The Noble Risk

It used to be just about the fucking. It was all about my cock in her mouth, her pussy on my face. It was about her taste on my lips, the fingers I couldn't stop smelling on the plane ride home. It was about penetration, thrusting, pounding. It was about the cry from her lips, the look on her face and the trembling of her legs as she let go. It was about the glisten of my cum on her tits, the red throbbing as I pulled out of her. It used to be about that tingling in my ass when I felt myself squirting. It used to be strictly sex, strictly fucking, strictly bodies moving in unison.

I would think all day long about the shape of her breasts, their weight in my hands. I thought about the curve of her ass and how I held on for dear life as she rode up and down on my cock. I thought about the look of glee on her face as I sprayed her with my juice. I didn't think of much else but that. I wrote about it and got off obsessing about it, it occupied my idle mind. The tension would build until I couldn't take it anymore, I know she was the same...but now it is so much more.

Now don't get me wrong, I still think about the fucking often...well maybe more than often, but these days I think about something so much more...something. It happened slowly, kind of like aging, you don't notice it when it's happening but then one day you look at a picture of yourself from days past and think, "look how I've changed." One day I realized I was thinking less and less about fucking her and more and more about just hanging out. I thought so much more about her company, her touch, her voice, the way she looks at me. At first I didn't know how to define it, the thoughts frightened me, us being so far apart and all. It didn't take too long for me to find a name to call it by, the "L" word I struggled to avoid saying, let alone meaning.

This feeling grew in me as the weeks passed and I began to realize I could not be without it. Each hurdle we flew over assured me that she was the one, I could not be without her. But then logic would kick in and ask me how I planned to make this work, how would I get there, how would I live, where would I work? I told her I was coming, I wanted to come and I wanted so badly to believe it, but something inside of me was telling me, "the risk is too great." Something in me wanted this to fail, simply so my life would become easy again...so everything would once again become ordinary.

But ordinary is a curse, a cop out, a denial of the possibility of greatness. Ordinary is what deprives you of everything that makes life worth living. I made a simple commitment to myself, I would not let this thing we have be destroyed by my cold feet.

So I talked to my dad a few nights ago, really drilled it into his head that I'm going and nothing will stop me. I expected an argument, I expected him to come forward with all the reasons why the risk was unreasonable and why it might not work. The truth is, it might not work and it is a great risk, probably the biggest risk I've ever played...a hand with everything in the pot. But I didn't get the argument I had expected, in fact I got an argument I had not expected.

An argument for taking the risk.

He told me there was only one way to know if she truly is the one I am meant to spend my life with...going and finding out. He said the risk of failure is far outweighed by the reward of success, he called it "a noble risk." He told me they would help me as much as they could to make my way out there. "What if," was not a question he wanted his son asking...he told me he had asked it too many times himself.

"Take the risk," he said, "'what if' is a horrible thing to live with."

Blackout

The alarm sounded like a fucking jet engine taking off next to my bed. There are just some days when you shouldn't even wake up. The text messages from the night before were my only clue as to what happened. Just as I suspected, nothing good was said.

Sitting here now I wonder what the fuck was I thinking. Now it seems everyone is pissed off at me and in no short order making it known that I need to grow up, that I am a moron, that I was a mess, that there was no reason to drink that much. YES I GET IT.

Sometimes I guess I just see how far I have gotten and I feel like I need to destroy all my progress with some form of amber liquid. I don't remember anything, my stomach feels like it is turning over and everyone is pissed off at me. I don't even know why I'm wasting my fucking time writing this. I don't need any more reminders of how fucking stupid I am.

I see it on a daily basis.

Dreams of Snakes

It happens every time I polish off a bottle of red wine before bed. The dreams are insane, and for the most part indecipherable and violent. Most of the time I can't remember what happened when I wake up, let alone what they mean...if, that is, dreams are supposed to mean something in the first place. Upon waking, the dream usually fades off back into my subconscious, last night was not one of those cases.

My boss had given me a present, for what reason I have no idea. He placed a small .22 caliber pistol equipped with a silencer into my hand and thanked me for my hard work. I got the feeling it was a going away gift but there is no way to be sure. Then, in the strange manner that dreams progress, I found myself lost in a jungle.

It seemed that every few feet I walked a snake would materialize from the bush and attempt to bite my ankles. After some time of evading their strikes one succeeded, I looked down and saw the blood running down my leg. I bent over and picked the snake up, it bit me again on the hand before I tightened my grip around its throat. I held its head steady and leveled the .22 under its chin and pulled the trigger.

Suddenly I was in the living room of a house I had not lived in for a few years. The snake was dead in my hands and its blood splattered on the wall. I tossed the still wriggling carcass to the ground before being awoken by the fucking garbage truck emptying the dumpster in my parking lot.

I thought about it as I drove into work this morning, what it meant...it didn't take me long to come to a conclusion. You see Monday I got a text message from my ex-girlfriend, the one who tried her hardest to destroy me only a few months ago. She needed her flash drive back and would buy me a bourbon for my trouble. I responded, telling her I would meet her at 6:30.

I put my cigarette out on the curb and walked in, I was early. I sat there thinking about how pissed my actual girlfriend was that I was meeting Meg for a drink, but my curiosity got the better of me...I could not resist. The waitress took my order, a bourbon and a High Life, and asked if someone was meeting me. I nodded and then noticed her walk in. She sat down. We said hello. It was silent for a moment...

She was visibly nervous, chattering away as I sat there sipping my drink and listening to the details of her life for the past year. She was skirting around the obvious, "It's ok, you can talk about Mike if you want," I told her. Of course no matter how much I hate my former best friend, I was immensely curious how the two of them had been getting on since the beginning of their little "behind the back affair." She told me he was getting ready to be transferred down to Georgia, apparently that's where you get sent when you're the top tobacco salesman in Ohio. She answered the way I figured she would when I asked if she was going to move with him.

She didn't give much away, but I could tell it was weighing heavy on her. I pressed on, telling her about my girl and how I couldn't be happier with her. As I said it I was flooded with a whole list of reasons why she is everything Meg never was. It came to me suddenly and I understood that all the pain was completely worth it.

We stood outside of the bar for a minute as I finished a cigarette, finishing the game of catch up we were playing. I said goodbye and turned to walk away, she stood there for a second, as if I was going to come back. I got into the car and called my notably pissed off girlfriend to tell her it had gone "well," whatever that meant. I showed her and myself I was happier without her, regardless of how hard they had both tried to put me under and I realized all over again why I am so lucky today.

But more importantly, I proved something to myself, that I am the bigger man, the one who isn't going to harbor hard feelings or act like a child. I had told her honestly I hoped things worked out for her and I meant it. I finally realized I had what I needed all along, closure. I had moved on and I ended up on top.

As for my dear "friend" Mike, now he is another story. From what it sounded like, he had assumed all along that Meg would make the move with him when he got transferred. For someone who had never been more than 50 miles from home, that must have been important to him. But once again, my free-spirited ex proved to me that she had not changed a bit...she wasn't going with him. He had thrown away the 6 years of good times we had for a woman who never saw him in her future anyways. Besides, I never understood how her...or any girl for that matter could go for a guy who spent more money than her on hair care products.

Hair gel was invented to identify assholes from a distance.

He told me once, a long time ago, that he wanted to get out of here just as bad as I did, he just didn't want to go by himself. He was afraid of being so far from home and knowing no one. He said this place was getting to him, killing him, so to speak. I bet he thought he had it all worked out, he sacrificed me for her...but look what he ended up with.

So it quickly became apparent, on my ride in, what my dream meant. The snakes in my life may bite and for a while think I am defeated....but in the end I will win. I will always win, no matter how hard they try to make me fall. In the end, the inevitable end, I will watch with a grin on my face as the pieces of the life he thought he built on my back are sprayed all over the wall like the snake in my dream.

Good riddance you cunt.

Shame on Me

A little back story 7/14/09

Now that I have had more than a little time to process the...situation, maybe I can come to some sort of conclusion. I had this rotten suspicion in the pit of my stomach but everyone kept telling me…no, assuring me, “Oh come on Cheese, don’t be paranoid, they’d never do that to you.” I should have known better than that, I have always trusted my gut…it's the reason I am still alive. I just knew it, no matter what they said I fucking knew it was happening behind my back.

It was the night before the big interview and I was sitting in the back of a Manhattan bar, putting down bourbon a bit too quickly. If ever there was an example of how this truly is a tale of two cities, it was that night. We were having fun, maybe...definitely too much fun for the night before an interview, but regardless, I remember the call and suddenly I was not in New York, I was stuck back in Ohio. This fucking place, dragging me back kicking and screaming. It took only a few moments, a few words, to change from having one of my best nights, to feeling completely stabbed in the back. My new friends reassured me, my girlfriend consoled me and I calmed down enough (I'm sure the bourbon helped) to enjoy the rest of the night.

The next morning I woke up slightly hung over and got dressed for my interview. I choked down the feelings of betrayal, determined not to let it show in front of the panel set to quiz me. “What would you say your greatest weakness is?” I answered their questions with calculated lies; I told them what they wanted to hear. We cried when I left for the airport, like always, but I cried not only because I was losing the one I love yet again…but because I knew I was headed back into the war zone of my life.

Wheels down, here we go again.

I don’t even remember what he said, honestly, I’m not entirely hard to convince.

“What would you say your greatest weakness is?”

“Well Mr. Interviewer, I would say my greatest weakness is the fact that I have fucked so many people over in my life. See let me explain, I have screwed quite a few in my day and while some have told me to burn in hell, a few forgave me and we are now very close. Now follow me here, see since I have been forgiven by so many people who I cared about I feel it's only fair to do the same to people that screw me. Why is that a weakness you ask?”

It’s like fucking turning your back so it’s easier to stab you.

I was drunk, surprisingly, when he apologized. He called me, wanted to make amends and even brought the bourbon. He talked about the guilt, about not sleeping and about how he knew that he was my oldest friend here. He told me he knew how wrong it was to go behind my back. I told him I wasn’t still in love with her, I was just angry he didn’t tell me. He understood, I understood. “Bros before hoes,” he told me, “bros before hoes.”

Fast forward a few months. I had been wondering for a week or two why he wasn’t returning calls or texts anymore. I thought maybe I was just hanging out with TJ and Smash too much and he resented it, maybe it was my fault. I wasn’t exactly going up to his neck of the woods to hang out anymore, yeah…it had to be my fault. To think that I actually lied awake at night worrying about my friendship with him makes me sick now. But then I suppose I haven’t told that part of the story yet, now have I?

I stood on the porch at Simon’s admiring the downtown view he paid way too much for, finishing the end of a blunt and drinking my High Life. Smash and I had been talking on the patio for a while, I had been wondering why it was just her and I out there when everyone else was inside. The generally lighthearted conversation turned in a second, I don’t know what prompted her, but she said she had something she needed to tell me but she was afraid of my reaction. Simon, TJ and Adrianna stared at the two of us through the glass patio door as I asked her. “What the fuck is going on here?”

And then she dropped it.

Only a few seconds later, Simon grabbed me and pushed me back against the wall, “Man I know you’re pissed but if you keep punching that you’re going to break it.” It wasn’t even me that he was talking to, I had lost all control and my rage totally blinded me. The blood from my fists formed two streaked imprints on the wooden siding of his apartment; I fell back into a chair. TJ told me he was sorry, they had just found out and told me as soon as they knew. I believe him. They told me they were sorry, “If we had known earlier we would have told you.”

The difference between friend and enemy became very clear as I went though one by one my friends who must have been laughing behind my back. “Dude, his best friend is not only fucking, but going out with his ex…and he has no idea. How dumb can you be?”

I let her have it; I spewed every possible wish of evil onto her. I told her I hope she died; I hoped her whole family died but I left him alone. I didn’t know what to say. After a few days to think about it I realized I wasn’t upset with her, sure knowing would have been nice but she knows me and how I would have reacted. If I was her, I wouldn’t have told me either.

But him…that is a whole other story.

He didn’t say anything for a week, but at some point waiting him out got to be too much. I sent a text reading quite simply, “You are not a man, grow a pair of balls and admit it to me.” He didn’t respond for more than a day. When he did it was half assed, “It’s a shitty situation and I don’t know what to do. I know it’s fucked up man and I’m sorry.” For the first time in my life I knew what to say back immediately.

“I don’t care, do whatever you want. You are as good as dead to me.”

And that is how you erase six years in one sentence. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, you don’t exist.

Off Balance

Herein lies the trouble with getting your hopes up. What goes up must, inevitably, come down. When you do finally come crashing back to earth it takes a little while to hit the ground. It isn't instantaneous. It might take days, it might take years but don't ever forget that it is inevitable.

I have a notorious habit of overreacting. Bad news comes and I flip out, good news comes and I get overexcited. I am incapable of maintaining any sense of balance. I can't manage to get myself into that little space that lies between these two extremes. Well, that isn't entirely accurate as that's where I find myself now.

You see, balancing in between is where I am right now. Balance is the lack of everything dramatic, everything exciting, everything bad and everything good. Balance has me sitting here, choking the life out of me as I rot away at this desk. When you spend all most of your time high on excitement or drowning in depression there is not much time for any sort of sanity in life. So when I do get these momentary glances of what it must be like to be...normal...well...I don't know who I am.

I don't do much anymore. I drink, I smoke, I make my social rounds but increasingly, I feel at a loss for words with the closest of friends. No one says anything, but I see the looks in their eyes...they wonder what my major malfunction is. I get tired of those looks really quickly and since they aren't going anywhere, neither am I. So now while I spend my time alone, playing my guitar, getting the most out of my Netflix subscription and jerking off to pass the hours, my friends wonder where I am. Then, slowly but surely, they stop wondering. It isn't their fault, I just give them no reason to. As the days pass the invitations to fun nights out or simple phone calls to kick it slowly disappear until one day I realize this is my own doing.

So here I am. I've got nothing really going for me. I have a woman who loves me more than anything, but this wait has been nothing if not painful...for the both of us. There is no land in sight, I am just out here sailing around trying to find out how to get where I want to be going. Captains in the heyday of exploration used to miss their intended destinations by hundreds of miles, I fear the same will happen to me. I don't want to end up anywhere else than the place I am trying to get to, I just don't know how to get there.

I have nothing to be bitter, sad or angry about. I have nothing to be excited, nervous or happy about. I am stuck in limbo, in between up and down. Everything just...is, nothing more nothing less. I am just here, my life is just happening, I have no idea if I am in control. Days pass without the slightest recognition of their going. Not out of control but not charging forward just the same. Just here.

So here I wait, residing in my state of equilibrium. If that's the case then why do I feel so off balance?

The Sacrifice

I don’t mean for this to be taken the wrong way, but how else am I supposed to put it?

I’ve been thinking about it ever since we decided, I mean, how could I not? I know you love me and that I never doubted, but I am sacrificing everything here and I feel alone in that. I don’t know what to say…I guess I owe it to you to be honest, this isn’t fair. I had two choices: give you up or come and get you. You knew my choice before I even made it. I get that you were stood up in the past, but I just don’t know. It just pisses me off.

You always say that you understand what I’m going through. The fact of the matter is that you don’t and you never fucking will. I’m going to give it all up for you and no matter how much I say I hate it here…this is still my home, this is where I have my friends and this is where I have my life. I think at some point you need to look at this objectively and see that I am risking everything and you are risking nothing.

We can say it all we want, but I have absolutely nothing more than your word. You know I’m a skeptic, I don’t mean to be and I want you to remember that I love you. I hate feeling this way and I wish I could change it, but the simple fact is it’s just the way I am. I’ve been screwed constantly by women my entire life, it hurts me to say but…I would be a fool if I wasn’t cautious.

You have selfish aims in this and I don’t blame you for them, not in the slightest, but you need to get it. Start to understand. I’m a kid, you have everything you need in New York…I have you and nothing else. No family, no friends, no bank, no car, no money…no nothing. I’m all on my own. You can’t save me if I drown, and I can barely tread water let alone swim. What happens if everything falls apart? What happens if I lose it? What happens if…

Never mind, I’m sure you’d be sickened to read this and think I don’t love you for writing it, but it is the way I feel. I know you worry about how long it will take me to get there, but take one fucking second and think about what is worrying me…what happens when I actually get there? Think about that the next time you think we are fighting.

We aren’t fighting, you just don’t understand.

Cut me a little fucking slack here before you make me change my mind.

5/16/09

Problems

We both know what is going to keep this from happening if you don’t nip it in the bud before it gets any worse. Don’t sit here and dance around the subject. Just say it out loud so the both of us can see it plain as day.

It’s becoming a problem isn’t it, my friend? You cannot honestly expect to move forward like this, can you? Didn’t Einstein say the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again expecting a different result? Take a look back at the lessons you don’t seem to want to learn.

You let this fuck everything up the first time we got another chance so I stepped in and took control; I cut the ties so you could start again fresh. Think about the sacrifices I made for us when I did that. I risked it all for us. What if it didn’t work out? What if it still doesn’t work out? If that’s the case you will have to be much stronger than you are now. If not, you’re really screwed.

You can’t fuck when you’ve been drinking, you know that…don’t you? I know the answer; it is in my head as well my friend. Don’t dance around the subject. When you can’t fuck the most important person to you knows something is wrong. You can’t hide it.

Get a grip. Get control of yourself. If you piss in that cup and you aren’t clean, we both know what will happen. I’m not just talking about losing a job…I’m talking about losing it all.

So think about that from now on, will you? Remember what we did to get to this point, how far we’ve come. Don’t you dare fuck this up. I can’t promise you’ll like what happens if you do.

Consider yourself warned.

5/13/09

Zero to Sixty

He calls every now and then just to say "what's up?" It's the typical call you would expect from a close friend who moved away. For the first couple months we would talk roughly once a week, lengthy conversations that were ended long before they were truly finished. As time moved on the chats got shorter while the dead space in between our words grew longer.

It isn't something that really bothers me on a nightly basis, just every once in a while. I can't really place the blame on him, just as he cannot on me, it's just a result of the differing paths we took after leaving college in 2007. I stayed here, stagnant essentially, while he moved to Texas and jammed his foot down on the gas pedal.

So here I am, two and a half years out of school with a mediocre job, a steady girlfriend and basically all the freedom to do what I want when I want. I might have battles with my demons but all in all things aren't all that bad. For the first time in a while I feel like I'm playing my hand the way that I want to play it, not the way everyone else is telling me too. So like I said, here I am.

But then, on the other end of the spectrum, there he is.

I don't even think he has turned twenty-five yet but already he's just .5 kids short of the American Dream (if that's how you want to define it, that is). Two kids under five, a wife, two dogs, a mortgage, car payments and all the responsibility that goes along with it. I think all he's missing is the white picket fence. If you were to look back at how similar we were back in school, you would have never seen this coming. I know I sure didn't.

Originally I thought the increasingly awkward telephone silences and the dwindling number of phone calls was on account of the stress and time constraints of going zero to sixty from single stoner to married family man. Now that I put a little more thought into it, it isn't an entirely unreasonable excuse, I have no idea what it is like so I obviously can't be upset. It is what it is.

But that gets me thinking, back in the day we were inseparable. We made money, got drunk, started fights and just generally caused trouble. "Fish and Cheese," they would call us, it was never one without the other. Nowadays we couldn't be more different and it's strange to think how quickly his life changed and just how much of a rift has opened between us.

It has me contemplating my own future, where am I going and where will I end up? What will I be like? How hard will it be for my friends to relate to me? Will they even know what to say to me anymore? Will they recognize a settled down version of Cheese? Will they even be able to call me that anymore?

Speculation will get me nowhere but it's something I have never been able to keep out of my head. It's a constant nusiance, gaining speed and volume each time the calender moves forward. I see my youth fading, the jeans and T-shirt soon to be replaced by a suit and tie. The bowls and beers will give way to baby bottles and bank statements. Recklessness will fade away into responsibility. I wonder if I'll even recognize myself.

Everyone knows you can't stem the tide.

But that doesn't mean it doesn't terrify me as I watch it come in.

Back in the Saddle Again.

This was inevitable, it really was.

So after May of this year I essentially pictured myself riding off into the metaphorical sunset. I figured it would progress like a line of carefully placed dominoes tipped over by a starry eyed little kid. Boy oh fucking boy I sure sold myself on that idea when I boarded that plane to NYC back in May. I mean, who in their right mind would have thought it would be difficult to find a job in a new city during a terrible recession. Well not me obviously, because when I came crashing back down it sure did hurt.

And so…here we are again, back to square one.

It’s strange, I used to drive home after work and think of all the things I needed off my chest, things I needed to say to anyone who would listen but no one in particular. I would get home, open a beer, smoke a bowl and write aimlessly until I felt like my chest was less….uh, chesty? I wouldn’t necessarily say it felt good, but I felt something…at the very least a sense of accomplishment in the fact that I toned down my ADHD long enough to put my mind to something from start to finish.

Now it’s different.

When I first stopped, I would still have those “chesty” moments on the way home, when I felt like I was really getting at some piece of myself that I didn’t normally see, but I had nowhere to write them down. As time passed the clairvoyance disappeared to the point of nonexistence, for a while I just thought there was nothing else wrong with me, nothing else that needed sorting out. Oh how a few nights of heavy drinking corrected that very incorrect assumption. The more and more I looked at myself in the mirror, the more I realized I am an unsolvable Rubik’s Cube. I wasn’t having those “moments” because I chose not to think about them, but they were still there…just swimming beneath the surface.

Out of sight, out of mind (aka bottling shit up) never has quite been a philosophy that’s worked for me. In fact I think it may or may not have led to heavy drug use, depression, suicide attempt etc. So, along those lines I started a new blog where I attempted to deal with the things I was no longer writing here, but something was different. I would spell something out and it would float off into the air, it was off my chest but I wouldn’t think anything more about it. Out of sight out of mind right? Well not so much. I used that “clean slate” to bottle things up, it became a place to put things I didn’t want to think about anymore.

So that effort failed, but there was still that hole. Something was missing.

I, however, really have no idea what exactly that might be. Something is missing but I can’t put my finger on my pulse to determine what it is. I feel like I’m a stranger in my own skin again. So here I am, I have something to say, but what that is I haven’t the foggiest.

I’m sure we’ll get there.

On Coincidences

To be perfectly honest, it’s purely coincidental and since I don’t really believe in coincidences, I’m at a loss for what to call it. I suppose we’ll get there.

I started writing Tales on the Timeclock one year ago today. Now before we get started here, I’m not going to spend the next few minutes rehashing events from the past year like I need to give you some fucking synopsis of my life. If you’re that interested, and I doubt you are, go read it.

If I remember quite correctly I was taking short trips to the bathroom at work to finish up the bag of blow I had left over from the night before. I’m not going to pretend like I remember why I started writing this, I was so fucked up that it’s hard to remember major events of the past two years, let alone something insignificant like my motivations for writing a blog. The point is that, for whatever reason, I did start writing this. I think I intended to shock people or something like that.

“Hey let’s put some fucked up stories from the past few years on the internet and see if people read it,” is what I’m guessing my motive was. Regardless, it’s here and you’ve read it. I’ve been heard.

I don’t know what I’ve said and I don’t know what I meant to say, but I’ve said something and I’ve been heard, I just never expected my audience to be what it was. If I really think back on the past year, one of the most fucked up of my life, I am surprised I survived. The fact of the matter is that I did, but I did not do it alone.

Now you can fuck off and say, “Oh here this moron goes talking about his blog girlfriend that he met again,” but I don’t really care. Some of you have loyal fan bases, some of you garner critical acclaim, some of you make money and some of you even become famous. I don’t care about any of that; I’ve gained something much more important.

I didn’t do this alone. I look at the past year of writing as a cry for help from someone stuck with one foot still in childhood and the other in adulthood. Over the past year a few have answered that call. Some of you took the time you normally spent with your kids, your lovers, your spouses or your televisions to talk to a kid who genuinely needed someone to listen to what he couldn’t say to anyone else. You have no idea what that means to me.

One person in particular spent way too much time and way too much worry on my dumb ass. She was my first reader, the first to respond to what I wrote and the first to write me. If you read her blog you know that there just a few men who would kill to do vile things to her. I don’t quite know her that way, I know A. Secret as a friend. This might seem stupid to you and you might not know why I’m doing this, but I do and so does she.

I want to tell you that the time you spent talking me down from insanity, talking me up when I was down and giving me advice like I was one of your kids is something that I will never forget. If I gained nothing else but the obvious from writing this blog, I gained you as a friend, as a confidant and as someone I know I can wholeheartedly trust with anything. You introduced me to the most important person in my life; in fact you talked me up in the first place, telling her I wasn’t a creeper so she would speak to me. For that alone I owe you everything I have. For everything you have done for me, all the time you’ve spent, all the worry you’ve been troubled with I will be forever in your debt. I hope you know, and I want every person who reads this to know, that I would do anything for you.

That brings me to the real reason I’m writing this post. I’m leaving today in a few hours. This time, when I get on that Delta flight bound for New York, I won’t be going for just some simple visit. I’m actually beginning to think that the interview I have on Monday isn’t so much of an interview as it is a “meet your new coworkers” day. I’ll come “home” when I’m done, I’ll make my arrangements and by June (if all goes to plan) I’ll be leaving the state of Ohio for good.

So there you have it, all the whining I’ve been doing over the past year has actually paid off. But, you see, that isn’t where I’m going to end this post. I mean to tell you something more.

I am ashamed that I avoid telling people that I’m moving to New York for a woman. I don’t want to hear them tell me how it will probably fall apart in a few months and I’ll be up shit creek with no paddle. I’ve lied to my parents and friends and told them that while I am involved with a woman out there, I am moving solely for the career opportunity. Well I think if anyone knows the truth, it is you.

I am moving to New York City for a woman. No, I am not moving to New York City for a woman, I am moving for the woman I love. No one went as far as she did for me.

I remember when we first started emailing each other; I still read the old correspondence from time to time. “What the fuck does this bitch care if I drive drunk?” Every day she would say something that would make me think that. It is difficult to pick out sincerity from an email, but hers was blatant. For some reason this woman, seven years older than me and six hundred miles away gives a shit if I lose control on the freeway and die a flaming, painful death while killing a school bus full of nuns holding babies. It only grew from there.

I screamed to her on the phone about the pain of being betrayed. I cried about the sorrow of having my heart broken. I complained about the difficulty of growing up. All she ever did was listen. She cared; it was totally alien to me. “I am not sleeping with this woman and she cares about me like I am.” She listened to everything and anything I had to say, without judgment. Before long I found myself calling long distance to talk out my problems instead of heading to a friend’s house for a blunt and a brew.

I guess that’s why I started writing this; I needed someone to talk to, even if it was no one more than me. I was completely lost and fucked in the head; in fact, I’ve spent the past year repairing the damage. I needed advice, consoling and just a general smack upside my dumb ass head, when I started writing here…I got it. I kept coming back to spill out my problems onto page after page because it alleviated some of the pain, stress or sorrow that I was feeling at the time…I rarely wrote out of joy. I won’t downplay the few times I did write when I felt on top of the world, specifically the first trip to New York, but they are not the reason this blog has gone on so long. I came here because I needed someone to tell me I am still the man I’m supposed to be…I have that now.

So I guess you see where this is going, don’t you? It is just too great of a coincidence. I started writing a year ago today and today I leave to move for reasons directly related to and caused by my writing. I have someone to listen to me now, someone that will not leave anonymous judgmental comments about my insecurities. I no longer need to spell-check my feelings. I don’t need to capitalize my troubles and I don’t have to wonder if a comma or a semicolon is used when I’m pouring out my heart.

In short, I don’t need this anymore.

She is flesh and blood. She is warm and beautiful. She is there and she is real. She is not text, she is not words and she is not digital. I will no longer have this woman as an electronic part of my life. She belongs to me, no other man will have her and I will make it so she never thinks of another. For what she has done for me, I will give her everything and I demand everything from her in return. She has yet to disappoint me and I don’t see her starting now.

I know what I want and I am taking it, it’s just that simple.

So I guess this is where we part ways. I don’t have a reason to write here anymore, I don’t have the will and I don’t have the time. I had been thinking about giving it the axe for a while now, just couldn’t think of any better time than now. One year from the date I started writing this blog, I am taking the first step into the world. The light is blinding my eyes, my hands are shaking and my stomach is upset. I’m nervous, can’t sleep and can’t get my mind off of what is about to happen. I’m leaving this place; it is time for me to start over again. I need a clean slate to dirty; I just can’t get over the luck of the dates. Exactly one year…what a coincidence. But like I said, I don’t believe in coincidences so let’s just call it what it is…

Fate.

Alone Again Or?

“It really all comes down to how you see it,” she said to me.

We sat on her back deck smoking cigarettes and waiting for the Xanax to kick in. It had been a long day, emotionally draining in the way that only a funeral can be. We had spent the afternoon watching our parents cry and the evening drinking beer in the muggy Kentucky air. We never really were keen on small talk, we didn’t see each other often and she knew there was always something I needed to talk about. There was no time to be wasted.

So, like every other visit, we talked.

Family events on my mom’s side of the family couldn’t be more different than the ones on my dad’s. It had been seventeen years since my uncle had died in the plane crash, which meant it had been seventeen years since my mom’s side had all been together. Over the course of the six hour reception, I stood at her side as she introduced me one by one to her eighty nine first cousins, each proceeding to tell me they last saw me when I was “this” tall. It is crazy to think that my mom has cousins who are two and three years older than her mother, whose funeral we were attending.

The cousins and their children came by one by one to pay their respects to my grandmother and offer their support to my mother and her siblings. Each one spent their four or five minutes rehashing a shared childhood memory with my mom and asking her if they could do anything for her. After a moment or so they continued on to my uncle and aunt, but their words were not lost on my mother. She leaned in to me more than once to tell me she couldn’t remember this cousin or that cousin’s first name or how many siblings they had, I’m sure they would have been the same if it was their mother’s funeral. Regardless of whether they remembered how old I was or how long my mom had been married, the simple fact was that their sympathy was genuine in only a way that a family member’s could be. It was clear that they were all there for each other, no matter how far apart they had grown.

So right, by the end of the night I was exhausted, Leslie and I sat on the back deck smoking and waiting for the Xanax to hit. She wasted no time. “Why are you going to New York?” “Are you really in love with this girl?” “Are you going to be able to afford it?” “Are you going to come and visit us still?” She sounded like my mother, just minus the annoyed “what the hell are you doing with your life” tone that she had taken with me since high school. She was concerned, asking about my drinking and if it was still eroding my mental health. She asked the questions I had been trying to avoid answering for the past few months. I don’t know; there is too much to put down here and too much back-story that needs telling for me to accurately explain it. I just remember sitting there looking at her nonjudgmental eyes and thinking that she was listening to my blabbering like only family could.

The drive through the hills to the funeral was long and hot, the sweet smell of the sour mash hung in the hills of the bourbon country that runs in my blood. Blasted out limestone lined both sides of the road and the ash trees let the sun though in small beams. We drove the winding roads my grandfather used to run moonshine as a teenager and past the farm where my grandma worked the land. It had been too long since I had been to the country; I feel a connection with my past when I am out in those woods, something that the city lights will forever blind me to.

The men didn’t cry and the women did; a typical country funeral. I stood at the front of the church and read from the scripture, hearing my voice begin to crack over the microphone as I grew choked up. I got back to my pew and quickly stopped the welling in my eyes, sitting down as the rest of mass passed. We buried her; I almost fainted in the hot sun as we listened to the priest’s final words. We hung around for a minute before going to visit my grandpa and uncle, arguing over who would remove the red wax from the Maker’s Mark bottle we had purchased to pour over their graves. I watched the brown liquid soak back into the ground where it was born just three miles away. My grandma always said we buried them there so they could have a drink whenever they pleased.

I’ll lie there as well.

I sat down on my couch that night and can honestly say I haven’t been that tired in years. The fifteen hour days and seventy hour weeks have nothing on that Sunday night. It takes a lot to hold in those emotions, to be strong for your mother and your aunt. The men don’t cry in our family; that’s how it has been forever, we just don’t. I remember my uncle telling me he had no sympathy for me as I cried at his father’s funeral. “That’s my pa, boy, if anyone should be crying it’s me and ya don’t see me cryin away now do ya?” He had a point.

I didn’t cry at his funeral six months later.

But that isn’t me, not in the slightest. My family knows me well, but not so well that they have picked up on the things I’ve been hiding from them. I’ve learned to hide my emotions from my family, even the ones like Leslie, who know me so well. It has grown over the years to the point where I find it hard to talk to my parents and even my brother about things I need off of my chest. Hiding the way I feel is terrible for my mental stability and just provides more fodder for the inevitable emotional explosion that takes place every few weeks. It has driven me insane my whole life.

So I got into bed that night and I called her to say goodnight. I had been waiting for that voice all day long, as soon as I heard it, the levees broke. As the previous week was poured out in tears and screaming, she just listened patiently. I could feel it leaving me, my heart slowed down and my breathing calmed. I just needed to let it out. The whole weekend I was in the company of my family, but I couldn’t help feeling completely alone…whether I really was or not. I spent five minutes on the phone with her and everything I had been building up for the previous five days was gone in an instant. I don’t know yet know what this means, but I’m slowly beginning to realize.

The ease of release and the judgment free listening, they are the reasons I started writing here. I started writing when I was alone, and the truth is…I was alone.

I don’t feel that way so much anymore.

Damage Control

I get these fits of rage from time to time which lead me to seriously question my mental stability. I’ve been feeling his grip around my throat lately and I don’t know why he is back inside of my head. I thought I had shut him up. It has been a while since we’ve been totally out of control, but it was close this weekend. I managed to keep my hands on the reigns because she was here, and that was the only reason. The lack of hard amphetamine drugs in my system had made it easier to cope with his anger, but in the same token the lack of hard opiates is making it more difficult to keep him at bay. It all comes down to the alcohol and the pot these days; cigarettes don’t even faze me anymore. In any case, EZ is back and he is stronger than ever this time.

It’s strange how some nights I can literally drink a case of beer and be the happiest, friendliest man on earth. On other nights I’ll have four pints and be on the wrong side of sanity before the bars close. I can’t control myself. My brain is a bed of tinder and the slightest spark will set me off in the worst way. You might remember someone else occupies my head besides me. Tell me to stop drinking and he will slam down the rest of the pint I’m holding just to piss you off. Tell him to quiet down and he will scream in your face. Tell him to slow down and the accelerator will be on the floor. I’m on the verge, fighting for control, moments away from punching bricks and putting out cigarettes on my flesh.

We both know I don’t want to, but I can’t stop him.

It takes just a few words or a passing glance to set him off. It’s strange because when I was younger I never had these fits, but as I’ve grown they have actually gotten worse, considerably worse. I never knew I had someone else controlling me. It used to happen only when I was really depressed and I started drinking, then it started to happen regardless of the mood. When I stopped shooting up it got really bad. Naturally I was spending less time half-conscious on my couch so I could spend more time drunk and angry. As I started drinking bourbon to get over the withdrawal I began another addiction.

The bourbon put me over the edge; and let him out of his cage. We would flip out at a bar and get kicked out night after night. We would get into my car and, gripping the wheel with white knuckles, we would hit the gas on the interstate. I found myself on the street at night, stumbling home, cursing the whole way. One such evening, EZ pissed someone off and they tried to cut our throat. I was piss drunk but I can still feel the breeze across my neck as his knife missed my windpipe by an inch or so. I ran home as fast as I could and we stood on the second floor porch with a pint glass full of bourbon, a loaded AK-47 and ninety rounds of ammunition while I waited for the police. If I would have found him before the cops did we would have blown holes in his torso. It is a frightening thing to think about, but it isn’t the first time I have lost control and he has been mad enough to kill.

I’ve calmed down in the past few months and managed to put EZ back in his cage, but only due to the settling of insanity in my life. This doesn’t mean that I’ve got myself in control; I’ve just got no reason to lose it. Lately though I’ve been discovering that if you give me one it won’t take much. It used to be that it was only when I was drunk, but more and more I find it happening when I am stone sober…that scares the shit out of me. It happens at work when 80s Hair gets on my bad side. I can feel myself losing it but I can’t stop. He is there, in my head, screaming at me to feed the anger.

I can’t fight him, I try, but it is impossible.

It is almost like watching yourself on TV. I want to stop him, but I can’t. When he gets control he does everything in his power to feed the anger, he lives for it. As he takes control the grip on the glass tightens, the drag on the smoke is deepens and the voice I utter takes on a different tone. There are no thoughts of consequences when he is in control, just immediate release of anger. I am floating above watching him rip through my life with a grand smile on his face. Destruction is his drug and anger is his release. Everything I have built, he will destroy. We are opposite sides of the same coin simply waiting to see who lands heads up.

He blinds my eyes to rationality and drowns out the sound of loved ones begging me to come back to reality. He shows me only what he wants me to see, that which sets me off. He is always waiting, waiting for that little glimpse which tells him the opportunity is now. It is then that the door slams open and it is too late. He knows the fears I hide from others and he knows just how to express them, pure unadulterated rage. He knows it fights off tears and he knows it wards off anxiety; it is the only thing he knows how to do.

This has taken on a different tone since I started writing it. At the beginning it was just an admission of the facts, it is quickly becoming a plea for help. Don’t tell me the things I already know. I know drinking makes it worse so just shut up, will you? It is going to be hard tonight, a bitter struggle. I can’t be alone with my apartment full of alcohol, not tonight. Bad news comes in floods in my life and now that it has started I know there will be no quarter. I’m waiting for the grief to pour in like a fucking thunderstorm.

I’m right there on the edge and tonight will be the test of a lifetime.

I can feel it as I type these words. I’m wiping tears away from under my glasses and counting the thirty minutes until the nicotine gets into me. It’s only going to help for a minute. After a few more I’ll be passing the drive thru liquor store and I know the 40 ounces will be calling me. I need a drink, no ifs ands or buts about it, I need a fucking drink. The trick is going to be keeping him under control. He won’t shut up on his own, a drink might help for a minute. Other than that, I know only two ways to do it, putting a bullet in my skull or a needle in my vein…neither of which I plan on doing.

It is going to be a fight, it always is. It’s me versus EZ tonight. Main event, everything is on the line. Gripping at my sanity, holding on for dear life. Who will win? Who will perish? If I win, he is put back in his cage and lives to fight another day. If he wins, I lose control and something bad inevitably happens. Under his control I’ve lost friends, broken bones, destroyed property and started fights. These are the least of my worries. This battle seems never ending, but I can’t go on fighting him forever.

One of these days when he gets control he is going to kill me. This blog will go dormant and the emails will stop. Maybe you’ll wonder what happened to me, but after a while you’ll forget who I ever was. If I let him, he will kill me and any memory of me. If I continue to fight this battle with no end in sight, I will lose my life much sooner than I want. Everything is on the line. Every time something goes wrong, everything is on the line. It is do or die.

I have to find a way to kill him before he kills me, it’s just that simple.

If I let you, you would make me destroy myself.
In order to survive you, I must first survive myself.
I can sink no further, and I cannot forgive you.

There's no choice but to confront you, to engage you, to erase you.
I've gone to great lengths to expand my threshold of pain.
I will use my mistakes against you, there's no other choice.
I'm shameless now, I'm nameless now, I'm nothing now, I'm no one now.

But my soul must be iron.
Cause my fear is naked.
I'm naked and fearless.
And my fear is naked.

From "Bottom" by Tool

Numbered

I’ve got a knot in the pit of my gut that will not go away. I’m finding it harder and harder to sleep at night, let alone concentrate during the day. I can’t sit still and bouncing my leg nervously as I talk on the phone has become routine. I’m biting my nails and smoking more than I have in the past few months, I can only think about one thing.

I’m sure my friends think I’m talking out of my ass. Over the years I’ve known them; they’ve heard hundreds of schemes and master plans which never went further than the end of the joint we were smoking. I’ve contemplated the Peace Corps, law school, crab fishing, the Army, and teaching, among other things. Not a single one of them was pursued. The thing is, those plots were usually hatched over more than a few drinks and typically forgotten by the time I woke up to a headache in the morning. It’s to be expected that they think I’m full of shit.

The fact of the matter is that this time, I’m not.

Quite frankly I’ve never been full of shit, I was always serious about the plans, no matter how batty they seemed. Trouble was I just never had the motivation…or maybe I just smoked it. What I always needed but never had, was a catalyst, something to kick me in the ass and get me started. I found that being comfortable is easier, no one likes change and I am no exception. But comfortable is boring, and I am not ready to be bored yet…there is so much I haven’t seen.

I’m doing it, for real this time, and when my friends ask me if I’m just talking shit again, I’m going to tell them. I’m not kidding; my days here were numbered as of April 13th. It’s just a matter of time.

The Noose

It was this weekend four years ago; I was home in Milwaukee, staying with my parents over the Easter holiday. Spring and Easter breaks were always my favorite, usually coinciding with the weather turning for the better, they were the signal that the school year was, at last, coming to an end. I could taste summer vacation as I spent the long weekend hanging out with my high school friends. The perfect recharge before the stress of the end of the term and finals began.

Most of the weekend was spend with my two closest friends. I hadn’t seen them since my last trip home over Christmas, so they were excited I was home. Excited enough that one of them had decided to buy a half ounce of mushrooms for us to take in the creepy barn behind his house on the south side of the city the night before I left. I hadn’t eaten mushrooms since being dosed in Cincinnati the year before, I had tripped on other drugs since then, but never mushrooms. I was scared that my night might end up like the one the year before had, but I was in my hometown in the company of my best friends.

“What could possibly go wrong,” I figured.

I don’t remember much of the trip and if I did it wouldn’t make any sense for me to explain it to you. You either know what I’m talking about or you don’t, it’s that simple. We talked circles around each other, the light of the lantern casting eerie shadows throughout the barn filled with the product of years of spring lawn sale hunting. Being surrounded with the knickknacks and oddities from decades of his father’s packrat tendencies made the barn the ideal place to sit in near darkness and debate the fate of the world while tripping your face off. We sat up there for hours, shouting like madmen and scribbling the secrets of our enlightenment on little scraps of paper to read when we were sane again. I was still tripping when I looked at my watch and realized it was sometime after one in the morning. I had a six hour drive the next morning and the incredibly difficult task of falling asleep on mushrooms to deal with so I said my goodbyes and climbed the ladder down to the driveway.

I remember it being very blue that evening and the sensation which ran through my body when I sat down in my cold car and pulled down the driveway. The streets were empty; I decided to take the long way and give myself some time to straighten out before going home. I don’t remember much of the car ride except when a fox ran across the road in front of me, forcing me to slam on the breaks and come to a jarring stop in the road. I sat there for a second, watching it run off into the park before I decided it wasn’t a good idea to be parked in the middle of the street.

The rest of the drive home I couldn’t stop thinking about how strange it was seeing that fox, it had to be a sign or something. I had never seen a fox outside of a zoo in my life. I couldn’t quit thinking that it meant something.

It was a few minutes past one thirty in the morning when I caught the red light at the corner of 124th St. and National Ave. Nothing was any different than the hundreds of times I had caught this light, only 24 blocks from home. The after hours lights from the Speedway on the corner cast a faint glow on the intersection. I noticed a brightly dressed man in a t-shirt and running shorts on the other side of the street, in my state it took a moment for my eyes to focus on him.

“Who the fuck jogs at one thirty in the morning?”

The situation was growing odder by the second as the man slowed from his jog and began to stumble back and forth on the corner.

“Is he fucking drunk?”

The light turned green and I pulled forward slowly, getting halfway through the intersection before I saw him collapse on the corner to my right. At this point I had no idea what was happening, was it a joke? Some kind of prank? A junkie? When he didn’t get up I thought for a second and pulled my car into the Speedway parking lot. I got out and headed across the lot. My head was spinning as I jumped up onto the retaining wall and across the lawn to where he lay on the sidewalk.

I can’t remember if his eyes were open or not but I can recall his face with absolute clarity. I never found out if it was him or the drugs in my system, but he did not look human. He wasn’t responding to my shouting and when I started shaking him he didn’t move. I remember the shades of black on his face, it was contorted and it looked like a cheap Halloween mask. The skin was wrinkled and blotchy with spots of red, painting a terrifying contrast amongst the black streaks. He was making sounds that I cannot bring myself to think about, let alone describe, to this day. His breath was heavy and his chest was heaving.

He did not look human.

I had been standing there for a good thirty seconds before it struck me. He was dying.

I was in shock instantly, the mushrooms made each movement seem as though it happened underwater. I managed to get my phone out and dialed 911, fighting the trip as my eyes went in and out of focus. I walked in tight circles as I spoke to the dispatcher. My words came out slowly and deliberately:

“There is a man dying on the corner of 124th and National.”

I hung up the phone and stood there, staring at his face, the image searing itself into my brain. I had no idea what to do, I stood there and watched. There was no one in the gas station and the street was deserted, not a soul on that block but the two of us. It was the most intimate moment of my life but also the most terrifying. I have never felt as helpless as I did that night watching that man die.

Five minutes passed before I heard the faint sirens growing closer. He had stopped moving two minutes prior. Tears ran down my face but I was not crying. The realization of what had happened hit me so hard that I was in complete shock. The sirens grew louder and louder and I slowly began to grow paranoid, wondering if I would be found out. The cop walked me over to me as I sat down on the retaining wall, trying to tell him what happened. Out of the corner of my eye I saw the stretcher going into the back of the ambulance, the white sheet drawn over his face.

I lay down in my bed that night but I did not sleep…I didn’t sleep for a while after that.

This is the noose.

The noose is no longer a physical object of death robbing the life from my lungs. It is something different. I bear events like this on my conscience and few days pass that one does not come to mind. I’ve been thinking about this one lately as it happened this coming weekend. I realize that four years later I still feel like I didn’t do everything in my power to keep him from dying at my feet on that cool night. I am well aware that it is completely ridiculous to blame myself for that man’s death, but I can’t help thinking that if I wouldn’t have been tripping I would have been quicker or I could have given him CPR or something. Maybe I could have done something; maybe I could have been more comfort to him as he died.

I don’t know.

I never knew his name and I never knew what killed him, but what I do know is that I carry his life on my conscience. It is part of the noose that chokes me back to the ground whenever I get back on my feet, forever serving to remind me of the past. Whether it be justified or not, I have often felt it was my fault that I couldn’t save him. If only I was faster, smarter, stronger.

If only I was……if only.

I can’t live with the grip of that noose around my throat. This guilt I have chosen to bear will eventually drag me into the undertow. It has to be let go. I will never forget it, but in order to function I must learn to give this memory and the others like it their leave. I have carried these weights for too long, they must be let go. I just have no idea how. Where does one begin?

Where do I begin?

As I get older the noose gets tighter, more guilt joins the rest. Unless I learn to let these burdens go will kill me. My own mind is the most dangerous weapon, more dangerous than any bullet, rope, pills or cliff.

If I let it, it will kill me.

So glad to see you have overcome them
Completely silent now
With heaven's help
You cast your demons out

And not to pull your halo down
Around your neck and tug you off your cloud
But I'm more than just a little curious
How you're planning to go about making your amends
To the dead

Recall the deeds as if
They're all someone else's atrocious stories
Now you stand reborn before us all
So glad to see you well

And not to pull your halo down
Around your neck and tug you to the ground
But I'm more than just a little curious
How you're planning to go about making your amends
To the dead

With your halo slipping down
Your halo slipping
Your halo slipping down

With your halo slipping down
Your halo slipping
Your halo slipping down

Your halo slipping down to choke you now

"The Noose" A Perfect Circle

Not Cool

This is just not cool.

I used to think about who I was going to go out drinking with after work and which tried and true drunk driving route I would take home. I used to wonder who I was going to sell my last ounce to and where this weekend’s blow would come from. I thought about women and obsessed over money. I cheated, lied and generally didn’t give a shit about the consequences. I often wondered why I didn’t feel guilty or bad about any of the objectionable decisions I was routinely making. I was drinking bourbon like they were bringing back Prohibition, but hell, I was having fun. I was going nuts like I had never before in my life and I had more than enough to write about. I went into depth explaining the late night fights, the morning hangovers and the crazy shit I barely remembered doing. I wrote about shit that was haunting me and looked at myself through cynical eyes.

But now it’s all different, and I blame you.

You see now I don’t think about the drugs, sex and drinking like I used to, I think about……..other things. Nowadays I think about things like sending you flowers on your birthday and what presents I want to give you. I talk in this gay ass voice when we speak on the phone and have used the words “luvee,” “sweetheart,” and “baby,” way more than I ever wanted to. I think about candlelit baths, oil massages and romantic dinners. My thoughts are filled with cuddling, touching and holding you close.

My God, gag me with a spoon.

Damn it, now look at what you’ve done, you fucker. You’ve gone and turned me into a sap. I honestly thank God on a nightly basis that no one I know has heard me talk in that cutesy voice I use to say goodnight to you. Damn it woman! What’s happened to us? I mean we used to talk about how hard I was going to spank you, how I was going to choke you and how I’d tie you up and use you like a toy. Now we talk about things like how much I love you and how incredibly gay we are.

Honestly, I’m blaming you.

Look, sooner or later someone is going to find us out and they are going to fucking make fun of us. You met my friends, could you imagine the shit I would take if they heard the nicknames we have for each other? We have essentially purchased a one way ticket to doucheville and we are boarding the train of no return. We have got to formulate a plan of action here or the inevitable gayness that ensues will blow our current level of douchebaggery out of the water. Eventually one of us will become completely overwhelmed by it and spontaneously combust.

You may have noticed that the frequency of posts on this blog has decreased lately. That is because the only things I can think to write about are saturated with douchey sappiness. Again, damn you woman, you have taken away my reckless lifestyle, my normal speaking voice and now my blog.

This is just not cool.

Learning to Walk...Again.

It’s been about six years but I still figured I would pick it back up easily, muscle memory and all. The trucks were looser than I like and I stepped back off just as quickly as I stepped on. TJ watched me, quite amused, as I struggled to gain my balance on the board and started rolling. It took a moment, but after a few minutes I was skating around the parking lot like I had for countless hours when I was growing up. The sound of the urethane wheels rolling over the pavement was drowning out my apparently shouting former roommate.

“C’mon Cheese Hawk, let’s see a trick.”

I positioned myself, back to the dumpster, and pushed off toward the other side of the parking lot. About halfway across, I kicked down hard on the tail while lifting the front foot up and forward. I brought my front foot down hard, where the board should have been. Unfortunately this was not the case.

“You suck, I’m going home,” I heard as I picked myself up and dusted the gravel off my ass. I dodged the empty Coke bottle thrown at me out the window of his car as he pulled away. I grabbed the board and made my way for the front door. I stood there for a minute, key in the door, before I thought, “Why not just stay out here and skate, it’s gorgeous and all you’re going to do is shoot zombies on Xbox while you drink beer at a way too early hour.” I lit cigarette, emptied my pockets, took off my shirt and rolled the board out into the lot.

I also got a beer.

For the few minutes I rolled back and forth across the parking lot, failing attempt after attempt at the trick that used to be second nature to me. My glasses kept falling off as I looked down at the position of my feet on the board, I used to wear contacts. Regardless, after a few minutes I had landed the ollie and was suddenly feeling sixteen again. Except for the fact that every time I would stop, I had to catch my breath…I don’t remember ever being that winded after a skate when I was younger.

I stayed out in the hot sun for the next forty or so minutes, trying increasingly difficult tricks with little to no success before finally attempting to jump off my stoop onto the board, which ended with my face slamming directly into the GMC Yukon parked next to me. I picked up my glasses and checked to make sure all teeth were in place before heading inside.

I sat down on my couch and twisted a High Life, realizing that I was pouring sweat with a rapidly beating heart. “Shit,” I thought to myself, “I used to do this all day everyday and I never got this winded.” I stripped down and headed into the bathroom, lifting my foot to step into the tub and wincing as I realized my legs were stiff as shit. I stood there watching the steam roll over the top of the curtain, thinking about just how fucking sore I was.

When I woke this morning, my goddamn legs felt like they were going to break and my face hurt a little but was thankfully bruise free as far as I could tell. All I could think about for the entire drive to work was how badly I wanted to skate when I got home, and how badly my legs were begging me not to. I realized that, even at twenty four, my body is getting older.

I used to skate a few days a week from sunrise to sunset and never had the tight feeling in my legs like I do today. Then again I haven’t been so obsessed with skating since before I left for college, I’m hitting the lot as soon as work lets out this evening. I’m sure that I’ll bust my shit more than a few times, but I’ll get some cool looking scars in the process. Plus, the only strenuous activity I have gotten in the past year strangely coincides with Pitseleh coming to visit; needless to say I could use the exercise.

But one thing’s for sure, when I got back on that board yesterday afternoon for the first time in years, it felt good. I suddenly started thinking about the long summer days spent in the back lot of a Wal-Mart, an empty basketball court or a city park. I remember sitting with friends, smoking, skating and listening to music all day long. It felt good to feel that wind in my face, even if it has to get through a beard now. I felt like the Cheese of the past, not the bad one but the one I miss and wish I could still remember. That hour or so on the skateboard brought me closer to him than I have been in the past six years.

I can’t wait to get out again tonight.

Muzzle

I fear that I am ordinary, just like everyone

To lie here and die among the sorrows

Adrift among the days

For everything I ever said

And everything I've ever done is gone and dead

As all things must surely have to end
And great loves will one day have to part
I know that I am meant for this world


My life has been extraordinary
Blessed and cursed and won
Time heals but I'm forever broken
By and by the way...
Have you ever heard the words I'm singing in these songs
Its for the girl I've loved all along
Can a taste of love be so wrong


As all things must surely have to end
And great loves will one day have to part
I know that I am meant for this world


And in my mind as I was floating
Far above the clouds
Some children laughed I'd fall for certain
For thinking that I'd last forever


But I knew exactly where I was
And I knew the meaning of it all
And I knew the distance to the sun
And I knew the echo that is love
And I knew the the secrets in your spires
And I knew the emptiness of youth
And I knew the solitude of heart
And I knew the murmurs of the soul


And the world is drawn into your hands
And the world is etched upon your heart
And the world so hard to understand
And the world you can't live without
And I knew the silence of the world
And I knew the silence of the world


And I knew the silence of the world


"Muzzle" The Smashing Pumpkins

Sunglasses in the Bathtub Excited

Oh I am so excited right now I can barely sit still. At least I have a good reason for not working all day and surfing espn.com looking for more awesomeness like this.

GO XAVIER.

Sorry I couldn't resist this chance to shamelessly plug my alma mater. So yeah, I'm excited.

Oh and this doesn't hurt either.

New York-Kennedy, NY (JFK) to Cincinnati, OH (CVG) $69 One Way.

EDIT: For an explanation of the being sunglasses in the bathtub excited please see THIS video

Eyes

This is not a means to an end. There is a time and a place for games and aliases; now it’s just you and I. It is easy to dance around it from a distance, easy to hide a look or dismiss a comment. I can stare through you. I can see in your eyes what is in your mind. You may look away, but when your eyes return you will find mine have never left. Time is against me, I must learn as quickly as possible. Study the subject, take in everything laid out before me and construct an image.

I breathe. You breathe.

There is no way out from under this gaze. I will grab your face and fill my hands with your thick black hair to exert my control. I will memorize the lines of your face, the squint of your eyes and the fullness of your lips. The gaze deconstructs, pulling away layer after layer. Careful note is taken, the images reconstructed in my mind. Existence framed, it will look after me in your absence.

Eventually it fades from memory. The lines of your face blur from a picture to an idea, the squint of your eyes is lost on me and the feeling of your lips seems just out of reach in my mind. Like a man stuck in quicksand, the more is struggle to keep them, the faster they disappear. I try to remember how you looked at me when I stared through you. I can barely recall the things I saw in your eyes, I simply remember the expression. I wonder what my eyes revealed when you met my gaze. I wonder if you remember the things I was telling you, for I remember them clearly.

Eyes show us everything, they cannot lie. I remember you by your eyes, not the image of them, but what you compelled me to feel when I looked into them.

Constipated

There is a levee holding back a flood of shit in my mind these days. I am overloaded, I feel like it is finals week all over again. There are hundreds of thoughts boiling to the top of the pot, but it won’t ever boil over. It’s like the constipation you get from heroin; it twists your insides and doubles you over as you sit at work. So many ideas flying around in my mind, none of which I can seem to get out. I am distant and my gaze is distracted. I’m finding it hard to focus on reality when I can’t escape from my daydreams.

I’ll drift into fantasy on the freeway or in conversation, only to be startled by a honking horn or an annoyed friend. It is beginning to affect my work and my basic ability to socialize. I feel like there are so many things I need to sort out before I can start functioning again, I just don’t know where to start. They trickle out in little spurts, but never enough to provide sanity. I ended up getting distracted. TV, video games, phone calls, blogs, drugs, porn, beer. By the time I realize it, it’s time for sleep, or more accurately time for bed.

Sleep is elusive.

The sleep I do get is full of vivid dreams, some relevant and others zombie related. I dream far more in times when my mind is cluttered, it seems to be my brain’s way of housecleaning when I’m not there to dirty it up. I tend to believe that my dreams reflect the themes of my everyday life, especially the ones I have trouble realizing...or plain don’t want to.

Someone told me once that if you look at a task as a whole it seems impossible, take writing a research paper for example. You have to come up with an idea, research it (multiple tasks in itself), outline, write and revise in order to produce a paper worth reading. Looking at it as a whole makes it seem daunting. You might feel helpless, like a man standing in front of a mountain with no idea where to start.

So I had a dream the other night that seemed to follow this general plotline.

I am in a Wal-Mart, she is with me. We are exhausted, scared and alone in the store. I know it immediately that this is a zombie dream, I have them frequently. I have varying degrees of control over my dreams, and in my zombie dreams I go for weapons as soon as I realize the dream’s…genre, if you can call it that. We are in sporting goods. No ammo for the guns, no arrows for the bows and nothing else that looks like it could cause a human head to explode. At this point the theme is becoming obvious…helplessness. It’s like the dreams where I can’t seem to remember how to run or where my punches slow as if they were being thrown underwater, dreams of futility. She has a hedge clipper and I practice swing a Louisville Slugger as we hear them coming. I don’t remember much else, just the feeling of frustration when the blows from my bat do not kill the zombies. In fact, they don’t even seem to wound them. It’s all part of the theme of futility.

I wake up in a sweat just as we are overrun in the tire section.

This dream manifests itself in different ways during certain points in my life, it conveys frustration and helplessness. The dream only comes in times when a particularly daunting task lies ahead of me. But I know how to stop the dream.

Let’s get back to this looking at a task as a whole point. Don’t bite off more than you can chew, you’ll simply end up dying while your co patrons wonder why no one in the restaurant knows the Heimlich. Instead you have to look at a problem in segments, take our research paper, for example. Don’t think about the revision process while you’re still coming up with an idea, you’ll simply get yourself worked up. Take things one step at a time and keep your eyes focused on the task at hand, before you know it you’ll be at the finish line. Of course this sounds way easier than it really is, it’s much less difficult to let the shit all flood to the levee and drive you insane.

I’ve been taking that easy road, hoping for a lucky break in the completing of the task I have at hand. It isn’t going to solve itself, but one has to realize that it won’t happen overnight. Taking small steps toward the completion of my task is the only way to prevent the mental constipation that comes from over thinking every little thing. But over thinking is my specialty, I analyze everything to the point of unhealthiness. I must admit though, it feels good when you accomplish little pieces of the task at hand. I started putting my resume together this weekend. One wouldn’t think it would work such wonders for my sanity but it does. It is just one little task in a massive undertaking but it makes me feel better, helps me function and helps me get to sleep at night.

Every little chip off the stone eases the pressure.

Occasionally

Occasionally I wish my parents had bought a proper ceiling fan, one that wouldn’t break under the weight of someone hanging from their neck. There are days when I come home and beer hits my lips before the door is locked. There are other days when this is not the case, but the former outnumber the latter. Some days I feel like shooting someone, other days I feel like shooting myself. Occasionally I think about setting my apartment building on fire and watching as tenants scramble to decide what to save from the flames. Sometimes I think about setting my work on fire and jamming the exits. Some days I wonder how long it would take work to notice if I did nothing at all. There are some days when it seems like a good idea to strangle the unruly neighbors in the projects behind my building. Other days it doesn’t seem like such a good idea, but the former outnumber the latter. Some days I feel like I should shoot my TV, others I feel I should attack with fists. Once in a while I feel like crying my eyes out. Sometimes I do cry my eyes out. Some days I want to shoot up again. Some days I want to snort coke until my nose bleeds. From time to time I think about allowing my car to veer off the road at 80 mph. Every now and again I think about becoming homeless. Some days I don’t feel like brushing my teeth, applying deodorant, showering, putting on clean clothing or cleaning up my beard. Some days I don’t want anything in my stomach but alcohol. Some days I think about quitting and often I think about shooting my boss in the process. Occasionally I feel like ceasing contact with every human being who knows me. There are times when I hate myself. There are times when I don’t, but the former outnumber the latter. Sometimes I think about blowing up buildings. Sometimes I think about how painful drowning would be, other times I think about drowning, period. There are some days when I don’t want to leave the apartment. Sometimes I don’t answer my phone because I want to be alone. Other times I think about making people hate me, so I will be alone. From time to time I think about giving up. Some days I think about how long it would take me to die from not drinking water. More often than not I think about how it would feel. Every once in a great while I think about punches I’ve taken. Sometimes I even think about ones I’ve given, but the former outnumber the latter. There are days when I don’t care about global hunger or AIDS. There are also days when I don’t care about the unemployed or the struggling. There are days when I’m the most selfish person on earth…many. Frequently I think about how it would feel to be tortured. There are days when I think about joining the Army. Some days I think about what it would be like to live with the knowledge that you have killed someone. From time to time I think about who will come to my funeral. Occasionally I think I’m sick for assuming my parents will be there. Sometimes I think about what I will be like to be fired. Every so often I think about what it means to be a failure. Some days I want to go apeshit with my credit card. Other days I want to go apeshit with my .45, but I won’t say which outnumbers the other. There are days when I wonder if you can throw a CD hard enough to decapitate someone. Other days I wonder if people hope their children don’t turn out like me. I wonder, from time to time, how much of a disappointment I am to my family. There are days I loathe my brother for being the favorite. Some days I wish my mom had a miscarriage. On other days I wish I was stillborn…better story. More often than not I wonder where that bright eyed kid I used to be disappeared to. More often than that I wonder how I managed to kill him. There are many days when I think about my friends who are more successful than me. Many more still when I think about the ones who are happier than me. I often wonder what to do tonight. I wonder daily what people see in me. I especially wonder how the hell I got the woman I did. There are many days when I don’t understand what she sees in me. Sometimes I want to know just how much I can drink before I die. Sometimes I wonder if drinking alone makes me an alcoholic. Sometimes I have a bad case of denial. I frequently wonder how and when I will die. Some days I want to get in bed and stay there. A lot of the time I wonder how long it would take for someone to realize I had died if I just went unexpectedly. I think about how thinking about my death probably makes me insane, or in need of help or counseling. I think about how I don’t care. From time to time I think about the amount of money I have spent on marijuana over my lifetime. I try not to think about how much I’ve spent on alcohol. Often I wonder if I will pass this on to my children. More often than that I wonder if I’ll live to have children. I think about a lot of things over the course of a day. I don’t know why. I try to put them out of my head but I can’t. Sometimes I think it is strange that I have more than one voice in my head. I find it stranger still that they say different things but have the same voice. Often I wonder who I am. I very frequently wonder what my purpose is, but as I grow older…I wonder if I have one at all.