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.

Shame

I don’t even know where to start.

I remember going to confession when I was young, I imagine I had the same problem I do right now. For me, confession occurs when my hands are red. Never are they spurred from a guilty need to right wrongs. In a sense…no, in plain truth I am the epitome of the person who thinks it’s only wrong if you get caught. My friends, I have a confession to make…

I am a liar.

When I think about what would define Cheese’s Seven Circles of Hell, I must say, I have a special place for the liars. Liars are a disgusting people…well they aren’t even people; they are rats…no…roaches. Liars are vile, repulsive and they make me sick. When I think about liars, I think about people who are too worthless to live. There are some people who don’t deserve to breathe…I am one…I am a liar.

It started with the Sega Genesis I never really did have. I was so cool…no one else had a Sega Genesis, shit they had hit the stores the night before. No one was smart enough to doubt me and no one was ballsy enough to call me on my blatant lie. From a young age I knew that I was more devious than most…it was to my advantage. It is a bad habit borne out of arrogance, the inherent belief that I am better than everyone. This belief is the most putrid part of my personality, and the really sickening part is that I totally believe it. Think about it as you read this, right now I am sitting facing my unmade bed, dirty (mostly cum filled) laundry surrounds me, I am drinking a black and tan and smoking a joint.

Take that all in.

I still think I’m better than you.

Don’t you just want to slap me? Oh, trust me, I want to kick my own ass too, and the truth is that I really hate this about myself. For some unknown reason I have an unquenchable thirst to be fucking way better than you. I think I am better than everyone, even while I drink on an empty stomach. Who am I kidding? Honestly I blame you, reader. It is your job to tell me that I am an arrogant sloth. I need someone who will knock me down a peg and say to me, “hey douche, shut the fuck up.”

Really though I do need someone to tell me to shut the fuck up now and again. I need to be brought down off of my self-righteous cloud of “I’m better than youness.” You know it, I know it…I am no better than you nor am I any better than the homeless guy with a sign that says, “Why lie, need a beer.” But here we are, back to the beginning because I seem to think I am better than everyone, when the truth is that I am less than or equal to the rest of humanity.

This doesn’t change the fact that I still feel the need to be something special, aka better than you. Ah, so we are even further back to the beginning now. Herein lies the reason I…uh, well…lie. It’s the same as the One Hour Life Story Game, except it is much more serious and totally real. Lie to make yourself more interesting than your friends. That, my friends, is the object of my game.

That’s pretty disgusting. I have been drinking while writing the duration of this post and to this exact point I have not read what is above. The beauty of drinking and writing is that you forget what you were writing, you completely forget the point you were trying to make. I, however, cannot drink enough to forget the point I am stumbling around making. The point I’m (probably not) making is that I violated someone’s trust.

Took me 649 words to say that. True testament of a liar. They fucking talk way too much. Henceforth do not believe a word I say, consider every statement I make and assume I am lying. In fact everything I have ever told you is a lie. Every single word you should consider a lie. No wait, that’s a lie. Actually, that is a lie. But what if I’m lying to you about this, what if only some of what I’ve written is lies and some is not? How will you ever know? You have no idea, do you? It’s all lies, my friend. It’s all true, my friend. Whose word are you going to take? Whose side are you on? What is fact? What is fiction?

What am I talking about?

I have this stupid ass story. My dad is from Ireland. He really isn’t. I might have told you this, but frankly I don’t really care about you. I told this to her. Listen, actually I’m lying so don’t listen, but really…do listen, I lied to her. I started this nonsense to leave all the lies I had told behind. Some of them…they were so elaborate that they could have been books. The scum of it was that I was lying to people I care about, for god knows what reason. I’ll use the 649 words above to rationalize it but between you and me, I have no real explanation.

I have this strange desire to lie to people about trivial things in order to make them think that I am something (cool) that I am not.

In twenty four (I’m actually thirty four………kidding) years of my life I have never put this into writing or even into clear thought. This is the most vile aspect of my personality, the bad side that far outweighs the good in me. I started writing this blog in order to come to terms with the fake life I was living. Here is where I have admitted my secrets and here is where I escaped the fantasy world I had created. But here is also where I met someone that I fell in love with, and you can throw up from my gayness but you can also kiss my ass…I love this woman. I fucking mean it, I love her. I lied to her. I’m still using more words than necessary. It should take a sentence.

I lied. I said that my father was from Ireland, he is not.

I realize that this throws everything you have read into question and frankly I could not give a fuck less. The reason this appears here, in public is to prove to myself that this is a space to confess. Always has been and it always will be, regardless of audience. I’m not going to explain myself to you, frankly because I don’t have to.

This is a diary of truth, penned by a liar. Everything you read must be questioned. Take everything with a grain of salt. Is he lying? Is he telling the truth? I’ll tell you truthfully that the paternal heritage lie is the only lie you have ever heard from me, but it is your choice whether to believe me or not.

Is he lying? Is he telling the truth?

This is a diary of truth, penned by a liar, it’s your choice to believe or not…I don’t care.

The Good Ol Days?

There was a time that no less than $4,000 cash was in my apartment. I had an assault rifle hidden under my bed, loaded. I carried a knife and on occasion, a gun. Everyone knew my name and everyone wanted my number. I threw away dollars like they were pennies. I paid for a year of college, paid for dinner, paid for drinks…I paid for everything. My wallet hurt my ass from sitting on so much cash. I was up early and asleep late, meeting the demand while staying one step ahead of the police. My roommate and I ran our school. If you wanted to get high you called us.

We thought we were hot shit; turns out we were just douche bags who had connections. We have both grown up, but it is hard to forget about the “good ol days” when we ran the show. Sometimes we sit around and discuss the market, what we did wrong, what we did right and why we never got caught. We are a few years older, most certainly wiser, and when we reminisce the conversation always ends in how lucky we were.

Lucky that we didn’t get caught, killed or robbed.

But the more and more I think back on it, the thing I think I am luckiest for is that I escaped with my personality intact. If you knew me before I started dealing you wouldn’t have recognized me while I was knee deep in it. I spent a good portion of my days counting stacks of cash and then I spent the other portion recounting them. I cleaned and trained with my guns incessantly, ever prepared to fight off the seemingly inevitable home invasion. I bought things for people and threw my money around like it actually bought friends. I thought about the dollar, obsessed about the dollar, counted the dollar and worshipped the dollar.

I was the dollar, it was my life.

I am lucky that those few years of distribution didn’t destroy me. The obsession with money and power was out of hand, and I was what you could call small time. I often talk to my old roommate about what would have happened had we gone big time...the conclusions drawn are never pretty. As much as I loathe the person I was for those few years, I love to reminisce.

The following is the roommate’s take on our past occupation:

why is it that at 4:20 every day i stop and think...

if only I was a drug dealer again...

i would be sitting on a couch instead of at a desk...

i would be making more money than i am now...

i could spend more time with [my dog]... (Notice he doesn't say "my girlfriend")

not pay a lot for taxes...

get back my bull shit 20 hours of work at whole foods...

walk to work...

reducing my carbon footprint...

effects: a less stressful life in that i am not a harrassing telemarketer...

my customers would come to me because i have a good product that they all want...

i wouldnt be restructuring loans...

lets get drunk after work.

To Save A Life

It’s rarely ever like it is in the movies. You don’t need to push someone out of the way of an oncoming train and you don’t need to take a bullet. You don’t have to fight someone off and you don’t have to run into a burning building…life and limb need not be risked. It’s rarely ever like the movies; it doesn’t just stand out in plain sight. Sometimes you just have to pay attention. You never really know when someone is on their last legs unless you really pay attention. You can see it in their eyes if you look hard enough. You can hear it in their voice if you listen closely enough.

You can find it in their writing if you simply open your eyes.

Once upon a time there was a nerdy high school kid who was ridiculed daily by his classmates. He was teased, spit on and beaten up so often it had become ritual…almost normal, to the young man. Normal however, is not to be confused with tolerable. His classmates were brutally successful in making him feel inhuman and robbing him of his will to live. The young man had decided that after school he would walk home, write a note and promptly shoot himself in the head.

“This is it,” he thought to himself as the school’s heavy steel doors slammed shut behind him.

For the first time in his life the young man walked unflinchingly past his classmates and their jeers, they passed through him. He hugged his textbooks tightly to his chest and quickened his pace as the football players laughed like apes.

“Look at that fag,” they sneered to one another.

“They won’t think of me the same tomorrow,” the young man mumbled to himself as he stared at the passing squares of pavement on the cracked sidewalk. His eyes were dry, his heart beat as it had for his seventeen short years. Seventeen years of this misery, he could stand no more.

His pace quickened.

The plodding of his Chuck Taylors on the pavement played soundtrack to the last thoughts the young man would ever think. He thought about trivial things: school work left unfinished, video games left to beat, letters left unwritten. Everything so utterly incomplete and devoid of his touch, tonight he would leave this place. Maybe it was his pain, maybe it was his desire to teach the footballers a lesson or maybe it was his own sick way of finally becoming someone people would talk about.

Maybe it was a lot of things.

One by one the kids walking in his vicinity disappeared into their houses until the young man finally walked alone. Thoughts washed over him and out into the crisp fall air. In the clumsiness of his trance, when things seemed like they couldn’t get any worse, the young man tripped on a cracked corner in the sidewalk and fell to his knees, his books scattering before him.

“I’ll be dead in a few minutes, why bother with the books,” he thought, but as the last words of the sentence left his consciousness, he felt someone next to him.

“Sup bro, need a hand?”

The stranger had dark stringy hair and smelled of cigarettes, he was not much older than the young man. He collected the books and looked at the young man’s skinned knees before helping him to his feet and handing him the bundle.

“Watch where you’re walking next time my man, that bail looked painful,” he said as a grin crept onto his face.

“I’m Jim,” said the stranger as he extended his hand.

The young man looked perplexed as he reached to shake the stranger’s hand,

“Nice to meet you.”

They talked for a minute before going their separate ways, and as the young man turned to head home tears ran down his cheeks. He wondered what had just happened or more importantly, why. Thoughts continued to flood his mind, but their nature had changed, he questioned his course of action. But he thought to himself how hard it was still going to be, nothing had changed…maybe his decision was sound after all.

He slid the key into the lock in his front door, walking upstairs and setting his books on his desk before sitting down. He pulled the top drawer of his desk open, pulling out the pen he would use to complete his task. He thought to himself for a moment before he started writing. He placed the date in the upper right hand corner before titling the paper, “The Theory of Keynesian Economics.”

He thought about how he was planning on writing something vastly different. Only a few moments ago he had the letter completely finished in his head, it only needed to be committed to paper. Now it seemed he couldn’t even remember the first word, what he was going to say or who it was going to be addressed to. He thought about Jim, about the few words they shared and he realized something very simple but incredibly profound.

“That man saved my life.”

So think about that.

Think about that before you look away from someone crying softly to themselves on the bus or in the subway. Think about that before you brush past the woman who just spilled her purse. Think about that the next time you get the feeling that the man or woman you just saw is hurting. You don’t have to take a bullet, you don’t have to stop a train and you don’t have to risk your life.

Spare a kind word, a gesture, a helping hand or maybe just a smile, for you never know when you might be saving someone’s life.

Five Long Years

I am the king of countdowns. Every morning when I wake up I am counting the hours until one event or another, usually a trip. For the past five years I have been counting down to an unknown date, one I wasn’t even certain would ever come to pass. People have called me crazy, stoned and a flat-out burnout for waiting so patiently. I thought the day might never come.

In a little over twenty four hours the moment I have been waiting five long years for will finally be upon me. After the twelve hour drive my younger brother and I are setting out on, we will arrive in Hampton, Virginia and the moment will be upon us.

After five years…five long years………..all is right in the world.

Phish is back.

The One Hour Life Story Game

I never did take advice very well.

See: Don’t talk to strangers.

See also: Don’t lie.

I have a habit of starting a conversation with anyone who will listen. I will talk about any topic under the sun for as long as they will let me ramble. It has gotten me into trouble but made me some good friends as well. It helps pass the time when I’m bored, say during a long cab ride or on a flight. Talking to strangers can give you a good impression about what people believe, what they think and what makes them tick. Conversation with a random person can kill boredom faster than anything, but what began as a way to entertain myself has developed into a much more intricate game I like to play.

I call it the “One Hour Life Story Game.”

Now there are a few simple rules which are critical to the success of the One Hour Life Story Game. First and most importantly of all, it can never be played in the vicinity of someone who knows anything about you, even something as simple as your first name. Second, the other (unknowing) participant of the game must be a total stranger, one much too friendly for their own good. This one is imperative as it is no fun to play with someone who has their headphones on or their eyes buried in the latest issue of Oprah Magazine. Third, and this goes hand in hand with rule two, you must play with someone who is interested in hearing you go on and on about your life and, if possible, will go on and on about theirs as well. Fourth, the game must not last any longer than one hour and one hour only, this part is extremely important. The fifth and final rule of the One Hour Life Story Game is simple, but it is the basis of the game:

Every word that comes out of your mouth must be a lie, right down to your first name.

No exceptions.

This game has passed hundreds of bored hours for me and yet it never fails to amuse. The more and more I think about it, the game is actually quite sick and possibly sadistic, but like I said…it never fails to amuse. There is something completely outrageous and frankly exhilarating about sitting down next to a stranger at an airport bar, putting on a fake Irish accent and telling him my name is Seamus and I’m from Cork City. What’s even more outrageous is the fact that in the roughly seven years I have been playing this game (while following the current rules) I have yet to be called on the carpet by anyone. Except maybe that one time when I suddenly lost my Australian accent when answering my cell phone, but still.

The fun of the game is that it allows you to be anyone you could possibly want for an hour. Again, it is imperative that the game lasts no longer than an hour, as the chances of your opponent finding holes in your story grow by the minute. But for that hour you can be anyone from, “John the chemist from Dublin who works on Viagra,” to, “Mike the up and coming pro skateboarder from LA.”

You can be anyone you want.

I’ve had kids, been married, been divorced, been AWOL, been published, been incarcerated, Irish, half black, English and Australian. I’ve been a doctor, lawyer, preacher, teacher, author, unemployed, diplomat and aristocrat. I’ve been to every continent on earth, spoke numerous languages and have had every degree from Accounting to Zoology. You see sometimes I get bored with my iPod, books and television. I like a challenge and I have a vivid imagination, the One Hour Life Story Game is the best way to take care of both. Sometimes I get bored with myself, so I create someone new to be…if only for an hour.

The game keeps you on your toes like nothing else. It forces you to read body language and listen to the things the other person isn’t saying. You must constantly adapt and change your tune to fit the reaction of your opponent. Back off if you feel they aren’t buying it and if they are buying it hook line and sinker, push it further.

What’s the harm anyway? It’s not like you’re ever going to see them again.

I have been called everything from sick to demented when I tell people I know about the game. It makes them suspicious of me and they question everything I say, constantly looking for a lie to catch me in. In a sense the game serves to keep me honest in real life, for everyone who knows about it stares at me with eagle eyes, looking for holes in the true stories I tell people I care about. It also helps teach me to read people, how they sit, fidget, play with their hair, where their eyes move to, how they place their feet and how they lean, in order to determine what they aren’t saying.

Ok, I know the game is pretty ridiculous but don’t knock it until you try it. Think about this game next time you’re sitting in a cab, at a bus stop, in a bar or on a plane. Ask yourself, “could I pull one over on this sucker, could I make him believe anything I tell him?” Chances are you probably can, but just keep one more thing in mind as you size up the competition:

That guy you’re sitting next to, sizing up, the one who just told you he is a doctor or lawyer, that guy who just went AWOL or got divorced, that guy who just had a baby girl or just signed a record deal, that guy who just got back from Cambodia and has a dodgy accent might just be me sizing you up, seeing how far I can pull the wool over your eyes. Keep in mind that you aren’t the only one who plays this game, lots of people are liars, everyone has an angle and if they play you the right way…they can get you to believe anything.

Hard To Concentrate

My thoughts are circular by nature. They start with blunt simplicity but eventually become intricately complex and detailed, only to return to their original simplicity. I am powerless to divert my attention and incapable of new direction. I find it hard to concentrate in every aspect of my day.

One thought dominates my consciousness, pleasant but urgent. Not a breath is drawn that doesn’t draw in her air. Not a word spoken that doesn’t echo my intentions. I have one thought and one thought alone. It matters not if I am awake or asleep, for it consumes my dreams as well as my waking life. It is unavoidable and inescapable, but I am not burdened by this thought, spiraling on and on in my head.

Mine is a problem solving and analytical brain, when presented with a challenge it allows not a moments rest until a solution is presented. It is my mind which pushes me forward with a nagging persistence, never allowing me peace.

But peace is not what I seek. I seek something different, something of much more dire consequence. So for now I lie in wait, finding it hard to concentrate on the motions of the day. Spreadsheets and phone calls may momentarily divert my attention but it is never out of mind. She is never out of my mind.

Mine is a problem solving and analytical brain. It will not rest until it has its way.

Hustle bustle
And so much muscle
Our cells about to separate
Now I find it hard to concentrate
And temporary, this cash and carry
I’m stepping up to indicate
The time has come to deviate and

All I want is for you to be happy
And take this moment to make you my family
And finally you have found something perfect
And finally you have found…

Death defying, this mess I’m buying
It’s raining down with love and hate
Now I find it hard to motivate
And estuary is blessed but scary
Our hearts about to palpitate
And I’m not about to hesitate

And want to treasure the rest of your days here
And give you pleasure in so many ways, dear
And finally you have found something perfect
And finally you have found…
Here we go.

Do you want me to show up for duty?
And serve this woman and honor her beauty?
And finally you have found something perfect
And finally you have found... yourself
With me...
Will you... agree... to take this man... into your world..
And now... we are as one...

My lone ranger,
The heat exchanger
Is living in this figure 8
Now I’ll do my best to recreate.
And Sweet precision.
And soft collision
Our hearts about to palpitate
Now I find it hard to separate.

And all I want is for you to be happy
And take this woman and make you my family
And finally you have found someone perfect
And finally you have found

All I want is for you to be happy
And take this woman and make you my family
And finally you have found someone perfect
And finally you have found…
Yourself.

"Hard To Concentrate" The Red Hot Chili Peppers