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...

Growth is what I aim for
wants
Growth is what we aim for

Recollections of a Familiar Past

1/9/07 - NH 59 - Early PM

My stomach won't release whatever tightness it seems to have so friendly with in the last several days.
I have no doubt that the bowl of cinnamon Puffins & milk along with the reheated (and let it be known overly large) portion of last night's lemon, cilantro, tofu 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 the dirty hands and the mismatching shoelaces who eats more than one cookie without asking or saying thank you.

But my child is homeschooled, afraid of people I don't introduce to him and cannot continue a friendship with pain away from me.

I kind of have to be friends with pain, too.

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

Smote In the Darkness

It had been days, weeks, months since the peasant boy had seen anything other than bleak hilltops hemmed in by cracked and dry valley floors.

Little comfort, little attention, little solution.
He felt little in so many, many ways.

Thus his whole person gave way to a frailty matched only by the withering plant life sparsely peppering the deathly landscape.

He was wilting away much like the now prostrate ferns once so lush and mysterious.

No crown, no royalty, no little blue flame in the palm of his hand.
Only the memories of these.
Memories seeming now torturous at their present lacking.

His whole being ached of loneliness even though he was so close to many sets of eyes and ears.
Those with whom he occasionally found his path combining held him up while his bloodied soles drank in a temporary relief.
But what of when he was alone?

His pace grew slower and more demanding while his thoughts grew heavier and heavier, weighing his head down until it bobbed consistently upon the flat of his chest, his chin bruising his bony ribcage.

Finally he stopped to rest and for a second caught the briefest whiff of the life he had led prior to the Downfall.
And then it was gone, the taunting reminiscence dancing from shoulder to shoulder until his head grew tired of turning and trying to follow it.

He knew he couldn't stay motionless and yet for that time he felt it the only way he could even partially collect himself.

If only the blue flame would come back again.
If only he could be a prince again.

In considering the dawn

Waking this morning I felt something of a blithe reticence to leave my bed.
It wasn't anything about getting more sleep or languishing in a cuddling lethargy, I felt it more like a pull, a gravity toward the state in which I found myself at that waking moment.

As I silently considered the reason for my slow-to-rise presence I realized that this was a sacred moment, a carefully constructed time for me to dance on the hem of the skirts of meditation.

I allowed the seconds to pass, each considered a gift.
I held to a sense of appreciation for the beginning of an all new day.

Aslan's insistent and annoyed scratching at the door offered opportunity for me to turn my newly wonted peace into action as I waited for his patience to halt his noise. Once he came to a quiet rest (sitting rigidly, staring at first me then the still closed door as if to say, "no, really, take your sweet time. It's simply peachy having no opposable thumbs,") I shuffled off my red boucle blanket and opened the wooden door, allowing his feline pride a sense of satisfaction and reiteration that he did, in fact, control everything, including me.

At that point I decided to appease Newton and stay in motion. I followed Aslan, further opening the wooden door, smiling to myself as it's reverberating creaking once again reminded me of the chuckle of an old gypsy hag. Once in the kitchen I set to grinding the Stumptown beans and filling the pot.
With the coffee brewing I started the shower water and sought a fresh towel. Seeing as how I had neglected to do my laundry the night before I was forced to reuse the bright yellow picnic blanket-sized terry Mum had gotten for me before I left for school the first time.
It always had a way of comforting me with more than its absorbency.

Throughout this whole series of actions I somehow managed to maintain my calm inner flow. My zen, if you will.

And this brought about an unexpected, although much appreciated opportunity for me to once again deliberate to keep myself from judging.
As silently as before I said to myself, "today I will not judge, today I will not judge."

It's no Buddhist chant but it seems to work for me.

And now I'm into my full-fledged day, looking forward to my next interaction, my next moment, my next treasure.

A Sinking and Swilling

Expectations make me sick to my stomach.

And I do mean quite literally.

When there is some sort of a perceived external requirement for me I become far too worrisome and end up losing what little focus I might have had to accomplish in the first place.

The sad truth is that I tend to over-inflate, if not fabricate altogether those perceptions all on my own. I make them, project them onto others and then they return to pile up on my shoulders and head.

I just want to find status quo.

I'm Too Tired For This

I am in the middle of one of those times where nothing seems inspiring enough to write about.

Even as I write those words I know them to be untrue.
Only a couple of days ago I saw a woman get on my bus and a little girl excitedly ran to the window and reached through its open space to touch the hand of the woman in a jubilant final contact.
Additionally, I watched a little girl at Bijou, Cafe with s tiny dress, a tiny set of brown leggings and a tiny pair of shoes climb on and off of her bench.
She had a single band aid on the back of her left foot and I wanted to know why.

I've been seeing James again, slightly.
He kissed me.
I kissed back.
We went to the movies.
We went to dinner.
We talked.
We walked.
We kissed a little more and cuddled for awhile while talking of former mistakes and modern misgivings.

And yet I'm left with this torturous ambivalence.

Who even knows?

If and When the Daisies Blossom

Holding to a firm understanding of the fact that I still need to accept and learn from the trouble and tribulation that this time of my life has offered, I must say that I am quite relieved to know that I have a job...in the nominal sense.

I look forward to seeing how the job market changes in my favor now.

I'm finally crying

I feel alone.
I feel somewhat worthless.
I feel incredibly helpless.

I'm a burden in so many ways...even to myself.

Everything in me just wants to shut down, to crawl beneath the covers as it were.

I can't stand this horrible existential state.
I want to make decisions to change but it seems like so much is out of my control.

Fuck you, Karma.

Two Months of My Life

Thus ends the saga.
I finally pushed it too far...and now I've lost him.

The pain I am now feeling is different and the same all at the same time.
It's like I was broken a little and then I was set to rights only to break myself a little again.
Only now the bruise is deeper and the throb more persistent.

I hate what I've done.
I do not hate myself. I am smarter than that.

But I do hate how I have made this whole drama to play out in such obvious and predictable explosion. I should have known.
Had I only paid more attention to the overall than the now, now, now.
But alas, that's the fall of one who plays too hard at something only meant to be done in tandem with another.

Love cannot occur alone.
It is meant to be an exercise of unity.
Not always untrying of sanity.

I've fallen, fallen, and fallen again.

Only now will I be able to rise from the little puddle of Noah I let my self-serving sympathy melt my heart into forming.

This is the beginning of something uncomfortable in its newness but necessary in its existence.

I hate heartache.
I genuinely hate it.

It's a hungry pain that makes me sick.
And to think my own actions precipitated this dull pressure.

I'm disgusted with the whole thing.

A Night of Random Gladness

Having just spent the evening with Melissa Mary Springer, Tiffany, Gayle, and a lovely musician named Jon Garcia, I must say that I am feeling rather refreshed.

That's a marvelous word for today: refreshing.

Although I did miss my morning class because I was doing its assignment and I finished only to find that it was released early, I was able to spend a peaceful time in the park blocks just sitting, daydreaming, listening to music and smoking.

Yes, I call smoking peaceful.

I made the spontaneous choice to go and see the Degas exhibit at the Portland Art Museum this morning. It was fabulous.
I was so impressed by the display of various beautiful pieces.

I think that I've found a new couple of favorite artists.
I was so excited by the style of Forain as well.
And while I don't remember his full name (I know there was a hyphenated double last name beginning with "Toulousse") I really enjoyed the third featured artist as well.

I proceeded to spend the evening with Melissa during which we went to Edgefield, listened to soothing live music, I had a Manhattan, and the evening was complete with tots.

I'm tired now and going to bed.

Why Do I Think of You

I just had a memory of Chris and I running along the waterfront; him getting frustrated and grumpy because I ran more quickly and with more perseverance while I just tried to accommodate by slowing down, taking shorter strides.

What the Hell makes me couch this whole memory in an "I'm so good, he's so lame" fit?
I'm not contented with being the child looking back on something and thinking of themselves as innocent.

I'm not innocent.

I haven't been innocent.

Perhaps of his betrayal...but then again that's over.
Why do I not embrace that it's truly done?

One Bad Apple

Brian Cartinella is a truly heinous individual.

Writing it out seems slightly more cathartic than I had originally anticipated.
Something that I'll never be able to fully wrap my head around is the ability some people have to forget about others.
When a relationship with someone forms there's a tattooing of connection, commonality, combination.

These things may change over time but the originals will always organically and immortally exist as the precursors to everything else.

People like Brian (and I have encountered more than just this spineless, ego-centric, pathetic hypocrite) have such a brilliant ability to demonstrate their truly soulless, inhuman disconnection from veritable feeling.

I don't care for him or for his opinion...I think more than anything I just want to inflict physical pain upon him.

Not that I ever would.

I would be reducing myself to his level and I will never allow myself that kind of degradation.
Brian hates life, his job and himself.

At least I only hate one of those three.

Indescribable

There's something going on inside of me that I cannot really describe.

I'm having a difficulty with Peace.
I feel such an anger, a discomfort, an indignant boiling.

I feel tight and ready to blow only there's something holding all of this hot, hot air within and it's causing my skin to feel like it's the only thing keeping mask on a very ferocious beast.

I cannot feel this for much longer.
I don't feel capable of holding this.
It's unwieldy in a way that should only be called unhealthy.

I don't know if it's because of one or many things.
I'll list.

-So many people at my house when I intended on going to sleep
-Seeing Chris and Jenny
-Seeing Anna (and having her want me only for my alcohol and cigarettes)

Wait.
That's it.

It's Anna.
She deposits in me the keenest unhappiness.
I'm feeling used.

That's IT!

I'm feeling used and it's removing my comfortable and established order.
My control is in question.

I need to let myself realize that I was used.
I was used and I must square with that.

Sadly I now know that Anna must be told of how I feel.
This will be painful for both of us but the outcome, I am sure, will be far better for me than for her.

This feels wrong and yet I know it must be done.
I know the feeling of wrong comes only from my auto-pilot comfort-others mode.

I still feel all tied up inside but it's beginning to lessen somewhat.

Short Stories vs. Chapter Books

I like short stories because you can feel a sincere opening and a sincere closure all in the time it would normally take you to get a single piece of a complex plot from a larger, longer written work.

Not to speak against those lengthier options, it's just that sometimes I need to experience the overall much more quickly in order that I be reminded that it's alright to feel.
To be.

Just to feel and be
and be and feel.

Never to do with my right what I may with my left.

Swimming In The Wake Of A Doubtful Schooner

I can't seem to separate myself from this feeling of foreboding about John.

I don't really care all that much about trying to debunk the idea that this isn't going to work which is of concern to me.

I feel like I'm so taken with him, I'm so invested.
But then a part of me doesn't feel that same emotion returning from him.
I know he takes time to think about things, especially when I tell him flat out that I think he's beautiful, that he makes me happy just for being.

But I want to hear it back.

I want to be fed.

I feel a little starved of late.

I feel like this is something of a problem that I have.
As if I should be seeing things differently or behaving with a more carefully constricted reactivity.

I just want to be wanted like I want.

"I want,"... "I want,"... perhaps that's the whole issue here.
It keeps coming back to what it is that I want, that in some manner I feel like I deserve.

I don't really know how to properly react to this feeling.
Or should I say, these feelings.

I was so excited, I anticipated so much.
Right now I am experiencing an excruciating standstill.

I want to keep moving.
I want to move with John.
I want John to move with me.

There I go again with the "I wants," perhaps it's that I don't actually know what I want so I just indiscriminately throw things about which I think I want.

There's my frustration.

A Final Cut

Having finally reached the point at which I deleted both my Myspace and my Facebook accounts, I have to say that I feel a tension-ridden expectation, an anticipation of just how this whole idea of cutting off is going to be for me in the long run.

I hope for the best.
I really do.

But sometimes I guess I feel like he still has some sort of "one up" on me.

Lord knows he's just as hurt and lost as the rest of us.

Whenever It Seemed Right, It Was

I'm really growing quite tired of being disappointed by Christopher.
It's like he's repeatedly (and successfully) attempting to place as much purposed distance between us as possible.

I'm at a point where I'm frustrated with his behavior last night with regard to leaving Jina with Rod.

Thanks for the trustworthiness.

Now I just want to be through with he, Jenny, and that whole mess of a past.
I've never fully understood the whole "be careful not to cut off all of your old friends 'cause when the new ones leave you'll be all alone" concept, but right now I think I'm starting to see why it is that some choose not to heed such warnings.

Maybe I just need to lose myself in what I'm doing.
Work a lot.
Get prepared for school.
Spend what time I may with John.

And others.

We'll see how everything pans out and I'm glad to know that at least I'll have Sammy back.
It's comical to me how the situation between Sammy and I has hinged upon whether or not Chris and I were friends.

Actually it's somewhat lame.

But as Joel and I agreed on the phone Chris is by necessity a thing of the past.

We'll see whether or not Jenny and I can salvage anything but I'm sure that guttersnipe, bottom-dwelling trollop of a child formerly known as my boyfriend has already planted seeds of dissent amongst the impressionable troughs of her questionably fertile mind.

A little verbal refuse, if you will.

Anyway, About My Darling Boy

Anyway, about my darling boy...

His name is John Broderick-Kartye and he's absolutely incredible. I know I've already been saying that but it's only because whenever I'm around him I cannot help but have it solidly reaffirmed that he is indeed such an astounding individual.

He works at Blue Hour (a somewhat...no, make that a VERY pretentiously sophisticated upper-end restaurant in the Pearl District of downtown Portland) and he and I met one random Friday (November 30th, to be precise) while I was on break from my job serving at P. F. Chang's. I had wandered across the street to Whole Foods where I typically spend my 30 minutes of free time eating, listening to music and writing about the people I quietly observe.

Sitting there with my Odwalla juice and croissant, journal pages in front of me just begging for ink, I was listening to a song called "Snowflake Vectors" (which is a lovely synth instrumental piece that is very mellow and "soundtrack to life"-esque) gazing lazily over the crowded interior of the store.

The people around me were eating, some checking out, some organizing their backpacks for the bike trips they would embark on after leaving through the automatic doors.
Then my eyes fell upon this tall figure wearing a deep aubergine scarf tucked neatly into the collar of a black wool coat with epaulets and square pockets. His slender limbs painted a subtle, heathered navy by denim disappearing into weathered brown, square-toed boots.
I was spellbound by his calm, innocent face, his graceful poise and elegant, liquid gate as he walked through the register line.
While it is my custom to watch from an objective and demure distance, my would-be glance quickly developed into a hypnotized stare as I found myself completely lost in just seeing him. Just drinking in his organic beauty.
His golden brown hair, coiffed in a pleasant disorder, contrasted with the starry blue of his mysterious eyes and his lips resembled vibrant ginger adding a natural, lush sweetness to the poetic composition of his angelic face.

I was transfixed.

He settled into a chair and began reading as he consumed his recently purchased meal. I could not see the title of his book but I observed his pupils traveling from side to side in a wave-like rhythm as he slowly followed each sentence on the page. It was like his eyes were dancing with the words he read.

In this moment I felt myself come to as if I had been sleeping and dreamt of falling to a point of rousing impact. My focus turned to the open journal in front of me and to the pen in my hand resting patiently next to the leather bound tome.
I began to write about the wonder I had for this character in the momentous theater of real life to which I found myself playing audience. I posed the question of where he was from, what he had been through, who he was inside. I couldn’t persuade my mind from its sprite like flitting around and about this unknown person and felt compelled to approach him.
It was like I was a flower in the presence of fresh and warming sunshine and I was so dazzled I couldn’t bring myself to bloom.

I finally wrote my name and number on a napkin followed by a short message, “I find you fascinating. Call if you would like to have coffee sometime.”

It felt so mundane. So uncreative.
So blandly solid next to his mottled and colorful aura.

I set my small work in front of me and proceeded to wrestle with the thought of actually giving it to him, my reason equivocating mercilessly between the rationale of the path of least resistance being to just follow my urge versus avoid the quite possibly awkward exchange.
Just then, the girl sitting next to me slid off of her stool unexpectedly, her shoulder grazing mine causing me to put new effort into my balanced perch on my seat.

“I’m sorry about that,” she said with an embarrassed smile and genuine tone of regret.
In order that she not feel by any means vilified for her unintentional clumsiness I quickly responded by saying, “No worries, honestly it’s fine,” smiling jovially and returning her imploring eye contact.
Her expression changed to one of relief and then relaxation as she then said, “By the way, I love your hair.”
“Why thank you,” I said with a grateful warmth.
“It’s really, really beautiful,” she continued with an unguarded glance at my tussled dark curls.
“Well I really appreciate that,” I replied, “what a sweet compliment.”
After a briefly extended conversation she and her dining partner across the table rose to leave and I began gathering up my things, once again looking in the direction of the beautiful boy.
He still sat, reading and eating.

Then I made a decision to myself. If a girl next to me can step into my little bubble long enough to repair what very well could have been an uncomfortable situation I should have no qualms about following suit in my instance; namely, giving my brown paper napkin to this person.

I felt my blood flowing more rapidly as I slid my journal and pen into my black work apron. My fingers trembled quietly, almost indiscernibly, as I wrapped my headphones around my iPod and placed it with the other item in my pockets. Then my feet began to carry me over to the far end of the seating area where I knew the quietly stationed figure could not help but notice my direct approach from his peripheral vantage point.
I squared my form to be carefully in front of him as I prepared myself to actually go through with what only moments ago had been a defeated plan.
“I know this may seem somewhat forward,” I started, displaying the same nervous half-smile the girl had given me just prior, “but that’s just the kind of person I am,” I finished almost apologetically.
“Oh,” he said in a curious tone with a hint of amusement. He had begun to look at me just as I had begun to speak and at the end of my presentation he accepted the napkin, using two fingers to slide it toward him across the tabletop.
“My name is Noah,” I said, trying to fill the potential silence before either one of us was able to begin feeling that sickening tightness of social invasion.
“I’m John,” he replied with a smile.
“Hello John, it’s nice to meet you,” I said while inwardly regretting the fact that I had just said the most stereotypically Boy Scout response imaginable.
I felt I looked and sounded trite and ridiculous.
Even so, I came back to the moment in order that in talking a bit I might be able to salvage my first impression.
“You seem really familiar. I think I might have seen you somewhere before,” I stated with a playful tilt of my head and a jocular squint.
“Yeah,” he said with a tone of moderate seriousness, “possibly around campus.”
Suddenly feeling like I was actually being taken with some semblance of gravity my whole body relaxed slightly as I grew more composed and confident.
“Do you go to PSU?”
“Yeah- well- I’m taking a break right now.”
“What are you studying?”
“Environmental studies. But I just needed to take some time to myself.”
In that instant I realized that we were actually having a conversation and I was actually caring about what he was saying and asking genuinely interested questions.
“Oh believe me, I understand that need,” I said with a muted guffaw, “I took a spring term off last year and then subsequently went into summer so I had a long time away but it was definitely refreshing.”
“Yeah,” he agreed again with a cheerful seriousness, “I’m hoping it will be for me, too.”
“Well, I need to get going back to work. My break is almost over,“ I ruefully informed him as I stepped back from the table, “but it was definitely great talking to you. And seriously, if you ever want to do coffee…” I finished in what I hoped was a smooth and casual open diminuendo, gesturing toward my napkin now in his possession.
“I’d enjoy that, thank you,” he quickly said, not breaking eye contact, ”I’ll definitely call you.”

With that we said our good byes and I walked back across the street, oddly elated at having actualized my intentions.

Upon returning to the restaurant, I was in such a giddy mood that I had to show the hostesses what I had written about this “man with the bright violet scarf and brown leather boots” and proceeded to read directly from my journal relaying the whole experience along with my undisguised excitement.

The Louder The Sight, The Blinder The Man

I have a strong feeling that whatever it is I choose will somehow end up being wrong.
Whoever I settle on...myself, himself...will be turned into some form of dreaded mistake.

I'm truly confused as to why I was so quickly thrown into this state of disrepair.
If I were to trace a catalyst it would have to be somewhere in the vicinity of Jemme, or possibly Terrie, or possibly Allena...then again, the likely surmise would be to say that all three combined played some cooperative role.

And now I sit here staring blandly at a computer screen while this boy who really and truly wants to know, to make more reason to like me, is laying in my bed getting so close to slumber.
And yet I still feel on edge.

Perhaps I really am pushing myself to know something or decide something prematurely.

If so, I have the faithful knowledge of premature babies who survived and thrived.
Will I survive?
If so, will I also thrive?

Or is that too much to ask?

Naked Truth

I feel like my heart is half-in, half-out of the water right now.
It can't decided to swim or stay dry.
I hate this indecision.

I feel like I am stuck on these feelings of "maybe something better will come along," just because Jarod isn't the stereotypical "steamy, sexy gay man" that I've become so accustomed to in recent bouts with my digital fucks.

I can't see myself deserving to be liked by anyone, but then I'm giving myself these ridiculous ideas of what I should and shouldn't be "settling for" when it comes to standards of beauty.

I fucking hate my surface level, vain, shallow self sometimes.

Looking and Looking

I feel like I'm not letting myself be satisfied.
Then again, aren't I supposed to be hard to please?
Isn't there some maxim that goes "never settle, never be satisfied" or something like that?

I'm really torn between feeling like I want to find something to calmly, relaxedly grow comfortable with and used to...and thus be contented.

It's evident that Jarod likes me.
I'm flattered by that.

I feel like some moments I like him while at others I am getting this painful sense of dissatisfaction. Like once again I'm getting into someone only because they showed signs of affection first and I feel the flattery of a longing touch.

During French class a couple of days ago I was attempting to capture some of the residual feelings from my reactions to the previous night (Jarod and my first date) and wrote something I find to be prosaic but very true.

"I feel inept in attempting to write down what it is that I experienced last night. I feel as if I stepped into a scene I thought I had memorized only to find I was in a completely different play." - Tues. Nov. 27, 2007

I guess I owe it to my literary honesty to explain what that previous section was referring to.

On Monday night Jarod picked me up to go find me something to eat after having a long day of class, work, then class again.
I was looking forward to spending time with him in person because we had had a really great phone conversation the night before.

We talked for a little over an hour and it was very smooth and involved. We both had meaningful input and laughed and I felt like I had a very clear, witty command of my verbiage.

I felt like a live and in person date would go much the same way and, in serving my hope of gaining trust and openness, I was very unguarded in my topics of conversation and personal disclosure.
I thought that if I made the point of being open and figuratively naked in front of Jarod he would experience the anticipated relief of knowing that I wasn't afraid of him knowing the intimate details of my own life thereby feeling liberated to exercise candor in his own self-disclosure.

This was dead wrong.

I found that after I broached the subject of past relationships and sexual mistakes Jarod began to visually shrink down and close off as seen by his self-contained retreating body language.
I immediately halted and he began informing me that he just wasn't ready to talk about such personal information.

I was a little flabbergasted.

This method that I had come up with- yes, it was a tried and true method- had failed me.
It was like I had gotten so deftly used to playing the part of the "first date mold-breaker", the "guy you could instantly be comfortable and open with," someone "everyone can easily and dependably trust."

All of these hoped for, and in essence, assured results were all but actualized by the time I was finished wolfing down my chicken sandwich.

As Jarod told me of his discomfort I felt the blood drain from my face. It was like my stomach just decided that it wanted to eat me from the inside out.

Everything was going wrong.
I was ruining a perfectly good opportunity.
I was burning a bridge before I had even crossed it.

Day 2 or 3

Something of a painful thick surrounds my body.
Inside and out.

Every motion feels like I'm pulling my appendages through gelatin. Nothing is easy, simple, or untroubled.
Everything about me just wants to curl up and let the tension pulse around me until it's through chewing on my bones.

I'm looking ahead right now.
Michelle is coming to pick me up and we're going to Rose's on 23rd.
I almost thought too far ahead and lost the excitement just from knowing that it would end at some point in the eventual future.
I had to mentally back up from the edge, thoughtstep by thoughtstep.

If only I knew some secret pathway where I could guide myself along its mulchy, soft, limited snaking wanderway.

I feel left out in the misty cold with no one to blanket me other than myself.
This will pass.
Perhaps.

Stabbed In The Kidney With A Blunt Object

It simply must be allowed for one to love his setting.
To embrace the lives he has constructed so carefully and finitely.

Yes, I'm materialistic.
Yes, I'm vain.
Yes, my idealism is filtered by a healthy amount of skepticism (sometimes I am seen as too imaginative, too faithful, too hopeful).

Yet I am happy with it.

I'm going to eat my processed foods.
I'm going to text message.
I'm going to check my Myspace and (God forbid) Facebook.

This is the life I have chosen and I am through with feeling the need to compete, repent, or silently, cruelly ridicule.

Be aware of your present self in order to revisit this point of reference once you have gained a better sense of maturity...yes, maturity.

Wisdom follows experience when combined with analytical thinking and comparative logic.
This is a concept of irreducible complexity.

The Point Of Willful Return

There's so much going on.
We're all just being together.

Do I want to be with them?
Do I will myself to just be and not be with?

They feel what I cannot feel and yet I find myself in a place where I do not want to feel with them.

With is so strong.
I remember telling Lance on the balcony in Anchorage that "with you" was one of the most powerful two-word utterances possible.

I continue to learn, more and more, day by day, what that really means.
Maybe I've come around to that place where I am beginning to see what, who, where I should and should not want to be "with you".

I have been so constantly searching for any and all ways I could be "with you" and now I am beginning carefully, thoughtfully filter.

I just want to go home.

Here's the Frank and Honest Truth

How can I be confronted all at once by two people with so much perturbation?
It's like that one-

(your sense of humor makes me want to scoff and gripe to others about your face and voice)

-coaxial moment where two people both hit their stride in a walk away from a house in exchange for a bar.

This is going to be the most interesting situation seeing as how I've brought together very oddly same and different people.

I need to make myself take a break.
I feel like everything is crowding in on me and beginning to fall inward on my head.
Even my arms get scratched up and dirtied by the debris as I try to protect myself.

I'm having this incredibly Woolf-esque moment of wanting to be alone to "write my first line."

I think that missing my writer's event this evening has soured me...quite a bit.

Collections Agencies Call Too Often

This is to every dinner interrupted by that annoying ring of impending awkwardness.
To every unidentified cell phone call answered out of curiosity immediately followed by an unmatched regret.
To every sinking, hungry feeling in the pit of a hostess' stomach when their table assignments turn out to be a large, potentially party-spoiling mistake.

I don't care a fig for your product, your perspective, your attempt at convincing me that my life is incomplete without you.

I want to curl up in a corner padded with 5 pillows and a little, too-tiny afghan.
I want to read the books I keep telling myself I'm going to delve into with unwaivering focus.
I want it to be just a little too cold so my form reserves all of its energies for the betterment of my sustenance.

You pompous, touting idealist.
Don't make me sick to my already disquieted stomach.
Be frank about your points and don't dress up your unnecessary thoughts.
They're extra to me, they're not wanted.
I already said so.

Get some Ritalin and leave my head and my hands alone.
Make everything about your posture submissive and original, you imposing bastard.

(I feel this odd sense of triumph as I spill these words with a decisive poise...like I've been waiting all these weeks for the moment of expounding and it has, indeed, arrived)

Your obliging nature is cut short by your disagreeable taste.

Peeling Back the Veneer

I'm really quite frustrated right now.
Granted, missing the writer's event this evening didn't HAVE to happen but I felt this odd condescension from Chris, as if he was saying, "what's the problem with you? Just go."

I didn't like it and I know I probably (most likely) projected it onto him.
But now I'm just being lame.

Traci is just now coming into Portland and needed someone to smoke with.
I'm looking forward to seeing her.

I'm also very happy that Anna is here.
I know this whole social mess is of my own construction but I kind of feel overwhelmed by all of it.

I think this financial aid money is going to provide me with a temporary but much needed sense of release.

I just need to tell myself to stop actually spending it.

I'm glad I'm writing.

Saxophones and Empty Fountains

As I set out, once again, on the all-too-familiar route to the place I call work I found myself wanting to pull away from everything.
To pull my veins back into my own body and let my lifeblood recirculate in some cheap, not-as-real warmth.

I just wanted to stay where I was so I wouldn't sink any lower.

I saw a man playing a ramshackle ballad on his saxophone, standing on a dry platform in the middle of a dry fountain.
He seemed almost as unsatisfied with his art as I feel with mine these days.
He kept halting to frown, shake his head at himself, then start again with another unpredictable, sad trill.

A woman with her child paused at the top level of the dry fountain, listening to this sad swan. It was as if she found someone who was just a little sadder than she and that made her just a little happier.
She was searching so intently for understanding, for companionship, that she was almost desperate in her want for this, her child, to understand. To feel. With her.

I wanted to stop, to take part in the feeling.
To once again reunite with the flaming leaves on the fall-kissed tree branches.

But on I walked.
Steady on to that foul restaurant.

Steady on to yet another evening of genuiness wasted on random, temporary nobodies.

I just want a somebody but I feel guilty.
I feel like I want to want nobody. I want to frown at myself, shake my head, and keep trying to play an original set of notes.

Heal Over

I can't understand this onset of downward motion I seem to experience to readily these days.
I don't get it.
I feel like I can't get it.

I don't look forward to anything.

I don't look forward to anyone.

I feel like so much is losing its luster.

It's not even money. I have money for now.

It's just that something about life is so disappointing right now.
I feel like I'm disappointingly boring.
Life is boring.

Maybe I'm just tired.

What To Do About David

Quickening,
still and slow
rapidly drawing
a subtle breath.

How was I to know?

How was he
to know
his palette calls
for something unfamiliar,
strange,
and yet so craved.

Pulling back my hair and exposing the skin of my forehead,
I see the scars and dents of time and thought.

Can he possibly see them?
Want them?

What calls from me
to him?
Body to body?

Body to body.

He asks for what I do not want to give
to him.

But I want to give
to him.

To tell the truth
means lying
to his face
and his heart.

It's such a painful honesty.
An openness only
comparable to dissection.

Cutting in and seeing
the bloody depths of
real and awful self.

He calls for a piece of flesh
or is it a piece of beating
fluttering
honesty?

There seem to be so many questions.
So many unknowns and yet
they call.
Body to body.

I want to be called and
I let myself.

I call a returned want.
A desire is not mine
and is made mine.

Is it really mine?

Questions,
posed
and delivered
and left.

He told me without his words
but with his mouth.

What will my mouth say
without words?

Considering The Rose's Thorn

I see what is happening with Nick and Tony as it pertains to Chris and it saddens me.

It makes me feel rotten inside especially because I knew it was going to happen and now I just wish I were wrong.
Wrong for everyone's sake.

Chris is slowly but surely (and possibly unwittingly) coming between Nick and his happiness with Tony. I doubt it if Tony knows the full extent of Nick's care for Chris.
Then again, I sensed it at the beginning.

I probably ought to be telling myself, "quit worrying about something that is none of your business," but I'm still allowing myself to be upset.

No, I don't have any right.
I don't give a twig for whether or not it's my business.
I still sense the pain in an overwhelming way.

The seeming remedy would be to stop associating with the situation as whole until it either blows over or someone brings me into it.

*sigh*

I think I need to pull out of a lot of concerns much like this one.
Concerns based in wanting to feel for others when my empathy is completely unwelcome.
I think that's a large part of why I end up getting so intensely emotionally offended.

I must focus on myself in a non-selfish way.
I need to be self-ful.

Perhaps it's just one of those "times of trial" you read about in the Bible and epic poetry.

The cruelty of fate's irony.

A Little Link

I spent the evening with Michelle and Julia this evening and really went into detail about my intense level of observation.
I think I may have given them a bit of a scare when they realized just how much I saw...not only in them but in all things.

Hmmm...I wonder how I am supposed to be using this descriptive ability.

Maybe I'm writing to be read again.
I don't like that.

If this journal becomes another town crier when it's supposed to be the candlelit scribblings of a malcontented sister then I will be officially angry.


Part of me wonders if I'm wanting to draw closer to those two girls because it will make me feel slightly closer to Drew...even though he's so far removed. So gone.

He kept coming up in conversation and the girls were showing pictures of old, good times with him. I just still feel so attached.
And that attachment has now become something I see as being against my better judgment.

I'm feeling like I am in the midst of having it proven to me, once again, that everything was just momentary and poisoned with passion. Like the things he said were just to fulfill the script in his head for the "perfect evening".

But I ache to think that that's actually the case.
I want him to have been as thrilled as I was.
As excited.
As peaceful yet crazed.

I'm not getting any messages of reply.
I'm not getting any phone calls.
I'm feeling accessory.

But then again, I sort of am.

Settling Into Diligence

Once again I find myself ready to sacrifice all eternals and buckle down.
To let go of the possible momentary excitements in exchange for an assurance of my own successes, both academically and emotionally.

I hope this pays off...and I am hoping I am not going to pull another "excited beginning into a half-assed follow through"

A Letter To Drew

I just spent a very pleasant couple of hours with our dear Michelle.
We reminisced about the past and recounted classic tales of our former renegade activities and joyful romps across the old Canadian campus.

Then, of course, the topic turned to you.
We spoke of missing you and how nonsensical it seemed to be that we were all brought into each others' lives at such odd times.
There's an order to everything when reduced to mere function and I think that the pragmatism of relationships tends to be an illusive study.

That being said I thought I would write you the first of my promised correspondences.
Life here turns toward a somber note as the trees begin shedding first their verdigris for a fiery bronze and then lose their sheets of pressed metal.
Sidewalks begin to resemble the littered floors of an art room post-class; clippings strewn about in an effortless shift and sway according to the wind's direction...or lack thereof.

That selfsame wind carries with it a voice, a whisper of pending gray.

We can only hope the gray will produce just a little white.

Of that, among many thing, I am quite jealous of your current location.
You'll have snow, oh so much snow.

Coming back around to the gray of the coming days, I look forward to spending brisk walks bundled inside the trappings of my winter's preparation. Evenings spent on the couch with a cup of coffee, a good book, a friend, and a conversation.

Michelle and I are already staking out certain sections of our break for movie nights, dinner parties, and cloves on my balcony.

Julia, she and I are planning on attending Cabaret this coming Tuesday night.
I'm really hoping we can get in.
If not I'll be purchasing tickets for the last week of the recently augmented run. A few of my work friends are going as well and look forward to brights lights and lap dances.

I grin to think of what is to come this season.
More academics, more talks of the finer points of life, existence, and our role in this massive social construction.

I left you a phone message asking this same question but I figure repetition ensures clarity:
What will be your new mailing address?
I have something I'm intending on sending you in the near future.
This of course implies that I'll have somewhere to send it.

Having just humored my random love of childhood cereals, I have a mostly-empty bowl which formerly contained a heaping mass of Cookie Crisp.
That's another thing I look forward to about this Fall into Winter season: breakfasts of sugar cereal and toast as the Sun comes up over the ridge.

How has life at your famed Soho bakery come along?
I hope you're enjoying it immensely and looking forward to your now unlimited access to pastries and croissants.
I know I would be.

Wednesday fast approaches.
For what it's worth, know that I'm thinking of you and hoping for only your best.

Michelle and I talked about your upcoming meeting with this director and were mutually giddy with the expectation of your charm and wit winning them over.

We're rooting for you.
It's like I told you in the truck right before slipping from the side door and descending to venture city-ward, "you'll always have people here who love you."

You're finding your feet.
You're doing what you love.
Never lose that, my dear boy.

I hope to hear from you soon,
With Best Regards,


-Noah C. Buck

Having Been Far Too Long

I'm sitting in the newfound relief of being told that I do not have to work this evening.
Not to say that money wouldn't be useful but I am so tired all of the sudden (again).

I want to take a nap and then do some homework and then possibly go to a movie.
All of this hinges upon just how fast I get my work done, of course.

I spent the evening last night with Allena and Evie.
Evie was absolutely wonderful.
I was incredibly attracted to her not only as a person but in a very sincere sexual manner.
Odd.

After the two of those lovely girls, I spent the rest of the evening with Michael Newman.
I know, blast from the past.
But the truth of the matter is that I really enjoyed myself.
We ended up staying up far too late (something close to 3am) talking and taking random pictures of cell phone keys and hookah smoke.

By the time we went to sleep I was beyond delirious and awoke in a cloud of dazed exhaustion.
I still made breakfast (because apparently Michael is not in the habit of eating in the morning) and then went to church.
I saw my sister and Ted there for a few minutes and that was a welcome episode considering the fact that it has become something of a normal thing to encounter one or the two of them.
I'm happy about that.

I also saw the Leisure family at Imago Dei and that was random.
It was lovely to get a hug from Diane.
I've always liked her.
Chelsae was there as well and she looked lovely.
Although she did mention that she's with Mode and I made a pointed effort to let her know about the inconsistencies of the agency and reps.

We'll see if she heeds my words.

I'm really tired right now.
As I previously mentioned.

I'm tired for many reasons.
I feel like I am in need of written output and yet I don't have my usual knack for it.
It's almost as if I have it until I really need it and then it's gone.

And I don't even know for sure if this illusive "it" is talent, ability to copy, natural and organic output...I just don't know.

I want to write all about Drew.
I want to write about Aleks working into the concept of Drew.
I want to write about me.

I feel like I can't.
Like I really am unable.

I think I just need sleep.

Waiting For 15 Minutes

Having spent the last 48 hours wanting nothing more than just a voice, just a word or two, I feel the most pathetic I've felt in ages.

This pathetic weight has been resting on my shoulders for the last little while and yet I wish I had had it for a long, long while.

These are the times when I fully embrace wishful regret.
I wish I had met Drew months ago, I wish that I had had more time with him.
I wish that I had had more of a chance to be with him and know him and just lay next to him...knowing him. Breathing the same air and stirring in the same midnight chills.

Waking in a cold, damp sweat and being happy to be in such discomfort because I would have known that it was due to his proximity, his closeness.

Now I am having to rest with the knowledge of his departure.
Having to hold to this hopeless romance which is necessarily temporary.

He's right. It will be easier for him than for me.

I'll be adjusted in the cupboard to find my place behind the cereal boxes and soup cans.
I'll be that cardboard corner poking out from behind the bag of sugar, just wanting to be seen, let along brought out. Opened, tasted.

I want him.
I want to be near him.

I just want this pain to stop and I want him to be the band-aid.

I'm going to have to let this heal in an open manner and I will scar.

Sipping A Cigarette

I just spent the last 10 minutes on my balcony, in the wind, accompanied by a cup of coffee with floating bits of cinnamon and a lone cigarette, listening to the haunting strands of desperate songs coming out from the warmth and safety of an empty apartment.

In that time I allowed my unchecked imagination to hope for the possibility of a romance like you see in the movies.
I would fly out, I would pick up and move.
I would continue to work, to finish what I've started while beginning something brand new.

In those moments of caffeine and nicotine my body responds to the lick of the passing gusts in a manner not unlike an infant to his mother's caress. Wanting to find comfort in the touch of a chilled hand. Wanting to slip into a sleep so deep that the dreams feel like the most brilliant reality.

It's in this momentary lapse of judgment that I find a truly awakening sense of freedom.
Perhaps I should hold myself away from this dangerous flame of passion, looking only to the solid, blocky corners of the set constructed on this stage of my life.
Platforms and framing nails are my strength and power.

My control is in the knowledge of my supporting places.
I am holding to a fastidious discipline of reality.

Throw me to this wind.
Let me sail about like a half-burnt fall leaf riding alongside the fiery brilliance of the butterflies I see inside myself.

Burst forth with new passion and embrace the bleak of now as the hard, flat road leading to the golden mountains on the horizon.

An Utter Separation

I am feeling that same sense of loneliness I remember having felt and forgotten...


...felt and forgotten.

...felt and forgotten.


And now I've come to a place of decision: sink into the depression so easily succumbed to or make the painful effort of learning from what I am in the midst of right now.

It's like Jenny tells me oh so often, meditate and be outside of the moment so that you might see the whole picture. Observe and take from it what you can.

A Quickly Developing Romance

I really like Aleks.

Granted I only just met him and only today actually had anything of a lengthy interaction with him.
After he picked me up from work the other night I had an inkling of how much I felt I was going to enjoy his company.
However it wasn't until I actually had brunch with him and then walked about the blustery, wet leaf-ridden boardwalks of the pearl today that I began to come into full realization of just how drawn I was to him.
It's so compelling, his presence.
It's so comfortable and appreciated and I just want to be close to him in the innocent and unassuming manner.
I want to cuddle up next to him with a book, blanket and fireplace.

The book will no doubt be forgotten as he grins over my shoulder with his teacup resting on the cushioned worn leather arm of the couch. I'll simply nuzzle into him and find a place of safety. A haven. A respite.

Rest.

Rest for me...and my name means rest.


I fear the distance and the timing and yet I will not let the fear continue.
I think he likes me.
I told him I like him...a lot.

I told him that I think he's adorable.
I actually used that word.

I feel like I'm being too sudden, too direct.
And yet that thrills me.

I want him to hold me close.
And closer and closer.

I'm sighing to myself as I write these words.
I hope so sincerely.

The Cycle Goes Up And Down

Having now realized just how much I am willing to trust Chris despite the jealousies and pains I still hold I come into a new sense of emptiness.

Perhaps it's because I've scraped clean the insides of my innermost chambers in order that I make him see that he's inflicting pain.
Perhaps it's because I need someone to know who won't think I'm crazy.
Perhaps it's because I ought to be committed and I'm looking for someone who will send me on my merry way to a small room where I can sit and ponder why I didn't ask my mum to cook me breakfast more often.

These are the rolling and colliding questions which make me willing to lie to myself.
I am deceived by the confidence of a fast-paced day.
The smooth rhetoric of a happily encouraged friend or colleague.
The clever smile of a lover in my future as he glances at the time to make it look as if he has some reason to stop looking at me other than sheer embarrassment at his inability to tear away his attentions.

Having come to a very firm place of decision a short while back about my intentions to seek a deeper and more meaningful understanding of myself I am constantly battling the distractions of poorly formed old habits and trial-ridden new tradition.

It's like there's some sort of cutoff between my hope and my reality and yet the two operate so effortlessly synonymously when I merely close my eyes.

I have to keep listening.
I have to keep wanting to love.

The moment I stop wanting it is the moment I begin to glance longingly at the bladed edge of a wine key next to a half-empty bottle of blood-red Cabernet Sauvignon.

Feeling Me Out

You wanted to stay, Chris, and you wanted to stay alone.

It was like you were pushing Jenny out because she was in your special way.
Perhaps what I am writing is dripping with pain, annoyance, jealousy, but that's why I have this journal.

I know now, more than ever, that I cannot stand when people act two-faced.
I know why this is.
It's because I've seen it in myself.

Call it projection, call it unfair, it's still the truth.

I would like you to be happy.
However I would not like you to have your cake and eat it too.

I think that when I said I wanted you and I to stay close, to be a part of one another's lives, I was meaning in a way where we were still of some sort of paramount importance.
I feel like I am being slowly slid down some notch of measurement.
Like I am losing my appeal and/or importance to these new friends you're so eager to meet...on mother fucking Myspace.

Yes, I lied.
I don't respect it.
I find it tragic, pathetic.

Yes, I have met ONE person via that website and yes, we're still friends, but it's not as if it's this all-consuming passtime.
It seems to me, in my upset and looking-for-reasons attitude that this whole myspace canvassing for males (check), gay (check) 18-25 (check), within (10) miles of (97201) has become a regular thing.

What ever happened to really meeting people.
In daily life, at work, through people you already know...that's how organic relationships work.

Yes, I am being judgmental.
It's because I am spewing it all out right now.
I'm purging, in the emotional sense.

Since it seems that in these types of situations I am the common denominator that I am part of the problem.
I'm too attached to the consistency of a single person.
When it's gone, I'm thrown off balance.

When I choose to let it go I am able to ready myself but when it's all stored up and then dropped on me I feel kind of floored, exhausted, and excluded.

Exclusion still lies in the circle of my largest, most over-developed fears.

I need to practice more meditation, more centering, less object-referral.

I need to be okay with this and not snap.

Rid the Self of Hate

Having come to a point where I'm actually making a concerted effort to be a more fulfilled and peaceful person, I'm somewhat simplifying my life.

I say that with a little bit of a chuckle because it comes across as if I'm just another one of those wannabes who found the "fountain of youth" and are under the impression that it's brand new and just for them.

I know I have an incessant need to clarify myself in order that I not be taken the wrong way...then again...

(there's been something of a break in this)

I think I'm just on the constant verge of frustration for a bit.
It's like PMS.