timeout

what have i done, what have i done
how could i be so blind
all is lost, where was i
spoiled all, spoiled all
everything's gone all wrong

but i never intended all this madness, never
and nobody really understood
well how could they?
that all i've ever wanted was to bring them something great
why does nothing ever turn out like it should?
Well, what the heck and went and did my best
and by god i really tasted something swell, that's right
and for a moment, why, I even touched the sky
and at least I left some stories they can tell, I did
and for the first time since I can't remember when
I felt just like my old bony self again
and I, Jack, the Pumpkin King-- that's right, I AM THE PUMPKIN KING

when there's nothing in it, you'll make me sniffle to hand me your hanky so i can fold i neat and put it in your empty pocket

"Truth is the first casualty of war."

The therapy chair and a pink balloon sneaks across a green while the silent seconds run out.

The Owl is an object to satisfy my addiction of guilt.

December Dreams

We'd find some beautiful place to get lost...

Ocsicnarf Nas

12/5/07
if you imagine everyone watching you, the Performer imagines a continuous and sizeable audience --- even when there is none. Classic backstage musical turned nightmare.
The Ego overtakes the heart
The Id takes over the loins
The Superego takes over the brain

12/27/07 -
another show where i forgot my lines
a scene in a classroom - that i feel i know so well - i'm the teacher...
we're milling about.... am i the teacher to begin with?
it's an opening exposition song - i end up by the back table looking at a fully written on blackboard... mark on my left, dylan on my right.... they're cracking up -- like the whole play is a joke to them and they've been forced into it --- i slide over to the right...suddenly not rememebering the lines... the musics' approaching..... aand i think to myself that it will automatically come back to me because i've sung the lines so many times - and it doesn't come - the music hits -- i hear the backup singer ? quitely in the background.... and try and put it together -- it seems like it'd be a very nice show

Jamie, jimmy, michael, this house, that job....
these are the challenges you face
and it is these choices that you make today that will affect the rest of your life

12/29/07

new archetype facets to explore:
boy in jungle: ....brother, initiated, join me, temptation,
boy (submission) to man (domination) -- gaining power, use facets of Stag-God story -

woman on stage: ..... sins of the heart, murder, crime, passion--
pain -

as the story and the growth of the main character progresses, the archetypes lives become more intertwined (boy dressing up with woman.... becoming hardened/jaded with man) until they lose their "costumes" revealing the same character..... the final image of a mirror.

Buster

Here's a clever little strip I "stumbled" upon - check it out.

Settling for Novel Familiarity: Part II - Sorting Through the Armor

Armed with a dirty chai and a new, fitting waistcoat allowing me to feel a tightness around every breath, I sit down to make something of my thoughts.

I am a glorified receptionist.
I'm redesigning an excel document that lists the prices we charge for the various room items when they go missing or are damaged; a hypoallergenic fiber-fill pillow, oneida glass tumblers, sunbeam iron, andis hair dryer, hand towel, bath mat, king low-profile down blanket, citrus stripe decorative pillow--you name it.

Now charging people that never showed up for their guaranteed reservations. Damn anyone that wants to fake us out thinking we'll be overbooked when we could have easily sold the room to someone actually coming for the room at a much higher rate. Bah!

tHE fEELING OF lOSTnESS iS THE oNLY oNE yOU FEEL YOU CAN tAKE wITH yOU. Where ever you may go, ...you're unable to hold on to that sentiment of home, of the people you love but can't come to terms with it - but that uncertainty/fear/lostness is so nicely packed portably into that vacuumed niche of a soulless center you call a heart that you cling to it like some child-scribed pointless letter or plastic toy plane.

I've decided I want to grow a beard. But first I need to make an appointment with a dermatologist to figure out why I have little patches of hairlessness across my face that keep such a goal impossible.

Tension, Balance, Brunch!
I've realized in a slightly awkward, hung over tiger, tiger, burning bright moment that I have a severe lack of balance in a particular area at the moment in my life - that needs attention.
"So what are we doing tonight?" There was a time when I was used to hearing this every afternoon. After a sufficient number of classes had been attended, and there were no exams the next day, this quandry would always linger thick in the air, you could sense it on any fall day just like these with everyone milling about with an extra dose of certainty as classes ended. There'd always be something to do and always be people to do it with-pun intended. Always some trouble to get into or some "societal" function to attend, inspect and approve of or deny. The best were when we threw our own parties. Or...when I threw mine. (Calling forth a tangential reverie for another time, but back to the point:) Social interaction. It's currently non-existent. My neglect for this facet of a "healthy existence" (ha!) I have sudddenly realized had become a huge detriment. I become distant and longing in both work and when with Jimmy for no apparent reason, and not because of either of them...but I think because I begin to feel that lack of balance.

On the other hand, I'm afraid...with the non-stop existence in which I currently reside...that if I tried to allocate my time to anything else...those areas in which I'm currently dedicated would certainly falter. Perhaps I need to begin searching for an alternate career choice. Or more simply- a different job. This certainly isn't the place I saw myself 14 months ago nor is it necessarily the place I see myself 14 months from now. But here lies the problem: I don't know where I DO see myself at any time other than the past. I don't even know how to SEE MYSELF period half the time. I look in the reflection of the darkened subway train window and stare at my reflection as it's broken up by blurred cars with strangers I dream of being and platforms with deteriorating walls and people. I think about what I did wrong today, rather than speaking, but I wonder what could I have spoken. What could I have spoken? I imagined an ad campaign for myself walking through Port Authority staring at a wall of tarnished bronze: an image of myself with my hand held out holding this jumbled, muddled ball of the world and everything that I pride myself on seeing, observing-- but it's just that, observations. Beautiful and worthy of something. But Passive, ceaseless, inactive observations. The tagline being something along the lines of "So what are you going to do with it all?" What are you going to do with all this?

Courageously putting yourself into new situations and being please when you get glimpses of familiarness (compare/contrast). But rather than clinging to old-taught methods of thought - everything in relation to something else, how can you begin to see something in and of itself? Letting yourself be taken by a situation or place the way you put a heap of film scores on shuffle and let them decide your mood for the day. There's a strange contradiction of terms between your obvious and not so obvious submissiveness and then the seeming lack of assertiveness. Which leaves us where exactly?

Let's blow this joint.

Settling for Novel Familiarity: Part I - The Glorious Impediment

High falutin' subject lines and titles always forebode an unfulfilling end/diatribe/paragraph/start.
In short, a draft.

at some point in describing how the area in front of the bakery cafe and the host stand as well as behind needed a sweep and mop to a new host, I christened the curve of granite "The Glorious Impediment".

I intended to go to Pier One (okay, the start already is petty - but nevertheless, a start)... to settle on a vase and decorative not-too-fake-looking floral arrangement for the hall table I had bought and built (walmart $100) so that our future returned housephone would have somewhere glamorous to rest. It should be noted, however, that I had already been to the store in the Plaza twice in the past week for the very same purpose with no result. Their inventory had doubtfully changed.

Along the way I pass the hair cutter/salon that I had on at least two occasions submitted my scalp to with hesistation. This hesistation based in the facet of complexes that deals with my inability to settle. Not settle as in give in to something, submit, relinquish care and control-- but more like relax a bit, stop shaking the bingo spinner bin thingy, the tacky desk toy with floating bubbles, allow for a restful peace to observe the okayness in something you're certain is cheating you out of something.
So this is what I did. The place had just expanded hours to be open on sunday; and the long-haired hippy-looking owner was intently concentrating on some minor construction project to put handrail-like bars around the waiting area wall for stylistic means. This was all out of sight from where I sat down in the stylist's chair, but I heard him describing in concentrated detail with mild profanity the details of his work as he went along to the two children that had accompanied my stylist, their mother, to work. I wasn't able to determine if the stylist and the owner were together or not. This was Sakinak-- something or other (I detest not remembering her name)--but the same gentle limited-english-proficiency woman that had cut my hair the past two times. Nothing too impressive, just a trim, short on the sides, long on top. Usually applying too much sticky mousse at the end and making the front spiked up like a teen from the 90s. But she gave a great massage as an added bonus while I sat in the chair each time she finished cutting. I was still undecided about the $25 cost. We engaged in smallish conversation, when I could understand her, mostly smiling and nodding. I could feel the tingling relaxed feeling I often get when in a new situation or someone is speaking or describing something and I kind of zone out without stopping listening to them, but just the sound of their voice and the good relaxed feeling. Not to mention the fact that she was tending to my hair. Must be the gay in me, loving to be primped and attended to.
She told me how she had stayed there last week working until 10 at night because the guy had asked her to help paint the walls. At that moment, I noticed that the light fixtures between each of the angled mirrors denoting stylist stations had been updated. They were simple sconces with a square of transluscent marbled texture complemented by her cloudy wall of gray. Below the "chair rail" molding (can't recall the proper term) about four feet off the floor was a tiled wallpaper of white with randomly imprinted bathroom words like "bubbles", "air", "refresh", "relax".
A random beatles song I couldn't place was playing on the radio and I felt like I was in a glimpse of Across the Universe. I dub thee "Prudence". The man working took a 10 foot lenght of pipe outside and balanced it across two trash cans to sit on it and straighten it out. At one point he had attracted the attention of the Indian gentleman that runs the GNC next door and brought him in showing off his renovations, explaining how the plaza was on its way to a huge growth with the new businesses moving in and how his various modifications would allow for specific psychological pleasantries that would keep his shop up to speed with the future development.
The woman cutting my hair had a habit of bowing with every gentle gesture for me to move to the chair to wash my hair and back and even moreso when I paid and came back to give her the tip.
I think all these senses, the massage, the fact that I had gotten my dirty chai beforehand and felt warm and caffeinated despite my lack of food intake, had made for a detail-worn experience culminating in putting my bulky peacoat back on and strolling back out into the clean, brisk cold envying my boyfriend for his strike and his full-on paid-for massage.

and now, and now...I can't even concentrate on a simple conversation spinning my apple around on the desk and all the attempted planning and timing and when I'm leaving and traffic and blah* - I'm sorry - I know this is bad foreboding, this lack in me. And I need it to change-- I need me to change--to make things work.

There was a good feeling today - it was coming from David Blue and this idea of the "eternal extra", from Vanessa Carlton played as wakeup music and stuck in my head all day, from noticing that a more successful fellow blogger had found a new motivation, and from seeing this tree shadowed on North Bergen high school on my way to work the way I used to say the most random things could bring me up out of a fowl mood, like a tree blowing in the wind... and also there was this pipe that had burst on 77th on the way down the hill, that was shooting up a great stream of water straight up into the air right in front of this perfectly yellowed tree. I think all this, these thoughts of going somewhere and of a unfogged determination to find what it is I need to be doing (a "prime" passing by?)--made me come to this point--with an eager determination to encapsulate and preserve these sentiments.

later:
blast of sugar high from a warmed up cinnamon roll and apple, only thing I've managed to get around to eating all day. has allowed me to get through this, force myself to complete a thought. both phones on either side of the monitor are flashing to answer their ever-filling box of messages and still plenty of day work. Thank you sugar and self-motivation.

up to the plate

balance

how do i fix things, learn to do something besides disappoint - a best friend
how do i balance, not put all my forces into, one big thing, such passion, but too much and it diffuses? fizzles out? misdirected.
and work - its about time you began to manage. sure the little projects- the cleaning up and streamlining and brainstorming creative alternatives... and blah. The details. The people are more important...than.... than you.
..or maybe just take an ADD test online, make a doc's appointment, and setup yourself up for slight brain numbing medication for life?

can you step up to the plate?

i love you! i love you! i love you! how could you take this for granted?
how can i now - how can i not be spewing poetry - i'm happy for god's sake! how can that feel so subdued? how do you still seem to maintain control? let yourself go? "cus it's all in the hands of a bitter, bitter man..."

I want this. I want to be broken, not the state of broken, but be broken upon/by something... him. I want the beauty of the whole thing be continually too much and for me to not run for a change to stay the pain and the violin strings pacing to mount til it's too much. I know so much trapped inside, and always forget that no one's seen but a flicker.
I can't stop.. It seems that stopping to think is always what does me in.

"say goodbye to the world you thought you lived in."

This Space, This Guy

i stand on a precipice, i struggle to keep my balance, i open myself, i open myself, one stitch at a time, finally yes, finally now, finally something takes me away, finally free, finally he can cut throught these strings and open my wings

lest i forget, the past week has been...

Friday8 - ty's, walking looking for greenwich, the bench, the shop windows, cupcakes, up westside, foggy bridge, driving home (via car)

Saturday9- Julio haircut and eyebrows!, (...the rest????)

Monday11- "The Space" Day: into city too early, Virgin/Element looking for cooler clothes, the shopping headache, on the 7 to P.S.1, modern art perspectives, flies, escape to the beautiful day, up and down Jackson Ave, cat piss, Creating A Space, the rooftop, clockwork, chandelier, a forced birch forest, Grand Central secrets, Umbrella Shopping, Home Depot Color Search, Meetup with Jonathan at Joe's (Papp!) Pub, Florence Henderson, he's off to bed, train home

Tuesday12 - WORK, 9:45 with bells on, starbucks and a flower, astrology and a wicked little photo, (first night over, via train)

Wednesday13 - train home, WORK (Joy training) .......the txts/conversation:
1:43AM- <<<"Hey Matt I've been trying to say something, thats not easy..." (talk on phone)
2:05AM- <<<"I will understand if that was our last conversion"
2:08AM- >>>"Don't be like that! Im sry i giggle- its me overcome with how much i like u. It scares me. But it wont just change w the flip of a switch. Its weird for me too."
2:09AM- >>>"Do you have AIM? Get online." (talk on phone)
2:32AM- <<<"Besitos"

Thursday14 -
1:55PM- >>>"When can I see u? I'm off tomorrow."
6:22PM- >>>"I want to come over tnite but i know u wont get any sleep cus well want to talk all night."
6:33PM- >>>"Then im there. wat time should i come?"
7:07PM- >>>"Can i bring u dinner?"
chaos at work, Brandy, Target shopping, Malecon, Driving down Broadway, DINNER, Serious conversation (over, car)

Friday15 - Drive into work, Jimmy with car, Brandy's Training, Best Buy, My Place, Burger King, Setting up stereo with minor construction, At home (not mine) alone, Planning B'fast, CD collection, late dinner, (over, car)

Saturday16 - Breakfast at 6:30AM, Shower Television, Drive to work, B'fast sandwich sans swiss!, Drive home>>>nap all day, AUDIT shift and Will dillemma (car)

Sunday17 - sleep til 1:30PM, *present*

shrimp dumplings and shower television talk shows
...and when I'm away, the strangest thing, it's not remembering, but I can't quite grasp his face - picture it as perfectly as it is in my mind. I aim for it and keep slipping off of it like soap in the shower, and zooming in to the closest recognizeable features of some other stranger. But then I step back and think of a photograph. Profile pictures on bmb, my first looks at him, or even my pictures from the adventurous weekend. Here in this two dimensional world I can see him again. And it's not the same. I realize I've become so accustomed to staring at men through a computer screen--knowing men through a computer screen (though not always), that my mind more comfortably grasps the two dimensional. It's like the real picture of him, enhanced and flourished by the prescence of the present, can't be stored in my camera or even in writing...just yet.
It's because there's nothing that can make me capture it and tie it down to a memory. This feeling - "so sudden and new, I felt the moment I laid eyes on you, my pulse is rushing, my head is reeling, my face if flushing, what is this feeling!?"

...and when I'm away, I want nothing more than to be back there.