Houston, we have a problem. Right?

There are moments in our communal lives during which we recognize an overarching sense of dissatisfaction.

We're not happy to simply accept whatever people have dictated as blatant and true.
We want to know more.
I am wont to be happy.

In that my happiness is based mostly on being comprehensively overcome with newness, with something other than the common.

I guess you might call it progressive bourgeois.
Even so, I am wanting.
Wanting and waiting.

A woman sat across the small coffee shop engaged in a phone call to which she had no idea I played the unwitting eavesdrop.

"How much longer can I safely work?" The woman's voice had the burnt, deflated sound of wind brushing past crackly dry grass. The question itself harbored the emotional remnants of arduous labor.

"Well I've still got a lot to do," she said, answering some unknown question, "I've been at this for three hours and I've still got so much to do I'm just waiting for some kind of implosion." Her tone seemed like it should be coming from a misanthropic switchboard operator.

The tale woven by the words and noises of the solely auditory aspects of the situation would have made me think the woman was copying the Bible, curing cancer, or digging a ditch in the sun. I decided to actually look directly at the wall facing speaker and more particularly, at whatever exceedingly gravitational activity she might be engaged in.

What I saw puzzled me: she sat facing a mostly empty table top with a few stacks of purchased Christmas cards, a smattering of pens, and a single white sheet of paper with one and a half columns of names listed in a ten point font.

She was filling out Christmas cards.

Now, I don't know about any of you but I really don't think that this temporary, self-induced (and apparently Holiday-obligatory) stress warrants such a level of reproachful exasperation. It's CHRISTmas, not some inescapable rerun of a Richard Simmons holiday themed workout.

Indiana Jones does less intentional self-injury than these holi-crazed Susie Homemakers and he makes a habit of brushing with death. And to top it all off he's kind of clumsy!

It's just a DAY!

And in addition, the fact that you feel that kind of obligation when contemplating Christmas as opposed to any notions of family, togetherness, or tradition means that you most likely don't really even get Christmas.

So in surmise, you're killing yourself for some socially mandated trend that you don't really even understand!

You're doing this to yourself and you're proliferating the problem in those around you who suffer from the same misguided sense of celebration.

JUST GO GET SNOWY!

GET CAROL-Y!

GET JOLLY AND WHATNOT!

Money and time are both valuable for different reasons to different people but in the end they both have to be related to you to matter in the long run.

So Merry Christmas! You're Awesome!

Now get into the season and start helping everyone realize it about themselves.

And all is set to rights once again.

Failure

I've decimated my fingernails.
I'm all dry skin, sour aches, and a dreadful feeling of empty lacking.

Once again I've come into contact with the part of me that so palpably experiences lost causes and failed attempts.

Saint Jude and I have a meeting today at four.
I've decided we should break up.

But drat it all, that Saint Jude has this insufferable ability to convince me we should stick together.

This is all drivel.
I write garbage. (Thank you E. Iguana)
I am writing more of it now.

I have zero motivation because it's all going to be the same.

Fuck everything.

Past Scribbles

I found this page from the beginning of the year and I felt it appropriate for adding to my log.

1/9/08 - Neuberger Hall, Room 59

My stomach won't release whatever tightness it seems to have become so friendly with in the last several days.
I have no doubt that the bowl of cinnamon Puffins and mil along with the reheated (and let it be known overly large) portion of last night's lemon, cilantro, tofu and shell pasta have some part to play in the present exacerbation of this discomfort.
Damn appetite.
But the altruism in me tells me that if pain and my stomach have become amiable I really have no place telling them to stop being friends.
I would hate to be told not to continue a new friendship.
I feel like a parent and my stomach is my child. The pain is that little boy with dirty hand and the mismatching shoelaces who eats more than one cookie without asking or saying thank you.
But my child is home-schooled, afraid of people I don't personally introduce and thus he cannot continue a friendship with pain sans my direct involvement.
I kind of have to be friends with pain too.

Pain left and now my stomach is mine again. It seems almost Oedipal, our relationship.
Perhaps that's why my stomach has seedy friends from time to time; to keep me from being too completely attached. To make friends with other stomachs.


Going back even further still, the following poem is off of a napkin from Whole Foods leading me to believe I wrote this during a break from serving at P.F. Chang's.

Consideration - 8/18/07

While rude people are annoying,
those who don't realize their rudness
tend to be so much more aggravating.

In a city where only the rich can afford to
be healthy and the careless can access
fashionableness I find myself scrounging
for bits of propriety.
What should be said at what times?
How should one look for an occasion?
And yet love rises about what is thought
of as appropriate or acceptable.
It supersedes the trends and vogue of
any culture.
It cannot be stopped except by the hand
of ignorance.

Perhaps a smile plays on both sides of
the fence. It can be loving or ignorant.

The nature of a smile notwithstanding:
What of kisses?
What of hugs?
What of gifts?
What of fucking?

Can all be one or the other,
loving or ignorant?
Or perhaps just rude.

My Foreign Counterparts

And thus you see that I do, in fact, aspire to be yet another international man of mystery.


Like these gents.

When Humoring a Hypocrite

Last night Joel told me that he didn't want to speak to me anymore.

Having read a memoir piece I posted about a former relationship poisoned by infidelity and observed pictures of me embracing my boyfriend, he accused me of being "inconsiderate, tactless, intentionally hurtful, and over-sensationalizing."

"You knew when you were doing this it would hurt mom and dad's feelings," he spat with brusque force.

Yes, Joel. I maliciously wrote a story without either of them as the subject and posted pictures of me with my significant other...like almost everyone else on Facebook who has a boyfriend or girlfriend.

Are you truly that misguided?

Throughout the course of his condescending and judgmental bout of talking at me he made several blatant conflicting statements. Statements which showed not only his irrational and over-passionate zeal for being "right" at any cost but also his incredibly misguided sense of Christianity.
First Instance:
During the hour and half conversation he made a point too many times to count of seeing to it that I understood that he didn't know me.

Noah: "But you don't ask about me. You just take it upon yourself to assume that what little of me you're exposed to comprises the whole of who I am."

Joel: "I don't need to ask you, I'm your brother."

So, you "don't know me," and you don't feel the need to ask me about what you don't know because "you're my brother" which I take to mean implies that you know me? Pick one.


...hmmm...


...You know what, I'm through with this listing of offenses, for now. Believe me, I have plenty more. But what I've realized is that I'm bigger than this. I'm bigger than him.
And I refuse to attempt to make myself feel better by pointing a finger at him.

Instead I'll serve him the same just dessert he's attempted to force down my closed throat: Pity.

I pity his misanthropy and lost sense of justification.
I pity his obsession with a lazy belief system that answers most of its questions using the circular logic of "faith works for what I believe but not for what you might."
I pity his tragic sense of piety as it deteriorates his ability to love others and truly love himself. God would never want that now would he?
I pity his running away from the real world in an attempt at staying safe and warm inside his Bible School Bubble.
I pity his confusion and double standards.
I pity his passing judgment on me for being someone who is actually and truly free while he subjects himself willingly to the bondage of an invisible authority translated by condescending, pontificating men.

And above all,
I pity his willingness to cut off a loving brother in an effort to demonstrate his disgust with someone who is unobtrusively different in behavior and mindset.

I'm not injuring you, Joel.
It's like I said- over and over- what I do is arbitrary in that it's my action, my choice. And while my actions and choices do have consequences your reactions are your choices.
If you're hurt by my disagreement with you (when I merely disagree, I do not judge) then you're allowing a hurt upon yourself. You're choosing it.

And while we spent nearly an hour and a half on the phone during which he pointedly criticized, demeaned, and berated me and my mindset and behaviors, calling me any number of derogatory names, I stand by the fact that I refrained from calling him a single name other than his own and engaged in no kind of disagreement other than debate.

And for all of the times you called me "ridiculous" and told me that you had the right to judge me for your perception of my having changed friends, personality, morals, and position, I never once brought up any of your faults or projected some number of equivocal shortcomings.

For a "sad, lost little boy," I seem to be much more grown up than you.

Of Casuists and Mutiny

A part of me will always hate Alaska. Having spent the summer of 2006 as a tour director for Holland America Cruise Lines, I learned a keen bitterness towards the largest state in the US. A bitterness that broadly encompassed lost luggage, room complaints, and thousands of miles in the front of a tour bus filled with demanding senior citizens. When it comes to mind, many regard the place with a sense of naturally inspired awe while I am temporarily crippled by an arresting spite as my mind struggles to subdue the saturating weakness of betrayal. I was a restless 20 years old when my Christian boyfriend turned Bathsheba.


Christopher Stewart Keith. We met a year before going north at our private Christian university in Langley, British Columbia. Like all students, we had signed a behavioral contract with the school which banned drinking, smoking, sex, dancing, and “homosexual activity,” to name a few. I remember the first night we kissed when he told me how each of his three titles could act as first, middle and/or last names. At the time I found such a mundane fact endearing. At the time I was endearingly mundane. I had altered a thrift store plaid shirt for him and he had baked a strawberry rhubarb pie for me. It seemed like a fair trade. That night, we ended up taking a long walk and then broke into the campus music room where we watched a movie on my laptop while cuddling beneath a grand piano slip cover. I told him that I liked him and wanted him to be my boyfriend. “Alright,” he responded, “I’d like that.” We wouldn’t end up sleeping together until eight months later. It was awful.

I have slept with some very unattractive people. They weren’t all so bad to look at when we met but even the moderately handsome individuals seemed to wilt and gnarl with the time’s elapse. In the instances where I actually reached orgasm I still slunk away from each encounter with a feeling of hunger, of lacking fulfillment, like when someone hands you a stick of gum and your trusting fingers close around nothing more than an empty wrapper.

The night Chris first fucked me we were in a drafty cabin behind an expansive Alaskan resort in Denali National Park. The employee housing space, furnished with two creaky, sagging twin beds (little more than naked mattresses but for the faded. threadbare sheets that reeked of one-night stands and cheap detergent), rivaled Alaska’s finest honeymoon suite, to be sure. The whole situation was so stark and obligatory. We didn’t speak. We didn’t kiss. I let him inside, he came, and it was over. He turned to face the wall and fell asleep while I showered and resigned to the second bed. The sporadic, muffled drumroll of the leaky showerhead thudding lazily against the fiberglass floor beating my eyelids apart, forced my gaze to fall on the patchy moonlit pattern across Christopher’s dormant form.
“How did we get here,” I silently asked the lurid ruby numbers on the bedside alarm clock face (tour directors were not afforded tardiness). “11:59” blinked casually to midnight.


Christopher had a face reminiscent of a child playing house. All too-big suits and light pecks on tightly pursed lips. He always seemed to be reading life from a script he’d compiled from what he saw real adults doing. He cared fiercely for everyone around him in a way that cried out for recognition without words. On campus, there were three things he was known for: he offered well-worded advice, he provided patient back rubs, and he knew Mario Brothers by heart. Even the secret levels. I thought it so selfless how he wanted to become a children’s counselor. Now I realize it was due to the fact that he was still mostly a child himself. Then again, so was I. I remember the secret pride I felt when Chris’ dorm mate told me I had given him the best massage he’d ever received. And the sense of victory I greedily savored when Chris received the email from Holland America notifying him that he’d been reconsidered for hire and they’d like to offer him a summer position after all. (I had contacted the tour company following Chris’ rejection and requested their further attentions to his application and resume, both of which I had written).

We both longed to be necessary. We both worked fastidiously to become so. For me that meant being available, flexible, convenient. For Chris, that required independence, distance, and feigned maturity.

I can still remember with crisp clarity the first time we called off our relationship. March 12, 2006. Two days before our three-month anniversary. Two days after he had been denied the job in Alaska. I was the one who made the final call so Chris wouldn’t have to. I felt so big and small at the same time. We barely made eye contact. My pajama sweats felt lumpish and unattractive and the vinegary stains beneath the sleeves on Chris’ white undershirt posed an unavoidable cynosure. Long prior he had begun intimating that he was afraid of people finding out about the two of us. I said I cared too much about him to be the cause of fear or worry. We gave each other an extended hug, the phlegm dripping from my nose adding new stains to his garment. And then he left my dorm and mostly avoided me for the remainder of the semester. I grew increasingly torpid, vacating my room less and less. I told myself it was because I wanted to be there in case Chris happened to stop by. One of the few times he did actually make a brief visit was to inform me that he had been offered the summer position. I intentionally avoided telling him of my efforts to that end. I merely saw it as convenient. He saw it as something he was entitled to.

Three months later we would be in Alaska, separated for the first time in the two weeks we had been in training. Chris would call me, asking me what I thought of the future and I would transparently relate my hopes for the two of us to finish school together and move to Seattle after graduation. He would admit that he wanted the same and we would reinstate our relationship just before what would have been our six-month mark. Less than a month after he would kiss another boy.

We were in Dawson City, Yukon Territories, just east of the Alaska/Canada border. Our tours had serendipitously overlapped and I had finagled a swap in order that Christopher and I could share a room during the one night we were there simultaneously. We had just gone to bed and Chris was avoidant, terse, and brusque.
“You’re acting all detached and sulky. What’s the matter? Are you angry with me,” I asked the questions without needing an answer. Christopher’s behavior was all but incriminating. The weekend before, while I was on layover in Skagway and he was in Anchorage I had spent 3 days trying to get in touch with him to no avail. I lay awake all three nights with a sickening feeling in the pit of my stomach. By the third night I had memorized the flaws in the ceiling and counted the brass rungs on the bed frame with my toes to the point of sheer panic. When I finally reached him the phone conversation lasted a distant and inconclusive four minutes and 28 seconds. His voice was dull and labored and each of my inquiries was followed by an excruciating pause. He wasn’t talking to me. He was obliging me.
“I’m not angry. I’m just tired. Can we just go to sleep?” His last question sounded accusatory and immediately I felt like a child being swatted away while tugging on a busy parent’s pant leg. I left him be. After a half hour I knew neither of us was sleeping and turned to kiss his shoulder blade. He cringed as if my lips were acidic. Then he shifted his form so that he was face down in his pillow as if to smother what he was about to say.
“I allowed myself to kiss Lee.” Even though I was already anticipating this disclosure I still felt the knife of infidelity in my duodenum. All I could ask was why, why, why. Chris kept his face buried in the pillow. I don’t know, I don’t know, I don’t know. His sobs combined with the plush down made his words even more unintelligible.
We made love urgently, the sweat and salt water swilling together on our angry bodies. The room stank of perspiration and deceit by the time we went still from exhaustion. The next day he left early and I proposed that we not talk about it ever again.
“We’ll act as if it didn’t happen,” I pled with all of the pathos I could muster.
But it did happen. And I later found out that it happened again and again only this time with a different partner.


I met Scott in August, three days before Christopher kissed him while I slept next to them in the king sized bed in our Anchorage apartment. I knew immediately that I was attracted to him and wanted to be close to him in any way I could. But a part of me was still forged in brassy determination to recovering the feelings Chris and I once shared.
I felt that introducing him to Christopher would ensure my own loyalty while making Scott aware of my commitment to the relationship I was currently weathering.
I knew I was smarter, better dressed and more confident than my boyfriend but I still had my worries. And rightfully so. Scott was also in a relationship floating on stale bathwater and he spoke often of its dizzying spiral toward the drain. This gave Christopher and me opportunity to counsel, advise, and encourage this chiseled, six foot two, Mormon boy in the struggles of his love life, an opportunity that became a constant point of silent competition. Which of us could offer the keener insight, the better suggestion, the warmer shoulder.
It therefore came as no surprise that the day I had to leave for tour preparation I put Chris at a decisive advantage. That night, when I returned home, the three of us, Christopher, Scott and myself, ate dinner and settled into a movie in the large bedroom. Scott lay between Chris and me and before the opening credits had finished their infiltration of the unfolding plot, my eyes were closed, my body still, allowing the two of them unhindered access to one another.


September 1st Christopher and I flew south to prepare for another school year, him in Canada and me in Portland (I had transferred following the school’s discovery of my “homosexual activity”). By the time we had returned home our interactions had become elaborately maintained melodramas. And while we had planned on my staying with him the week after returning, our exchanges consisted of little more than laconic bouts of rehearsed speech.

Christopher: I’m going to the coast with my sister for the weekend.
Me: I’ll just head home then.
Christopher: You should call your brother to come and pick you up.
Me: He’ll be able to get me by tonight, I’m pretty sure.
Christopher: I’ll call you when I get back.
Me: Whenever you have time.

I would later be informed during an international phone call that “going to the coast with my sister” actually meant “flying to Utah to see Scott.” But just like before, I already knew.


I fucked Scott the morning of Chris’ birthday (May 2nd) the following year. January of 2007 Chris had moved in with me in Portland after running out of money in Canada. We played house for five months while I grew less and less invested and finally exacted my childish revenge, successfully destroying our relationship along with Christopher, Scott and ultimately myself.

Scott was driving from school in Utah back to Alaska for yet another summer in tourism and had called to see if enough time had passed since the previous summer’s offenses for a reparative visit. We had been talking off and on (unbeknownst to Chris) for a few months and I said I would need to ask my boyfriend. Chris was reticent to say the least but eventually agreed in what I took to be an effort at testing the fortitude of what he thought was a refurbished intimacy between the two of us.

When I broke it off for the second and last time I did it because I wanted to. It had nothing to do with Chris’ feelings. And the night I related my shameful behavior I spoke with uncharacteristic aplomb and little to no remorse.

Five days later I moved out leaving only a few dishes and the old leather couch I had bought at Goodwill. A few weeks later I took that too.

In some ways I felt relieved, as if a complicated and painful tumor had finally been sliced off of my body. But the scars from the operation were many and the residual clash of reason and justification clouded my perspective. The last thing I remember throwing out in the move was my box of pay stubs from Holland America. I would return to Alaska once more the following summer for a brief two week tour to help out the company at the end of a busy season. While there I would sleep with Scott one last time and then vow never to return.
I’ll most likely always hate Alaska.

When She Gave Me Lemons

Hello Lauren Williams,

It certainly has been quite some time.
I will say that our last real conversation of any consequence was more of an ultimatum on my part than a dialogue. That being the case I guess I ought to see to it that this time around I let you know right up front that I'll be doing a lot of the talking.

(This IS a message after all and I guess it goes without saying that that simple fact predicates it being one-sided).

First off: I owe you an apology.

I know.
It's crazy, out of left field, unanticipated, and so on.
Nonetheless, it's true.
Whatever the circumstances I should not have publicly exploded on you the way I did that fateful afternoon in the cafeteria.
I'll be forthright in saying that while I wish to make amends for how I said what I said, I don't mean to take back what I said.

Truthfully Lauren, I was very hurt by what happened those months and years ago. I felt as if I had been deceived and then betrayed.
And by two beautiful women who I considered friends, no less.

And yet, in having had these past seasons to ponder just what it all meant and how it was all meant to be, I've come to some very enlightening realizations: your actions were not inspire by spite or punitive intention; you had limited options; and you were surrounded by people and an institution influencing you to do what was "right" according to an arbitrary set of human-set ethics.

Clearly, to make you out as some sort of villainess would be not only inaccurate but also hypocritical.
Much like myself, you were doing only what you could with what you had.

And while the topic of my sexuality is an unavoidable and integral aspect of my person as a whole, it is minimal in comparison to the overwhelming beauty that is you and me and everyone we know.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that if there was ever any question about it in your mind, Lauren, know that I've let it go.
It's forgiven, it's over, it's past.

And you're still you and I'm still me.

And really, what more could either one of us ask for?

I wish you happiness, peace, and the presence that comes with them.

Namaste,
Noah C. Buck

And now it's the next time

We've hit one month.
Today is the day.

Right about now is when I start wondering whether or not history will repeat itself.
I certainly hope not.

I'm terribly happy. I can't comprehend the entirety of the gladness I'm feeling right now.
And there's this fiery romance and desperate creativity and care.

Whatever might I have done to deserve this?
Let it be.

My left is in its happiest state.

Reminiscing

Riffling through an envelope of old scraps and sundries I was pleased to come across this poem I scribbled on a napkin more than a year ago.

I felt it deserved a place in this, my online annals of pondering and prose.


"Consideration" - 8/18/07

While rude people are annoying, those who don't realize their rudeness tend to be so much more aggravating.
In a city where only the rich can afford to be healthy and the careless can access fashionability I find myself scrounging for bits of propriety.

What should be said at what times?

How should one look for an occasion?

And yet love rises above what is thought of as appropriate or acceptable.
It rises about the trends and vogue of any culture.
It cannot be stopped except by the hand of ignorance.
Perhaps a smile plays on both sides of the fence. It can be loving or ignorant.

The nature of a smile notwithstanding,

What of kisses?
What of hugs?
What of gifts?
What of fucking?

Can all be one or the other,
Loving or Ignorant?

Or perhaps just rude.

And Thus the Gates Did Open

I can't really explain why I did it.
I just did.

And right from the very beginning of the night something told me that drinking was a bad idea.
And yet I indulged.

It's beginning to seem like I'm rather prone to indulgent behavior.
I don't like that I'm seeing this trend in my character.
Then again, I'm glad to be taking note.

It started with a martini which was later amended by an americano with a shot of whiskey.
These vices were quickly followed by more whiskey only this time I had it framed in a chipper pool of ginger ale.

I could sense the tiny hairs on my cheeks going all mushy and they began to tingle a little. It was as if the carbonation from the ginger ale were creeping up the inside of the skin on my face. And while I enjoyed some reading, some writing and a few laughs, I slowly melted away from reality.
Ounce by ounce.

Drinks 2 and 3 were not enjoyed alone.
I was happily attended by Marc, Floyd, Julia and Michelle and together we managed a briskish conversation going from literary snobbery to the fashioning of a perfect runway gait.

By the time we all disbursed I was beginning to forget the snipping, cold air and think only of how I hoped my night would include a few choice romantic interactions with Sean.

God, I feel foolish now, looking back on the progression of things.
It's like I wasn't paying any heed to the facts.
I was drinking.
A lot.

I was biking.
A ways.

I was in a flippant and irresponsible mood.
A farce.

All signs pointed toward a more ascetic decision with regard to what (and particularly how much) I should have imbibed that night.
And yet I pushed the wisdom I knew away to make room for the next sip.

Quite frankly I'm surprised I wasn't more of an embarrassment earlier on in the course of the evening.

After saying my final farewells to Julia and Michelle I made my way over to Saucebox with a sluggish pedaling candor.
Locking my bike just outside the front door I felt the assault of heavily amplified music against my form. Every wave knocked into me with the clumsiness of a person rushing to get off of a bus.

In a slender moment of sobriety I realized that I was actually the person getting off and I was several stops too early.
In retrospect I ought to have gone all of the way home right then.
But who really thinks about these things when they've already gone farther than they really wanted?

Finding a seat in the dank, low lit, too warm interior was a bit of a trial but I eventually found myself perched against the bar. I watched Sean with his mechanical grace and urgent speed scooping ice, adding a splash of juice and silently counting out clear, pungent infusions.

He's so terribly good at what he does.
He's proud of it, I think.
And why shouldn't he be, he works hard (and without even a hint of competition) to be the best.
That seems to be the attitude he has about everything.
I think that's one of the reasons I respect him so much.

He asked me if I wanted anything and I left it up to him.
I tend to trust his ideas.
Moments later I was lighting yet another of the night's many, many (too many) cigarettes and tasting the beginnings of a fresh and soothing hot toddy.

Surrounded by friends and feeling social I passed the remainder of the hour in jovial conversation. I didn't want to pay attention to the insidious slurs entering my speech. The increasing difficulty in climbing on and off of my bar stool. The feeling that my body was in a permanent state of motion, like being suspended in water just beneath the surface.

Eventually the pushy music calmed to a ringing silence and the bar emptied.
Lights raised to a stark, white clarity.
This made my eyes hurt and the skin on my nape began to protest in silent tension.

I didn't care.
I didn't want to care.
I knew that the moment I started caring I would feel regret and remorse.

Sean made me another drink (I think it was a whiskey ginger) and told me that he was going to move my cigarettes and phone to the back table so he could finish cleaning the bar.
I remember feeling like I ought to have told him just how many drinks I had already had that night but something stupid told me that it would make me sound ungrateful or unappreciative.
Like I didn't want to accept his kindness.

He is always so kind to me.
So considerate.
He goes far out of his way to make me feel special, to let me know that I matter to him.
And that I matter a lot.
Again considering those moments in hindsight I see my flawed propriety and over care to refrain from giving any possible notion of distance.
It's like I was so intent on looking out for myself in my happiness that I neglected to look out for myself in my wisdom.

When we finally left Saucebox, Sean, David and I went over to Valentine's for a night cap.
(Incidentally, I fully recognized my then severe inebriation and yet I continued to feign a "moderate tipsiness" in order that I not appear foolish). I found myself upstairs, nestled into a worn leather couch with Sean, beer in hand, my body weary from the comprehensive poisoning it had endured throughout the duration of the still unfolding night.

We talked, we kissed, we stayed close to one another in a warm comfort.
And I finished my beer.

I think he had started to catch on.
I was far too smiley.
My sentences kept trailing off into unintelligible drivel.
I wasn't moving much.

When I finally got up to use the restroom I remember nearly tripping down the staircase, catching myself just in time to make it appear as if an unsuspected chair had simply surprised my sure feet.

I could feel Sean's gaze following me in a shepherding concern as I fumbled through the route from the mezzanine to the dark painted and beaten looking fiberglass door into the unisex bathroom.
I felt guilty.

I felt stupid and clumsy and I felt like I was disappointing him.

I've always been afraid of acting my own age and I have spent years trying to prove to everyone that I'm "just older inside." I remember once telling someone that I liked it when people assumed I was older because it made me feel like all of my efforts to that end were starting to show up in my constant behavior.

Closing the flimsy bathroom door I felt the inescapable youngness of my 22 years.
"See," said my own voice inside my ears, "you're just like everybody assumes you are."
I didn't even look in the mirror.
I couldn't bear the thought of staring my haggard, shameful self in the face.
Moments later Sean knocked on the door to check on me and I felt angry.
Not at him.
At myself.
"Great," there was my voice again, "now he has to babysit you. God, you're pathetic right now. You know better."

I grumbled something about being fine and tried to clean myself up enough to emerge looking at least somewhat credible.
Fuck it. It wouldn't have mattered if I had taken 2 minutes or 10, I would look just as slovenly and still be as drunk as I was when I shuffled in.

Sean and I walked out to the locked bikes with him calmly informing me that we would be walking over the bridge.

I don't really know what came over me.
I was still angry.
I was still ashamed.
I was still drunk.
But all at once I felt this urge to run away. To relieve him of the burden I was all too quickly becoming.
I quietly but determinedly mounted my bike and set off at a hearty clip. Sean began to yell after me, commanding me not to ride. If I had been less of an ass I would have stopped right where I was and realized the depth of care he had for me and my safety but instead I kept riding. I kept pushing and pushing, steering in jolted, noodling trails over the ridged gradient of the cement.

Upon reaching the other side of the bridge I suddenly realized that I had made a terribly mistake and the guilt I had begun to feel previously inflated into a crushing self-hatred. I halted my bike and stepped off, not bothering to survey the road behind me.
I knew Sean was coming.
He wasn't happy.

When the cold screech of his slowing bike frame pierced through the humming in my ears I looked up to see his face as he came to a full stop.

"Do you wanna fight me on this," he asked with a sad indignation.

My eyes fell as I quietly stated that I really shouldn't be riding.

"No," he replied, his voice settling, "now let's walk."

I didn't say anything. My throat had tightened to the point that all I could do was wheeze a tattered breath and nod without looking up from my crestfallen and dejected downward stare.

We walked for several blocks and I attempted to make conversation but all that ended up coming out were piecemeal snippets of different versions of "I'm sorry," and "I feel stupid."
I felt so low. So needy and unforgivable.

It felt as if attempting to ameliorate myself would be nothing but futile at this point so I instead went the route of self-implication.
But no matter what I said Sean refused to berate me.
He just walked with me, calmly reassuring me that we would soon be home, in bed, and he would hold me. Just hold me.

I wanted to accept him so badly.
I just wanted to grasp onto his words like a life ring and float above the surface of the expansive sea of self defeat I found myself floundering in.

But somehow I had convinced myself that I didn't deserve to be saved.
He was offering me life support and I was yanking the plug out of the outlet.

I was being such a baby.
A fucking child.
I was acting like everything I had always tried so hard to escape, to rise above.

And who would happen to have front row seats to the show but this man I loved so desperately.

"Why?"

The word forced its way out of my mouth like I had just vomited.

"Why what," asked Sean, stopping to look me in the eye.
I couldn't speak. In his face I searched intensely for a hint of blame, of disappointment, of something other than the beautiful comfort and concern etched in every feature. But there was no finding what simply wasn't there.

I found my voice. "Why are you putting up with me right now? I'm a mess. I'm an embarrassment."

He paused before responding. It's like he knew that I just needed to keep reading the care in his eyes for a few more moments.

And then he spoke,

"Because I love you, Noah."

For a brief moment I lost sight of all of the loathing and cruel scrutiny I had fixated upon myself.
Even in this most naked weakness I felt so, so happy.

I feel like I have a tendency to seek out happiness with a proviso of its fleeting nature.
That is, I want to be happy but once I am I begin to expect that it won't last.
I've allowed myself to make joy a conditional experience as opposed to a mindset and something I justifiably deserve.

We arrived at Sean's house and Aisha met us at the door in usual excitement. She nipped at my nose with a gummy snap and playfully jumped up, planting her solid paws just above my knees to make her ears all the easier to ruffle with my cold, dry palms.

She's such a beautiful creature with such a loving instinct.
It's like she knew I needed that little extra push of reassurance that I was, indeed, wanted.
She wanted me to be there. She wanted me to be with Sean, in her house.

The happiness I had been feeling (through the vague mask of a cloud of drunkenness) grew just a little more and I began to make my way upstairs.
Heading right into the bedroom I struggled to drop my heavy bag and kick off my boots.
They wouldn't budge.
I tried and tried and tried.
I couldn't get them to come off.

I sat down on the edge of the bed and surrendered to untying the laces.
And then it hit me.
What if this was the beginning of the end?
What if Sean was being sweet and caring for now but later on, reminiscing about the night when I made a drunken and childish fool out of myself, he would start to step out of love with me.

I tugged at the laces but even then they resisted.
I had made them all the tighter with the attempts to exit the boots by force.

Sean came in at that moment with a glass of water and sat down next to me.
I looked up at him and all of the newfound terror and confusion must have been written across my face because he considered my look for a moment and then matched it with his own confounded frown.

"Noah, what is it?"
He asked so innocently and all I wanted to do was kiss him and collapse.

So I did.

"Noah, what's wrong."

There was a smidgen of worry in his innocence.
I felt all of the air seeping out of my lungs as if they were made out of mesh.
My nape tightened again and the once mushy hairs on my cheeks now felt hot and uncomfortable like so many cactus barbs.
I found myself clinging to Sean's seated waste, my prostrate body curled around his like a shrugged off shawl.

"Please don't go away," I whispered in a dire sounding gasp.

"What do you mean," he replied. The worry was still there.
I clung to him tighter.

"Just...please don't go away."
The last syllable escaped in a screechy squeak as I felt the liquid heat of tears pressing its way up my throat.

"Noah, what do you mean, I'm not going anywhere." Sean's voice seemed to be getting more intentional. The worry was fully palpable now.

"Not now, no," I began in a quaky, meandering tone, "but please don't go away."
It was as if I was too overwhelmed to come up with anything else to say. Just then my chin jolted with the first staccato sob.
"I'm afraid."

At that moment I felt Sean's strong hands gently but firmly come under my arms and lift me to where he could wrap encircle my chest and speak right into my ear.

"What are you afraid of," he asked calmly.

I wrapped my arms around his neck like heavy scarves. I was crying now.
"I'm afraid you'll go away," I whimpered into his breast, wetting his shirt with warm salt water "I'm afraid you'll leave me- 'cause I drive you away by acting like this."
I crumpled into a slouching mess of convulsing pain putting my full weight onto the back of his neck.

"Noah," he said my name decisively. Strongly.
I was still too overcome to release the freedom of the sobbing.
"Noah," this time it came out quieter, hushed like an angel's voice, full of ethereal peace paired with a deep-seated adoration.

"I'm in this."
He said it like nothing else mattered.
"What I have with you...

... it's special...

...I love you."

As soon as I heard the last words I began sobbing with an epic fervor.
I became audibly racked with the rhythmic exhalations of the whole night's pent up fear, worry, embarrassment, shame, and hope for a second chance.

How could I have reduced everything I had experienced with Sean into something so menial, trivial even?

I was happy.
I deserved to be happy.
(There, I said it.)
I believed it, more importantly.

A few minutes more of the crying and phlegm and saliva I had calmed down enough to readdress my still-laced boots and was somehow able to convince the knots apart with my shaking, wet fingers.

Sean lay down next to me and stroked my cheek with the back of his hand and just looked into my eyes with a barely visible smile.
A smile that told me it was alright to be me.
It was alright to be 22.
It was alright to get drunk and ride a bike across a bridge.
It was alright to be afraid and to hold happiness suspect.

Just learn from it.



Just don't let it happen again.

Exhaustion

I am so, so tired right now.

This is most likely the result of having been the recent victim of a vicious cold.
As soon as it reared it's phlegmy head I responded with intentional and formulated retaliation: Emergen-C, gummy vitamin C, and Airborne have been the mainstay of my diet over the course of the last 48 hours.

And while I know that by nipping it in the bud, I rendered the longevity of the ailment moot, I'm still dealing with the feeling that my insides have been put through the ringer.

I wish I could say that being sick was likened to the micro form of vomiting: the anticipation is torture but the catharsis leaves such a purified and resolved feeling of cleanliness.

I feel kind of dirty.
Kind of thin.
Kind of worn.

Threadbare.

But I'm sure I'll feel better tomorrow.

It's late.
I'm tired and a bit sniffly.

I think I'm experiencing the onset of a minor cold.
I'm telling myself it will be minor only to try and pre-convince my system to maintain a constant fortitude in the face of an onslaught of possible illnesses.

And yet I know I'm resilient.
I know I'll heal in completion and be all of the way me again.

And then there's that phone call.
The voice that tells me the truth and I crumble a little.
The fences designed to contain me are only there to protect passers by.
It's like those wire nets that hold off landslides from major highways.

And right now all I can do is let the pieces fall to the ground with a ramshackle happiness.
He told me something special and it's just his and mine.
It's just ours for now, for this moment.

I can't say no.

The Final Clash of an Unnecessary Cymbal

After having endured a small number of superfluous and overly acerbic comments made by a Facebook "friend" with whom I maintained a constant feeling of frustration, I finally reached my limit today (just now, in fact) and left him the following message, subsequently deleting him from my listed network.

I feel like I put it rather well ergo I'm recording it for myself here.

"Seriously Nathan,
I've reached my limit where your cynicism and negativity are concerned.

Not once have you written anything edifying, enlightening, or remotely interesting anywhere on my page, via message, or even in your public posts for that matter.

Clearly you have something of a comprehensive bitterness or an incredibly tasteless sense of humor.

Either way I am no longer willing to entertain your verbal garbage and would appreciate you respecting my aversion to any contact on your part.

Perhaps you'll come into a new found sense of hope and propriety at some point in the near future but until then I would contemplate very carefully any further writing you may or may not do in contacting others.

And on a final note, not voting is a vote all of its own.
Take some social responsibility and engage the system, imperfect as it may be.
Otherwise all of your complaint and correction fall on the deaf ears of those assertive and intentional enough to invest in the current politic."

I feel very, very good about this and think I'll treat myself to some chocolate.

Hurray!

Allowing myself (yet another) brief pause to reflect on a lovely and very uplifting compliment, I feel consciously mandated to record it on this, my literary effort at self-preservation.

Today, not a half hour ago, my writing professor told me, with a pleased gleam in her smile-squinted eyes and a "well, hm" tilt to her whole head that I have a knack for verbs.

That quite truly made my whole afternoon at school.

Pssssst...

*whispering*

I have so much to tell you.

*giddy silence*

One Final Chant Dans La Nuit

I know it's shameless and rather self-inflating but I really liked this comment I just posted on Ally's Blog.

I thought I ought to seal it into my digital annals as well.

"Incongruous.

It's so final and ultimate.
And yet it seems like the most aimless insurmountable thing.

I have been as improperly signified.
I have walked in such perplexity.
And I have been left standing in the midst of utter loneliness.
And yet I still have my crisp, black peacoat.

The one simple treasure of being alone is scoffing in the face of the cold and biting wind.
Why? Because you're dressed warmly in the knowledge of friendship.
And it just so happens that ours looks particularly smashing on you.

Love you."

And right when I thought things were looking up...

I've got to try being less dire in my titles.
This isn't a television show and I'm not struggling for ratings.

I'm up far too late this evening as a result of much-needed roommate talks, online quizzes, and procrastinated homework.

Here I am at nearly 5am finally feeling somewhat tired only instead of it being the calm, ready tired, I'm the antsy, achy tired.
The kind that makes your stomach hurt and your skin feel offensive to itself.

And then there are my fuzzy eyes.
It's like someone's squeezing them from behind.
Like their bathing in lemon juice.
And growing some hair, too.

I don't know.
I think this is all just a result of me being really exhausted from a long weekend, a great wedding (which I will definitely be writing about soon enough) and a marvelous take away breakfast (again, I owe myself more entries).

For now I'll try to sleep off this wretched clunkiness.

Garbage.
Wet, hot garbage.

Steamy little transparent tendrils of filthy moisture snaking toward the sky.

That's how I felt.

To Be Sinister

"Throughout classical as well as biblical literature (most specifically in Shakespearean poetry and prose) the left side is referred to as the 'sinister' or inferior; the side of imperfection and shame. Meanwhile the right is regarded as the dominant, better developed and therefore more highly regarded and honorable half.
When it comes to the notion of ability where the left vs. right concept is concerned I feel that the left is actually the side of truer aptitude because it is the real, honest, gritty and visceral manifestation of human imperfection. What one can do with their right/dominant side tends to be considered their best because it is the most disciplined. And yet, as I see it, that which is done with true effort and the 'lesser side', although the end result might be less than Plato's forms might encourage, is the representation of the best one might do when at one's lowest.
It's true. Therefore it is veritably beautiful."

And Everywhere A Haze

My bedspread is scattered
with the
paper remains
of too many responsibilities
to count.

Unlike my floor
whose peaceful emptiness
guides my soles to
safety.

Soon I'll climb
beneath the covers.
Maybe even all of the way.
Then I'll see
nothing but polka dots
and filtered light.

Because at least then I'll know
the light is there
to be my friend
and my guide.

Even thought it isn't
there with me.

I've wanted you more
than I've wanted
light. And more
than I've wanted polka dots.

And I don't
even know how much
I want them.

Your voice is warm
and light.
And dotted with the
the honesty you
refuse to part
with.

If I could have you
speak into my comforter,
if I could have you
scatter your remnants
even if only above and about
my blankets,
then I could know.

You are so much
more than an accumulation
of papers and ink.

But you weigh
down on me like beachwood.
Stripped.
Dried.
Abused.
And so beautiful.

And thus I lay a hand
on my own hand.
Smudged with ink spots.

And I am safe.

Daylight Not Far Behind

And thus we come to the close of yet another day.
Only this day, unlike all of the rest, made me feel so...

...so...

...intentionally vapid?

I couldn't really say without sounding like yet another one of those long-winded buffoons set so intently on coming off as brilliantly misunderstood and thus I maintain a moderation in tone.

Nonetheless, I shall remain honest.
It's my final and paramount pursuit.

Earlier, within the confines of just some more posed socializing, I remember informing (or should I say "finding verification in") a friend that we had arrived, we had become. We were, by all exterior examination, a newly finalized addendum to a preexisting clique of purportedly clique-hating elitists.

"We played our parts to perfection!"
I exclaimed with undisguised thrill and fervor.
Our bikes coasted hummingly along the 20th avenue corridor.
We were freezing in the unexpected cold and yet we still found reason to smile.
We patted ourselves on chameleon skin backs as we melded from "them" back to "us."

But how much difference might really remain?
Are the separations bleeding into noteworthy perforations in the papering of life?

Of course, with care and gentleness, we can separate ourselves from this bold tribe and yet we don't really want to.
If anything, we find it all too appealing to engross ourselves in the mendacity of a people group defined by their supposed genuineness.

And so we begin to shut the door of our closeted Gap shirts, H&M scarves, and good grades.
We deny potato chips and fast food.
We ascribe to the commonly held norms and beliefs and further fuel the ridiculousness of the drunken group think.

But what is the alternative?
Where is the true cut off between us as people and us as members?

Perhaps I ask because I don't know or perhaps I ask because I think I know and want to be satisfied with outward agreement.
Moot.

My right has been handling the entire night up until this point.
It's time for the left to step back into play.,

Today I've elected to do some very determined, very inescapable writing.

I've got an outline and synopsis.
I've got characters and situations.

I've got the words and the wherewithal.

And now all I'm missing is the determination.

I'm quickly learning to trust no one.

It seems so definite and disparaging and yet here I am, alone in a candlelit room asking myself that same question: why depend?

I look at life as some kind of bolt of fabric.
It's rolled together all neatly until I start to try and feel my way through the fibers and then all of the possibilities that hovered just above it like words or figures over a blank page seem to unravel.
To disappoint.

I try to be that one line of selvage grasping desperately at the passionately chaotic fraying at the edge of all of this madness.
I want to hold everything and everyone together and mostly myself.

But why do people have to let go.
It's as if their holding onto a vital string goes away and suddenly I have to come up with a whole new garment, tapestry, pattern.

I'm tired.

I May Lead a Life of Luck

Whenever I fall into a state of seemingly permanent malaise and backwardness I find that only the abnormal experiences of a happenstance life stand any chance of jarring me from my self-victimizing complacence.

But why did it have to happen like this?

Why did fate seem so willing to pull me along on a knotted string while caring so little for my bumbling, foul-footed romantic self?

That question has, I'm sure, been posed many a time throughout the ages by many different people in many different manners as a result of many different experiences.
Even so, I feel like my asking is something individual, something particular, unique, special.

When we arrived at the curbside I felt the rising warmth of recognition for the small group of people encircling the small black table.
And then, on second perusal, I found myself the object of a cosmic joke as the woman I love sat so close to the man I might and the man I did.

God, could I be any less prepared?
Don't ask.
Don't ask me that question.


Only do.
Please do.
I want and sometimes even think I need to talk about it but I still end up feeling ill-spoken, totally scattered, and all around childish when finally discussing the matter at any length.

As if I didn't have a hard enough time trying to make up my mind...about anything.

I've finally begun to have some faith in my potential.
Not to say it was completely absent before now but I could tell I'd wrapped it up tightly in a swaddling of over-analysis and bereft spirit.

And yet here I sit, new found excitement and propulsion rocketing me into a state of flight...or perhaps pre-flight.
I'm not quite airborne just yet.
But I know I'm well on my way.

I've seen the beauty of a fresh, crisp morning droop sloppily into a dank and uncomfortably gray afternoon only to once again rise from the cloudy ashes to exquisite, dawn like brightness.

In that metaphor is easy to assume that I'm like the daylight or even the sun itself however I choose to think of myself as being, well, me.
The person standing on the last corner of a rough rooftop, staring into the oblivion of an azure, to stone, to miracle sky.
It's all surrounding me in a watercolor blend.
I feel the occasional pebble interrupting the sloping tiles like periods in a descriptive paragraph, punctuating the otherwise apparent floor with the reminder that it's actually a ceiling...and I am above it.

Maybe this is flying.

My Fairy Godfathers

Having spent the last week in a state of lurching course and breakneck pace I found myself at the end of my rope on Friday night.

I happened to come to a state of sudden deflation (or should I say suddenly realized deflation).

It was then that in swooped my two Fairy Godfathers to rescue me from the misfit of malaise.

I love Marc and Floyd.

Whenever I find myself in a state of panic I tend to have one of those moments where I realize that no matter what can happen outside of me to distress and frighten, I'll still be here when it's over.

I'll survive. I'll continue.
It's nothing of an ending point.

Perhaps the notion of ending is just what I'm afraid of, just what holds me around the midsection just above my navel and pains me with relentless tension.

Perhaps.

Noah's Midnight Blunder

Somewhere owls, quite preened and screechy,
Hooted something fierce and preachy.
Hailing down the night's dark shutter,
Not a wing would dare to flutter.

You see this night would hold in feature,
Pain and suff'ring for one creature
Thick enough to coast quite blindly
Down a street shaped quite unkindly.

And here before we've gone too far,
Allow me to unveil our star!
A lad of lank and wit and mettle,
Blithe and happy e'er to pedal.

This happy, handsome, playful youth
Would soon be howling "oh, forsooth"
And all because of his neglect
To light his lamps so they'd reflect

The dangers of impending tangle
With the concrete sure to mangle
Any who might dare have tried
With its surface to collide.

But lo, I grow too quickly pointed,
(My this story seems disjointed).
Let's go back to pre-dismemb'ring,
(It's germane to keen rememb'ring).

It was warm and slightly gusty,
Prompting girls to be quite busty.
Guys would follow in like manner,
Wearing tank tops to get tanner.

I, of course, enjoying Summer,
Bore my skin (a future bummer),
And rode my bike with boorish grin,
This combo forming my chagrin.

For as it's said through time and story,
Dumb and young leads not to glory,
Only to a painful humbling,
Typically involving tumbling.

So there it was, a lovely night,
And once again did I alight
Upon my French-constructed bike,
Named Jean-Françoise (I hope you like).

The two of us then did proceed,
To follow fellow rider's lead,
Up a hill and 'round a corner,
I took front and so did warn her,

Of all minor interruptions
Found in moonlit street's corruptions.
And all progressed so peachy keenly
If only curbs bit not so meanly.

For on that sloping avenue
There soon approached a change in view.
Where 27th meets with Lincoln
Drivers should refrain from blinkin'

For the street does take a bending
Rearranging traffic sending
mobiles 'round an aged arbor.
One predating old Pearl Harbor.

And yet that night, as luck would irk,
A hateful force was fast at work.
And blocked this hero's chestnut eyes
From seeing my most cruel demise.

The moonlight fell in dappled spray,
Illuminating most roadway,
Except for where that dratted Elm,
Took up the street (and smacked my helm).

For though I saw tree's shading rafter,
I viewed the street before and after.
And thus assuming all was fine,
Did steer in a diagonal line.

Now this, of course, was my undoing,
For in my quick perfunct'ry viewing
I didn't make a point to seek
If soonish turn be more oblique.

Which it was and naught could change it,
Oh, that I could rearrange it.
And thus in my assumed route,
Did quickly, harshly find it out.

I coasted smoothly through the night,
Looking not for launch or flight,
And yet then I was given both
(I WAS, I swear it, by my troth).

So my direction did perturb,
For *SMASH* my wheel did hit the curb,
And off I went into the dirt,
with curses for my sleeveless shirt.

But this whole flight did take some time,
And my, I'm sure it looked sublime.
I flew and twisted like a sack
And landed square upon my back.

Whereon I slid to grinding halt,
My skin now filled with fresh asphalt.
And silent bones then got much bolder,
For don't you know? I broke my shoulder.

My body's once so silent frame,
Began to scream from recent maim,
And off I went with help of friends,
To the ER for meds and mends.

My clavicle and scapula
Were blown to worthless crapula.
And I was forced by curb's stark fling
To spend some time inside a sling.

And yet in all this happenstance,
I was given special chance
To see just how much people loved me,
Even though that curb had shoved me.

So here I am, now nearly healed,
And most all scabs are dried and peeled,
The thought still running through my head,
"At least I didn't smash up dead!"

But more than my own safe recovery,
My great treasure and discovery,
Was what my fellow rider said,
Once she knew I wasn't dead:

"This may sound wrong and kind of brash,
(Who knows, it very well may be)
I'm kind of glad that he did crash...

...'Cause if not him, it would have been me."

Sedentary

So, I'm sitting here, in bed, a lovely red blanket wrapped loosely around my naked torso, eagerly awaiting yet another episode of some show that I missed on television to finish buffering so I can sit back and be totally placated by something colorful and active.

I'm reading over that last line and realizing just how infantile it really seems.
Much like a newborn, all one must do to keep me quiet and happy is to lay me down in bed and place a lazily rotating mobile above me so that I can just watch its polychromatic dance.
Only my mobile is sex, violence, and witty repartee.

I wonder whether or not I should be alarmed by the plain and simple fact that I'm self-medicating my would be boredom with something not requiring much more than a few keystrokes and absolutely minimal brain function.

Then again, I could justify my behavior in saying that I'm quite aware of the innocuous nature of my current pastime and therefore find myself free from the clutches of its possibly harmful consequence: namely vegetablism.

If I know it and do it critically then I should be safe, right?

That's so full of loop holes that even I can see light coming through from the other side.
I guess if it were true I could be critically smoking right now. Critically eating nothing but sugar.
Critically stripping at Saturday Market.

The list goes on.

Regardless, the final point is that I really don't have any justification for sitting in bed, watching some television episode.

Ergo, I should get up and shower.
So I will.




After this episode.

I have some social problems.
They tend to border on dishonesty but then again, social dishonesty is by no means a new concept.

So when I say problems I'm referring more to the after effects of my actions as opposed to the actions themselves.

I like to be a creative and diversely interesting conversationalist.
This requires a quick wit, ingenuity and a relatively comprehensive grasp of the English language and its vocabulary.

This all being said, I have to admit I have a tendency to secretly hold to a minor amount of timidity with regard to introducing novel ideas and/or aphorisms. I keep this shyness within my personal arcana in order that my confidence in speech won't falter or be suspect by those with whom I am engaging.

This comes out most often in the form of my "re-telling something someone else once said" when in reality I just came up with it myself. Or "recounting an idea I've had for a while now," when in truth it just occurred to me and I am making it up as I go.

Like I said these actions aren't the end of the world and by no means make me some interactive fiend. And yet in antithesis to besmirching my character, I am refraining from allowing it to be polished, amended to, and improved.
By allowing others to believe that the witty and pithy statements I'm dropping ever so appropriately into a conversation belong to anyone other than myself (when they are one-hundred percent originally my own) I'm removing the ability for the audience to attribute that communicative brilliance to me and instead it goes wafting out over the sea of some nebulous "other" who never gets any real credit anyway because of the blatant fact that they don't exist.

As for bringing up implicitly "long standing ideas" as if I've been developing them for some time and am only just now ready to discuss them in their gravity and complexity, I'm robbing myself of the respect gained for a quick mind and deep thought.

Upon this reflection I rest a huge amount of recent discontent with my articulation.
Whether social, personal or otherwise, I'm through with this meaningless and petty fear of being disappointing.

The only reason I can see for my ridiculous behavior is indeed that I am afraid I'll come off as "unfunny, uninspired, and terribly banal."

This just won't do.

When I told you I wasn't really interested I guess I should've been clearer.
It's not that I'm not really interested, the truth is that I have no inclination towards you whatsoever.

Maybe this is too quick, too harsh, too something you come up with to make yourself feel like a victim.

Well I've been told I'm "too" a lot of things.
I guess if I could give you some advice from the perspective of a rather superfluous person, learn to be excited about your details but don't take offense when your details don't earn you massive brownie points with the people still too afraid to be who they are at 100%.

Is this advice meant to be something universally applicable?
Maybe.
But I'll be honest in saying that I'm not interested in telling everyone.
Mostly just you.

I'm making a promise to myself.
It's nothing new.
Nothing I haven't promised before.
More than anything it's a reminder to be more of myself.
To fulfill the possibility, the potential I know I have in me.

I'm writing again.
What's new?
But this time I'm promising myself to write each day.
Write a single page at first.
Whether just for the sake of practicing my penmanship and/or typing skills or to actually produce something I'm proud to show.

Either way at least I'll be doing something worthwhile with my presently dormant sense of discipline.

On with this show, open the stage door and let in the extras because there is more to this presentation than soliloquy.
Light up the stage with a hundred expectant faces.

And together we'll light the whole audience on fire.

Once I made love to a boy who hated himself.
Needless to say the feeling ended up being somewhat contagious.
And, as with many of the infections resulting from sex, it was something of a viral problem.

The resulting pregnancy of self-scorn and disgust made for one hell of a diagnosis by the time I finally sought ought an additional opinion.

I felt the very water in my blood turn to brine and the flesh on my bones became like limp, pallid rags.

Then, just when I thought I was showing signs of improvement the worst symptom plastered itself to the space beneath my skin.

Numbness.
Complete disconnect from everything.
It was like loneliness only worse due to the feeling of irreparable maladjustment, like I would never be able to engage in life ever again.

Sure, things would continue to happen around me but that meant I was left to the torture of seeing everything I wanted but couldn't have pass me by, moment by moment, day by day.

Then I got up, wiped the stray and crackled partially dried semen from off of my midsection and realized that I felt guilty no matter how I masturbated.

Thank you, Jesus.

Hateful Neglect

I've been somewhat sparse in my online writing these last several days.
I believe the reason to be that I have been much more mobile than I have in quite some time.

Once again I find myself house sitting for my darlings, Marc and Floyd.
Dearest little Sherman does seem to anticipate my arrivals with such an eagerness that I might be convinced to move in permanently.

I wouldn't dream of imposing on the office seeing as how I'm sure I'd be the utter end of both Marc and Floyd's creative output and that just wouldn't do.

I've taken it upon myself to voluntarily take over the master bedroom complete with its King sized mattress and spacious closet.

I know, I'm something of a modern day saint.

I cannot wait for the two of my hosts to return home to find my belongings tastefully integrated into their lush living environment.

The rager really helped to give me something of a clean slate to start from with regard to interior (not to mention exterior) re-decorating.

I hope they won't mind that big spot on the carpet or the fantastic new openness brought about the removal of the piano and couches...I told them not to take anything.

Silly teenagers.

The Feel of the Air on Your Thighs When They're First Freed From Your Pantlegs

It's a refreshing and disgusting feeling being up past 5am.
Everything in me wishes I were already sleeping and sleeping hard.
Dreaming of little rosy animals and impossibly high flights above some green, leafy forest filled with bright and delicious fruits, dulcet melodies, and beautiful raw sexual encounters of all but unmarred innocence.

This is the feeling of loneliness in a space designed for being solitary.
It's the feeling a novice experiences, no doubt, during those first trying weeks at the convent.
Wanting everything and yet in everything wanting to want nothing.

Paradoxical, it may seem, and yet there's an ambitious beauty in its undertaking.
It's as if she wills herself to be all that she doesn't desire to be in the first instance just so that she can predict the following instances with unchecked and uninteresting accuracy.

I'd rather find comfort of the lucidity of dreaming than in this place at this very hour.

Sleep should act as a perfect poison to my current vivification.

Safety...first and finally

Looking no less defiant than a Jew on Easter, I entered a number of sporting goods shops this past Monday in order that I might finally acquiesce to the requests cum commands of my superiors and purchase an em-effing helmet.

Yes, I'm finally protecting my brain...
...and my email account.
(Thanks Marc and Mum for the incessant crash photograph attachments, I'll treasure them always).

And while I may require serious therapy to overcome the psychological damage done by the constant viewing of bloody, helmetless gore, I'm sure that will be far less expensive than physical therapy.

On a more resplendent note, I purchased a new bike this past Sunday (thus predicating my need for a helmet). And it's quite a lovely and exciting little zipper. While I may not have the same protective attachment to it as I did my former vehicle, what with the kidnapping incident and all, I'm sure the bond he and I have created will surpass all former connections.

I'm still trying to come up with perfect French name.
I was thinking Francois or something but I wanted it to be a little more left of center.

Anyway, here's his picture (and mine)!

I just joined GoodReads!

I know, it may seem innocuous but I'm relatively excited about the new membership.

This is the first review I wrote for my profile.

The Giver by Lois Lowry

My review

rating: 5 of 5 stars
This is my favorite book, bar none.

The innocence with which Lowry addresses such heinous acts of obtuse social crafting is a thing of delicate genius.



I will forever remember the sensation of warmth I experienced the first time Jonas was receiving and the aghast feeling of disbelief when the apple flies through the air.



This chronicle of the marginalization of the human condition is absolutely stunning.


View all my reviews.

You can tell I how I am by the state of my nails

Noah looks down at his haggard fingertips, examining with curious disgust the frayed bits and shallow divots vertically papering his dry and cracked cuticles.

"I'm nearing the end of this brief period of madness,"
he thinks to himself as he tries to ignore them while lathering his digits in the watery remains of the last dregs of a tired looking soap dispenser.

As the pallid and dirty gray bubbles accrue, he stops for a moment to enjoy the filmy, glove-like layer of covering mess before clean.
He likes to feel the small pockets of cool air pepper his skin as the weak bubbles burst in a sound almost like TV snow at an incredibly reduced volume.

He pushes the faucet handle with his still dry wrist so as to avoid spreading the grimy suds and thrusts his cupped palms beneath the flowing water, letting the shock of liquid cool carry away the hot, sticky layer of sweat, dirt and dead skin.
Regarding them with the delicacy of a godparent, Noah rotates his limp hands to thoroughly rinse the remaining soap from between his fingers.

He returns the sink-mounted handle to its original place and steeps himself in the momentary silence after the fierce rush of water ceases, closing his eyes to fully appreciate the half-second of meditative quiet.

His eyes open. He picks up the towel from its hook near the window.
His hands feel cold and mushy and shine with a refreshing brilliance.
He wraps them tenderly in the folds of tufted cotton, massaging the moisture out of his smooth skin.

Replacing the towel on its hook, Noah seats himself on the bathtub's edge and rests an elbow on his knee and his chin in his clean hand.

There are those ragged nails again.
Staring him in the face.

But this time he smiles, thinking to himself, "I really am nearing the end of this brief period of madness."

J'aime Les Papillons

I've known for awhile that I have a tendency to begin my writing with an active tilt.
I like to use verbs as my introduction to assure the reader's inclusion in the forward motion of my recounting.

This time I've chosen to begin with the less common although equally popular "I..." statement to allow the person reading inside my life/head/opinion.

Regardless of my starting point, it's really the continuation that matters.
Speaking of which, this morning, as I was sitting outside, enjoying a cup of coffee and murdering my lungs with yet another cigarette, I caught a glimpse of a lovely Monarch floating with aimless intention through the leafy masterpiece framed by the archway of the porch.

Every time I see a butterfly I think of that moment with Jewelia in the white beat up grand am. Our smoke traveled skyward as that tiny royalty wove its way through the slender veins of burnt tobacco.

And to think of where I am now as opposed to then offers me a keener understanding of just how grateful I am to be...where I am, who I am, how I am...all of them.

Signs of metamorphosis never seemed so chance and beautiful.
To me.

Digging My Own Comfortable Grave

Of my own accord, I neglected to go to bed before 4:30 am for the last two nights.
Needless to say I've been somewhat torpid the whole day as a result.

I can't say that I wish I would have slept more even though it would doubtless translate into an increase in energy right now.
I look to my time spent in the last 48 hours as being not only fulfilling but also adventurous.
Lord knows I'm constantly in search of a new and wondrous adventure.

With today marking the 1-week countdown to the imminent move to the house that God built (aka: Clinton Manor) I feel a little twinge of anticipatory stress as I realize that I will have to pack, move, unload, and organize yet again.

I'm so tired of this vanishing act.
I feel like the moves I've made in the last year of my life have been excessively draining and yet I know that the result of those moves has been decisively gratifying in a very comprehensive way with each relocation.

I've found newer better spaces, an increased sense of entitlement and empowerment, and an expanded knowledge of the city in which I reside.

It's a glorious life.

Hotcakes and Beer Cans

I'm only just now returning from a night of completely unpredicted fun and frolic.
I worked for more than 12 hours and felt a keen sense of defeat in that I spent my day doing precisely jack squat.

That is, until the evening began.
I can honestly say that with the Sun's setting came the true start of my day.

Andie and I biked to my house where we deposited our personal items in order that we might attend a nearby party.
By nearby I mean a mere 3 blocks away.

We went, sat on a sloping grassy hillside, drank canned beer from a once ice-filled kiddie pool and kicked it with PDX's finest.

Afterwards, recognizing an unquenchable hunger, we biked to Original Hotcake House.
But not before Kyle had the opportunity to grace with a special little present in the form of a spoke card reading, "Kid-Tested, Mother Fuckin' Approved."

I felt pretty sweet.
And my shoddy-ass bike looked all the better for the addition.

I cannot wait to get a new bike.

Anyway, we went and ate artery-clogging goodness, talked about periods, incest, and Cholula, and had an all around smashing time.

We then went our separate ways home and now I am writing this.
Granted, I'm tired as Hell and completely beat.

The Strangest of Places

It seems to me that my life has once again become quite lucky.

I am led to believe that this is due to my outlook, my decision to see the world as I see it and react accordingly.

So much of what I experience is like a lush fern: bursting with vibrant green life and full in shape and exposure, and even on the underside there is complexity, pattern, intention.

Having only just returned from a late night rendezvous which was, to borrow the colloquialism, a pleasant surprise, I feel reassured that life is meant to be lived in such a way that it's detail is not understood but respected.

I embrace the experiences I have had and look forward to those I will have in a way that I shall call beautifully inevitable.

Que sera, sera. Whatever will be, will be.

And in a final flair of timeless glory...


...never do with your right what you may with your left.

Damsel and Knight

Once again repelling the social stereotype of polarized masculinity/femininity where ability and helplessness are concerned, I succeeded this evening in proving my self-diagnosed schizophrenia.

I was both damsel and knight.
No, really.

Let me start this at the beginning (a very good place to start).

Picture me: a meek, demure, kind-hearted, virginal, and incredibly understated lad.
Picture the rest of the world: harsh, uncaring, obtuse, cruel, barren, hateful.
(Perhaps this is a bit generous in its caricature.)

Alright, allow me a new beginning, it's all Elizabeth Taylor ever asked for.
God knows my eyes are almost purple and my drug use is almost as crippling.

I worked this evening.
Not for a terribly lengthy period, only opening through happy hour.
After clocking off I was in sore need of a Red Velvet Cupcake from Cupcake Jones, (my favorite local cupcakery...yes, I coined that term for myself just now. Please hold your applause for later, more deserving accomplishment).

Riding my bicycle over to the shoppe (Yes, I chose the classic spelling to add depth and sophistication to my story, please take note.) it occurred to me to that I had the opportunity to donate a new sense of hope to some tragic soul by providing them with a cupcake of their own.

Now, I don't know how familiar you may or may not happen to be with Portland, but it's something of a cornucopia for tragic souls. It's like they congregate here to
a) find happiness and renewal,
b) seek out hip, young scenesters who drink coffee, smoke too much, listen to "really deep" music, get a lot of tattoos and say words like "Kantian" to compare themselves to and say "wow, I'm not so bad", or
c) gather with numerous other tragic souls and listen to Elliott Smith while bemoaning life's hateful injustice and cruel irony. They smoke, too.

Typically c (or some combination of both b and c) is the most popular choice.
The important part is really the smoking.

The tragic soul I carefully selected is irrelevant.
The salient point is that they work with me therefore requiring a hasty return to my place of employment.

After purchasing and quickly consuming my cupcake, I bought a second and had it wrapped to go. I then pedaled back to the restaurant, all the while smiling and considering just how marvelous and wonderful I was for being so thoughtful as to grace someone with my sugary cadeau. I felt like a bike-mounted, cupcake-bearing Mother Teresa. (Incidentally, this feeling is much better than drugs and should be explored by those who choose to embrace choice b from above.)

I arrived at my destination, cupcake in hand. Venturing only a momentary visit, I neglected to go through the hassle of locking my bike and prepared to experience the effulgent glory of selflessness. As I strode toward to door I was halted by a smiling brunette with a flattering and cheerful bob haircut. She asked to take my photograph.
"Your outfit is just fabulous," she broadcast. I'm quite sure neighboring tables couldn't help but hear her complimentary effusion. This made my narcissism entirely complete and I posed boorishly, cupcake on the pedestal of my upturned palm, and a look of asinine pride smeared across my admittedly smug face.

After I finished channeling Christy Turlington, I walked inside, delivered my uplifting confection, and performed a stoic exit, the gravitas of my goodness weighing heavily upon my now-sainted shoulders.

My bike was missing.

"Shit,"

I thought to myself, envisioning the unused bike lock inside the bag on my back.
Disappointment began sliding its black fingers around my kidneys and through my intestines.

Suddenly Elliott Smith sounded very tempting.

Just then, I stole a longing and somewhat despondent glance down the sidewalk and to my surprise saw my bike riding off without me.

Queen Latifah's voice reverberated off of the walls of my skull,
"Aw, HEY-AL NO!"

Without so much as a second thought my legs began to carry me in a tackle-happy tilt toward the fiend who had absconded with my vehicle of choice.

Everything around me blurred into a 45-second tour of impressionism as I felt an surge of adrenaline coursing through my every fiber. With my bike and its rapist steadily gaining speed, I increased my own velocity and realized with a new sense of championship that I was actually gaining on the bastard.

He approached the end of the block and made a left, slowing a little to execute the turn.
I bent my head down, cutting violently through the light breeze as if it were a menacing headwind and continued to draw closer and closer.
I rounded the block myself only shortly after the bike and its miscreant rider and flew past a small number of unwitting passers by, ignoring their incredulous gasps as I robbed them of their boring evening. (They really should thank me for giving them just a bit of excitement...apparently I was in a giving mood all around this evening.)

Reaching the end of the current side of the block, I observed the kidnapper and my baby making their way once again to the left. By this point my incredible athleticism had made my victory all but imminent thus I craftily slowed just enough so that he wouldn't catch sight of me in his peripheral vision as he turned yet a second left in his journey of flaming sin.

As I rounded the turn myself I noted that the upcoming sidewalk played home to a number of small cafe tables outside of a petite bar, effectively adding a minor set of obstacles to further slow the idiot who dared upset the recently-titled "most selfless person in Portland."

I saw the faces of the patrons sitting at the outdoor tables go from casual to quizzical as they first saw the bike approach and then realized the talk, dark, and ridiculously handsome Mother Teresa cum gazelle careening after, his jaw set in unwaivering determination.

Mind you, I'm still running faster than Prefontaine, inwardly contemplating my first meeting with the vicious captor. I had several scenarios occur to me in my haste:
1. "The name is Buck, Noah Buck. I believe that is my bike."
2. "You spineless little bottom-dweller. Return my bicycle this instant!"
3. *blunt elbow to the side of the face*

I really, really wanted to do 3.

I felt myself get to that point of pre-orgasmic anticipation approaching climax as I came within an arm's length of the bike-stealing douche and with one final burst of speed came up alongside him and went into captive action.

Slamming my hand down on his fetal back, I gripped a handful of shirt, yanked him to a disciplinary and ramshackle stop, and shouted,
"Get the Fuck off of my ride, dude!"

With the desperation of a crazed mongoose, his beady, sub-human eyes grew large as a bull's testicles as he came to a harsh realization: he was as screwed as a nympho's date.

"I'm- I mean- I was- um-" he stuttered in shameful recoil.
"I don't care, ass hat. Get off of my bike," I replied in a tone reminiscent of scolding a pooping dog.
A very, very bad, thieving, pooping dog who stole my bike.

He seemed too drunk/stoned/tweaked to really come to grips with the full consequence of his present demise and yet somehow managed to muster enough cognizance to coherently utter,
"I was just bringing it back. I swear, I was just riding around-"
"Save it," I flatly replied while reassuming my proper place as resident navigator of my own vehicle.
Seeing as how I was slightly winded while simultaneously feeling a sense of victorious euphoria, I decided not to paint the sidewalk with his useless entrails and left him to slither back to the trailer park he thought he would escape in stolen-bike induced freedom.

As I rounded the, yes, third corner of the sizable block around which the hot pursuit had taken place, I heard the vomit pile behind me call out,
"Wait, come and talk to me."

I continued to pedal and blatantly ignored the innocuous blather of the newly-orphaned gutter snipe behind me.

"I'll give you a hundred dollars!" His voice sounded pained and slightly hurt as he gave his position one further attempt at credibility.

"For what, loser,"
I retorted in final farewell as I settled back into my familiar relationship with the freedom between my thighs.
(God, I hope I'm never separated from it again.
The bike, that is.)

If there's one thing to be learned from my harrowing and timeless ordeal it is that with hard work and determination, a person can do anything!
Unless they're a tragic soul...in which case I could recommend some great cigarettes and coffee shops.
Or perhaps a cupcake.

In an age of laziness...

Having read a short segment of Steinbeck's East of Eden recently as a favor to a fellow literary fanatic, I felt something of an admonishing guilt rise from my interpretation of the author's message concerning the intrinsic qualitative nature of mankind.

Steinbeck wrote of a preternatural predisposition toward goodness, badness, or a combination of the two traits as the three existing possibilities for human character.

His exploration of these aspects came from a frustration with the insipidity of post-industrialism creativity (or a lack thereof) and I equate that problem with my lack-luster infrequency when it comes to writing these days.

I miss it.
I genuinely do.

I need to go back to the "one page a day minimum" standard again.

We seek to be so disconnected, so airborne at all times in order that we might float with a knowing downward gaze at all of the common people below.

And yet it's in our Earth-bound plummets that we find ourselves rocketing into one another in a way that can only be called violent in order that those collisions might produce long-lasting scars of friendship and love.

Learning to write all over again

I'm feeling like something of a lazy dunce.

I haven't written anything of true substance in such a very, very long time.
It's as if I've turned away from a part of myself with whom I find little in common at the moment.

I do not like this.
I do not want this.
And yet here I am, in this very place I neither enjoy nor desire.

I'm so tired of being in such places.
I used to find them in cars, en route to parents' houses, in bars near whiny juke boxes, and on tables, in front of people who do not understand the needful dissolving of classism.

I feel faint at the thought of just how much I have yet to record and yet perhaps all of that possibility will act as fuel for a continued future effort.

I have so much to say and so much to hide.
And yet I wish to tear away the curtain.

What is it he's seeing?

Psychology is interesting...really, it is.
But right now I'm bored mindless.
It all seems so evident and clear, like reading the book will delineate something I already understood.

No, I'm not surreptitiously stroking my own ego, I'm just bored and rambling.

My stomach is growling at the most inopportune times and I'm growing less and less invested in the idea of sitting still, much less paying attention.

I guess this would be a good time to try and start catching myself back up on the life that I have set on the shelf for the last several months.
I shouldn't be terribly surprised, my writing consistency has never been stellar exactly.

I've spent such a great deal of time and energy working at overcoming the weather, the gray malaise surrounding so many of the corners I keep banishing myself into on a regular basis.

All of this gray and ugly weather is making me feel more and more like nothing matters more than sleep.
All I want to do is have a lot of money, little to no responsibility, a million books, a fire and a big plush bed with a handsome "reading partner."

This scene would be appropriately detailed with accessories such as Cabernet Sauvignon, a Toblerone, dozens and dozens of loaves of French Bread, Coffee, those little malty sugar mints that make weddings worth attending (right up there with open bar), and finally, down comforters, chenille blankets, and mountains of pillows.

Daydreaming seems to be the only lasting method of self-medication at this point due to the fact that reality is painfully slapping me in the face with every disappointing glance towards a charcoal-lit window.

I just want some Sun.
Damn it.

One Last Time

Having spent yesterday's counseling sessions recounting much of the topical material from the preceding 14 weeks, I felt as if I were in the last episode of an entire season's serial show.

It was that whole "best moments" program where a somewhat mundane conversation spawns a number of flashbacks to salient instances from previous episodes.

In this case, Rose hearkened back to numerous different conversations we'd had about my self-concept and stasis.
It made me feel well-heard, intentionally paid attention to, important.

I read her a completed piece from the last couple of months and gave her a copy of one of my favorite poems.

It was like paper leaves left behind by my changing foliage.

And now, here and now, in this moment,
I am.

I simply am.

Celebrating The Holiday

4/20: a day when a lot of people who already justify a portion of their lives justify a little more

And here's how it sounded...