|oystershell|

BLOOD! WEDDINGS! SEX! PROPOSALS!

mostly great.

yesterday.  i watched two of my friends get married atop a mountain. i decided i'm in like with the guy i've been more than friends with for a few weeks.  and then i bled on him during sex.  well, maybe not on him.  but i did get a nose bleed during sex, which led to antics i won't divulge for the protection of my folks who on occasion read this. 

anyhow, guy said: now that you live off division, i can take the 4 from my doorstep to yours.  it's great!
and i translated this to: we're gettig married.

and then, when we decided to go to bed, he said: i'm kinda tired.  do you mind if we just sleep?
which of course meant: i didn't come over here for sex.  i came over here for you.

and so, as i mentioned, i decided i'm i like.

you are beautiful.  and i am mostly great.

NOW YOU KNOW

i've been in love with a friend of mine for a very long time.  i've never been inclined to mention it.  because it's probably the purest feeling i know.  the kind of love where you don't compare the people you meet and date to him.  because there's just no point.  there is no comparing.  the kind of love where you don't judge him by his mistakes.  because most times you barely even notice them.  you barely see past everything great about him.  the kind of love that you just don't talk about, because it doesn't seem right.

but here i am.  talking about it.  and it doesn't seem right.  but it doesn't feel right not to say it.  even in this quiet way.  maybe i need to say it out loud to understand its limits.  to maybe understand that what makes it pure is its limitations.  it is so quiet and somehow still so loud.  and so inconsequential.

we are just people.  working, talking, moving, making things work and then tearing them apart.  we are just people.  and we are reaching out, wondering what will fall into our hands at any given moment.  we decorate what makes us feel alone or vulnerable or afraid or uncertain.

i don't decorate my feelings.  i work and talk and move and make things work and sometimes tear them apart.  we are just people.

BASE CAMP

we climb.  we climb.  and on occasion, we look down.  as the air thins, as our arms grow tired, as our eyes become weary.  we look down.  with our hearts heavy, we wonder.  will it ever be as good as it was down below?  will we ever be as good as we were down below?  sometimes we get so tired and so weary, and our lungs so desperate, we yearn for the sweet, sweet ground.  the places that we stood, so sure.  so energetic.  so strong and strong-minded.  where there was laughter and board games and neither our furniture nor our feelings felt so traveled and so weathered.  where our stories never started with a pause.  but, we climb.  we ascend.  because we have no choice.  because we have to.  we keep breathing what air we can breathe.  we keep breathing, because we have to.  because beyond the summits there are peaks.  and we hate to hope, because hope is synonomous with fear.  because hope is simply a lack of assurity.  because hope is all we can do.  we hate to hope.  but even when the air is thin, and our arms are tired and our hearts are sore, we hope.  because mostly, hope is all there is. 

i couldn't make eye contact.  i couldn't see beyond folded arms and table ledges.  i couldn't think of anything.  all i could do was miss the comfort and fear that comfort would never come back to me.  that kind of love would never come back to me.  that all those stories and all that laughter and all those board games would be buried there on the mountain.  in the snow.  frozen in time.  found ages later, so rare, that they would be nothing but cause for disbelief.  because it is so hard to come by these days.  they are peaks so out of reach.  they are bigger than hope.  and the fear makes you want to jump.  back down.  into piles of clothes that meant something at some time to someone other than yourself.  the different ways you were seen by someone who was more than just some one.  but we have to keep breathing.  our bodies don't know how to stop.  just as our hearts don't know how to stop pumping blood.  just as we don't know how to stop hoping, even when we hate it deep down into our cores.  we look up and we climb.  we climb.

but i can't escape the fear these days.  that fear.  i miss the ground.  base camp.  base camp.  base camp.

keep. breathing.

THE HAT AND THE SKINNY

sometimes hope is hard to come by.  this is no new news.  i don't believe much in hope.  it seems, these days, i take nothing with more than a grain of salt.  but the symmetry in my new bedroom is hard to ignore.  the glow of its hardwood floors.  the bright blue-green of its walls.  the bar across the street.

hope is hard to come by.  but work is going well.  my friends are doing fine.  spring is finally here.  there is new music and new laughter and new faces.  and i have somehow, actually grown accustom to being broke.  to feeling sometimes brokedown.  and at night, i lay on my back and look up.  all this time, just looking up.  looking up. 

the sun begins to set at nine.  and we all act afool.  and there is so much more laughter and light-heartedness.

VAGABOND

i was a consort, in some modern day romance.  where money was nothing as long as we were getting by.  and the comfort of places on a body were enough to get me by, for days.  now i roam the city streets, skinny arms and legs, eyes moving from face to face.  trying to find a trace of something to believe in.  searching the crowds.  there is comfort in being alone.  there are great moments of absolute bliss.  there is fun to be had, that i am having.  but i am a lover.  i like hair in my hands, and whispers on my neck, and the sound so strange of two people breathing in the night.  i was a consort.  now i'm a vagabond, searching for refuge in the eyes or strangers.  love just seems so far away.  so far away.  so far away.

OUT IN THE PARKING LOT

family brunch with make your own bloody marys.  four square out in the parking lot, all day long.  good music and good times.  and we don't need to be saved, because we're doing just fine.  i'm doing just fine.  and i wish you were here.  here, doing just fine.  there's a lot you don't know, a lot you don't see.  and i feel like a small country a million miles and oceans away.  doing just fine.  and i don't need to be saved, which is good.  we seem to be losing our heroes these days.  i seem to have lost all my heroes.  just me and the foursquare gods, out in the parking lot.  playing along.  playing on.  road rash and beers in the heat.

DANCE PARTIES

hopping fences, running from carnies, eating bacon doughnuts, watching fireworks from balconies, alligator jumbalaya, holding hands and getting slammed against walls in the best possible way.  that's how i spent last night.  that's how most nights should be.  last night was kinda great and stuff.

INTERVIEW

so, i opted to be interviewed by smababy.  and this is what she had to ask:

1-  Do you think blogging is an egotistical hobby?

absolutely.  well, mostly.  when i started my blog a million years ago (ie. 5) it was because i couldn't for the life of me maintain a written journal.  blogging was so much easier and more efficient.  and then someone, somehow, stumbled upon it and linked to it from their own blog.  and the next thing i knew, i had 25 people reading it every week.  at first i found it to be extremely unsettling, and considered removing it.  but then i started to kind of get off on it.  read: egotistical.  eventually 25 per week became a lot more and the ego soared and then landed.  now i find it to be egotistical in different ways.  whether it's talking about yourself, spouting your opinions, or sharing with the world your amazing writing skills, there seems to be few other ways to describe blogging of any type anything other than egotistical.  every now and again i get emails from people who read my blog, saying they've liked what i had to say, or that what i've had to say has in some way helped them through their own turmoils.  those are the times i think, perhaps, it serves more than just the ego.  i think a lot of people read blogs, particularly like yours and mine, because they want to know there are people out there whom they can relate to; people who think, feel and/or experience things the same way.  i think it can be a comfort zone to those who wonder if they're crazy, disillusioned, or alone in a maddening world.  at least, that's the reason i read the blogs i do.  points of view and relatability. 


2- When you write in your blog, do you consider how vague you'll be due to the people who read your blog (i.e. parents and such)?

i remember, very clearly, the day i found out my parents had discovered and were reading this thing.  i was shocked, and immediately started going over every post i'd ever written.  thinking, 'shit, my folks do not need to know all this.'  immediately thereafter i started writing almost in code.  everything was very metaphoric and aloof.  and my blog went on like that for quite some time.  eventually i just got fed it up with it.  it wasn't me.  it wasn't real.  i was doing something i never wanted to do, write for an audience.  i figured, at that point, my folks had at one point or another already read about blowjobs, drug use, binge drinking and countless other things you cringe even thinking about while your folks are in the same room.  so, i stopped censoring myself.  granted, i don't write every dirty little detail of everything i do in here, but i don't worry about whose out there reading it.  the whole thing about it is, if you've gone to the trouble to track this thing down, it's your own problem if you read some unpleasant or unwanted opinions, notes, details.

3- Would you rather swallow a frog whole or eat a bag of Cheetos?

honestly, this is the question i thought most about.  most people don't know this, but i think cheetos are hands down the most reprehensible food in the world.  there was a year in sf where it seemed every time i got on the bus i, inevitably, ended up next to someone eating cheetos.  even the smell makes me want to vomit.  even considering the smell, at this very moment, makes me want to vomit. 

if the frog is cooked, i'm eating the frog.  i've had frogs legs on several occasions, and don't mind them too much.  if the frog is raw... well... i guess it would just depend on my mood that day, and the size of said frog.  i'm still thinking the frog, though.

4-If you had to choose, would you rather be born a hemaphrodite or a
woman with unusally large labia?

a hemaphrodite, for sure.  you get the best of both worlds and the option for surgery.  a large labia?  you just get nicknamed lady flaps, and constantly have to check for road debris.

5- Do you know what its like to play the Crying Game?

is that the game where you realize you are drunk and in a threesome you don't really want to be a part of, but the threesome is happening in your bed and there's no escape?  and so you actually slur, "um, so, i'm just going to lay here and you two can do what ya gotta." if so, then yes, yes i do know what it's like to play the crying game.

Per the rules of the interview game, here is how you play along:

1. Leave me a comment saying, “Interview me.”

2. I will respond by emailing you five questions, so make sure I have your email address. I get to pick the questions.

3. You will update your blog with the answers to the questions.

4. You will include this explanation and an offer to interview someone else in the same post.

5. When others comment asking to be interviewed, you will ask them five questions.

SPEED OF SIGHT

porch swings, ceiling fans, barefeet on creaky old hardwood floors.  points of interest in some idealized life.  small, tangible representations of simplisity and whimsy.  we build our dreams whichever ways we can.  we find ways to materialize what we cannot articulate, what we believe we cannot create on our own.  slow moves when we're traveling at the speed of sight.  every moment seeming more and more brief and fleeting.  it's hard to keep hold of anything other than imagined idols. 

and in such haste and speed, we grow so tired.  tired of trying to keep up.  tired of trying to keep it together.  tired of trying to keep hold.  we grow so tired; as we stare off into space, into the momentum of ceiling fans, into the traffic down below.  we grow so tired; we get lost in the sounds of everything around us.  until anything that isn't a scream goes completely unheard.  heralds no reaction, no remorse, nothing really at all.  as though it never even happened.  as though it just crept out the door in the middle of the night.  leaving you wide eyed and wondering what it was you lost.  what came through you like bullet holes.  because you can't see beyond the ceiling fans and you can't hear beyond the traffic below. 

then the porch swings look a little emptier, the ceiling fans speed up so quickly, the hardwood glows and goes without sound.  and we no longer know how to envision some idealized life.  we get lost in the shuffle.  as though we've just crept out the door in the middle of the night.  never said, never seen.  a quick and quiet reprieve from that maddening speed.

we look up with tired eyes.