars with people and dim lights and our reflections in their windows.  all these passing glances. 

we are so guarded.  we are so safe and protected we don't see much of ourselves through the thick of it all.  we harness what makes us vulnerable and what  makes us vulnerable is usually what makes us great.  what makes us whole.  we are so afraid to open the windows that are around us.  the windows from which we safely watch the world slowly pass by.  avdertisements plastered on the subway walls.

i come from a very passionate family.  they were passionate about hating each other and protecting themselves.  they were passionate about surviving dinner and throwing dishes and rising up with their fists clenched tight.  they were passionate about barreling down the tracks.  it is in my blood.

i've spent so much of my adult life running away from this.  escaping and eluding it.  fighting it.  casting it down with my passion for love and laughter and kissing when it feels right.  i am passionate about everything i feel and i feel everything, because it is in my blood.  and in spite of all that trying and fighting, i am passionate about protecting and surviving and throwing dishes.  because it is in my blood.  the fight is in my blood. 

so i will show up at your front door at two o'clock in the morning stone cold sober to tell you how i feel, if i feel it's right.  and i will chase you down the street to prove a point, and usually underneath it all, all the dishes and fists, the point is that i love you.  you just need to find it hiding there.  and i don't understand why people spend so much time and energy and fear harnessing this in.  keeping it so buried inside themselves they can't even find it when they know they really ought to.  you react to and say how you feel, otherwise you're just lying to yourself.  i will break windows, because my big fear is not saying and doing and feeling what i know i do.  keeping my hands to myself at all times. 

i will chase you up the street to call you an asshole.  and if i don't it's because i actually think you're an asshole.  it's in my blood.

it's almost a full moon.  the nights are cold, again.  i thrive best in these cold nights.  coffee and scarves and hoodies and long walks to no where in particular.  that is what i do.  that is what i've done.  that is who i am.  i always fall in love in winter.  i don't know why.  i know it's supposed to be the other way around.  spring.  fruition.  warm weather on the rise.  clear skies.  but not me.  it's always the winter.  downtown christmas lights and burying my head in the warm of someone's jacket sleeves.  it's in the blood - pumping stronger, faster, hotter to stay warm.  it energizes me and leaves me in my prime.  stronger, faster, hotter to stay warm. 

and so i hope our indian summer takes a vacation this year.  and i hope the cold nights and foggy intersections and coffee shop lights burn brightly.  and all these long walks and late nights.  plastered on the walls around us.

PEOPLE IN THE BACKGROUND

long walks with people in the background.  crowded bars spilling out into the streets around us.  talking about the things people talk about, but with such conviction.  the murals of the mission, simple backdrops to words and laughter.  and it's all. just. so. refreshing. 

the fog and cool breeze i love so much has finally arrived in full force.  we no longer need excuses to drink coffee late into the night, nor walk with scarves and hands deep in pockets, or deeply entwined in the hands of others.  these coats and hooded-sweatshirt walks that make san francisco what it truly is.  that make san francisco what i love so much about it. 
long walks, exhalations floating before us, huddled up in layers and one another.  coffee when it would otherwise be unwise. 
dreamy music and cheap miso soup, of course. 

70'S DRAPES

wrote you this, i hope you got it safe.  it's been so long, i don't know what to say.  i traveled round through deserts on my horse; but jokes aside, i wanna come back home.  you know that night i said i had to go; you said you'd meet me on a sunny road. it's time: meet me on a sunny road.  i never married.  never had those kids.  i loved too many, now heaven's closed its gates.  i know i'm bad to jump on you like this.  some things don't change, my middle name's still ris.  i know that night a long, long time ago - will you still meet me on a sunny road?  it's time: meet me on a sunny road.  well, this is it.  i'm running out of space.  here's my address and number just in case.  this time, as one, we'll find which way to go.  now come and meet me on the sunny road.
-emiliana torrini

i'm not exactly certain why this song has been resonating so much lately.  not sure why it never gets skipped over, and almost always gets repeated.  maybe it's the hope and desperation all wrapped up in its pretty, melodic bow.  maybe it's the way we walk through life, always ooking just beyond what we have, to make things great.  and the realizing greatness comes from making the most of what we have.  greatness comes from making things right.  and maybe if we could all just make things right, things would be so much better.  things would be great.  or maybe we all want to know we're more than just some consolation prize; that eventually everything will come back around.  i don't know.  the song was on and i felt like writing.  nothing of particular meaning.  just internal questioning.  download it, though- it's great.